The Let's Play Archive

Anchorhead

by Grimwit

Part 25: Day Two- Page 25

So... Uh... First off, sorry for the lack of new pictures.
I... Ha ha.. Injured my drawing hand mowing the lawn.
I'll come back and add the icons for inventory later.

Old Grey Guy posted:

I agree with the others, examine the coffin.

Seyser Koze posted:

Open the coffin, I don't think we had breakfast yet.

No Gravitas posted:

All aboard the train to child grave desecration station!

Jeez, you people are grim.

Alright, let's see what a child of incestuous rape and inbreeding looks like.

>look at william's coffin
Unlike the others, William's coffin is a ramshackle affair of cheap pine, held together with rusting nails. It's half-rotten with age and so shabbily built you could probably open it with your bare hands.

>open william's coffin
Compelled by a gruesome curiosity, you dig your fingers under the soft, rotting boards and pry up the lid. With the shriek of pulling nails and a shower of crumbling wood, the coffin comes open, and you look inside, expecting to find a child's tiny skeleton...

Dear God.

There's no child buried here. Instead, the coffin contains only the worm-eaten bones of some kind of animal.

Who would have buried an animal in place of the child that should have been interred here? And why would they do such a thing? Glumly, you look around at the rest of the coffins, and realize that anyone who might have known the answers to these questions is probably already buried in this room.


Well, there you go.
He looks like an animal.

Miranda's kelpto-senses are tingling.

>take skeleton
The skeleton is in pieces; parts of it crumble even as you touch it. Only the animal's skull seems reasonably intact.

>take skull
You pick up the animal's skull. The gruesome thing seems to leer at you with its bleached, toothy grin.

Aw. He's smiling.
We'll just take little William with us.

Zoe posted:

Can we dump the kid's body out and use the coffin as our new hoarding spot? This is important.

The answer is yes, but Miranda has her heart set on that trophy casechina cabinet in the dinning room already.

Double Plus Undead posted:

Also there's a courthouse and that kind of place has records right? We could check that out.

As the only vote on a location, this wins.

>up
You involuntary take a deep breath of fresh air as you leave the clammy, foetid depths of the crypt behind.

Family Plot


>se
Path Behind the House
>s
(opening the back door first)
Kitchen

>close door
You close the back door.
>s
Dining Room
>e
Foyer
>unlock door
You unlock the front door.
>s
(opening the front door first)
Outside the House

>close door
You close the front door.
>lock door
You lock the front door.
>se
Scenic View
>ne
Chilly Avenue
>n
Riverwalk
>w
Town Square

A damp newspaper lies on the curb, fluttering slightly in the wind.

In the center of the square, rising from a circular lawn of unhealthy-looking grass and weeds, stands a strange, stone obelisk. It seems to be a monument of some sort, although you can see no plaque or marker anywhere near it.


Didn't Michael say something about learning the news of Anchorhead?

>take newspaper
You pick up the newspaper. It's the "Weekly Arkham Herald". Anchorhead, apparently, is not large enough to warrant its own newspaper.

>read news
The front page story is about Jeffrey Greer, 8 years old, who was abducted from his home at #11 Mill Town Road last night. Little Jeffrey is the latest victim in a series of abductions that stretches back for years, one every six months or so, and that authorities believe is the work of a single perpetrator. Local police had hoped to prove that Edward Verlac had been behind the kidnappings, but were unable to obtain a confession or any hard proof. Edward Verlac was convicted of murdering his wife and two daughters, one of whom was 15 months old, in January of this year; he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and incarcerated in Danvers Asylum, where he remained until committing suicide last March. This latest kidnapping, occurring after Edward's death, seems to have cleared up any lingering suspicions that he might have been the culprit.

Anyone possessing information regarding the whereabouts of Jeffrey Greer is strongly urged to speak to the authorities as soon as possible.


Miranda couldn't be more discusted.
Who would take such grim pleasure in the kidnapping and death of children?
*She thought petting the skull of an animal child*

>put news in coat
You slip the newspaper into the pocket of your trenchcoat.

>put keys in coat
You slip the keyring into the pocket of your trenchcoat.

Oh yeah. Courthouse might have some problems with little William here.

>put skull in coat
You slip the animal's skull into the pocket of your trenchcoat.

>south

Courthouse
A long, dimly lit, north-south corridor stretches away from the courthouse entrance. Closed, unmarked doors line either side of the hall, their pebbled glass windows lit from within by a murky, yellow-orange light. Silence reigns here; your footsteps echo eerily on the tiled floor, and occasionally you can hear muted conversation behind one of the doors -- you can't tell which. At the hall's southern end, a staircase leads down into the basement; a sign hanging above it reads "RECORDS". You can return to Town Square to the north.


>look at doors
Through the pebbled glass you can see a light on inside, but nothing else is visible.

I don't actually think any of these doors lean anywhere.

>South

Courthouse Basement
A single bulb dangling from the ceiling casts a watery, yellow light against the brick walls. A rickety staircase to the north leads back up to the ground floor, and two narrow doorways lead into the record archives. Over the southeast door hangs a sign that reads "BIRTH RECORDS", while the southwest door bears the sign "DEATH RECORDS".


Ah, here's we go.

>sw

Death Records
A bare room with cinderblock walls. Thousands of records and documents, most yellow and brittle with age, are stacked everywhere in towering piles. The exit lies northeast.


>look at records
The records go all the way back to the seventeenth century and are quite extensive. It would take a while to sort through all the papers, but you could look an individual up by name. Although it would take longer, you can also flip through all the documents in a given year to see if any familiar names pop up.

>ne
Courthouse Basement
>se

Birth Records
A bare room with cinderblock walls. Thousands of records and documents, most yellow and brittle with age, are stacked everywhere in towering piles. The exit lies northwest.


>look at records
The records go all the way back to the seventeenth century and are quite extensive. It would take a while to sort through all the papers, but you could look an individual up by name. Although it would take longer, you can also flip through all the documents in a given year to see if any familiar names pop up.

>nw

Courthouse Basement

>

Alright... Me thinks next update will be Miranda looking up names.
Do you have any specific ones?
Of course, She'll search both births and deaths.

Items


In Trenchcoat