### 174

The moment you enter the mouth of the skull-rock you are engulfed by a dense fog that is icy cold and impenetrable to your sight and senses. The thunderous noise of the temple’s destruction ends abruptly, as if a great door has suddenly been closed upon it. You strain your Kai skills to aid your pursuit of Wolf’s Bane but to no avail; the ivory-white fog hides everything, swamping and distorting your sense of time and direction.

You keep moving, forcing yourself onwards, even though the surface beneath your feet has become viscous and uncertain. After what seems like an eternity spent wandering through this cloudy limbo, you gradually feel the ground hardening and sense that the impenetrable fog is beginning to dissipate. Patches of grey appear in the creamy whiteness. Then the fog dissolves completely, and you find yourself standing in the middle of a rubble-strewn street, surrounded by the bleak and derelict remains of a decaying, alien city.

It is the dead of night, and a fine drizzle falls from a storm-laden sky, dampening this dreary landscape. Everywhere you look you see the hollow shells of buildings. They are heaped with mounds of broken stone, twisted rusty iron, and shattered glass. There are no trees, no blades of grass, no animals here. Everything is cold, grey, and dead.

You examine the paved surface of the street and detect your enemy’s footprints. They are fresh, and they lead you to a small courtyard flanked by two buildings: a large municipal hall and a smaller two-storey dwelling. Wolf’s Bane’s tracks end in the middle of the wet courtyard, and you sense that they have been deliberately erased. Despite your advanced hunting skills, you are unable to determine into which building your enemy has escaped.

If you wish to enter the municipal hall, turn to 148.

If you wish to investigate the two-storey dwelling, turn to 267.