text: [Themes: Fantasy, folklore character, female protagonist, hell, ice]
  
  He who eats fire, shits sparks; this line of work involves no small amount of risk, therefore. But compared to everyone else, demons are refreshingly easy. No suspicions are necessary; you know they're out to screw you over.
  
  The war-engine cache was a new tactic, enabling you to penetrate deeper than you'd ever contemplated before and still make it out. And this seemed like the most secure site to hide the thing. If your minions weren't idiots of the first water, it would have been a good plan.
  
  The ice of the Cocytean piedmont is pitted and rotten, riddled with moulins of befouled meltwater. For the most part the caves are unstable, but they don't tend to change too much over winter. This one is large enough to serve as temporary depot, but small and twisty enough to keep it hidden.
  
  The imposing bulk of the Iron Quagga takes up much of the space here.
  
  > Enter
  Although the ideal crew of a 'gin of this class is three, the Quagga has been rigged to allow it to be crewed one-handed, though you'd break your back jumping between helm and firebox at anything faster than a trot. The cut-down controls - essentially just the gearshaft and helm - will not exactly allow you to fight any cavalry actions, but fortunately Hell is short on armour regiments.
  
  With the engine at rest, the floor slants down rather towards the engine's front.
  
  Beside the coal chute lies a fireman's shovel.
  
  > examine the ice
  It's not pretty ice. It's grey and looks kind of worm-eaten and has brown flecks in it. They missed a trick, though; it'd be much nastier if it ever thawed out.
  
  > go outside
  The imposing bulk of the Iron Quagga takes up much of the space here.
  
  > Wave demonoscope at Quagga
  You sweep the ikon vaguely across the Quagga. The doubtful blessed writhes and kicks, turnips flying in all directions. Not an all-out frothing fit, bethankit, which means that the most you reasonably have to deal with is a handful of imps or perhaps a lesser cluster. Making more controlled sweeps, you narrow the disturbances down to three areas: the aft right hip joint, the furnace and something up towards the pilot's end - have to get inside to narrow that down.
  
  > examine the aft right hip joint
  Thick ice encrusts the hip joint, falling in dozens of narrow icicles most of the way down to the knee. Unless there's been a bizarrely specific leak in the water reservoir, this means that an agubulge, a frigid and mindless imp used to provide localised cooling, has taken up residence.
  
  > hit the ice with the seax
  Which do you mean, the agubulge or the ice cave wall?
  
  > Agubulge
  One swing of the seax fractures the ice into a spiderweb of cracks. A second dislodges some good-sized chunks, and soon you have most of the ice hacked away. Unfortunately, there's still some lodged up inside the joint - how did the little bastard squeeze into such a narrow space? Nesting, you muse darkly. At any rate, the seax is too blunt and misshapen to fit into such a narrow gap.
  
  > take ornamental imp
  You open the spun silver birdcage.
  
  Taken.
  
  > squeeze it
  As carefully as you can, you slip a finger and thumb through the imp's angular folds and give its abdomen a squeeze. You are rewarded with a small and flickering flame that dances over its wingtips like an aurora.
  
  > look at the imp
  The smallest and most stupid demons come in innumerable shapes, most of them hideous; a few breeds, however, are rather attractive and are worn as ornaments by ladies of fashion. They don't breed true, however, which ensures that there's constant demand for wild specimens. Occultists love to grumble about being priced out of the market.
  
  This specimen is of the type usually worn on a fine silver chain around the wrist and used by demimondaines to light their cigarettes; it resembles a butterfly-wing folded into abstract origami, with eyes. A faint, bluish flame coruscates across its wingtips.
  
  > squeeze it
  A second squeeze and the imp's fire flutters out. You keep an eye on it for a second to make sure; more than one renowned beauty has gone up in flames after carelessly slipping one of these into a pocket.
  
  > put it in the cage
  You sweep the ikon vaguely across the Quagga.
  
  You put the demonoscope into the spun silver birdcage.
  
  > put the imp in the cage
  You put the ornamental imp into the spun silver birdcage.
  
  > take the demonoscope
  Taken.
  
  > close the cage
  You close the spun silver birdcage.
  
  > Wave demonoscope at Quagga
  You sweep the ikon vaguely across the Quagga.
  
  > Wave demonoscope at hip
  Which do you mean, the aft right limb or the aft left limb?
  
  > Right
  No reaction! It appears you've fixed it.
  
  > get all
  fireman's shovel: Taken.
  ornamental imp: The spun silver birdcage isn't open.
  ice cave wall: That's hardly portable.
  helm: That's hardly portable.
  coal chute: That's hardly portable.
  firebox: That's hardly portable.
  gearshaft: That's hardly portable.
  
  > examine the chute
  The hopper should contain enough coal for two days at a flat march, given that you're using the good black greasy stuff. You expect the route you're taking to take about three and a half and to be somewhat uphill, but you can refill with wood once you reach the Forest of the Suicides.
  
  > look at the firebox
  Essentially, this is just a big iron box through which a lot of piping runs; you set a big fire inside, the water in the pipes turns to steam, and then Technology happens and stompy iron feet crush all before them. A sturdy iron door seals off the firebox.
  
  > Wave demonoscope at firebox
  A good deal of somewhat-uninspired wriggling indicates the presence of a small and rather pathetic imp.
  
  > open the firebox
  You tug mightily at the furnace door. It refuses to budge.
  
  > hit the firebox with shovel
  You give the door a couple of solid thumps, then slip the edge of the fireman's shovel between lid and rim and twist. With a satisfying crack, the frost-locked door gives a fraction of an inch; it should open now.
  
  > Wave demonoscope at chute
  The unfortunate saint wriggles a little bit, dislodging a turnip or two, but that's about background level for anywhere below circle four.
  
  > open the firebox
  Ugh. There's another agubulge inside the firebox. This one hasn't been there too long, you think; there's not much of an ice-mass, just a lot of frost all over everything.
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying:
  a fireman's shovel
  a demonoscope
  a bog-iron scramaseax
  a pile of loot
  a wheel of artisanal Camberzola
  a Camus first edition
  a spun silver birdcage (closed)
  an ornamental imp (providing light)
  
  > hit the agubulge with the seax
  It's right at the back; you can't really reach that far, and you're aware of your narrative role too acutely to feel secure about crawling into ovens.
  
  > hit the agubulge with the shovel
  You lean in and give it a few solid stabs with the sharp end. There is a satisfying squashing sound.
  
  After this, it's a simple matter to get a fire going with coal-chips. You bask in the heat, unfamiliar and welcome after your time in Cocytus.
  
  > examine the helm
  Old-fashioned pilots prefer the bewildering chaos of a Zebruggi lever array, but outside the more conservative Russian principalities nobody builds those any more; the most sensible of the various replacements is a sort of ship's wheel on a stick, with foot-pedals for detailed control.
  
  > Wave demonoscope at gearbox
  Death and fire, there's one in the gearbox. Your best guess is an ithrogyca, an obnoxious little gluttony-demon designed to clean the adipose tissue off flesh. They happily gorge themselves on fats until they burst. This one must have gone in after the grease.
  
  > examine the gearbox
  A misbegotten and unruly lever that presides over the Blazing Host universally-reviled gearbox. The usual paces - reverse, neutral, shuffle, walk, march, trot, killing trot, canter - are all there, and at least you don't have to deal with the dandyish Parade March gear that's become obligatory on modern builds. But it jams constantly, has a tendency to slip straight into a canter if you change from march to walk too casually, and screams bloody murder if changed a little too early or late. Its saving grace is that, though bad, it takes a great deal of punishment to make it any worse.
  
  The stick is currently in neutral. The slots for the other gear positions open up into darkness.
  
  > look at the gearbox
  You find nothing of interest.
  
  A misbegotten and unruly lever that presides over the Blazing Host universally-reviled gearbox. The usual paces - reverse, neutral, shuffle, walk, march, trot, killing trot, canter - are all there, and at least you don't have to deal with the dandyish Parade March gear that's become obligatory on modern builds. But it jams constantly, has a tendency to slip straight into a canter if you change from march to walk too casually, and screams bloody murder if changed a little too early or late. Its saving grace is that, though bad, it takes a great deal of punishment to make it any worse.
  
  The stick is currently in neutral. The slots for the other gear positions open up into darkness.
  
  > cut the cheese
  Cutting that up would achieve little.
  
  > eat the cheese
  That's plainly inedible.
  
  > Melt cheese
  That really requires access to a source of steady heat.
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying:
  an ornamental imp (providing light)
  a fireman's shovel
  a demonoscope
  a bog-iron scramaseax
  a pile of loot
  a wheel of artisanal Camberzola
  a Camus first edition
  a spun silver birdcage (open but empty)
  
  > open firebox
  That's already open.
  
  > put the cheese in the firebox
  You put the wheel of artisanal Camberzola into the firebox.
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying:
  an ornamental imp (providing light)
  a fireman's shovel
  a demonoscope
  a bog-iron scramaseax
  a pile of loot
  a Camus first edition
  a spun silver birdcage (open but empty)
  
  > take the cheese
  Taken.
  
  > close the firebox
  You close the firebox.
  
  > open the firebox
  Ugh. There's another agubulge inside the firebox. This one hasn't been there too long, you think; there's not much of an ice-mass, just a lot of frost all over everything.