95

Carefully you examine the walls and floor and detect no other exits, other than the passage by which you entered the treasure vault. But that way is now impassable. Following its destruction, the ashes of the slain creature have become steadily hotter. A searing radiation fills the passageway, and this deadly energy forces you to abandon all hope of making an escape by that route.

You are beginning to fear that you may be trapped, until you notice that the vault’s domed ceiling is obscured by a cloud of steam. Using your Kai skills, you peer through the vapours and detect a hole at the apex of the dome through which the steam is emerging. By climbing onto the statue of Ishir and raising both arms, you are able to take hold of a metal flange encircling the hole. Confident that you have found a way out, you haul yourself up and begin climbing along a rough stone duct. This slippery conduit leads to another hole, located in the roof of a rocky cavern where steam is bubbling from the surface of a hot spring.

Gingerly you drop down to the floor of this humid cavern and take stock of your new surroundings.

Through the thick, billowing vapours you glimpse an underground river which divides the cavern in two. Its warm waters enter through a fissure in the south wall, and flow away through a natural tunnel in the west wall. You are approaching the muddy bank when suddenly a huge dark shape comes looming out of the steam. You can barely stifle a scream of terror when you find yourself staring into the venomous maw of a gigantic steamspider.

If you possess a Jug of Vinegar, turn to 187.

If you do not possess this item, turn to 26.