Part 42: Day Three- Page 42

Oh sure. Fine. Ruin my fun.

>cover first hole
You place your finger over the first flute hole.

>cover seventh hole
You place your finger over the seventh flute hole.

>play flute
(the strange metal flute)
The flute emits an odd mixture of metallic, warbling notes which intertwine and harmonize eerily with each other.

The strange harmony of the flute blends with the atonal ringing of the two columns, and the three sounds suddenly grow stronger, resonating with and reinforcing one another, intertwining like a dissonant, invisible braid. The sound increases in volume, piercing your eardrums and causing the very air to shimmer.

Suddenly the air above the altar begins to ripple as though with extreme heat. The very fabric of space seems to twist and buckle between the two columns; and then, with a sound like a wet sheet being torn slowly down the middle, the fabric splits.

You are immediately swept off your feet by a powerful sucking vacuum, pulling everything within reach toward the portal. Dust and debris; bones and loose rock from the burial niches; everything not nailed down goes flying across the temple and into the all-devouring maw hovering over the altar-stone. Desperately, you wedge your fingers into a crack in the floor and hang on for dear life as the wind tries to claw you away. You scream, and even the sound of your voice is whipped away, pulled over your shoulder like a trailing ribbon and sucked into whatever blasphemous dimension lies beyond that horrible rift.

For a few agonizing moments you don't think you're going to make it; then, suddenly, the chaos stops, leaving you breathless on the floor.

Painstakingly, you pry your stiff, bleeding fingers out of the crack and roll over. The rift is gone. The air is normal, and the columns are ringing quietly, as if nothing had happened.

Well, I admit that had similar results without the unending terror of exponential torture until time winds down.
Bravo.

>put flute in coat
(the strange metal flute in the trenchcoat)
You slip the strange metal flute into the pocket of your trenchcoat.

>s
Bottom of Stairs
>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.
>nw
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


Not a bad idea. We know much more than we did before meeting the old man.

>d
Upstairs Hall
>w
Upstairs Landing
>d
Foyer
>s
(opening the front door first)

Outside the House

The front door stands open to the north.

The Verlac mansion looms before you, casting an air of menace over the clearing.

The hairs on the back of your neck prickle as you step outside. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong with the air. A heavy, charged sensation, like standing next to high-tension wires; a faint odor of spoiled meat drifting on the wind; you can't put your finger on it, but it might have something to do with that strange hole in the sky.

Uh... What?


>look at hole
(the sky)
There is a spinning, churning hole in the clouds, directly over the lighthouse; an inverted whirlpool sucking streamers of gray up into itself. You'd think it was some sort of funnel cloud, except that it's not moving anywhere. It's simply hanging, turning slowly in the sky. The sight of that horrible, whirling hole makes you shudder, involuntarily recalling that hideous entity that lurks behind those clouds.

Did...

Did we kind of do that?

[Fast Forward to the Twisting Lanes]

Twisting Lane

Strange; the graffiti is gone now. Not a trace of it left.

>look at wall
It's just an ordinary-looking brick wall.

>west
You take a few tentative steps back down the lane, but it seems to lead only to a short switchback, bringing you right back to the brick wall. You're not entirely sure now, which direction leads back to the narrow street.

Alright, who cleaned the damn wall? Jeez! Nothing else gets cleaned in this forsaken town! Why did they clean the Wall!

So, now the question comes, what next?


I'm gonna assume you've played this before, but that's okay, because this next section is a pretty big dick move in my opinion.

Along the same lines as returning to the twisting lanes with no prompt or clue that you need to, we have some small hint to head into the woods.
I guess the author figured, out of frustration, the players would eventually stumble back into the southern roads of Anchorhead.

Before Miranda can do anything else today, other than open a portal to the Womb of Nefilim, she has to head to the woods.

[Fast Forward to Chilly Ave.]

Chilly Avenue

>s

Deserted Lane

>look at woods
The woods are ancient, thick with undergrowth and full of shadows. Branches creak, leaves rustle beneath unseen, half-imagined footsteps, and strange birdcalls echo through the trees.

>s

Down the Road

There's something strangely familiar about the woods here... scenes from last night's dream flicker through your memory, but you are unable to recall the details.

From deep within the forest, you hear the deranged cry of a lone whippoorwill.

This is your second clue (the first being your dream) to head here.
I really don't think this is fair, personally.

>look at woods
You scrutinize the edge of the road carefully, looking for whatever it was you saw...

There. On the west side. That stump, and the twisted sapling growing next to it; you recognize them. And just beyond them... the path. It's the path you took in your dream, a narrow rut running west through the underbrush. You can hardly believe it, but there it is.

>west

Trampled Path
The tangled undergrowth has been beaten down in a path leading roughly from the east to the southwest. Shrubs and grass have been flattened and pushed aside, vines torn down, and small trees bent or even snapped in half, as though something heavy with huge, flat feet had simply trampled its way through.

Something at the edge of the path catches your eye. You take a closer look -- and are nearly struck motionless with astonishment.

It's Michael's wallet. Lying in the dirt, in the middle of the woods.

>look at wallet
It's just his wallet, an ordinary leather wallet.

>take wallet
You pick up Michael's wallet, carefully brushing the dirt and pine needles away. You try to imagine how it could have come to be here, but there's really only one plausible explanation: Michael was here last night. Out in the woods.

You shudder, unable -- or unwilling -- to fathom why.

Okay.
Now we can steal from Michael.

>open wallet
You open the wallet, revealing Michael's faculty card.

From deep within the forest, you hear the deranged cry of a lone whippoorwill.

>take card
You pick up the faculty card. The card identifies your husband as a faculty member at Miskaton University, entitled to all the privileges that implies.

>put all in coat
faculty card: You slip the faculty card into the pocket of your trenchcoat.
wallet: (closing the wallet first)
You slip the wallet into the pocket of your trenchcoat.

>Southwest

Abandoned Slaughterhouse
The decayed remains of an old slaughterhouse stand here, now little more than a shell of crumbling brick and gaping holes, surrounded by a clearing of yellow, sickly grass. A path leads northeast, back toward the road; to the west, a gaping hole that might once have been a doorway leads into the rotting building.

The forest is unnaturally quiet here, you notice; there are no birds calling, no leaves rustling or branches creaking; even the whippoorwills have fallen silent. All is still, holding its collective breath in an expectant hush.

>look at slaughterhouse
The ancient walls are barely even holding themselves together. The only reason you can tell it used to be a slaughterhouse is the faded paint on one wall: "Crompton Meat Processing".

Charming.
Almost makes Miranda want to go vegan.

>w

Crumbled Ruin
The roof has collapsed, leaving the interior open to the sky; the floor is nothing but bare, beaten dirt. Gaps in the bricks lead east and south. Although nothing stands now but the tottering, crumbling stonework (and that only barely), you fancy you can still detect a faint miasma of death -- a palpable, chilling reminder of the bloody work which once went on within these walls.

There's something odd about the ground here; some faint marking or pattern.

An old rusty meat hook sticks out of the ground nearby, its point half-buried in the dirt.

Over in the far corner, a tattered sheet of drawing paper lies discarded on the ground.

Oh good. Stuff.
At least Miranda can ease her feelings of cosmic dread by submitting to her kleptomania.

>look at hook
The crossbar fits in your palm, leaving the hook part to stick out between the third and fourth fingers. It's a heavy sucker, nearly fifteen inches long from handle to point, made for hauling around carcasses with a minimum of ceremony. You wouldn't like to think what this could do to a living person.

"I don't know what it's for, but I know I'm gonna steal it."
-Miranda Carter

>take hook
Taken.

>look at paper
(the newspaper)
It's the "Weekly Arkham Herald". Anchorhead, apparently, is not large enough to warrant its own newspaper.

What? No! Bad game! Bad!

>look at drawing
The drawing is of a pair of crudely rendered figures, scrawled with dark, heavy lines that occasionally punch right through the paper. The two figures are holding hands. The one on the left is a smiling woman with long, straight hair; the one on the right...

Well, you don't know. Frankly, you'd rather not speculate. An octopus on human legs, maybe, if you could believe any healthy child would conceive of such a thing. Above the first figure is scribbled the word "MOMY"; above the second, "WILAM (ME)".

The implications are strong in this drawing.
Could it be the animal skull WASN'T William?!?!?!?

Dun Dun DUN!

>take drawing
Taken.

>put all in coat
tattered drawing: You slip the tattered drawing into the pocket of your trenchcoat.
meat hook: You slip the meat hook into the pocket of your trenchcoat.

>look at ground
The marks in the dirt are tracks of some kind, but not of any animal you're familiar with, unless there's a lame elephant loose in the New England woods. The prints are large -- quite a bit larger than your outspread hand, and vaguely round. They criss-cross the ground in every direction. Whatever made them obviously lives here, or at least visits quite often.

Okay. They who have read the Dunwitch Horror are probably sweating right now.

>South

Old Stone Well
Beyond the south wall of the old slaughterhouse, there is nothing but a tangled thicket so dense as to be impenetrable in every direction except to the north, where you can slip back into the ruined slaughterhouse through a hole in the wall.

Rising from the midst of the underbrush is a squat circle of stone: the top of an ancient well. A circle of rotting plywood covers the opening.

>look at well
It's built of mortared stone, and comes about to the level of your waist. The top of the well is covered by a circle of rotting plywood.

>look at plywood
Nothing but a thick sheet of plywood cut into a rough circle, about a yard across.

Miranda is pretty sure she knows what's down there. Or maybe she doesn't want to know.
Either way, she's pretty spooked and wants to leave.

Besides, maybe she can finally check out that book Michael was reading in the library.

>North

Crumbled Ruin

Faint tracks mark the dirt here; large, rounded footprints tracking back and forth across the ground.

>East
You are about to step back through the eastern wall when a noise makes you stop. In the woods outside, to the east -- something is there. Something breathing. Something huge.

A branch cracks sharply; and another. It's coming this way.

>listen
The woods are eerily silent.

The sound of tearing undergrowth grows louder. Whatever it is, it's practically bulldozing its way through the forest.

Either it's Michael or it's a thirty ton mega elephant with bronchial pneumonia.

"I wonder if it will be friends with me."
-Miranda Carter

>East

Abandoned Slaughterhouse


You never even see it coming. A sudden commotion from the trees; a bloated wall of flesh heaving itself through the branches and underbrush; a writhing thicket of tentacles reaching out for you... what you see next, when the branches suddenly give way, is so utterly, blasphemously hideous that your mind is mercifully blasted into unconsciousness, sparing you any knowledge of the butchery which takes place during the next few minutes.


*** You have died ***


In that game you scored 39 out of a possible 100 points; you have stumbled onto a conspiracy of monstrous horror.

Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, UNDO your last move, give the FULL score for that game or QUIT?
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