Pale mid morning light, the product of an overcast sky which promises the welcome relief of summer rainfall, slants through the tall window of Professor Wells’ office. The scent of coffee hangs in the air, a steel pot of the beverage, along with several cups, having been provided by a helpful teaching assistant. The room is quiet, with only a few staff and students circulating in the hall outside, its normality at stark contrast with the events of the previous evening.

Jake strolled in with a folded-up copy of the Tribune tucked under his arm and a greasy wax paper bag filled with donuts which he tossed on the tray alongside the coffee pot. He'd managed to clean himself up considerably since the night before, freshly showered and shaven, even a lick of polish on his boots. Not that he was suitable for high society, far from it, but for him, he looked . . . swell, even jaunty.

He poured himself a cup of joe, ladled in cream and sugar, extracted a donut, and perched on the edge of one of the desks, munching contentedly.

"Seems to me our case is closed," he spoke around mouthfuls of gooey bliss. "Mrs. Harggrave hired us to find out who killed her daughter, and why." He nods at the scrapbook they had purloined the night before.

"This macabre little collection tells me it's the ongoing work of a homicidal maniac. Maybe even handed down through the family, father to son, like. I'm betting if we take this to the cops, they'll put the thumbscrews on this Bishop guy and have a confession before lunchtime.

"Whaddya say?"

Sully breaks a doughnut into four pieces on the handkerchief he has spread on a corner of the desk and dunks a piece into his coffee, careful not to overflow the cup. As he munches, he indicates the vial of powder, No. 29.

Do you know someone who can analyze this for us, Prof?"he asks Wells, "And what do you make of the plares? What language is that? It ain’t Italian or Greek or Spanish, I know that much. Oh, hey! Yog-Sothoth (he pronounces all the Os long and the G soft) is capitalized! Bet it's the name of some place. Or some one?"

He finishes pastry and coffee and uses the handkerchief to wipe his fingers and brush crumbs from his vest before tucking it back in his breast pocket. He walks over to the professor’s bookcases and scans for an atlas or gazetteer.

He looked a bit concerned when Morris began talking about going to the police.

"I'm no legal expert, but the clearest evidence that a crime has been committed seems to be our narrative regarding how we obtain these things, in which we are the criminals. We may be ourselves certain in our opinions as to what activities Mr. Bishop might enjoy in his spare time and his culpability in the death of our employer's daughter, but otherwise I don't see a clear indication of what has transpired that we can believably present. I'm afraid ours is the only provable criminality here."

He turned to Quinn's question next.

"As to these plates, I have the sense that the they are inscribed with some manner of prayer or invocation, based on their structure. Specifically, I suspect that one of the tablets gives the entreaty to call upon a power and the other provides the means to dismiss it. I presume that both are directed to a being referred to here as “Yog Sothoth”, the only term that appears on each tablet, though that name is unknown to me.

However, something in the structure of the invocations reminds me of some texts I studied in relation to some early South American cultures. Specifically, I once encountered a pair of invocations directed to a deity called Tawil At-U'mr, who was apparently a god who oversaw the length of individuals’ lifetimes and perhaps even time itself. The discovery has remained in my memory because of the deity’s unusual name, which was vastly different than others worshipped in the region, and because it was the only reference to it that he ever encountered. Linguistically speaking, the name resembles more the structures of languages common to the Arabian peninsula, structurally very far from any indigenous South American language or even Spanish. The texts predated the arrivals of people not indigenous to the region, making them even stranger.

In any case, the prayers I studied had to do with the resurrection and dismissal of the dead. The fact that these steel tablets are in a place where the dead are laid to rest strikes me as more than a coincidence. As to the language specifically, it is of no provenance that I can recognize. I can run it by others who have a deeper expertise in linguistics to see if we can get that, but it does not structurally resemble any European or indigenous languages that I'm familiar with."

Arthur looked a bit tired, as if he hadn't slept right the previous night. Circles under his eyes, a bit of a shadow over the face, hair a bit messier than normal. He had changed his clothes.

He grabbed his own coffee, and his own donut, and he ate them both a bit joylessly. He didn't seem to be agreeing with Jake, but didn't say anything for a good long while.

When the good professor started speaking, Arthur nodded a bit, but with a strange consternation in his face.

"I just...I don't really understand what's going on here, at all. This Yog-Sothoth business, the strangeness of everything that's happened. Am I to believe there's some sort of a...what, religious zealot who's been running the cemetery who killed that girl? I think a claim like that requires extraordinary evidence, don't you? And I'm not even really convinced that's what's true, myself."

He rubbed his eyes a bit.

"I just don't see how it fits. And I don't understand this business with...well, what happened at the end."

Arthur shook his head, sipped a bit more coffee.

OOC: Will Arthur have had time to develop the photos? If he has, I imagine he's holding onto them, but has not yet closely examined each photograph.

Jake grins as he slurps coffee and continues to munch on his donut.

"You don't know much about how the cops work, Professor," he responds to Wells's doubts about the viability of their evidence. "That scrapbook is enough to hang that guy Bishop out to dry. I slip that into the right hands, no questions asked, and they got a Prime Suspect, all framed up.

"You can bet yer last nickel the detective in charge of these cases, just the girl, is getting leaned on every day to find out who did it. And nobody really cares if the suspect actually did do it or not. They just want the families and the press to stop hounding them and calling the mayor and making their lives miserable.

"And if they got some poor schmuck behind bars, they are going to lean on him hard. They are going to tear that cemetery apart brick by brick if they have to. And they'll find something. Even if it ain't there, they'll find something. I know. Believe me, I know."

he goes quiet for a moment and then speaks up again.

"Besides, you really think Bishop ain't connected with these killings somehow? He's robbing graves, making zombies, keeping a scrapbook that goes back, what a hundred years or more? He's guilty as sin.

"Maybe he didn't actually butcher that poor girl. Maybe one of his zombies did? Maybe they been doing it all along?"

He shrugs.

Then he points to the tablets and the powder.

"I'm also guessing that these have something to do with making a zombie. And Mr. Bishop is going to be powerful interested in getting them back -- especially them tablets. So we should stash 'em somewhere he can't find 'em or get at 'em. And then maybe we call him up on the telephone and arrange a pow-pow. We've got something he wants. So he tells us who did fer the girl."

Sully turns from the book shelves with several books in his hands.

"What you say about police methods is certainly true, Jake," he says, laying out the books on the desk, "As far as it goes. If Bishop was 'some poor schmuck' what we've found would be enough to get him a fast ride to the precinct and the wrecking crew would most likely have a confession beaten out of him soon enough.

"But I did a little background on Mr. Bishop. He and his family are wealthy and well-respected in Manhattan. He may not dine with the Astors but he's probably buried some of their acquaintances and distant relations. He's certainly too connected to be railroaded.

"The cops'd probably find some convenient poor schmuck to take the fall instead. Say, our Spanish gravedigger friend, Mr. Cortes.

"So, professor, which of these volumes do you think might tell us something about Yog Sothoth?"
This message was last edited by the player at 04:51, Fri 13 May 2022.

PM

"This entity, if that is what it is, Yog Sothoth, I believe is a rather obscure one. I don't believe these volumes will help, but we could head to the university's main library. If you could assist me in the research of this, we could probably expedite our findings in that direction if there is anything to be found. These books...well one of these might provide some additional insight into Tawil At-U'mr, the deity of time and lifespans that I stumbled across on my South American studies."

He took to that particular book, briefly skimming it for additional detail.

"I'll happily assist you however I can, Prof," says Sully amiably.

Arthur nodded slowly. "I suppose it makes sense. If there is some kind of...cult thing going on here, we should understand something about whatever religion they adhere to. I'll come along and check into things with you, as well."

Examining the text that Sully located, Early Religions of the Amazon Basin, Wells finds  a few passages devoted to Tawil At-U'mr. It indicates that reverence for the deity within South America is a mystery that historians struggle to explain, as the god’s name is unquestionably of Arabic origin, yet references to him predate any contact between the two regions.

Although the precise translation of the deity’s name is elusive within the English language, the closest agreed upon meaning is the ”Prolonger of Life”. What few tales of Tawil At-U'mr exist suggest that those who were brave and knowledgeable could appeal to the god for an extension of their lifespan, or perhaps even immortality. It was also claimed that Tawil At-U'mr was able to return the dead to the land of the living. Such favors from the god were not without cost. One story suggests that the deity would visit those who it granted favor, consuming the souls of innumerable innocents in exchange for its gifts.

---

It comes as no surprise that the a hush hovers over the vast holdings of the Low Library. As it is summer, the tables set aside for students’ use are more thinly populated than during the height of the semester, but a few diligent scholars are present, reading and jotting down notes.

Melissa Lassiter, one of the librarians of the Professor’s acquaintance is seated at the circulation desk, organizing a group of recently received issues of academic journals. She looks up as the group enters. ”Good morning, Professor. What brings you in today?”

Jake quickly loses all patience and interest in the academic research and discussion. He agrees it needs to happen, but he also knows it is not his skill set. Instead, he leafs through the scrapbook, especially the clippings covering the past five years to see if he can detect any common threads between the victims. He notes down names and dates, and addresses, if provided, getting ready to do the kind of leg work he understands.

Being a detective is not about spotting a funny color of mud on someone's shoe. It's all about asking questions and looking for the common threads. When he has a dozen or so possible leads, he tells the others he is going to go out and pound the pavement.

"Wear away a little shoe leather," he grins as he heads out into the city.

OOC: Ready for his own thread.

OOC: I’ll certainly allow the Professor to identify some potential areas of interest to Miss Lassiter, but if each of the visitors to the Low Library supply me with an initial Library Use roll, it would be appreciated.

Also, if there are any specific academic disciplines that any of you want to look into, you may make rolls for those corresponding skills as well.

Sully is not a stranger to libraries, having graduated from Columbia College and frequenting the august stacks of the New York Public Library in connection with his profession. Still, he's always awed to step into the silence and the cathedral-like environment of any major repository of knowledge. He places his abilities at the professor's service.

Sullivan (Sully) Quinn rolled 23 for Library Use 70%.

"A good day to you, Miss Lassiter. I could most assuredly use some assistance from you if you have a moment to help. I'm looking into a few topics that center around obscure religions and obscure deities that are generally speaking only sporadically documented and without the accompanying attested histories surrounding them. Geographically if we must specify, I would say the Amazon Basin could be of some interest as could the New York State Area, perhaps New England as well. I have a couple of names of obscure deities that may also help narrow the search: Tawil At-U'mr and Yog-Sothoth."

He handed her a slip of paper with various particulars written down, but especially knowing that the last two names would not be easily spelled.

OOC:

Doh!

09:28, Today: Anthony Wells rolled 75 using 1d100.  Library Use (70).

This message was last edited by the GM at 01:17, Wed 25 May 2022.

It had been a long time since Arthur had been in a research library, and he rarely read since the last time he had done so. Suffice it to say, he was less than totally productive.

OOC: "02:39, Today: Arthur G. Flatt rolled 44 using 1d100.  LIbrary Use (30)."

11:08, Today: Melissa Lassiter rolled 21 using 1d100.  Library Use.

Lassiter carefully writes down the odd names that Wells provides. ”Very interesting, Professor. You always seem to be researching unique subjects.”

She stands, beckoning for the investigators to follow her. ”Several of our reading rooms aren’t in use right now, so I can get you settled in one that’s right next to the history and geography stacks. I believe there may be a few volumes in religion that could pertain to the information you’re looking for. I can go pull those for you.”

Leading the group to one of the library’s far corners on the lower floor, Lassiter unlocks a door to a small reading room which features a rectangular table and several chairs. ”Two doors down is the door to the staff area. The professor’s been in there many times,” she tells Sully and Arthur, ”There should be fresh coffee there, so feel free to help yourselves.”

She directs the group to the shelves holding volumes on South America and New York State. Turning to Wells, she says, ”If you don’t mind, Professor, I’m going to speak with Professor Choffard about your inquiry. It’s possible he might know of some helpful resources.” Wells knows Lucas Choffard, one of the university’s well regarded history professors, who specializes in medieval Europe. Choffard shares Wells’ fascination with the occult.

As the three investigators begin to peruse the library’s shelves, Lassiter deposits a trio of volumes in the reading room before departing to visit the History Department.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:04, Wed 25 May 2022.