### 173

Further along the corridor you come to an open door recessed into the left wall. The pitiful screams of a dying man make you freeze in your tracks, and when you peer through the opening, your worst fears are confirmed. Beyond the door lies a torture chamber. Two gaolers are interrogating a prisoner who hangs from the wall in chains. His emaciated body is lit by the lurid glow of a brazier filled with burning coals. The gaolers apply their cruel skills to the helpless prisoner and he screams for the last time. Cursing his unexpected demise, they unchain his body from the wall and carry it towards the door. Quickly you run along the corridor and take cover in a doorway at the bottom of the staircase. From here you observe the gaolers leaving the chamber with their dead charge. As they go about the task of disposing of the prisoner’s body, you leave the doorway and hurry up the deserted staircase towards the next level of this grim fortress.

Turn to 198.