text: > Go downwards
  I make my way back down to the lounge, past rows of uninteresting
  guest rooms.
  
  The hotel's lounge is a maze of overstuffed leather chairs. Next to each one is a narrow table with an ashtray and an occasional discarded newspaper or magazine on it. A trolley with drinks sits at the ready against the far wall. Passages lie in all four cardinal directions. In addition, an ornate, sweeping staircase leads upward into the part of the hotel for guests. While the human guests are of little interest,
  my predecessor also kept a room here on one of the upper floors.
  
  The drunk exhales contentedly.
  
  > Go south
  At the center of the hotel is this wide atrium, a plaza of orange
  brick dotted with flowerboxes and ornamental bushes. The ceiling of
  the lobby is made of glass, and so the sunset outside gives an unnatural hue to the hibiscus vines adorning the open doors to the south. Despite the location, it's mostly quiet here. Even the rattan chairs overlooking the garden to the east are empty.
  
  The hotel reception is to the west, and a corridor to the north leads deeper into the hotel.
  
  A gigantic ice sculpture of a swan sits prominently on a pedestal.
  
  A thermostat is located unobtrusively in a corner.
  
  The bellhop stands near the entrance, attempting to look professional.
  
  The guest looks pointedly at the thermostat.
  
  > go east
  The gardens on the eastern edge of the hotel lie in uniform, geometric precision. Straight gravel paths bound squares of brightly colored flowers, each with a placard bearing the scientific names of its contents. The breeze from the nearby sea mixes the faint aromas in the various plants into an unidentifiable but not unpleasant smell. A ponderous chapel made of rough stone looms at the eastern edge of the gardens, and a well-worn path leading northeast skirts around it. To the west, there is a wide portico that leads into the hotel.
  
  > Go east
  I could go in, but I'd rather prefer not to. I still haven't
  gotten the stains out from last time I had to visit a chapel.
  
  > go to the north-east
  squat building to the east. It is trim and spartan, with no ornamentation aside from the tall hedges forming its boundary. They also block the breeze coming in off the sea, so the air here is warm and still.
  
  There's a set of double doors here blocking the way east, the carvings of which form a pentagram.
  
  An agent stands next to the doors.
  
  A reporter inches towards the door, but the agent refuses.
  
  > look at the agent
  A human in a sharp black suit.
  
  The reporter calmly shows the agent its press pass, but the agent ignores it placidly.
  
  > examine reporter
  A human carrying a notebook and wearing a press pass.
  
  > OPEN
  the way into the conference.
  
  The reporter asks politely to be let in, but the agent curtly refuses to let it through.
  
  > examine the pentagram
  Heavy carved oak doors with a dark varnish. Disguised to unobservant humans, but obvious to me, is the pattern of a pentagram, which unfortunately serves as a barrier to my kind.
  
  It's a clich��, but pentagrams do repel demons. That fact isn't classified; we actually disseminate it ourselves. The trick is that a pentagram has to be constructed with absolute, mathematical precision to be effective, and it's extraordinarily rare for humans to possess that level of skill. We want humans to try making pentagrams; it's
  much better if they have a worthless defense but not realize it than
  if they have no defense at all. This particular pentagram, however, is the real stuff. With the double doors closed, the faint etchings over their flush surfaces create a pentagram with the exact measurements to constitute an effective ward.
  
  The reporter calmly shows the agent its press pass, but the agent ignores it placidly.
  
  > go to the east
  The inexorable geometric forces of the pentagram block my path. I
  can't go through the doors until it's disrupted.
  
  The reporter calmly shows the agent its press pass, but the agent curtly refuses to let it through.
  
  > look at the doors
  Heavy carved oak doors with a dark varnish. Disguised to unobservant humans, but obvious to me, is the pattern of a pentagram, which unfortunately serves as a barrier to my kind.
  
  The reporter asks politely to be let in, but the agent ignores it placidly.
  
  > Exits
  From here, I can only go southwest and east.
  
  > Go southwest
  The gardens on the eastern edge of the hotel lie in uniform, geometric precision. Straight gravel paths bound squares of brightly colored flowers, each with a placard bearing the scientific names of its contents. The breeze from the nearby sea mixes the faint aromas in the various plants into an unidentifiable but not unpleasant smell. A ponderous chapel made of rough stone looms at the eastern edge of the gardens, and a well-worn path leading northeast skirts around it. To the west, there is a wide portico that leads into the hotel.
  
  > go west
  At the center of the hotel is this wide atrium, a plaza of orange
  brick dotted with flowerboxes and ornamental bushes. The ceiling of
  the lobby is made of glass, and so the sunset outside gives an unnatural hue to the hibiscus vines adorning the open doors to the south. Despite the location, it's mostly quiet here. Even the rattan chairs overlooking the garden to the east are empty.
  
  The hotel reception is to the west, and a corridor to the north leads deeper into the hotel.
  
  A gigantic ice sculpture of a swan sits prominently on a pedestal.
  
  A thermostat is located unobtrusively in a corner.
  
  The bellhop stands near the entrance, attempting to look professional.
  
  The guest complains to no one in particular about the temperature of the room and looks meaningfully at the thermostat.
  
  > go south
  The hotel's restaurant is a tediously chic affair, full of spindly tables and blobby oil paintings. In addition to the artfully placed mirrors, the emptiness of the hall also makes it seem cavernous; there are few patrons this evening. Nevertheless, there are fresh hydrangeas in the delicate glass epergnes at the precise center of each table,
  and the electric lights have been dimmed in favor of the soft evening light coming from the open doors to the north. Another swinging door lies to the east.
  
  A diner looks thoughtfully at the dessert menu.
  
  The server walks in from the east.
  
  > look at the epergnes
  dining, but I don't know how exactly they're used.
  
  The diner looks thoughtfully at the dessert menu.
  
  The server looks to see if the diner wants to order anything.
  
  > look at the diner
  It's wearing a light jacket and sitting by itself at a table.
  
  > READ
  all the options on the dessert menu.
  
  The diner considers getting another drink with dessert.
  
  The server walks off to the east.
  
  > go east
  Even at this hour, the kitchen is a frenzy of activity. At rows of steel tables, cooks go through whatever laborious tasks are necessary to make food for humans. I'm not sure exactly what they are, but they apparently involve a lot of fire and yelling. The cramped room is filled with smoke and the aromas of spices. A swinging door leads west into the restaurant, and a heavy steel door is to the south.
  
  The server looks around vaguely.
  
  > look at the server
  Impeccably dressed in the manner of one who's used to its tips depending on it.
  
  > SERVE
  food to the restaurant patrons.
  
  The server walks off to the west.
  
  > Exits
  From here, I can only go south, west, and inside.
  
  > go south
  This small room is cluttered with tins, crates, and boxes of human foodstuffs. The air is cold and dry, and the shelves along the walls are covered in a faint rime of frost. The only exit is a heavy steel door to the north.
  
  Two cartons of ice cream, one old and one new, sit next to the door.
  
  > look at the old ice cream
  There is a noticeable hoar of frost on the waxy substance inside the container. Beyond that, I can't tell you much; food is not my area of expertise. There's a cow on the carton; maybe it's cow-flavored ice cream.
  
  > look at the new ice cream
  The ice cream in it is green with little black specks. Insects, perhaps? More importantly, the carton is glowing with spiritual
  energy.
  
  The new carton of ice cream is mystically sealed, presumably to
  protect its contents from the opposition. The barrier is also keeping me from accessing its contents, a secret codebook, as long as it's closed.
  
  > Go north
  Even at this hour, the kitchen is a frenzy of activity. At rows of steel tables, cooks go through whatever laborious tasks are necessary to make food for humans. I'm not sure exactly what they are, but they apparently involve a lot of fire and yelling. The cramped room is filled with smoke and the aromas of spices. A swinging door leads west into the restaurant, and a heavy steel door is to the south.
  
  The server walks off to the west.
  
  > go outside
  Even at this hour, the kitchen is a frenzy of activity. At rows of steel tables, cooks go through whatever laborious tasks are necessary to make food for humans. I'm not sure exactly what they are, but they apparently involve a lot of fire and yelling. The cramped room is filled with smoke and the aromas of spices. A swinging door leads west into the restaurant, and a heavy steel door is to the south.
  
  The server walks in from the west.
  
  > Go west
  The hotel's restaurant is a tediously chic affair, full of spindly tables and blobby oil paintings. In addition to the artfully placed mirrors, the emptiness of the hall also makes it seem cavernous; there are few patrons this evening. Nevertheless, there are fresh hydrangeas in the delicate glass epergnes at the precise center of each table,
  and the electric lights have been dimmed in favor of the soft evening light coming from the open doors to the north. Another swinging door lies to the east.
  
  The diner considers getting another drink with dessert.
  
  > examine the hydrangeas
  Large and colorful ornamental flowers, out of place in the otherwise somber restaurant.
  
  The diner looks back and forth between two possible desserts.
  
  The server walks in from the east.
  
  > take read
  Some odd freezing, feathery barrier stops me, like an angry swan made of ice is getting in my way. I don't think I'll be able to do much about this problem myself.
  
  The diner considers getting another drink with dessert.
  
  The server looks to see if the diner wants to order anything.
  
  > go to the north
  At the center of the hotel is this wide atrium, a plaza of orange
  brick dotted with flowerboxes and ornamental bushes. The ceiling of
  the lobby is made of glass, and so the sunset outside gives an unnatural hue to the hibiscus vines adorning the open doors to the south. Despite the location, it's mostly quiet here. Even the rattan chairs overlooking the garden to the east are empty.
  
  The hotel reception is to the west, and a corridor to the north leads deeper into the hotel.
  
  A gigantic ice sculpture of a swan sits prominently on a pedestal.
  
  A thermostat is located unobtrusively in a corner.
  
  The bellhop stands near the entrance, attempting to look professional.
  
  The guest complains to no one in particular about the temperature of the room and looks meaningfully at the thermostat.
  
  > go to the north
  The hotel's lounge is a maze of overstuffed leather chairs. Next to each one is a narrow table with an ashtray and an occasional discarded newspaper or magazine on it. A trolley with drinks sits at the ready against the far wall. Passages lie in all four cardinal directions. In addition, an ornate, sweeping staircase leads upward into the part of the hotel for guests. While the human guests are of little interest,
  my predecessor also kept a room here on one of the upper floors.
  
  The drunk takes a swig from its bottle.
  
  > Go east
  Really? I suppose it's for a good cause, but...
  
  > Go east
  ...Fine. Let's get this over with.
  
  The interior of the chapel is exactly what you'd expect: A ������������������������������������������������ in front of a ������������������������������������ without the ������������������������ and ������������������������������������������������������������. The whole place ���������������������������������, but that's hardly
  surprising, given ������������������������������������������. It's a ������������������������ place, for obvious
  reasons, and the ������������������������������������������ doesn't make it any less ��������������� or
  ��������������������������� to those of my kind, the ��������������������������� notwithstanding. Even
  though humans would undoubtedly love to know that ������������������������������������������������������,
  it's simply ������������������������������������ and ������������������������������������������, which neatly explains the meaning of life. An unobtrusive stairway at the back of the room leads upward, and the much more inviting exit from the chapel is to the
  west.
  
  A hatrack stands to one side of the doors.
  
  I can also see a candle here.
  
  > take candle
  Taken.
  
  I hear faint movement from above.
  
  > examine the hatrack
  It's a little-known fact that humans sometimes wear hats, though
  nobody knows why. When they're not being worn, hats are often placed
  on a hatrack like this one. Not exactly like this one, of
  course, because this one is a spiritual object. The principle is the same, though.
  
  An angel glides down the stairs, and I realize with a start that I recognize him. My department doesn't know his real name; we've given him the codename Kingfisher. Even by the standards of my opposite number, he's a monster. If you've ever heard about the ���������������������������
  disaster, or the breakdown of the ������������������ Agreement, or even the
  incident in ������������������������������������������ just last millennium, you've come across
  his handiwork. Everyone in our profession bends the rules a little
  bit, but Kingfisher has a psychopathic contempt for both his adversaries and his colleagues. He's effective, at least if you
  measure effectiveness by his kill count, but brute force is the last refuge of the incompetent. Both my side and his have spent centuries cleaning up his bloody missions, trying desperately to avoid
  disrupting the delicate peace between the two sides and escalating the cold war. We've managed to succeed so far, but it's been as much through luck as through our skill. Kingfisher is reckless,
  thoughtless, and completely remorseless. Those are fine attributes for an assassin, but we're in the part of the clandestine services that handles metaphorically and sometimes literally world-shaking matters. He's a feckless amateur who covers up his incompetence with lazy charm and violence.
  
  He's thus notorious in my business, and so I recognize him immediately from descriptions in briefings I've read. His outer teleological field is amplified to���well, let me put it in roughly equivalent terms humans
  can understand. He's wearing an inordinately expensive suit with a tie from some boarding school whose entry fee costs as much as several large planets. He's smiling at me���or, at least, showing me his teeth���superciliously and uninterestedly. In a different era, he would have been wearing an eyepatch or a monocle just for effect. As it stands, he just gives me a bovine yet predatory stare, twitching the cuffs of his suit with disdain.
  
  I instantly hate him. I hated him before, of course; he's directly or indirectly responsible for the termination of several of my
  colleagues. It's different, though, when you see the thing directly in front of you. He doesn't seem to recognize me, or maybe the insight hasn't gotten through his bloated, stupid skull yet. I'm probably beneath his notice, but I've had to deal with him before. I spent two entire centuries cleaning up his blundering in just the matter of the ������������������ Agreement. Do you know how long it takes to file petitions with
  the interplanar courts to revoke an agreement when you aren't allowed to mention the name of the agreement, the parties involved in the agreement, or what the agreement was even about? Well, I do: seventy-four years. The entire thing was several thousand pages long and completely redacted, beginning to end. I started out filling an entire room in my department with black highlighters, and I had to borrow some more from the Accounting department to finish it off. And you can't just borrow something from Accounting; they want a
  signed contact in blood saying that you'll pay them interest in perpetuity. I don't even have blood. I wound up finding a
  couple of convenient humans on the department's Take a Child to Work Day, but that's three months I'm never going to get back.
  
  > go west
  Hang on, I'm not done yet.
  
  I spent an entire century dealing with the fallout from that bout of idiocy. I spent another century dealing with literal fallout when Kingfisher decided that one particular human in Pompeii wasn't
  treating his organization with enough respect. I spent two centuries covering up a rain of spiders, another two covering up a rain of fish, and three covering up a rain of rain, which wouldn't have been remarkable if it hadn't been falling upward; apparently Kingfisher
  made a sign error in his calculations. I suppose I should be glad that his meteorological escapades didn't cause any lasting damage beyond giving me some billable hours doing extra paperwork, but my job is not to clean up his messes while he blunders his way through the human world. I'm not naive enough to think that we can always avoid collateral damage, but he's not even trying. To lose one hundred
  humans may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose one hundred thousand humans looks like carelessness. I've wasted millennia trying to ensure that his assassinations, unsubtle displays of powers, and outright threats don't disrupt the balance of power and ignite what has been up until now a cold war. This is a delicate business for professionals, not a clumsy, bloodthirsty amateur who's too stupid to bother wiping that stupid smirk off his stupid face. Four millennia of paperwork for one stupid, murderous, stupid git! And I'm not even on his side! I spent four millennia babysitting someone I had never met and
  am actively working to oppose, and the only recognition from him I get is a stupid, vacant smirk on his stupid, vacant face. And now he's standing there again, doing nothing but staring at me with the same stupid, vacant expression. Stupid stupid stupid stupid.
  
  He's a horrible person, and I hate him.
  
  > talk to Kingfisher
  I suppose I shouldn't delay the inevitable. One of us is going to have to say something, and Kingfisher's still just starting at me blankly.
  
  "Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Agama," I say, suppressing my revulsion and giving him a polite nod and an alias.
  "I'm part of a delegation assisting with some exercises in the area, and our treaties require that I meet to inform you of my presence here." I can cite regulations for my purpose.
  
  "Of course," says Kingfisher, with unctuous contempt oozing through
  his voice. He continues reading from the script both our sides have memorized. "On behalf of both my organization and myself, let me formally extend my greeting to you. This is a neutral area with unaligned humans, and I'm sure that we can put aside the differences between our two organizations and work peaceably together here."
  
  "Of course," I agree tepidly.
  
  "On behalf of the Kingdom of Heaven, let me express my gratitude for your diligence in proactively reaching out to us and keeping us in the loop on these developments. We are, of course, always happy to grow
  our organizations' ability to work together and avoid any breakdowns
  in communication that might negatively impact our security."
  
  "Of course," I say again. It's not like Kingfisher's listening to me anyway.
  
  He continues with the formal words of introduction our diplomats have worked out in countless meetings over countless centuries. "And, going forward, I'm sure we can achieve a productive synergy with what common interests we have and align our values to vector toward a mutually beneficial working relationship."
  
  I nod, because there's not really any response to that.
  
  "As we build a roadmap to a peaceful resolution of our organizations' conflict, I hope that you will keep me informed of any further exercises or events that would add value to our mutual goal, as clarified by our extensive prior treaties and memoranda of understanding, of establishing a paradigm conducive to peace and prosperity."
  
  Having given a desultory recitation of the required boilerplate, Kingfisher summarily retreats upstairs, probably to plan to do to the human world what he's done to language.
  
  > Exits
  From here, I can only go west and up.
  
  > Go upwards
  Against my better judgment, I'm in Kingfisher's inner sanctum. It's more mundane than I would have expected; it could have easily passed for the office of a mid-level human bureaucrat, except for the glowing telex on his desk (and, of course, for the state secrets of the universe that are undoubtedly kept securely locked away in its drawers). I would have expected the walls to be filled with propaganda posters and his bookshelves with plundered artifacts, but the room is neat and spartan and grey. The sole color comes from a stained-glass window that throws blotchy, irregular patterns onto the floor. A stairway leads back down into the main chapel.
  
  I can see Kingfisher here.
  
  > examine the telex
  Obviously it's not literally a telex; that's just the closest human equivalent. It's a device for handling classified communication
  between the Other Place and the human realm. Describing the exact mechanisms involved would make your head hurt, both from their complexity and the fact that the penalty for receiving unauthorized classified information involves sticking your head in a vise. Let's just say that it's a fax machine made of magic.
  
  The telex is closed.
  
  > examine the window
  Even in the feeble light of the sunset, the stained glass window creates splotches of iridiscent light on the office floor.