text: [Themes: Tales from Castle Balderstone, spiders, combat, horror, vampire, Comedy]
  
  > look around
  The entrance to the Belle Landing convenience store stood to the northeast. Right outside there was this filthy trash can, overflowing with garbage.
  
  A vague sort of path led around the building to the northwest.
  
  My car looked awful inviting, but I couldn't leave quite yet.
  
  > About yourself
  My name is Chris Gill. I work for the Health Department. I remember that on the night in question, I hadn't shaved in a while. Health inspectors aren't supposed to have any stubble. But out on the road, I could get away with that sort of thing.
  
  > examine the car
  I remember that car. I remember when I started working for the health department, there was some sticker on there that my boss said wasn't appropriate for a vehicle I'd be driving around for my job, and he
  made me tear it off. But it didn't come off all the way, so there was this scrap left stuck to the bumper, like an adhesive scar.
  
  > examine the scrap
  It was torn off enough that you couldn't read any of it. I don't
  really remember what the sticker originally said. I don't think it was anything offensive, or even interesting. Just, too informal for government work.
  
  When I ended up selling that car, that scrap was still stuck on the bumper.
  
  > Examine pad
  We carried around these pads of citation paperwork that looked like they had been mimeographed in the seventies. It was carbonless copy paper, if you remember what that is. I was supposed to make a note of all the violations I saw, and depending on what I noted, I was empowered to issue a warning or, in extreme circumstances, a citation. A citation was a lot more paperwork.
  
  > look at the can
  A trash can in a high-traffic area like that has to be emptied a few times a day. This one hadn't been emptied that day. It hadn't been emptied the day before, either. There was a little mountain of trash forming around it.
  
  > note can
  I definitely wrote down something about the garbage can. I probably used the words "mountain of trash."
  
  > examine the store
  There were streaks on the glass door, that kind of residue that makes you think "oh sure, someone did try to clean this, at some point." It almost made the place look abandoned.
  
  > note the streaks
  I made a note of the dirty window: I wrote "Dirty Window!" or
  something like that.
  
  > open door
  I opened the door and let go of the handle so it could close itself. I don't know what I was checking.
  
  > go inside
  The convenience store was set up so you'd have to walk through this gallery of snacks and tchochkes and stuff on your way in and out. Usually you want the counter to be closer to the door, but, I dunno, this is how this place was set up. The counter was over to the northeast.
  
  But the first thing I noticed was this slimy stuff on the floor.
  
  > eat the slime
  That was plainly inedible.
  
  > Go northeast
  The counter was at the center of the building, and there were wings
  off to the northeast, southeast, and southwest. There was a door in
  the northwest, next to a huge mirror.
  
  The counter was unattended. Unless you count the giant spider that was sitting on it.
  
  > note spider
  I didn't have the presence of mind to write something at the time, but later on I did made a note: "There is a spider the size of my hand somewhere around your cash register. Get it out of there." Something along those lines.
  
  > look at the mirror
  The mirror took up as much of the wall as possible. I remember it was really clean, unlike everything else in that place.
  
  I could see the spider's reflection in the mirror, and that scared me
  a second time.
  
  > get the spider
  I didn't know what I was going to do about the spider. I wanted to shoot it, but they don't let health inspectors carry guns.
  
  Luckily, while I was trying to formulate a plan to deal with the situation, the spider just crawled over the edge of the counter. To
  the other side, where I couldn't see it.
  
  Of course, the rest of the time I was in that building, I was looking out for that spider.
  
  > look at the counter
  I noticed some more of that slime on the edge of the counter, like something had just brushed against it while walking by. There was no one at the cash register, which struck me as a bad idea, but not exactly a health hazard.
  
  > go to the north-east
  The food court was disgusting. There were more drops of that slime on the floor, and smears of pizza sauce over the walls.
  
  There was a kid slumped over one of the tables. He had one of those visors on, so I assumed he was an employee.
  
  Nobody was on duty at the cash register, and of course the counter to the southwest was still unattended.
  
  > note the sauce
  I wrote down "wipe sauce off the walls!!!" with three exclamation points. To convey my distaste.
  
  > note slime
  I noted: "Slime in food court. Floors require cleaning." I didn't note exactly how vile this slime looked.
  
  > examine kid
  He was kind of draped over the table with his eyes closed. His skin
  was pale, and his mouth was hanging open, and he was so skinny. He looked malnourished, maybe dehydrated. Really strung-out, to be
  honest. But this was some teen! Kids aren't supposed to work fifteen hour shifts and then fall unconscious in the workplace.
  
  There was a key sitting on the table next to him.
  
  > wake kid
  I poked the kid's arm. He didn't seem to notice. And his skin had this odd texture. Kind of like clay.
  
  > look at the key
  It was a steel key, with a round head.
  
  > Go southwest
  The counter was at the center of the building, and there were wings
  off to the northeast, southeast, and southwest. There was a door in
  the northwest, next to a huge mirror.
  
  The counter was unattended.
  
  > go northwest
  (first opening the door)
  The door seemed to be locked.
  
  > open door with the key
  I unlocked the door.
  
  > open door
  I opened the door.
  
  > Go northwest
  The office didn't match the rest of the place at all. It was nicer
  than my boss's office: There was a wood desk, and a filing cabinet built into the wall. And two big windows: One in the northwest wall, with a view of the field out back, and one in the southwest, next to the door, with a view of the filthy convenience store.
  
  > look at the desk
  The top of the desk even had a blotter on it, like this was a CEO's office in the fifties. But there was nothing written on the blotter.
  
  > examine the cabinet
  The filing cabinet was basically one big drawer, built into the wall.
  I don't know how swanky that sounds when I say it out loud, but it looked really swanky.
  
  > open cabinet
  I pulled the cabinet open, and imagine my surprise when I saw there were no files in there at all. There was a keychain in there, though.
  
  > examine the keychain
  There was just one key on the chain. I remember thinking it was either a very new key, or just a key that rarely got used, because the teeth on it were so sharp. It was attached to a plastic key fob thing that I think just had some business's phone number on it.
  
  > Northwest
  Outside you could see the field, and the sky, and that windmill they'd built behind the store.
  
  > look at the windmill
  A big fake windmill, lit up by a spotlight. And behind that, the
  stars.
  
  > look out the southeast window
  from in there, especially as regarded what the person behind the counter was doing. Obviously the office window was the other side of the mirror behind the counter. I had assumed it was a one-way mirror, just because it was so impractically large.
  
  > Go southwest
  The convenience store was set up so you'd have to walk through this gallery of snacks and tchochkes and stuff on your way in and out. The counter was over to the northeast, and the way out was southwest.
  
  And there was that trail of slime running along the floor.
  
  > go to the south-east
  This one corner of the store was completely devoted to cute little figurines. The shelves were stacked with them.
  
  I could see the counter to the northwest. There was still nobody
  there.
  
  > examine the figurine
  I guess "cute" is the wrong word. They were supposed to be graceful
  and beautiful. Willowy mothers holding willowy daughters, angels in long flowing robes. None of the figurines had faces. Just blank heads, but you could infer they were supposed to have beatific expressions.
  
  When I looked closely, I noticed there were dozens of tiny spiders skittering up and down the figurines.
  
  > look at the spiders
  They were the tiniest of spiders, just little dots. But the more I looked, the more of them I saw. The place was crawling with them.
  
  > look at the gallery
  Which do you mean, the snacks or the tchochkes?
  
  > Snacks
  Bags of peanuts and chips. And candy. Normal convenience store stuff.
  
  > get the chips
  I never buy anything at the places I'm inspecting, though. Some inspectors, they do that to be polite. I have a weird sense of honor about it, I guess.
  
  > look at the tchochkes
  cute sayings on them. There was the typical "serenity to accept the things I cannot change" stuff, and then there was some really odd stuff. "All men are not created equal, only the finest become police." Or, "Thyme to turnip the beet." "I tried to retire, but now I work for my wife." So, not really a single unifying theme.
  
  > go southwest
  The entrance to the Belle Landing convenience store stood to the northeast. Right outside there was this filthy trash can, overflowing with garbage.
  
  A vague sort of path led around the building to the northwest.
  
  My car looked awful inviting, but I couldn't leave quite yet.
  
  > go northwest
  There was a big field of grass around the side of the store. The grass was wet, and it kind of glistened under the stars.
  
  I try not to pay too much attention to the stars.
  
  I came up to where there was a spotlight stuck in the ground, pointing at this big windmill to the northeast. The path back to the store entrance was southeast from there.
  
  And there was a rabbit sitting there, twitching and blinking, trying
  to figure out if I'd seen it yet.
  
  > look at the rabbit
  It was just a dark shape in the grass, but I could tell it was a rabbit.
  
  > note the rabbit
  As soon as I made any kind of move toward the rabbit, it skedaddled.
  
  > examine the spotlight
  A really bright light, bolted into a square of concrete in the middle of the field, to light up the windmill at night.
  
  > examine the windmill
  It was not a real windmill. There was a wind going, remember: Hog feces. I could still smell it. But the vanes of the windmill weren't moving. It was just for show.
  
  > Open windmill
  I was too far away from the windmill to do much of anything with it.
  
  > go northeast
  Now I was standing at the foot of the windmill, out of the way of the spotlight. The whole thing was a lot bigger than it had looked from
  far away.
  
  To get back to the store entrance, I'd have to go around to the southwest.
  
  > examine the windmill
  I guess they built it to celebrate the Dutch heritage in the surrounding area. And to attract tourists. It didn't look like a classic windmill, though. It was stumpier, if that makes sense.
  
  There was a sort of hatch built into the side. The dark side, that the spotlight wasn't pointed at.
  
  > examine the hatch
  It was somewhat smaller than your typical door, and kind of rounded at the corners, which is why I call it a "hatch" rather than a "door."
  But there was a normal handle with a normal keyhole, which made it all that much weirder.
  
  > check your inventory
  I was carrying:
  a keychain
  a steel key
  my citation pad
  
  > open the hatch with the keychain
  I unlocked the hatch.
  
  > open hatch
  I opened the hatch.
  
  > go inside
  The floor inside the windmill was just dirt, and the walls were bare plywood. Strands of sticky stuff were hanging from the walls.
  
  A guy with eight legs was hanging from the ceiling.
  
  I checked my notebook. "Are you the proprietor?" I asked. "Mister Luikx?"
  
  "Yes, hello," he said. He didn't seem to mind that I'd barged in on him. "You're Mister Gill, from the Health Department, right?"
  
  I told him I was, and I mentioned I had looked for him in his office, and he said he was sorry he was so hard to find.
  
  > look at legs
  Well, his arms, or legs, were covered in brownish bristles. He had
  big, black, shiny eyes. And his hair was slicked back and shiny. I remember he had something stuck in his mandibles, a chunk of
  something, and I kept looking at it. I felt like I was being rude. But he didn't seem to notice.
  
  > examine chunk
  I don't know what it was a chunk of. I didn't say anything about it.
  
  > examine the walls
  The windmill looked a little off from the outside, kind of stunted.
  You know what I mean? Well, inside, it was the same thing, only inside out. You could see the other sides of all those weird angles.
  
  > talk
  What do you want to talk?
  
  > talk to Luikx
  I told him I had my report on his convenience store. "I noticed a few things that need to be addressed," I said, and I rattled off my list.
  I told him about the giant spider at the front counter. He said "Oh, she shouldn't be running loose, I'll take care of her," and I nodded and told him to make sure he did that right away.
  
  And I told him about the slime everywhere, and he got kind of
  sheepish. He said his employees left something to be desired as far as attention to detail.
  
  So I brought up the kid I saw in the food court. I said, "You wouldn't feed on your employees without a signed release, right?" and he said
  of course not. He reached up into the rafters (I guess that's where he kept all his files) and pulled out a form with a parent's signature, and I said okay, just checking. But I put on my mean guy face, and I said it was still a lot of violations, and the whole operation was not up to the state's standards of health and safety.
  
  He lowered himself down to my eye level, and he put a claw on my shoulder, and he said, "Mister Gill, you've caught me on a bad day.
  I'm short-staffed, and I can't seem to whip these kids into shape. Do you really have to give me a citation?"
  
  > Yes
  I told him I did, and he nodded, and he lifted his claw from my shoulder.
  
  Something made me say, "Sorry, it's just..."
  
  But he wasn't sulking. He said, "I know, you're just doing your job. We've all got our jobs to do."
  
  I signed my citation pad, and tore off his copy, and I told him the full form would be coming in the mail. He put the paper between his mandibles to fold it crisply, and then he pulled himself up in the rafters to file it away. Up where it was too dark for me to see.
  
  Then he lowered himself, and he said "Thank you," although I don't
  know for what.
  
  > talk to Luikx
  We made some small talk. I wasn't in a hurry to be anywhere.
  
  > leave
  I said I needed to head on to the next stop, and I turned toward the exit. Luikx said, "So long! Have a nice drive!"
  
  And, just as the hatch was closing behind me, I called back: "You
  too!"
  
  It was mortifying.
  
  "Are there any questions?" the moderator asks. Someone stands up to ask: "The paperwork in your story, which allows an employer to 'feed on' an employee, reminds me of the story Johanna Quinn presented last year." Not a question, friend!
  
  Karnack does a funny little shrug. "I only steal from the best," he says, and everyone laughs.
  
  A voice from clear in the back of the room cuts through the good-natured chortling: It's Johanna C. Quinn herself! "Don't worry, Antonio!" she cries. "I only steal from the best, too!"
  
  Everyone also laughs at this, although I'm not sure why.
  
  Then we wait a little bit, for somebody to say a third witty thing.
  But nobody can think of anything.
  
  Antonio steps down from the dais.
  Antonio steps down from the dais.Now it is time for the next author to step forward and share the next of the evening's delirious entertainments.
  
  "We have a special treat for you tonight," the moderator explains. "Some students from Silas Elementary are here to present a story."
  
  A whole herd of eight-year-olds rises from their chairs and floods the aisles, corralled from behind by their teacher. With some effort she wrangles them all onto the dais, and then she pulls out one student to address the audience.
  
  I was expecting the little girl to draw a blank and start gawping at us, but she doesn't seem fazed at all. "We're Miss Shiroiwa's class, and we wrote this story together," she explains. "It's called The Banshee's Curse."
  
  "We all worked on it!" another kid yells. Miss Shiroiwa shushes him, but the girl at center stage takes it in stride.
  
  "Yeah, we all worked on it. But, Miss Shiroiwa also gave us..." She purses her lips and remembers the words: "editorial oversight."
  
  The teacher rolls her eyes good-naturedly.
  
  "My name is Daniella Florence, and I will be your narrator tonight," the girl says, as she opens her notebook and begins to read...
  
  There were three best friends named Leana, Garrin, and Chloe. You play as Leana and Gavin. Chloe was an exchange student from Ireland. A banshee followed her from Ireland, and when she looked in its face,
  she got the curse of the banshee. She needed a potion to undo the curse.
  
  To the east of the school was the town graveyard. To the west of the school was the museum.
  
  There was a magic chalice that they could make a potion to cure the curse if they had all the ingredients.
  
  They found a map in the library that showed where all the ingredients were.
  
  > examine the map
  curse of the banshee were:
  
  A Forever Fern, in the Garden of Doom
  A coalflower, in the goblin coal mine
  A pinch of mummy dust, from a mummy's sarcophagus
  ...and one more ingredient that was smudged. But they could see the path leading up to the smudge, and it had a special crow's stone on
  one side. A stone in the shape of a crow.
  
  > look at Chloe
  Chloe had dark curly hair and she wore glasses. She couldn't talk, she was so sick from the curse.
  
  > Go east
  The graveyard was full of these scraggly trees that looked like hands. And there were stars shining up above.
  
  There was a ghost dog there, who kept digging up human bones.
  
  To the east of the graveyard was the haunted house. To the west of the graveyard was the school.
  
  > examine the dog
  The ghost dog was nice. It didn't try to hurt them. It pointed its
  nose at the haunted house, to say, "go there."
  
  > examine trees
  The trees had mouths, too. They could grab you and then swallow you.
  
  > examine stars
  The stars were all purple. No, they were red. They were giant lasers pointed at the earth, and they killed Leana and Garrin.
  
  When they woke up, they were at the lake of the dead, where every dead person goes when they die.
  
  There were some skeletons carrying a coffin across the water.
  
  To the west of the lake of the dead was the goblin court, and there
  was also a cave at the lake.
  
  > examine the skeletons
  The skeletons were actually walking on the water. And they had a
  coffin that they were carrying.
  
  > examine coffin
  The coffin had a dead body in it that the skeletons were carrying to the other side of the lake of the dead.
  
  > look at the lake
  The lake was full of the faces of dead people.
  
  > examine the cave
  The cave went down underneath the lake of the dead.