Eat Me
Chandler Groover
Arthurian built-in hints castle cheese child protagonist constrained protagonist cover art cow culinary theme fae fairy tale fantasy fantasy violence feelie map first person food gender-neutral protagonist ghost hunger IFComp 2017 IFComp Game Inform 7 library limited verbs magic milk multiple endings multiple solutions NPC parser parser present tense queen second person secret passages unreliable narrator violence walkthrough Xyzzy Awards 2017 XYZZY Best Implementation XYZZY Best Writing
In this castle, you'll eat or be eaten. May contain dairy, carnage, puzzles, nuts.
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My dear child, listen, and I'll feed you a tale. It begins with dinner denied. No bread, no butter, not even dessert. A mean repast by the meanest measure, enough to make a stomach grumble and an ill will stew. Enough to leave a tongue yearning for sugarplums.

You know what's next. It's what happened. An offer, something sweet, something simple, and you swallowed. Children are such trusting people. What you ate grew into a hole deeper than mere hunger: it swallowed you. Now, just as you were served, you shall be served again.

Here you've been kept with only time to eat. All hours taste the same, but sometimes you can hear voices outside. They're always talking about food, how best to carve a joint or marinate a soul. "Inside a cell, of course," one voice had said, "till the despair's soaked through." Well, you've been marinating long enough, and waiting longer isn't likely to bring you freedom or, more importantly, supper.

You've one companion in your cell: a little skeleton. Poor child, come to such an end, still shackled to the wall with candied chains. You're bound in cacao manacles yourself.

Northward a cheesecake door leads out to the dungeon.
About you
Your most important feature, and the reason that you're here, dear, is your mouth. All children are just mouths, of course, begging to be fed until they're bigger. Nothing else need be said on that account, except perhaps that your mouth is already big for a child. It is your personality. Forget your other attributes. You ate them when you first arrived, which is why you were invited.
Inventory
You have a hole in your stomach, and you're wearing cacao manacles.
You examine the hole
All bargains have a price. This hole is yours. You swallowed it, and now you can swallow an endless feast. In fact, apart from
eat, you'll find you can do little else. Filling your
stomach's pit is all that matters anymore. But since it's bottomless, that might prove difficult.
You examine the manacles
When they were first clapped onto you, these cacao manacles were thicker than your arms. Not anymore. You've been licking. A few more bites should do the trick.
You examine the skeleton
You're not the first. Others have been tempted into this castle with sweet promises. Some come from poverty, some come from wealth, some come questing for admittance themselves. They hope to find what they can't find outside. All have an appetite, and most succumb.
You look at the candied chains
A few children need convincing to stay. A few children need more than convincing. When chains don't work, of course, there are other methods. This child has been convinced thoroughly.
You look at the door
You won't be going anywhere as long as this cheesecake door remains shut. It's baked from heavy cream, dense in the frame, with strawberries studding its smooth panels.
You eat the manacles
Cacao's bitter. Perhaps most children wouldn't chew it, but you're not a common child, are you, my darling? You won't remain locked in these manacles, especially not when your palate finds their bitter links delectable. You chomp them. Now they're almost broken: just one final bite.
You eat the manacles
That's done it. The cacao breaks and you gulp down every particle. Alas, although your limbs are free, you're just as hungry as before. That hole inside your stomach will need more to fill its gulf. What you want is a proper feast, something to pack yourself until you can forget what hunger even means.
You eat the chains
Unshackling this skeleton won't do its bones much good, but there's no reason not to treat yourself. Its chains are made from hard candy, each link a boiled sweet, with flavors ranging from lemon to raspberry and mint. You crunch them down, every last one. Your stomach still grumbles.
Look around
Dungeon (south cell)
You've only one companion in your cell: a little skeleton. Even unshackled, the poor child makes a pitiable sight.

Northward a cheesecake door leads out to the dungeon.
You eat the skeleton
You'll find no meat on these bones, dear. This child's been dead far too long. But a nibble wouldn't hurt to exercise the jaw. You gnaw away.
You eat the skeleton
Keep gnawing if it pleases you. They'll never sate your hunger, but these old bones won't protest. Their owner lost that power long ago.
You eat the skeleton
More gnawing still leaves you hungry.
Xyzzy
You involuntarily swallow the sounds on your tongue.
Plover
When in doubt, eat.
You eat yourself
First you put a finger in your mouth, and then your hand, and then your arm… you keep going until you've swallowed your entire body, filled your proportions out again with yourself slipped into yourself. Goodness, my dear, that looked uncomfortable. At least it's done no lasting harm.

You see, that hole in your stomach already has you, doesn't it? And you already have it.
You eat all
Be more selective, little one.
You eat door
Dessert before dinner: that's every child's dream. We'll obey no order tonight! You pull out strawberries, pop them into your mouth, savor their crimson sweetness paired with silken cream. Soon you've eaten the cheesecake door. You'll have the feast you were promised, and no dungeon will hold you now.
Go north
Blue flambeaux undulate, and in their flames gleam devices galore constructed to pry screams and more from prisoners. Don't sit down on that judas chair. Steer clear the rack. Give wide berth to the breaking wheel. They're occupied already by corpses.

A gruyère guard snaps to attention at your sight.

Northward a corridor leads to the undercroft. Westward's an angel's-food doorway, eastward another door in devil's-food, and southward lies your open cell.
You examine the guard
Such a strapping gruyère guard. How handsome he looks armored in brined rind, capped with a knightly curdled helm. Perhaps he's not happy to see you out, but that shouldn't prevent you from enjoying his delicious company.

"Thou villein!" says the gruyère guard. "Hie back into thy cell!"
You eat guard
My valiant knight, here's a battle you'll lose. He's overwhelmed. He's never fought a hunger such as yours. "Avaunt! Avaunt!" he cries, but you've no intent to avaunt. Sumptuous gruyère, his flavor suggests rich earth, ripe fruit, piqued by his panic as you swallow him, armor and all.

Now that's a snack.
You examine the chair
Where most chairs would have cushions this one's equipped with a pyramid chiseled from butterscotch. Anyone sitting on its tip would find pressure applied in the worst way, and likely never walk the same. Its current occupant certainly won't.
You examine the prisoners
Bless their little dead bodies. They couldn't have been older than you when they gasped their last. Five children altogether have perished in this dungeon, twisted on different devices. That trio tangled on the wheel could be mistaken for a single mass.
You look at the rack
Taffy's been stretched to fabricate this rack. Lock someone down and crank its lollipop handle: you'll have more taffy stretched in a jiffy. The corpse lashed to it now certainly didn't start this tall.
You examine the wheel
It is a cheese wheel, naturally: the grandest gouda ever carved to break mortal bodies. Heavy and hard enough to take a real beating along with the three children pinioned in its spokes. This gouda's seen some use.
You eat wheel
Surely one nibble wouldn't hurt. Blood hasn't totally soaked it. You pick a crumb and place it on your tongue. Oh gouda, gouda, how good you can be, how creamy even put to such an employment. You're a light in this shadow-steeped dungeon.
You eat wheel
You nibble the gouda wheel again.
Go west
Angel's-food cake seals the doorway: one gigantic yellow slice.
You eat the angel food
Opening a door's unnecessary when you can eat it, especially a door as light and spongy as this one. Angel's-food cake floats upon your tongue. Each swallow is as effortless as inhaling fresh air. In no time you've devoured the entire slice.
You eat the devil
Who needs a key when you've got teeth and you're hungry? This devil's-food cake stands no chance. Moist chocolate crumbles in your mouth. Dense layers separate. You've eaten the whole door.
Go west
Dungeon (west cell)
A woman's wasted corpse leans by one wall, almost buried with onions heaped around her head. This room's more root cellar than cell with all these bulbs piled inside.

Eastward an open doorway leads to the dungeon.
You look at the corpse
Born with a silver spoon in her mouth, as you might guess from her looks. Still elegant and refined even after death's scraped her flesh down to near nothing. She certainly perished with a spoon in
her mouth: it's still there, jabbed right down her throat. Impossible to eat with that impediment.
You examine the spoon
The only thing this spoon served was its own silver.
You examine the onions
Dependability: that's the onion. Whenever a plate's at a loss, just introduce one and you'll find its taste improved nine times in ten. Raw, roasted, caramelized, fried, grilled or minced: an onion's up for almost anything. But those are techniques for a chef. All you should do, my dear, is eat.
You take the spoon
Oh my, your body strains, darling, and the hole in your stomach yawns. You've made a bargain, remember, and now you live to eat. Eating is all you need to do. In fact, it's almost all you can.
You eat the spoon
Yanking the silver spoon out from her mouth, you shove it into yours, and down it goes without a hitch. Right now, darling, you should be thankful for your stomach's hole. A child with a less capacious gut would've just choked.
You eat the onions
As soon as you chomp into one, your eyes water. Your teeth crunch through crisp rings and onion fumes imbue your breath. Why, darling, with that stench held in your mouth, you could blow and you'd
chase teardrops down cheeks. At least its odor should fade in a few moments.

In the meantime, your inventory will hold what you're
carrying.
You check what you're carrying
You have a hole in your stomach, and you're holding an onion's odor in your mouth.
Go east
Blue flambeaux undulate, and in their flames gleam devices galore constructed to pry screams and more from prisoners. Don't sit down on that judas chair. Steer clear the rack. Give wide berth to the breaking wheel. They're occupied already by corpses.

Northward a corridor leads to the undercroft. Open cells lie westward, eastward, and southward.

Your breath's still reeking with onion.
You go east
Dungeon (east cell)
Against one wall towers a pastry maiden with its cage ajar, and in that cage a skewered corpse has found its rest amongst toothpicks. Not the filling you'd want to bite into with most desserts.

Westward an open doorway leads to the dungeon.
You examine the maiden
An iron maiden wouldn't do in this dungeon. Not when one could construct a cage as fearsome with pastry. It's massive and blood-crusted with a toothpick-spiked interior. Atop its bulk's sculpted a head with a disdainful attitude. You wouldn't wish her favor or embrace upon yourself.

Now the odor in your mouth begins to dissipate.
You look at the head
An iron maiden wouldn't do in this dungeon. Not when one could construct a cage as fearsome with pastry. It's massive and blood-crusted with a toothpick-spiked interior. Atop its bulk's sculpted a head with a disdainful attitude. You wouldn't wish her favor or embrace upon yourself.
You examine the corpse
A peasant woman, by her dress, begrimed with dirty hands outstretched as though to scrape the pastry when its shell was shut. Little good that did with toothpicks stabbed through her top to bottom. Her flesh has long since shriveled to the bone.

Soon the fumes in your throat will be gone.
You eat them
You'd taste nothing but onion with these fumes still on your breath. Before you eat again, you ought to blow them out.

Time's done its trick: eaten the onion fumes you ate. Your mouth's perfectly clear again, your breath no more offensive than a breeze.
You eat them
You'd pick your teeth more safely with a sword. Careful, careful where you angle your mouth. Try not to slice your gums.
You eat maiden
Beware the spikes. A bite too close could prick your eye. You'll have to unpeel flakes with caution from the crust. One nibble here, another there, and still wonderfully buttery despite the blood.
You go west
Blue flambeaux undulate, and in their flames gleam devices galore constructed to pry screams and more from prisoners. Don't sit down on that judas chair. Steer clear the rack. Give wide berth to the breaking wheel. They're occupied already by corpses.

Northward a corridor leads to the undercroft. Open cells lie westward, eastward, and southward.
Go west
Dungeon (west cell)
A woman's wasted corpse leans by one wall, almost buried with onions heaped around her head. This room's more root cellar than cell with all these bulbs piled inside.

Eastward an open doorway leads to the dungeon.
You eat the onion
You crunch into another onion. More fumes infuse your breath. Before they fade, you can blow their aroma out.
You go to the north
Beware the steps you take, the sounds you make that might echo and draw unwanted attention. In this red-velvet undercroft, with his back turned, sits none other than Master Pokerounce carving a great cheese atop a cinnamon-stick stool. He's busy with the task, distracted for the nonce, but one false move and he'll have you tossed back into a cell where you belong.

Westward lies the creamery, eastward the armory, and southward the dungeon.

Your breath's still reeking with onion.
Blow
You blow out the onion's tearjerking odor, and Master Pokerounce starts to rub his eyes. He's weeping, all right, but he's also glaring, and he climbs down from his wobbling stool, grabs your ankles.

"Looks like we've got ourselves a sneak. Sneaks ain't welcome. It's back to the dungeon with you, and you'll stay put until she wants you out. Roast sneak, that's what you'll be. Only it's odd… Sir Gruyère should've been on guard. And what's happened to these doorways? No difference, I suppose. Long's I'm around, you'll sneak nowhere."

He claps you back in manacles and dumps you in the southern cell again.
Dungeon (south cell)
Only one little skeleton remains inside this cell. Even unshackled, the poor child makes a pitiable sight, although you're not much better in your cacao manacles.

Northward an open doorway leads out to the dungeon.
You eat the manacles
No need to linger on particulars. You chomp the cacao manacles apart and swallow them.
You eat the onion
You munch another onion. Blow before its odor fades.
You examine Pokerounce
Turnkey and grand inquisitor: that's our Master Pokerounce. Without him, who would man the cells, command the guards, coax tidbits from the prisoners? A wonder that he doesn't wobble, perched high on that stool with his breastplate abuzz, loaves for gauntlets and greaves, his skull enclosed by a pine-nut helmet. His beard might stand a little trim, gnarled galingale and ginger root, barely a face to see under that mass, but looks aren't what we measure to employ wardens and torturers.
You go south
Blue flambeaux undulate, and in their flames gleam devices galore constructed to pry screams and more from prisoners. Don't sit down on that judas chair. Steer clear the rack. Give wide berth to the breaking wheel. They're occupied already by corpses.

Northward a corridor leads to the undercroft. Open cells lie westward, eastward, and southward.

Now the odor in your mouth begins to dissipate.
Blow
You blow out the onion's tearjerking odor. It's smart enough to sting eyeballs nearby, prompt tear-ducts to commence weeping, but since there's no one here to cry, the fumes dissolve into the air.
Go west
Dungeon (west cell)
A woman's wasted corpse leans by one wall, almost buried with onions heaped around her head. This room's more root cellar than cell with all these bulbs piled inside.

Eastward an open doorway leads to the dungeon.
You eat the onion
You munch another onion. Blow before its odor fades.
You go to the east
Blue flambeaux undulate, and in their flames gleam devices galore constructed to pry screams and more from prisoners. Don't sit down on that judas chair. Steer clear the rack. Give wide berth to the breaking wheel. They're occupied already by corpses.

Northward a corridor leads to the undercroft. Open cells lie westward, eastward, and southward.
Go north
Beware the steps you take, the sounds you make that might echo and draw unwanted attention. In this red-velvet undercroft, with his back turned, sits none other than Master Pokerounce carving a great cheese atop a cinnamon-stick stool. He's busy with the task, distracted for the nonce, but one false move and he'll have you tossed back into a cell where you belong.

Westward lies the creamery, eastward the armory, and southward the dungeon.
You examine the cheese
Munster-géromé well brined, some meters tall, and more column than wheel, chiseled into a guardsman half-moulded. Pokerounce has been carving the figure as he carves every soldier, fashioned with its own rind for the armor.
You look at the stick
Perhaps he's ten heads taller than you are, but Pokerounce still needs height to carve the cheese's top. His stool's got cinnamon-stick legs that stretch longer than certain pikes.
You eat the onion
While your breath's pungent, you could blow this onion's odor
out.
Go east
Blue flambeaux undulate, and in their flames gleam devices galore constructed to pry screams and more from prisoners. Don't sit down on that judas chair. Steer clear the rack. Give wide berth to the breaking wheel. They're occupied already by corpses.

Northward a corridor leads to the undercroft. Open cells lie westward, eastward, and southward.

Your breath's still reeking with onion.
Go north
Beware the steps you take, the sounds you make that might echo and draw unwanted attention. In this red-velvet undercroft, with his back turned, sits none other than Master Pokerounce carving a great cheese atop a cinnamon-stick stool. He's busy with the task, distracted for the nonce, but one false move and he'll have you tossed back into a cell where you belong.

Westward lies the creamery, eastward the armory, and southward the dungeon.
Go west
Master Pokerounce doesn't turn and you tiptoe behind his back.

Runnels trace down the walls where cream has leaked through ceiling grates. Vats brim with souring milk. Mould carpets the room's corners, mushrooms in the damp, and whey dribbles from hanging cheesecloth bags.

Eastward's the undercroft.

Now the odor in your mouth begins to dissipate.
You look at the grates
All the milk that's collected here drips from the ceiling grates above. This castle's got a source that won't run low anytime soon.
You examine milk
Sour milk's not too grand, granted, but it's one step toward crafting the grandest cheeses. It might look less than lovely. It might smell somewhat more pungent than fresh cream. But a romano's not made in a day.

Soon the fumes in your throat will be gone.
You look at the vats
Sour milk's not too grand, granted, but it's one step toward crafting the grandest cheeses. It might look less than lovely. It might smell somewhat more pungent than fresh cream. But a romano's not made in a day.
You look at the mould
A veritable fungal forest's grown here high as your kneecaps, toadstools milk-drunk and pale white as the cream they've sprouted from.

Time's done its trick: eaten the onion fumes you ate. Your mouth's perfectly clear again, your breath no more offensive than a breeze.
You eat the mould
How lustfully you root through these mouldy mushrooms! Anyone would take you for a pig after truffles. Whether you've found truffles or some other variety, you bite into their meaty flesh with the same eagerness.
You examine the whey
One cheesecloth bag bulges more than the rest.
You eat bag
It doesn't take much jaw-strength to rip the cheesecloth: there's something inside waiting to slip out, and how it slips! Whey sloshes to the floor along with a body bloated from long containment in the bag.
You look at the body
Who knows how large this fellow was in life. His body's swollen like a sponge. His skin's slick and gelatinous. His face has puffed enough to lose what features constitute a face. Leave him alone, my dear. You've more enticing things to eat than corpses left to rot down here.
Look around
Runnels trace down the walls where cream has leaked through ceiling grates. Vats brim with souring milk. Mould carpets the room's corners, mushrooms in the damp, and a bloated corpse has slipped from a torn cheesecloth bag.

Eastward's the undercroft.
You examine the bag
All right, the body hasn't spilled completely out onto the
floor. Although that's where the arms and torso sprawl, one foot's still tangled in the hanging, ripped cheesecloth. It's not a terribly delightful sight. We ought to move along.
You eat the vats
You bend to lap the milk as you would from a trough. It's rather thick, almost a sludge. As for the taste, sour's what you'd expect, and what you get.
You go east
"Ah, ah!" says Pokerounce, snatching your ankles again. "Don't court my displeasure. You won't want it. However you got out, you're going back."

Here we are, returned to the dungeon, and there you sail, right back into the southern cell. Pokerounce dresses you once again in manacles. At least you're still alive, and that's something. Perhaps a more subtle approach would unseat our lovely warden.
Dungeon (south cell)
Only one little skeleton remains inside this cell. Even unshackled, the poor child makes a pitiable sight, although you're not much better in your cacao manacles.

Northward an open doorway leads out to the dungeon.
You eat the manacles
You chomp the cacao manacles apart and swallow them.
You eat the stool
Before he's got the chance to blink, you bite into his stool. Oh, what a crunch! Your tongue prickles with spice, cinnamon sets your sinuses ablaze, and Pokerounce curses as he topples down.

His breastplate cracks.

Heavenly honey glimmers gold inside. He groans, can't sit or stand again, not with his body smashed, and out from his fractured breastplate swarm caramelized bees.
You eat the honey
A sting, a very palpable sting! Most peppers wouldn't sting as sharply as these caramel bees. Back down, darling. You'd need armor to withstand their ire.
You go east
Master Pokerounce can't stop you now.

Inhale that wondrous mouldering stench: fine cheeses stacked in ripening rows. A monger's cellar wouldn't boast a breadth more noseworthy. There's brie and cantal, gloucester, blue stilton and red leicester, morbier, spermyse, and maroilles amongst others heaped deep in shadow.

Westward's the undercroft, and upward a staircase curves to the eastern tapestry.
You examine the cheeses
There are enough cheeses stocked here to keep an army fed—or to carve one. It's good that you've disabled their master: otherwise you would've had his soldiers on your scent till kingdom come.
You eat the cheeses
Look around and choose a cheese.
You eat brie
One bite has the brie running with marvelous luxury into your mouth. Such a mild personality, tinged with the lightest fruity notes, a sumptuous tang rounding out the aftertaste. Fold yourself in its pliant rind: now you're encased.

Remember, my dear, you can check your inventory to see your
outfit.
You check your inventory
You have a hole in your stomach, and you're wearing a brie rind.
You go to the west
Your ears buzz along with the bees above Master Pokerounce. He's crippled on the floor, breastplate cracked wide with honeycombs chambered inside, unable to piece himself back together. In this state he won't finish carving that munster-géromé.

Westward lies the creamery, eastward the armory, and southward the dungeon.

"I'll rip you… into little shreds," Pokerounce groans.
You eat the honey
Ah, that's more like it. Let the bees blunt their stingers. They'll never breach the brie rind you're wearing.

Now you can strip Pokerounce's gauntlets, dip them into honey from his cracked breastplate. Allow his greaves to absorb golden sauce. His insides make an ideal spread, his toasted loaves an ideal bread to slather with that spread, and your mouth an ideal place to store them.

"Don't think you'll… get away with this," he groans.
You eat the honey
Yank his helmet away. No need for it where you're headed, Pokerounce. He squirms as you break it between your teeth. Sweet as a pine nut ever was, with rich smoothness that snaps after encouragement from your molars.

"She'll grind your bones!" he shouts.
You eat the honey
"Ouch! Ouch!" cries Pokerounce as you tug his beard. Rip out the roots. Crop every follicle. Ginger crunches and spritzes fresh hot spice after each bite. Your tongue's alive with aromatic zest, munched galingale releasing pungent perfume to cleanse your palate. He's not half as imposing plucked beardless, our grand inquisitor.

"You'll never leave," he says. "No one escapes..."
You eat the honey
That's right, my dear, rip into this inquisitor… just desserts
served…
back broken, limbs lopped, fingers sticky… no, don't tell me what to do… sit still… stop playing with my food… I won't do it… I'll
scream…
I'll shout… as though that would matter in a dungeon.
Pokerounce screeches.
O goes his mouth and more bees pour forth, riding his bellows. There's nothing to see but their caramel swarm. Take little note: they're simply one more treat to devour.

Cram your jaws with his honeycombs. Chomp as the combs crackle, flatten, golden floes oozing down your throat. Dismiss his wails. He deserves this. You're inhaling his bees, their swarm streaming into your jaws from his. The undercroft's thick with sweetness, with drones to drown the sharpest shrieks, and then you suck and suck the last bee into your lips with a smack, and Master Pokerounce isn't such a master anymore.
First course: eaten.
Undercroft
Come and leave as you like. This red-velvet chamber's vacant, save that half-carved munster-géromé, with no one left to ensure prisoners stay locked away.

Westward lies the creamery, eastward the armory, and southward the dungeon.
You eat the Munster
How soft is this half-moulded munster guard! He'd stand a handsome specimen indeed, but his orange-red rind's still incompletely carved, and he melts with a luscious tang across your tongue. Not sentient enough to struggle yet. Gobble him down. Now he'll patrol no rounds.
You go east
Inhale that wondrous mouldering stench: fine cheeses stacked in ripening rows. A monger's cellar wouldn't boast a breadth more noseworthy. There's brie and cantal, gloucester, blue stilton and red leicester, morbier, spermyse, and maroilles amongst others heaped deep in shadow.

Westward's the undercroft, and upward a staircase curves to the eastern tapestry.
You look at the tapestry
You could walk upward to the eastern tapestry.
You eat the cantal
You're already wearing a brie rind.
You look at shadow
Farther back than your arms can reach are more varieties: mimolette and emmentaler, beaufort and trappista, shropshire, ardrahan, wensleydale and vieux-boulogne and provolone and goodness one might name them until morning breaks.
You look at the gloucester
Colossal gloucester, packed with full fat, you're a cheese that a giant could hack with an axe. That apricot glow's annatto-infused. Your wedges would prop fortresses against collapse.
You examine the Cantal
Cantal's as ancient as the hills, grandfather amongst cheese, speckled grey with its hoary age and pebbled with the most endearing lumps.
You examine emmentaler
You can't reach these cheeses, child. They're too far back.
You go upwards
You ascend the staircase.

Across the eastern wall's hung a great tapestry woven with warfare and carnage. Your heart would have thundered in the skirmish sewn through these threads, wherein this castle's pretender found herself driven into exile. Ah, what a bloody rout that was.

Southward sprawls the banquet hall; westward lies the balance gallery; stairs wind upward into the bower and downward to the armory.
You look at the tapestry
Never were battles fought with gore and glory more than the battle threaded into this tapestry. Beheaded knights heaped high as hills, fools to have sworn their fealty to a traitor queen. Fancied herself a sorceress, thought that she'd hold the castle with a charm, as though mortal enchantments could entrap a race older than human blood. She's flown there, in the tapestry's corner, upon a chariot, expelled by the same hosts she'd sought to make her slaves. Ignorant witch, shame even to the lowly title witch. She might have ruled a hundred years, but centuries slip through this castle quicker than sands in a glass.
You eat it
One thread unravels in your teeth. Keep eating and you'll eat the tapestry. I think you'll find, however, that it's easier to view when it's hanging on a wall outside your stomach.
Go downwards
You descend the staircase.

Inhale that wondrous mouldering stench: fine cheeses stacked in ripening rows. A monger's cellar wouldn't boast a breadth more noseworthy. There's brie and cantal, gloucester, blue stilton and red leicester, morbier, spermyse, and maroilles amongst others heaped deep in shadow.

Westward's the undercroft, and upward a staircase curves to the eastern tapestry.
You go west
Come and leave as you like. This red-velvet chamber's vacant, with no one left to ensure prisoners stay locked away.

Westward lies the creamery, eastward the armory, and southward the dungeon.
You go to the north
Come and leave as you like. This red-velvet chamber's vacant, with no one left to ensure prisoners stay locked away.

Westward lies the creamery, eastward the armory, and southward the dungeon.

Your breath's still reeking with onion.
You go east
Inhale that wondrous mouldering stench: fine cheeses stacked in ripening rows. A monger's cellar wouldn't boast a breadth more noseworthy. There's brie and cantal, gloucester, blue stilton and red leicester, morbier, spermyse, and maroilles amongst others heaped deep in shadow.

Westward's the undercroft, and upward a staircase curves to the eastern tapestry.
Go upwards
You ascend the staircase.

Across the eastern wall's hung a great tapestry woven with warfare and carnage. Your heart would have thundered in the skirmish sewn through these threads, wherein this castle's pretender found herself driven into exile. Ah, what a bloody rout that was.

Southward sprawls the banquet hall; westward lies the balance gallery; stairs wind upward into the bower and downward to the armory.

Now the odor in your mouth begins to dissipate.
You go south
Gaze down the hall and you'll gaze down a valley between smashed dishes. Above that valley rotates a boned chandelier, below that chandelier stretches a table the hall's length, and around that table is ranged the Amuse-Bouche Quartet: Earl Escargot, Dame Demitasse, Frypan Fredrick, and Mistress Caviar. Tonight their plates are heaped with devils on horseback, battered mozzarella, vol-au-vents, toast points, dolma, and boquerones en vinagre.

Southward, footmen stream from the kitchen; northward lies the eastern tapestry.

A footman carries choriqueso to the table.
Blow
You blow out the onion's tearjerking odor, but with all the hors d'oeuvres inside this banquet hall, even its aroma simply wanders and gets lost amongst others.
You examine Escargot
Earl Escargot is what you might refer to as a connoisseur. He's slow to chew, slower to swallow, slowest to admit satisfaction. He dabs his luscious lips after each bite with a napkin; his second tentacle roves the table for more hors d'oeuvres. Garlic butter shimmers in every fold along his flesh, golden, unctuous, tinged green with minced parsley swimming inside his shell.

the platter.
You look at Demitasse
Fine porcelain flesh, veins patterned cobalt blue beneath the glaze, teacup eyelids, ceramic handles curving from her skull, that skull's cap sawn and sundered with coffee brimming inside: meet the magnificent Dame Demitasse. She exhales steam. Roasted aromas, wooden, malted, floral, toasted, waft around her place at the table. Perhaps each time she lifts her arm, her china chips a little more, joints delicately splintering, but no beauty was ever forged without pain poured into the crucible.

A footman delivers cucumber sandwiches to the table.
You examine Frypan
He's a hopper, Frypan Fredrick, each limb, each finger a breaded frog's leg. Why, even his head is a breaded frog's leg, sticking from a ruffed collar whose starched fabric has gone translucent with grease. Doublet fried crisp, crackowes squelching with lard, he's apt to leave breadcrumbs behind. No eyes, poor dear, nor nose, nor ears: that's what you get with a leg for a head. At least he has a mouth, and what a mouth, with human teeth in the hundreds to compensate.

Frypan Fredrick tears into the dolma and discards the plate.
You examine the Caviar
A glob aglimmer in her seat, roe oozing to absorb hors d'oeuvres, you'll recognize no single silhouette in Mistress Caviar. She shifts into whatever shape commands the highest bid, black beads brighter than diamonds sparkling beneath the chandelier, arms coalescing when she needs more limbs. A hundred sturgeon gutted would not yield one hundredth her measure. She'd snare a tsar's heart with her champagne laugh.

A footman brings samosas to the table.
You look at the footman
Sardines in eggplant livery. Sometimes they slouch, it's true, what can you do about your posture when you're a herring on land, but otherwise they're excellent servants: expedient, focused, disposable.

Mistress Caviar devours the toast points and casts aside the tray.
You examine the chandelier
Duck fat drips from the chandelier, rendered most marvelous into candles whose wicks flame green and knock shadows onto the walls. Each burns upon a rib's snapped tip, splayed from a keel anchored to a wishbone, and that wishbone hung from high waffled groins.

A footman carts pickles to the table.
You examine table
A table long enough to sit a crowd, with drumstick legs and duck skin draped across the top. My, what a mess: plates strewn higgledy-piggledy with cutlery and serving trays shoved aside to make room for more hors d'oeuvres. Right now the table's cluttered with pickles, samosas, cucumber sandwiches, choriqueso, devils on horseback, battered mozzarella, and vol-au-vents.

Earl Escargot sucks down the vol-au-vents and tosses the dish.
You eat the table
They'll not notice a nibble missing from their tablecloth. There: just a corner, crisp crackling that softens in the mouth.

A footman bears tongue toast to the table.
You eat footman
Why, this sardine's so servile that it practically swims down your throat. They've been trained well, these footmen have: jump when they're told, even when it will land them in a mouth.

Not that this footman should be missed. Others flow constantly from the kitchen.

Frypan Fredrick thoroughly chews the battered mozzarella and tosses the tray.
You eat footman
Come, come, footman, step right into these jaws. Yes, very good. That one slipped down as nicely as the first, and here's his stand-in from the kitchen already.

A footman carries gravlax to the table.
You eat Caviar
"Appreciate the finer things?" asks Mistress Caviar. "Care for a little nibble right here, love? A little taste? I'll have you know I'm unavailable, nor would my friends enjoy seeing me mistreated. We'll stick together long as we've hors d'oeuvres to eat."

Earl Escargot chomps into the devils on horseback and discards the plate.
You eat Frypan
Have you ever been kicked by a frog's leg before? Now you have. Frypan pulls one knee backward, there's a crackow in your gut, and the wall takes your breath upon impact.

A footman delivers croquettes to the table.
You eat the croquettes
"I wouldn't," says Dame Demitasse, steaming slightly hotter.

Dame Demitasse swallows the choriqueso and drops the platter.
You go to the south
Pandemonium, thou art a castle kitchen. White toques bob as sardine chefs labor over cutting boards and coals, stirring saucepans, stuffing pastries, rolling dough as flour thickens the air. Footmen teem around counters, poised to carry dishes to the banquet hall.

Northward you could follow the footmen; westward a door opens to the castle gate; stairs wind upward to the pantry and downward to the buttery.

Another footman bears crab rangoon into the banquet hall.
You look at the chefs
Among these bustling sardines, you can distinguish the chefs by their white turnip toques. They've got peeled turnips buttoned down their scales for uniforms as well.
You examine the boards
Minced meat covers the cutting boards. No way to tell what animal it was before the sardine chefs got their fins onto it.

Another footman carries deviled eggs into the banquet hall.
You look at coals
Every now and again, some sardine rakes the kitchen's coals to encourage their blaze. They're throbbing white and orange in a hearth against the wall. Above their mound, the air wobbles, and hanging pots bubble.

Another sardine flops into the kitchen from upstairs.
You look at the saucepans
It's chaos with chefs fighting to manage their pots over the kitchen's coals. There's always an elbow, or the sardine equivalent, in someone's face as they dash spices into pans and whisk sauces.

Another footman takes steak tartare into the banquet hall.
You examine the pastries
These unfinished pastries are little coffins waiting to be stuffed. Fillings couldn't request a final resting place more marvelous.
You look at the dough
Oh dough, plain as you are, lumps clumped across counters, you're the clay from which masterpieces rise, miracles spring. You're raw potential ready for kneading.

Another footman bears bruschetta into the banquet hall.
You examine counters
Glistening suet countertops these are, darling: fat firm and clean as any cook could dream. Tile'd not shine as brilliantly after the soundest scrub.
You eat chef
Drag a chef from the crowd, engulf him whole, white toque and all. His fellow chefs pay no attention as you push his fins into your lips. They're far too focused on their cookery.

Indeed, darling, there's already another tripping downstairs to replace the first. No sardine shortage around here to speak about.

Another footman takes canapés into the banquet hall.
You eat the dough
A sardine slaps your hand with a meat tenderizer.
Go down
You descend the staircase.

Down here the air is cool and dry and still. Along the walls are stacked the castle's butts, rack upon rack, enormous barrels corked to keep fine beverages in store. The greatest barrel's big enough to contain a hundred smaller.

Upward a staircase runs to the kitchen.
You examine the barrels
Each butt's emblazoned with an emblem to note what the barrels hold, although it'd take an alewife in the know to sort through them. Apart from the greatest barrel, here's a smaller stamped with a dragon, and another with a bear, and one painted with a harlequin.
You look at the dragon
The dragon on this barrel's long and snakish. More a wyrm, bearded and lacking wings. It's painted in green pigment that's faded toward grey.
You examine the bear
This barrel's more than blazoned with a bear. The animal's been branded straight into the butt, burned with black ashen lines. Posture: statant.
You examine harlequin
Cheeky's the harlequin stamped on this butt. The picture's checked in yellow paint and represents the fellow with a bottle tipped to funnel liquid underneath his domino.
You examine greatest
Across this giant barrel's face is stamped an emblem picturing a maiden wrapped in spikes. Hard to determine whether she's in agony or ecstasy, but there's wincing involved in either case.
You eat the dragon
Green tea pours from the dragon's tap, piping and steeped precisely right. Its warmth spreads through your body and its flavor's clean and bracing with the slightest bitter hint beneath the humblest sweetness.
You eat the bear
Turn the bear barrel's tap: kvass bubbles over your tongue, fizzing with carbonation from black bread fermented to sour sublimity. That tang's delight if delight's something someone could barrel.
You eat the harlequin
Lemonade flows from the harlequin's hogshead. Refreshing streams, tart with citrus, chilled, sweetened with sugar. There's crushed ice mixed into the drink, and it's crushed twice between your teeth.
You eat greatest
How odd. There's no leakage when you begin to turn the giant barrel's tap. It turns and turns, yielding no liquid anywise. A disappointment, certainly, to anyone after a drink, but this barrel's still filled with something worth seeing.

Its face opens, swinging back for a door. Inside the barrel's quite empty. It seems there's a passageway to the north.
Go north
Your footsteps echo against wood. Well, go ahead, keep clambering about, knock for another door—aha, you've found one at the barrel's back. With a heave-ho you push it ajar and step northward into a different room.
You go north
Dungeon (east cell)
Against one wall towers a pastry maiden with its cage ajar, and in that cage a secret passage leads southward through the toothpicks. Although their panel's been sprung wide, a skewered corpse still dangles from the spikes.

Westward an open doorway leads to the dungeon.
Go east
Dungeon (east cell)
Against one wall towers a pastry maiden with its cage ajar, and in that cage a secret passage leads southward through the toothpicks. Although their panel's been sprung wide, a skewered corpse still dangles from the spikes.

Westward an open doorway leads to the dungeon.

Your breath's still reeking with onion.
You go south
You creep through the secret passage.

Down here the air is cool and dry and still. Along the walls are stacked the castle's butts, rack upon rack, enormous barrels corked to keep fine beverages in store. The greatest barrel's opened to reveal a hidden passage to the north.

Upward a staircase runs to the kitchen.
Go upward
You ascend the staircase.

Pandemonium, thou art a castle kitchen. White toques bob as sardine chefs labor over cutting boards and coals, stirring saucepans, stuffing pastries, rolling dough as flour thickens the air. Footmen teem around counters, poised to carry dishes to the banquet hall.

Northward you could follow the footmen; westward a door opens to the castle gate; stairs wind upward to the pantry and downward to the buttery.

Another footman carries toast points into the banquet hall.

Now the odor in your mouth begins to dissipate.
Blow
You blow out the onion's tearjerking odor. All the chefs blink and sniff, then resume their duties. They're single-minded creatures, these sardines.
Go upwards
You ascend the staircase.

Stoop, stoop! You'll knock your head on vegetables above, enormous bundles that drape from the ceiling's beams. Here are eggplants in a clump, and turnips rocking where you've nudged a brace.

Northward a door leads into the storeroom, westward you'll find the gatehouse, and downward a stair spirals into the kitchen.
You examine the vegetables
No vegetables are quite as large as these eggplants and turnips at the front, but even the more reasonable radishes, the more diminutive endives, the peas in pods would outweigh a toddler.

Why, hullo, here's a sardine from the storeroom. Slips inside an eggplant skin, quite like a footman in that purple livery, and then wriggles downstairs.
You eat the vegetables
You've got a selection to choose from, darling.
You eat the turnips
You're already wearing a brie rind.
You go to the north
Not a chamber often visited by the nobility. Five metal tins against the walls, lined in neat rows as barracks beds. One lid has been halfway uncurled, and there beneath its foil sardines slumber in oil. They'll stir when they're needed downstairs.

Southward you'll find passage to the pantry.
You examine the tins
Each tin comes packed with sardines fin to fin. There's nothing like rolling their metal lids away to glimpse those slumbering little fish. Rest assured, these are packed with their heads still intact. Only the freshest sardines to serve this castle!
You eat the sardines
Heavens, yes, why not sample some sardines? One slips right down your throat, leaves your lips smacking with oil. Another slips down as deliciously. They come packed in tins for a reason, you see. They know that one's never enough. When you're done, you have emptied a tin.
You eat the sardines
More sardines, please. Another tin! You peel its lid backward to inhale the oily flavor that wafts from within. Their eyes are open but they're fast asleep. These sardines can sleep in your belly once you've swallowed them. One, two, three, four, let's stop counting. How many come packed in a tin? Not enough!
You eat the sardines
You've developed a taste for sardines, it appears. Plunge your hands quick into another tin, raise out the oily slumberers, hold them over your mouth, then slurp them down. They don't object. They're perfectly content to serve someone. Now here's another empty bed.
You eat the sardines
My, at this rate, you'll have eaten the room! Another tin unlidded, more sardines pulled from their beds, and more smacks from your lips with each swallow. Your cheeks are speckled with their shining scales. Your tongue quivers with salt. They are a most addictive dish. Over your shoulder goes the empty tin.
You eat the sardines
At last, the last tin in the room. Savor these slumbering sardines. You'll have no more from this storeroom. Peel back their metal lid with tenderness. Observe their skin when you lift them aloft, how it glistens. They disappear into your mouth, tails sticking through your lips till you swallow. Rattle the tin for more; you'll find none left. Now lick the oil from your fingertips. There, you've finished.
Look around
Not a chamber often visited by the nobility. Five metal tins lie scattered here and there, their lids unrolled, insides licked clean. You could shake them turned upside-down without dislodging any more sardines. Someone, it seems, has had a little feast.

Southward you'll find passage to the pantry.
Go south
Don't knock your head on vegetables above, enormous bundles that drape from the ceiling's beams. Here are eggplants in a clump, and turnips rocking where you've nudged a brace.

Northward a door leads into the storeroom, westward you'll find the gatehouse, and downward a stair spirals into the kitchen.
Go west
Through a narrow window there's a view across the moat, and through another hole a chain with toffee links holds the drawbridge. At a table slumbers a havarti guard with a swordfish propped next to him. Perhaps those bottles at his feet have something to do with his snores.

Westward lies a garderobe, and eastward the pantry.
You examine the moat
It's difficult to pick out details from this far away.
You examine the chain
Here's how this arrangement works: when everything's all clear below, this chain's unwound to lower the drawbridge. Right now it's coiled tight to keep the drawbridge closed.
You examine the guard
He's snoring blissfully. Havarti's no hard cheese but he's gone softer than ever from that root beer, forgot his duties, let his knightly honor lapse. He'll reap what his habits have sown.
You examine bottles
It seems there's been a tipple here. Root beer bottles lie scattered, drained to their last drops. Shame's not something the castle guards imbibe, apparently.
You eat the swordfish
Your throat's a sheath: you chomp the fish, swallow its pointed nose, right down it goes. Its swashbuckling days are at an end.
You eat guard
"What time, Sir Jarlsberg?" he yawns. "By god's bones, root beer fogs the faculties…"

First he blinks, and then he rubs his eyes, and then he blinks again. It takes him a moment to register what's happening. He lunges for his swordfish, finds nothing, stumbles onto his feet gripping thin air.

"Pilfered mine blade, intruder? I'll fistfight thee then!"
You eat guard
Our guard might flail his fists however he pleases, but his havarti's no match for your appetite. "Mercy! Hiccup!" he says, but he's inside your mouth, you've gobbled his knuckle sandwich. Too late! His soft smooth texture almost melts.

He'll prove no further hinderance tonight.
You eat chain
This toffee chain won't yield without a crunch. Put your jaw into it! You bite and gnaw and nibble, yet its links don't break. Most seem slightly too strong to chew, but there's always a weaker one.
You eat the chain
Yes, keep chewing that chain, darling. Eventually you'll find the weakest link.
You eat the chain
Persist, my dear! You're almost there. In just a few more bites, this chain is positive to snap.
You eat the chain
Your tongue probes for a fracture: there, you bite.

Broken links lash and rattle through the gatehouse hole. Below there's an impact to make the castle quake as the drawbridge descends, and buttery brown sweetness floods your mouth to stick between your teeth. That's toffee, always sticking somewhere.

When you're done, you pick out the pieces.
Describe the surroundings
Through a narrow window there's a view across the moat. Another hole once ran a chain to the drawbridge: no more. Root beer bottles lie tumbled beneath a table.

Westward lies a garderobe, and eastward the pantry.
You go to the west
In this room there's a bench, in that bench there's a hole, and that hole opens above the moat.

Another guard's bent over the privy. Oh, see him heave!

Eastward you can step back to the gatehouse.
You examine the guard
My word, this jarlsberg guard's gone green. Blame drink. Always blame drink. Knights with cow's milk for blood can't be expected to hold their root beer.

"Sir Havarti?" he groans. "I'll report back… anon…"
You eat guard
"Sir Havarti, thou… thou art not Sir Havarti!" the guard exclaims.

He's still bent over the privy, and seeing you's more surprise than he can afford.

Step forward to catch him, but no, you're too slow: he's already pitched headfirst through the hole. Down, down he goes into the darkened moat, but there's no splash: only a squish, and then silence.
Go downward
You descend the staircase.

Pandemonium, thou art a castle kitchen. White toques bob as sardine chefs labor over cutting boards and coals, stirring saucepans, stuffing pastries, rolling dough as flour thickens the air. Footmen teem around counters, poised to carry dishes to the banquet hall.

Northward you could follow the footmen; westward a door opens to the castle gate; stairs wind upward to the pantry and downward to the buttery.
You eat chefs
They weren't enough, of course not, those sardines in the storeroom. Not when the kitchen's still crowded. Not when you could reach out, pack more between your teeth as they were packed into their tins before.

They've caught on now. Too late, they'll not escape.

Footmen flop toward the door but you grab tails, raise them aloft, drop them into your mouth as you seize chefs thrashing over saucepans, across rolled dough. Their bulging eyes bulge even more. Their lips glub open in panic. When your lips close, however, that's the end.
You look around
Nobody now remains to tend this kitchen's hearth or knead the dough rolled on the countertops. Neglected saucepans cool. Flour has settled on the floor, tracked with footprints.

Northward lies the banquet hall; westward a doorway opens to the castle gate; stairs wind upward to the pantry and downward to the buttery.
You go to the north
Gaze down the hall and you'll gaze down a valley between smashed dishes. Above that valley rotates a boned chandelier, below that chandelier a table stretches the hall's length, and around that table is ranged the Amuse-Bouche Quartet: Earl Escargot, Dame Demitasse, Frypan Fredrick, and Mistress Caviar. Tonight their choices dwindle with only canapés, bruschetta, steak tartare, and deviled eggs remaining.

Frypan Fredrick rakes the deviled eggs into his mouth.

"Oh dear, where are the footmen?" asks Earl Escargot. "They've disappeared. At this rate we'll finish the last hors d'oeuvres any minute. I must eat more. I can't stop now!"
You eat dame
"I'd keep my distance," says Dame Demitasse. "At this rate, these hors d'oeuvres won't last, and don't dare think you'll get any."

Frypan Fredrick gobbles the steak tartare quick as a snapped finger.

"Don't start eyeballing me," says Mistress Caviar. "Get any fresh ideas and I'll get some fresh ideas to match yours. Perhaps I'm getting fresh ideas now. You're not the only one who eats hors d'oeuvres around this place."
You eat the chandelier
Stick out your tongue: there's drippings caught from the candles.

Frypan Fredrick reaches for the bruschetta but the earl ensnares the plate, tugging until he's shoveled everything into his throat. Frypan watches with a forlorn ribbit.

"You're such a handsome frog, Fredrick. Did you know?" asks Dame Demitasse. "Bones with good meat on them, and fried in all the right places. A lady could just gobble you right up."
You eat Escargot
"We aren't that desperate yet, are we?" whimpers the earl. "Not while we still have some hors d'oeuvres…"

"Give that to me!" says Mistress Caviar, holding the canapés as Earl Escargot attempts to rip the platter from her roe. His tentacles slip loose and she engulfs the dish.

"Oh, oh, without hors d'oeuvres I'll starve!" the earl exclaims. "I'll shrivel in my shell. I'll waste away!"
You eat Escargot
"No, no!" says Earl Escargot. "We mustn't stoop to that level. I still mourn for Pierre Canard…"

"Stay there," commands Dame Demitasse. "Don't hop, Fredrick. Don't move."

There's your cue, Fredrick: hop, hop for your life!

She's snatched him by one pointed toe, stabbed shards through his crackow, her arms cracking as she drags Frypan over the table. His battered fingers scrabble for something to grip. Plates clatter to the floor, and now there's an ear-splitting splinter as Dame Demitasse opens her jaws. Look at those jagged porcelain fangs! Frypan Fredrick looks close enough when they chomp down around his breaded head.
Look around
Gaze down the hall and you'll gaze down a valley between smashed dishes. Above that valley rotates a boned chandelier, below that chandelier a table stretches the hall's length, and around that table prowl Earl Escargot, Dame Demitasse, and Mistress Caviar.
You eat Caviar
"Lovely," says Mistress Caviar. "Yes, snuggle right here, closer, sweetheart, closer and I'll show you a good time. Let me just wrap my roe around your shoulders—wait, don't bite! That doesn't mean to bite harder! No, don't swallow!"

Her black pearls almost purr as you pack them into your mouth, rolling across your palate, popping with rich salted bursts. You hold the sea upon your tongue. You hold the rarest sturgeon's ancient taste, subtle as butter, decadent as macadamia, mild, refined.

Meanwhile there's a shriek across the room as Earl Escargot guzzles Dame Demitasse, tentacles coiled around her handles.
You eat Escargot
"Oh my, that glimmer in your eye… I don't care for it," says Earl Escargot. "Actually, I doubt we would agree with each other. No, put that fork back onto the table. A fork won't do you any good. Oh, no, there's no need for a fork!"

He rocks back with a crash; upward you roll atop his shell, fork plunged into his face, yanking the earl out yard by yard to rehouse him inside your mouth. Garlic butter and parsley drip between your teeth. "I should have never been so succulent!" are his last words, and then you tilt his shell to slurp the sauce.

Across the floor, skin fractured, spills Dame Demitasse.
You look at Demitasse
Fine porcelain flesh, veins patterned cobalt blue beneath the glaze, teacup eyelids, ceramic handles curving from her skull, that skull's cap sawn and sundered with coffee brimming inside: here's the magnificent Dame Demitasse. She exhales steam. Roasted aromas, wooden, malted, floral, toasted, waft in her wake. Perhaps each time she lifts her arm, her china chips a little more, joints delicately splintering, but no beauty was ever forged without pain poured into the crucible.

"That stupid snail," murmurs Dame Demitasse.
You eat her
"I knew you were suspicious," says Dame Demitasse. "It's the dungeon where you belong! You'll bleed for this!"

Cream—banish it; and sugar—sacrilege. Her body's brewed with depth blackness alone could sound. Down, down you drink her coffee and down, down your tastebuds plunge into a richness roasted, velvet with flavors imparted by the darkest drips. All that's bitter is glimpsing her bottom once you've drained it. Nothing remains but shattered porcelain with cobalt veins.

Frypan Fredrick hops from the broken heap. His hop's lopsided: some tendon twisted.
You eat Fredrick
Zounds, sirrah! How you leap even limping! Frypan's reluctant, as you may well understand, to have himself swallowed again. He jumps onto the banquet table, crouches, rotates on his haunches, and out shoots his tongue to batter you with fried batter. Crumbs scatter. Stumble back, regain your balance, never surrender.
You eat Fredrick
Pounce, my dear, pounce before Frypan pounces. No, not here,
here; no, not there, there. His fried legs fly over
your head. Dishes break when he lands. He's left, right, near, far, tripped—yes, tripped on his long pointed toes. Haute couture takes another toll. You have him, no, you don't have him: he's leapt to seize the chandelier. He swings most wildly.
You eat Fredrick
You must know what you want… well, maybe, perhaps… not this… or
that…
something else… we don't care for it… but on second thought… take
it
away… no, bring it back… enough, you'll eat what you've been
served,
and you'll like it.
You jump.
Shadows race across walls, chased by the swinging chandelier. Frypan scrambles higher but your teeth sink into his ankles. His tongue tangles the candlesticks. No more swinging: he's straining as you yank him down, each gulp another tug. Tender meat shreds. Grease coats your throat. Breadcrumbs crumble. He croaks.

Into the banquet hall crashes the chandelier, table smashed, ends upturned, cutlery raining as the ceiling collapses. Sardine tins tumble through the broken storeroom floor. Discarded dishes slide to bury everything in shattered crockery, and out you topple into the kitchen, still licking Frypan's grease from your fingers. With that, we do hereby adjourn this evening's meeting of the Amuse-Bouche Quartet.
Second course: eaten.
Kitchen
Nobody now remains to tend this kitchen's hearth or knead the dough rolled on the countertops. Neglected saucepans cool. Flour has settled on the floor, tracked with footprints.

Westward a doorway opens to the castle gate; stairs wind upward to the pantry and downward to the buttery; northward the banquet hall lies in ruin.
Go north
There's barely room to peer inside now that the ceiling's caved. Only rubble and smashed dishes still settling in pockets under the debris. This banquet hall will hold no further feasts.
Go west
You stand before the castle's only gate. Through this passage must pass all seeking admittance or leave, whether they be the fairest or most squalid amongst us.

Southward the great drawbridge has been lowered.

Walk northward, noble guests, to the courtyard; slink eastward, servants, serfs bearing supplies, through that low kitchen door. All to their stationed ranks.
You examine the gate
No less sturdy than the drawbridge are these walls that create the gate itself. They're soda bread, extremely hard, and no might you muster will bring them down.
You examine the drawbridge
Biscotti planks hammered into a bridge. Knock these planks, slam them, batter their biscotti with a ram and they won't give a chip for all the force you've thrust into the endeavor. There's little else as durable as good strong biscotti.
Go north
No common bailey, but a garden with walls trellis-wound. Its master hauls herself from bed to bed, throwing her tendrils out to drag her leafy head across the ground. That would be Jenny Lettucehead, the castle gardener extraordinaire. Here you're in her domain, patches plump with young cabbages.

One cabbage chirps as Jenny tucks its leaves into a nursery.

Northward, below a balcony, a door opens into the balance gallery, and southward are the gateway and drawbridge.
You look at Jenny
A lettucehead like hers would break the widest wheelbarrow and command every ribbon at the fair. Put away your spades and seedling dreams, farmhands; you're through. Pearl onions at her maize earlobes. Ripe cherry cheeks. Jenny, let's see your carrot jaws. A rather sharkish smile, hasn't she? Quell your concerns and count your blessings she's no predator. Soil's her standard fare, the richer, fouler the better. After a battle, when the land's imbued with rot, flowers still bloom.
You examine the beds
Her little charges snuggle in their little beds. Bald cabbage heads wrapped in thick cabbage leaves. They coo, they do, they gurgle and they mewl, these savoy babes tucked in neat nursery rows. Jenny's at one plot or another attending their chirps.
You eat Jenny
Jog after Jenny Lettucehead, will you? Perhaps you've got it in your mind to sample her salad, but you'll harvest nothing as long as she's hauling herself from bed to bed. Tuck in a cabbage here, arrange one there, she's on the move. Her vines whip wild at her sides. You're never close enough to nab a bite.
You eat the cabbage
Fasten one eye to Jenny as you pull a cabbage from a bed. Brush down those leaves, shake out soil, before munching its head, and then notice too late that Jenny's heard the crunch. She's turned toward you, and what she does is smile with delight. What's her work worth without stomachs to feed? Go on and finish munching. You've her approval.
You eat cabbage
You'll eat another cabbage babe. Knock it about to loosen clods, peel back the leaves around its face, chomp down, savor the crunch. No preparation necessary for a tender head this crisp and young.
You go north
Northward a gleaming golden door would lead into the chapel, but it's sealed. Beneath your feet, the floor's plated with silver polished to a mirror's shine.

Westward and eastward you'll find tapestried chambers, and southward's the courtyard.
You examine door
No hinge, no handle, no keyhole or crack is to be seen.

As you stand in the gallery, the floor sinks and you hear a hidden contraption click click.
Go east
When you leave the gallery, its floor rises again.

Across the eastern wall's hung a great tapestry woven with warfare and carnage. Your heart would have thundered in the skirmish sewn through these threads, wherein this castle's pretender found herself driven into exile. Ah, what a bloody rout that was.

Westward lies the balance gallery, stairs wind upward into the bower and downward to the armory, and southward the banquet hall has collapsed.
Go upward
You ascend the staircase.

Overhead's spread the nighttime sky. What once was a bower's now mere rubble with crumbled walls. Whipped-cream clouds conceal the moon, floating just close enough to taste, and there's a chill to make your blood run cold.

Westward lies the scriptorium, and downward are stairs to the eastern tapestry.
You look at the clouds
Only the thinnest moonlight leaks through these whipped-cream masses.
You examine the moon
The moon's cloud-cloaked. Staring alone won't unveil it.

A breeze carries soft sobbing to your ears.
You go to the west
Wisdom's stored here, the richest this world knows: how to cook well. Lox bookcases abound with shelves exceptionally stocked. You'll find more than one page worth your perusal if you're after instruction in how to prepare, say, four more courses for a feast.

Westward's passage to the solar, eastward lies the bower, and southward you'll walk out onto a balcony.
You look at the bookcases
More recipes are stocked on these pink salmon shelves than you've got time to read, but here's a few you might find flavorful: Appyl Fryturs, Befe Farsed, Capons yn Dorre,
Chawden for a Swan, Dowcetts, Gallentyne,
Gardyn Grynes, Genoa Ryse, Gurnard,
Lachrymose Supe, Lamprays, Mortrose of
Fyshe, Ordyrves, Pecoke, Podyng,
Pokerounce, Samon Rostyd, Swete Mylke,
Tarts Owte of Lente, and Vyneagyr.
Go south
Mind where you put your weight when you look downward into the courtyard. This wafer balustrade's not the thickest with piroulines for posts.

Northward you could return indoors to the scriptorium.
You examine the wafer
Before our gardener reclaimed the yard, here's where this castle's pretender would stand, beside the balustrade, to greet supplicants gathered underneath. Few now brave pilgrimage.
You eat the wafer
Quick work, quick work indeed. Upon meeting your tongue, the wafer's porous bread practically melts. More resilient, the piroulines, whose balusters crunch as biscuits should crunch. Hazelnut chocolate fills their spiral tubes. You've bitten them to stumps now, look at that: this balustrade barely remains.
You examine balustrade
Before our gardener reclaimed the yard, here's where this castle's pretender would stand to greet supplicants gathered underneath. Few now brave pilgrimage.
You eat the wafer
Hardly much left to nibble here. Lick your finger and press it to the stumps; some crumbs stick; lick that finger clean. The slightest hazelnut flavor lingers.
Look around
Nothing remains to gird the balcony now you've nibbled its balustrade. A step over the edge would plunge a person downward into the courtyard.

Northward you could return indoors to the scriptorium.
You go to the north
Wisdom's stored here, the richest this world knows: how to cook well. Lox bookcases abound with shelves exceptionally stocked. You'll find more than one page worth your perusal if you're after instruction in how to prepare, say, four more courses for a feast.

Westward's passage to the solar, eastward lies the bower, and southward you'll walk out onto a balcony.
You go to the west
Omelettes carpet the floor. A brazier crackles merrily, surrounded by soft lard couches with marshmallow pillows. Less appetizing's that cage in the corner, where a carrion crow hunches behind nougat bars, watching the room.

Southward you'll find the baron's cabinet, eastward the scriptorium, and downward stairs lead to the western tapestry.
You examine the omelettes
A proper egg hunt's a noble affair. You'd marvel at the spectacle. It's no mere traipse into the woods. No, it needs hounds and hunters in braces, and horns ringing over treetops, and there's always a valiant struggle when the eggs are driven from their nests. Once they've been cracked, their yolks make the most lovely rugs.
You examine brazier
Scorpion peppers scramble inside the brazier, swarming over each other with talons ablaze. One prick from their stingers would ignite your tongue. Quite ill-advised.
You look at the couches
Although no one's attendant now, this solar's where the castle's gentry withdraw for a moment's calm. Little can ease a body like a warm lard couch.
You examine the pillows
Even goose down would make a sorry bed for any head accustomed to resting upon these pillows. They're unparalleled.
You examine the cage
A birdcage filigreed with white nougat more priceless than white gold. Most birds would peck right through the bars, but not the crow enclosed. It's only got an appetite for guts, and turns its beak up at everything else.
You examine the crow
When soldiers lose their guts in war, crows find them on the battlefield. Now here's a crow fed on burst bellies aplenty. Its feathers drip with carrion. Its beak's a splintered bone. Its eyes are ruby hemorrhoids in its head.

"Let me out! Let me out!" caws the crow. "I'll eat intestines when I'm free. They keep me in this cage to cage my appetite. Release me! Let me out!"
You go to the south
Before a giant fireplace sits a figure with proportions to match: the Baron d'Boeuf at his private suppertime. Oh how he hulks above your head, high, high enough to scrape the ceiling were he hunched merely a thumb's breadth less. He's engaged picking morsels from a basket at his feet, packing them down his gullet with a sirloin fist.

He lifts a pepper out, swallows before it's even been chewed properly.

Northward you could return to the solar.
You examine the fireplace
Thank goodness that this fireplace has not been kindled to its greatest blaze, otherwise such a monstrous hearth would toast you for nearness. It's more than large enough to step inside.
You examine Baron
What is a baron but a cut above the rest? You'll find no figure fashioned from finer flank steak, more succulent sirloin, more rib-sticking ribs or more chop-smacking chops. His very limbs are tenderloin, his belly brisket, and his rump what else but rump, the rarest, plumpest rump? Two rib-eyes set above fat marbled cheeks, filet lips basted in gravy, a tongue to make tongues marinate with watering. People in his palm would be mere pawns; he is outsized; he is prime certified; he is the Baron d'Boeuf for a reason: none other can match his mass on a scale.
You examine basket
An overflowing cornucopia. His basket brims with vegetables worthy to garnish roasts for royalty—spanish onions, green peppers, garlic bulbs—and every other minute down the baron's arm comes reaching for another bite. He swallows whole.
You eat the basket
You crawl into the basket but you've no chance to eat anything before the Baron d'Boeuf seizes you. There's the floor gaining distance as you're lifted high into the air. His mouth opens—and then he looks at you.

"You're not a vegetable," he says. "Begone! Cheese isn't on my menu this evening."

He drops you back onto the ground.
You go north
Omelettes carpet the floor. A brazier crackles merrily, surrounded by soft lard couches with marshmallow pillows. Less appetizing's that cage in the corner, where a carrion crow hunches behind nougat bars, watching the room.

Southward you'll find the baron's cabinet, eastward the scriptorium, and downward stairs lead to the western tapestry.
You go down
You descend the staircase.

Across the western wall's another tapestry embroidered with a grand combat, in which this castle's vilest invader, the mouse king, had his tail chopped. Milk flows into the chamber from the south, streaming through breadstick grates set in the floor.

A durkha guard stands, southward, at the entrance into the great hall.

Eastward's the balance gallery; upward a staircase runs to the solar.
You look at the guard
Some guardsmen make others scramble: here's such a one. He towers at the threshold into the great hall, armored in a rind heavier than stone, harder than steel. That's durkha, my dear, champion amongst cheeses, aged for decades until its curds could crack an overeager jaw.
You eat guard
It won't be easy, darling… he's gigantic… hurl yourself into the fight, there, grab his leg, take a deep bite! What's that, your teeth won't penetrate his rind? And now he's got you by the scruff? We all miscalculate our strength sometimes.

"Weakling," says the durkha guard, tossing you back. "Thou art no match."
You go upward
You ascend the staircase.

Omelettes carpet the floor. A brazier crackles merrily, surrounded by soft lard couches with marshmallow pillows. Less appetizing's that cage in the corner, where a carrion crow hunches behind nougat bars, watching the room.

Southward you'll find the baron's cabinet, eastward the scriptorium, and downward stairs lead to the western tapestry.
Go east
Overhead's spread the nighttime sky. What once was a bower's now mere rubble with crumbled walls. Whipped-cream clouds conceal the moon, floating just close enough to taste, and there's a chill to make your blood run cold.

Westward lies the scriptorium, and downward are stairs to the eastern tapestry.
You go downwards
You descend the staircase.

Across the eastern wall's hung a great tapestry woven with warfare and carnage. Your heart would have thundered in the skirmish sewn through these threads, wherein this castle's pretender found herself driven into exile. Ah, what a bloody rout that was.

Westward lies the balance gallery, stairs wind upward into the bower and downward to the armory, and southward the banquet hall has collapsed.
Go downwards
You descend the staircase.

Inhale that wondrous mouldering stench: fine cheeses stacked in ripening rows. A monger's cellar wouldn't boast a breadth more noseworthy. There's brie and cantal, gloucester, blue stilton and red leicester, morbier, spermyse, and maroilles amongst others heaped deep in shadow.

Westward's the undercroft, and upward a staircase curves to the eastern tapestry.
You go west
Come and leave as you like. This red-velvet chamber's vacant, with no one left to ensure prisoners stay locked away.

Westward lies the creamery, eastward the armory, and southward the dungeon.
You go upward
You ascend the staircase.

Nobody now remains to tend this kitchen's hearth or knead the dough rolled on the countertops. Neglected saucepans cool. Flour has settled on the floor, tracked with footprints.

Westward a doorway opens to the castle gate; stairs wind upward to the pantry and downward to the buttery; northward the banquet hall lies in ruin.
Go up
You ascend the staircase.

Don't knock your head on vegetables above, enormous bundles that drape from the ceiling's beams. Here are eggplants in a clump, and turnips rocking where you've nudged a brace.

Westward you'll find the gatehouse, downward a stair spirals into the kitchen, but northward the storeroom's collapsed.
You eat the rind
You devour the brie rind. You're unarmored again.
You eat the eggplant
Burrow into an eggplant. Eat out its spongy white insides until the purple peel's empty and you can ease into its skin. Yes, what a regal uniform that eggplant makes. Quite refined livery.
Go downwards
You descend the staircase.

Nobody now remains to tend this kitchen's hearth or knead the dough rolled on the countertops. Neglected saucepans cool. Flour has settled on the floor, tracked with footprints.

Westward a doorway opens to the castle gate; stairs wind upward to the pantry and downward to the buttery; northward the banquet hall lies in ruin.
Go north
No common bailey, but a garden with walls trellis-wound. Its master hauls herself from bed to bed, throwing her tendrils out to drag her leafy head across the ground. That would be Jenny Lettucehead, the castle gardener extraordinaire. Here you're in her domain, patches plump with young cabbages.

She's rocking one cabbage to sleep, her vines laced into a cradle.

Northward, below a balcony, a door opens into the balance gallery, and southward are the gateway and drawbridge.
You go north
Northward a gleaming golden door would lead into the chapel, but it's sealed. Beneath your feet, the floor's plated with silver polished to a mirror's shine.

Westward and eastward you'll find tapestried chambers, and southward's the courtyard.
You go west
Across the western wall's another tapestry embroidered with a grand combat, in which this castle's vilest invader, the mouse king, had his tail chopped. Milk flows into the chamber from the south, streaming through breadstick grates set in the floor.

A durkha guard stands, southward, at the entrance into the great hall.

Eastward's the balance gallery; upward a staircase runs to the solar.
You examine the tapestry
All larders attract vermin, and the more well stocked the larder, the more vicious the vermin. You'd never fathom what waves were repulsed from this castle, what rodents swarmed the walls, until one midnight when the chimes were ringing came the mouse king with his seven heads to the vanguard. He'll die forever in this tapestry, slain by a golden virge in nobler combat, by a truer monarch, than vermin ever deserved to fight. Judge for yourself, darling, the portrait's faithfulness, how excellent its threads capture such fey beauty.
You go upward
You ascend the staircase.

Omelettes carpet the floor. A brazier crackles merrily, surrounded by soft lard couches with marshmallow pillows. Less appetizing's that cage in the corner, where a carrion crow hunches behind nougat bars, watching the room.

Southward you'll find the baron's cabinet, eastward the scriptorium, and downward stairs lead to the western tapestry.
Go south
Before a giant fireplace sits a figure with proportions to match: the Baron d'Boeuf at his private suppertime. Oh how he hulks above your head, high, high enough to scrape the ceiling were he hunched merely a thumb's breadth less. He's engaged picking morsels from a basket at his feet, packing them down his gullet with a sirloin fist.

"You'll do nicely," he says, pulling a spanish onion from the pile's peak.

Northward you could return to the solar.
You eat the basket
You heft yourself into the baron's basket, tumble down amongst his vegetables, but you're not there one instant when he grasps you in his palm. Bratwurst fingers surround you. You're raised almost to the roof to meet his maw.

"An aubergine?" he says. "Lovely."
He swallows you.
You slide along esophageal membranes until you're emptied out into the baron's…
First Stomach
You've been engulfed into a butcher's dream: steak, steak galore, walls plastered with pastrami, roast beef pillars rising into porterhouse arches, meatloaf squishing beneath your weight. Gravy saliva gushes from the baron's throat above. Around you floats debris from his past meals: broken chairs, bedposts, bookcases, curtains, even one rotting horse still tethered to its cart. He's eaten more than vegetables in his heyday.
You examine the steak
You're sinking, darling, down into the gravy, deeper through the meat. Muscles contract around you. Somewhere some great sphincter opens and squeezes you through its tube. There's no time for sightseeing when you're being digested.

At every side, smashed architecture leans, castles entire piled against cottages and mansions and wrecked towers whose spires jut through cascading acid falls. A countryside ruined lines this stomach with toppled walls. Rumbles upset the rubble. Stones clatter and brickwork breaks. The baron's working to process more than tonight's supper.
You eat baron
Another vegetable comes down the pipe and clobbers you. This one's a great potato. What a bump it makes! Again the baron's gut convulses, more muscles contract, and you're sucked through another sphincter's lips.

Now you're in deep, and not alone. Halfway-digested heaps gleam in the dripping dark. Look closer and you'll see them looking back. They moan, although they won't move far, not rendered into chyme. What was an oyster duchess leaks across a lobster gentleman's boiled red claws. Oatmeal courtiers have softened into sludge. Rooster feet twitch, tendons gelatinous. They've been stewing.
You eat baron
They may have feeble hands, these eaten souls, but they have hands and hands and hands. You're swamped, pulled deeper by hands, hands, until you can't glimpse anything but hands—and then the suction's got your feet, and slurp you've gone downward once more.

All's calm here in the baron's deepest pit. No clutter but a single candle burning on a small table. A black figure sits at that table, carving vegetables with knife and fork. It's blacker than a shadow, blacker than blackness. Its silhouette resembles the baron.
You look at the figure
As you watch, the figure cuts an eggplant and lifts one slice to where most people have mouths. It has no features, no contours illuminated by the candle's flame. All light's absorbed completely into its shadow.
You look at the table
It doesn't eat the eggplant.
No, instead it shifts to look at you, lowers its fork again. Now something spreads across its head: little white teeth smiling. Your vision's filled with the figure's blackness. No matter where you turn, there's nothing else. You cannot see the candle, or the table, or the stomach that's enclosing you.
You've been swallowed again.
Val sans Retour
Nothing but nothing surrounds you. A darkness deeper than the eyeless know. Well, dear, you're in a pickle now.
You eat the darkness
You can't eat the abyss. It's eaten you.
You eat the darkness
You can't eat the abyss. It's eaten you.

Wait one moment, what's that? Something else swallowed into the dark. You're drifting closer, or perhaps you've always been this close. In fact, drifting's hardly the word. Your feet might be on nothing yet they're planted firm.

Why, goodness, it's a woman. She's known better nights.
You examine the woman
She's swooned, frame wasted thin. Each muscle's just as visible as though her flesh were flayed, and lines divide her body as they would a butcher's chart. Spotted gossamer silk trails from her horned headdress.

"Please, please," she says, "take me away…"
You examine the headdress
All that's left from her courtly days, however long ago those were. She's been inside the baron's gut longer than some kingdoms survive. He'd be nothing, you see, without her anchoring his appetite.
You eat woman
"I'm not even myself," she says. "It's been too long… I'm spread too thin… trapped in here… and out there… open your mouth… I'd
rather be…
anywhere else…"
It's not polite to make a lady wait.
She crawls into your jaws, one stomach traded for another. No sooner have her toes slipped past your lips than the abyss shatters. You're weightless, falling, shadows splintered, and your impact punches back through the baron's belly.

Light blinds you. There's the roaring fireplace, and there's the Baron d'Boeuf roaring too—with stomachache. He can't contain what he's consumed. His bottomless gut's bottomless no more. Doubled over, he heaves his own insides out through his throat, gravy and steaks and sausages and meatballs and roast beef, everything that he's ever swallowed, everything from his basket, and your mouth's open for the feast. When he's finished, you're finished with him, and he's finished for good.
Third course: eaten.
Baron's Cabinet
A giant fireplace burns in a vacant room. Without the baron here to dwarf its size, the flames seem to lash higher than ever.

Northward you could return to the solar.
You enter the fireplace
You tiptoe carefully around the flames.

Sweat beads your brow. Heat ripples in the air above the hearth. Stand far against the fireplace's rearmost wall, where barbecue sauce oozes down the bricks; there you'll have space to skirt the blaze.

Northward you'd inch back to the baron's cabinet.
You look at the sauce
Globs glisten as the firelight flickers. Your nostrils inhale vinegar mingled with mustard, paprika, cayenne. Glorious sauce, why baste these bricks when you could baste a tongue?
You eat the sauce
You plant your hands into the sauce, lean forward and lick, lick. Mesquite flavors both savory and sweet thrill down your throat. You'd gulp this barbecue sauce by the gallon with delight. There's something strange, though, underneath the sauce.
You look at your surroundings
Sweat beads your brow. Heat ripples in the air above the hearth. Stand far against the fireplace's rearmost wall, where barbecue sauce oozes down the bricks; there you'll have space to skirt the blaze.

Northward you'd inch back to the baron's cabinet.
You eat sauce
Hullo, what's this? You keep licking until you've licked the last glob from the bricks, and then you stand back, cleaning your fingers. Here at the fireplace's rear you've found a concealed door built in the wall. Its opening leads down into a narrow spiral stair.
Go downwards
As you spiral downward, the air cools.

Great Hall (south end)
That's iron you smell, little one. No wonder when the walls run red, your footsteps slide on bloody flags, and every corner's heaped with broken bones. Midway down the hall rests a great cow whose bulk traps her within the room, pinioned between the walls, unable to reverse and see what's happened to her southern side. She has been hacked, she has been half-butchered, her ribs sawn and her muscles rent to leave a cavern in her flank.

Upward a hidden stair leads to the baron's fireplace.
You examine the cow
O mighty cow, what meat you might provide. You are a meat-filled mountainside! Miners could labor underneath your skin, unearth cuts marbled with the finest fat, translucent, white, creamy, carve brisket from your bones and wield pickaxes for kabobs. You'd feed a thousand mouths and more. You've already yielded meat by the tonne. Now here, my dear, is something worth dropping your jaw over. No common cow can open her body for a market.
You eat the cow
Moos thunder through the hall. She's felt that bite, darling.
You go north
Although you can't push past the cow, you can climb into her.

Great Hall (inside a cow)
She's been hollowed by blades, our fatted calf, her insides empty but for some shunned viscera. Every steak carved, each muscle stripped, her skeleton still holding shape despite its vacancy. Her chitterlings coil across her great mammary glands.

Southward you could climb outside again.
You examine the viscera
It seems as though some viscera weren't on the cutting list. Her chitterlings, for instance, draped and snaking in enormous loops, and her massive mammaries.
You look at the mammaries
An udder seen from the inside. No teats to suck, just slick flesh mounds ligament-lashed to her pelvis. They hardly hang; rather, they rest upon her inner skin, covered with chitterlings.
You touch the mammaries
Again you strain against your gut. My dear, this just won't do. Trust in your teeth, put more faith in your mouth, and learn how to apply your appetite. Eat, eat, and eat.
You eat the viscera
Heft an intestine in your arms. Its weight struggles to slip your grip. Bite down and chew and tear and then surrender when it doesn't tear, you cannot chew, your bites aren't strong enough. All right, let it slide back with its brethren.

Lifting this chitterling has plastered you with gore: a splendid bouquet for a carnivore.
You check what you're carrying
You have a hole in your stomach, and you're slathered with gore.
You examine the gore
Look at you, slathered, quite slathered in blood. You reek, my dear, as though you were a carcass left to fester after a culling.
You go south
You crawl back through the cow's ripped hide.

Great Hall (south end)
Your footsteps slide on bloody flags, and every corner's heaped with broken bones. Midway down the hall rests a great cow whose bulk traps her within the room, pinioned between the walls, unable to reverse and see what's happened to her southern side. She has been hacked, she has been half-butchered, her ribs sawn and her muscles rent to leave a cavern in her flank.

Upward a hidden stair leads to the baron's fireplace; northward you could climb into the cow.
Go upward
Sweat beads your brow. Heat ripples in the air above the hearth. Stand far against the fireplace's rearmost wall; there you'll have space to skirt the blaze.

Northward you'd inch back to the baron's cabinet, and a doorway leads down into a narrow spiral stair.
You go to the north
A giant fireplace burns in a vacant room. Without the baron here to dwarf its size, the flames seem to lash higher than ever.

Northward you could return to the solar; southward you'd step into the hearth.
You go north
Omelettes carpet the floor. A brazier crackles merrily, surrounded by soft lard couches with marshmallow pillows. Less appetizing's that cage in the corner, where a carrion crow hunches behind nougat bars, watching the room.

Southward you'll find the baron's cabinet, eastward the scriptorium, and downward stairs lead to the western tapestry.
You eat the Omelettes
A perfect omelette's paradise. Simple yet elegant, fluffed layers folded and threaded with butter fried a delicate yellow. Every bite is a sunrise on your tongue.
You eat the couches
You ooze into marvelous lard, slipping about with litheness like an eel. Smooth, soft, it's creamy on your skin and heaven on your tongue, but let's not lounge in idleness too long.
You eat the pillows
Yes, pop a pillow right into your mouth. It squishes wonderfully. Pure sugary sweetness, with no distracting flavors to dilute the rush.
You examine the bird
When soldiers lose their guts in war, crows find them on the battlefield. Now here's a crow fed on burst bellies aplenty. Its feathers drip with carrion. Its beak's a splintered bone. Its eyes are ruby hemorrhoids in its head.

"Let me out, let me out," caws the crow. "Let me out."
Sooochandler
SAVEYou've saved your place in the tale.
Sooochandler
All right, darling, let's resume the tale.
You eat bars
You bite into a nougat bar. It breaks.

"Out! Out!" the carrion crow caws. "Release me! Let me out!"
You eat the hole
It's in your stomach already, although it wasn't a hole when you swallowed it. No, it was an assurance you'd have all you ever wished to eat and more. Now it devours whatever you do.
You check what you're carrying
You have a hole in your stomach, and you're slathered with gore.
You eat the cage
"Release me! Now! Now!" caws the crow.

All right, quiet, you noisy bird. It takes a moment to chew through this much nougat. You work until you've nibbled a hole large enough, the crow flapping an impatient whirlwind inside the cage, not waiting for one instant to smash through once you've finished.

"Guts! Guts! I want guts!" caws the crow, flying east to the scriptorium.
You go to the east
Wisdom's stored here, the richest this world knows: how to cook well. Lox bookcases abound with shelves exceptionally stocked. You'll find more than one page worth your perusal if you're after instruction in how to prepare, say, three more courses for a feast.

Westward's passage to the solar, eastward lies the bower, and southward you'll walk out onto a balcony.

"Guts! Guts!" caws the crow, flying out to the south.
Go south
Nothing remains to gird the balcony now you've nibbled its balustrade. A step over the edge would plunge a person downward into the courtyard.

Northward you could return indoors to the scriptorium.

You arrive just in time to see the crow rise into the night sky, flapping southward beyond the castle walls. Crows always know where to find a slaughter.
Go downwards
Poised at the edge, prepared to leap… no, dear, step back. It's true that you've the space to jump, but you'd land as a pancake without anything planted below to cushion your descent.
Go north
Wisdom's stored here, the richest this world knows: how to cook well. Lox bookcases abound with shelves exceptionally stocked. You'll find more than one page worth your perusal if you're after instruction in how to prepare, say, three more courses for a feast.

Westward's passage to the solar, eastward lies the bower, and southward you'll walk out onto a balcony.
Go east
Overhead's spread the nighttime sky. What once was a bower's now mere rubble with crumbled walls. Whipped-cream clouds conceal the moon, floating just close enough to taste, and there's a chill to make your blood run cold.

Westward lies the scriptorium, and downward are stairs to the eastern tapestry.

Another sob reaches your ears. Someone's weeping nearby.
You wait
You consume time.
You examine the rubble
Imagine a tall tower and you'll imagine what isn't anymore. Time eats its fill as well as anyone. Mind that you don't tread too close to the edge; that would be quite a spill.

A cold wind blows across the sky, dragging the whipped-cream clouds away, and the moon sheds their veil to climb higher. Beams spill onto the castle. Shadows slide back, and the bower's gilded silver.

Now you can see a phantom lady sobbing at its brink.
You examine lady
No castle is complete without its wailing rampart ghost. Ours glimmers silver, clad in countless spoons, with spoons linked into her kirtle, and spoons for ruffles at her sleeves, and spoons cascading to her phantom feet. Her broken heart beats battered in her chest's tureen. With every sob, her eyes stream consommé. Her steps would clash, dippers for hands, her head a great ladle, had she more form than fog, but there's nary a clang from her kitchenware chains. Only an endless tearful ladling.
You examine the spoons
Entwined with spoons, braided with spoons, spoons twisted into spoons as intricate as chainmail mesh, her dress would press someone alive straight down into the ground. Not her. She floats.
You eat lady
Consommé mist lingers on your skin, but otherwise your arms pass through her fog. She'll need to sob much harder to produce substantial soup. In the meantime, lick what drops you can get. She doesn't even notice your approach.
You go downwards
You descend the staircase.

Across the eastern wall's hung a great tapestry woven with warfare and carnage. Your heart would have thundered in the skirmish sewn through these threads, wherein this castle's pretender found herself driven into exile. Ah, what a bloody rout that was.

Westward lies the balance gallery, stairs wind upward into the bower and downward to the armory, and southward the banquet hall has collapsed.
Go downwards
You descend the staircase.

Inhale that wondrous mouldering stench: fine cheeses stacked in ripening rows. A monger's cellar wouldn't boast a breadth more noseworthy. There's brie and cantal, gloucester, blue stilton and red leicester, morbier, spermyse, and maroilles amongst others heaped deep in shadow.

Westward's the undercroft, and upward a staircase curves to the eastern tapestry.
Go upwards
You ascend the staircase.

Across the eastern wall's hung a great tapestry woven with warfare and carnage. Your heart would have thundered in the skirmish sewn through these threads, wherein this castle's pretender found herself driven into exile. Ah, what a bloody rout that was.

Westward lies the balance gallery, stairs wind upward into the bower and downward to the armory, and southward the banquet hall has collapsed.

Now the odor in your mouth begins to dissipate.
You go upward
You ascend the staircase.

Overhead's spread the nighttime sky. What once was a bower's now mere rubble with crumbled walls. Bathed in moonlight, beside the brink, weeps a phantasmal grey lady.

Westward lies the scriptorium, and downward are stairs to the eastern tapestry.
Blow
You blow out the onion's tearjerking odor, and as it wafts toward the phantom, she begins to sniffle. Ah well, a sniffle's not enough—but wait, her sniffles turn to sobs, her tureen heaves, her spoons tremble. An onion's no cause for sorrow, but even the smallest teardrop can ripple into memory. Her memories flood through her eyes, unleashing tides.

Drink, drink, my darling, drink while her soup's hot!
You eat lady
Wonderful soup, beautiful soup, pouring in torrents from her eyes! Stand underneath and let her teardrops rain into your mouth. "O woe! O woe!" she cries, and every cry's another ladle's worth spooned hot on the bower. There's consommé, of course, that classic broth unparalleled, but as her sorrow deepens more soups cascade down her cheeks: bisque, bouillon, even bouillabaisse.
You eat lady
Quickly, before her sorrow cools! You'll never sample stock as rich as these sobs splashed across your face. Don't let them waste! Broth beaded with clear floating fat, chowder enriched with butter, seasoned plentifully with pepper and sea-salt, and onion soup creamy and gratinéed. Watching you slurp her tears, she wails again: "O woe! O woe!"
You eat lady
She's leaking minestrone and borscht, crying crab, carrot, okróshka, gushing goulash and gumbo with gut-wrenching gasps. She's not meant for this world, her sorrow's steeped too strong, you're sucking her into more tangibility with every slurp. "O woe! O woe!" she weeps, with leek, lobster, and lentil stew pooling below, and oxtail and split pea outpouring from her chest, and shark-fin clinging to her chin.
You eat lady
More soup! Lick every silver spoon… taste no regret… what's done is done… only… I beg you, please… strain everything… simmer the
pain…
reduce me… until nothing's left… except the reduction, my dear,
more
potent than before.

"O woe!" she wails. "O woe! O woe!"

Her broken heart's boiled over. Brace yourself.

Lamented fate, what cauldrons you stir in the soul! You've no compassion, no remorse! What you've got is an artist's sense for when to sprinkle melodrama's spice, when to thicken a broth with wretchedness. Our ladling lady's overcome with tears to bring the bower down.

Soup runs over the rubble, streams into the stairs. Bread breaks as the floor crumbles underfoot. Phantom screeching splinters the moon. Stew nearly drowns you with every swallow, but you're not drowned: you're buoyant on spooned catharsis. Threads float around your sides, unraveled from a ruined tapestry. Sopped chambers sink. Waves flush you ashore in the undercroft, and with one final keening shriek the castle's ghost is gone, nothing now but a memory left on your tongue.

Fourth course: eaten.

Come and leave as you like. This red-velvet chamber's vacant, with no one left to ensure prisoners stay locked away.

Westward lies the creamery, southward the dungeon, and eastward the armory has been destroyed.
You check what you're carrying
You have a hole in your stomach, and you're slathered with gore.
You examine the armory
If you'd like to see the armory, try walking east.
You go east
I hope you ate what cheese you wanted when you had the chance. The armory's demolished, buried utterly beneath chambers collapsed during the castle ghost's lament.
Go south
Your footsteps crunch across the bridge.

Wasteland, blasted and bubbling with molten chocolate bogs. Steam rises to the stars. Across the fens, impaled at every angle, skewers thrust into the ground, the night sky silhouettes human corpses.

A carrion crow perches atop a nearby skewer, picking for supper.

Northward the drawbridge stretches back to the castle, and a downward scramble along its embankment would see you into the moat.
You look at the bogs
Here's desolation, darling. Here's conquest.
You look at the steam
Climbing vapors melt into the dark.
You examine the skewers
Long and two-pronged. Skewers you'd use to spear fruit meant for gilding in a chocolate pot, but twisted with handles submerged, prongs staked skyward. You could not count their quantity.
You look at the corpses
Not fresh corpses by any means. These have been left to rot for such a span their skin's shrunken, muscles withered to bone-stuck strings. Enemies all, and planted for a cautionary wood. Challenge the castle: here's what will happen.
You look at the crow
When soldiers lose their guts in war, crows find them on the battlefield. Now here's a crow fed on burst bellies aplenty. Its feathers drip with carrion. Its beak's a splintered bone. Its eyes are ruby hemorrhoids in its head.

"Fresh gore, fresh gore!" caws the crow. "I smell fresh gore. I'll follow you. I want fresh guts for my supper. Take me to find fresh guts!"

It flaps over to land on your shoulder. Soon it has pecked the gore from your body.

My dear, you have a pet.
Go north
Your footsteps crunch across the bridge.

You stand before the castle's only gate. Through this passage must pass all seeking admittance or leave, whether they be the fairest or most squalid amongst us.

Southward the great drawbridge has been lowered.

Walk northward, noble guests, to the courtyard; slink eastward, servants, serfs bearing supplies, through that low kitchen door. All to their stationed ranks.
You go north
No common bailey, but a garden with walls trellis-wound. Its master hauls herself from bed to bed, throwing her tendrils out to drag her leafy head across the ground. That would be Jenny Lettucehead, the castle gardener extraordinaire. Here you're in her domain, patches plump with young cabbages.

A few savoy heads mewl for Jenny's attention.

Northward, below a balcony, a door opens into the balance gallery, and southward are the gateway and drawbridge.
Go north
Northward a gleaming golden door would lead into the chapel, but it's sealed. Beneath your feet, the floor's plated with silver polished to a mirror's shine.

Southward lies the courtyard, westward's a tapestried chamber, but eastward the castle's collapsed.
You go west
Across the western wall's another tapestry embroidered with a grand combat, in which this castle's vilest invader, the mouse king, had his tail chopped. Milk flows into the chamber from the south, streaming through breadstick grates set in the floor.

A durkha guard stands, southward, at the entrance into the great hall.

Eastward's the balance gallery; upward a staircase runs to the solar.
Go upward
You ascend the staircase.

Omelettes carpet the floor. A brazier crackles merrily, surrounded by soft lard couches with marshmallow pillows. In the corner, only nougat scraps remain from the cage you consumed. Its former tenant caws on your shoulder.

Southward you'll find the baron's cabinet, eastward the scriptorium, and downward stairs lead to the western tapestry.
You go south
A giant fireplace burns in a vacant room. Without the baron here to dwarf its size, the flames seem to lash higher than ever.

Northward you could return to the solar; southward you'd step into the hearth.
You go to the south
You tiptoe carefully around the flames.

Sweat beads your brow. Heat ripples in the air above the hearth. Stand far against the fireplace's rearmost wall; there you'll have space to skirt the blaze.

Northward you'd inch back to the baron's cabinet, and a doorway leads down into a narrow spiral stair.
Go downward
As you spiral downward, the air cools.

Great Hall (south end)
Your footsteps slide on bloody flags, and every corner's heaped with broken bones. Midway down the hall rests a great cow whose bulk traps her within the room, pinioned between the walls, unable to reverse and see what's happened to her southern side. She has been hacked, she has been half-butchered, her ribs sawn and her muscles rent to leave a cavern in her flank.

Upward a hidden stair leads to the baron's fireplace; northward you could climb into the cow.

"Abattoir! Abattoir!" caws the carrion crow. "Gore! Gore! I'll eat fresh guts tonight!"

It flaps ahead, ripping strips from the cow. Once it finds the wound carved into her flesh, it burrows through, plunging into the carnage with a scavenger's hearty passion. As for the cow's response: her moos are thunder-booms.
Go north
You climb into the cow again.

Great Hall (inside a cow)
Bloody plumage thrashes your face. Claws pinch and sling intestines left and right. Your pet crow's gone berserk, slurping down chitterlings like worms, jabbing its beak and talons into the cow's massive glands. All this madness must put immense pressure on her udder.

Southward's your only exit. Take it, dear.
You look at the udder
An udder seen from the inside. No teats to suck, just slick flesh mounds ligament-lashed to her pelvis. They hardly hang; rather, they rest upon her inner skin, covered with chitterlings.
You go south
You crawl back through the cow's ripped hide.

Great Hall (south end)
Your footsteps slide on bloody flags, and every corner's heaped with broken bones. Midway down the hall rests a great cow whose bulk traps her within the room, pinioned between the walls, unable to reverse and see what's happened to her southern side. She has been hacked, she has been half-butchered, her ribs sawn and her muscles rent to leave a cavern in her flank.

Upward a hidden stair leads to the baron's fireplace; northward you could climb into the cow.
Go upward
Sweat beads your brow. Heat ripples in the air above the hearth. Stand far against the fireplace's rearmost wall; there you'll have space to skirt the blaze.

Northward you'd inch back to the baron's cabinet, and a doorway leads down into a narrow spiral stair.
You go to the north
A giant fireplace burns in a vacant room. Without the baron here to dwarf its size, the flames seem to lash higher than ever.

Northward you could return to the solar; southward you'd step into the hearth.
You go north
Omelettes carpet the floor. A brazier crackles merrily, surrounded by soft lard couches with marshmallow pillows. In the corner, only nougat scraps remain from the cage you consumed.

Southward you'll find the baron's cabinet, eastward the scriptorium, and downward stairs lead to the western tapestry.
You go down
You descend the staircase.

Across the western wall's another tapestry embroidered with a grand combat, in which this castle's vilest invader, the mouse king, had his tail chopped. Milk flows into the chamber from the south, streaming through breadstick grates set in the floor.

A durkha guard stands, southward, at the entrance into the great hall.

Eastward's the balance gallery; upward a staircase runs to the solar.
You look at the guard
Some guardsmen make others scramble: here's such a one. He towers at the threshold into the great hall, armored in a rind heavier than stone, harder than steel. That's durkha, my dear, champion amongst cheeses, aged for decades until its curds could crack an overeager jaw.
Go south
No common bailey, but a garden with walls trellis-wound. Its master hauls herself from bed to bed, throwing her tendrils out to drag her leafy head across the ground. That would be Jenny Lettucehead, the castle gardener extraordinaire. Here you're in her domain, patches plump with young cabbages.

As soon as she's tended to one, another cabbage chirps for Jenny's care.

Northward, below a balcony, a door opens into the balance gallery, and southward are the gateway and drawbridge.
You go to the east
Nobody now remains to tend this kitchen's hearth or knead the dough rolled on the countertops. Neglected saucepans cool. Flour has settled on the floor, tracked with footprints.

Westward a doorway opens to the castle gate; stairs wind upward to the pantry and downward to the buttery; northward the banquet hall lies in ruin.
Go downward
You descend the staircase.

Down here the air is cool and dry and still. Along the walls are stacked the castle's butts, rack upon rack, enormous barrels corked to keep fine beverages in store. The greatest barrel's opened to reveal a hidden passage to the north.

Upward a staircase runs to the kitchen.
Go north
You creep through the secret passage.

Dungeon (east cell)
Against one wall towers a pastry maiden with its cage ajar, and in that cage a secret passage leads southward through the toothpicks. Although their panel's been sprung wide, a skewered corpse still dangles from the spikes.

Westward an open doorway leads to the dungeon.
You go north
Come and leave as you like. This red-velvet chamber's vacant, with no one left to ensure prisoners stay locked away.

Westward lies the creamery, southward the dungeon, and eastward the armory has been destroyed.
You go west
Runnels trace down the walls where cream has leaked through ceiling grates. Vats brim with souring milk. Mould carpets the room's corners, mushrooms in the damp, and a bloated corpse has slipped from a torn cheesecloth bag.

Eastward's the undercroft.
Go south
Your footsteps crunch across the bridge.

Wasteland, blasted and bubbling with molten chocolate bogs. Steam rises to the stars. Across the fens, impaled at every angle, skewers thrust into the ground, the night sky silhouettes human corpses.

Northward the drawbridge stretches back to the castle, and a downward scramble along its embankment would see you into the moat.
Go downward
You scramble down the embankment.

All the water's been drained, and now this trench is brackish with foul-smelling filth. You'll spy the garderobe above, projecting from an upper floor, streaks running down the castle wall to form a great nightsoil mound below.

Protruding from this mound are a guard's legs.

Upward you could scramble back to the fens.
You examine the guard
Poor soul. He never guessed he'd pass the pearly gates through a privy.
You look at the filth
Droppings have splattered here for years, none too great nor too small to contribute. Don't suppose those alone sat in the garderobe made this summit: pisspots and trash from every quarter find themselves thrown to the moat. It's a most equalizing muck.
You eat guard
Waste not, want not. A fine motto. Once you've withdrawn him from the muck, you devour his jarlsberg arms. He's mild—too mild, perhaps, considering how deeply the moat's filth has already imbued him with its own flavor. That nutty aftertaste would be more pleasant with alternate scenery.
You describe your surroundings
All the water's been drained, and now this trench is brackish with foul-smelling filth. You'll spy the garderobe above, projecting from an upper floor, streaks running down the castle wall to form a great nightsoil mound below.

Upward you could scramble back to the fens.
Go upwards
You crawl back up the embankment.

Wasteland, blasted and bubbling with molten chocolate bogs. Steam rises to the stars. Across the fens, impaled at every angle, skewers thrust into the ground, the night sky silhouettes human corpses.

Northward the drawbridge stretches back to the castle, and a downward scramble along its embankment would see you into the moat.
You look at moat
Around the castle wraps the moat. Its trench would trap whatever infidels tried to invade. You should have seen them in the past, backsliding with splashes, sinking under their armor's weight. Those days are done. Those wars are won. None who value living would assault the castle now.
Go north
Your footsteps crunch across the bridge.

You stand before the castle's only gate. Through this passage must pass all seeking admittance or leave, whether they be the fairest or most squalid amongst us.

Southward the great drawbridge has been lowered.

Walk northward, noble guests, to the courtyard; slink eastward, servants, serfs bearing supplies, through that low kitchen door. All to their stationed ranks.
You go north
No common bailey, but a garden with walls trellis-wound. Its master hauls herself from bed to bed, throwing her tendrils out to drag her leafy head across the ground. That would be Jenny Lettucehead, the castle gardener extraordinaire. Here you're in her domain, patches plump with young cabbages.

She must be famished, poor Jenny, always busy with crying babes.

Northward, below a balcony, a door opens into the balance gallery, and southward are the gateway and drawbridge.
You look at Jenny
A lettucehead like hers would break the widest wheelbarrow and command every ribbon at the fair. Put away your spades and seedling dreams, farmhands; you're through. Pearl onions at her maize earlobes. Ripe cherry cheeks. Jenny, let's see your carrot jaws. A rather sharkish smile, hasn't she? Quell your concerns and count your blessings she's no predator. Soil's her standard fare, the richer, fouler the better. After a battle, when the land's imbued with rot, flowers still bloom.
You get the head
Attend, child, when I tell you most actions are irrelevant. Whatever you take, learn to take with your teeth. Whatever you do will require your tongue. Utilize your appetite and eat.
You eat Jenny
It's futile, darling. Either you're too slow or Jenny Lettucehead's too fast, but it amounts to the same thing. She's always clambering away to tend another bed.
You look at bed
Her little charges snuggle in their little beds. Bald cabbage heads wrapped in thick cabbage leaves. They coo, they do, they gurgle and they mewl, these savoy babes tucked in neat nursery rows. Jenny's at one plot or another attending their chirps.
Go north
Northward a gleaming golden door would lead into the chapel, but it's sealed. Beneath your feet, the floor's plated with silver polished to a mirror's shine.

Southward lies the courtyard, westward's a tapestried chamber, but eastward the castle's collapsed.
You go west
Across the western wall's another tapestry embroidered with a grand combat, in which this castle's vilest invader, the mouse king, had his tail chopped. Milk flows into the chamber from the south, streaming through breadstick grates set in the floor.

A durkha guard stands, southward, at the entrance into the great hall.

Eastward's the balance gallery; upward a staircase runs to the solar.
You eat guard
You'll do no better than you did before. He throws you back again. At least he's lackadaisical about your continued assaults. No, you'll need a more indirect approach.
Ascend
You ascend the staircase.

Omelettes carpet the floor. A brazier crackles merrily, surrounded by soft lard couches with marshmallow pillows. In the corner, only nougat scraps remain from the cage you consumed.

Southward you'll find the baron's cabinet, eastward the scriptorium, and downward stairs lead to the western tapestry.
You go south
A giant fireplace burns in a vacant room. Without the baron here to dwarf its size, the flames seem to lash higher than ever.

Northward you could return to the solar; southward you'd step into the hearth.
You go to the south
You tiptoe carefully around the flames.

Sweat beads your brow. Heat ripples in the air above the hearth. Stand far against the fireplace's rearmost wall; there you'll have space to skirt the blaze.

Northward you'd inch back to the baron's cabinet, and a doorway leads down into a narrow spiral stair.
Go downwards
As you spiral downward, the air cools.

Great Hall (south end)
Your footsteps slide on bloody flags, and every corner's heaped with broken bones. Midway down the hall rests a great cow whose bulk traps her within the room, pinioned between the walls, unable to reverse and see what's happened to her southern side. She has been hacked, she has been half-butchered, her ribs sawn and her muscles rent to leave a cavern in her flank.

Upward a hidden stair leads to the baron's fireplace; northward you could climb into the cow.
Go north
You climb into the cow again.

Great Hall (inside a cow)
Bloody plumage thrashes your face. Claws pinch and sling intestines left and right. Your pet crow's gone berserk, slurping down chitterlings like worms, jabbing its beak and talons into the cow's massive glands. All this madness must put immense pressure on her udder.

Southward's your only exit. Take it, dear.
You eat the udder
"No! No!" caws the crow. "All mine! All mine!"
You go south
You crawl back through the cow's ripped hide.

Great Hall (south end)
Your footsteps slide on bloody flags, and every corner's heaped with broken bones. Midway down the hall rests a great cow whose bulk traps her within the room, pinioned between the walls, unable to reverse and see what's happened to her southern side. She has been hacked, she has been half-butchered, her ribs sawn and her muscles rent to leave a cavern in her flank.

Upward a hidden stair leads to the baron's fireplace; northward you could climb into the cow.
You eat the cow
You bite again. She moos again.
Go east
Wisdom's stored here, the richest this world knows: how to cook well. Lox bookcases abound with shelves exceptionally stocked. You'll find more than one page worth your perusal if you're after instruction in how to prepare, say, two more courses for a feast.

Southward you'll walk out onto a balcony, westward lies the solar, but eastward the castle's collapsed.
You look at the books
Appyl Fryturs, Befe Farsed, Capons yn
Dorre, Chawden for a Swan, Dowcetts,
Gallentyne, Gardyn Grynes, Genoa Ryse,
Gurnard, Lachrymose Supe, Lamprays,
Mortrose of Fyshe, Ordyrves, Pecoke,
Podyng, Pokerounce, Samon Rostyd, Swete
Mylke, Tarts Owte of Lente, and Vyneagyr.
You examine milk
Milk's streaming from the great hall, dripping down through breadsticks latticed underfoot. Without these grates to drain the room, we'd have milk flooding out into the gallery as well.
You examine the grates
Milk's streaming from the great hall, dripping down through breadsticks latticed underfoot from wall to wall. Without these grates to drain the room, we'd have milk flooding out into the gallery as well.
You eat the grates
These breadsticks aren't the best, one must confess. They're rather stale, but then again, they're being used for drainage grates. You break them from the floor to break them with your teeth.

"Halt!" says the durkha guard, advancing to stop you—and breaking further through the broken floor. You tumble along with him, land unharmed atop mushrooms.
He lands less well, with a loud splash.
Creamery
Runnels trace down the walls where cream has leaked through ceiling grates. Inside a vat thrashes the durkha guard, unable to climb out as his rind softens in the sour milk. Mould carpets the room's corners, mushrooms in the damp, and a bloated corpse has slipped from a torn cheesecloth bag.

Eastward's the undercroft.
You eat guard
Now you can take your time with him, as one must take one's time to chew durkha. Oh yes, it's still slow-going, even after he's been soaked, with every bite a contest between your teeth and his cheese, but your teeth win. He calls you "Wastrel!" and "Blackguard!" until the end. Even his insults are scrumptious. You have served well, noble durkha.
Go north
No common bailey, but a garden with walls trellis-wound. Its master hauls herself from bed to bed, throwing her tendrils out to drag her leafy head across the ground. That would be Jenny Lettucehead, the castle gardener extraordinaire. Here you're in her domain, patches plump with young cabbages.

They're never done mewling for their caretaker, these savoy children.

Northward, below a balcony, a door opens into the balance gallery, and southward are the gateway and drawbridge.
Go north
Northward a gleaming golden door would lead into the chapel, but it's sealed. Beneath your feet, the floor's plated with silver polished to a mirror's shine.

Southward lies the courtyard, westward's a tapestried chamber, but eastward the castle's collapsed.
You go west
Across the western wall's another tapestry embroidered with a grand combat, in which this castle's vilest invader, the mouse king, had his tail chopped. Milk flows into the chamber from the south, streaming through broken breadsticks that lead down into the creamery.

Southward lies the great hall, eastward the balance gallery, and upward a stair runs to the solar.
Go south
Great Hall (north end)
What might have been a hall packed with courtiers is cleared to leave flagstones streaming with shallow cream. Kneel down, and tremble if you will, knowing that awe would never be misplaced before the monstrous cow whose bulk rests midway down the room and fills its width with flesh patterned in black and white. She is ideal; she is supreme; she is the cow that other cows might dream to be as men dream to be gods.

Her eyes follow you and she moos with discomfort, as though pleading your assistance.

Northward you can take your leave to the western tapestry.
You examine the cow
Gigantic would blush at her size, titanic would stammer, colossal might stand on tiptoe and barely scrape her hooves. No cow was ever such a cow! Reclined, her udder swollen on the floor, her forelegs shoved under a dewlap that could crush ten typical heifers, she cannot budge her neck, she cannot shift her weight, her rear and front ends are pressed into the surrounding walls. Step to her side? Perish the thought! You could not push a flea around her flanks, she fills the room with such fleshy fullness.
You examine the floor
She can't help it, our cow: she drips. Her drippings trickle to the floor, but they're nothing compared with what her teats hold in reserve.
You examine the udder
An udder's never wanted milking more. Swollen, straining, pink dugs bulging. What hands could squeeze teats vast as these? Your arms can barely manage a nipple.
You eat the cow
Gracious, this cow is no tartare to be nibbled living and raw. She moos with arch disdain; you pull your mouth away; you could not tear a chunk from her thick hide. All the better when her udder begs with bigness for milking.
You eat the udder
Ah, now she starts to stream: a subtle spurt at first, but stronger as you squeeze her teats and pull white jets from her nipples. Not pure white, no, but tinged with mild luscious yellowness. That's fat for you, rich, creamy fat to thicken every squirting line whose liquid sprinkles on your lips.
You eat the udder
Harder, harder you pull, more resolute with every tug, twisting her teats downward to aim their milk into your mouth. High overhead she moos and her moos resonate throughout the hall, within the vaults, rumble the walls. Guzzle as quickly as you can, there's more milk than will fill your throat, spilling over your lips to splash the stones.
You eat the udder
All your milking's done nothing to empty her swollen teats. They bulge; she moos; your arms ache as you pull that massive pink udder. Now her nipples are blasting milk across the flagstone floor, spray scattering, splattering walls, raining over the room. She tries and fails to readjust her weight, can't shift her hooves. Moo, moo, you cow, that's it, push out your milk, spill everything.
You eat the udder
Yes, yes, eyes shielded from the spray, you're almost there… one
final
tug… one last twist on her pinkest teat… she moos a long low lowing moo… you wanted this, oh, how does one say no… yes, yes, that's it, no, no… take what you will… drink me, I'm yours… that's why…
that's
why…

Her udder bursts.

…that's why she's here: to be emptied.

Milk crashes from her body. Black and white spots sag, her skin shrivels, merely a husk to house the fluid frothing at the walls. Flagstones clack loose. Vaults groan, buckle. An ocean uncorked churns inside the hall, bones flotsam on buttercream tides whose waves submerge you as the castle cracks.

An undercurrent's snared you, drawn you into the whirlpool. Around, around rushes the cream with force to whip its foam; custard cascades into the moat; with squawks a panicked crow wings to the wastes as wings collapse. My word, she's a mudslide in milk, rooms compromised and crumbling, debris and cottage cheese flooding your mouth. Sprawl where you've fallen. Spread your arms. Embrace the avalanche with open jaws. Drink deep, drink well until it ends. You'll never savor dairy more divine.

Fifth course: eaten.

Milk runs along the moat's bottom, and from its surface rises a nightsoil mound that not even a flood could wash away.

Scramble upward again and you'll regain the fens.
Go upwards
You crawl back up the embankment.

Wasteland, blasted and bubbling with molten chocolate bogs. Steam rises to the stars. Across the fens, impaled at every angle, skewers thrust into the ground, the night sky silhouettes human corpses.

Northward the drawbridge stretches back to the castle, and a downward scramble along its embankment would see you into the moat.
You go to the north
No common bailey, but a garden with walls trellis-wound. Its master hauls herself from bed to bed, throwing her tendrils out to drag her leafy head across the ground. That would be Jenny Lettucehead, the castle gardener extraordinaire. Here you're in her domain, patches plump with young cabbages.

One cabbage whines, another sighs, and Jenny's vines cradle them both.

Northward, below a balcony, a door opens into the balance gallery, and southward are the gateway and drawbridge.
Go north
Northward a gleaming golden door would lead into the chapel, but it's sealed. Beneath your feet, the floor's plated with silver polished to a mirror's shine.

Southward lies the courtyard; westward and eastward, both wings have collapsed.
Wait
You consume time.

As you stand in the gallery, the floor sinks. Click click click
click click: chains rattle inside the walls. More mechanisms
groan above the golden door, beginning to lift its gigantic slab, but then they stop clicking and the door doesn't budge.
You examine the floor
Your reflection: superb, splendid, spectacular. You're thick in all the right places, larded to a magnificent degree by the five courses you've finished. Think how plump you'll become after the last.
You jump
As you jump, the floor rises, and when you land, it sinks again.
You eat door
Biting's useless. Licking's fruitless. Your teeth don't dent the gold.
Go south
When you leave the gallery, its floor rises again.

No common bailey, but a garden with walls trellis-wound. Its master hauls herself from bed to bed, throwing her tendrils out to drag her leafy head across the ground. That would be Jenny Lettucehead, the castle gardener extraordinaire. Here you're in her domain, patches plump with young cabbages.

More mewls from more nurseries draw Jenny across the courtyard.

Northward, below a balcony, a door opens into the balance gallery, and southward are the gateway and drawbridge.
You look at the balcony
You would've had a view into the courtyard from that balcony,
but you'll never reach it now that both the castle's wings have been destroyed.

Still, you might discover another vantage upstairs.
Go west
Through a narrow window there's a view across the moat. Another hole once ran a chain to the drawbridge: no more. Root beer bottles lie tumbled beneath a table.

Westward the garderobe's collapsed, leaving only a ledge, and eastward you'd return to the pantry.
You go to the west
When the great hall toppled, it took the garderobe with it. Nothing's left but this perch newly exposed to the courtyard down to the north.

Eastward you could walk, carefully, back into the gatehouse.
You go north
Poised at the edge, prepared to leap… no, you step back. It's true that you've the space to jump, but you'd land as a pancake without anything to cushion your descent.
You look at the perch
I'd not stay here too long, darling. It's quite precarious.
You examine the courtyard
In the darkness, you can't see much below, but there's no missing Jenny Lettucehead. She's roving around the courtyard, nearby one moment and distant the next.
You look at Jenny
From here her head's a picture-perfect salad, dressing-drizzled, topped with sliced apples, pears, toasted walnuts. You'd never glimpse those garnishes at ground level, not with her giant lettucehead soaring above your own.

She's hauling herself around the garden.
You eat Jenny
At this height? Not a chance, darling. You'd have to jump down onto her.
You examine the hole
What chain? Darling, you ate it already.
You look at beer
It seems there's been a tipple here. Root beer bottles lie scattered, drained to their last drops. Shame's not something the castle guards imbibe, apparently.
You go east
Don't knock your head on vegetables above, enormous bundles that drape from the ceiling's beams. Here are eggplants in a clump, and turnips rocking where you've nudged a brace.

Westward you'll find the gatehouse, downward a stair spirals into the kitchen, but northward the storeroom's collapsed.
Go downwards
You descend the staircase.

Nobody now remains to tend this kitchen's hearth or knead the dough rolled on the countertops. Neglected saucepans cool. Flour has settled on the floor, tracked with footprints.

Westward a doorway opens to the castle gate; stairs wind upward to the pantry and downward to the buttery; northward the banquet hall lies in ruin.
You examine the Castle
Castle Charyot, some call it now. It gained that name in its pretender's reign, but names are only doors. When one door shuts, whether after an hour or a thousand years, another name will crawl onto a tongue to open more.
Go down
You scramble down the embankment.

Milk runs along the moat's bottom, and from its surface rises a nightsoil mound that not even a flood could wash away.

Scramble upward again and you'll regain the fens.
You look at the Milk
All that remains from the deluge you drank. This milk's gone brown and rancid flowing here in the moat's muck. Sludge sucks your feet with every step you take.
You go north
No common bailey, but a garden with walls trellis-wound. Its master hauls herself from bed to bed, throwing her tendrils out to drag her leafy head across the ground. That would be Jenny Lettucehead, the castle gardener extraordinaire. Here you're in her domain, patches plump with young cabbages.

Her vines caress two cabbages gurgling in the dirt.

Northward, below a balcony, a door opens into the balance gallery, and southward are the gateway and drawbridge.
You climb head
You have to eat. You have no choice. Next time, no matter what you try, you'll try to eat instead, and you'll keep eating after that. All actions you attempt tonight, you'll attempt with your mouth.
Go north
Walk no farther. You'll walk into thin air. The storeroom has crumbled into the banquet hall, and you'd break your bones twenty different ways were you to take a tumble after it.
You go to the north
You might go westward or eastward.
You check your inventory
You have a hole in your stomach.
You eat the radish
Crunch, crunch, crunch! Everything's drowned out as you crunch crunching radishes. Their crunches resonate inside your head. Each bite's exceptionally crisp.
Go north
No common bailey, but a garden with walls trellis-wound. Its master hauls herself from bed to bed, throwing her tendrils out to drag her leafy head across the ground. That would be Jenny Lettucehead, the castle gardener extraordinaire. Here you're in her domain, patches plump with young cabbages.

She could use some fresh soil herself, our overworked Jenny.

Northward, below a balcony, a door opens into the balance gallery, and southward are the gateway and drawbridge.
You eat bed
You eat another cabbage. Jenny won't stop you.
You eat Jenny
You won't catch her, my dear. Your only hope's finding a method to plant her in place. After all this gardening, I'm sure that she'd appreciate pausing to have a bite.
You eat the soil
Even the dirt is delicious, with aromatic coffee grounds mingled amongst its clods. You dig into the soil and shovel it down.
You examine the soil
Moist soil's been turned here, enriched by buckets from the moat. A castle never wants for compost after its chamberpots have been tossed. Jelly worms twist and wriggle through the dirt.
You look at Jenny
A lettucehead like hers would break the widest wheelbarrow and command every ribbon at the fair. Put away your spades and seedling dreams, farmhands; you're through. Pearl onions at her maize earlobes. Ripe cherry cheeks. Jenny, let's see your carrot jaws. A rather sharkish smile, hasn't she? Quell your concerns and count your blessings she's no predator. Soil's her standard fare, the richer, fouler the better. After a battle, when the land's imbued with rot, flowers still bloom.
You cry
Never despair, my dear.
You get the mound
You are going to eat.

Praise all that's sweet, child, you're not a chamberpot! And yet you've dug your hands into the filth and started packing down fistfuls. Feculent morsels dribble on your chin. Your cheeks balloon. Your willpower's commendable. Don't swallow, darling: spare yourself and spit.
You go north
No common bailey, but a garden with walls trellis-wound. Its master hauls herself from bed to bed, throwing her tendrils out to drag her leafy head across the ground. That would be Jenny Lettucehead, the castle gardener extraordinaire. Here you're in her domain, patches plump with young cabbages.

There's cooing from one nursery, and Jenny's tendrils scramble to investigate.

Northward, below a balcony, a door opens into the balance gallery, and southward are the gateway and drawbridge.
You drop the soil
I told you, you're going to eat.

Your mouth's packed. Go ahead and spit.
Spit
Bend over, yes, heave out the filth, puke everything into a steaming pile till your mouth's empty.

Now wipe your chin and stand aside: Jenny's at hand.

Vines slither toward the midden that you've made. She smells it, Jenny does, manure fit for pomegranate queens and cabbage kings. She'll have that feast or this garden's not her land to command. Her lettucehead crashes across the yard, she plants herself, tendrils surging to scoop the filth into her yawning maw.
You look at your surroundings
No common bailey, but a garden with walls trellis-wound. Its master's feasting at a mound whose stench steams in the nighttime air. That would be Jenny Lettucehead, vines slithering to convey fetid morsels to her mouth. Here you're in her domain, patches plump with young cabbages.

Northward, below a balcony, a door opens into the balance gallery, and southward are the gateway and drawbridge.
You look at the garden
In the darkness, you can't see much below, but there's no missing Jenny Lettucehead. She's planted herself right beneath your perch.
Go downward
What's that balled in your throat? A lump?

My dear, gulp down your fear and jump!

Skyward you leap, earthward you fall, and with a leafy smash you crash into the salad greens crowning the castle gardener.
Courtyard (atop Jenny Lettucehead)
Sweet nectar, what supreme salad is this! Arugula, ripe tomatoes, avocados in creamy halves, croutons larger than cannonballs, diced apples and poached pears and parmesan sprinkled as liberal as you please. Olives roll underneath your feet, toasted walnuts might stub your toes, everything's drizzled well with truffle oil vinaigrette.

Jenny's not unaware you're on her head. She groans aloud.
You eat Jenny
With vegetation all around, you dive forward into the ground: no ground at all, but leaves layered on leaves enwrapping Jenny's giant head. Burrow and bite. Your jaws find purchase everywhere. Shred, swallow, shred, swallow again. Claw clumps and gobble them until they're gone.

Vines slither heavenward to dislodge you.
You eat Jenny
Now what's this underneath your gobbled greens: alfalfa sprouts? They burst through shredded foliage, unfurling budded follicles. Fistfuls are yours to yank and chomp, devouring more than bushels would bind, than bales would hold. You'll have more, more arugula, more lettuce leaves, more salad greens.

What's that? Not long enough? Jenny's vines strain to reach you and she roars.
You eat Jenny
Your jaws drip mulch. Fibers entwine your teeth. You crunch more lettuce leaves, you eat more salad greens, you dive deeper until you bite broccoli. Florets forest another layer under the arugula: raw, steamed, cheddar-dipped, creamed broccoli, varieties that vanish down your throat in a twinkling.

Oh she's displeased, mighty displeased!
You eat Jenny
Burrow more and asparagus reveal their rainbow stalks. They're lattice-laced beneath the lettuce leaves, tinged with ultramarine and rosy pink, finely stippled, mauve and azure, dripping butter with every bite. Firm, exquisite asparagus, prepare to be swallowed.

Eat, eat, darling. Delay for nothing now you're on her head.
You eat Jenny
Caterpillars at their most industrious would struggle to chew rifts such as you have through Jenny's head. She's pockmarked, semi-circles edging each hole bitten by your teeth. Leaves strain under your weight. You're sinking deeper into her salad. Layers collapse, veined networks shred, branches batter your face as you tumble past lettuce leaves.
Inside Jenny Lettucehead
At her core Jenny's chambered; roots trace through her walls; and what should beat amongst her leaves but an artichoke heart.
You eat the heart
Yes, ma'am, even a peck… a pickled pepper peck… enough to feed
their
little mouths… what I'd give for a pear… apples, an artichoke… oh please, ma'am, just one lettuce head… as you wish, my darling.
Her heart is yours.
Green torrents pour into your gut, vines rooted to the artichoke you've devoured. Jenny's screaming. Her leaves heave as you gnash inside, lettuce funneled into your throat, your jaws chomping to engulf carrots, onions, and cherries. Maize kernels pop. Your arms are vinaigrette-slathered, reaching to guide more salad into your stomach.

She's reaching too: her tendrils cling to trellises. Down they topple. Her vines enwrap the balcony; down cracks the balcony. She drags cabbages wailing from their nurseries. Vegetables, fruit: the garden's gone; one final vine flickers outside your lips until you slurp it down, and burp, and contemplate the silent night.
Sixth course: eaten.
Courtyard
What was a garden's now nothing but parched soil.

Through a quadrant above, you can see stars.

Northward, the balance gallery; southward, the gate.
You wait
You consume time.

As you stand in the gallery, the floor sinks, and chains click
click click click click click behind walls. Contraptions groan, balances shift, and the great golden door rises. Mist sparkling with frost rolls over the threshold. Snowflakes brush past your cheeks. Bright light streams from the space beyond.

Northward, the castle's chapel is open.
You go to the north
My dear, look at you! I could shed a tear. You've done it, conquered the castle, cleaned out the rooms as a good child ought to clean a plate. Only the greatest eaters pass the balance gallery, and you've proven your stomach's worth. You are a champion.

Come, come, my sweet darling, approach.

You might have finished dinner, but there's still dessert.
Chapel
Everything's laid for you, my dear. You're brilliant, bathed in rainbows shot through stained-sherbet windows. No matter where you look, ice cream shimmers. Popsicles drip and glisten from loggias overhead. I couldn't be more proud to see you now.

A luscious fur's draped across the altar.
You examine the windows
Transmuted moonbeams glide through frozen panes. Each sherbet panel's frosted with colors that flood the chapel with soft pastel light.
You examine the ice
Supreme scoops sprinkled with sprinkles and swirled with fudge, spotted with chocolate chips, topped with whipped cream and bright red cherries.
You examine the popsicles
Arched galleries surround the room, bound by iced rails that onlookers might lean upon, and from their lower ledges hang the longest and most mesmerizing popsicles. Each tip sparkles.
You examine the fur
You wouldn't think a rodent would have such sumptuous fur, but this royal fur's better groomed than any mortal king's coiffure. It's found a higher purpose here than its skinned bearer could have given it. Now what it needs is something fitting to adorn its spread.

Just one tip from my golden virge and—la!—a shining droplet falls. There's a soft hiss, and then a jeweled cup steams where it struck the altar.
You look at the cup
Rose-red with beatings in it, as if the drink were alive, all the walls in the chapel dyed with rosy colors leaping from the cup. It's haloed, holy, and it's yours.
You eat it
As you lift the chalice, what's inside shines bright as fire, and you start to tingle as you sip the hot beverage. It's something that you've never tasted, very sweet and foamy and creamy, and it warms you right down to your toes.

What you've imbibed is power. Nothing else compares.
You get the fur
Your veins burn and your eyes blaze from the drink. Give it a moment longer and your vision will torch holes through this realm's veil. You see, darling, you've never been alone, not even when you found yourself enchained in the dungeon. I've charmed each challenge and chamber especially to test your appetite. My hosts have been your spectators. Now you'll perceive them too.
You wait awhile
Here, dear, I'll guide your gaze aloft: there they are in the loggias, crowding to gain a better view. Their grey faces and hairy hands and glittering, flittering wings unfold from hidden regions as your perception sharpens. What rascals, slapping their knees with delight. Oh, how they hoot and howl to see you sweat!

You are sweating rather a lot.

This chapel's grown from cold to piping hot. Popsicles trickle. Ice cream melts. Sherbet runs into puddles that bubble, and your pores ooze grease thick enough to fork. You're sweltering.
You eat the ice
Hold still. You need more time to cook. You're roasting as the chamber roasts. Flames lick your flanks. That scintillating scent is your own sausage sizzling. You ought to see yourself, darling. You'd salivate. You're absolutely succulent. Every instant, your glistening flesh plumps more wonderfully.
Go south
Listen to those hurrahs! There's mayhem in the loggias, cheers and trumpets and whistling, and down they pour to surround you with revelry. At long last, you're crisped perfectly. Your steaming pork begins to cool, although your fat's still popping as it fries inside your skin, and every courtier bows to kiss the ground beneath your hooves. They're groveling in your honor.

I knew, as soon as your hunger had summoned me, that you'd triumph.
Wait
From this hour, you'll sit at my elbow. Your childhood, your innocence, your past's been baked away, but you've no need for such burdens. I'll cover you with fragrant cloves instead. It's the rare mortal that ascends to the Sugarplum Fairy's court. Only a handful in a hundred years have managed it, and you've made them a mouthful this evening.

But years are mere nothings.

Let hundreds, even thousands pass.

One night another starving soul will dream a road to my castle, and I'll dress every chamber with candy, fly bacon standards from spires that stretch into the stars. As long as stomachs grumble, mouths must eat. We'll always have a feast.