text: > look at your surroundings
  This wide space glows with a warm and impossible light. A slowly beating heart of molten stone occupies the vaulted ceiling, looming over the raised throne below.
  
  A regal woman reclines on the throne, her voluptuous figure draped in fine silk, a towering gold headdress affixed to her voluminous hair. Lustrous feathers sweep back from her bare arms.
  
  Liquid iron belches up through cracks in the floor, assuming the vaguely human forms of molten warriors.
  
  Before the throne is a low table or altar, upon which lies a gleaming ceremonial dagger.
  
  Peyton faces the throne.
  
  > look at the woman
  Inhumanly beautiful. Something about her is very off. Not just the feathers - the proportions, the way she carries herself, her fiery eyes.
  
  "Supplicants," the woman says. Her words seem to squirm in my ear, in no language I should be able to understand. "It has been a very long time."
  
  "I know who you are," Peyton says. "You stole one of the Blood God's seventeen hearts, and much more besides."
  
  "And I know who you are," the woman purrs. "A troublesome ant that does not know its place."
  
  She turns her fire-bright eyes on me. "And I know who you are. The question is, do you?"
  
  (I could say yes or no.)
  
  > No
  "Maybe I don't. Does anyone really know who they are? Can a mind comprehend itself?"
  
  "Trust me," the woman purrs. "Your role here is clear to me. I will entertain your supplication."
  
  Peyton steps forward. "I know what's happening," he says. "The squidmen, the comet-spawn, Mount Vesuvius and the time-traveller army of the Africas. The Lunar Triplets and their seductive death cult. The Invisible Ripper and his bloody trail of assassinated heads of state. All these things right now? All of a sudden?"
  
  He takes a deep breath. "We're on the brink of something terrible, some great cataclysm. And, yes, I know what it is. But I don't know how to stop it."
  
  "Stopping it is quite beyond your feeble means," the woman says. "But I can tell you what would be required anyway. You know the price of my favour, of course. Does your companion?"
  
  (I could say yes or no.)
  
  > No
  "Really, Peyton is in charge here."
  
  Her lips curve into a predatory smile. "He certainly is."
  
  I notice that Peyton is avoiding my gaze. "The price," he says, letting his hand fall to the hilt of his sabre, "is the heart of the one I love most."
  
  I feel faint. "Peyton! You can't mean-"
  
  "To save the world," he says. "This is to save the world. Are you prepared to die for that? So that countless others can live?"
  
  (I could say yes or no.)
  
  > No
  "I don't want to die. Perhaps its selfish, but I don't want to die."
  
  Peyton draws his sabre. "It is selfish. I'm selfish. I love you, and I don't want to kill you. Even to save the world."
  
  The woman on the throne sighs. "Unfortunately, the heart needs blood."
  
  The molten warriors close in around us, white hot spears raised.
  
  > take the dagger
  (First dropping the reference books.)
  
  Taken.
  
  Peyton drives his sabre into the heart of one of the molten warriors. Unexpectedly, it sprays out great gouts of blood before batting Peyton away. The wound in the molten metal reseals.
  
  > Attack woman
  Attack the Usurper Bride with my dainty hands? Hardly.
  
  As one of the molten warriors turns towards me, Peyton darts in front of it. "Run, Nicky!"
  
  > attack the woman with the dagger
  I try to enter the fray, but Peyton pushes me back. "Nicky, run!"
  
  But there must be something I can do!
  
  Peyton drives his sabre into the heart of one of the molten warriors. Unexpectedly, it sprays out great gouts of blood before batting Peyton away. The wound in the molten metal reseals.
  
  > attack peyton
  Attack Peyton with my dainty hands? Hardly.
  
  Peyton parries a molten spear with a shower of sparks.
  
  > attack Peyton with the dagger
  I try to enter the fray, but Peyton pushes me back. "Nicky, run!"
  
  But there must be something I can do!
  
  As one of the molten warriors turns towards me, Peyton darts in front of it. "Run, Nicky!"
  
  > examine the dagger
  On closer inspection, this is definitely a ceremonial dagger.
  
  Peyton drives his sabre into the heart of one of the molten warriors. Unexpectedly, it sprays out great gouts of blood before batting Peyton away. The wound in the molten metal reseals.
  
  > throw the dagger at the woman
  I have too weak a throwing arm.
  
  Peyton parries a molten spear with a shower of sparks.
  
  > Attack heart
  It's too far away.
  
  Peyton drives his sabre into the heart of one of the molten warriors. Unexpectedly, it sprays out great gouts of blood before batting Peyton away. The wound in the molten metal reseals.
  
  > look at the heart
  Well, the pictographs did say that the woman stole someone's heart. Massive and sinister, it  throbs with thickly flowing magma. Pulsating blood vessels loop down to the floor.
  
  Peyton parries a molten spear with a shower of sparks.
  
  > Attack vessels
  Attack the blood vessels with my dainty hands? Hardly.
  
  Peyton drives his sabre into the heart of one of the molten warriors. Unexpectedly, it sprays out great gouts of blood before batting Peyton away. The wound in the molten metal reseals.
  
  > Attack vessels with dagger
  I slash at the blood vessels with the dagger. To my surprise, the blade passes easily through the molten stone and blood - red, human blood - begins to spray at high pressure from the wound, bowling me backwards.
  
  The molten warriors seem to become cooler and more viscous, retreating from the swings of Peyton's now red hot blade.
  
  The Usurper Bride of the Vesuvian Blood God curls her lip in contempt. "A low blow, and fruitless. You have made a new enemy from one who might have been your most powerful ally."
  
  Peyton meets my eye. I'm not sure things will ever be the same between us again. "No, I almost lost my most valuable ally," he says. "And I have already made enemies more powerful than you."
  
  With a final glare, the woman fades into the growing shadows. The throne room descends into darkness.
  
  When we emerge from the tower, soaked in blood, the airmen greet us with wide eyes. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
  
  "No," Peyton says. "Perhaps elsewhere. Let's go."
  
  I slip my arm in his, and we board the zeppelin.
  
  In our stateroom we strip off our blood-dyed clothes and soak away the smell of smoke and ash. I let my fingers play through his long white hair, running up his cheek to the lashes of his left eye.
  
  I don't know where we go from here. Peyton and I. But it's important that we're both still alive.
  
  Maybe he'll save the world.
  
  But, right now, I don't really care.
  
  > run
  You'll have to say which compass direction to go in.
  
  Peyton parries a molten spear with a shower of sparks.
  
  > Go upwards
  With a brief glance back, I run from the throne room.
  
  The last I ever see of Peyton is surrounded by molten warriors, beating them back in vain with his sabre, while the Usurper Bride of the Vesuvian Blood God watches with a prurient smile.
  
  For the rest of my life, I wonder if there was something I could have done.
  
  And now, as the darkening skies herald the arrival of horror on a cosmic scale, and people cast about for someone who might have the first idea how to protect us, I know that our only hope, my only love, was lost.
  
  > Yes
  "Just make it quick."
  
  He draws his sabre. "Of course."
  
  He presses the tip of the blade to my chest and draws me into his arms. "Close your eyes."
  
  He kisses me. I taste tears. And then blood.