Covering sessions 3 and 4, in which our intrepid investigators cross the ts and dot the is on what they suspected.
After their trip to the seedy underbelly of Boston’s criminal underworld and initial trip to Memphis the Great’s mansion, they girded their loins for a second trip to the house. Before they left, Wilbur had the good sense to make sure Carlton and Larry were going to be at The Flop (what Tom has started calling the clubhouse/Society’s building) because he had some questions about heiroglyphs and mystical/occult shenanigans, and they are two good resources.
The house was much as they left it: big and strange and with a tendency to get even stranger very suddenly. They encountered several inexplicable phenomenon that creeped them out but they were also expecting inexplicable phenomenon and save for a brief detachment from reality in the home theatre set-up that Memphis had (an actual theatre for practicing in, not an overpriced gadget temple for people to watch Avatar at home in) everyone continued unscathed. Well, a door broke Shea’s finger. But other than that, they were unscathed.
Exploring the tower-like rotunda, which had given the hairy eyeball to Wilbur when he went off by himself, they found a storeroom with all of Mr. the Great’s financial records. It’s how they got Capone, y’know. But in here they found a beautiful wooden puzzle chest. Surmising that this was of Bhutanese origin, Terrance found the way to open it – the correct sequence of pressure, twist and pulling – and the lid of the box released, revealing only a black silk lined wooden tray bearing seven glass spheres. Inside the sphere a milky mist writhed when moved. I tried to convey in as non-racist a way as possible that their characters could surmise that the delicate, perfectly uniform spherical glass orbs were beyond the capacity of pre-industrial Bhutan to produce. That’s not intended as a slight to the good people of Bhutan.
Some rooms yielded little to know extra information but they discovered the library.
The library’s lintel was carved with the sign of the evil eye. Terrance’s familiarity with Latin had informed his opinion that the Romans warded off the evil eye with phallic symbols. So they pasted a crude picture of a dick over the eye and continued on. That handout never made it to the clue board.
The library was a veritable treasure trove of stage magic know-how and reference books.Two reading tables were set up and it became clear that these were the workspaces of Memphis and Hawkings. On Memphis’s table they found the ancient Book of Eibon; a crumbling tome that had evidently been researched by Memphis somewhat recently.
On the apprentice’s desk they found nothing except stationary. But upon doing the pencil rubbing trick on the notepad, they discovered that the previous piece of paper had had page notations and brief notes scribbled on it. The page was topped with the word “Phillips”, which was the same name mentioned in Memphis’s notes.
The last incident of the house being a Roman-Evil-Eye-Ward to them was when Shea was walking down the stairs with one of the puzzle box’s spheres: the steps became insubstantial, causing her to stumble and drop the sphere, but when the sphere broke and the glittering mist was released, the stairs immediately reverted to regular old stairs. Those standing around her suddenly felt more… grounded and the feeling of being in a strange spooky house was lifted from them. They were just in a house: nothing weird about that.
Back at the Flop, Larry and Carlton sat sharing a smoke while they waited for the questions of the investigators. And good thing they did too because Larry was able to help them identify The Book of Eibon as being a 15th century English translation of the Latin Liber Ivonis, which was itself a translation of the grimoire of an ancient wizard Eibon. The book is… valuable, to put it mildly.
Larry could also surmise that the “Phillips” book that both Hawkings and Memphis had referred to was the Thaumaturgical Prodigies of the New-England Canaan written in the 18th century by Rev. Ward Phillips. This book covered comparatively more recent witchcults and occult practices among the disparate early settlers of New England. Crosswell knew of a first edition that was a prize of the Orne Library on the campus of Miskatonic University, although that library is not strictly open to the public.
Carlton obliged Wilbur by confirming the heiroglyphs that he had seen in the poster art at the mansion were are unusual set, using some very old glyphs that fell out of use for various reasons. He translated it as “Beyond the gate there is no peace” and could be expressed as Nyalakh-hotep, or something similar. Maybe Nyarat-hotep. If so it was a form of the god Thoth, messenger of the Egyptian Pantheon, but in his aspect as a Herald of Woe or Chaos. This weirded Carlton out because it was the same series of glyphs that had been furrowed into the parquet floor of the ballroom in Providence.
The next day, Wilbur sat down to research the bookmarked pages in the Book of Eibon, which purported to Call Forth Ye Form Beyonde, which turned out to be a ritual that pulled something not quite in this plane of existence wholly into this plane of existence.
Bradford and Terrance went to visit Inspector Robinson at the Boston PD. Robinson was a hard staring Boston cop with a face only a mother could love, if sufficiently bribed. Long story short, Robinson divulged that he thought the official story was hooey, straight bunk, but had been pressed to close the case by those upstairs. He didn’t think the Learys were capable of any kind of lethal violence, much less the convoluted violence enacted on them. Two brothers fed the other brothers hands and feet into a chopper, then one turned on the other and skewered him to the wall then hanged himself? A bit far fetched. The only way Robinson could write it up in any way that made sense was that there was a mysterious traceless fourth person, but even then… still pretty unlikely turn of events. They kind of knew this, but it confirmed what they suspected.
Shea and Tom went to Ace Emporium and met Reuben Levy, the charming proprietor of Boston’s premier magic shop. He was a little fella, with silver-white hair, magnificent mustaches and a child-like twinkle in his eye. And though they skirted with social disaster the entire time, they parted as friends with the kindly old gent! Convincing Levy that Tom was a working stage magician (he can make a bowl of beans disappear, that’s for sure) who had worked from Califor-ni-a all the way to New England (also true) they were shown Levy’s Backroom-for-real-magicians-only. Levy affirmed that Memphis had been a loyal and cherished customer until about five years ago, when his demeanour changed to haughty, dismissive and rude. There was no doubt he continued to be a brilliant stage magician, but Levy hadn’t been surprised when Ingrid and Hawkings put distance between themselves and Memphis. They kind of knew this, but it confirmed what they suspected.
Just to up the ante on this social interaction, Tom opened a line of credit (I know!) and purchased some smoke pots: flameless flash pots that were used as distractions or smokescreens on stage.
Regrouping at the Flop they decided to call on Howard Hawkings, ostensibly to see how he was doing, but also because they had questions for him. Calling his apartment building they eventually got hold of Ingrid Schwartz, who was over at Howard’s and sounded worried.
In the quiet neighbourhood in which Howard lived, they found the newish apartments, and were greeted by Ingrid, who led them up to Howard’s apartment. Howard looked awful, his aunt and Ingrid had called on him and found that he was feverish and ranting a little. They’d moved him from his bedroom out into the “parlor” and propped him up on a couch on a sheet that was rapidly becoming sweat stained. The smell was… not great and they’d cracked a window.
As the aunt and Tom gathered up tea for everyone (it being the polite thing to do) Terrance looked Howard over: he reported sleeplessness over the past few days since the calamitous show and when he did dream, terrible dreams about things in his past. Certainly Terrance thought Howard looked to be in the throes of sleep deprivation with physical and cognitive deterioration consistent with being awake for 80+ hours.
However, since the aunt and Ingrid were now there they were convinced that they would be able to take care of Howard in the way that he required and that a hospital stay would not be necessary.
Tom spotted a slim volume underneath a tray of cloths and water bowls that had been placed beside the couch upon which Howard languished. Picking it up, he found it to be the Thaumaturgical Prodigies of the New-England Canaan missing from Memphis’s library. With an unexpected burst of speed Howard lunged for the book and clutched it to his sweat soaked shirt. There then followed a brief struggle for the book which really hit its stride when Tom deployed a smoke pot in the middle of the parlor. Bursting out the door with the book, Tom fled the scene as Terrance dashed outside yelling about a fire.
Pure chaos!
The scene was vacated as everyone coughed the finely milled asbestos powder out of their lungs (I have no idea what is actually in flash pots, potassium permanganate? Probably not thermite.) the remaining investigators advocated for getting Hawkings to a hospital and they sent the disinterested Boston FD home.
At the greasy spoon diner Tom went to with his prize, they pored over the heavily annotated Phillips book. The page notations on Hawkings notepad matched up to a few specific items: the Reverend’s breathless rendition of a satanic spell called the Claws of the Void, which was claimed to send a victim to many other “hells” all at the same time, shattering their being – and something called the Barrier of Naach-Tith which was a short protective ritual to keep bad things at bay.
And that’s where we decided to end it: next session they’ll decide what to do!
