text: [Themes: Mystery, steampunk, horror, blood]
  
  > look at your surroundings
  The stain of disease is everywhere. The humidity is almost palpable. The pylorus is stopped -- a glistening black expanse rises in the light, residual bile and vitriolic secretions unable to drain into the small intestine.
  
  There are things drifting lazily in the body-of-stomach. You
  can see festering tumors that have crawled up the stomach lining, embedded themselves in the mucosa, insinuated themselves into the circulatory system. And from them, sickly veins crawl outward, each a deadly trail that points back to the heart.
  
  > examine bile
  Unidentifiable boli drift across the pool's surface.
  
  > examine the thing
  Black. Bloody. Spherical. They elude description.
  
  > Go outside
  You withdraw upward...
  You clean the endoscope and put it in your pocket.
  
  This upscale clinic exudes a muted elegance. Chrome fixtures are lit by surgically placed spotlights and underscored by dizzyingly intricate sigil-work.
  
  An arch to the west leads back to the Turris Infinita foyer.
  
  Examiner Velox and his investigators are huddled around the bodies of Doctor Arturus, Creditor Nacarat, Sal, and Piper. Beside them, Justinian sits at a coffee table, brooding.
  
  > look at the torso
  The creditor's jacket is dark, embellished with buttons of brass and mother-of-pearl. There are black stains here and there, where blood has run down from his chin and seeped into the fabric.
  
  The jacket has been partially undone, revealing a quicksilver glyph embroidered in the lining.
  
  > look at the glyph
  It appears to be a glyph of recording. Although it has suffered partial bloodstain damage, it still appears to be functional. You could listen to it if you wanted.
  
  > listen to it
  "Sonate," you say.
  
  The glyph flickers aglow, coursing with stained quicksilver, and the inscription begins to revolve around the index.
  
  inscription begins to revolve around the index."--for your hospitality, Doctor," a bass voice crackles. "I hope you will consider what I have said."
  
  what I have said."There is noise for a few seconds -- a clink that sounds like porcelain or glass. An inhalation.
  
  sounds like porcelain or glass. An inhalation.The crash of shards shattering.
  
  shattering."Creditor?" you hear Doctor Arturus's voice echo. "Are you feeling quite all right? Perhaps we should --"
  
  feeling quite all right? Perhaps we should --"The words are drowned out by coughing. You hear the sound of friction on fabric, growing louder and louder.
  
  louder and louder.The recording cuts out. The glyph returns to its resting state.
  
  resting state.It sounds like Creditor Nacarat was taking tea with Doctor Arturus when his symptoms emerged.
  
  > look at the stains
  (the dried black blood)
  You know these symptoms all too well, now.
  
  > look at the arms
  He wears the smooth black gloves of a businessman. Decorative gilding plays across the back of each hand, surrounding the faint molded silhouette of a raven.
  
  > examine legs
  Elegant pin-striped trousers. There appear to be some items in his pockets.
  
  > examine the items
  Most of the things in Creditor Nacarat's pockets are detritus, but that black pocketbook looks interesting.
  
  > look at the pocketbook
  It appears to be a coded record of business transactions. Of particular interest is the last chronological entry, which records a significant sum made out to "S&P".
  
  Strange. You don't know any company in the Channelworks District with those initials. Unless...
  those initials. Unless...The fact that Sal and Piper have those initials can't be a coincidence. Can it?
  
  (You think you've learned all you can from Creditor Nacarat's body. You should look for more clues elsewhere.)
  
  > examine Sal
  The man on the slab is muscle-bound -- built like a gray longhorn, with a countenance to match. His coat has the whiff of sweat and blood. It does not quite conceal the scars that split his knuckles, nor the black lines that crisscross his chest.
  
  You could examine Sal's head, his torso, his arms, or his legs.
  
  > look at the head
  His skull is monstrous and chiseled. His eyes bleed, glisten, like orbs of bloodshot onyx. But beneath the brutishness so prominent in his features, there is an indescribable and all-too-familiar sadness.
  
  His mouth is closed. An endoscopy will not be possible here.
  
  > examine the eyes
  Small and sunken.
  
  > examine torso
  If Sal wasn't a canal-man, he had the dress sense of one. His work coat is an intimidating leather mass that could stop knife blades, and looks like it has. Beneath is an unbuttoned shirt, revealing a mass of savage black scars.
  
  You notice a bit of metal glinting in his coat pocket.
  
  > examine the scars
  Once, these would have been red. Now they are black and diseased.
  
  > examine the metal
  You draw back the leather, revealing a pair of knuckle-dusters. Wicked-looking implements, with holes for the fingers, and grim stains surrounding the pointed nubs.
  
  Weapons like these aren't uncommon in the Channelworks District. Even Horatio used to own a set. One can't be too careful living and working in the less-frequented parts of the city.
  in the less-frequented parts of the city.But you don't often see a knuckle-duster with a raven engraved in place of the manufacturer's logo.
  
  That's the second time you've seen that raven symbol today. Is it connected to these deaths somehow? Perhaps someone will know something about the symbol's significance.
  
  > look at the coat
  It's a crinkly brown, with unprepossessing stains splashed here and there.
  
  There is a set of knuckle-dusters in his coat pocket.
  
  > examine the shirt
  Some unbutton their shirts to look fashionable. Others do so because they sweat a great deal in their line of work. You suspect Sal falls into the latter category.
  
  > examine the legs
  Tough trousers and work boots. There are clumps of grime encrusted in his soles, and other things that you don't really want to dwell on.
  
  Hanging from Sal's belt is a battered keyring.
  
  > examine the keyring
  A loop of steel wire. It holds a pair of crudely fashioned keys, the sort used in old buildings and cheap locks.
  
  You wonder if Examiner Velox will allow you to borrow it.
  
  > ask Velox about the keys
  (Use the command >talk to or >t to converse with other
  characters.)
  
  > take the keys
  You glance at Examiner Velox. "There's a keyring on Sal's body. Do you mind if I borrow it for a while?"
  
  "Well --" His mustache wriggles. "You are not officially
  permitted, Servator, but if you believe it will further your investigation... let us agree that my attention is divided, focused elsewhere. Just be sure to return it to the basilica when you are finished."
  finished.""I will," you reply. "Thank you."
  finished.""I will," you reply. "Thank you."You pocket the keyring.
  
  (You think you've learned all you can from Sal's body. You should look for more clues elsewhere.)
  
  > look at the belt
  A rugged leather belt.
  
  > look at the boots
  Tough trousers and work boots. There are clumps of grime encrusted in his soles, and other things that you don't really want to dwell on.
  
  > examine Piper
  A tall, thin specimen of a woman with arms and legs like sea-stilts. Of all the patients, her posture is the most contorted, as though her body had convulsed in the hour of death: she is a broken marionette, loosed from its strings and cast aside.
  
  You could examine Piper's head, her torso, her arms, or her legs.
  
  > examine the head
  A dark thin face with dark thin hair. Her lips are colorless, foul with trails of long-dried ichor; her eyes, glassy and expressionless, are buried in black rings of decay.
  
  Her mouth is slightly parted. It occurs to you that you could put your endoscope in and look around inside.
  
  > look at the eyes
  Her eyes are empty.
  
  > put the endoscope in the mouth
  You insert the endoscope into Piper's mouth...
  Mouth
  It is dark. What little light filters through the lips is absorbed by countless black ulcers, each an eruption of effluvium and contagion. Between them run stains on a stained tongue, and capillaries that have shriveled and died.
  
  The light leads out. The pharynx leads in.
  
  > look at the tongue
  It's utterly black.
  
  > look at the ulcers
  You are acutely aware of your own mouth.
  
  > look at the lips
  At this magnification they are monstrous, engorged.
  
  > Enter
  You descend...
  Pharynx
  Dead flesh constricts you. Muscles seized by rigor mortis
  impede your entry, distended as though in a perpetual scream. The walls stain the endoscope lenses.
  
  The epiglottis blocks the larynx. You can only descend into the esophagus.
  
  > look at walls
  Masses like black bezoars.
  
  > examine epiglottis
  The epiglottis, too, is frozen in rigor mortis, and will not
  move.