text: [Themes: Adventure]
  
  > Look around
  Here in a broad cavern, across a sea of foamy pits, is a stone altar.
  West is a cage-elevator, situated on a flat stone clearing. A
  stairwell south leads even further into the bowels of the earth.
  
  A puddle is here, fizzing ever so slightly. A shard glints out from
  the middle of it.
  
  > examine the shard
  A glistening ivory shard. It is as cold and hard as ice, but it won't
  melt. You know it won't. It is valuable, whatever else it might be.
  
  > check your inventory
  You are carrying:
  a snow shard
  a jeweled sword
  a brass ring (being worn)
  an unspeakably hideous painting
  a green-glass mirror
  an ivory key
  some brilliant sap
  a handwritten book
  a flint-and-steel lighter
  a maze map
  a set of ritual instructions
  a brass key
  a pickaxe
  the theoretical location of a hideout
  a rusty lamp (providing light)
  a pint of fry oil
  the spare towel
  a knapsack (open but empty)
  a compelling note
  
  > put the ring in the case
  (first taking it off)
  The brass ring fits perfectly.
  
  > look at the case
  An old trophy case, with thirteen slots of specific sizes and shapes.
  Eleven of the case's slots have been filled.
  
  In the trophy case are a snow shard, a jeweled sword, a brass ring, an
  accipitrine comb, a bookmark, a solacefruit, a bezoar, a solid gold
  brick, a heartmetal disc, a horse statue and a lump of friendly amber.
  
  > check what you're carrying
  You are carrying:
  an unspeakably hideous painting
  a green-glass mirror
  an ivory key
  some brilliant sap
  a handwritten book
  a flint-and-steel lighter
  a maze map
  a set of ritual instructions
  a brass key
  a pickaxe
  the theoretical location of a hideout
  a rusty lamp (providing light)
  a pint of fry oil
  the spare towel
  a knapsack (open but empty)
  a compelling note
  
  > put the book in the case
  Which do you mean, the handwritten book or the maze map?
  
  > Go south
  You can't go that way.
  
  As the waves take you, the last thing you hear is the roar of water.
  
  A slow boat rests in a silent river. Your surroundings are dark, but
  you can see everything with awful clarity. The far shore is in the
  distance, out of reach.
  
  A skeleton in robes sits at the front of the boat, guiding it along
  down the river.
  
  An ancient chess set is tucked away in a far corner of the boat.
  
  > play the chess
  The boatman looks at you inquisitively, and you think you see
  something glint in his empty eyes. "Would you care for a game of
  chess?"
  
  > Yes
  The boatman moves a flint to D2. His moves are smooth, confident.
  
  It's your turn.
  
  1: Square to D8
  2: Rook to B9
  3: Bishop to H5
  
  > 2
  You've got him on the ropes with that last move, you're sure of it.
  
  The boatman moves a rook to E7. His moves are smooth, confident.
  
  It's your turn.
  
  1: Catspaw to D6
  2: Bishop to C3
  3: Circle to G2
  
  > 1
  You knock another of the boatman's pieces from the board triumphantly.
  He sighs.
  
  The boatman moves a catspaw to C4. His moves are smooth, confident.
  
  It's your turn.
  
  1: Rook to C2
  2: Square to G4
  3: Circle to B5
  
  > 3
  You try a move you vaguely recall hearing about. To your surprise, it
  works perfectly.
  
  The boatman moves a circle to G3. He grins, saying nothing.
  
  It's your turn.
  
  1: Bishop to D6
  2: Circle to H4
  3: Flint to B1
  
  > 3
  You knock another of the boatman's pieces from the board triumphantly.
  He sighs.
  
  The boatman just stares when you finally capture his circle. He hands
  you one of his catspaws, to your surprise. "Take this," he says. "I
  don't often get a real opponent." His gaze lingers on you for a moment
  with something like respect, and then he turns back to the river.
  "We've arrived, by the way. You might as well get out."
  
  > examine Catspaw
  A catspaw. It can move diagonally, or in an L, or not at all, but
  never all at once. This one is made of a valuable coral that gleams
  like a brilliant gem.
  
  Apart from the boat, drifting gently down the river, nothing moves.
  
  > leave
  The sound of waves becomes louder and louder, until it is almost
  deafening. Just like that, you return to yourself.
  
  What was once the river Thames cuts through the middle of the city,
  depositing the dead and detritus alike on its muddy banks. The river
  itself is immediately south. The street is north, and the beach
  stretches on for a while to the west.
  
  Your whole body aches. You must have washed onto the beach - they do
  say that the stolen river takes a trip through hell. Your brain is on
  fire. But at least you're alive.
  
  > put Catspaw in the case
  built to hold it, the pieces start to fall into place. This was never
  a trophy case, it was a mold. And you have filled it - painstakingly,
  lovingly - with the treasures of the world. Brass from the devils,
  foam from the deepest pits, even the idea of ivory, stolen from the
  serpent lords themselves. The shape that you have made is not fire,
  but it burns.
  
  > look
  The only thing in the room is the burning symbol. Everything else is
  just background noise.
  
  exist - sits in your room and smolders.
  
  > examine the sigil
  An Unmappable Direction. A raging inferno at the edge of your
  consciousness. A dot, then a line, then a square, and then you, as you
  were always meant to be.
  
  The sigil is a command, an exigent order followed by a shower of
  sparks. The sigil is two words. The sigil is:
  
  GO UP.
  
  > go up
  You are not north of London but above it. Shapes go about their daily
  lives in little pentagonal buildings, and from here they might as well
  be ants. Only the Bazaar is anything other than flat, its spines and
  spires somehow managing to point up in ways you never noticed before
  now. You can see the rest of the world, the one London was stolen from
  so many years ago, as another flat plane far above you. When people
  claimed that London went down, they might have been right. And above
  all that? Space, an infinite cosmos of secrets, and the only way to go
  is up.
  
  > Up
  You're going to leave them in the dust. Flat, puny shapes, with flat,
  puny dreams. Yours is the third dimension now, and the greater
  universe, and abilities beyond mortal comprehension. It doesn't hurt
  you like it does Euclid because your awakening wasn't some poorly
  drawn sketch, given to a lazy liar by bats living large on borrowed
  power. You took the long road and built your own third-dimensional
  path with the things you've gathered, and now you're ready to leave
  this world behind for the cosmic wilderness.
  
  End your journey here? (You will be able to reverse this decision, but
  why would you want to?)