DOLSS.

Dolss is the nerve centre at Rending for anything which can be discussed without rational argument. The corridors of Dolss, which are long and smoky and filled with a dismal tepid light, resound to the arguments of philosophers, historians, and politics gurus. Pigeonholes overflow with learned essays and pigeon excrement. The picture shows an artist's impression of the front of the Dolss building as it would have looked had not the architect, in a flight of fancy, decided to build the entire building in the shape of a giant coffee jar (not illustrated). The entrance is cleverly concealed by the low shrubs and trees, and a tasteful staircase which is shaped in a semicircle curls around and up to the first and second floors. But this facade, seemingly the front of a small building, is in fact the entrance to a vast complex of stupendous complexity. For behind the main wing lurk the dark and brooding extensions which have turned Dolss into the megalith which it now is. Extensions so fascinating, so devious and so secretive that whole books written about them have been censored to the point of obliteration. But, you may be asking, why is this of interest? I want to hear about schemes for world domination, I want the truth about the wily SCSC staff, I want to know what the Innovation Centre is, I don't care about Dolss. Dolss are for girls. Too true, I counter, but do you know what goes on at night? After the lecturers have all gone home to bed, and the great stucco-ceilinged, marble hallwayed building lapses into silence, a new sight, a new sound, is to be witnessed. The Mudders are out. They swarm towards the computer room, fingers itching to feel the touch of a keyboard, eyes longing for the warm glow of a cathode ray tube. There is a scurrying, a scratching, a murmouring which rises to a roaring crescendo, and then they get killed by a monster, sent down a level and lose all their hitpoints. But despite the sad, technology-victim image of the mudder, the truth is that the average interactive text adventurer gets to kill far more innocent victims than most of us do - and the virtual satisfaction this gives them is keeping most of them sane. Most of them.