Chapter One - Day 3 - An Early Morning Meeting

[Cearlan]

Jimmy,Lester his face reddening follows you as you ascend the stairs at a fair clip. He enters the Library and sees Sr Katherine, Janice and Henry around the seated body of Mr Peabody who is going over some books and maps with the nun and private eye.

Jimmy and Lester burst into the room with Lester exclaiming "My God Peabody ... What in His name happened here ... Are you alright Sir?"

Peabody waves him away "I'll be fine but may have to go and get my injuries checked over at the hospital. I want you to help these people in any way you can ... including ..." He gave Lester a knowing look. Lester blanches slightly, swallows hard and nods his head."As you wish Mr Peabody."

"I'm glad you are here now Lester ... Janice can now come with me to the hospital." Peabody briefly recaps what he has just told you to Lester so that he knows what you are looking for.

Lester clarifies, his face sullen and bitter looking, though his disposition is one of quiet efficiency, now that he has been given a job that falls within his area of expertise. "So what have you got so far then ... Jenckes' Strange Legends of New England and A History of Arkham Township. I think we can take it from here Sir." Lester looks at the maps and tuts to himself as he notices the blood that inadvertently was deposited by Peabody when he pointed out the bridge site.

Henry steps aside and fills Jimmy in on what they have just been told by Peabody. note Henry still has the key to Peabody's office.

The police and ambulance both arrive together. The police have several questions regarding the how and why the group just happened upon the Historical society, But with Mr Peabody, Janice and Lester all vouching for you, they accept that you had no part in this attack other than discovering and helping the victim.The ambulance treat what they could, then take Mr Peabody and Janice away to St Mary's Hospital.

[DrPeterson]

"So, Lester..."


Henry takes out a cigarette and sucks on it without lighting it.

"Maybe you should tell us about the...", he imitates Peabody's 'knowing look', "the thing Mr. Peabody alluded to."

[Cearlan]

Lester looks down at his shoes for a moment before answering. "Mr Peabody has some books he keeps aside for 'special' studies. He has instructed me to assist you in any way I can. Where shall we start do you think - I have a few ideas. The name Sermon Bishop give me a few ideas. Look it says his house was on Badwater Lane, which as we seen is now Hill Street which is here on the map. He indicates the Bishop farmstead on the 1742 map."

[Mr. Handy]

"You think he was looking for the descendants of the wizard's persecutors, then?" says Katherine to Henry. "The way he talked, with that eighteenth century style...could he think he is that wizard, out for revenge?"

[Priest]

I pull my notebook and pencil from my pocket, unconciously lick the end of the pencil, and begin to write Bishop...Hill St...1742. I stop writing the date seeming as if lit by neon,

Jimmy thinking:   '1742' What the hell is this? Who the hell is gonna believe this stuff? Not the readers of the paper that's for sure

I shrug and continue to take notes like any good reporter.

[DrPeterson]

Henry's frown deepens even more.

"Well, if these boys were into that sort of thing, I suppose the shock of a lightning bolt striking that close could have led to seeing all kinds of things."

Somehow it doesn't feel right as he says it, and Henry feels it too.

"I guess we'd better have a look at the place, but first I'd like to have a look at our stones and Mr. Peabody's work on them."

Henry pulls the key from his pocket and carefully observes Lester before heading to the old man's office.

[Cearlan]

Lester draws up a notice proclaiming that the Historical Society would be closed today due to illness. He heads downstairs to close the door and put the notice up before he returns and heads towards the library stacks and starts to remove books, seemingly at random, placing them on a trolley and bringing them back to the table.

"Right Sister, gentlemen." he says levelly. "All throughout New England there are many, many tales that defy what we would term 'common sense' today. Things from the famous witch trials at Salem to headless horsemen to the countless legends that the locals all down the North Eastern seaboard, and probably beyond, still cling to despite modern 'logic.' As fantastic as this may sound let us assume for a few hours at least that this story, however fantastic it may sound, is in fact true. Let us look through these books for more connections to this Sermon Bishop, shall we? After all if there is any chance we can find who did this," he spreads his arms around, "and beat up Mr Peabody and get him brought to book for it all."

OOC:   Library rolls everyone

[Mr. Handy]

"Thank you," says Sister Katherine to Lester. She dives into the books, feeling at home among old texts, and quickly finds something relevant. "If we can discover who the living descendants of the people who went after Sermon Bishop are and where they live, we may be able to get one step ahead of him."

[Priest]

"This might be relevant" I hold up a book.

At Sister Katherine's words I look towards her, "So are we thinking that Atwater has been hit by lightning and now thinks he's some ancient wizard out for revenge? Or are you beginning to buy into all this hocus-pocus stuff?"

Library Use,65% 1d100 → [12] = (12) http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4395978/

[DrPeterson]

Henry was rather sceptical about this, but he wasn't against "ruling out the impossible" and sniggered as he thought of Holmes. He started leafing through the books.

Library Use (25%),[dice]0[/dice]

[Cearlan]

OOC:   Excellent rolls people

Jimmy, more at home with press clippings spots one book of clippings and starts to read through it He exclaims that he has found something and reads out the following;

Bishop's Bridge Burns

The covered bridge that once crossed the Miskatonic four miles upriver is no more. In the last week's thunderstorms, the aging structure was struck by lightning which burned the roof and most of the decking and timbers

Thought to have been built around 1750, only the central stone support and the approaches now exist. The Sheriff has closed the road.

Originally Bowen's Bridge, after the prosperous farmer who built it, folks later began calling it Bishop's Bridge.

Locals say that the bridge has attracted lightning strikes. The structure had lately grown so decrepit that the County closed it to horses and wagons.

There is visible from the south side of the river a symbol decorating the stone of the still-standing central support, of unknown meaning and origin.

Little needed these days, the bridge probably will not be rebuilt.

Sister Katherine is next to notice that a book she is studying - one of the 'special' books that Lester seems to have 'guided more towards her than the two men and Sharon. Sharon's Library use (25% skill) (1d100=52) Fail

A slim volume called Thaumaturgical Prodigies in the New England Canaan, yields the following;

Another man thought leagued with the devil was one Sermon Bishop, of Bad Water Road in Arkham, along with his fellow-wizard, Richard Russel. This Russel lived in Arkham as well, at the western end of what we know now as Main Street. The two were said to worship a demon which lived beneath the ground, and that they had pacted with the devil and could not die.

Among those alive today some remember Sermon Bishop, who was among Arkham's first settlers, and they swear that he never aged in all the long years he resided here. His wicked pact, they say, only left Bishop stooped and bent in consequence. Witnesses also tell of both men's evil doings in burial plots, attempting blasphemical resurrections.

Arkham citizens rose against him, and some say kidnapped and killed him, burying the body in the forest or sacking and weighting it down into the Miskatonic, in A.D. 1752. Russel fled, and was not heard from again.



Almost as soon as Sister Katherine exclaims her discovery, Henry reads out the following from a different book of clippings held by the society to the one Jimmy is reading;

EMINENT ARKHAMITES

A Continuing Series by E. Lapham Peabody

Sermon Bishop, Wizard

In the mid-18th century, Sermon Bishop was rumored a witch and thought to be responsible for misfortunes suffered by farmers west of Arkham. Other, darker words were whispered of him, but never aloud.

Elihu Phillips, a neighbor, frequently argued with Bishop. When Phillips' daughter was born with a twisted leg, the farmers were sure Bishop was responsible. One night, as Bishop returned from a visit to Dunwich, Phillips and six other men captured him and bound him, and hung with a magical sigil round his head.

Bishop, they said, had used a terrible book to treat with a great demon, dealings that left the wizard's body bent and crippled. In compensation, Bishop could not die.

Rendered helpless by the sigil, the seven carried Bishop north to the Miskatonic, and there cemented him into the hollow of a stone bridge support while the bridge was under construction. They marked the stone support with the same sign which bound Bishop, hoping thereby to imprison the wizard forever.

Although the wizard's seven enemies were among those the sheriff questioned, no one was ever charged.

The wooden roof and walls of the bridge fell into disrepair in the later 19th century. In 1901 a powerful lightning bolt struck and burned both spans, and the bridge was never rebuilt. Only the foundations and the central support remain, a few miles west of town. The sign, as folks indicate, is chiselled into the stone of the central support, and can be seen today, keeping us all safe from this wizard!

My particular thanks to Mrs. Nina Williams Hope of Arkham, who supplied information important to my tale.

[Mr. Handy]

"I honestly don't know," Katherine tells Jimmy. "The important thing is that he appears to believe it. After we're done here, we should talk with Mrs. Nina Williams Hope. She no doubt knows more about this story. We may also be able to use the geneological information we find here to identify the living descendants of the seven who entombed Sermon Bishop in the bridge. We already know that Elihu Phillips was one of them.

"I think from what we've found, we can start piecing things together. It appears that Sermon Bishop made a pact with a demon to gain immortality, but of course the demon tricked him and left his body twisted and decrepit. If he truly was undying, then he would have spent centuries buried in that support pillar, trapped by that symbol until lightning struck it and set him free, at which point he encountered the boys."

[Cearlan]

Lester coughs to attract peoples attention I'm not 100% sure but I believe Mrs Hope lives alone on West Curwen Street, somewhere beside Brown. I have her records here as she used to be here fairly regularly before her age caught up with her. She must be about eighty by now, if not older.

OOC:   Note that it it is now about three o'clock in the afternoon.

[DrPeterson]

Henry snaps out of his reverie and agrees.

"Yes, maybe we should go there first then. I can't imagine even the most crass octogenarian fighting off assault for very long."

[Cearlan]

LEster returns with the information that Mrs Nina W. Hope did in fact live at 374 West Curwen Street. That area is a collection of fine old houses, normally set back from the road, and hers, going from the address is beside South West street somewhere. It's not too far from here, about four blocks west and a couple south.

[Priest]

I make a note of the address, then struck by a thought, "I wonder what the chances are that whoever attacked Peabody also found her address and has come to the same conclusions as us?"
I close the notebook and replace it in my coat pocket, "So 374 West Curzon Street and hope we get there before our mysterious adversary"

[DrPeterson]

"I hear you, Jimmy, let's move people."

Henry puts down the book and heads towards his car and the old lady's house.

[Cearlan]

You all arrive at 374 West Curzon Street. The description given by Lester was accurate. You arrive to find the gates wide open. You park your car either on the street or on the gravel drive.

OOC:   Which one?

The house is indeed an old style colonial house, and although it is in need of a few repairs here and there, it has generally been well maintained from your view of the outside. By now you are getting used to the shadows, by the side of houses, in trees, under the eaves, round corners, all places where people and ... birds ... may hide and watch your progress.

As you alight the car the first thing that hits your senses is the deafening silence in the area, You can hear distant traffic, but close by there in no sound to be heard at all.

OOC:   Listen rolls at half please - you can make these rolls manually if you want - I can trust you

The grand gateposts are etched, the right with '374,' the left with the simple name 'Hope.' From the street you can see nothing amiss. You head on up the drive, your feet crunching on the gravel path. As you near the front door you see, with a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomachs, that it is slightly ajar.

OOC:   DeeJ's father's cremation is taking place on Friday so I will probably not be posting until Saturday, though more likely Sunday once we get things back to some semblance of normality - Thank you all again for your forbearance and kind thoughts and well-wishes - Till the weekend then my cyber-friends Ia! Ia! Ia Cthulhu Fhtagn!

[DrPeterson]

OOC:   I thought Mr Handy was gone till the 24th, maybe we should forestall all action until then, so you and DeeJ can have a bit of a breather?

[Mr. Handy]

Katherine gets out of the car, her sharp hearing barely picking something up.