Part 40: Day Three- Page 40

Sort of short update today, and that's because this is the last'ish important thing we need to do in the house. For now.


Fair enough. We can always come back.
I think.

uh...

>s
You start back up the wide steps...

Great Stairs

>u

Other Side

A thin and decrepit rope bridge spans the pit, shivering occasionally in the wind.

Let's see where this takes us. Maybe a new room we haven't seen. Ooo! I hope it's a secret study with journals and stuff!
Yeah! That's cool!

>Northwest
As you make your way down the corridor, you begin to get dizzy, then nauseous. Lines seem to cross without bending, the ceiling becomes the walls and the floor becomes the ceiling. Half-blind, unsure even of which direction you were going in, you stagger forward and suddenly find yourself in a...

Crawlspace



>e

Attic

Son of a...

>restore
Ok.


>Say Iadabaoloth
(to yourself)
Talking to yourself is a sure sign of impending mental collapse.

Huh. That IS the right thing to do.

>Iadabaoloth
That's not a verb I recognise.

>iadabaoloth
That's not a verb I recognise.

What's wrong?

Oh.

We forgot an "L"

>Ialdabaoloth
The metallic door suddenly rings out as if struck; it vibrates in aching harmony with the blasphemous name -- a shrill, grating sound like a dentist's drill. The air grows thick and terrible shapes waver and melt in the air before you -- shapes that twitch and move with hungry purpose, and seem to look at you -- and then the ringing fades away. There is a moment of stillness, and then the gleaming door swings smoothly open on perfectly balanced and utterly silent hinges.

Sooo... You know how it's a cliche to have your house built upon an Indian burial ground?

>North
The doorway opens out into a large, dome-ceilinged cavern. You stand at the threshold for a moment, peering into the strange, phosphorescent gloom, before your eyes can make out enough details to see what this place is; even then, it is almost a full minute before your mind can accept what you are seeing...


Burial Mound
The cave is lined, floor to ceiling, with mummified human corpses. Shrunken and desiccated, they lie in jumbled heaps inside irregularly carved niches. Carvings cover the rock walls in between the niches -- grotesque, leering faces too horrible even to look upon, their features twitching and smirking in the wavering light that sifts down from above.

And dominating the center of the chamber: a dark monolith rising up through the green, murky light -- what you first took to be a large, supporting pillar, you now realize can only be the true base of the town square obelisk.

At the narrower, northern end of the vaguely egg-shaped cavern sits a massive stone altar, flanked on either side by a pair of strange, vibrating columns.

>scream
Come now; you're not that frightened.

I would be!
Miranda Carter is clearly made of sterner stuff.

>look at niches
These bodies are very, very old; even the shapes of the skulls call to mind a more primitive and degenerate sort of folk than even the denizens of this town. This must be the inside of an ancient burial mound, although what sort of Indian tribe could have erected such a huge and monstrous obelisk, you can't imagine.

>look at bodies
These bodies are very, very old; even the shapes of the skulls call to mind a more primitive and degenerate sort of folk than even the denizens of this town. This must be the inside of an ancient burial mound, although what sort of Indian tribe could have erected such a huge and monstrous obelisk, you can't imagine.

>look at carvings
Which do you mean, the first pictogram, the second pictogram, the third pictogram or the fourth pictogram?

There are FOUR OF THEM!?!?!

>first
A circle of stick-men, dancing or worshipping around a shape like an upturned bowl -- perhaps a hill, or perhaps this very mound you're standing in was once above ground.

>look at second
Which do you mean, the second pictogram or the second flute hole?



>pictogram
A fiery star-burst, decorated with trailing lines (perhaps indicating a comet or shooting star?) descends from the sky, and rains fire and death upon the people of the mound.

>look at third carving
The stick men are again pictured in a circle around the mound. One figure stands on top of the mound, raising a dagger over a second stick man bent backwards over some kind of altar. The mound is decorated with wavy lines radiating from the altar at the top down to the bottom -- perhaps indicating streams of blood?

>look at fourth carving
The mound is now deserted, and the stick men seem to be constructing a tower of stones for some unclear purpose. The comet-symbol has returned, although there is an added eye-motif; the comet appears to be looking down on the tower with approval. Wavy lines radiate from the eye in all directions, several of them converging to join at the tower's tip.

>look at altar
A single block of jet-black, featureless stone, approximately the size of a queen-sized bed. It is flanked by a pair of metal pillars.

I wonder how many stick figures lost their lives on this slab.

>look at left pillar
You can't see any such thing.

Bullshit, Game! You JUST called them Pillars!

>look at columns
Which do you mean, the left-hand column or the right-hand column?

>left
The column is approximately seven feet high and cylindrical, made of some oily, greenish metal. It is vibrating very slightly, almost imperceptibly; only a thin shimmering around its edges and the faint ringing noise betray any motion at all.

>look at right column
The column is approximately seven feet high and cylindrical, made of some oily, greenish metal. It is vibrating very slightly, almost imperceptibly; only a thin shimmering around its edges and the faint ringing noise betray any motion at all.

Sooo... This is a thing that's under our new home.
Permanently.
Like, it's not going to be easy to fill this place with cement or redecorate.

>taste left column
You shouldn't go around putting your tongue on strange objects.

Why not? That's how Miranda and Michael got engaged.

>stand on left column
You can't stand on the left-hand column.

>

Well, I'm out of ideas.
So you know, this is the last puzzle in the house. There's still lots to do outside.

But I'll leave the speculumspeculation to you.
What does Miranda do? Where does Miranda go? What does Miranda wear?

Items



In Trenchcoat