Book Two - Undertows of Disbelief

[Grognardsw]

"Yes, these pictures certainly implicate Chertovski, even if he is... a moot point," says Agent Mulder. "I know that crackpot Archer was investigating the museum thefts on behalf of the association of museums. We'll have to get in touch with his agency to get more details and confirm these photos are the same."

Dr. Morgan finds a film cannister to protect the undeveloped roll of film. Father Vaughan stands nearby, holding the valet bag. The priest has been quiet during the search of the Shunned House, perhaps distrubed by the things he has seen. He seemed particularly struck by the nursery.

Dr. Clarke uses his archeological skills to record the position of the telescope, marking the tripod leg locations on the floor, the angle of the telescope, its setting and other details.

"Maybe we could track down that Columbia fellow," says Marius about the group's lack of astronomy knowledge.

A BOI agent joins the investigators to give Agent Mulder an update: "We've finished questioning John Maklyvane, the Brit, and he says he'll be staying at the Chelsea Hotel for a few days before heading back to London. Asenath Waite calmed down enough to be questioned. She is a senior at Miskatonic University and a cousin to Chertovski who just happened to be visiting. She says she's heading back to Arkham, MA, tomorrow."

[SocraticLawyer]

Reginald Wilkins, bookdealer and occultist
Reginald simply nods at the latest information. He is busy glancing at his copies of the xaqloui inscriptions. He seems strangely unaffected by the weirdness they have uncovered.

Once the investigators are done at the Shunned House, Reginald will head back to the hotel and begin his attempt to understand the xaqloui.

[Mant72]

Dr. Morgan:

Frank is also deeply affected by the presence of the nursery here in the Shunned House. What in God's name has taken place here?," he thinks to himself as he secures the newly found canister of film.

He is reluctantly drawn to the nursery and nanny's room, and he cautiously makes his way over to explore them.

[Starbeard]

Marius Albertoni, hunter

"We should keep a shadow on Ms. Waite, see what she gets up to in Arkham—if that's where she's actually going," says Marius. "It wouldn't hurt to see who she runs with at Miskatonic or in the town, and keep an eye on their activities too. I hate to say it in front of you professors, and I'm loyal to the varsity teams myself, but it's time we admit it: there's a rotten, fishy stink coming from that university. And after what I saw down in the cellar, I do mean fishy." He lights a cigarette and follows Dr. Morgan to the nursery and nanny's room, bracing himself for more disgusting weirdness.

[DadsAngry]

Dr. Clarke:

David finishes his measurements and joins Marcus and Frank in the nursery. "I think you're correct Marcus. The university has become quite intertwined in this whole affair. When we return I will see if I can get Ms. Waite transcripts and any other student information. But before we leave the city I do want to pay a visit to professor Mr. Harlow Shapley at Columbia University. Hopefully he can tell us what Chertovski was looking for in the sky."

[Grognardsw]

Father Vaughan nods his head in agreement with Marius and Dr. Clarke about Ms. Waite and Miskatonic University.

The investigators examine the nursery and its connected kitchen and freezer. Aside from the odd presence of a nursery in this area of the house, it seems completely mundane in its appearance, furniture, decoration and toys for babies or young toddlers. A thorough search is done for secret compartments and doors, but none are found. The kitchen is similarly typical. The freezer contents are strangely and unusually comprised of meats of varied cuts and types, some of which are difficult to identify.

Marius the hunter, knowledgeable about cuts of meat, finds several pieces troubling. They don't look like any steak, pork, chicken or game pieces he's ever seen.

###

The call of a BOI agent is heard by the investigators. Agent Burrelle soon appears. "We went through all the books in Chertovski's study, as you ordered sir," he reports to Agent Mulder. "We found a letter inside a book in Chertovski's study."

Agent Mulder reads it aloud:

"The press cuttings, as I have intimated, touched on cases of panic, mania, and eccentricity during the given period. Professor Angell must have employed a cutting bureau, for the number of extracts was tremendous and the sources scattered throughout the globe. Here was a nocturnal suicide in London, where a lone sleeper had leaped from a window after a shocking cry. Here likewise a rambling letter to the editor of a paper in South America, where a fanatic deduces a dire future from visions he has seen. A dispatch from California describes a theosophist colony as donning white robes en masse for some “glorious fulfillment” which never arrives, whilst items from India speak guardedly of serious native unrest toward the end of March. Voodoo orgies multiply in Hayti, and African outposts report ominous mutterings. American officers in the Philippines find certain tribes bothersome about this time, and New York policemen are mobbed by hysterical Levantines on the night of March 22–23. The west of Ireland, too, is full of wild rumor and legendry, and a fantastic painter named Ardois-Bonnot hangs a blasphemous “Dream Landscape” in the Paris summer salon of 1925. And so numerous are the recorded troubles in insane asylums, that only a miracle can have stopped the medical fraternity from noting strange parallelisms and drawing mystified conclusions. A weird bunch of cuttings, all told."

[DadsAngry]

Dr. Clarke:

"Professor Angell?" Dr. Clarke looks about the room "Does anyone know a Professor Angell?"

[Mant72]

Dr. Morgan:

"Is the letter signed by anyone? Any address evident? Chertovski's interest in these news clippings most certainly raises an eyebrow and further implicates the man in my eyes." He looks to the others for any further deductions.

[Starbeard]

Marius Albertoni, hunter

"Beats me," replies Marius in regards to Professor Angell and his mentioned collection of press cuttings. "Do we have examples of Chertovski's handwriting? If he wrote that letter, he may have stashed these cuttings here in the house. In fact, maybe we should do a quick comparison of the letter to any writing samples we have of all the current suspects and witnesses. Let's see… we should already have some writing from Chertovski, Carcosa, James Ford, Algier Joassaint, Lovecraft… who am I missing?"

[Grognardsw]

Dr. Clarke and Dr. Morgan are not familiar with a Professor Angell.

"I don't see that this letter is signed, or has an address," Agent Mulder says to Dr. Morgan. "Perhaps it is a middle page?"

"Yes Marius, that is a good idea we can check the handwriting against the letters in our files," says Agent Mulder.

Reginald looks pensive.

The investigators and BOI men spend another hour searching the meandering house before gathering to leave.

[SocraticLawyer]

Reginald Wilkins, bookdealer and occultist
Reginald seems to come out of a reverie.

"Professor Angell?" he says, long after Dr. Clarke brought up the name. "I knew him during my days at Brown. He is an expert on Semitic languages, particularly ancient inscriptions. He was one of the few professors who didn't immediately reject my papers on the early Egyptians...." Reginald's voice trails off.

"He had a relative, a nephew I think, who was Timothy's roommate in Providence."

Reginald gets a cold feeling in his stomach again. He tries not to let the fear he feels at the professor's familial connection to his ex-employee show on his face.

[Mant72]

Dr. Morgan:

Frank is anxious to leave the Shunned House for a number of reasons. He is curious as to what the undeveloped film contains, but he is even more ready to leave due to the unsettling nature of the residence itself.

He has a pervading feeling that they will have to return to this place for even more answers.

[Grognardsw]

After an exhaustive search of the meandering Shunned House, with its many troubling sights and rooms, cold corpses, the she-creature killing of Isaiah Bartlett and Agent Smith beyond the Gate, the rape of Asenaith Waite by Agent Gibson, and the murder of Konstantin Chertovski by Sam Archer, the investigators return to the Howard Hotel.

The search was more than six hours long and the men are tired and mentally drained. In their rooms they contemplate what was found today, and what it all means as part of the overall investigation.

The investigators reconvene for a late dinner with Agent Mulder to review findings.

"Men, we know Chertovski was involved in the cult," begins Agent Mulder. "The how and why are still questions, but much of that is now moot because of his death by Sam Archer. We did achieve the shut-down of whatever he was doing, which like our closure of Club Zothique, this has to have dealt a blow to the cult's operation. In that regard, I consider our work here a partial success. Now we need to follow up on what leads we found there, tie them into our existing knowledge of the case, and track down Ambrose Carcosa."

"Now, while its still fresh in our minds, what your thoughts about what happened and what we saw at the house?"

[SocraticLawyer]

Reginald Wilkins, bookdealer and occultist
Reginald sips a cup of black coffee, listening to the agent. He tries to focus on the investigation.

"What I saw in that house...." he begins, his voice trailing off for a moment, his eyes lost in the grim recollection. He clears his throat and continues. "What I saw defies an explanation that might be satisfactory to some here. But I learned several things.

"First, there is a Gate to a dangerous place there. I don't yet have the means to close the Gate, but with some study...." again his voice trails off. Reginald looks at the Pnakotic Manuscripts again before continuing. "With some study, I may be able to close this Gate. But others remain, perhaps many others....

"Second, this cult is more dangerous than anything any of us has ever seen. If they weren't on to our investigation after the Club Zothique raid, they surely must be by now. Luckily, Mr. Archer's unorthodox behavior here may throw them off for a bit.

"And third, Asenaith Waite is too dangerous to apprehend. Any attempt to arrest her will only invite further incidents and be detrimental to our investigation. She must be surveilled, discreetly, but never physically threatened."

Reginald takes another sip of his coffee.

I'm assuming Professor Angell is dead. If so, does Reginald know of it? If not, he will recommend that the group contact him.

[Mant72]

Dr. Morgan:

The Miskatonic professor nods in agreement with Reginald's observations and suggestions, "Yes, Reginald these are all very good assertions, and we must be even more vigilant than ever."

Frank removes the canister of film from his pocket and turns to Agent Mulder, "Agent Mulder, is there something we can do about finding out what this film contains?" He taps the canister with his index finger.

[DadsAngry]

Dr. Clarke:

"Indeed we do have a lot of evidence to go over. Lets see." Dr. Clarke opens his notebook and looks at the notes he scribble down and adds to it.
"We we have the undeveloped film, the parchment in hieroglyphs Reginald found in the study proving Chertovski guilt, the Xaqloui rubbing of the standing stone in the garden that I made, the position of the telescope to relative to the night sky, the disappearing hebrew writing accompanied with occult symbols at the site of the gate."
He picks his head up from his notes.
"Reginald and Marcus perhaps you to can look through some occult tomes and see if Marcus can recognized any writing or symbols that you saw on the wall."
He says before returns to his laundry list.
"Lets see where did I leave off. Oh yes, Ms. Waite. We need to verify her story and her linage. I'm sure Dr. Morgan and I would be the best as we have better access to her school records. We also have the hideous experiment Chertovski was conduction in the basement. What was the purpose and who were his victims? And finally what was the motivation of Mr. Archer? Was he trying to hide something? Did he know something we didn't? Or was he out for revenge?"
He looks over his note one last time.
"I think I covered it all. DId I miss anything?" He says with his pencil at the ready.

[Starbeard]

Marius Albertoni, hunter

Dr. Clarke:
"Reginald and Marcus perhaps you to can look through some occult tomes and see if Marcus can recognized any writing or symbols that you saw on the wall."

Marius nods unconvincingly. "I'll try my best, Doc. It was pretty dark down there, and I'm no good at languages. But I'll do what I can."

He looks down at his own notes. "Well… there's also Dr. Morgan's double. He's been shadowing us for a while, and managed to give us the slip this time somewhere around those carved stones outside of the House. He said the symbols on the stones looked like the ones at Mt. Latmos, but he needed Reginald to confirm that. I think we should confiscate those stones if we can, or at least get rubbings of the symbols if we can't. Is it possible that they are also be some kind of gate?"

After a pause, he adds thoughtfully, "We shouldn't forget that if this fella can double Dr. Morgan, he might be able to double any of us—hell, maybe we all have doubles. We need to devise a secret code or handshake to keep that mix-up from happening again."

[DadsAngry]

Dr. Clarke:

"Oh not to worry Marcus. I did indeed take rubbings of the symbols upon the stones. And you are correct they do look like the say script as what I say in Turkey."

Concerning Dr. Morgan's double.
"Why I hadn't though of it like that. I always assumed Frank's double was some how linked to the strange properties of the crystal. But you're correct whatever it is it very well could take the form of anyone. For all I know it's here now among us. Who was alone at the house?" Dr. Clarke slowly looks to Marcus and studies the man as if trying to determine if he's an impostor or not. Who else was alone he thinks to himself.

[Grognardsw]

Agent Mulder raises an eyebrow at Marius' suggestion that any among them may be a doppelgänger. "That is a disturbing proposition, and hard to believe, but so is this talk of gates and magic."

"Marius was found alone, with Isaiah and Agent Smith missing, in the basement, at an alleged but missing gate. Dr. Clarke left alone to make rubbings of the stones, which have been theorized to be a gate. Did "doubles" of Marius and Dr. Clarke step through such gates and replace the real men? Is the loner Sam Archer a double? " The BOI agent half-smiles.

Father Vaughan speaks up: "I was in possession of the crystal during the appearance of Dr. Morgan's double today. It was warm during that time."

Agent Mulder rubs his temples, a tired look on his face. "I am not discounting the outlandish factors in this case, but I haven't seen any actual proof myself. I'm not saying Marius and Reginald are lying. It's the physical and real things I am moved by. But it seems the unseen and occultic are influencing the real, so I can't ignore it."

"Yes, we'll put a tail on Ms. Waite, and Dr. Morgan and Dr. Clarke can use their Miskatonic contacts to investigate her. I frankly don't believe Agent Gibson's story."

"We'll get that film developed first thing tomorrow, Dr. Morgan."

Reginald knows that Professor Angell is retired but alive in Providence.

Agent Mulder looks over his notes. "That is a good summary Dr. Clarke. We are trying to track down Sam Archer. We know he lost a partner, his hand and almost his life from the cult. We assume its revenge he's out for. When our mesmerist hypnotized him, he sensed suppressed memories in the man, but not any mind-control."

[SocraticLawyer]

Reginald Wilkins, bookdealer and occultist
When he hears of the stones outside with what he assumes will be xaqloui writing, Reginald's ears perk up. "I'll go check out the stones outside. I'd prefer to try to read the originals, as opposed to a paper copy. Afterwards, Marius and I can go through some of the occult tomes here as well."

Can Reginald cast Find Gate in the area with the stones? It's been a few hours, so he should have his Magic Points back. How long does it take to cast?

Regarding doubles, Reginald says, "Until we know more about these dopplegangers, I don't know how much use a code word or anything will be. We don't know how much knowledge of our real selves theses doubles will have. It could prove dangerous if they know our countersigns just as we do."

Reginald consults the Pnakotic Manuscripts to try to read the stones outside. Read Xaqloui at Shunned House stones (50) [1d100] = 2

If he can do so, Reginald will also attempt another Find Gate spell in the area of the stones.