text: > Go downwards
  As you spiral downward, the air cools.
  
  Great Hall (south end)
  Your footsteps slide on bloody flags, and every corner's heaped with broken bones. Midway down the hall rests a great cow whose bulk traps her within the room, pinioned between the walls, unable to reverse and see what's happened to her southern side. She has been hacked, she has been half-butchered, her ribs sawn and her muscles rent to leave a cavern in her flank.
  
  Upward a hidden stair leads to the baron's fireplace; northward you could climb into the cow.
  
  > Go north
  You climb into the cow again.
  
  Great Hall (inside a cow)
  Bloody plumage thrashes your face. Claws pinch and sling intestines left and right. Your pet crow's gone berserk, slurping down chitterlings like worms, jabbing its beak and talons into the cow's massive glands. All this madness must put immense pressure on her udder.
  
  Southward's your only exit. Take it, dear.
  
  > eat the udder
  "No! No!" caws the crow. "All mine! All mine!"
  
  > go south
  You crawl back through the cow's ripped hide.
  
  Great Hall (south end)
  Your footsteps slide on bloody flags, and every corner's heaped with broken bones. Midway down the hall rests a great cow whose bulk traps her within the room, pinioned between the walls, unable to reverse and see what's happened to her southern side. She has been hacked, she has been half-butchered, her ribs sawn and her muscles rent to leave a cavern in her flank.
  
  Upward a hidden stair leads to the baron's fireplace; northward you could climb into the cow.
  
  > eat the cow
  You bite again. She moos again.
  
  > Go east
  Wisdom's stored here, the richest this world knows: how to cook well. Lox bookcases abound with shelves exceptionally stocked. You'll find more than one page worth your perusal if you're after instruction in how to prepare, say, two more courses for a feast.
  
  Southward you'll walk out onto a balcony, westward lies the solar, but eastward the castle's collapsed.
  
  > look at the books
  Appyl Fryturs, Befe Farsed, Capons yn
  Dorre, Chawden for a Swan, Dowcetts,
  Gallentyne, Gardyn Grynes, Genoa Ryse,
  Gurnard, Lachrymose Supe, Lamprays,
  Mortrose of Fyshe, Ordyrves, Pecoke,
  Podyng, Pokerounce, Samon Rostyd, Swete
  Mylke, Tarts Owte of Lente, and Vyneagyr.
  
  > examine milk
  Milk's streaming from the great hall, dripping down through breadsticks latticed underfoot. Without these grates to drain the room, we'd have milk flooding out into the gallery as well.
  
  > examine the grates
  Milk's streaming from the great hall, dripping down through breadsticks latticed underfoot from wall to wall. Without these grates to drain the room, we'd have milk flooding out into the gallery as well.
  
  > eat the grates
  These breadsticks aren't the best, one must confess. They're rather stale, but then again, they're being used for drainage grates. You break them from the floor to break them with your teeth.
  
  "Halt!" says the durkha guard, advancing to stop you—and breaking further through the broken floor. You tumble along with him, land unharmed atop mushrooms.
  He lands less well, with a loud splash.
  Creamery
  Runnels trace down the walls where cream has leaked through ceiling grates. Inside a vat thrashes the durkha guard, unable to climb out as his rind softens in the sour milk. Mould carpets the room's corners, mushrooms in the damp, and a bloated corpse has slipped from a torn cheesecloth bag.
  
  Eastward's the undercroft.
  
  > eat guard
  Now you can take your time with him, as one must take one's time to chew durkha. Oh yes, it's still slow-going, even after he's been soaked, with every bite a contest between your teeth and his cheese, but your teeth win. He calls you "Wastrel!" and "Blackguard!" until the end. Even his insults are scrumptious. You have served well, noble durkha.
  
  > Go north
  No common bailey, but a garden with walls trellis-wound. Its master hauls herself from bed to bed, throwing her tendrils out to drag her leafy head across the ground. That would be Jenny Lettucehead, the castle gardener extraordinaire. Here you're in her domain, patches plump with young cabbages.
  
  They're never done mewling for their caretaker, these savoy children.
  
  Northward, below a balcony, a door opens into the balance gallery, and southward are the gateway and drawbridge.
  
  > Go north
  Northward a gleaming golden door would lead into the chapel, but it's sealed. Beneath your feet, the floor's plated with silver polished to a mirror's shine.
  
  Southward lies the courtyard, westward's a tapestried chamber, but eastward the castle's collapsed.
  
  > go west
  Across the western wall's another tapestry embroidered with a grand combat, in which this castle's vilest invader, the mouse king, had his tail chopped. Milk flows into the chamber from the south, streaming through broken breadsticks that lead down into the creamery.
  
  Southward lies the great hall, eastward the balance gallery, and upward a stair runs to the solar.
  
  > Go south
  Great Hall (north end)
  What might have been a hall packed with courtiers is cleared to leave flagstones streaming with shallow cream. Kneel down, and tremble if you will, knowing that awe would never be misplaced before the monstrous cow whose bulk rests midway down the room and fills its width with flesh patterned in black and white. She is ideal; she is supreme; she is the cow that other cows might dream to be as men dream to be gods.
  
  Her eyes follow you and she moos with discomfort, as though pleading your assistance.
  
  Northward you can take your leave to the western tapestry.
  
  > examine the cow
  Gigantic would blush at her size, titanic would stammer, colossal might stand on tiptoe and barely scrape her hooves. No cow was ever such a cow! Reclined, her udder swollen on the floor, her forelegs shoved under a dewlap that could crush ten typical heifers, she cannot budge her neck, she cannot shift her weight, her rear and front ends are pressed into the surrounding walls. Step to her side? Perish the thought! You could not push a flea around her flanks, she fills the room with such fleshy fullness.
  
  > examine the floor
  She can't help it, our cow: she drips. Her drippings trickle to the floor, but they're nothing compared with what her teats hold in reserve.
  
  > examine the udder
  An udder's never wanted milking more. Swollen, straining, pink dugs bulging. What hands could squeeze teats vast as these? Your arms can barely manage a nipple.
  
  > eat the cow
  Gracious, this cow is no tartare to be nibbled living and raw. She moos with arch disdain; you pull your mouth away; you could not tear a chunk from her thick hide. All the better when her udder begs with bigness for milking.
  
  > eat the udder
  Ah, now she starts to stream: a subtle spurt at first, but stronger as you squeeze her teats and pull white jets from her nipples. Not pure white, no, but tinged with mild luscious yellowness. That's fat for you, rich, creamy fat to thicken every squirting line whose liquid sprinkles on your lips.
  
  > eat the udder
  Harder, harder you pull, more resolute with every tug, twisting her teats downward to aim their milk into your mouth. High overhead she moos and her moos resonate throughout the hall, within the vaults, rumble the walls. Guzzle as quickly as you can, there's more milk than will fill your throat, spilling over your lips to splash the stones.
  
  > eat the udder
  All your milking's done nothing to empty her swollen teats. They bulge; she moos; your arms ache as you pull that massive pink udder. Now her nipples are blasting milk across the flagstone floor, spray scattering, splattering walls, raining over the room. She tries and fails to readjust her weight, can't shift her hooves. Moo, moo, you cow, that's it, push out your milk, spill everything.
  
  > eat the udder
  Yes, yes, eyes shielded from the spray, you're almost there...  one
  final
  tug...  one last twist on her pinkest teat...  she moos a long low lowing moo...  you wanted this, oh, how does one say no...  yes, yes, that's it, no, no...  take what you will...  drink me, I'm yours...  that's why... 
  that's
  why... 
  
  Her udder bursts.
  
  ... that's why she's here: to be emptied.
  
  Milk crashes from her body. Black and white spots sag, her skin shrivels, merely a husk to house the fluid frothing at the walls. Flagstones clack loose. Vaults groan, buckle. An ocean uncorked churns inside the hall, bones flotsam on buttercream tides whose waves submerge you as the castle cracks.
  
  An undercurrent's snared you, drawn you into the whirlpool. Around, around rushes the cream with force to whip its foam; custard cascades into the moat; with squawks a panicked crow wings to the wastes as wings collapse. My word, she's a mudslide in milk, rooms compromised and crumbling, debris and cottage cheese flooding your mouth. Sprawl where you've fallen. Spread your arms. Embrace the avalanche with open jaws. Drink deep, drink well until it ends. You'll never savor dairy more divine.
  
  Fifth course: eaten.
  
  Milk runs along the moat's bottom, and from its surface rises a nightsoil mound that not even a flood could wash away.
  
  Scramble upward again and you'll regain the fens.
  
  > Go upwards
  You crawl back up the embankment.
  
  Wasteland, blasted and bubbling with molten chocolate bogs. Steam rises to the stars. Across the fens, impaled at every angle, skewers thrust into the ground, the night sky silhouettes human corpses.
  
  Northward the drawbridge stretches back to the castle, and a downward scramble along its embankment would see you into the moat.
  
  > go to the north
  No common bailey, but a garden with walls trellis-wound. Its master hauls herself from bed to bed, throwing her tendrils out to drag her leafy head across the ground. That would be Jenny Lettucehead, the castle gardener extraordinaire. Here you're in her domain, patches plump with young cabbages.
  
  One cabbage whines, another sighs, and Jenny's vines cradle them both.
  
  Northward, below a balcony, a door opens into the balance gallery, and southward are the gateway and drawbridge.
  
  > Go north
  Northward a gleaming golden door would lead into the chapel, but it's sealed. Beneath your feet, the floor's plated with silver polished to a mirror's shine.
  
  Southward lies the courtyard; westward and eastward, both wings have collapsed.
  
  > Wait
  You consume time.
  
  As you stand in the gallery, the floor sinks. Click click click
  click click: chains rattle inside the walls. More mechanisms
  groan above the golden door, beginning to lift its gigantic slab, but then they stop clicking and the door doesn't budge.
  
  > examine the floor
  Your reflection: superb, splendid, spectacular. You're thick in all the right places, larded to a magnificent degree by the five courses you've finished. Think how plump you'll become after the last.
  
  > jump
  As you jump, the floor rises, and when you land, it sinks again.
  
  > eat door
  Biting's useless. Licking's fruitless. Your teeth don't dent the gold.
  
  > Go south
  When you leave the gallery, its floor rises again.
  
  No common bailey, but a garden with walls trellis-wound. Its master hauls herself from bed to bed, throwing her tendrils out to drag her leafy head across the ground. That would be Jenny Lettucehead, the castle gardener extraordinaire. Here you're in her domain, patches plump with young cabbages.
  
  More mewls from more nurseries draw Jenny across the courtyard.
  
  Northward, below a balcony, a door opens into the balance gallery, and southward are the gateway and drawbridge.
  
  > look at the balcony
  You would've had a view into the courtyard from that balcony,
  but you'll never reach it now that both the castle's wings have been destroyed.
  
  Still, you might discover another vantage upstairs.
  
  > Go west
  Through a narrow window there's a view across the moat. Another hole once ran a chain to the drawbridge: no more. Root beer bottles lie tumbled beneath a table.
  
  Westward the garderobe's collapsed, leaving only a ledge, and eastward you'd return to the pantry.
  
  > go to the west
  When the great hall toppled, it took the garderobe with it. Nothing's left but this perch newly exposed to the courtyard down to the north.
  
  Eastward you could walk, carefully, back into the gatehouse.
  
  > go north
  Poised at the edge, prepared to leap...  no, you step back. It's true that you've the space to jump, but you'd land as a pancake without anything to cushion your descent.
  
  > look at the perch
  I'd not stay here too long, darling. It's quite precarious.
  
  > examine the courtyard
  In the darkness, you can't see much below, but there's no missing Jenny Lettucehead. She's roving around the courtyard, nearby one moment and distant the next.
  
  > look at Jenny
  From here her head's a picture-perfect salad, dressing-drizzled, topped with sliced apples, pears, toasted walnuts. You'd never glimpse those garnishes at ground level, not with her giant lettucehead soaring above your own.
  
  She's hauling herself around the garden.
  
  > eat Jenny
  At this height? Not a chance, darling. You'd have to jump down onto her.
  
  > examine the hole
  What chain? Darling, you ate it already.
  
  > look at beer
  It seems there's been a tipple here. Root beer bottles lie scattered, drained to their last drops. Shame's not something the castle guards imbibe, apparently.
  
  > go east
  Don't knock your head on vegetables above, enormous bundles that drape from the ceiling's beams. Here are eggplants in a clump, and turnips rocking where you've nudged a brace.
  
  Westward you'll find the gatehouse, downward a stair spirals into the kitchen, but northward the storeroom's collapsed.