Visions at the Library

Things are reaching a natural conclusion here, at what is likely to be the last location that Lita and Carolyn investigate before they head off into the woods to put a stop to this evil work.

Doom = 5

It’s cold and raining, but they’re kitted out with the best outdoor clothes that Lita could supply at short notice. They have come finally to the Miskatonic University to beg help from Daisy Walker — who is not just the assistant librarian here but also a friend to Lita.

Carolyn Fern, psychologist

• Knowledge of medicine, caring attitude, scientific mindset
• Insight: 3
• Shaken by the connection of Umôrdhoth to her prior psychological research
• Torched her house with ghouls inside it

Lita Chantler, sorceress

• Knowledge of magic, forceful attitude, fanatical mindset
• Insight: 4
• Shaken by a feeling of powerlessness in a deterministic world
• Has experienced visions of an ancient intelligence watching her
• Her lover was attacked and driven into hiding by cultists

Major NPCs

• Dr Ruth Turner, hospital mortician
• ‘Wolfman’ Drew, convicted cannibal
• Agnes Baker, waitress and dabbling sorceress
• Daisy Walker, assistant librarian

Minor/Offscreen NPCs

• Sefina Rousseau, artist (missing)
• Oliver Thomas, shopkeeper (former patron of Sefina)
• Dr Forster, psychiatrist
• Stepan Ropasko, academic in law (under false suspicion for embezzlement)

Scene 11. Orne Library

The date beside the door confirmed that Orne Library was only a few decades old, one of the youngest buildings in the Miskatonic University campus. Carolyn idly wondered what had been here before. She didn’t have to wonder for long: above the door into the main borrowing section was a large oil painting showing the previous Miskatonic University library engulfed in flames.

Altered Scene? (3) Yes.
(1-2) Person (3-4) Location (5-6) Object? 6
(1-2) Mask (3-4) Book (5) Key (6) Bag? 1
SL, The Strangeness When it's Used: A low moan or other disturbing sound

Carolyn stared up at the painting. The painting seemed to pull at her, lifting her consciousness into its depths.

“Do you hear that?” said Lita behind her. Carolyn shook her head to clear it. She listened, staring up at the painting but not focussing with her eyes.

Carolyn listens: 1 normal
Too much success (6)

A low repeating mumbling noise washed over her and the lifting feeling returned. She felt almost detached from her body, not anchored to the ground any more. The mumbling noise seemed clearer, like an incantation.

She could see the burning library in focus now, the flames licked higher and the smell of smoke filled her nostrils. Screams of panic, a bucket chain, the crash as the roof fell in. At the edge of the painting a group of hooded individuals with skull-like faces stood watching but not helping.

Carolyn learned disturbing knowledge with Insight of 3.
Her Insight remains at 3.

The mumbling stopped and Carolyn swayed gently. She steadied herself on the wall.

“I think it came from the mask. I don’t think we should have brought it” said Lita.

“Yes, it came from the mask” said Carolyn with certainty. She wasn’t sure how but she knew that it was the signal for the cult to gather. “It means our time is running out.”

Scene 12. The Restricted Section

I was definitely not expecting all that to happen when our PCs walked in the library door, so chalk that one up to the power of random interventions from the dice. Since it looks like this will be the last place we can gain information before they head to the woods for a showdown then I think it’s only proper I see what the famous Restricted Section of the Miskatonic University library is like! Give it some details, by pulling out some things from the Ironsworn Delve supplement.

Ironsworn Delve:
- Aspect/Focus: Destroyed/Resource
- Description/Detail: Forgotten/Corruption

The Restricted Section of Orne Library was well secured from unauthorised access. Daisy Walker led Carolyn and Lita through the lending sections, past the reading rooms and behind several weighty doors. The doors were inlaid and surrounded by protective wards, only visible to the tutored eye. Lita could only guess at the function of most of them, but noted that many of the protections were facing inwards: protecting the outside world from what lay within.

The real enemy of the librarian isn’t theft but fire, and the fire had taken a terrible toll on the rare books in the Miskatonic’s collection. Many of the remaining books had scorched or blackened spines, others were curled or discoloured from heat.

Altered Scene? (3) Yes
(1-2) Person (3-4) Location (5-6) Object? 5
(1-3) Mask (4-6) Book? 6
Who is drawn to it (1-3) Lita (4-6) Carolyn? 6

I reached this point in the adventure and just stalled. Basically this is the end, but it doesn’t feel like an end. Do they just… get all the information they need and then the credits roll? There’s no tension in a library scene! So I’m going to lean into the Altered Scene to create that tension. The book, the mask, the fire and the painting of the old library, Carolyn’s prior experiences — all coming together.

Carolyn could smell the smoke in the air and wondered how many books hadn’t survived. Precious things going up in smoke. She thought of her burned-down house.

Carolyn learns disturbing knowledge but their Insight remains at 3.

She hadn’t brought many possessions to Arkham but she would leaving with fewer still. The smell of charred paper surrounded her. She felt her throat tighten and was unable to talk. Thankfully Lita and Daisy knew each other well, and Lita explained what they wanted from Daisy.

Lita investigates (5, 5;  → 5)
and learns everything, and more from an ancient artefact. 

The “ancient artefact” is probably the mask, but I’m not going to give them all the information about everything off the back of that, any more than I’d give them no information. They’re in an occult library with a librarian who specialises in this stuff. There’s bound to be relevant stuff here.

They learn about: (rolling 2x)
(1) cannibalism (2) umordhoth (3) ghouls (4) ritual (5) date (6) roll 2x
2, 1 - umordhoth and cannibalism
Is ancient artefact the mask? (4, 1) Yes but... altered

UNE:
- NPC relationship: friendly
- Conversation mood: sociable
- hostile / death / future action

Daisy Walker listened to their story. “Wow, that’s a lot to take in. I think I’ll need something stronger than cocoa when I get home.”

Daisy took Lita to a section on underworld beings and they begin to learn what was said about Umôrdhoth in the literature. “And there are people devoted to the cult of Umôrdhoth in Arkham? Fascinating. What little we know says that it is a devotion of ghouls and not humans.”

“We fought off a ghoul in Carolyn’s house, before it burned down. Nobody would have mistaken it for a person.”

“I wonder, I wonder… I should like to interview you fully on this, but I fear time is of the essence and a full history would take too long. And yet: I am concerned about the wisdom of your actions. Will you still be available for an interview tomorrow — by mundane means, that is?” Daisy raised her eyebrows at the question. This was the strongest word of warning Lita would get from her, she knew.

While Lita and Daisy pored through the references, Carolyn walked aimlessly, captivated by everything she saw. A large desk has been set aside for restoration work. A book lay with its binding cut and its folios stacked neatly and tied in ribbons.

Silent Legions p86 Occult Grimoires:
- A language heavily larded with codes and hidden meaning
- Secret/Penetrating/Mountain
- An artistic work with the spells embedded in symbols
- A professionally-printed book with no known record of it
- Illuminated parchment with rich inks and drawings

The visible pages were beautiful. Swirls of intense colour, with such rich inks that they seemed to be deep pools rather than stains on parchment. Around the edges of each swirl of colour there were such tiny ink marks they seemed at first just like meticulous embellishments.

Carolyn investigates (4;  → 4)
and learns what a competent investigator would discover. 

On closer examination Carolyn was able to resolve these marks as tiny letters. Looping round and through all the other images were long chains of tiny words.

Is it in a language she understands? (5, 2) Yes but... needs study.
Something classical: (1-3) Latin (4-6) Greek? 1
Has someone else started the work? (3, 2) No

Classical scholarship was a core part of medical training at her college — an all-women’s school has to be both progressive and to outperform the men at traditional subjects to be taken seriously. Carolyn recognised words here and there but without the benefit of a magnifying glass she knew it was not worth trying. Her tired eyes swam when she tried to focus them.

Instead she let the intensely coloured illustrations relax her. She lifted the top folio aside to look at the bundles underneath. Each new page looked like something and nothing at all, a deep pool to fall inside, cool and enveloping. The vision engulfed her.

Carolyn learns disturbing knowledge and her Insight increases to 4.

Daisy and Lita meanwhile had turned to the topic of cannibalism. “This one cites The Forbidden Sacrifice: Murder as Ritual which I think we have in the collection. Can you read me out those page references?”

IS Delve p204-5, Feature/Aspect: Forgotten/Denizen
Is that Umordhoth? (3, 2) No.
I've decided it's a long-forgotten sorceror. What do they want?
IS p182, Character Goal: Create an item
SL p81, Why: To be a secret trump for the maker against their enemies

“We have some rough sketches of the symbols that were carved onto the bodies,” said Lita, proffering her notebook, “but only from the memory of the poor mortician. The marked bodies had been stolen back.”

“I think these are a match, don’t you?” She held out an illustration of a person, drawn like the Vitruvian Man but pinned out within more powerful arcane shapes than square and circle. There were sigils drawn in the spaces around the person and in the person’s body. This was the core of the barbaric ritual being described in the text. “An interesting insight, these symbols of power were used to harness the living energy of the victim. I think that means the victims were alive when they were carved.”

Lita learns disturbing knowledge but her Insight remains at 4.

“Do we know what they did with this energy?”

“The ‘who’ and ‘why’ are all long since forgotten, I expect. This illustration was made in the fifteenth century and I don’t think the practice was new even then. Here, see what you can discover while I put these other books back.”

Does anyone remember to check Carolyn? (2, 3) No.

Reading further, Lita learned that the living energy from one being could be consumed by another, making that person more powerful, intimidating, alluring, charming and so on. The energy could also be imbued into objects. Lita looked at her bag on the floor and thought about the mask inside.

She walked around the stacks to find Carolyn, who was standing at the restoration table. “Carolyn, can you remember what the waitress said about the mask? Something about a spider at the centre of a web? I wonder if the cannibalism actually relates to the masks directly: that the cannibal rituals were used to create them?”

Lita looked up from her book, “what do you think Carolyn?”

Carolyn didn’t move. “Carolyn?”

Carolyn stared into nothing, immobile and unhearing. “Carolyn? Oh shit.”

Scene 13. Carolyn’s Vision

Altered Scene? (6) No.
SL p173, Dark Visions:
- Sense affected: touch
- Insight granted: the place the PC needs to be
- Side effect: compelled to flee at least 10m from people
What is the vision like?
IS, Action/Theme: Begin/Weakness
IS, Location descriptor: Grim

She felt the sun on her face and the smell of the meadow flowers, wafted by the lightest of breezes. She was surrounded by family and friends. Nearly everyone she knew. The final words were said and the small coffin was lowered into the ground.

What is the significant touch from her vision?
IS Delve, Aspect/Focus: Fragile/Craft

No, not everyone she knew was there. She held her mother’s hand and reached down to throw in her final gift: a little figurine of bent greenwood sticks.

Carolyn opened eyes with a jolt and stared into the worried faces of Daisy and Lita. She was lying on the library floor. She sat up and scuttled backwards as Lita reached out to her. “You’re safe, Carolyn. It’s me, Lita.”

Does she vomit? (1, 2) No. (Phew! -Daisy)
How long until Carolyn recovers? (1-3) d6 mins (4-6) d6 x10 mins: 6
Time = 10 minutes

It seemed to Lita that Carolyn being turned into a frightened animal, scuttling frantically between the shelves, did not bode well for their trek into the woods. In time Carolyn returned to her normal self but Lita had to keep a close eye on her. They would both need each other’s help before the night was out.

Carolyn revealed her vision: “I know where we’re going now. I dreamt of a doll made of willow twigs, like my sister used to make. The Goat Thorn Caves will be on the edge of the old willow copse, I am sure of it.”