text: > look at your surroundings
  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 shattered crawfish here.
  
  A ghostly trolley stop sign reads Aqua Line -- River Walk.
  
  > examine the coffee
  The swirls in your cup form a perfect fern, just like in a fancy latte. Botanical images mean that while there is much left to accomplish in the present situation, your immediate environment sustains you, and you have everything that you need.
  
  > examine River
  The river's name is said to date back to the 17th century, Christened by a local Algonquian tribe after the peculiarly black coloration of the cucurbita pepo gourds that sprouted in the floodplains
  south of Backwater. Natives believed local Jesuit Ministers to use the gourds in Devil worship and to prevent these rituals from taking place would uproot the warty vegetables and "drown" them in the river.
  
  Across the 19th century, the Makaskuta became increasingly inhospitable to life due to the paper mills of Backwater discharging their untreated waste directly into its water - an industry that flourished in the period due to the competing demands of two local printing establishments which specialized in bound volumes of the letters, prayers and instructions of St. Ignatius of Loyola. By the 1870s the river was regularly running the color of strained tomato soup and, according to the 17th July 1874 edition of the Backwater Gazette, stank of "rank putrescence ... as though nothing borne of this Earth".
  
  Only the interventions of the mysterious philanthropist Dr. Elias Saltz, DDiv in the latter part of the 1960s were able to restore the Makaskuta to its once verdant glories. The good Doctor may also be thanked for the introduction of the C. Robustus genus of
  giant crawfish into the Makaskuta, for which it is now justly celebrated.
  
  The river babbles to itself complacently.
  
  On the Makaskuta river is a buoy.
  
  > examine the trees
  contrast to the dreary environs of Backwater, like a feather boa round the neck of a New England clergyman. The surface of the dirt path is riven by tessellating layers of crisping leaves. The slender leaves of the populus balsamifera are shaped like the piques of a
  traditional suit of French playing cards and some are stained with an orange resin from which the "balm of Gilead" is derived.
  
  > examine the ash
  The scaly trunk of the black ash is marked by the signs of both fungal damage and the Emerald Ash Borer. Where sections of bark have flaked away from the trunk, weevil-wheedling paths of pale discoloration caused by the larval secretions of this virulent insect can be discerned. Epicormic shoots shamelessly sprout forth from this blighted trunk like unwanted fingers.
  
  > Fish
  What do you want to fish?
  
  > examine the trap
  (the freshwater lobster trap)
  The trap looks rather like a rabbit hutch, approximately 600 mm in length, almost cuboid but slightly curved at the top edges so that its width is marginally more narrow at the top than at the bottom, where it measures around 300 mm. The framework of the trap seems to be made of slats of ash, which goes some way to explaining its weight. Along one side of the trap is a wire-frame mesh door attached to the body of the trap with copper "J Clip" hinges, long rusted. The door is held shut at the other end by two thin loops of twine, which are tied tight at a point two-thirds up and two-thirds down the length of the door, opposite the hinges. Along the other side of the trap is a funnel-shaped opening of netting, which grows narrower as it recedes into the trap.
  
  The kitchen (the funnel-shaped netting), the parlor (the trap's second chamber), and the bedroom (the trap's false exit) are all parts of the freshwater lobster trap.
  
  In the freshwater lobster trap are an employee ID card and an eggbound crawfish.
  
  > examine the eggbound crawfish
  The eggbound crawfish is considerably smaller than the tragic, moldering specimen upon the bank - around six inches in length, but with antenna that resemble long curving tendrils, notably large for her size of body. She reposes in the trap's bedroom, occasionally skittering back and forth like an armor-plated insect.
  
  The crawfish's swimmerets are laden with eggs the size and color of tinned peas. The eggs sway back and forth like grapes upon a vine, wafted by their mother to ensure their aeration.
  
  > Open trap
  (the freshwater lobster trap)
  Currently the trap is being held shut by two thin loops of twine.
  
  > cut the twine with the shard
  (the thin loops of twine with the shard of shattered carapace)
  You cut through the twine with the sharp edge of the shard of the crawldad's shell. With the twine no longer securing the door of the trap, it swings open.
  
  > examine the employee card
  An employee ID card for Vermont Transit Authority, bearing a blurry ID photo and the name "Veeder, R."
  
  > look at the coffee
  The swirls 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 north
  Under the Bridge (Tenth)
  The path along the river gives way to a crumbling stone embankment as it passes below the arch of the old stone bridge. A rusty metal hatch is set into the ground opposite from the river, and towards the end of the embankment, a derelict payphone squats, forgotten, under the shadow of the bridge. To the south, the path continues to follow the river.
  
  > examine Bridge
  A once proud part of Backwater's infrastructure, now crumbling into ruin. The decorative carvings along the sides have worn away to faint impressions, and much of the underside has been patched with lighter-colored concrete.
  
  > look at the hatch
  The humidity of the river has rusted the hatch to the color of dried blood, like an old scab on the embankment. Seemingly of the same vintage as the bridge, it lacks any modern logo, markings, or even a handle, though there is an odd rectangular indentation along one edge.
  
  > check your inventory
  You are carrying:
  an employee ID card
  a shard of shattered carapace
  a soggy tome
  a long hooked pole
  a grimy rock
  a dead battery
  a moldy, waterlogged journal
  a small, rectangular battery
  an antique locket (being worn and closed)
  The Dollmaker's Journal
  a repaired page
  a trolley schedule
  a trolley pass (being worn)
  Twin Hearts Between the Planes
  a pamphlet of home listings
  a Jansport backpack (being worn and open)
  a hidden pocket (open but empty)
  a key pocket (open but empty)
  a book pocket (open)
  a postcard of Big Ben
  the diary of Phyllis Cragne
  The Modern Girl's Divination Handbook -- Volume Three
  a side pocket (open but empty)
  a trash pocket (open but empty)
  a backpack features guide
  a book list
  a library card
  Peter's jacket
  a faint chill (haunting you)
  a cast iron spire
  a waterproof flashlight
  a giant milkweed leaf (being worn as a mask)
  a pull-string doll
  a glass jar containing an insect
  a half-full styrofoam coffee cup
  a familiar gold wristwatch
  a brass winding key
  
  > examine the indentation
  The indentation in the hatch is a little over an inch long, about half as wide, and seems too shallow to make a good handle, even if it didn't look like a jagged-edged tetanus-shot-waiting-to-happen... Which, for the record, it does.
  
  > examine the payphone
  The payphone has been vandalized exhaustively over the years; The shelter is covered in graffiti, while the phone itself has been scratched, stained, spraypainted, and used as an ashtray, among other things. While there is a grievous wound where a large piece of the phone was torn out, there is still a coin slot in the upper right, a keypad in the center, next to the receiver, and a coin return in the lower right; Probably about as much of a phone as necessary to place a call.
  
  But you find yourself strangely reluctant to touch it, as if you would be disturbing a grave, or a shrine to some nameless Backwater god...
  
  > look at the coffee
  The clouds in your cup form a jackalope. Images of strange hybrids mean that some challenges in your current environment can be defeated with what you already possess, while others will require outside assistance.
  
  > look at quarter
  An ancient, discolored, battle-scarred US quarter, still proudly worth 25 cents. While the tail features a bald eagle, the George Washington profile on the head side has been... damaged.
  
  > look at profile
  The head side of the coin has been purposefully defaced. George Washington's eye has been gouged out of the surface of the coin, with a crack leading downward, resembling tears (or blood), his mouth has been carved into a crude, jagged opening, and the "In god we trust" inscription has been obliterated.
  
  While it's probably just another casualty of Backwater teens expressing their angst, you can't quite shake the feeling that the coin was purposefully left where you'd find it.