### 164

You regain consciousness with a start, reaching instinctively for your weapon lest danger be waiting to greet you. A dull throbbing fills your head as you sit up to take stock of your surroundings.

You find yourself on top of a mound of rotting vegetation, stacked high in the corner of a shadowy chamber. A harsh reptilian odour fills your nostrils: the unmistakable smell of snakes. As your vision clears, you notice, amid the slime that covers the floor, what appear to be undigested human bones. A rib cage, two skulls and several vertebrae are illuminated by a shaft of light that descends from a grate in the ceiling. It flickers and, for a second, you catch a glimpse of a skull-like face through the iron bars. Fear wells up inside you as a chilling laugh pierces the silence. But it is not the sound of the cruel inhuman laughter that freezes your blood, it is the sight of the colossal, wedge-shaped head that is rearing up through the mound on which you sit; it is the head of a gigantic snake.

You leap to your feet and run to the far corner of the chamber, your heart pounding loudly in your ears. The snake rises up almost to the ceiling, its forked tongue flickering angrily below a single yellow eye which is set deep in the centre of its green scaly head. Once more the chamber echoes to cruel laughter as the monster shakes off its rotting nest and slithers forward.

If you have the Magnakai Discipline of Animal Control and have reached the Kai rank of Primate, turn to 137.

If you have a bow and wish to use it, turn to 7.

If you have neither a bow nor mastery of Animal Control, turn to 301.

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