text: > Look around
  This is the floor of the stock market, and it's full of animals. There's hooting and honking and barking and mooing. I'm getting hungry just looking at their pen. From here, I can go south to the bank or southwest to Big Street.
  
  Some merchants crowd around an auctioneer, doing whatever it is that humans do.
  
  I can also see a coffer (which is open) and an auction block (on top of which is a stock certificate) here.
  
  "...sold!" Professor Demonspoon steps up to the block, pays the auctioneer, takes the stock, and sits down again.
  
  Two pigs huddle together, shivering nervously.
  
  > ask the pigs about the auction
  I perch near the livestock pens. "Hey there, I---"
  
  "No time to talk! Can't stop moooooooving! The farmer might come back!"
  
  The auctioneer fishes around in the coffer, pulls out a stock, and puts it on the auction block.
  
  "Now, who wants to own these fine shares of Aggregate Sea Krait System?" he asks.
  
  > go south
  Let me tell you, these walls gleam. They're made of Marmoreal
  marble, known for the gold lines running through it. The floors and ceilings are made of the same material. The lobby of the bank is fairly open. There are exits to the north and west leading outside, and the bank continues to the east. There's also a table with forms and stuff.
  
  > Bite cord
  Okay. Fear the beak. Snap! All right, it's broken.
  
  > Go east
  Let me tell you, these walls gleam. They're made of Marmoreal
  marble, known for the gold lines running through it. The floors and ceilings are made of the same material. The lobby of the bank is fairly open. There are exits to the north and west leading outside, and the bank continues to the east. There's also a table with forms and stuff.
  
  This part of the bank is cut off from the public by a gilded cage. There's a big, grey, solid-looking door back there, presumably a vault. The room is big and echoey, thirty or forty feet high and brightly lit from a huge gold chandelier overhead. The main lobby is back to the west.
  
  There's a black cord running from a hole in the wall.
  
  There's a bored-looking teller behind the bars.
  
  > show the scrap to the teller
  All right. Deep breath, W.D. You can do this. I'm doing my serious face, boss. I look deadly. I have a bomm and I'm not afraid to use it. In fact, I'd love to use it. I'd rather blow this bank up than get my money! Just give me an excuse! One million florins or hot fiery death! One million florins AND hot fiery death! Forget the money; I'm taking you all with meeeeeeeeeee!
  
  ...Darn it. I wish we had a real bomb. All the things you made that exploded by accident, and you never made a bomb on purpose?
  
  Er, right. I should actually give her the note. Okay, she's reading it. "Just one minute, sir," she says. (Ooh, I'm a sir.) She's reaching under the counter--- ooh, she's going to try to pull the alarm! She looks surprised. She looks down at her hand. I bet you were expecting some tension in that cord, huh? She looks at me nervously. Oh yeah, I am two seconds away from kaboom, ma'am. Better get me my money.
  
  She gets up and fumbles with the vault door. She pulls out several different keys. I keep glaring so she'll hurry up. She opens the door, reaches in, and grabs a sack. Then she comes back to me and unlocks something to open the bars. She tosses the sack at me and closes the bars.
  
  She suddenly claps her hands over her mouth. "Oh my god! You got Two-Handed Bart arrested just so you could rob the bank yourself! ...Pleasedon'tkillme."
  
  Oh yeah. I am W.D., and I am the King of Moneyville.
  
  > take the sack
  (the sack of bearer bonds)
  I already have that.
  
  > go west
  Let me tell you, these walls gleam. They're made of Marmoreal
  marble, known for the gold lines running through it. The floors and ceilings are made of the same material. The lobby of the bank is fairly open. There are exits to the north and west leading outside, and the bank continues to the east. There's also a table with forms and stuff.
  
  Big Street, North End
  This is the heart of Moneyville, the financial district. There's a bank, the stock market, money changers--- you want to spend and get money, you come here. This is a terrible part of town for getting food, but it's a great place for shiny, shiny gold. Everything here sparkles. Yeah...coins everywhere....Oh, sorry. I spaced out for a minute there.
  
  I can go west deeper into the city if you want me to get harrassed by guards. The bank's east of here and the stock market's northeast, and Big Street continues to the south.
  
  The two halves of a broken black cord hang down from the guard tower and the bank.
  
  > Inventory
  In my bag of holding, I have:
  a sack of bearer bonds
  a reward chit
  a leather pouch (which is open but empty)
  a florin
  a torn bit of wool
  a vellum page
  some farming tools
  a cedar box (which is open but empty)
  a piece of yellow paper
  a piece of green paper
  a piece of violet paper
  a piece of red paper
  a fish
  a fishing rod
  a wanted poster
  a bottle of clear fluid
  a bottle of blue dye
  a torn page
  a spell book
  a red balloon
  a magic wand
  the mind of a mediocre wizard
  
  > show the reward chit to Mel
  "You captured Two-handed Bart?"
  
  "Single-winged."
  
  "How?"
  
  "He showed up in the bank, so I pulled the alarm."
  
  "Well, that's something. I suppose I'll cash this in before I mention knowing that Two-Handed Bart is always in Caberry this time of year."
  
  "Uh, yeah, you do that."
  
  Mel takes out a ledger from underneath the counter and carefully makes a note in it. "All right, that's certainly worth another ingredient."
  
  > show the sack to Mel
  Mel's eyes bug out slightly. "How...?"
  
  "Lemonade stand."
  
  "...I'm just going to not think about it." Mel takes out a ledger from underneath the counter and carefully makes a note in it. "All right, that's certainly worth another ingredient."
  
  Mel closes his account book. "Well, W.D., I think you might have enough to make one of the simpler Midas potions I'm familiar with. I'll open the door to the alchemy laboratory." Mel makes a smooth but arcane gesture. In a seemingly empty space on the shop floor, a trapdoor abruptly pops into existence.
  
  "Oh, so that was what a Perfectly Foolproof Illusion is
  supposed to look like."
  
  Mel says nothing as he crosses over to the trapdoor and opens it for me. "There. You'll be able to use the equiment in the laboratory to brew a potion."
  
  "Wow, Mel, thank you so much. I'll definitely bring the boss here to buy you lunch, or something."
  
  Mel nods. "I know you are in a hurry, W.D,. but you may want to look around a little more. I'm not entirely certain you have the right ingredients to make something useful."
  
  "Oh. Well, I'll check the lab out."
  
  "Good luck."