It was if the entire city was an escape room. A winding muddle of curving streets, cloisters and cobblestones in which every ornate detail lay potential clues; but of what? One gothic nook in a wall contained a hand-sized wooden puzzle with keyholes, switches and other affordances, which on completion reward a desiccated pencil; but for what purpose? I tucked the rotten thing in my satchel; itself a reward from some other earlier riddle, and continued on my way.
I investigate an antiquarian bookshop which I assumed must be a source of useful intel. Brown furniture such as writing bureaus and chests of drawers had been repurposed as shelves and stuffed with tattered tomes of various sizes. After elbowing myself though the ramshackle corridors I found nothing but disintegrating books, though some contained intriguing scribbles. After the bookshop I went to a bar that overlooked a river at twilight. And after helping myself to some delicious thimble-sized samples on offer, I turned to the barmaid to ask about a pint. My heart sank on learning it was £37, so I left to continue my investigations elsewhere.
At the bar, I had heard of a place called The Monster’s Rooftop that might be a useful source of leads. It was a roof-garden the top of a large art-deco-style building, and the only way to get there seemed to be via a winding staircase the type of which one might see in a botanical hothouse. On reaching the top I could see why it had earned this name. Across its overpainted cast-iron tables slumped an assortment of beasts from past aeons. Reptilian, Crocodilian and proto-reptilian lazed in the gaze of the night, swinging their tails and staring in silent judgement.
The journey ended by the river, where a woman who had swum out from a nearby pool was attempting to drown her friend. Black cranes flew low over the surface of the water in regular intervals, as if on a loop in some computer game. As the tide rolled back and forth, the waves revealed igneous rock-pools of populated by frogs and salamanders and other semi-aquatic creatures engaged in rhythmic behaviours that repeated and reset each time the water drew in and out, as if components in a vast cuckoo clock.