text: > look around
  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.
  
  > Go north
  As you walk through the doorway, you realize you've stumbled onto a dinner.
  
  Dining Room (Roberto Colnaghi)
  Three men are sitting at a long table, intently sipping coffee at the end of a formal dinner and conversing about serious-sounding matters. They don't seem to be aware of your presence. You notice a calendar on the wall.
  
  The man at the head of the table says: "I hope you enjoyed my hospitality. As you know, I'm interested in the new developments of science. Particularly, I think the acknowledgement of a fourth dimension, together with that of non-Euclidian geometry applied to space-time, is a big step towards the understanding of reality, on a cosmic scale."
  
  You feel a queer tickle ripple through your body. Looking down, you see the horrible tentacle disintegrate and disappear before your eyes. You sense that some primordial godhead has left this world.
  
  > About yourself
  This place reminds you you're hungry and haven't eaten in a long time. Unfortunately you see nothing to eat.
  
  One of the guests answers: "Well, Mr. Cragne, that's true in general, but for most of our experience, space-time just follows regular, Euclidian geometry. It appreciably bends itself in a non-Euclidian way only in the presence of an enormous mass, or energy. Said condition is inconceivable for our everyday experience in this world..."
  
  > examine the coffee
  The swirls in your cup form a blank, mirrored surface. Lack of a symbolic image means that you have accomplished everything you must in your current environment and should move on to find new challenges in order to grow as a person.
  
  A faint smell of mildew emanates from it.
  
  "...and yet, Dr. Einstein's theory predicts this as something possible, Dr. Fermi. I know there is speculation about black holes, things so massive that they bend the very fabric of reality. My question for you, respected gentlemen, is this: what do you think these 'black holes' can be?"
  
  > examine the Men
  Something's wrong with these people. They seem translucent and blurred.
  
  The other guest says: "We don't know. It could be a collapsed star, attracting more and more matter..."
  
  "I must disagree, Dr. Von Braun," Fermi interrupts. "Also Dr. Einstein himself thinks these 'black holes' are just theoretical solutions of his general relativity equations, not things happening in reality..."
  
  > look at the table
  The wooden table is set for dinner, but the meal seems to be just finished.
  
  "And yet, the universe is so vast, and we know only a very tiny part of it. Maybe Dr. Einstein is wrong. Maybe, somewhere, something so massive and energetic can exist. It could even be a living
  thing."
  
  > Examine calendar
  Today is the 14th of April, 1951.
  
  "In the distant, ancestral past," Cragne intervenes. "I
  gathered you here, revered scientists, to show you my recent discovery. You can freely take it, if you want. Maybe you can derive new scientific progress from it, or even build some device which can take us where we couldn't possibly even think of, until now. Do you dare to look in the abyss?"
  
  The two men stare at their host, curious and frightened all the same, as their bodies become more and more translucent, until they disappear, together with the plates, the glasses, the tablecloth and all the rest, leaving just an old, dusty table.
  
  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 strange machine, and a calendar is pinned on the wall. Doorways lead west, east, and south.
  
  Next to the machine there is also an old magazine cutting.
  
  > look at the calendar
  Today is the 22nd of April, 1996.
  
  > look at the machine
  It seems straight out of a 60s science fiction movie: a big cathodic screen is hooked up to an electronic board with some controls on it, which in turn is hooked up to a bunch of different sensors. It takes up most part of the table.
  
  The machine is currently switched off.
  
  > look at the magazine
  This is a cutting from an old Italian magazine. Printed on a corner is "La Domenica del Corriere, 2 Maggio 1972", and is apparently an article about an Italian monk and his alleged invention. In particular, a photo on the page strikes you. Attached to the newspaper cutting is what seems a typewritten translation of the article in English.
  
  > Chronovisor
  No doubt, it is the same machine which lies on the table in front of you.
  
  > read it
  (first taking the Italian magazine cutting)
  The article is an interview with Father Pellegrino Ernetti, a Benedictine monk and official exorcist of Venice, as well as physics and electronic amateur, about his invention. He claims his "chronovisor" is the fruit of years of research with twelve of the best minds of his time, Enrico Fermi and Wernher von Braun among them. Receiving all kinds of electromagnetic and sound waves with its sensors and antennae, the chronovisor can show images and sounds from any place, at any past time, no matter how distant. He claims to have seen many historic figures from the past, and through it he was able to transcribe a lost tragedy of Ennio, and to record an image of Christ on the cross (published in the magazine). It seems that the monk is very jealous of his invention, as he refuses to show it to anyone.
  
  > Switch machine
  As you push the button, you hear an electric buzz, and the lights on the electronic board start blinking. The screen is now on and shows the manor from the outside.
  
  The machine emits a very low hum.
  
  > look at the screen
  The most recognizable part of this contraption is a big steel-encased glass screen, with a speaker mounted on it. The screen shows the manor from the outside.
  
  The machine emits a very low hum.
  
  > examine the coffee
  The clouds in your cup form a gentle ripple. Lack of a symbolic image means that you have accomplished everything you must in your current environment and should move on to find new challenges in order to grow as a person.
  
  A faint smell of mildew emanates from it.
  
  The machine emits a very low hum.
  
  > watch the screen
  The screen shows the manor from the outside.
  
  The machine emits a very low hum.
  
  > look at the machine
  It seems straight out of a 60s science fiction movie: a big cathodic screen is hooked up to an electronic board with some controls on it, which in turn is hooked up to a bunch of different sensors. It takes up most part of the table.
  
  The machine is currently switched on.
  
  The machine emits a very low hum.
  
  > look at the controls
  This board is connected to both the screen and the sensors. It is filled with LEDs and lights, and prominently a steel dial and a machine control button.
  
  The machine emits a very low hum.
  
  > look at the dial
  A rotating steel disc, plain and simple. No arrows or gauge around it. The dial is turned all the way to the left.
  
  The machine emits a very low hum.
  
  > turn the dial
  You turn the dial right and it stops with a click. You joggle it back left, but it's stuck. Looks like you can only turn it right. The LEDs on the electronic board start blinking faster. The hum of the machine changes pitch, going up as the images on the screen change abruptly. The screen seems to show the same location as before, but with the manor gone. Instead you can see a tribe of natives dancing around a wooden totem.
  
  The machine's humming is still quite low.
  
  > examine the screen
  A Native American tribe is singing and dancing around a totem. The totem depicts animals, but mostly fishes or crustaceans, a strange thing considering this place is nowhere near the sea.
  
  The machine's humming is still quite low.
  
  > turn the dial
  The images on the screen change again. The LEDs blink faster and faster as the humming gets higher in pitch. Now you can only see the hill on which the manor stands, with no artifacts, no trails and no other trace of human presence. The hill also seems slightly taller.
  
  The machine is emitting a high tone sound.
  
  > look at hill
  The hill shown on the screen seems higher, yet it strongly resembles the one on which the manor sits. The vegetation is much thicker, with green conifers covering the landscape. As you look harder, you notice fast movements, probably wild animals.
  
  The machine is emitting a high tone sound.
  
  > turn the dial
  The screen now shows a mountain, with vegetation you've only seen in some science textbook. Still, you feel this must be the same place you are in now. Suddenly, something dives from the right of the view, screaming fiercely before vanishing quickly. A prehistoric flying reptilian, by the looks of it.
  
  The sound of the machine is now a high pitched shriek.
  
  > turn the dial
  The images on the screen change again. No mountain anymore, no animals or plants, not even earth, just empty space. There's only darkness now, pointed by stars. Something in the middle of the screen catches your attention: it's like a whirl, turning in the blackness of deep space. The humming is now a piercing shriek, and the lights on the electronic board are blinking like crazy.
  
  You feel an impulse to keep watching the whirl on the screen.
  
  The sound emitted by the machine is very acute, bordering to ultrasound.
  
  > look at the whirl
  A black vortex at the screen's center whirls. Stars orbit around it with increasing speed until they are sucked in. Then you notice the vortex becoming bigger or nearer. Only when the thing has completely covered the screen, you realize that there's actually
  something in that blackness. The LEDs are blinking so fast
  you can't even see them, and the scream of the machine is breaking your ears. But you're totally paralyzed, watching the writhing appendages dwelling in the vortex, as you realize that hideous thing is a living being, swarming the cosmos and wreaking havoc through galaxies. Then, some circuitry on the electronic board burns out. The shriek drops to a very low frequency, as most of the lights burn, and the machine becomes silent. But you just can't forget that horrific image, as the word VAADIGNEPHOD echoes in your brain.