text: [Themes: Mythological, journey, strong NPCs, ancient Greece, Oxford, male protagonist]
  
  > look around
  The extensive living / dining area was one of the features that drew you all to this house when you were looking for places to rent. That and - despite the fact none of you have been able to bring yourself to do anything as prosaic as cleaning for days - the fact it's not an abject shit hole like most of places on offer when you were doing the rounds.
  
  Currently, it's all cluttered with people. Your housemate John is sitting cross-legged on the floor at the end of the coffee table, frowning over a game of a Go. His opponent, Twitch, sits opposite and appears much more laid-back about the whole business. Rick is slumped on the sofa, a bottle of port at his elbow; Elsie is sitting next to him, apparently watching the game. Jess is huddled in a cloak on the other sofa, Adrian beside her, looking almost as uncomfortable as you feel. As for Laurie (fucking Laurie), she's leaning against the fireplace, and wearing an expression of infinite suffering like she's living her own little Victorian melodrama
  
  The coat stand is still in its corner, looming like an unexpected guest.
  
  Your escape routes are east into the kitchen, or south into the hall.
  
  Rick opens a new bottle of port.
  
  > check your inventory
  You are carrying:
  a 50p coin
  your coat
  some pills
  a lyre
  
  John hands an empty glass to Rick who obligingly sloshes port into it.
  
  > Wear coat
  Wearing a coat indoors is generally considered a bit odd.
  
  John sighs heavily as he loses yet another game of Go.
  
  > go north
  You can't go that way.
  
  John sighs heavily as he loses yet another game of Go.
  
  > Wear coat
  It is a little chilly but you'll be going back inside sooner or later.
  
  > examine the snake
  The snake has risen up from its coil, its eyes wide as its head moves back and forth in the thrall of the music from your lyre.
  
  > eat the pills
  While imitation may be thought to be the sincerest form of flattery, you should probably not start randomly taking someone else's medication. It didn't do much good for Celine, after all.
  
  > show the pills to Natalie
  Natalie is unimpressed.
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying:
  a knife
  a 50p coin
  your coat
  some pills
  a lyre
  
  > turn around
  You glance nervously over your shoulder but there is nothing untoward.
  
  Playing pieces clink in the silence.
  
  > Go south
  Winter light lies in anaemic strips upon the floor from where it has fallen through the glass panels in the front door. There is an awful painting hanging on the wall. The murmuring voices are more of a babble now; too many over-lapping conversations create an alien, baboonish gibberish.
  
  The outside world lurks to the west and the living room to the north. Or you could always just retreat upstairs.
  
  > go west
  This is just an ordinary street, lined by Victorian terraces, with their slightly over-ambitious moulding and bow windows. In the distance you can hear the muted roar of traffic streaming down the Abingdon Road. It is not quite suburbia but it's a pocket of Oxford unreached by spires, dreaming or otherwise. The fading light is nonetheless tinged by gold. The sky is a swirl of grey and pink, like the interior of a shell. There is a biting promise of winter in the air.
  
  Hinksey Park is to the northwest, your house to the east, and other places lie elsewhere.
  
  > Wear coat
  You shrug into your coat. It is a familar weight across your shoulders and you feel something shift within the tattered lining.
  
  > search the coat
  What else do you expect to find in there? An undiscovered Shakespearean sonnet
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying:
  a 50p coin
  your coat (being worn)
  some pills
  a lyre
  
  > play lyre
  You feel like a busker as you plunk away on the lyre and you sound ... very bad indeed.
  
  > go northwest
  The gate to Hinksey Park is not far from your house but by the time you arrive the sky is already suffused by a greyness that has blotted out the potential glories of an Oxford sunset. Night is snapping at your heels. The park  is the old fashioned kind, a basic arrangement of paths and benches, grass and trees. The nearest bench is over-hung by a willow tree, which has wept a burthen of withered foliage onto the seat. There is a lake, girdled by a path and an open air swimming pool.
  
  A river, which must be a tributary of the Thames, flows to the west. Malborough Road lies to the southeast.
  
  > Examine willow
  Oh willow, thou art sick. Autumn has stripped its bravado, leaving it frail and naked in the gathering dusk.
  
  > examine the lake
  The lake is misshapen splodge in the gloom. The breeze occasionally picks up ripples on the water. At its edge, an enormous swan twists its neck towards the sky and flings wide its white wings like an angel.
  
  > examine the pool
  Currently it's just an empty hollow, painted chlorine blue. You used to go all the time during the summer months - sometimes with Celine. You used to say she was a water-ninja she could swim so fast.
  
  > examine the path
  A path, plainly paved and circling the Lake.
  
  > look at the swan
  Swans are peculiar creatures. How can something so beautiful be so ungainly?
  
  > sit on the bench
  You go into the park and sit down on the nearest bench, letting the darkness enclose you. You're not very far from the houses and the road but the light and the noise doesn't reach you here. You could be in another world. The feeling of being entirely alone saturates your skin like cold. You listen to the almost imperceptible sound of air moving across the lake and through the scrubby grass. Tilting your head back, you stare at the sky. It looks as if it is made of stone. You wonder if this is how Celine felt, sitting on this bench perhaps, waiting to die, and stand up again hastily.
  
  > take the swan
  Are you mad? They can be really dangerous. You read a story once of a swan breaking a man's leg.
  
  > go to the west
  The river is a snake of moving darkness. There is a railway line running parallel on the other side and open fields after that. There is some kind of flat-bottomed boat by the bank nearest to you, and a tall man, in a long coat, is standing in the bow of the boat.
  
  Hinksey Park is behind you to the east.
  
  > examine man
  The man is so swathed about in garments it is hard to make out much about him. He is imposingly tall, or would be if he didn't stand in the hunched-over fashion he does, and seems gaunt. His hood is pulled down over his face, so you only occasionally catch glimpses of his profile: you piece together an impression of sharp-nosed pallor and pale eyes the colour of dirty water. One of his gloved hands rests upon the pole he probably uses to propel the boat through the water.
  
  > look at the boat
  You're not really an expert in boats. This one seems to be designed upon similar principles to a punt, although it lacks the comfortable cushions, champagne and strawberries you know for a fact to be an essential part of any punting trip.
  
  > give the coin to the man
  You toss the coin to ferryman. It turns over and over in the air, flashing silver, and then he reaches out a gloved hand and engulfs it in darkness. He carries it to his mouth and bites it. "That's not silver," he says. But then he shrugs. "It'll do. In you get."
  
  > get in the boat
  As you step towards the boat the Ferryman intercepts you again. "Coming back is harder than going," he says. "Are you sure?"
  
  > Yes
  You step into the boat. There is a space for a single passenger but it is not  exactly luxurious. You barely have time to sit down upon the damp wooden boards before the ferryman takes his first stroke, propelling the boat forward at an unlikely speed that causes the moving air to catch at you like icy hands. You  remember that someone told you once that a punt can travel at 30 miles an hour in
  favourable conditions ... but this one slips across the moonslick water as effortlessly as if it is glass. At any rate, you are glad that the man has sufficient  taste to punt from the Oxford end. You tilt your head back. You are going so fast that the stars are smeared across the sky.
  
  Something has happened. You have lost track of time, or track of yourself, or something. You were looking at the sky, feeling stars upon your skin, no, you were in a boat, cold seeping through you, wind tangling in your hair. But there is no trace of the punt here, or the man, or even a river. How did you get here? Where are you? There is a set of open wrought iron gates before you, as intricate as briars. Beyond them, hazy in the darkness to the southeast, a round lawn, dotted with trees. It all feels familiar somehow.
  
  Guarding the gate is biggest dog you have ever seen, a haunch of bloody meat and a vast water bowl at its feet.
  
  > Enter
  The trafficless road twines away into darkness. You could probably get to Headington, and from there into town but you're a long way from home and still not entirely sure how you got here.
  
  > examine the meat
  This well-gnawed haunch is marbled red and white like cartoon meat. Flesh hangs from the bone in bloody tatters. It must have belonged to a damn big animal. You hope it was an animal. Maybe it's the leg of the last person who tried to go through the gates.
  
  > look at bowl
  The water within reflects pieces of the moon. It's just a dog's drinking bowl, although it is noticeably larger than average, presumably to accommodate three thirsty mouths.
  
  > look at the dog
  "Dog" somehow doesn't cover it. This creature would put a lion to shame, although there is something more serpentine about it than leonine. Maybe it's the three heads, on their long, sinuous necks, and the whiplashing tail with its barbed end. It is covered in sleek black fur and its slitted eyes are ruby red.
  
  > talk to the dog
  "Nice doggie" you say, hopefully and the creature glares at you as if it feels horrendously patronised. You try making soothing sounds, while desperately maintaining a posture that would make it feel neither hostile nor amorous towards you.
  
  > play lyre
  All three heads turn in your direction as you lift the lyre, and a strange shiver runs down the length of the beast's back. If it was human you don't know what emotions you'd ascribe to it. It holds itself still and silent, only the heaving of its flanks to betray the fact it lives at all. And you play, strange, savage music, spiralling out of the lyre, drenched inhuman colours, filling your mouth up with heat and the tang of metal. Your heart tightens sickeningly in your chest, pulsing with the lyre strings, something like excitement, something like dread. The dog trembles where it stands, its eyes ablaze.