text: [Themes: Lovecraftian]
  
  > describe your surroundings
  Pantry (Chris Conley)
  You are in a pantry lined with metal shelves stretching the entire length of both walls. Most of the metal shelves' contents lie deep in shadow, as the room is lit by only a single bare bulb hanging three feet above your head. The flat dark stones echo as you walk, and the air down here is cold and damp.
  
  The rest of the basement lies off to the west. A dark doorway beckons to the east.
  
  Pale roots of some unknown plant have broken through the ceiling in one corner, dangling halfway to the floor.
  
  You can also see a disgusting rotting pumpkin here.
  
  You want to stick your face in that peach brine.
  
  > get the pumpkin
  (the disgusting rotting pumpkin)
  You succeed only in coating your arms in pumpkin goo.
  
  > put the apple in the peaches jar
  You put the golden apple (smelling faintly of mildew) into the jar of peaches (smelling faintly of mildew).
  
  > put the pumpkin in the peaches jar
  (the disgusting rotting pumpkin in the jar of peaches (smelling faintly of mildew))
  (first taking the disgusting rotting pumpkin)
  You succeed only in coating your arms in pumpkin goo.
  
  You have an irrational urge to climb inside the jar of peaches (smelling faintly of mildew).
  
  > enter peaches jar
  You stick your head in, and suddenly you find yourself falling down, down, down...
  
  Splash.
  
  You are immersed in peach pickling brine. Everything around you is a brilliant golden hue. You have no idea how exactly you got in here or how you could possibly fit. And even though you have not made a particular habit of failing to breathe underwater, right now it just feels unnecessary.
  
  The looming shapes of the bare light bulb and the rest of the pantry are barely recognizable through the gilded distortions of the brine and intervening glass.
  
  A great many giant orange boulders bob lazily in the brine.
  
  Something white flits past your view.
  
  > About yourself
  You are now, apparently, a miniscule pickled woman. You're practically a weakling in this form; taking something out of inventory proves impossible. On the bright side, your skin has never looked more radiant.
  
  The tiny light-colored speck darts by once more.
  
  > look at the speck
  A small speck of something light-colored. It's hard to get a good look at something so small in this situation. When you try to swim closer to get a better look, it darts away, only to pop up again a second later.
  
  A feeling of intense curiosity floods your mind. The mote does a kind of flip in the brine and then bobs in front of you, waiting.
  
  You feel compelled to say something.
  
  > say something
  (to the tiny flitting thing)
  You try to greet it, but you don't have much luck forming words, immersed as you are in this liquid.
  
  But the mote seems to understand. It bobs once, and a gentle warmth suffuses your mind.
  
  There is no reply.
  
  > look at the speck
  A small speck of something light-colored. It's hard to get a good look at something so small in this situation. When you try to swim closer to get a better look, it darts away, only to pop up again a second later.
  
  > look at the peaches
  These are giant things, larger than you, floating suspended in the brine. They must be the pickled peaches.
  
  > eat them
  Each one is bigger than you. You don't have all day.
  
  > ask the speck about the speck
  It throbs three times, then cuts a quick circle around you.
  
  > ask the speck about the peaches
  The spot... shrugs. Somehow.
  
  > ask the speck about Salona
  A feeling of confusion fills your mind.
  
  > ask speck about yourself
  A feeling of confusion fills your mind.
  Apparently this creature has never heard of yourself.
  
  > ask the speck about Edmund
  The tiny dot bobs up and down eagerly, then turns blue.
  
  And then, as if you're hearing a recording made many decades ago, tinny and echoing, you hear what must be Edmund's voice once more, this time inside your mind:
  
  "If you will indulge me, I wish to recite this poem I have oft enjoyed..." There is the sound of rustling papers. "Here we are.
  
  'Under the crescent moons,
  Beneath the starlit skies,
  The bells lament with their songs,
  The bells lament with their cries.
  
  A song of copper and iron,
  A song of silver and gold,
  The bells sing of the One's true sign,
  The bells sing of the Ones of old.'"
  
  There is a sharp bang, followed by a wet choking sound, and then silence.
  
  The dot returns to its usual off-white color and makes a lazy figure eight in the brine.
  
  Somehow, you have the feeling that you ought to remember that poem he recited.
  
  > Go upwards
  You swim up... and up... and break the surface... And suddenly you emerge, wet and dripping, in...
  
  Pantry (Chris Conley)
  You are in a pantry lined with metal shelves stretching the entire length of both walls. Most of the metal shelves' contents lie deep in shadow, as the room is lit by only a single bare bulb hanging three feet above your head. The flat dark stones echo as you walk, and the air down here is cold and damp.
  
  The rest of the basement lies off to the west. A dark doorway beckons to the east.
  
  Pale roots of some unknown plant have broken through the ceiling in one corner, dangling halfway to the floor.
  
  You can also see a jar of peaches (smelling faintly of mildew) (in which is some golden peach liquid (in which are some pickled peaches)) and a disgusting rotting pumpkin here.
  
  > 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.
  
  A faint smell of mildew emanates from it.
  
  Something... alive? You feel an urge to put something alive in the jar.
  
  > close jar
  Which do you mean, the jar of peaches (smelling faintly of mildew), the dusty glass jars, the jar of old keys (smelling faintly of mildew), the jar of screws or the glass jar containing an insect (smelling faintly of mildew)?
  
  > Peaches
  You close the jar of peaches (smelling faintly of mildew).
  
  > go west
  Basement (Ivan Roth)
  It's dark and chilly down here. A damp, mildewy carpet of dimly visible design covers half the floor. It must have been luxuriously soft before it started rotting.
  
  A rickety staircase leads back up towards the heavy wooden door to the kitchen. A flimsy plywood door leads north, but you know what lies in that direction. The dimly-lit basement extends in every other direction, south, east and west.
  
  A metal hatch opens into darkness below.
  
  > go north
  Cold Storage Room (Jeremy Freese)
  Aunt Mavis used to keep her peaches in a room that didn't look at all like this. On the walls is a message written in blood, composed in an ancient language you know intimately.
  
  There's also the thing Aunt Mavis gave you. You now understand what it is.
  
  > go to the west
  You feel cool air swirling around you as you stand in the manor's wine cellar. Stone floors, stone walls, and dim lighting keep the household's dwindling wine collection fresh and oaky.
  
  A large wooden wine rack covers one entire wall of the room, but with only a few bottles left on it. You can see a door to the west Another exit leads east.
  
  You've smashed or removed every bottle of wine, and the rack stands empty before you.
  
  You can see a wine cask here.
  
  > go to the west
  Your ears pop and you stumble as you step across the threshold, reeling in a momentary gravitational slippage.
  
  Laboratory (Michael Gentry)
  Hard, white light reflected from steel walls pricks painfully at your eyes. Through the glare you can make out the implements of some sort of laboratory, squirming sculptures of metal and glass dripping curdled fluids and spurting foul-smelling puffs of steam. A way out lies east, but otherwise there seem to be no other exits from this place.
  
  The author is here, hunched over and fidgeting intently with a roiling knot of impossible space that floats in the middle of the room.
  
  "Would you just . . ." pleads the author. "Enter the work. It's the solution, the solution to everything . . ."
  
  > examine the coffee
  The clouds in your cup form a biplane. Modes of transportation mean that your current environment presents challenges that can only be overcome by seeking fresh perspectives elsewhere until you're ready to return.
  
  A faint smell of mildew emanates from it.
  
  The author leans close and frowns into the depths of the impossible space. "Should probably correct this typo . . ." he says. "But that would ruin the pacing . . ."
  
  > Go east
  "Come back soon!" the author calls after you.
  
  You feel cool air swirling around you as you stand in the manor's wine cellar. Stone floors, stone walls, and dim lighting keep the household's dwindling wine collection fresh and oaky.
  
  A large wooden wine rack covers one entire wall of the room, but with only a few bottles left on it. You can see a door to the west Another exit leads east.
  
  You've smashed or removed every bottle of wine, and the rack stands empty before you.
  
  You can see a wine cask here.