text: [Themes: Zorkian, Cave crawl, alchemy]
  
  > Go downward
  You abseil down the chimney, securely held by the rope, though you
  have to untie yourself to drop down the last foot or so.
  
  At the foot of the chimney are low and grimy cellars, built of
  decaying brickwork and seemingly unused for years. There are no
  bottles, or crates, unless they're stored through the passage to the
  south.
  
  Your length of rope is here. Its tail is just visible at the foot of
  the chimney.
  
  > Go south
  ancient Watling Street, which must run just overhead.
  
  under a long lintel-stone; a side passage, northwest, is much more
  earthy.
  
  > Go northwest
  This is a red-brown earthy bole, a cavity in hardened soil with but a
  single crawl leading out to the southeast. The ground is covered with
  autumn leaves, russet and variegated.
  
  In the centre is a bubbling pool of spring water, glinting with shades
  and flickers of green phosphoresence.
  
  > Examine leaves
  The leaves have the weight of many autumns, many winds, in their
  delicate hue.
  
  > Count leaves
  There are 16,339 leaves.
  
  > Search leaves
  Turning through the leaves, you come across a precious platinum egg!
  
  > Drink water
  The water is imbued with something... what? A taste of blackcurrant
  and the scent of morning fire-ash. Whatever it is, it's naturally
  carbonated and you hiccup.
  
  In fact, you feel quite light-headed.
  
  > examine the egg
  You see nothing special about the platinum egg.
  
  You're beginning to feel dangerously unsteady on your feet.
  
  > Wait
  Time passes.
  
  ...And suddenly, there is the Power! It crackles through your whole
  body, sparking at your fingernails and toenails, sending shivers along
  your limbs. You feel suddenly afraid to imagine, afraid that you can
  no longer tell imagination from reality.
  
  > check what you're carrying
  You are carrying:
  your Ambassador's trunk (which is closed)
  a small wickerwork hamper (which is open)
  some provisions - a joint of cured ham, an apple, a hunk of cheese
  and a clove of garlic
  a brass lantern (providing light)
  The Guide For Travellers To The Lower Northlands and Surrounding
  Provinces
  three ancient treasures:
  a platinum egg
  a jewelled scarab
  a jade figurine
  
  > examine the scarab
  A finely-worked filigree gold and jewelled scarab.
  
  > Go south
  The only passage out of this earthy bole is southeast.
  
  > go to the southeast
  ancient Watling Street, which must run just overhead.
  
  under a long lintel-stone; a side passage, northwest, is much more
  earthy.
  
  Still not quite yourself, you trip over slightly, banging your head on
  the lintel. Involuntarily you curse out the word "jilnix", a word
  you're almost certain you've never heard before!
  
  surge of motion. A dark cloud of bat-like insects clashes with the
  clear air around you, purposeless and malevolent. Only by great effort
  of will can you abolish them.
  
  One thing seems clear. The Old Magic has returned.
  
  > Spells
  The jilnix spell is indelibly etched on your memory. Other than that,
  you have no spells memorised.
  
  > Jilnix
  As your brows frown, the air around you gathers with vile winged
  insects, fluttering angrily about you for a moment. But nothing
  results from this, and they dissipate again.
  
  > Go northwest
  This is a red-brown earthy bole, a cavity in hardened soil with but a
  single crawl leading out to the southeast. The ground is covered with
  autumn leaves, russet and variegated.
  
  In the centre is a bubbling pool of spring water, glinting with shades
  and flickers of green phosphoresence.
  
  > Go south
  You duck your head under the lintel-stone.
  
  A narrow passage, running north to south under solid sandstone blocks
  which must make up the base of the wall. Further south, the passage
  runs onto what seems to be a ledge, and you have a sense of space
  opening up from below.
  
  The Old Underground Empire awaits!
  
  A watchful oil-snake coils and uncoils itself restlessly, occupying
  its territory but making no move towards you as yet.
  
  > look at the snake
  It has a lean and hungry look.
  
  > Jilnix snake
  As your brows frown, the air around you gathers with vile winged
  insects, which surge forward to plague the oil-snake. It recoils
  (literally) backward, retreating south through the passage until out
  of sight! Your insects dissipate, their work done.
  
  > Go south
  This is a slate-littered shelf high up at the northwest eaves of a
  dark, vaulted cave, from which a meadow-fresh breeze blows. The ledge
  broadens down a slab "staircase" to the east but wastes away into a
  tight squeeze southwest. Natural passages extend like tendrils into
  the rock all around this cavern, but only one is accessible from here,
  back north under the lintel.
  
  Hanging down toward the dim, distant cave floor is a flourishing,
  inverted cedar, its roots grappling the roof, its nearest outflung
  branch a good 10 feet across the abyss from here.
  
  > Go north
  A narrow passage, running north to south under solid sandstone blocks
  which must make up the base of the wall. Further south, the passage
  runs onto what seems to be a ledge, and you have a sense of space
  opening up from below.
  
  The Old Underground Empire awaits!
  
  > Go southwest
  dead end not far west, but a muddy slide-passage descends to the
  south.
  
  A flat stick, curved around a right angle, rests on the ground here.
  
  > look at stick
  A flat curved stick, but one that has been well-crafted to some end.
  
  > throw stick
  stick, since you'd really need to pull your arm right back and swing
  hard.
  
  > Go south
  This is only half a cave; the eastern half, to be exact. It's a dark
  place full of crevices (you would have missed the slide passage back
  north if you hadn't already known about it); chief among them a
  distinctive triangular cavity, 1 foot or so high, and blocked by a
  rough quartz window.
  
  What divides this cave is a solid, floor-to-ceiling stone wall running
  north to south, masoned with mortar and seemingly recent. You feel
  quite certain that the cave continues.
  
  A shard of pottery glints slightly in the mud floor.
  
  > look at the pottery
  old. (Held up to the light, it has a faint glint from having being
  baked with mica.)
  
  > look
  This is only half a cave; the eastern half, to be exact. It's a dark
  place full of crevices (you would have missed the slide passage back
  north if you hadn't already known about it); chief among them a
  distinctive triangular cavity, 1 foot or so high, and blocked by a
  rough quartz window.
  
  What divides this cave is a solid, floor-to-ceiling stone wall running
  north to south, masoned with mortar and seemingly recent. You feel
  quite certain that the cave continues.
  
  > examine the wall
  (the masoned wall)
  You see nothing special about the masoned wall.
  
  > examine the window
  The window itself, perhaps, was the work of primitive cave dwellers
  long ago. Whoever they were, they seem to have cut some kind of cavity
  to the east, behind the window.
  
  > examine the cavity
  Tantalisingly, you can only see darkness within.
  
  > go to the east
  The quartz window in the east wall is only 1 foot high, in addition to
  being apparently unbreakable.
  
  > Jilnix window
  As your brows frown, the air around you gathers with vile winged
  insects, which surge forward to plague the quartz window. But nothing
  results from this, and they dissipate again.
  
  > check your inventory
  You are carrying:
  a shard of pottery
  a flat curved stick
  your Ambassador's trunk (which is closed)
  a small wickerwork hamper (which is open)
  some provisions - a joint of cured ham, an apple, a hunk of cheese
  and a clove of garlic
  a brass lantern (providing light)
  The Guide For Travellers To The Lower Northlands and Surrounding
  Provinces
  three ancient treasures:
  a platinum egg
  a jewelled scarab
  a jade figurine
  
  > Go south
  Thanks to the wall, the slide passage is the only way out.
  
  > go north
  dead end not far west, but a muddy slide-passage descends to the
  south.
  
  > go northeast
  The increasingly earthy rock blocks your way. The only viable routes
  are west, south and northeast.
  
  This is a slate-littered shelf high up at the northwest eaves of a
  dark, vaulted cave, from which a meadow-fresh breeze blows. The ledge
  broadens down a slab "staircase" to the east but wastes away into a
  tight squeeze southwest. Natural passages extend like tendrils into
  the rock all around this cavern, but only one is accessible from here,
  back north under the lintel.
  
  Hanging down toward the dim, distant cave floor is a flourishing,
  inverted cedar, its roots grappling the roof, its nearest outflung
  branch a good 10 feet across the abyss from here.
  
  > Go south
  ledge, either down to the east or into the tight squeeze to the
  southwest.
  
  > throw branch
  The inverted cedar is already on the floor.
  
  > Go west
  An earthy rockfall, soaked through with water into wet clay, makes
  this passage lose all coherence. A kind of chimney-like crack leads
  upward, and the crawl eases slightly to the east.
  
  Roughly underneath the chimney-crack is a mound of garbage, dropped in
  from above. Potato-peel, broken tools and so on seem to make up the
  bulk of it.
  
  > go to the west
  The muddy earth is too tight.
  
  > Search heap
  The moment you reach out to touch the mound, it comes alive with
  woodlice and ants, making you pull your finger back as if stung.
  Whatever the mound's secrets, they're well guarded.
  
  A moment later, it's as if nothing had happened.
  
  > Jilnix heap
  As your brows frown, the air around you gathers with vile winged
  insects, which surge forward to plague the garbage heap. They set
  about the garbage heap with relish, doing battle royal with the native woodlice and ants. Only when finally triumphant do they dissipate.
  
  > Search heap
  Rummaging through the garbage, you turn up all manner of things: odd
  socks with holes in, iron bedstead-parts, rotting turnips and so on.
  
  And then you come across a bound volume of parchment (wrapped loosely
  in old sackcloth), filled with curious writings.
  
  > look at the crack
  You can just make out starlight, so it must open onto the ground
  above. You can't help feeling it was indeed constructed to be a
  chimney, terribly long ago and with primitive tools at best.
  
  > Up
  The chimney-crack becomes just too tight for you, and you sag back
  down, muddier and wiser.
  
  > check your inventory
  You are carrying:
  Experimental Spell Book #5
  a shard of pottery
  a flat curved stick
  your Ambassador's trunk (which is closed)
  a small wickerwork hamper (which is open)
  some provisions - a joint of cured ham, an apple, a hunk of cheese
  and a clove of garlic
  a brass lantern (providing light)
  The Guide For Travellers To The Lower Northlands and Surrounding
  Provinces
  three ancient treasures:
  a platinum egg
  a jewelled scarab
  a jade figurine
  
  > Examine book
  Which do you mean, the parchment book or The Guide For Travellers To
  The Lower Northlands and Surrounding Provinces?
  
  > look at the parchment
  A note tucked into the book falls out and into your hand.
  
  The chiaro spell (cause inanimate object to radiate light).
  The jilnix spell (summon small plague of insects).
  The piroo spell (unfasten object).
  
  The chiaro spell (cause inanimate object to radiate light).
  The jilnix spell (summon small plague of insects).
  The piroo spell (unfasten object).
  
  > read the note
  Graceful, almost effeminate handwriting on the note declares that as
  the parchment book is defective (having failed the target of binding
  up to 50 spells), it is to be disposed of.
  
  Since magic-imbued paper will not burn, the instructions go on to
  insist that the book must be securely buried.
  
  Presumably, whoever received this note thought that dropping the book
  into the rubbish dump at one corner of the Imperial hunting woods was
  quite secure enough.
  
  (There is something troublingly familiar about the handwriting,
  perhaps from your briefings last month. But you can't put your finger
  on it.)
  
  > memorize the chiaro
  You commit the chiaro spell to memory.
  
  > memorize the chiaro
  You commit the chiaro spell to memory once again.
  
  > memorize the piroo
  You commit the piroo spell to memory.
  
  > Chiaro pottery
  glow! Not for a long moment is the light level tolerable.
  
  > examine the chiaro
  chiaro spell (cause inanimate object to radiate light).
  
  > check your inventory
  You are carrying:
  the "destruction order"
  Experimental Spell Book #5
  a shard of pottery (providing light)
  a flat curved stick
  your Ambassador's trunk (which is closed)
  a small wickerwork hamper (which is open)
  some provisions - a joint of cured ham, an apple, a hunk of cheese
  and a clove of garlic
  a brass lantern (providing light)
  The Guide For Travellers To The Lower Northlands and Surrounding
  Provinces
  three ancient treasures:
  a platinum egg
  a jewelled scarab
  a jade figurine
  
  > Go east
  You edge along the northern wall of the cave, descending the rocky
  stairs.
  
  Just where the shelf flattens at the foot of rocky steps (climbing
  westward), a square-cut doorway has been hewn into the north wall. The
  ledge, which begins to curve southeast, is at its broadest here, yet
  your feeling of vertigo hardly abates.
  
  southwest, 30 feet away.
  
  A watchful oil-snake coils and uncoils itself restlessly, occupying
  its territory but making no move towards you as yet.
  
  > Go north
  The oil-snake oozes and rears itself up to bar your way.
  
  > Jilnix snake
  As your brows frown, the air around you gathers with vile winged
  insects, which surge forward to plague the oil-snake. But it's not to
  be fooled a second time.
  
  > Spells
  The jilnix spell is indelibly etched on your memory. Other than that,
  you have the piroo spell and chiaro spell memorised.
  
  > look at the piroo
  piroo spell (unfasten object).
  
  > Piroo snake
  Nothing happens, perhaps because the oil-snake was already unfastened.
  
  > Piroo snake
  You speak the word, but it seems that isn't enough to make the magical
  forces gather. Perhaps if you could voice the spell more quickly, with
  more assuredness... you would need to have learnt the spell in
  advance, though.
  
  Odd how at any one time, you can remember the details of some spells
  but not others.
  
  [Type the "spells" command to see which you can remember at any given
  moment.]
  
  > memorize the piroo
  You commit the piroo spell to memory.
  
  > go north
  At the foot of the chimney are low and grimy cellars, built of
  decaying brickwork and seemingly unused for years. There are no
  bottles, or crates, unless they're stored through the passage to the
  south.
  
  Your length of rope is here. Its tail is just visible at the foot of
  the chimney.
  
  > Piroo rope
  The rope falls obligingly to your feet.
  
  > go south
  You duck your head under the lintel-stone.
  
  A narrow passage, running north to south under solid sandstone blocks
  which must make up the base of the wall. Further south, the passage
  runs onto what seems to be a ledge, and you have a sense of space
  opening up from below.
  
  The Old Underground Empire awaits!
  
  > throw the stick
  You throw the flat curved stick out into the vast air of the cave,
  where it quickly spins out of sight.
  
  > wait awhile
  Time passes.
  
  > wait
  Time passes.
  
  Suddenly and without warning, the flat curved stick spins back in from
  the cave and gives you a nasty bruise on the head.
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying:
  a boomerang
  a length of light rope
  the "destruction order"
  Experimental Spell Book #5
  a shard of pottery (providing light)
  your Ambassador's trunk (which is closed)
  a small wickerwork hamper (which is open)
  some provisions - a joint of cured ham, an apple, a hunk of cheese
  and a clove of garlic
  a brass lantern (providing light)
  The Guide For Travellers To The Lower Northlands and Surrounding
  Provinces
  three ancient treasures:
  a platinum egg
  a jewelled scarab
  a jade figurine
  
  > jump to the cedar
  You take a short run-up and leap across, just managing to catch the
  nearest branch! Painfully slowly, you haul yourself in.
  
  You are perched inside the dense, broad first branches down from the
  cedar's roots, which splay across the rocky ceiling like buttresses on
  a perpendicular gothic column. Through the dappled green cover, you
  can just make out the long ledge, but it's too far up to jump across.
  
  A tree-house has been constructed here, though it's little more than a
  wooden lean-to on a log platform.
  
  You can also see a bow and an arrow here.
  
  > take bow and arrow
  bow: Taken.
  arrow: Taken.
  
  > look at arrow
  There's no good way of tying it to that.
  
  You see nothing special about the arrow.
  
  > examine bow
  A short-bow, reasonably accurate across short distances though little
  good for rapid fire. Well-balanced, if far from being state of the
  art.
  
  > enter House
  Strangely, every side appears to be solid with vine-bound planks and
  logs, even the obvious place where a doorway should be.
  
  > memorize the piroo
  You haven't got that spell committed to memory. [Type "spells" to see
  what you do remember.]
  
  You commit the piroo spell to memory.
  
  > Piroo house
  As the spell takes effect, vines begin to shrink and strain all over
  the treehouse. Just as your magic is about to expire, the cords break
  and the doorway opens up onto a dark interior.
  
  > get in
  (the ledge)
  The ledge is too far off.
  
  > enter House
  Inside the wooden lean-to is a surprising illusion of space and
  comfort, which you'd never guess is perched in an upside-down cedar.
  There are no windows, but finely built wooden chairs suggest some kind
  of meeting-place.
  
  A golden fir-cone rolls about on one of the chairs.
  
  You can also see two arrows here.
  
  > get the cone
  Taken.
  
  > Continue
  (the arrow)
  Taken.
  
  > look at the cone
  Only an inch across, but beautiful and valuable.
  
  > sit
  (on yourself)
  That's not something you can enter.
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying:
  three arrows
  a bow
  a boomerang
  a length of light rope
  the "destruction order"
  Experimental Spell Book #5
  a shard of pottery (providing light)
  your Ambassador's trunk (which is closed)
  a small wickerwork hamper (which is open)
  some provisions - a joint of cured ham, an apple, a hunk of cheese
  and a clove of garlic
  a brass lantern (providing light)
  The Guide For Travellers To The Lower Northlands and Surrounding
  Provinces
  four ancient treasures:
  a golden fir-cone
  a platinum egg
  a jewelled scarab
  a jade figurine
  
  > examine the destruction order
  Graceful, almost effeminate handwriting on the note declares that as
  the parchment book is defective (having failed the target of binding
  up to 50 spells), it is to be disposed of.
  
  Since magic-imbued paper will not burn, the instructions go on to
  insist that the book must be securely buried.
  
  Presumably, whoever received this note thought that dropping the book
  into the rubbish dump at one corner of the Imperial hunting woods was
  quite secure enough.
  
  (There is something troublingly familiar about the handwriting,
  perhaps from your briefings last month. But you can't put your finger
  on it.)
  
  > look
  Inside the wooden lean-to is a surprising illusion of space and
  comfort, which you'd never guess is perched in an upside-down cedar.
  There are no windows, but finely built wooden chairs suggest some kind
  of meeting-place.
  
  > go outside
  You are perched inside the dense, broad first branches down from the
  cedar's roots, which splay across the rocky ceiling like buttresses on
  a perpendicular gothic column. Through the dappled green cover, you
  can just make out the long ledge, but it's too far up to jump across.
  
  A tree-house has been constructed here, though it's little more than a
  wooden lean-to on a log platform.