Play@YSDC

Saturday, September 14th

Hannigan Residence, West College St., Arkham

10am

The investigators meet outside The Bosworth House, ready to do some exploring. The house isn’t really visible from the road, being set well back within its lovingly-tended garden, but as they enter the front gate, they are able to get a good view of it. Those familiar with the Federal style can see that it has been extensively re-modeled.

Before going in, Harrison is going to walk around the house to get an idea of the external dimensions. He wants to fix the exterior in his mind as they go inside to ensure that the inside matches the outside. He makes note of the landscaping and garden approvingly.

"Such a lovely house but it makes me feel sad for some reason." He opines.

"It seems so peaceful," says Alice. "It's hard to imagine anything bad happening here."

OOC,I'll supply a layout of the house after you've finished exploring.

Alice unlocks the door and the companions enter the hall. A staircase is on the right-hand side, next to a door which opens out on what looks like a living room. There is another closed door on the opposite side on the left. Further doors are visible down the hall.

The floor is Parquet and the walls have wood paneling. Several framed photographs, some of the Hannigans and others of Beth and what must be other family members hang from the walls, as do some works of art. Isadora might recognize one of her own paintings on the wall. A telephone stands on a small mahogany table, next to which is an address book.

"There's no wallpaper in here," says Alice. "It must be in one or more of the other rooms." She picks up the address book and looks through it.

Contained within are addresses and telephone numbers for the Hannigan and Carter-Field families and various other people, including Dr. Arnold Dwight.

Henry Glynn

"Looks like a nice place." says Henry as he goes towards the door and looks through to the living room.

"A strange and unwelcoming house," Isadora murmurs.

Isadora walks over and examines a painting - one that is not her own work. It depicts a royal court, but appears to be somewhat unfinished or otherwise off. Is it perhaps by any artist she recognizes? Or in a familiar style? Can she understand, why does it give her such uncanny feelings?

Art 60%
[dice]0[/dice]

Alice also takes a look into the living room, thinking it best that they don't get separated.

Harrison follows the others into the living room. "Which is the room that she was locked up in?" He says quietly.

Isadora Carmichael

"...what in Heaven's name?" Isadora mumbles, and rubs her eyes. She touches the wall in disbelief.

The companions enter the living room. It looks very comfortable and urbane, with ample seating, and is sunny and inviting. The furniture is Art Nouveau. A piano and a cello also stand in the room. On top of the piano some family photographs rest.

Isadora Carmichael

Isadora finds herself inexplicably drawn to the piano. She taps out a few notes on the keys, but although the tune seems familiar, she cannot recall where or when she has heard it.

"Friends? Do you recognize this melody?"

She tries to play it again.

Then she examines the photos. Who do they depict? In what settings?

OOC,The tune is unfamiliar to all.

The photographs are studio portraits of the Hannigans, including Tabitha.

"There's something about this house..." Harrison trails off and then snaps out of his introspection to continue. "It's not here though. We need to go to the room she was forced to stay in."

"I don't recognize the tune," says Alice with a shrug. "All right, let's go find her room. It's probably upstairs."

Isadora Carmichael

Starspawn338 wrote:"There's something about this house..." Harrison trails off and then snaps out of his introspection to continue. "It's not here though. We need to go to the room she was forced to stay in."

Isadora nods. "I feel it too. Something is... off."

Before following the others to the room, Isadora picks up a photo of Tabitha, and takes it with herself.

The stairs lead up to a landing, with polished floors and plastered walls. From the windows in front of them, the companions are able to see a graveyard to the northeast. A veranda is accessible from this spot, and another door leads from that to another room. There are three doors all along the corridor, which curves along to the right at the end of the hall.

"Let's try the doors along the corridor first in order, one at a time," suggests Alice.

"Sounds good to me."

OOC,The corridor curves? It's not a straight line corridor?

The first door on their left opens on to a narrow staircase, leading up.

"That must go to the attic," says Alice. "Shall we try the next one?"

Henry Glynn

"Yes good plan."

Henry closes the first door and goes to the second, keeping close by Alice's side.

The next door leads into what is obviously Tabitha's bedroom. A small crib leans up against a pastel yellow wall. Nearby stands a new chest of draws. There is very little in this room; it looks like it was emptied hastily, as several of the draws of the chest are open, and there looks to be nothing inside. A patch of yellow beneath the dress appears to be a small china doll, perhaps forgotten in the rush to leave. Two more doors can be seen, each adjacent to the far corner of the room.

"We're getting closer," says Alice. "Surely her room will be near the baby's room. Let's try the door on the right far corner next."

There are three more doors. There is another room next to Tabitha’s bedroom, and standing next to this door the companions can see two more doors; one on the left and one more facing them.

"Maybe it's the room next to Tabitha's?" suggests Alice.

Henry Glynn

"I'll take this for Tabitha." says Henry, picking up the doll.

Isadora Carmichael

Isadora enters the room next to Tabitha's.

This bedroom overlooks the front garden. It contains a dresser, chair, single bed and a pair of closets, and like the other room seems to have been emptied in some haste.

Alice takes a look inside the closets and the dresser drawers to see if anything has been left behind.

Isadora Carmichael

Isadora walks around the room, knocking on the walls. Then she goes to the window, and takes a look outside at the garden.

Alice,There are one or two items of women’s clothing, but nothing of any real interest.

Isadora,The garden outside is peaceful. A cat runs across the lawn.

"Just a few of her clothes they left here," says Alice. She examines the wallpaper to see if it matches the description she had heard.

The wallpaper is a pale pastel blue, with a pattern of small raised polka dots.

"The wallpaper doesn't look off to me," says Alice. "I guess that's a good sign, though."

Alice racks her brain, but she can't think of anything.

OOC,Idea roll (65% stat) in the bedroom: [dice]0[/dice]

OOC,Idea 75 [dice]0[/dice]

Harrison runs his fingers over the raised dots on the wallpaper.

"Could this be Elizabeth's room? I'm not sensing anything here that would be disturbing to Margaret." Harrison offers to the others. "Let's keep looking at the other rooms to get the full layout of the home."

Isadora Carmichael

"You might be right... Let's keep exploring."

HoneyDog wrote:There are three more doors. There is another room next to Tabitha’s bedroom, and standing next to this door the companions can see two more doors; one on the left and one more facing them.

Isadora goes back to check the door on the left.

Isadora has discovered the bathroom. A large, freestanding bathtub sits on claw feet. There is a toilet and sink with a cabinet above. Both sink and bath are serviced with hot and cold water. Isadora steps inside.

Alice follows Isadora to the door and looks over her shoulder into the room. ""Maybe there's something in the cabinet, she says. "Could Margaret have been taking some medicine that might have influenced her?"

Opening the cabinet, Isadora only finds the typical items you might expect to find in a family bathroom, such as hair care and skin products, brushes, combs and other sundries. There is nothing that looks like medicine.

Harrison will go to the last door facing them and open it up.

Henry Glynn

Henry follows after Harrison.

Henry Glynn

"Well, here we are."

"Yes, this must be the place," says Alice. She looks inside the cabinet and the drawer.

"I don't suppose any of you can pick a lock?" asks Alice. "Maybe the key is hidden in this room somewhere, or it could be one of the ones Beth gave us." She examines the keyring to see if any of the keys are the right size.

"I'm sorry but I don't pick locks." Harrison says as he runs his fingers along the torn wallpaper.

"These patterns are so odd, why would Thomas think that it would be a good place to keep a woman who thinks there is something hidden in the walls? This room seems so out of place with the rest of the house." He muses.

"How long has that been running?" wonders Alice aloud. "I'd better check on Isadora and shut the water off before the bathroom floods." She heads in that direction. "Isadora! Is everything all right?"

OOC,Mechanical Repair 20 [dice]0[/dice]

Harrison watches Henry attempt to pick the lock and offers a try himself with the same results. As Alice heads to the bathroom, he notices that Isadora is not with them.

"Ladies? Is everything okay?" He says as he follows Alice into the bathroom.

Harrison follows Alice to the bathroom, while Henry tries gamely to get the drawer open again.

Henry,Try and force it, roll Strength.

Alice and Harrison enter the bathroom. Isadora is laying fully clothed in the bath, which is almost overflowing. Her eyes are wide open and she stares up at the ceiling. She does not respond to Alice’s shouts.

Alice & Harrison,Roll SAN! If you fail, lose 1 point.

Isadora,Isadora will have no memory of why she did this – it just seems to have happened. When she comes back to her senses and realizes what has happened, she will need to roll SAN. If she passes, lose 1 SAN – if she fails, roll 1d3 for loss.

OOC,Sanity 79 [dice]0[/dice]

Harrison rushes over and attempts to pull Isadora out of the bath.

Isadora Carmichael

When an unknown hand reaches for her, Isadora first reaction is to defend herself - almost dragging Harrison into the bathtub. Then her face breaks the surface of the water, and she screams - or she tries to, but her throat and lungs are filled with water... So she coughs, and gasps, and her limp body falls out of the tub, splashing everybody around with water.

Sanity roll,[b]SAN 63[/b] [dice]0[/dice] -1 SAN

"Goodness!" cries Alice, shutting off the water. When Isdaora falls out of the tub, Alice quickly tries to pump the water out of her lungs.

OOC,Sanity roll (current level 67) for seeing [b]Isadora[/b]: [dice]0[/dice] First Aid roll (60% skill) treating [b]Isadora[/b]: [dice]1[/dice]

Isadora responds to Alice’s administrations and she is soon sitting up, breathing in ragged gasps. She is soaking wet of course, as are Alice and Harrison.

"Isadora, what happened? Whatever possessed you to do that? From now on, nobody goes anywhere alone in this house." She looks around. "Where's Henry?"

Isadora Carmichael

Isadora sits there, trembling.

"I... I don't know. I don't remember. The last thing I recall is entering the bathroom."

Henry Glynn

Henry wrestles with the drawer and gives up in frustration.

Alice hands her the towel. "Let's dry off and then get back to Henry," she says.

Henry Glynn

Henry gives the drawer an almighty kick for good measure.

"Let me go get some clothes for you," says Alice. "You look to be about Margaret's size. Besides, someone has to check on Henry." She heads back to Margaret's room.

Isadora follows Alice in complete silence. She is still in a sort of catatonic state and shock. The house is... terrible. To take over her body, to push out her soul, with such ease...

Henry Glynn

Henry hops around in pain and then examines the drawer and contents.

Henry Glynn

"I managed to spring the lock. There's a diary in here." calls Henry.

"I had a feeling there might be," says Alice, rummaging through the cabinet and picking out clothes. "We can read it later, when we're out of the house. Isadora can tell you what happened. From now on, nobody goes anywhere in the house alone. I'll stay with her while she changes." She takes out a turquoise sweater. "It's your color, Isadora."

Harrison brushes off what water drops he can and looks for something to dry himself off with. He isn't able to understand just what has happened or what Isadora is mumbling about but it is clear that they've confirmed their working theory that something in the house is not natural. As Alice is attending to Isadora, he goes over to the bed and lies down on the side he imagines would be Margaret's and looks at the room from that perspective.

OOC,Do the patterns on the wall look any different from the bed?

Isadora Carmichael

For the Keeper,SAN 63 [dice]0[/dice]

Isadora walks into the bedroom, still shaking from the cold water.

Then she stares at the walls.

"It's all moving," she whispers to anyone who's next to her (Alice?), in sheer terror. "The patterns are crawling all over the wall... Can't you see it?"

"No, I can't," says Alice, worried for her. "Quickly, get these clothes on, and then we'd better get you out of this house."

"Let's get Isabel out of here. I'm not sure what else we can find out at this point." Harrison offers. "I will need to get a change of clothes too."

"Likewise," says Alice, still dripping water on the floor. "The rest of us can return later and finish exploring after we've had a chance to read that diary, but Isadora can't set foot here again."

OOC,Yes, let's go.

Concerned for Isadora, the companions leave the bedroom and return to the stairs. As they begin to descend, the telephone in the hallway begins to ring.

Isadora Carmichael

Isadora walks down the stairs, but suddenly lets out a silent scream, and leans heavy onto the person who is helping her descend. Her eyes are closed.

"It's all changing, the patterns are all changing," she says. Then the phone rings... "No-no-no, let's get out of here, don't pick up the phone, please!"

Alice puts an arm around Isadora and guides her outside. If one of the others wants to answer the phone, he can.

Ignoring the phone, the companions rush out the door and stand outside, breathing heavily. In a few moments, the phone stops ringing.

"Could that have been Beth on the phone?" asks Alice. "Nobody else would know anyone might be here."

Isadora Carmichael

Isadora gathers all her strength, and looks back at the house from the outside.

"Possible... We can try call her from a public phone. I don't trust anything in that house," she answers Alice's question.

If there is a public phone nearby, she contacts Beth. Her hands are shaking, and she drops the coins a couple of times before she is able to place a call.

Isadora Carmichael

Keeper,[color=#000080]"I'm fine, don't worry. Not enough sleep,"[/color] Isadora tries to brush it off. [color=#000080]"Thank you for the information, we will visit him tomorrow!"[/color]

After the phone call, Isadora shares the news with the others.

"Dr. Dwight has agreed to talk to us. He said he had some accounts to go over and will be in his office from 1pm tomorrow afternoon. It’s very close to the university."

"That sounds good," says Alice. "That gives us the rest of the day to go over the diary and follow up on anything we find there. Was it Beth who called the house?"

Isadora Carmichael

"Yes, it was Beth... But..." she pauses, now feeling some shame for her flight from the house. "...but you agree that we couldn't risk picking up the phone? We cannot trust anything inside that mansion."

"Yes, I can see how dangerous its influence is," says Alice. "One man is already dead, and you might easily have died too."

2pm
The Desolate Highway Cafe

The companions meet in the afternoon at the Desolate Highway Café, the scene of their memorable meeting with Asenath Derby. That worthy individual is luckily not present – indeed there are only a few individuals at this hour, mainly solitary students perusing books while they drink coffee.

The friends gather around and begin to go through Margaret’s diary. It is mostly banal – observations about daily life and her relationships with family and friends, but in the last three months the entries begin to grow increasingly strange. These entries are preceded by several weeks of short and quite depressing entries which occur just after the birth of Tabitha, and show that Margaret was blaming herself for not having energy, and guilt for her lack of feeling toward Tabitha, and her own inability to be happy.

These entries change after her husband instructed her to rest. The diary now begins to describe her experiences in the house. Detailed are phantom sounds and strange images and pictures, leading to glimpses of something moving in the pattern of the master bedroom wallpaper.

“It is silly I know, but I am sure I saw something moving behind the pattern of that horrible wallpaper when I woke. I know it cannot be true, but it would be the making of a wonderful story. I can’t get the idea out of my head, but I also cannot really write. Perhaps if I talk to Thomas, he’ll let me get up and work properly.”

At first these descriptions are dispassionate, and she admonishes herself not to start accepting these sounds and images as real and existent. She expresses the desire that writing more will give her an outlet, but her husband’s insistence on mental rest stifles this, and she can only write in her diary.

"I do not know what use Thomas thinks it will be to have me secluded here, unable to work, and unable to have good and stimulating company. Nevertheless, Thomas is my husband, and a doctor too; an expert in matters of medicine, so there really is no arguing with him on this. I have managed to ensure that I shall be able to keep on maintaining my diary. It may exhaust me to do so, but I have not let Thomas know that, so he feels no need to stop me. This new house is lovely, beautiful even in some ways, but it feels so lonely, like it has never been a home. That feeling isn’t helped by my current circumstances. When I am better, I really must do something about this wallpaper".

However, after a few weeks of these experiences it is clear that Margaret is starting to believe that the strange experiences are very real.

“I must not give into fancy; how I wish I could write properly. Dr. Dwight always said the things I sometimes see are just my imagination, and truly I had forgotten how hard it is to be sure what is real, and what is not once an idea takes hold of me like this. However, I should be okay, after all, all reason and logic tells me that a creeping woman can’t be real.”

By the time of the murder, she is describing a woman creeping within the wallpaper, and discovering impossibly large and bizarre extensions to the house during midnight wanderings; narrow streets, strange houses with unreal architecture, and encountering hooded, shuffling figures.

Everyone,Roll SAN. Everyone loses 1 point regardless of success. If you fail, roll 1d3 for loss.

Isadora,Gain 1 point for Cthulhu Mythos.

OOC,Sanity 79 [dice]0[/dice]

"That is what I suspected, but the mystery is why is it happening? Were you aware of any presence in there Isadora?" Harrison asks. "It came over you so quickly."

Alice shivers. "There must be something in there, and for some reason it has latched onto you, Isadora," she says. "Perhaps it's because you're sensitive to these things. If you can see them, maybe they're more likely to see you."

OOC,Sanity roll (current level 67) for reading the diary: [dice]0[/dice]

Isadora Carmichael

SAN 63,Rolling [dice]0[/dice]

After reading the diary, Isadora just sits there, with a blank expression.

A terrible realization dawns on her.

Finally, she gathers herself enough to engage Alice and the rest of the gang in conversation.

Mr. Handy wrote:Alice shivers. "There must be something in there, and for some reason it has latched onto you, Isadora," she says. "Perhaps it's because you're sensitive to these things. If you can see them, maybe they're more likely to see you."

"Yes, yes, it might just be so... But what are these things? Are they something haunting, invading the house from the outside? Or were they birthed by some peculiarity of the building itself? Or maybe Margaret's mind, overwrought by the seclusion, bordering on obsession, brought them into this world?

"So far, from what we've gathered, these things, this... force, it seems to be anchored to the house..."

Isadora pauses, as she thinks back to that other house, the one that went up in flames. Her instinct is to torch this building as well - but then the police would surely be at her door the next morning. And she doesn't want to be secluded in a prison cell.

"I'd rather not go back to the house now. We must gain new information. And then perhaps we can risk going back in. I can be your eyes, a beacon receiving the terrible messages from the occulted world.

"We talk to the doctor tomorrow, learn what he has to say. And then we can do some more research. Perhaps there have been similar accidents, studies but misunderstood by modern psychology."

"All right," says Alice. "Are you sure you want to go back in there, even after we talk to the doctor? The rest of us could go without you. If you do want to go back inside, we'll make sure you're never alone in there."

Henry Glynn

"I'm in no great hurry to go back there. I didn't mention it at the time but It didn't feel right to me either. I felt quite alone there ... even though I was with you dear Alice. Of course I'll go if we have to ..."

Alice smiles and squeezes Henry's hand. "You don't have to go back in there either if you don't want to," says Alice, "but if you do, I'll be with you the whole time. I couldn't sense anything in the house myself, but I've no doubt it's there."

Isadora Carmichael

Observing the interaction between Alice and Henry, Isadora feels warmth, but also a slight pang of envy. Her relationship with her husband is quite close and amicable, but she knows that he wouldn't let her continue these dangerous escapades. And now, when she understands that she isn't only getting into this out of curiosity, but perhaps there is a higher mission, she won't be deterred.

"Let's go and get some rest today. Tomorrow our meeting with Dr. Dwight is at 1 pm. Do you think we can visit the University library before the meeting?"

"I'm sure I can get us access," says Alice. "There's enough time left today that we could start our research now, but what are we trying to find? We could look for news articles about the Bosworth House in the periodicals section, but I can't imagine anything as newsworthy as the murder has happened there in the past. We might want to find out what was on the site before the house was built, and we could try to find out just who this Bosworth was."

Isadora Carmichael

"No, no, I want to look for something else. Not information about the house, but rather similar occurrences. Hauntings, distortions of space, moving patterns... Does the university library hold any such books, about the uncanny, the weird? Or are they deemed unscientific?"

"Oh, there are books like that," says Alice. "This is Arkham, after all. Perhaps we can consult with Dr. Armitage again. He seemed to know about this sort of thing when we first met him."

Isadora Carmichael

Keeper,SAN 62 [dice]0[/dice] SAN loss [dice]1[/dice]