text: > look at your surroundings
  Padded cell (Marius Müller) (on the metal chest)
  The overhead lightbulb in its wire-mesh cage barely lights the room. Everything here seems a colorless beige - the cracked floor tiles, the thick cloth padding on the walls. A padded door leads south.
  
  A secret compartment in the wall has swung open, revealing a small switch and some graffiti that says "THEY THOUGHT THEY COULD TRAP ME IN MY OWN CELL".
  
  A metal chest stands in a corner of the room.
  
  You can also see a trophy for a dog race here.
  
  > pull the switch
  Nothing obvious happens.
  
  > examine the switch
  It's nothing but a small, unremarkable switch.
  
  The switch is currently switched on.
  
  > switch the switch
  You hear a promising click from the door.
  
  > open Door
  You open the padded door.
  
  > examine the coffee
  The clouds in your cup form concentric circles. Lack of a symbolic image means that you have accomplished everything you must in your current environment and should move on to find new challenges in order to grow as a person.
  
  > Go south
  (first getting off the metal chest)
  You get off the chest less than elegantly.
  
  Padded cell (Marius Müller)
  The overhead lightbulb in its wire-mesh cage barely lights the room. Everything here seems a colorless beige - the cracked floor tiles, the thick cloth padding on the walls. A padded door leads south.
  
  A secret compartment in the wall has swung open, revealing a small switch and some graffiti that says "THEY THOUGHT THEY COULD TRAP ME IN MY OWN CELL".
  
  A metal chest stands in a corner of the room.
  
  Backwater Jail (Marshal Tenner Winter)
  The air is stale in this wood-paneled sheriff's office. You feel as if you've stepped back in time maybe twenty years as the office furnishings in here are simple and utilitarian. A desk, generic in style but wide enough for an outdated-looking computer, is near the window. A swivel chair is behind it and a wooden visitors chair is on the other side. Despite the meager light that creeps in the window, there's still a bleak glow from fluorescent bulbs overhead. Other furnishings include a file cabinet and, what appears to be, a locker that was literally ripped out of a high school and placed against the wall in here.
  
  Otherwise, a cheap door with a unisex bathroom sign on it is to the west and a secure door, obviously the lock-up, is to the north. The exit is south.
  
  You can see a desiccated corpse here. It fell out of that locker, which now stands open.
  
  On the desk is a clipboard holding some paperwork.
  
  > examine the corpse
  This withered and horrible corpse will be hard to identify as the poor soul seems to have been dead for a good while now. You're pretty sure it was once female as the clothes, while dirty and torn, are a feminine style.
  
  > Search corpse
  Delicately, you pad around the clothes on the corpse just in case anything useful can be found. Unfortunately, you find nothing but a black business card which you grab.
  
  > look at the card
  Which do you mean, the black business card or the employee ID card?
  
  > examine the black card
  Congratulations! You've just encountered Vaadignephod's
  Anti-Personnel Squad!
  
  > search the Locker
  In the evidence locker is Tolerating An Asinine God.
  
  > look at God
  This book looks to be an old school text book but it is in surprisingly good shape. You're not too sure why you're surprised at this. But there is a faded sticker on the front bearing the insignia of the Backwater Public Library, two back-to-back crescent moons joined by an eye looking down at an open book, which you realize might be redundant.
  
  > read it
  You skim through the pages and glance at a passage or two. "God
  may exist but he isn't alive / for to die is to live / and to live is to die."
  
  A snap like ice cracking behind you makes you jump. You turn to see a chalky spark hovering near you.
  
  As you finish reading the passage, the spark moves through the book with an eerie hum, leaving frost behind on the library insignia.
  
  > check your inventory
  You are carrying:
  Tolerating An Asinine God
  a black business card
  a trophy for a dog race
  a half-full styrofoam coffee cup
  a glass shard
  a giant milkweed leaf (being worn as a mask)
  an antique locket (closed)
  a backpack features guide
  The Modern Girl's Divination Handbook -- Volume Three
  the diary of Phyllis Cragne
  a postcard of Big Ben
  a Jansport backpack (being worn and open)
  a hidden pocket (open but empty)
  a key pocket (open but empty)
  a book pocket (open but empty)
  a side pocket (closed)
  a trash pocket (open but empty)
  a trolley pass (being worn)
  a brass winding key
  a familiar gold wristwatch
  a glass jar containing an insect
  a pull-string doll
  a waterproof flashlight
  a dead battery
  The Dollmaker's Journal
  a repaired page
  a moldy, waterlogged journal
  a small, rectangular battery
  Twin Hearts Between the Planes
  a trolley schedule
  Peter's jacket
  a grimy rock
  a long hooked pole
  a soggy tome
  a book list
  an employee ID card
  a shard of shattered carapace
  some yellowed newspapers
  a rusty piece of metal
  loose bricks
  an aluminum key
  a pamphlet of home listings
  a hovering spark (haunting you)
  
  > examine the spark
  Something like a spark of chalk hovers in the air behind you. As you watch, it fades, only to reappear to your right in a wash of cold.
  
  > go south
  Constabulary Road (Harkness Munt)
  The road phases into little more than a wide dirt track winding from the west towards the edge of town to the northeast. A paved walk wanders through an iron gate which interrupts a high stone wall looming to the north. A memorial bench sits just outside its shadow. A tangled rampart of trees and dense undergrowth obstructs passage to the south.
  
  A barricade spans the road to the northeast, and beyond it a large shallow pit is being excavated. If you're careful, you could skirt the edges of the pit and continue along the northeast road.
  
  A man stands near the barricade. He appears to be contemplating the contents of the dig site.
  
  A grad student works fastidiously on the fossilized bones in the pit.
  
  A spectral trolley stop sign reads Orange Line -- Constabulary Road.
  
  > wait for the aqua Line
  You sit on the memorial bench, hold out your pass, and wait for the aqua line. Within moments, a mistlike trolley arrives. Instead of stopping and allowing you to board, it passes through you,
  and you find yourself transported to
  
  River Walk (Adam Whybray)
  A dirt path along the west bank of the Makaskuta - or Blackgourd - River. The air is motionless and sweltry, the urticariate heat drawing sweat profusely from your prickling glands.
  
  Just below you, to your side, the river burbles in vainglorious stupor, foaming in bright patches from the surfacants released from the rotting deposits of the red maples and poplars that line its banks. A single black ash, denuded of leaves, its corky bark blighted with the telltale signs of parasitic infection, quietly interrupts the Autumnal foliage of its deciduous cousins.
  
  The river's waters slith over rocks as lustrous-gray as seal skin, rending them freshly burnished for the mid-September sun, which casts Her rays in refulgent slats through the rust-honey colored trees. It is though Nature, in celebration of Her own fecundity, has chosen to offer Herself up in Equinoxical sacrifice - the rocks laid out before the blazing altar of the sun.
  
  There is a forbidding sign on the bank of the river.
  
  The way up to Backwater town square is northwest. Following the path north leads under the bridge.
  
  On the Makaskuta river is a buoy.
  
  You can also see a freshwater lobster trap (in which is an eggbound crawfish) and a shattered crawfish here.
  
  A spectral trolley stop sign reads Aqua Line -- River Walk.
  
  > wait for the blue Line
  You sit on the memorial bench, hold out your pass, and wait for the blue line. Within moments, a ghostly trolley arrives. Instead of stopping and allowing you to board, it passes through you,
  and you find yourself transported to
  
  A short street terminates here. To the south it opens into the town square. To the east, a few worn steps rise to the entrance of the public library, and to the west you can see a real estate office. A gloomy path leads northwest, towards the woods.
  
  You can see a notice board here.
  
  A noncorporeal trolley stop sign reads Blue Line -- Library Square.
  
  > look at the coffee
  The swirls in your cup form a gentle ripple. Lack of a symbolic image means that you have accomplished everything you must in your current environment and should move on to find new challenges in order to grow as a person.
  
  > wait for the Orange Line
  You lean against the library steps, hold out your pass, and wait for the orange line. Within moments, a mistlike trolley arrives. Instead of stopping and allowing you to board, it passes through you,
  and you find yourself transported to
  
  Constabulary Road (Harkness Munt)
  The road phases into little more than a wide dirt track winding from the west towards the edge of town to the northeast. A paved walk wanders through an iron gate which interrupts a high stone wall looming to the north. A memorial bench sits just outside its shadow. A tangled rampart of trees and dense undergrowth obstructs passage to the south.
  
  A barricade spans the road to the northeast, and beyond it a large shallow pit is being excavated. If you're careful, you could skirt the edges of the pit and continue along the northeast road.
  
  A man stands near the barricade. He appears to be contemplating the contents of the dig site.
  
  A grad student works fastidiously on the fossilized bones in the pit.
  
  A phantom trolley stop sign reads Orange Line -- Constabulary Road.
  
  > Go northeast
  "Ah, I do bid you again Greeting, my friend. You do seem much busy to-Daye in your Wanderings."
  
  Hillside Path (Jack Welch)
  You are in a hillside hollow flanked on three sides by sheer granite cliffs and on the other by gnarled vegetation.
  
  Three trailheads hold out some chance of respite: north, southwest, and southeast.
  
  You can see Christabell here.
  
  > look at the cliffs
  The granite walls are sheer and angle ever so slightly inward, overhanging the clearing; they would be impossible to climb without assistance from the top. The granite itself is fine-grained, but far darker than Vermont granite, is the color of burnt candle wick, all but invisible in this light save for tiny inclusions of reflective, jet-black mica, which impart a numinous glow.
  
  > look at the mica
  The granite walls are sheer and angle ever so slightly inward, overhanging the clearing.
  
  > Go southwest
  "Do endeavour to mind yourself amongst the Crânes!"
  
  "I will. I always do." You shout back, as you walk away.
  
  Constabulary Road (Harkness Munt)
  The road phases into little more than a wide dirt track winding from the west towards the edge of town to the northeast. A paved walk wanders through an iron gate which interrupts a high stone wall looming to the north. A memorial bench sits just outside its shadow. A tangled rampart of trees and dense undergrowth obstructs passage to the south.
  
  A barricade spans the road to the northeast, and beyond it a large shallow pit is being excavated. If you're careful, you could skirt the edges of the pit and continue along the northeast road.
  
  A man stands near the barricade. He appears to be contemplating the contents of the dig site.
  
  A grad student works fastidiously on the fossilized bones in the pit.
  
  A mistlike trolley stop sign reads Orange Line -- Constabulary Road.
  
  > About you
  You brush an errant tentacle from your fifth eye and quickly check yourself over. All of your writhing slime-streaked appendages seem to be in order. Gill slits are gorgeous. Your ventral scales could use a bit of a polish though.
  
  > go to the northeast
  "I am glad your Pilgrimage does take you mie Waie yet once moor, dear girl!" says Christabell as she prances up beside you along the path.
  
  Hillside Path (Jack Welch)
  You are in a hillside hollow flanked on three sides by sheer granite cliffs and on the other by gnarled vegetation.
  
  Three trailheads hold out some chance of respite: north, southwest, and southeast.
  
  You can see Christabell here.
  
  > examine the vegetation
  Nothing grows anywhere near the pile of railroad track in the center of the clearing; perhaps the soil has been compacted by eons of spectators who stood in that very place, watching or taking part in ceremonies, perhaps dancing around whatever had occupied the central place. Or maybe the ground here is just unwholesome, unwelcoming to life, poisoned in some way. Only at the periphery, does nature scratch its way towards redemption of this lost grotto. A somber carpet of flaky lichens and mouldering moss gives way to bent fingers of crippled weeds at the edge of the clearing. Some trailheads leading away are barely distinguishable between snaking tendrils of withered vine and fungus-covered rotting stumps that mark the boundary of the surrounding woods.
  
  > examine the trailheads
  Seething nature guards its distance from this place. Between the wispy weeds and degenerate, stunted trees that edge the clearing, you can distinguish three potential escape routes, one each to the north, southwest, and southeast, as the crow flies.
  
  > Go north
  "I shall not keep you further from your most industrious Perambulations," Christabell jests.
  
  "See you later," you call back to her.
  
  "I do most fervently so desire!"
  
  Front Walk (Matt Weiner)
  Cragne Manor looms to the north. Its light gray marble front is marred by a screened-in wooden porch, clearly tacked on well after the manor was built. A gravel path bends around the manor to the northeast and northwest, and the driveway leads south back to town.
  
  By the porch steps is a post with a placard reading "31." A strange little manikin is affixed to it.
  
  A noncorporeal trolley stop sign reads Purple Line -- Cragne Manor.
  
  > examine the placard
  It reads "31." The house address, presumably.
  
  > look at the manikin
  A faceless three-foot straw figure in a flowered bonnet and plaid skirt. It looks like a figure from some ancient harvest rite--somewhat like the harvest manikins in Stowe outside such establishments as The Startled Cat, The Buxom Crow, The Ambulatory Barnacle, and Tweebones.
  
  > get it
  It's just a piece of local whimsy. No need to bother with it.
  
  > check your inventory
  You are carrying:
  Tolerating An Asinine God
  a black business card
  a trophy for a dog race
  a half-full styrofoam coffee cup
  a glass shard
  a giant milkweed leaf (being worn as a mask)
  an antique locket (closed)
  a backpack features guide
  The Modern Girl's Divination Handbook -- Volume Three
  the diary of Phyllis Cragne
  a postcard of Big Ben
  a Jansport backpack (being worn and open)
  a hidden pocket (open but empty)
  a key pocket (open but empty)
  a book pocket (open but empty)
  a side pocket (closed)
  a trash pocket (open but empty)
  a trolley pass (being worn)
  a brass winding key
  a familiar gold wristwatch
  a glass jar containing an insect
  a pull-string doll
  a waterproof flashlight
  a dead battery
  The Dollmaker's Journal
  a repaired page
  a moldy, waterlogged journal
  a small, rectangular battery
  Twin Hearts Between the Planes
  a trolley schedule
  Peter's jacket
  a grimy rock
  a long hooked pole
  a soggy tome
  a book list
  an employee ID card
  a shard of shattered carapace
  some yellowed newspapers
  a rusty piece of metal
  loose bricks
  an aluminum key
  a pamphlet of home listings
  a hovering spark (haunting you)
  You are also wearing a pair of extremely muddy clogs.
  
  > examine the clogs
  You picked these clogs as sensible walking shoes, but you didn't count on it being this wet. They're caked in mud almost all the way to your ankle.
  
  > examine the porch
  A brief flight of steps leads up to the porch. The thick screens block any view inside.
  
  > examine the coffee
  The clouds in your cup form a blank, mirrored surface. Lack of a symbolic image means that you have accomplished everything you must in your current environment and should move on to find new challenges in order to grow as a person.
  
  > go northeast
  Cragne Family Plot (Mark Britton)
  A cramped and neglected place on unwholesome yellow soil. Over the years the gravestones have shifted like teeth in an overcrowded mouth, collapsing one atop the other. Crabgrass pokes up limply between them, urine-yellow and parched-looking. The earth mounds up around the shabby crypt, as if it's sunk over the years into the Vermont topsoil. You wonder who would want to be buried here--and who would willingly consign their ancestors to this brutal place. Perhaps that's why it's been so neglected.
  
  Four squat columbariums stand north, east, south, and west of here. A winding and uncertain path leads southwest. By stepping over collapsed gravestones and bleached obelisks you can go northwest. Carefully. You could also enter the crypt from here, if you were able to open it.
  
  Three graves nearby draw your eye. One headstone teeters drunkenly, half overrun by lichen. One headstone has collapsed entirely. An adjacent plot stands open, overlooked by a blank headstone. The grave within is flooded almost to the top with bubbling rainwater.
  
  You can see some rotten flowers and a china urn here.
  
  > About yourself
  The cuffs of your jeans are soaked with greasy, pale-yellow mud. You stink of rot, and the sweat mingling with rain on your cheeks burns like vinegar.
  
  > look at the crypt
  A sprawling and brutish monument with a skeleton incised into its metal door. You wonder who'd want to be interred somewhere so grim. You wonder if there's a space inside for your husband.