### 285

Carefully you step over the twitching remains of the three Plaak and continue along the tunnel without looking back. Several hundred yards later you arrive at an empty circular room. The only feature here is a rusty iron ladder fixed precariously to the wall, which ascends through a hole in the ceiling to a level above. There is no other exit from this chamber and so, with caution guiding your every move, you climb the rust-eaten rungs.

You rise through the hole to find yourself in a corridor which is strewn with human bones. Skeletons lie mixed in tangled heaps and many of the skulls and loose bones seem to have been gnawed. The psychic residues of pain and terror left by these luckless victims presses in upon your senses, making you feel queasy and claustrophobic. With pounding heart you advance along the bone-choked passage, stepping carefully through the skeletons to avoid making a sound. But you have taken less than a dozen steps when something unexpected makes you freeze in your tracks.

Turn to 218.

Text copyright © 1991 Joe Dever.
Illustrations copyright © 1991 Brian Williams.