text: [Themes: Tales from Castle Balderstone, horror, Comedy, vampires, intense, spiders, vampire, combat, multiple protagonists, castle]
  
  Good evening, again. My name, as you well know, is Ryan Veeder. It is once again my great pleasure, in this festive and frightening season, to welcome you for a third time to Castle Balderstone: America's legendary hotbed of horror, a treasure trove of the morose, macabre, and monstrous. Its crooked pinnacles continue to slash blasphemously against ever-present clouds; its grim silhouette continues to be a stain of absolute blackness in the midst of a black sky.
  
  This year, as they did last year???and the year before that, and so on???the greatest spookcrafters working in the English language have assembled in Castle Balderstone's drafty halls to test their latest material on the only audience possessed of hearts so inured to terror as to withstand the absolute scariest stories???each other.
  
  Tonight, for the third time, you are my plus-one to this wedding of
  the weird and the wicked.
  
  As we ascend once more the winding stairs of Castle Balderstone, the wind outside howls in warning, and the temperature drops until your teeth chatter in the cold???or is it in recollection of the horrors you witnessed here one year ago? Or two years ago?
  
  We trudge again through antique galleries, across musty hallways, and down forgotten corridors. The occasional window offers no view of a friendly outside world, but of walls, towers, and perilously pitched roofs, confirming what your aching legs and ragged breath have already predicted: that the labyrinthine architecture of Castle Balderstone is one you can never hope to escape. Nevertheless we continue on, through another creaking door...
  
  ...And into a warm sitting-room, where velvet couches sit in a circle near a roaring fire. The walls are lined with bookshelves, stacked
  with titles you recognize as those you have never been brave enough to read. You recognize the occupants of the couches, as well: murder-mongers, evil-experts, ghost-gurus, monster-maestros, vampire-virtuosos, and dread-distributors. These are the infamous authors of Castle Balderstone, and you are their latest victim, again.
  
  Apparently we are the last ones to arrive, AGAIN, so we take our seats in a conspicuous display of embarrassed hurriedness and loudly-whispered apologies. Eventually the chamber quietens itself,
  and we realize we are about to enjoy the first tale of the evening.
  
  It is Elmir Divkovic, who terrifies so many readers with his intricately-realized world of vampires. Worldbuilding gets a bad rap these days, but you know what you get when it's done right? You get an Elmir Divkovic story, that's what.
  
  The stories are also very scary, too. That's the main thing.
  
  "I am honored to return to Balderstone and present another of my vampire-tales," Divkovic begins. "With my vampire-tales I seek to
  raise a mirror to human society: My central theme, that of vampire's invampiricism to vampire, must thrust to the center of the human reader's soul, and convince the reader to overcome those distasteful vampire-like traits lurking within the reader's dark heart. To do
  this, to pierce the soul, my vampire-tales must be both utterly horrifying and utterly believable. Hence, all of my vampire-tales are enframed within a single carefully constructed world???'The world of vampire-tales,' I call it. And for this vampire-tale I have written a foreword of sorts, which will acclimate you to my little world before we all forget ourselves and inhabit that world for a few moments." He opens his notebook:
  
  "The Marquis Semix has long been suspected of dabbling in
  forbidden melliphytic research. He may believe, like so many members
  of the nobility, that his position will his protect him from prosecution.
  
  "But the Orthodoxy knows no rank: The Orthodoxy punishes the
  highborn and the peasantry, vampire citizens and mortal helots alike. It is simply a matter, in dangerous cases like this, of procuring an Inquisitor who is equal to the task."
  
  Elmir looks up and smiles. He lets it all sink in. And then he turns the page, and begins to read...
  
  Grotesques in blackened calcite flank the threshold of the Ch??teau Semix. Though rain lashes in nearly horizontal torrents, the scarlet-flamed braziers go on burning imperturbably.
  
  EXITS: EAST
  
  [Author's Note: Third in a series of anthologies of unbelievable terror, edited by Ryan Veeder, again.]
  
  > About yourself
  Publicly the Orthodoxy takes pains to assure its subjects that Inquisitors are not above the law. This is a pleasant fiction. Inquisitors are empowered to meld the law according to their needs, to invent edicts or forget them at will, so long as it serves the aims of the Orthodoxy. In the earliest decades of your career, you availed yourself of these privileges frequently, reveling in the arbitrary power of your position.
  
  not resort to such inelegances. The true law, unadulterated by situational convenience, is just and complete. It is sufficient in all respects, so long as it is wielded with skill and patience. Thus it is said privately, and not repeated outside the halls of the Orthodoxy, that only the best Inquisitors are not above the law.
  
  You are the Inquisitor Vultrine, ranked among the best.
  
  > look at what you're carrying with you
  You are carrying:
  a silk cape (being worn)
  a white dagger
  
  > look at the cape
  Your fine silk cape is the unofficial symbol of your position as Inquisitor. You take great pride in the accessory.
  
  > look at the dagger
  This well-trusted blade was a gift from your mentor, High Inquisitor Urimedonte. She warned you to use it judiciously???which is not to say she told you never to use it. Its attack power is 1.
  
  > go east
  Guests of the Marquis who fail to make a good first impression are flung into the pit that takes up most of this chamber.
  
  The Marquis himself is seated in the balcony overhead. "I've been expecting you, Inquisitor!" he calls down at you. "Make yourself at home."
  
  His laughter seems to echo through all the halls of the Ch??teau.
  
  EXITS: UP EAST DOWN WEST
  
  A scimitar lies abandoned at the edge of the pit.
  
  > examine Marquis
  The Marquis, who was so giddy with sadistic triumph at your entrance, now seems for the most part uninterested in your presence. Odd.
  
  > examine the scimitar
  A curved sword not unlike those you saw employed in the Algerian human uprising a century ago. Its attack power is 2.
  
  > take it
  Taken.
  
  > talk to Marquis
  The balcony is too high up to permit any interation with the Marquis.
  
  > Go east
  Velvet spills over the grand stairway in a crimson flood. To the east is a massive wooden door.
  
  High on the wall are displayed the arms of the Marquis Semix.
  
  EXITS: UP EAST WEST
  
  > examine arms
  The device of Semix: Gules, a unicorn sable horned or. (Violations of the rule of tincture rest outside an Inquisitor's jurisdiction.)
  
  Crossed beneath the escutcheon are the poleaxe Thembriaud and the longsword Harcheque.
  
  > look at the poleaxe
  This long-handled axe was wielded by a previous Marquis Semix in the Battle of Noyes. Its attack power is 5.
  
  > take it
  The weapons on the wall are too high to reach.
  
  > look at the longsword
  This silver-plated sword beheaded the werewolf Cornegule in 1207. Its attack power is 6.
  
  > examine the door
  The carven boiseries of the portal suggest copious fangs and tongues. The door itself is shut.
  
  > open it
  The huge door seems to be locked.
  
  > Go up
  Numerous objets d'art and historical oddities are on display in this museum hall: A portrait of the Marquis, the statue of Gaspard Oindr??, a framed family tree, a Japanese warrior's equipment in an elaborate display case.
  
  A pane of ghost-glass to the west offers a view of the balcony. The
  oak door to the east is closed.
  
  EXITS: EAST DOWN WEST
  
  > look at the portrait
  The Marquis sat for this portrait in the hall at the bottom of the stairs; you see his coat of arms on the wall behind him. The xanthic luminosity of his eyes was probably exaggerated by the artist: You recognize the signature of Bartheno??de Aguenisse, an expert flatterer.
  
  > take the sword
  You already have that.
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying:
  a scimitar
  a silk cape (being worn)
  a white dagger
  
  > examine the case
  The steel bars are worked in intricate designs, offering only tantalizing glimpses of the case's contents.
  
  In the steel display case are a suit of samurai armor, a katana, and a wakizashi.
  
  > examine the armor
  The armor gleams like a insect's iridescent shell. Its polished plates bear no marks of battle; it was probably given as a gift rather than taken from a foe.
  
  > examine the katana
  A single-edged longsword of Japanese manufacture. It is flawless. Its attack power is 5.
  
  > examine wakizashi
  A Japanese sword with a blade about a foot long. Its attack power is
  3.
  
  > look at the statue
  The stone Gaspard casts a defiant eye over his shoulder, as if daring his foe to attack from behind. The statue is not, strictly speaking, life-like; Oindre was petrified in 1709, and his remains have
  been on display in the Ch??teau for perhaps thirty years.
  
  > examine the tree
  This vellum scroll purports to trace the ancestry of the Marquis back to the eleventh century and the legendary ur-vampiress ??streg, who sired Ixaron, who sired Nivemes... Undoubtedly the pedigree consists predominantly of fabrications, but this is de rigeuer among the
  Marquis and his peers.
  
  > examine the door
  An imposing oaken door with a heavy lock.
  
  > examine glass
  The Marquis is standing on the balcony on the other side of the glass. Oddly, he is still leaning over the railing, as if waiting for you to reappear in the hall below.
  
  > Break glass
  Ghost-glass like this is impossible to break with brute force???but it can be penetrated by more subtle means.
  
  > Open case
  The steel display case seems to be locked.
  
  > Break case
  You must specify the weapon with which you are attacking.