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The massive door slides open to reveal a long stone causeway, spanning a vast chamber that is bathed in the orange glow of fiery furnaces. A gust of hot, putrid air wafts over you and a deafening noise assails your ears. Fifty feet below the causeway, great stone vats hang suspended over roaring flames. Each vat is full of bubbling slime writhing and contorting as if it were alive.

Fear and revulsion grip your stomach as you begin to grasp the sinister secret of this hall. Row upon row of stone plinths bear the mutilated corpses of Ice Barbarians, their skins peeled back and pinned open. Each corpse is attended by hideous creatures, a ghoulish legion of mutants crawling and slithering across the blood-drenched floor. This hall is a place of great evil, a nightmarish laboratory, a temple of the Black Art of Necromancy constructed by Vonotar the Traitor.

Across the causeway, another doorway suddenly slides back to reveal four Ice Barbarian mutants. As they shuffle towards you, a mixture of horror and pity overwhelms your senses.

If you wish to fight these creatures, turn to 83.

If you wish to flee from this terrible place, turn to 130.

Text copyright © 1984 Joe Dever.
Illustrations copyright © 1984 Gary Chalk.