I pick it up gingerly and softly dust it off. I look at the vial uncertainty, but think it might be useful later. I slip it into my pocket next to the bone. I then turn back around and head back the way I came from.

The vial is unusually cold, with something indecipherable written on it, far too faded to be read. The sounds from the last tunnel have gotten louder. Closer. Do you investigate, or choose a different path?

I investigate the sound. I step into the area where the tunnels connect and remember something. I quickly look in the alcove and pick up my cane (with picking stuff up I realized that I wasn't holding my cane). I slowly walk down the tunnel with the sound and hold my cane at the ready, like a baseball bat.

There is silence. Then a strange, doglike creature emerges. It has long legs, far too long to be normal, each ending in three jagged claws. It has no eyes, and no ears, just a nose and a mouth that extends all the way back to the neck, which opens to reveal teeth stained red. Likely this creature is the source of the many bones littered around the alcove. You could flee, or you could attempt to fight it.

I attempt to fight it. I advance quickly, using the fact that the creature doesn't have eyes and swing my cane at the creatures legs to trying and knock it off its feet.

You deal 23/? damage to the creature, but it scratches you for 38/1149 in return. It gives a garbled yelp as it falls. What do you do next?

With the marble side of my cane, I smack it in the chest.

The cane hits it with a disgusting squelch. It squeals and scrambles away, back into the shadows.

I flinch and watch the creature retreat. I debate on whether I should follow the creature, but decide to go back to the alcove. I sit in the alcove again and wait to see if the creature returns.

It doesn't. The alcove has faded murals on the walls, but like the label on the vial, they are completely indecipherable. There are no more sounds from the last path.