This spot on Main Street is on the same block as the Collinsport Inn...

It's been a week.

One week since Isaac Collins decided to put the three strangers on the payroll, or as close to the same thing as makes no difference...

--Harry MacLeod's fit right into her new job, both down at the docks and on board one of the Collins' family's fishing boats. She's staying in a rooming house owned by the widow, Mrs. Morgan.

No one seems to have tumbled to the fact that Harry is a woman. She's more than capable of fighting like a man, cursing like a man, fishing like a man, and sailing like a man... the idea that she might not be a man is so outside the common imagination, that since she dresses like a man, no one seems to question the unspoken lie of omission... and it's certainly easier for Harry to live life in the 18th century that way...

Mrs. Morgan seemed to notice that Harry was... unusually striking... But if she suspected anything... she said nothing.


--Professor Willoughby did get the job of starting to teach foreign languages to 5-year-old Leo Collins... rather an uphill battle for an easily-distracted child, but oh well. At least no one seemed to expect linguistic miracles overnight.. expectations seemed fairly low as far as these early days, as long as the Professor spent at least an hour every day trying to teach the youngster...

He was assigned a room at the new mansion, Collinwood, and the ladies of the house seemed to enjoy having a new guest... The ones who didn't really have to work at it, anyway...



Harry and Professor Willoughby were aware that their colleague, Dr. McKenzie, had moved into the previous doctor's office, and was working to meet the people of the community and gain their trust, so that they would come and see him, the better for him to start paying off the loan that Issac Collins had made to him...



...It's been a fairly uneventful week, compared to that first day. But this evening feels... different, somehow. It's Friday night... Payday... and somehow it feels like it could be an evening in which people's tongues loosen... maybe a time when other things might happen, too...
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:58, Sun 01 Apr 2018.

Soon the professor and Harry are walking up the main street of Collinsport.

Less than 100 yards ahead, you both see Silas Rumson head into the Collinsport Inn.

"Did you have a good chat with Mr. Rumson?" the Prof casually asks from Harry. "Maybe we can go the same way he goes."

Harry glances toward the retreating form of Rumson. "Town don't agree with him, seems. Overabundance of superstition. Or old-fashioned fear and hate." She turns her gaze back to the Professor. "And yours with young Master Collins? Go well? Learn aught?"

The Professor keeps walking, following Silas Rumson, keeping the distance.

"Young Daniel is interested in the Far East... Say, as a sailor, have you ever been to China?"

Silas Rumson reaches the Collinsport Inn-- hurrying inside as a thick fog starts rolling down the street from that direction.

Harry shakes her head. "Gulf of Maine's my home waters. Ne'er had call to fish farther east than the Flemish Cap, or farther west than the Nantucket Shoals."

Soon the fog is all around. Fortunately, your lantern provides enough light that there's no danger of walking into a wall nor lamppost.

There is a howl from far off, vaguely from the east.

"I don't like that howl. Let's head back to the safety of our home as quickly as possible..."

You hear someone coming, a man by the sound of the stride, from the south end of the street, coming toward you.

Harry grunts at the Professor. "You'll have to stay at the inn, then. The New House is a mile's walk from town." She calls out to the approaching party. "Ho there, in the fog! Can't see your lamp and don't care to collide with you!"

"I have no lamp!" comes a reply. It's a deep, booming, male voice. "The Lord guides my steps! However, he tasks me with the details of actually arriving at my destination...!"

A man steps out of the fog.

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This message was last edited by the GM at 14:18, Thu 10 May 2018.

"What is your destination?" the Prof. asks.

"My destination is the Promised Land, and Salvation for all the sinners of this world," says the man. "...In a more mundane sense, however, I seek a family called Collins, who I am told I will find in a house called Collinwood, where by this time resides one of God's Chosen Disciples named Abigail Collins. Given the lateness of the hour, however, and this obscuring fog that Satan has sent to bedevil me and slow my progress, I suppose I will settle, for now, for finding the Collinwood Inn."

"We can certainly help this gentleman find the inn," the Professor says. "Harry, will you lead the way?"

"Abigail Collins is indeed a zealous servant of God. Worthy to be Chosen... but Chosen for what, exactly, if I may inquire?" he casually chats while they walk in the growing fog.

"For eternal life through the grace of our Lord and Savior, certainly... But more immediately, she has been chosen to be the agent of the Lord, for she has written to me and alerted me to the devil's work going on around here... I have come to put a stop to it!"

"Oh my, the devil's work!" the Professor exclaims. "What is it, exactly, that spurred Abigail Collins to call out to you?"

"A strange business, very strange... It seems that..." He pauses. "...But here I am, talking on and on when I have not even given a chance to exchange introductions with my good Samaritans... With whom do I have the opportunity of conversing...?"

The Professor is not eager to introduce himself, but he knows that it's unavoidable.

"I'm Professor Everett Willoughby. I'm actually employed by a member of the Collins family: Isaac Collins. I tutor his grandchild."

Harry grunts her usual introduction. "Harry. Harry MacLeod."