text: > Go downwards
  As you spiral downward, the air cools.
  
  Great Hall (south end)
  That's iron you smell, little one. No wonder when the walls run red, 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.
  
  > examine the cow
  O mighty cow, what meat you might provide. You are a meat-filled mountainside! Miners could labor underneath your skin, unearth cuts marbled with the finest fat, translucent, white, creamy, carve brisket from your bones and wield pickaxes for kabobs. You'd feed a thousand mouths and more. You've already yielded meat by the tonne. Now here, my dear, is something worth dropping your jaw over. No common cow can open her body for a market.
  
  > eat the cow
  Moos thunder through the hall. She's felt that bite, darling.
  
  > go north
  Although you can't push past the cow, you can climb into her.
  
  Great Hall (inside a cow)
  She's been hollowed by blades, our fatted calf, her insides empty but for some shunned viscera. Every steak carved, each muscle stripped, her skeleton still holding shape despite its vacancy. Her chitterlings coil across her great mammary glands.
  
  Southward you could climb outside again.
  
  > examine the viscera
  It seems as though some viscera weren't on the cutting list. Her chitterlings, for instance, draped and snaking in enormous loops, and her massive mammaries.
  
  > look at the mammaries
  An udder seen from the inside. No teats to suck, just slick flesh mounds ligament-lashed to her pelvis. They hardly hang; rather, they rest upon her inner skin, covered with chitterlings.
  
  > touch the mammaries
  Again you strain against your gut. My dear, this just won't do. Trust in your teeth, put more faith in your mouth, and learn how to apply your appetite. Eat, eat, and eat.
  
  > eat the viscera
  Heft an intestine in your arms. Its weight struggles to slip your grip. Bite down and chew and tear and then surrender when it doesn't tear, you cannot chew, your bites aren't strong enough. All right, let it slide back with its brethren.
  
  Lifting this chitterling has plastered you with gore: a splendid bouquet for a carnivore.
  
  > check what you're carrying
  You have a hole in your stomach, and you're slathered with gore.
  
  > examine the gore
  Look at you, slathered, quite slathered in blood. You reek, my dear, as though you were a carcass left to fester after a culling.
  
  > 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.
  
  > Go upward
  Sweat beads your brow. Heat ripples in the air above the hearth. Stand far against the fireplace's rearmost wall; there you'll have space to skirt the blaze.
  
  Northward you'd inch back to the baron's cabinet, and a doorway leads down into a narrow spiral stair.
  
  > go to the north
  A giant fireplace burns in a vacant room. Without the baron here to dwarf its size, the flames seem to lash higher than ever.
  
  Northward you could return to the solar; southward you'd step into the hearth.
  
  > go north
  Omelettes carpet the floor. A brazier crackles merrily, surrounded by soft lard couches with marshmallow pillows. Less appetizing's that cage in the corner, where a carrion crow hunches behind nougat bars, watching the room.
  
  Southward you'll find the baron's cabinet, eastward the scriptorium, and downward stairs lead to the western tapestry.
  
  > eat the Omelettes
  A perfect omelette's paradise. Simple yet elegant, fluffed layers folded and threaded with butter fried a delicate yellow. Every bite is a sunrise on your tongue.
  
  > eat the couches
  You ooze into marvelous lard, slipping about with litheness like an eel. Smooth, soft, it's creamy on your skin and heaven on your tongue, but let's not lounge in idleness too long.
  
  > eat the pillows
  Yes, pop a pillow right into your mouth. It squishes wonderfully. Pure sugary sweetness, with no distracting flavors to dilute the rush.
  
  > examine the bird
  When soldiers lose their guts in war, crows find them on the battlefield. Now here's a crow fed on burst bellies aplenty. Its feathers drip with carrion. Its beak's a splintered bone. Its eyes are ruby hemorrhoids in its head.
  
  "Let me out, let me out," caws the crow. "Let me out."
  
  > Sooochandler
  SAVEYou've saved your place in the tale.
  
  > Sooochandler
  All right, darling, let's resume the tale.
  
  > eat bars
  You bite into a nougat bar. It breaks.
  
  "Out! Out!" the carrion crow caws. "Release me! Let me out!"
  
  > eat the hole
  It's in your stomach already, although it wasn't a hole when you swallowed it. No, it was an assurance you'd have all you ever wished to eat and more. Now it devours whatever you do.
  
  > check what you're carrying
  You have a hole in your stomach, and you're slathered with gore.
  
  > eat the cage
  "Release me! Now! Now!" caws the crow.
  
  All right, quiet, you noisy bird. It takes a moment to chew through this much nougat. You work until you've nibbled a hole large enough, the crow flapping an impatient whirlwind inside the cage, not waiting for one instant to smash through once you've finished.
  
  "Guts! Guts! I want guts!" caws the crow, flying east to the scriptorium.
  
  > go to the 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, three more courses for a feast.
  
  Westward's passage to the solar, eastward lies the bower, and southward you'll walk out onto a balcony.
  
  "Guts! Guts!" caws the crow, flying out to the south.
  
  > Go south
  Nothing remains to gird the balcony now you've nibbled its balustrade. A step over the edge would plunge a person downward into the courtyard.
  
  Northward you could return indoors to the scriptorium.
  
  You arrive just in time to see the crow rise into the night sky, flapping southward beyond the castle walls. Crows always know where to find a slaughter.