Sully slowly, cautiously walks through the dining room to inspect the other rooms—foyer, living room, library—noting, as he passes through the foyer, how the front door locks. Having walked through the other rooms, he returns to the foyer where he looks up the stairs to the upper floors of the house, listening intently for any sounds from above.

Jake waits, covering Arthur and the Professor's surroundings until Sully returns. When the reporter is with them he quietly pads over to the door, opens it and looks out, intending to leave it just barely unclosed should there be no sign of Nathaniel Bishop escaping or cops - or worse - approaching.

Walking through the quiet rooms, Sully encounters no one, though the reporter does note that, in the living room, the furnishings are all covered in a thin layer of gray dust, suggesting that they have not seen use in some time. The library, on the other hand, is immaculately maintained. Surveying the holdings, Sully guesses that there are several thousand volumes in the collection. A glance at a few of the books’ spines informs him that most of them are concerned with witchcraft, occultism, spiritualism, and the history of Ancient Egypt. Above the lone desk in the large room, which sits against the easternmost wall, a single glassed in shelf holds a few tomes, along with what appears to be a skull and a jade statuette.

Settling on the hall tree, Arthur examines the note, which is written in a neat, strong hand. It reads:

Simon,

I will be going below this evening. There are some matters that I must consult with Agatha about.

Please keep watch over the grounds and mortuary. We cannot risk any further intrusions and, as you are well aware, those in the tunnels have been especially unruly of late. I’ve spoken to them, but they do not always heed my instructions.

N.

Giving his attention to the staircase and upper floor when he returns, Sully does not hear any sounds of movement upstairs.

Peering out the front door of the residence, Jake finds the adjoining cemetery still and quiet, the evening dark shrouding most of the headstones and crypts in deep shadow. The detective does not perceive any movement among them.

Both Sully and Jake note that in addition to a keyed lock, the front door is secured with a sturdy, sliding bolt.

"Hey, Prof!" Sully calls quietly, "Come get a load of these books." When the academic responds, he points out the glass-fronted shelf in particular.

When he looks at the note that Art is holding, he lets out a low whistle. "Agatha huh? This all gets weirder and weirder.

“Hmmmm… ‘N’ is Nathaniel Bishop, of course. You suppose Simon is the guy we shot to pieces in the kitchen?”"

Sully is trying to seem hardboiled but there’s a slight quaver in his voice and he grips his shotgun very tightly with hands that otherwise would tremble.

Wells had been muttering to himself, and those paying any attention to him at all could have sworn there were mentions of peanut butter. Sully's query seemed to break him out of whatever dark reverie he had been trapped in. He hurried to examine the books that he was referring to, studying them for any special significance they might have specifically in regard to their current predicament and the summoning of the dead.

He gave a cursory glance to the larger collection, but paid special attention to the tomes and objects in the glassed in shelf.

Strongly aware of the tunnels they've just come up from, Jake is glad to leave that door unbolted, though he looks chagrined at not being able to rush up on Bishop with a good excuse to kick his jaw in. He moves through to the library when Arthur does, keeping his face turned away from any flash photography, still on high alert.

"I dunno if Top Hat was much of an intellectual," Jake remarks, gently nudging the barrels of Sully's gun a bit further towards 'floor' than 'shins'. "Then again, Old Frosty down there seems more of a downstairs guy, seen and not heard, kinda thing. God, this place is creepy."

"Anyhow, since Bishop's not home and might be coming back with, uh," he squints at the note, "-unruly tunnel people, how about we photograph everything in sight, steal anything that makes his life harder without it, then skeddadle and call in shots heard at the cemetery residence with concern for an occupant before he comes back and has a chance to clean up?"

"A fantastic idea, Mr. Morris," he said as he continued to examine the books and objects above.

Sully pays no heed to Jake's gentle corrective.

"Those 'special' books look portable," Sully suggests, "Perhaps, Professor, taking those along with the items we've removed from his 'chapel' will set back Bishop's machinations.

"Jake, do you suppose 'those in the tunnels' refers to the bootleggers?"

"Yes, yes, quite right Mr. Quinn," he said, beginning to transfer the books into his bag. He did find suitable looking replacements from the main shelf so that their disappearance might not be immediately apparent.

Arthur stood up after a time, so that others could read the note as well, and listened for a while until Sully asked about those below.

"Well, it could be them. Or, it could be the zombies down there, or something even worse."

He looked to Wells, who had learned also of many terrible things.

Jake has his thinking scowl on, but it's mostly because he doesn't trust his grasp of geography enough to posit that their foes might be mummies rather than zombis, given the side of Africa Bishop seems to be interested in. Sully's expectant look brings him out of his tangent, and he clears his throat, fighting down a kind of hysteria to be considering such things at all. Must be the academics getting to him: a two-category system of 'becomes inert when shot' and 'Problem' would do.

"I...dunno," he says at length, "-if he'd packed all the tunnels we ain't seen with an army of stolen dead, I figure he'd have done something more than murdering a handful of unlucky girls by now. It's more like...living quarters?" He rubs his chin with his crowbar.

"Could be hobos, don't figure it's bootleggers - they'd want to be near active parts of the steam system to hide stills and not have to cart the liquor around like we caught them doing - maybe it's some cannibal tribe that's teaching him the zombi stuff in exchange for somewhere to duck into and keep being cannibals. Pretty nice setup with an undertaker." He shrugs. "It'd save on rent, just being a place to sleep."

"In any case, fellas, I ain't too keen to meet 'em. Universal key?" Jake hefts the crowbar in anticipation of the glass panel being secured with some kind of lock.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:58, Tue 29 Nov 2022.

Professor Wells is impressed with the extent of Bishop’s collection of volumes, an amassing that he strongly suspects represents the efforts of several generations of the family. There are a number of books, especially those devoted to the study of the occult, that he is tempted to remove and abscond with. Among the holdings, there are several tomes that Wells immediately recognizes as being notably rare.

However, the contents of the glass covered shelf, which is thankfully not secured with any manner of lock, easily eclipse the rest of the library’s holdings.

The dimensions of the yellowed skull strongly suggest that it is human. However, its teeth are uniformly canine, its eye sockets are grossly enlarged, and it possesses vestigial horns.

The statuette appears to be carved from jade, though the stone is heavily veined with blue and black. Something in its grotesque appearance prompts those viewing it to forget that it is crafted from rock. At moments the sculpture gives the odd impression of being made up of a mass of rubbery flesh. The figure depicted is a hideously bloated humanoid with narrow, bat-like wings. The octopoid head’s face is a writhing mass of feelers and the figure has tentacles in the place of limbs. Anyone who touches the figurine finds that the cold stone has an unpleasant, greasy film that is seemingly perpetual.

The first of the three volumes shelved between the two disconcerting objects is a thick tome bound in red leather. The browned pages are ragged at the edges, giving the impression that the volume has been well used. The contents appear to have all been hand written, the prevailing handwriting changing in different sections of the book. Wells perceives that the tome is a grimoire, one that has been maintained and added to by multiple generations of contributors. Although penned in English, some of the language used is terribly archaic and interrupted regularly by phrases from a tongue that is entirely alien to the anthropologist. The front page of the book bears the words The Bishop Legacy, inscribed in thick block letters. The initial entries all carry the signature of one A. Bishop.

The second volume is another heavy tome, bound in rat gnawed leather. A quick glance at the first few pages informs Wells that the book is written in Medieval Latin. The title page identifies it as De Vermis Mysteriis, which Wells translates to The Mysteries of the Worm. The author is identified as one Ludwig Prinn. Like its neighbor, it appears to be a collection of ritual magic, a number of odd and unsettling symbols and illustrations sprinkled liberally throughout its pages.

The last book appears to be of an Elizabethan era binding, tooled black leather over boards, containing hundreds of unnumbered pages, held closed by a tarnished silver buckle. Attached to the front cover with nails are a series of silver letters which read Necronomicon. From his prior exposure to Classical Greek, Wells estimates the title to mean The Book of Dead Names. Wells immediately recognizes the book as being a legendary grimoire, its existence hinted at only within the darkest of occult writings. Examining the initial pages, Wells can see that the book is an English translation of an Arabic text by Dr. John Dee, an Elizabethan sorcerer and astrologer. Wells can see that the book would be a challenging one to navigate due to its archaic typography, 16th century English, and crabbed marginal notes written in a mixture of hermetic Latin and Elizabethan slang. As he handles it, the Professor has the unsettling sensation of the room growing progressively colder.


OOC: Professor, please provide me with an Occult roll and another Cthulhu Mythos roll.

I’ll also need all of the investigators to give me a Sanity roll for seeing the statue. No loss for a success. One point lost on a failure.

The information offered is the most that the Professor can glean about each of the volumes in the current situation. If any of the books are taken, be aware that each is quite bulky. If a single investigator is carrying them, a bag or other container would be needed. If they are just being taken, one investigator could carry a single book.

Note that if any of the books are taken and subsequently skimmed or studied, there is a possibility for sanity loss. :)

Sully's face when he looks at the statue looks as though he's smelled something quite foul. He declines to touch it.

Sullivan (Sully) Quinn rolled 24 for Sanity 46. No loss.

He looks about for something to tote the books in. An idea presents itself and he goes to the dining room, returning shortly with a sturdy tablecloth to tie them up in.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:52, Wed 30 Nov 2022.

OOC:

20:43, Today: Anthony Wells rolled 76 using 1d100.  Sanity (44).
20:43, Today: Anthony Wells rolled 29 using 1d100.  Cthulhu Mythos (18).
20:40, Today: Anthony Wells rolled 23 using 1d100.  Occult (67).

"So what do you think, fertility god, death god? Guy with the filed teeth looks cannibal to me," Jake nods at the skull. For all his familiarity with various stages of decay, his awareness of skeletal anatomy isn't good enough to pick up anything precisely odd about the skull save a sense of odd proportions. His assignment of sex is also arbitrary, but somehow he'd prefer the modified cranium to be a man, if not an ape.

07:31, Today: Jake Morris rolled 15 using 1d100.  SAN

Arthur shivered visibly and shook his head at Jake. Breathing strongly through his nose, he put a finger just up to the depiction, but did not touch.

"No. Nothing...nothing human like that. It's..."

His mouth was a little dry, but he tried to swallow anyways, as a nervous sort of habit.

"Supposed to be s-sleeping...right, Professor?"

He stepped back. "We should leave, quickly."

"You mean it's not a god for hunting octopus...es? octopi? octopodes? uh, squid-type things, but what Bishop's friends think an octopus god would be, if they're scootin' around down in the dark there, praying?" The idea of alien, intelligent minds folded silently into the ocean layers below true human knowing actually makes his skin crawl, just a little bit.

"Well, get a picture of it in situ an' the Prof can throw it in his sack, I don't want to hang around here, either."

Wells briefly responded as he was packing the items away. "We can speak on the details later, but suffice to say that these are associated with some of the most obscure and poorly understood religious traditions presently known in the modern world. There is surely much yet we don't know about the ancient past, but one would expect them to be found in a long lost ruin, the discovery of which would be world famous - not hidden in a mortician's private library in New York City."

Wells placed what he could in the burlap sack, as much as he could that would not render it impossible to carry, and if needed asked the others to carry what he couldn't.

"I'm ready to move on when you gents are."

OOC:

Wells is carrying a burlap sack that he is using to loot some of the items, so he will get what he can into that bag, and then ask any of the others to help transport the rest.

Sully sets his shotgun aside and makes a bundle of the tablecloth he purloined to wrap up what Wells can't carry. He secures it with his necktie.

Tucking the shotgun under his arm, he hefts the bundle over his shoulder.

Right. I'm ready to go.

Jake makes sure the note makes it into one of the sacks. "All right, you guys start out the front, get out onto the street as quick as possible without looking too obvious. I'm going to go mess up that door to the lower levels an' join you."

He starts heading that way, then pauses and glances back. "If you look back and see me running, whatever you do, don't wait up."

He glances at the stairs on the way past, regretting that there probably wasn't time to have Art get any pictures of Top Hat's lair, but remembers that long shaft connecting straight to the lower cellars. The blackness of a closed trapdoor perhaps hidden in that room from which unruly tunnel people might emerge was not an enticing prospect.

Arthur kept his shotgun and his camera to himself, and rushed along at the back of the group until Jake split off, ushering everyone to haste.

When Jake split, he nodded to Jake, as if to say, Don't take any risks.

Sully goes out onto thr front porch. He stops there and watches Art and the Prof walk down the path and toward the front gate. He pauses with his shotgun and bundle of books to wait for Jake.

Jake steals back into the depths of the house, gun ready and listening all the while for sounds of the 'servants' at large or the whoops and hollers or rushing tread of the unruly folk. Hearing nothing as yet save the intrusive sound of his pulse from listening so hard (and all right, maybe being a little spooked, dead guys not moving 'til you saw them and all), he sets the crowbar in the upper hinge gap from the steps below and uses his weight and gravity to try and crack the door out of place.

He tries to run through anything he's touched, but between Bishop's potential approach and the others getting further away, time takes precedence: he aims to be out as soon as possible.

The Professor did not hesitate to move forward with the others, walking quickly towards the gate with all of his stolen booty in the burlap sack.

The only sound Jake hears as he rushes through the aged residence is that of the butler trapped inside the wall-in freezer, pounding steadily on the metal door. Aside from that, all is quiet, though the stillness is somehow oppressive, rather than a source of comfort, the silence marked with a quality of anticipation, as if it is waiting to be broken by a sudden arrival.

The quiet remains, however. And Jake encounters no one during his last, furtive errands, the door yielding to the pressure of the crowbar with a definitive crack. When the detective emerges onto the house’s porch, he finds Sullivan Quinn waiting for him, the reporter’s eyes restlessly scanning the dark cemetery for any hint of movement.

The two men waste no time in departing, following Arthur and Professor Wells’ route though the graveyard’s western gate. Gathering a few blocks away in front of a tailor’s shop, the doorway lit by a flickering bulb, the investigators make hasty plans to meet at mid morning at the Professor’s office before leaving the Stanton Street Cemetery, and its host of secrets, behind them.