text: [Themes: Food, Fantasy, cow, gender-neutral protagonist, child protagonist, hunger, queen, ghost, violence]
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > eat the skeleton
  More gnawing still leaves you hungry.
  
  > Xyzzy
  You involuntarily swallow the sounds on your tongue.
  
  > Plover
  When in doubt, eat.
  
  > 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.
  
  > eat all
  Be more selective, little one.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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!"
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > eat wheel
  You nibble the gouda wheel again.
  
  > Go west
  Angel's-food cake seals the doorway: one gigantic yellow slice.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > examine the spoon
  The only thing this spoon served was its own silver.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > eat the onion
  You crunch into another onion. More fumes infuse your breath. Before they fade, you can blow their aroma out.
  
  > 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.
  
  > eat the manacles
  No need to linger on particulars. You chomp the cacao manacles apart and swallow them.
  
  > eat the onion
  You munch another onion. Blow before its odor fades.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > eat the onion
  You munch another onion. Blow before its odor fades.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.
  
  > examine the whey
  One cheesecloth bag bulges more than the rest.
  
  > 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.
  
  > 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.