text: [Themes: female protagonist, horror, Comedy]
  
  > look at your surroundings
  A large bay window allows for ample light into the elegant sitting room. Above the fireplace hangs the portrait of the sneering Cragne ancestor. Near the westward entrance to the dining room hangs a mirror.
  
  Eustace is lying in a pool of his own blood on the floor.
  
  > look at the table
  The furniture has been passed down the Cragne line for generations. They ought to be replaced, but Eustace prefers not to waste the money on them.
  
  > look at the portrait
  The great Horace Cragne is perched above the fireplace, maintaining a constant vigilance over the sitting room. You think he would serve better in the study. At the very least, he would avoid frightening the ladies from church when they visit for tea after Sunday service. His face is gaunt, features severe, and his eyes are rimmed a deep crimson. You prefer not to meet his gaze.
  
  Hanging next to the portrait is a bell pull.
  
  > pull the bell pull
  Not yet. She'll help you clean the mess, but it will require some... persuasion.
  
  > search the portrait
  You feel as though a curse would descend upon you should you touch the thing.
  
  > examine the fireplace
  The fire does its best to repel the deep February chill. Above the fireplace is a portrait, and beside that is the bell pull.
  
  > examine the window
  Through the window you have a view of the front porch, from which hangs the peculiar chimes that whistle and clang eerily with each passing breeze. Beyond is the wide yard, and beyond that the forest line, and farther still, Backwater. If you squint hard enough, you can sometimes make out a few townspeople wandering about, attempting to find some significance in their lives.
  
  > About yourself
  You are Lillian, lady of Cragne Manor. Some days, you wish you were someone else. But only some.
  
  > cut yourself
  Cutting you up would achieve little.
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying a letter opener and a handwritten letter to you.
  
  > Burn letter
  (the handwritten letter to you)
  This dangerous act would achieve little.
  
  > examine the chimes
  It's a collection of long, slender chimes that have hung from the porch since long before you were born. You don't like listening to them, nor do you wish to touch them nor remove them from their chain. A dilemma, to be sure.
  
  > burn eustace
  This dangerous act would achieve little.
  
  > get the chimes
  The chimes are merely a view beyond the window.
  
  > Go west
  You have the urge to look in the mirror before you depart. It's a quirk of yours you can't seem to avoid.
  
  > look at the mirror
  You gaze at your reflection, your eyes rimmed red. There's a spattering of blood on your face and across your dress. Some stains can never be cleaned, once they are too deeply set. In such cases, you must rid yourself of the garment entirely. You should never have become Mrs. Rolling. How ridiculous you've been. You are a Cragne through and through, like your father, and your father before him, back to the very founding of Backwater. So, too, shall your son be a Cragne. It is in the blood.
  
  And then, you are not you. You are the other you, yourself. You clutch your stomach and heave, ready to vomit, the image of that man lying in his own blood fresh in your mind. You weren't actually there, right? It was all in your head. Got to be.
  
  You look down and find yourself holding a strange windchime. How did you get this? Maybe Lillian thought you should have it. You doubt you'll ever really know.
  
  > examine the chime
  It's a bizarre thing, the width of your two thumbs together and as long as your hand, shaped something like a bookmark and as thin as one, yet it's intensely heavy - far more than its slight form would indicate. It looks like a windchime or part of some musical instrument. It's clearly made of metal, but you're unable to easily identify the kind, for its coloring seems to shift in the light - one moment a solid silver, the next bronze, the next almost golden. Running through the material is some sort of greenish corrosion and stamped or carved into its surface are a multitude of strange, sinuous symbols. You can't make heads nor tails of any of them. It feels slightly warm to the touch.
  
  > Ring chime
  You flick the chime gently with a fingernail. Nothing seems to happen at first, then the chime begins to produce a gentle thrum seeming to emanate from deep inside its core. Over the next few moments, the hum increases in intensity until the chime is softly buzzing in your hand. It seems to give no indication of stopping any time soon.
  
  > Go west
  Dining Room (Roberto Colnaghi)
  A long, rectangular mahogany table takes up most of the room. The room is old and dusty, and it seems decades have passed since the last time someone had dinner here. On the table lies a broken machine, and a calendar is pinned on the wall. Doorways lead west, east, and south.
  
  The chime suddenly shudders more violently in your hand.
  
  > Go south
  Landing at the Bottom of Stairs (Mark Sample)
  This is a dark alcove with a narrow stairway rising into the gloom upstairs. Shadows lurch over a doorway to the south. Opposite those shadows lies another doorway, in even darker shadows. What little light there is seeps in from a small elliptical window high on the wall.
  
  The ramshackle bookshelf lies in a pile of splintered wood on the floor like a fallen scarecrow, arms akimbo.
  
  The ringing of the chime redoubles.
  
  > go to the south
  Foyer (Greg Frost)
  Standing in the narrow entry hall is like being at the mouth of a cave. The only light comes in through tall windows on either side of the door and a half-round window above. All of the furniture has been removed from the foyer, leaving tracks in the heavy dust.
  
  The night sky is dark and full of stars. Hallways lead west and east into other parts of the house. A doorway leads north; the front door is to the south.
  
  The chime suddenly shudders more violently in your hand.
  
  > go south
  Mudroom (Matt Weiner)
  The porch is a mudroom, a place for taking off coats and muddy shoes. The marble front wall seems like a sheer cliff face, the porch like a flimsy shelter built onto it. The front door leads inside to the north.
  
  In one corner of the porch a strangely shaped hook is fastened to the wall. A black cloak hangs beside it.
  
  In the other corner of the porch is a small wooden table.
  
  A slightly muddy welcome mat lies in front of the door.
  
  Against the front wall are a pair of blue cloth slippers and a single brown leather boot.
  
  You can also see the mate of the first leather boot here.
  
  The ringing of the chime redoubles.
  
  > Go south
  Front Walk (Matt Weiner)
  Cragne Manor looms to the north. Its light gray marble front is marred by a screened-in wooden porch, clearly tacked on well after the manor was built. A gravel path bends around the manor to the northeast and northwest, and the driveway leads south back to town.
  
  By the porch steps is a post with a placard reading "31." A strange little manikin is affixed to it.
  
  An insubstantial trolley stop sign reads Purple Line -- Cragne Manor.
  
  The vibration of the chime is slightly stronger now.
  
  > stop chime
  You flatten the strange chime between your palms. For a long moment, it seems as if nothing will happen, that the chime will ring forever and ever. You push harder. There is still no response. Just when you are about to give up, the chime's ringing begins to fade. Within a few moments, it is silent once more.
  
  > wait for Gold Line
  You lean against the porch, hold out your pass, and wait for the gold line. Within moments, a ghostly trolley arrives. Instead of stopping and allowing you to board, it passes through you, and you
  find yourself transported to
  
  The gravel road curves here past the doors of an old stone church, which squats defeatedly amid a few straggly trees. Behind it, to the northeast, you can see the first few stones of a modest graveyard. To the east the road narrows to cross a small bridge into the village proper; to the north, it crests the hill toward the train station.
  
  An insubstantial trolley stop sign reads Gold Line -- Church.
  
  > go north
  It is possible to feel claustrophobia out of doors. Sunlight fills the sky but somehow doesn't reach you here. Steep banks of bramble rise to the east and west, trapping you within a gloomy trough a dozen yards wide. A poorly-surfaced road leads north and south along the trough's nadir. Just west of it, camouflaged with rust, is the train track.
  
  A tremendous patch of milkweed, the stems abnormally thick and tall, grows on the east side of the road beneath the thorn bank.
  
  A green stone altar, once at the center of the shack, stands amidst broken boards and milkweed.
  
  (That earworm is still lodged in your head.)
  
  > lie on the altar
  You get onto the stone altar.
  
  You lie down, settling your body into the impression and your face into the cavity at the end. The milkweed leaf mask protects your face from the strands of orange slime that you belatedly notice fill the cavity. Is it even you doing this? It feels like the most natural action in the world.
  
  As you press your face deeper into the cavity, your vision warps. The world seems to fold and buckle: what was convex becomes concave and what was concave becomes convex.
  
  The altar wobbles and inverts, giving you the bizarre sensation of lying atop a smooth green hole that floats in midair. Deeper within the hole is a shelf of green stone with something resting (how?) on it.
  
  > put the iron key in the sphere
  The imaginary sphere rotates suddenly, spinning the slot away from the old iron key (smelling faintly of mildew).
  
  > Go upward
  You mount the ladder, making sure your feet catch each rung, and climb to the ceiling don't look down! through the square opening...
  
  Steeple (Michael D. Hilborn)
  Disjointed and decaying pillars of wood form the arches that make up the walls of the church's steeple. The arches, open to the sky, tower over you, ending in a webwork of thick rafters which support the belfry above and ultimately the church's spire. A series of ropes slither down from those rafters, centered over a square hole in the floor that leads down into the bowels of the church.
  
  A misshapen mass slumps in one corner of the steeple.
  
  > ask the gnome about the author
  "He considers himself an interactive fiction enthusiastic," says the gnome. "Has been since the age of ten when he first played "Zork." He's only published one major work, "The Life (and Deaths) of Doctor M," and a couple shorts for the tribute album "Apollo 18+20."
  
  > ask the gnome about the beta testers
  The gnome flips through his notebook. "Ah, yes, the author would like to thank the following folks for their remarkable endurance and patience while testing this room: Greg Frost, Michael Lin, Hanon Ondricek, and Andrew Schultz."
  
  > ask the gnome about the ropes
  "Hopefully, the player will deduce from various clues that they need to be pulled in a certain sequence." The gnome drops his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Did you know there are four different sequences that can be rung?"
  
  > look at Tome
  (De Vermibus Laceris (smelling faintly of mildew))
  A massive tome, with ragged pages bound in badly-decayed black leather. You can just make out the words "DE VERMIBUS LACERIS" embossed on the cover, and "Azban" underneath that in smaller type.
  
  > look at the corpse
  So misshapen is this poor figure that it's difficult to tell where its head ends and its torso begins. Its back is horrendously humped, its face an amorphous mass of tumors with sunken holes for eyes. What appears to be its mouth is open in a silent scream.
  
  Hard to say how long the corpse has been here in the steeple, but it seems ancient, skin and clothes desiccated and thin like parchment, somehow mummified. It's slouched--or sitting?--on the floor in one corner of the steeple.
  
  On the corpse's lap rests an open tome. Another book lies near the corpse: A worn, leather-bound journal.
  
  The gnome shakes his head. "Poor soul. His story is told in the journal lying next to him. His presence was inspired by the 'Hunchback of Notre Dame.'"
  
  > look at Journal
  Which do you mean, the worn, leather-bound journal, the small blue journal (which you know is a journal because it says "Mein
  Journal" on the front) (smelling faintly of mildew) or the
  Journal of Edwin Cragne (smelling faintly of mildew)?
  
  > examine worn Journal
  About the size of your hand. The binding is cracked and torn, the pages yellow with age.
  
  "The journal tells the story of that poor soul over there," says the gnome, pointing at the corpse. "The style of language within the journal is inspired by the way that gargoyles speak in 'Ultima VI: The False Prophet.' The author of this room thought it might add a little flavor, for better or worse."
  
  > put the vermibus in the hidden pocket
  You put De Vermibus Laceris (smelling faintly of mildew) into the hidden pocket.
  
  > ask the gnome about the gnome
  The gnome places a hand to his heart. "Me? Why, I'm the gnome of commentary, hired to give little tidbits of information about the implementation of this room. Sadly, I'm one of the more complex objects in here." He nudges you. "A little too much effort for an easter egg, in my humble opinion."
  
  > close the hidden pocket
  You close the hidden pocket.
  
  > examine Tome
  Cradled in the corpse's lap, the humungous tome lies open as if the corpse still studies the pages. It's clearly ancient, the pages withered and yellow, like the skin of the corpse itself, its leather bonding cracked.
  
  The gnome taps the tome. "An important part of the puzzle. The corpse points to the name of the star alignment that one sees when examining the ceiling of the steeple. If you ring the bells in the proper order, you can learn the name of the true sign of Peter Cragne."
  
  > ask the gnome about Peter
  The gnome flips through his notebook, then shakes his head. "I'm afraid I don't have any information on that."
  
  > look at the notebook
  (the torn notebook (smelling faintly of mildew))
  Many pages are torn out, and those that remain are mostly smudged or otherwise illegible. One, however, stands out because it appears to have been pasted into the notebook. It looks like a letter.
  
  "September 21, 1908
  
  "...les Cragne, Rufous Alderman,
  
  "I was pleased to hear of your success with ... of the ritual...
  
  "...Sinclair's pamphlet will bring unwanted atte... ...ven to your remote operation. I hope I need not remind you ...tance of ... role ...
  
  "... can get ... blood befo... ...crifice must be complete by the coming full moon... Vaadignephod will...
  
  "Yours in fraternity
  
  "... of the Variegated Court"
  
  "Cattle: 10 gal, 200 / hr, 24000 gal
  Hog: 5 gal, 500 / hr, 30000 gal
  Man: 10 pt, 1 / day, 10 pt"
  
  > examine the landscape
  The steeple must rise higher than you think, for it penetrates a cloud bank that stretches to the horizon, and most likely beyond. As calm as the sea on a breezeless day, the clouds ripple with a hazy, pale green glow. Occasionally, part of the surface erupts in a silent flash of light.
  
  The gnome squints toward the landscape. "Hard to say what lurks beyond those clouds, but if you examine them enough, you'll get hints of what is going on down there."
  
  > look at the stars
  Pinpricks of sickly, green light. A multitude of them, though many others must be veiled behind the murk that is the atmosphere.
  
  The gnome shields his eyes as he looks up at the sky. "Not much up there, is there? But the stars and moons play an important part of this room's main puzzle."
  
  > examine the bells
  Hard to discern how many bells hang up there in the shadows of the belfry, but they are large, very large, and with the starlight streaming through a perforated ceiling above them, you can distinguish at least four.
  
  "Although the player can't see the bells," says the gnome, "they hopefully will deduce that there is one of gold, one of silver, one of copper, and one of iron up there."
  
  > ask the gnome about the notebook
  (the torn notebook (smelling faintly of mildew))
  The gnome flips through his notebook, then sighs. "I'm afraid I don't have any information on that."
  
  > examine notebook
  A small gnome with a pair of spectacles resting upon his pointed nose and wearing a red cap. He carries a small notebook.
  
  The gnome places a hand to his heart. "Me? Why, I'm the gnome of commentary, hired to give little tidbits of information about the implementation of this room. Sadly, I'm one of the more complex objects in here." He nudges you. "A little too much effort for an easter egg, in my humble opinion."
  
  > look at Hole
  Cut into the middle of the floor, the hole opens upon a set of rickety stairs which lead down into the bowels of the church.
  
  The gnome flips through is notebook, coming up empty-handed. "Yes, ah, well, it's a hole, what else can I say? You could try dropping something in it, I suppose, though nothing exciting will happen."