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>>743
Your attempt to smudge the drawing is a resounding success. You scuff the dragonfly into oblivion. No one would even know that green dusty smear on the floor was ever an insect.

Slowly, quietly, breath held, you make your way down the hallway to the one open door. You step into the threshold and immediately sweep the area with your torch. The floor and walls are covered in small white tiles. There is an operating table in the centre of the room, with adjustable restraints for immobilising limbs. There are several cupboards full of medical supplies - a cursory glance reveals bandages, gauze, sutures, tourniquets, a stethoscope, an aneroid sphygmomanometer, several hypodermic needles of varying sizes, various vials and ampoules of liquid, scalpels, forceps, surgical scissors and retractors. All the equipment seems quite old fashioned, but in good condition.

>>744
It's far too heavy to carry and still attached to the wall.

>>745
You open the door as wide as it will go and unscrew the hinges by forcing the blade of your trusty ceremonial stone knife into the slot-headed screws and twisting until they are all undone. Three butterfly hinges and eighteen slot-headed screws have been added to your inventory. Now unsupported, the enormous metal door slowly leans away and, before you can react, slams to the ground with a cacophonous bang, all the louder for the deathly silence that follows.

On the reverse of the door - which you didn't see from where you were - is written, in large, pink, cursive letters, "Behind you". You don't dare look.

>>746
You are currently playing as Jack Aaronova. You have 170 mana and four unspent skillpoints. You gain fifty mana and one skillpoint for each sapient being killed, which is doubled for killing in a ritualistic manner. Unspent skillpoints can be assigned to any of aerokinesis, geokinesis, biokinesis, hypnosis, technomancy or ailuromancy in order to unlock skills. Passive skills have a constant effect, whereas active skills cost mana to be performed. You currently have level seven ailuromancy and level nine aerokinesis. The following skills are available to you:

• Basic ailuromantic weather prediction (active skill): Can accurately predict the weather for the next six hours by observing at least one cat's behaviour for a period of at least one minute.
• Feline communication (passive skill): Can understand and employ general methods of cat communication, e.g. hissing, purring, meowing.
• Cat affinity evaluation (active skill): Can tell another sapient being's affinity towards cats. Requires line of sight. Costs 15 mana.
• Summon cat (active skill): Can summon a cat from the nearest interdimensional aperture. Costs 100 mana.
• Advanced ailuromantic weather prediction (active skill): Can accurately predict the weather for the next 24 hours by observing at least one cat's behaviour for a period of at least four minutes. Costs 20 mana.
• Cat possession (passive skill): Cats in the near vicinity are now playable members of your party.
• Inverse ailuromantic weather prediction (active skill): Can, by performing a given action on a cat, cause a corresponding change in future weather (e.g. bringing cat to a warm place makes weather warmer, spinning cat around produces cyclone). Costs 125 mana.

• Summon gust (active skill): Can create a weak, momentary gust of wind nearby. Must originate within five metres of your position. Costs ten mana.
• Summon fog (active skill): Can cause all water vapour in the air in a sphere around your position to condense out into fog. Costs ten mana per metre radius.
• Summon convection (active skill): Can create a strong local convection cell around your current position. Costs six mana per metre radius.
• Cool air (active skill): Can isobarically cool air in a sphere around your position. Costs 0.4 mana per kelvin cooled per metre radius, rounded up.
• Heat air (active skill): Can isobarically heat air in a sphere around your position. Costs 0.4 mana per kelvin heated per metre radius, rounded up.
• Summon vortex (active skill): Can summon a strong local vortex around your current position. Costs six mana per metre radius.
• Variable area of effect (passive skill): All aerokinesis skills with an area of effect can be used at any scale, with mana cost proportional to radius.
• Precision air movement (active skill): Can manipulate objects weighing no more than ten kilograms within five metres of your position using local air currents. Costs ten mana per second.
• Air immunity (passive skill): Can freely resist the effects of your own aerokinesis skills.

You can play as other characters by giving a command such as "be Such-and-Such". Such-and-Such must be in your party - that is, loosely allied/sympathetic to you - but does not have to be physically present. If you die, you will continue from the most recent saved game.

>>747
You cannot locate any lachryphagic feminists.

Unable to bear the oppressive silence any longer, you turn around to see what lurks behind you. Standing in the empty doorway, smiling innocently, is Jacqueline. She has a stick of pink chalk in one hand, while her other hand is hidden behind her back. Despite them being - you thought, at least - quite inseparable, Alexei is conspicuously absent.