### 73

Taking hold of a crate, you pull open the lid as easily as if you were tearing the peel from an overripe orange. The damp timber crumbles in your hands, falling on the tarnished pewter plates lying within. Your boot staves in the side of another crate, and you hear the dull crunch of shattered porcelain. This one is full of old Kakush vases, part of a cargo from a trading barge that sank on the reef over a decade ago.

You are about to leave when something unusual catches your eye: the tip of a cylindrical map case is jutting out from behind an empty cask. Unlike everything else in this foul room, it is both dry and quite new. Flipping the brass catch, you tip the contents into your palm: a small piece of parchment and a Diamond (you may keep this Special Item in your pocket). A snake with one large eye is drawn in red ink on the parchment. It is coiled around the number 123. Make a note of this number in the margin of your Action Chart--it may be of use to you later in your adventure.

Satisfied that there is nothing else of use or interest in the room, you leave and press on towards the stairs.

Turn to 11.

Text copyright © 1986 Joe Dever.
Illustrations copyright © 1986 Gary Chalk.