text: > Look around
  This room is Gothic horror at its best. Dry, wooden torches burn brightly in their rusty iron brackets, sending a flickering orange light flashing around the high, vaulted stone rafters and dull granite flagstones. The walls are daubed with unsightly scenes of scarlet terror and cruelty, and, at the centre of this hexagonal cathedral of doom, a gigantic inverted cross hangs in space, suspended by a criss-crossing web of thin, spider-like ropes which lead ever upwards into the enormous arched roof. Sinister shadows are cast onto the floor from the grotesque, twisted statuettes which stand on their dark pedestals, seeming to writhe in the torchlight. Where the hell is this place...
  
  Any moment now you expect a nice man with horns and hooves to jump from the shadows and discuss the afterlife, but, fortunately, there seem to be none of those in today.
  
  Instead, a small note has been attached to the bottom of the cross with a drawing pin.
  
  From the far side of the chamber, high up on one wall, an enormous, abstract black and red pictogram stares down at you.
  
  > Wait
  Time passes.
  
  You feel uneasy, as if the pictogram is watching your every move.
  
  > Wait
  Time passes.
  
  You feel unable to stop yourself turning and staring into the swirling eyes of the pictogram.
  
  > shoot the pictogram with the pistol
  (first taking the toy pistol)
  The liquid squirts feebly towards the pictogram but has little effect upon it.
  The primitive drawing continues to wrench itself into reality in a series of horrific jerks and contortions.
  
  > examine the cow
  It depicts simply the head of a cow - but no ordinary heifer. Its ears are long and pointed, its eyes narrow, and its nostrils wide and flaring-red. The mouth is half-open in a Satanic grin, exposing double rows of carnivorous teeth. You dread to look for fear of being ensnared in the deep, swirling, whirling eyes...
  The figure of a cow, decked in blood and gore, begins to take shape from the writhing pictogram and screams a dire warning. "Access Denied! Access Denied! Unauthorised personnel in building!" You start to petrify with fear.
  
  > shoot the cow with the pistol
  (first taking the toy pistol)
  The liquid squirts feebly towards the pictogram but has little effect upon it.
  An involuntary scream rips your throat open as the devilish figure pops from the canvas like a satanical morph. "Trespassers will be prosecuted....." screams the phantom of the pit as it totters about on its hind-legs, wreathed in smoke and flames. These demonic vassals never were very good at co-ordination, were they?
  
  > shoot Cross with the pistol
  (first taking the toy pistol)
  You miss your target by more than a metre.
  "I will destroy you!!!" The demon raises a hoof and a ball of fiery flame (isn't it all) cannons towards you. You are engulfed utterly, perish utterly, and generally cease to exist.
  
  > shoot the note with the pistol
  (the note with the toy pistol)
  (first taking the toy pistol)
  You miss your target by more than a metre.
  "I will destroy you!!!" The demon raises a hoof and a ball of fiery flame (isn't it all) cannons towards you. You are engulfed utterly, perish utterly, and generally cease to exist.
  
  > pour the liquid in the glove
  (first taking the glass jar)
  That can't contain things.
  
  You feel uneasy, as if the pictogram is watching your every move.
  
  > Wear glove
  (first taking the rubber glove)
  You try and pull the glove on, but it is too small for either of your well-built hands.
  
  > turn the glove
  Nothing obvious happens.
  
  You feel uneasy, as if the pictogram is watching your every move.
  
  > turn the glove  inside out
  You turn the glove inside out.
  
  > look at the glove
  A white rubber glove, turned inside out. The insides are stained by leakages and a slow build up of dirt.
  
  You feel unable to stop yourself turning and staring into the swirling eyes of the pictogram.
  
  > Wear glove
  You try and pull the glove on, but it is too small for either of your well-built hands.
  
  > put the glove on the pad
  You hold the rubber glove against the pad.
  "Print authorised. Access awarded to Elizabeth Brown."
  
  A fairly gullible computer, isn't it? Especially considering the print was the wrong way round...
  
  > examine the gadget
  You can't have a proper adventure game these days without some special sci-fi gadget. In this case it resembles a microwave oven. It also sports a row of LEDs so it can flash them back and forth as it speaks in its predictably sarcastic monotone. Whoever built this one was well au fait with current trends and even painted a smiley face on the speaker. Lovely.
  The sci-fi gadget is currently switched off.
  
  > turn it on
  The computer hums into life, its hard disc whirring as it downloads its highly complex and user-unfriendly operating system. The speaker jumps into life with a high-pitched computerised voice:
  
  "Welcome to MacroSift Sowester, the latest in voice-operated computing. My name is Sharon, and I have been programmed to scan and recognise any object placed in my main bay. Have a nice day!"
  
  > put the jar in bay
  You put the glass jar into the sci-fi gadget.
  
  > Scan jar
  A tinted glass barrier slides down and several lights flash inside the gadget. The screen is pulled back up as it reads out the result:
  
  "Object is silver nitrate solution."
  
  > check your inventory
  You are carrying:
  a rubber glove
  a briefcase (which is open)
  an empty can of beer
  a garden fork
  a key ring
  a white coat (being worn)
  a brass key
  an envelope
  a postcard
  a kettle
  a remote control (which is open but empty)
  a faxed note
  a leaflet
  a typed note
  a toy pistol
  a sou'wester (being worn)
  
  > examine the pistol
  The pistol is an uninspiring shade of washed-out pink, but makes up for it with the battery-powered sound effects generator tagged on to the handle. Its pea-sized water tank is currently full of water.
  
  > Empty pistol
  Emptied.
  
  > pour the jar in the pistol
  The glass jar is closed.
  
  > open the jar
  You open the glass jar.
  
  > pour the jar in the pistol
  You fill the pistol from the jar.
  
  > examine the pistol
  The pistol is an uninspiring shade of washed-out pink, but makes up for it with the battery-powered sound effects generator tagged on to the handle. Its pea-sized water tank is currently full of a clear fluid.
  
  > Go south
  This wide rectangle of concrete is littered with the chaotic fallout of everyday dairy farming. And its brown! The stark windows of the farmhouse stare accusingly down into the yard from the north, and, to the east, the roof of the main barn is outlined against the rising sun.
  
  Towering black cumulonimbus clouds pour forth vast quantities of tiny, hard hailstones onto Skebdale.
  
  The farm gate to the south-west is safely shut.
  
  A group of clucking chickens peck their way around the farmyard, desperately searching for grain.
  
  > go east
  Most of the space in the east end of the farms high stone barn is taken up by a huge haystack of rectangular bales, each of which is held together with tough, plastic twine. Around the double doors rusty farm equipment, almost inevitably infected with a potent range of bacteria, microbes, protozoa and agriculture ministers, lies derelict and unused.
  
  Towering black cumulonimbus clouds pour forth vast quantities of tiny, hard hailstones onto Skebdale.
  
  The sheepdog scampers back and forth along the base of the haystack, sniffing at cracks and whimpering.
  
  A long rope ladder, safely twined around several hay bales, leads downwards from the ledge to the barn floor.
  
  A red and white tractor is parked next to the haystack.
  
  > Go upward
  You climb skilfully up the ladder.
  
  You have to stoop on this tiny ledge in the side of the haystack, cunningly roofed over with bales. Your vertigo quickly kicks in and the barn floor seems to be a million miles away: downwards.
  
  A thin dark passage leads westwards into the bales.
  
  A furled rope ladder is attached to some bales at one side of the ledge.
  
  > put all in the pockets
  glass jar: Done.
  rubber glove: Done.
  briefcase: That's far too big to fit in the coat pockets.
  
  > shoot the pictogram with the pistol
  (first taking the toy pistol)
  That's not a gun.
  
  > examine the pistol
  The pistol is an uninspiring shade of washed-out pink, but makes up for it with the battery-powered sound effects generator tagged on to the handle. Its pea-sized water tank is currently full of a clear fluid.
  
  > shoot the pistol at the pictogram
  The liquid hits the wall hard, but has little effect on the pictogram.
  
  You feel uneasy, as if the pictogram is watching your every move.
  
  > shoot the pistol at the cow
  You fire a shining arc of the liquid straight at your adversary. The twisting, living wall seems to die and fall back flat, but you feel that you have not destroyed it for good.
  
  > pour the jar in the pistol
  (first taking the glass jar)
  You fill the pistol from the jar.
  An irresistible surge of terror rises within you as the face of the pictogram twists and seems to force its way out of the wall. You try to shut your eyes to it, but your only option seems to be flight. You have little time to escape as the power of the evil has almost rooted you to the spot.
  
  > pour the jar in the pistol
  There's not enough liquid here to fill anything.
  An irresistible surge of terror rises within you as the face of the pictogram twists and seems to force its way out of the wall. You try to shut your eyes to it, but your only option seems to be flight. You have little time to escape as the power of the evil has almost rooted you to the spot.
  
  > Go outside
  Thin, twisting passages lead off in all directions through the haystack.
  
  The ground shakes violently as the chamber threatens to collapse.
  
  > read the postcard
  A post-card showing a rolling vista of Yorkshire countryside, taken from Skebdale Pike. A few unintelligible notes and messages have been scrawled on the back in slightly smudged fountain pen:
  
  message to red-chevette the cows are flying you will find guidance from the circle that blocks your way follow the name of satan through the twisting way he has joined with the animals the devil is daisy, daisy is Denzil destroy it you will find the proof on the border of sleep you must remember to use silver bullets
  
  The ground shakes violently as the chamber threatens to collapse.
  
  > go to the west
  Thin, twisting passages lead off in all directions through the haystack.
  The ground shakes violently and you are thrown to the ground as the altar chamber collapses, taking with it the barn and haystack, which slide into the earth.