text: > descend
  Extremely spacious. It is its best with a half-dozen servants in livery. The floor is Italian marble, and a small door to the west is concealed by yellow silk hangings.
  
  The main staircase ascends to the corridor on the second floor, and a smaller version leads down into the dim basement. Doors also open north and northeast.
  
  On the wall is one of those mechanical clocks that pop open on the hour, allowing the ingenious internal figures out to play.
  
  The cuckoo clock ticks sullenly.
  
  In your hunger, you hallucinate little grey-pink mushrooms. Or perhaps frosted petits-four.
  
  > go to the northeast
  A grand room, for dining in style. The plastered ceiling is several times your height. The air now is cool and deep, the sunlight glancing through the windows and scattering from the chandelier, putting points of light at your feet, over the table, across the painted wallpaper and the handsome wood paneling.
  
  Woodworked columns frame the exits west and southwest.
  
  Heavy double doors open east to the kitchen.
  
  > remember the wallpaper
  ...
  
  "So the man linked himself to a suit of armor. And then he left the suit of armor at home, and went off to war to fight in his bare skin, thinking that whatever happened to him, the links would protect him. But at home his wife was horrified to see the armor slashed in pieces before her eyes..."
  
  "Anabelle," interrupted the Count, standing at the doorway with a hand on his vest. "Do you really think this story is appropriate for the children?"
  
  The Countess shrugged, half-smiling as she always had when the Count overrode her authority. "I hardly think it is any more disturbing than the other things Marie reads," she said lightly. "The dining room is more frightening than this story."
  
  "I don't mean that, of course." The Count smiled over you and Marie -- you on the floor, Marie with her skirts spread around her on the chaise. "But our children should not be told silly
  superstitions about linking." He came into the room then, touching the Countess' shoulder with an affectionate gesture. "Marie," he said, "What is wrong with your mother's story?"
  
  "The man has confused reverse-links and ordinary ones," Marie replied. "And he would have to be very stupid to do that, because reverse-links are harder to make and you can always tell when you have done it."
  
  The Count nodded at her. "Very good." He kissed the Countess and went out again...
  
  ...
  
  > go to the east
  A narrow corridor between the kitchen and the main house, which has a thick separate wall. The two buildings are only barely attached, to discourage fires. A small staircase leads down.
  
  Double doors give west onto the main house.
  
  > link roses to the bay leaf
  You valiantly try to link the two objects, but they seem as though they will never go together.
  
  > check your inventory
  You are carrying:
  a rug
  a small portrait
  a jeweled pin
  a hinge-lidded teapot (which is open)
  not very much water (which leaves some room in the hinge-lidded teapot)
  a sack (which is open)
  a stone block
  a bottle of mead (which is closed)
  a dark wooden box (which is open)
  an mirror inset inside the box (providing light)
  a pearl necklace
  an old letter
  a sponge
  a butcher knife
  a sword
  a snuffbox (which is open)
  a quantity of snuff
  a white handkerchief
  two metal dishes:
  a plate
  a cup
  a swordstick
  seven food items:
  some apples
  a vanilla bean
  a bay leaf
  a sprig of parsley
  a sprig of mint
  a clove of garlic
  a single yellow onion
  two books:
  The Lavori d'Aracne
  On Vegetable Dyes
  a dashing hat (being worn)
  two books:
  Guide to Assorted Wines
  The World Is Hollow (which is open but empty)
  
  > put the sponge in the pipe
  (first taking the sponge)
  (putting The World Is Hollow into the sack to make room)
  Taken.
  
  You wedge the sponge into the drain hole, blocking it.
  
  > fill teapot
  What do you want to fill the hinge-lidded teapot with?
  
  > Water
  Which do you mean, the water in the well or the water in the hinge-lidded teapot?
  
  > fill the teapot with well
  (first taking the well)
  That's hardly portable.
  
  In your hunger, you hallucinate fresh white cheese.
  
  > fill the teapot with the water from well
  You put some water in the hinge-lidded teapot. This fills the hinge-lidded teapot to the brim. The water mixes with what was already there.
  
  > put the water in the washbasin
  You put some water in the drain hole, exhausting the supply in the hinge-lidded teapot.
  
  > look at the drain
  Dark and hollow.
  
  In the drain hole are some water and a Tea Recipe.
  
  > examine Recipe
  A cylinder of silver metal as long as the middle joint of your thumb. On the surface are a series of strange bumps, depressions, and grooves, seeming carefully wrought and utterly intentional. The core of the cylinder is hollow, but over one end is a piece of paper which bears a label, in careful lettering, which reads, "Tea Recipe."
  
  > go to the east
  You can go only south.
  
  > Go east
  West is the wall of the kitchen. Most of the space along the wall is planted with herbs -- bay, parsley, stalks of mint -- left of the open doorway. To its right is only a drainage ditch, catching the outflow of a pipe that comes through the wall.
  
  In one corner of the plot is the well, drilled many deep feet; in another is the antique sundial.
  
  A tangle of climbing roses covers almost completely the wall and door of a shed to the southeast.
  
  (You can see a few drops of the water beginning to drip from the outflow pipe into the drainage ditch, but the sponge seems to be holding most of it back.)
  
  > fill the teapot with water from well
  You put some water in the hinge-lidded teapot. This fills the hinge-lidded teapot to the brim.
  
  > put the water in the washbasin
  The mouth of the hole is too narrow to allow you to get liquids back out of it.
  
  > put the water from the teapot in the washbasin
  You put some water in the drain hole, exhausting the supply in the hinge-lidded teapot. The water mixes with what was already there.
  
  > look at the drain
  Dark and hollow.
  
  In the drain hole are a great deal of water and a Tea Recipe.
  
  Dark and hollow.
  
  In the drain hole are a great deal of water and a Tea Recipe.
  
  In your hunger, you hallucinate little grey-pink mushrooms.
  
  > examine the drain
  Dark and hollow.
  
  In the drain hole are a great deal of water and a Tea Recipe.
  
  > take the sponge
  Taken.
  
  The water goes out the drain. The water mixes with what was already there.
  
  > Y.
  debugcheapnitfol quit with exit status: 0
  
  > check what you're carrying
  You are carrying:
  a bottle of mead (which is closed)
  a rug
  a small portrait
  a jeweled pin
  a hinge-lidded teapot (which is open but empty)
  a sack (which is open)
  a stone block
  a dark wooden box (which is open)
  an mirror inset inside the box (providing light)
  a pearl necklace
  an old letter
  a butcher knife
  a sword
  a snuffbox (which is open)
  a quantity of snuff
  a white handkerchief
  two metal dishes:
  a plate
  a cup
  a swordstick
  seven food items:
  some apples
  a vanilla bean
  a bay leaf
  a sprig of parsley
  a sprig of mint
  a clove of garlic
  a single yellow onion
  three books:
  The World Is Hollow (which is open but empty)
  The Lavori d'Aracne
  On Vegetable Dyes
  a dashing hat (being worn)
  Guide to Assorted Wines
  
  > read the Guide to the Wines
  ...some dry wine such as Sauvignon Blanc...
  
  > Shake bottle
  Nothing much results of this.
  
  > break bottle with the stone
  (the washbasin)
  (first taking the washbasin)
  That's hardly portable.
  
  > take the stone block
  (putting Guide to Assorted Wines into the sack to make room)
  Taken.
  
  > drop the mead
  You set the bottle of mead down gently.
  
  > hit bottle with the stone
  (the stone block)
  The stone block strikes the blue bottle. The blue bottle cracks dramatically, depositting the mead.
  
  > link the cork to Tea Recipe
  Bending your will, you form the link between the cork and the Tea Recipe.
  
  > examine the drain
  Dark and hollow.
  
  In the drain hole are a great deal of water and a Tea Recipe.
  
  > examine Tea Recipe
  A cylinder of silver metal as long as the middle joint of your thumb. On the surface are a series of strange bumps, depressions, and grooves, seeming carefully wrought and utterly intentional. The core of the cylinder is hollow, but over one end is a piece of paper which bears a label, in careful lettering, which reads, "Tea Recipe."
  
  > Unlink cork
  You succeed in unlinking the cork from the Tea Recipe.
  
  > Reverse link cork to Tea Recipe
  Bending your will and all your attention, you manage to make a reverse-link between the cork and the Tea Recipe, feeling their properties begin to merge together.
  
  The Tea Recipe floats on the surface of the water.
  
  > take Tea
  (putting the hinge-lidded teapot into the sack to make room)
  Taken.
  
  > open Tea
  That would be impossible even if the Tea Recipe weren't reverse-linked.
  
  In your hunger, you hallucinate curls of toasted bread.