219

Your killing blow decapitates the monstrous lake creature, sending its vile head, with its fanged jaws still clashing madly, spinning through the air to splash into the foam-flecked waters close to the platform. For a few moments the weaving neck, its scaly stump oozing reptilian gore, thrashes the surface before it, too, is swallowed up by the cold dark waters of this underground lake.

Aching and breathless, you sheathe your weapon, and then wipe the spatterings of Dholdaarg blood from your face with the back of your trembling hand. The Tzargs, who were silent throughout your titanic struggle with the lake monster, now rattle the bars of their cage and croak incessantly. You recognize their crude language enough to realize that their captors are returning. However, before you can act on their warning, a shudder runs through the timbers of the drawbridge and you are forced to grip tightly with both hands as jerkily it begins to descend.

Inexorably the bridge approaches the platform, inching you nearer and nearer to the cold, bloodstained waters of the lake.

If you wish, you can leap for the shore of the lake before the drawbridge fully descends, by turning to 96.

If you choose to remain where you are, clinging to the underside of the bridge, turn to 112.