Investigator’s Notebook

[Grognardsw]

Sorting through pages of IC action to track clues is tedious. And given the long-form mystery format, it will help to note and discuss clues in this dedicated thread.

[thesniperknight1]

15 bodies, 4 identified. no connection or patterns were made other than that four of them were a family.
The bodies were found with no heads and hands and the torso was cut in the shape of a flower, a florist gone mad? Unlikely

Suspect 1: Timothy Carver
a library clerk and a writer. He admitted to 6 bodies but no more and he has no reason to lie since he admitted to it without hesitation

Suspect 2: a wino
a wino who was found carrying three heads in a plastic bag, confused them for lettuce? a possibility

[thesniperknight1]

Carver's Notes:

The older notebooks contain complete short stories, stuff you'd see in Argosy or Blue Book magazines. Contemporary yarns with melodrama and a touch of action and romance. Later Carver writes more adventurous tales of explorers. Then the pieces get more surreal, darker, at points seeming to describe dreams more than reality. He slips in and out of gibberish. Is it a code, cipher, language disorder?
In one story - are they even stories this gibberish? - Baines spots a disturbing doodling:



There are various receipts in the notebooks, serving as bookmarks: Charter's Bookstore (Carver's place of employ), Club Zothique, Zann's Music Shop, Leng's Chinese Food Emporium, the Shunned House in New York City, and an open ticket for a ship to Amsterdam.

-------------------------

It seems like Carver was doing junk in Leng's Chinese Food Emporium but stopped suddenly for a "Better Product". A visit to Club Zothique confirmed that the "Better Product" is called Xaqloui and is being distributed by Carcosa, the name was on a Club Zothique napkin in his apartment, drawn by the roommate in beautiful calligraphy, maybe he used junk too? An artist in need of inspiration?

The full name is Ambrose Carcosa, a man of possible middle-eastern origin, a swarthy man, dressed in suit slacks, pin stripe shirt, a Middle Eastern style sash belt, and over it all a robe-jacket combination. Not your typical Providence duds. He is clean shaven but has a remarkable amount of acne for one who must be in his thirties.

But Carcosa doesn't distribute the drug in the club, he refers to his costumers to meet him at 93 Court Street to make the exchange. So Carver must have went to the club for a different reason, and that reason is The Hepcats of Ulthar, a band. are five in number, the female crooner, a saxophonist, drummer, another horn man, and a string-man.


They are all deep black, but I can't tell from which country they hail from. The singer is more mulatto. The drummer has a long vertical scar on the right side of his face. Otherwise they appear normal, though their music is far from it. I have not seen such unorthodox rhythms and sounds brought forth from those instruments before. And their songs are too strange, the grim words she spoke, it didn't seem they are the normal type of a band that mostly sung about love and dancing, their songs felt more like a chilling prophecy from ancient times or a lost ritual that they are trying to resurrect. It feels religious or occult, it sends a chill don my spine every time I remember the words and the way the whole crowd sung along the same gibberish language Carver spoke and written, and they were all on the same junk.

For these pow’rs are the pow’rs of the dark, from the graves of the lost Druid-folk
And mayst thou to such deeds be an abbot and priest, Singing cannibal greeds.
At each devil-wrought feast, And to all the incredulous world shewing dimly the sign of the beast.

A few verses of their song is enough to raise suspicion and if that wasn't enough, their symbo; said it all.

There is an eye in the middle. It clearly resembles the actual dead bodies. They perform in various places, Boston, New York and much more.

The Band and Xaqloui form the ultimate high, Carcosa and the band's purpose is unknown, but could just that send Carver crazy? It seems the club was filled with people the same as him and yet they aren't going around creating flowers out of people, there is a missing factor...

----------------------------------------------------------------
Darrin McCoy, apperently affiliated with Danny Walsh, boss of an irish gang. The question is why would he have any interest in me? Could it be that he has knowledge of lloigor, that still doesn't explain it.....I need to check it out
------------------------------------------------------------
Emberhead was south of Ossipee. A village that has some tie ins to the cult somehow, it's said that it suddenly disappeared. This information is A man named Harold Matthers. The chant...a man told him about a chant to use when he was in trouble. "You understand that I will not speak it and urge the rest of you to the same." Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthugha Fomalhaut n’ghaghaa naf ’l thagn! Iä! Cthugha!

"I was told to never speak it while I had plans left on this earth. He said it would make me one with the Living... And that was when someone jumped from the shadows and killed him. They knocked me unconscious, and I woke up back in the boarding house.Oh, yes. He said they think it is a ritual of sacrifice, but it is really a ritual of control. I don't know what he meant. The man's name was Arbogast. He was horribly scarred by a fire. He said the village should have died 40 years ago, and he was the 'interpreter' then. I think he means that he used to be in charge of the ritual before his place was usurped. What did he say, 'Shattered by flame, consumed by the stars,' that was what he said about the village. It should have died 40 years ago but did not. The people did something to defy the Great Old Ones where the Indian tribe that was there before, the Abenaki, lived in one with the land and cherished it. Probably a cycle of sacrifice."

[Anders Molin]

Woman - woods - no head
Found by local hunter Marius Albertoni: heads (2!) + hands (4!) - basemt nearby mill ruins
Police has no ID; leads (!) - (Do they know about Providence case? They ain't telling anyway) They know, but won't go on record)
Off the record: BOI involved; no arrests made

To do

• I-view M.A.
• Meet w. Sevellon - follow up on Arkham-Providence poss. connection
• Go to mill ruins - check out scene bring camera!
• I-view Dr Clarke Dr Morgan
• Contact Boston police - recent murders/missing people?
• Contact Prov. police - has Carver stated motive? None that they could comprehend
• I-view Robert Angell
• I-view Reginald Wilkins
• Follow up on arch. professor at Brown U.
• Call on Stompy re Hepcats of Ulthar

Dark Pharaoh's Freak Show - why go here?

M.A. i-view
20-something female, bathing suit, corpse several days old (killed elsewhere, then moved? Most probably. But why mutilated?)
Tracks leading to old mill ruins - M.A. went with police officer O'Malley +2
MU arch. dig site - 3 wks old - Dr David Clarke (Did they find something they shouldn't have found? Poss. motive!)
Two heads, four hands hidden in mill ruins basement - no second body though!
At Freak Show: Seeress w. MU ring in necklace - retired when confronted

Providence story
Unknown number of ritualistic killings - heads/hands severed, chest carvings (?)
Rumours of drug ring/foreigners
Timothy Carver arrested (fitting surname- poss. pun in headline - too distasteful?) - confessed six murders Why not all of them? Suggests he did indeed kill the six, and only those
Carver's employer: Reginald Wilkins -- roommate: Robert Angell

Interview with Robert Angell
Dirty, dusty, unkempt apt; dimly lit; cockroaches; macabre/fantastical literature (Poe, Machen, Dunsany etc) - very suggestive atmosphere
TC taking drugs - up and about at weird hours - having "moods" lately, "talking gibberish" for short periods (poss- drug-induced?)
TC never mentioned specifics about the murders
One new client: professor at Arch. dept, Brown U. follow up!
TC went to D.P. Freak Show two nights in a row - significant?

[Inferno]

Sam Archer:

Stockpiling clues here:

"The private eye gets to work with a methodical search of Hazrabad's cabin. He finds a bibliographic treatise on books about the occult, in which there is enclosed a piece of paper with a 121 Chapel Hill Road, London, address for a Church of Starry Wisdom. There is a folder with four open ended ship tickets for Amsterdam, an Orient Express train schedule, and maps to Mt. Latmos and environs in Turkey. Archer also finds a 78 rpm record by the Hepcats of Ulthar, inscribed in the center: "From one cool cat to another. Cthulhu fthagn." He finds a mysterious note of thanks for an unspecified favor, written by a Konstantin Chertovskii on letterhead from the Shunned House, 16 Shady Lane, Brooklyn, NY. In a large briefcase under the bed Archer strikes gold: two masks that match pictures he has from the museum."


"The dick finds something new though: correspondence with a Konstantin Chertovskii on letterhead from the Shunned House, 16 Shady Lane, Brooklyn, NY. It is dated a few weeks ago and reads:
"Received the goods and will distribute as discussed. Sources tell us it has been found. Get to Mt. Latmos and secure. Give greetings to our colleagues, they shoukd go if necessary.
Cthulhu fthagn brother,
Konstantin"

Not finding anything else, Archer returns to the brig to check in. There he is handed A telegram from the Museum of Natural History, his employer on this case. It reads:
"Museum consortium discovered further thefts. Chase this ring down and stop them! Further monies wired to your account. Send update ASAP."

Sam Archer the private eye asks Agent Watson about the elusive Ambrose Carcosa.

"We haven't gotten leads on Carcosa's whereabouts. We have Wanted notices in area police stations and BOI offices. Agents in those areas referenced in letters - New York, New Orleans, Phoenix - are following up on the local persons of interest. We can't exactly put his face in newspapers, as he hasn't technically broken any laws."

Archer uses his time in the Providence BOI office to review the letters in the Carcosa files. They are from individuals known and unknown and contain disturbing revelations. He notes details in letters he examines:

- From Konstantin Chertovski: The Russian cites particular museums and collections that match those that were victims of thefts. There is only one museum and item mentioned that has not been victim: Harvard's Peabody Essex Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and their fragment of the Codex Beltran-Escavy. The gumshoe never heard of this; perhaps one of the professors will know of it.

- From Harlow Shapley, astronomer, Columbia University: Ancient star patterns and their change over thousands of years; positions particularly around the solstice of this year, 1925.

- From Zydeca Acerant, singer of the jazz band Hepcats of Ulthar: Her list of tour date locations goes up to the end of the month (September, today being the 15th.) They are:
Sept. 11-12: Philadelphia
Sept. 18-19: Baltimore
Sept. 25-26: Washington DC

- From HP Lovecraft, pulp writer: Wondering if Carcosa is taking refuge at Lovecraft's Providence abode, Archer decides to call the author. He consults the Providence Telephone Directory and locates the phone number. It rings five times before a lady answers. "Yes, he lives in the building. This is a house phone. Hold on."

A minute later a tired sounding, high pitched male voice says: "Good afternoon sir, this is Howard Lovecraft."

- From Algier Joassaint, manager, Dark Pharaoh Freak Show & Carnivale: The upcoming schedule is -
Sept. 11-12: Narbeth, PA, outside Philadelphia
Sept. 18-19: Aberdeen, near Baltimore
Sept. 25-26: Reston, VA, outside of Washington DC

- From Glenda Heinreich, Amsterdam: Recounting weekends of decadent sex parties in which unprecedented levels of "orgone" accumulation were reached.

- From Eduardo Himenez, Madrid: The self-professed artist of the surreal is, like his rantings Archer heard on The White Ship, writing barely understandable rigamarole about otherworldly something-or-others and love and magic.

Letter One:

There is no place in here, nor moment. No familiar semblances. The mind-forms here being concerned with nothing that's not ultimately mind itself. The shapes here have no correspondence in the formal world. They are the shape of Yevtushenko's poems, Chopin’s etudes, Gödel’s math. Here in these incoherent oceans of unmolded possibility, systems of thought provide the only landmass. Theory and belief are all we have to walk upon, where language is a shell-swept beach, where algebra's an endless ghostly boulevard.

Suspended in this glimmering continuum, islands of supposition, continents of paradigm, tides of opinion lap in fabulous lagoons of proof, bringing a slow erosion, gradual change of contour. Here, the shifts in understanding are tectonic, diastrophic rumbles in the core, volcanoes of renaissance threatening to spit their heat and gold to cover all the world with their bright, dangerous precipitations. Smuts of change and novelty unwinnable borne on the jet streams of cold inspiration.

The depths are soundless, off the map, there is no sextant that will read the constellations here, yet are there hazards, undertows of falsehood, eddies of delusion in the bedlam reefs. Riding elated swirls of reason, bear in mind that nothing is unsinkable. The Palm Court orchestra plays on, beneath these fog-banked ambiguities rear intellectual icebergs.

No paranoid Magellan named these straits, autistic Heyerdahl or thorazined Cabot, the toothpicked scums of shattered coracle and surfs of splinter stitch the white caps to these slick gray shores, with here and there the footprint of some prior explorer, inmate or philosopher. Beyond a ribboned shingle of assumption, shifting dunes of creed, there is the scorched air whiff of a synaptic ozone, spindrift, gusted from cerebrospinal tropics. Underfoot, a tide line litter of rejected notions, worm-shot timbers from wrecked ideologies, discredited beliefs. In reason's rock pools seen, a ferning coral of dead faeries.

Above, strong light bursts out through solipsistic cumuli. The dazzle of near comprehension leaves a gibberish of phosphorescent scribble on the psychic retina. Over these beachheads of corpus callosum, strung between two hemispheres, there burns an equatorial sun of fact and data. Best not risk the information tan that brings disfiguring bikini lines of ignorance or, worse, the sunstroke of religion. Make for shade. The tree line looms ahead. Pull back the snarled anxiety of bramble and plunge ego first, into the undergrowth. Miasmal thicket darkness here, its chill immediate. Press on. Thorned snags of dogma tearing at the ankles, out into the sudden dappled bright, the eerie cross breeze of a clearing. The atmosphere here coruscates, thick with impending diamond. Through the spike lit blur an intimation of delirium's foliage clipped back, ordered into a Magritte topiary. Now a bordered path, redolence of park and arbour, wind chime scent of honeysuckle. With each step, a burgeoning of form, a greater density. Belatedly, the thought occurs: What life might this ethereal clime support? Ecologies of ectoplasm? And what Flora? And what Fauna? The air here crackles, viscous and intense, humid with meaning. The posited terrain grows steeper, rising up towards the domed pavilions of the spectre garden, flickering radiance of its exhibits brushed across the sky ahead. Struggle upslope the last few yards become a headlong rush into the raw mouth of this brilliant wind.

Letter Two

I love you. There is no such thing as magic. Just allow it in your minds. Allow it. This great vaulted ballroom of the sweet intangible, that soars above us, bustling with the throng unseen, their great excitement, their anticipation palpable. Convene the flickering ones and those hilarious phosphorescences that pass through with a pleasant shudder. Bring the ones like sparks, the ones that swoop and drone above massive and immaterial as Mahler. Ones with fine and strange ideas that spin and shimmer on their open palms like gyroscopes. The delicate one, all in crystal, vast as a cathedral. Let us feel the incandescent breeze fanned from its million stained-glass wings that flutter slow and perfect. Synchronized. Let them surround us now and trace their fingers down our cheek and whisper things we never dreamed or had forgotten. There is something happening. I love you. They want to talk. They want to dance. They flare and shimmer in and out of being, throne and power and chimera, sylph and demiurge, the drunk, ecstatic laugh of naked giants swimming in the aviary trill and flutter of this splendid radiance. They soar. They bellow, fierce with joy, and sing sweet prilling scales of blue, of gold, from throats like chandeliers. Trace neon-moth trajectories through Idea-Space and hover in the cold, true glow of an imagined firmament. Here, in the still eye of this glamour, in this roaring white of now, let us perceive the moment's wingèd, burnished soul and read the pure and voiceless name that's written there in strange barbaric characters, we know with other eyes. And it is beautiful and it is frightening. The clouds peel back and vast symphonic forms peer down, inchoate presence, stooping low. The choral sky and thought move to another state, become prismatic vapour in the shuddering light, and there is something happening. There is something happening. You already know this.

I am talking to ourself. We are listening to myself. As everything draws closer in the telepathic susurrus, the kindly night of eyes, and we remember what we are and know it for the first time. Each self now unfolded, gem fern fractal shape of every life revealed in all its tentacled magnificence. The light grows stronger. Something gains upon us from within, and now the banquet, now the rain of stars, now the embrace, the kiss of the invisible. I love you. There is something happening. There is only one moment. There is only one room. There is one person here. I love you. You already know this. You already know this.

There is no such thing as magic.
Is no such thing as magic.
No such thing as magic.
Such thing as magic.
Thing as magic.
As magic.
Magic.

Or is there real meaning here given the cult? Or false meanings which drive dark motivations with deadly consequences?

- From Horace and Henrietta Whately, London: Distribution of "goods" to fellow supporters in time to prepare for the "celebration." The last letter is a telegram, from Instanbul, dated the day before the Miskatonic  Expedition headed out Mt. Latmos. It reads: "Will follow MU party to secure the stone."

[Grognardsw]

The clues and leads are stacking up I know, and can seem tough to follow mixed into all the posts, so posting here as you've been doing is a good idea to help connect the dots. As characters share what they know, it comes together quicker.

Reginald: "It appears some new drug is involved, then it is having the same effects here, with Timothy, and elsewhere, because we are seeing the same effects. Since they are all being discovered around the same time, isn't it safe to assume that the same person or group is distributing the drug? Doesn't that imply a conspiracy?"

They return to the pictures... many of them have a woman featured. What can that mean...?

Pictures








Marius Albertoni, the hunter: "Couldn't find trail for lost goat. How could that be? When I walked down to my mailbox at end of road, I saw a midget going through my mail. When he saw me approaching, drove away in rickety truck with another driving. Concerned."

[SocraticLawyer]

From Reginald's book-related research, with updates as he learns them:

Regarding Carcosa/general information about the cult:
The Pnakotic Manuscripts volume seems to be most intriguing, though the Testament of Selene will also bear closer reading. Several archeology books show a pattern of interest in ancient worship sites of moon gods and goddesses. Astrology books reflect an interest in Pluto and speculations of distant stars beyond. There are implications that there are certain star arrangements pending in an unknown but imminent time frame. This Carcosa has a surprising amount of knowledge in this area. Another member of the cult, Dr. Hazrabad, has written to Carcosa on several topics, including the stealing and using of artifacts in ceremonies. Hazrabad also mentioned the Latmos location as one of great interest. There also appears to be some connection between Carcosa, the cult, New England area Masonic lodges, and the Church of Starry Wisdom.

The Pnakotic Manuscripts refer to an entity called Nyarlathotep. The word can be traced to ancient Egyptian antecedents. The name is a contraction of ny har rut hotep, meaning "there is no peace (safety, rest) at the gate." The significance of this title is apparently that Nyarlathotep, in his role as messenger of the Outer Gods, is the "gateway" between the planes, and specifically between their dimensions and ours, or at least that is how the ancient Egyptian cultists viewed the matter.

Regarding Azathoth and Other Horrors :
Poems, "unnatural," difficult to sleep after reading it. Was in the possession of cult that tried to murder Harold. The name Azathoth seems derived from the biblical names Anathoth (Jeremiah's home town) and Azazel (a desert demon to which the scapegoat was sacrificed). The alchemical term "Azoth" was used in the title of a book by Arthur Edward Waite. Also of note is the obvious inspiration from Thoth, the ancient Egyptian god of wisdom. Contains references to Dark Yuggoth (a tenth planet?), Nyarlathotep, and much more. More info to come.

Regarding the Pnakotic Manuscripts:
There are bibliographic notes in the beginning. The Pnakotic Manuscripts claim to predate the origin of man. The original manuscripts were in scroll form and were passed down through the ages. A "Great Race of Yith" is referenced. It is claimed they produced the first five chapters of the Manuscripts, which, among other things, contain a detailed chronicle of their history.

The Pnakotic Manuscripts were originally held by the people of Lomar, who studied them diligently. Later, they were passed to Hyperborea and translated into the language of that land. Here the manuscripts were added to by the Voormi. The Manuscripts survived into historical times and been translated into Greek in this version known as the Pnakotica.

The core text of the Pnakotic Manuscripts, Pnakotos, was written in 4th century AD (Hellenistic or Koine) Greek by (alledgely) Hypatia herself, who recalled extremely accurately the libraries in which she studied while a resident of Pnakotos. It is hinted that she was under the influence of the oracle-mists of Selene the moon goddess. It has been supplemented and revised by 'Great Race' scholars and their 'victims,' and also by comparison with apocryphal texts said to have descended from the Great Race in historical time. It also includes many of the texts Hypatia saved from the Pnakotos 'disaster' (not identified) as appendices. These are mostly texts of Greek and Egyptian mystical philosophy and Alchemy. There are fantasistic claims of spells and rituals connected with Time, the Great Race, and Greco-Egyptian neo-platonic and alchemical mysticism.

The Lost City of Pnakotus (also called the Library City, The Lost City of the Archives and Pnakotis) is the primordial city where the 'Great Race' housed their enormous library. The library of Pnakotus held the Pnakotic Manuscripts, a legendary tome containing a detailed chronicle of the Great Race's history, among other things. Copies of this manuscript would later be passed down through the ages, eventually falling into the hands of sinister cults which would guard them into modern times.

Puzzling references which relate to real world locale:

"No man had scaled to the home of earth's god since the time of Sansu, who is written of with fright in the moldy Pnakotic Manuscripts. Now it is told in the moldy Pnakotic Manuscripts that Sansu found naught but wordless ice and rock when he did climb Hatheg-Kla in the youth of the world. Yet when the men of Ulthar and Nir and Hatheg... scaled that haunted steep by day in search of Barzai the Wise, they found graven in the naked stone of the summit a curious and cyclopean symbol... like to one that learned men have discerned in those frightful parts of the Pnakotic Manuscripts which were too ancient to be read."

Consultation with ancient cartographies reveals Hatheg-Kla is in present day Turkey.

"The Pnakotic Manuscripts mention the subterranean gulf of 'Zim', but all scholars from de Galimatias and Zu Dumkopf onward have agreed that this is really a reference to the Vaults of 'Zin'. "

Can be used as Mythos reference. Contains instructions for multiple spells.

Regarding Testament of Selene :
Can be used as Mythos reference. Contains instructions for multiple spells. See FrankL's post below.

Regarding the Cthäat Aquadingen:
The book deals with mythological unnameable sea-horrors. Created by an unknown medieval author, the word "Cthaat" is of unknown origin, "Aquadingen" roughly translates to "things of water". Aqua is Latin for "water", dingen German for "things". This book is a matter of considerable controversy. It also contains many so-called Sathlattae, rituals and spells related to Ubbo-Sathla. Some say that The Cthäat Aquadingen is only one in a series of similar books of forbidden lore collected in northern Europe around the year 400, as the manuscripts found within this volume bear great resemblance to those in the other volumes (Codex Dagonensis). A Latin version was apparently written between the 11th and 12th century, as was an English translation that appeared sometime in the 14th century. The more recent copies of this book are in English, and at least one Hindi copy has turned up.

Regarding the Malleus Maleficarum:
Commonly rendered into English as "Hammer of [the] Witches") is a treatise on the prosecution of witches, written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer, a German Catholic clergyman. The book was first published in Speyer, Germany, in 1487. Jacob Sprenger is also often attributed as an author, but some scholars now believe that he became associated with the Malleus Maleficarum largely as a result of Kramer's wish to lend his book as much official authority as possible. In 1490, three years after its publication, the Catholic Church condemned the Malleus Maleficarum, although it was later used by royal courts during the Renaissance, and contributed to the increasingly brutal prosecution of witchcraft during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Regarding the Unaussprechlichen Kulten:
Believed to have been written by Friedrich Wilhelm von Junzt. The text contains information on cults that worship pre-human deities. The first edition of the German text (referred to by some as "the Black Book") appeared in 1839 in Düsseldorf. The English edition was issued by Bridewall in London in 1845, but (being meant to sell purely based on shock-value) contained numerous misprints and was badly translated. A heavily expurgated edition was later issued in New York by Golden Goblin Press in 1909, but sold few copies as its high production costs made it prohibitively expensive. Original editions in German have a heavy leather cover and iron hasps. Few copies of the earliest edition still exist because most were burnt by their owners when word of von Junzt's gruesome demise became common knowledge.

Regarding the Revelations of Gla'aki :
Gla'aki was an ancient pagan god whose dreams were communicated to and transcribed by its cult's priests in twelve volumes. The 1865 edition published by the Matterhorn Press of Highgate, England, is contained in nine volumes, described as "edited, organised and corrected". A small edition printed exclusively for subscribers, it is now extremely rare.

[Starbeard]

Marius Albteroni's Notebook

August 10th, Arkham:

• found dead body in woods. Girl in bathing dress, missing head and hands. Perhaps killed as early as August 3rd. Later learned girl went to Miskatonic U.
• Tracks nearby led to the old river mill. M.U. archaeology class dug there. Led by Dr. David Clarke, went on hiatus c. 3 weeks ago (July 20th?), will be continued next Spring.
• Blood found at the site, and a ticket stub to the Dark Pharaoh's Fantastic Freak Show in the basement.

August 11th, Innsmouth:

• went to Freak Show to investigate. Met the Egyptian seeress, who had a Miskatonic U. ring (with many others) on her necklace. Shut up when confronted about the murder.

Late August/Early September, Arkham:

• at night, witnessed a strange, high-pitched noises outside of the house, very unnatural. One of my goats now missing, no tracks.
• next day, caught a midget I saw at Dark Pharaoh's snooping through my mail. Got away in a truck with a big guy.

September 12th, Arkham:

• later, found family cat dead on doorstep, poisoned. Tracks of small person (the midget?) led out to main street.
• learned that dead M.U. girl is from a rich family. The father has hired one Gordon Pym to investigate. Now have Pym's phone number.
• Spoke with Pym. Girl's surname is Cranston, a senior at M.U.

September 13th, Worcester:

• Visiting The Dark Pharaoh's freak show with Eddie Sharpe and Gordon Pym.
• Cornered the seeress, who turned out to be a crass actress, as expected. She bent under pressure, but said the carnies were just lackies, and The Dark Pharaoh was the mind behind things.
• Confronted the Pharaoh in his gypsy wagon. Tall, dark-skinned man with pointy teeth and obsessed with Egyptiana. Was wearing a buck's head as a mask. He cast a strange spell and got away, but Sharpe was attacked by a cobra.
• The carnies tried bagging us while I rushed Sharpe to the hospital, and we lost track of Pym somewhere at the carnival. Haven't re-established contact yet.

September 14th, Providence, MA:

• Went with Eddie Sharpe to meet up with BOI agents at Charter Book Shop in Providence, RI.

One Day after the Raid of the Shunned House

• Read some of the Pnakotic Manuscripts. Unbelievable stuff, about "The Great Race" and their library at the "Lost City of Pnakotus."
• In the PM, read some blasphemy about Mt. Hatheg-Kla in Turkey being the home of God. Some myth figure named Sansu climbed it and found only ice and rock; later, the "men of Ulthar and Nir and Hatheg" climbed it to search for Barzai the Wise, and found a symbol that's also supposed to be frequent in the oldest part of the PM.
• More on the PM: ancient Egyptians believed Nyarlathotep (ny har rut hotep, "there is no peace at the gate") was the messenger of the Outer Gods, and acted as the "gateway" between their dimensions and ours. Could this have something to do with the gates we've been finding? What about the owl banshee?
• Reginald has provided some of his notes on the Xaqlui section of the book (see below).

[FrankL]

Harold's research has shown:

Background of Selene for The Testament of Selene.

In Greek mythology, Selene (/sɨˈliːni/; Greek Σελήνη [selɛ̌ːnɛː] 'moon';) is the goddess of the moon. She is the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, and sister of the sun-god Helios, and Eos, goddess of the dawn. She drives her moon chariot across the heavens. Several lovers are attributed to her in various myths, including Zeus, Pan, and the mortal Endymion. In classical times, Selene was often identified with Artemis, much as her brother, Helios, was identified with Apollo. Both Selene and Artemis were also associated with Hecate, and all three were regarded as lunar goddesses, although only Selene was regarded as the personification of the moon itself. Her Roman equivalent is Luna.

Selene is best known for her affair with the beautiful mortal Endymion. The late 7th-century – early 6th-century BC poet Sappho apparently mentioned Selene and Endymion. However, the first direct account comes from the third-century BC Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes, which tells of Selene's "mad passion" and her visiting the "fair Endymion" in a cave on Mount Latmus:

"And the Titanian goddess, the moon, rising from a far land, beheld her [Medea] as she fled distraught, and fiercely exulted over her, and thus spake to her own heart: 'Not I alone then stray to the Latmian cave, nor do I alone burn with love for fair Endymion; oft times with thoughts of love have I been driven away by thy crafty spells, in order that in the darkness of night thou mightest work thy sorcery at ease, even the deeds dear to thee. And now thou thyself too hast part in a like mad passion; and some god of affliction has given thee Jason to be thy grievous woe. Well, go on, and steel thy heart, wise though thou be, to take up thy burden of pain, fraught with many sighs.' "

Quintus Smyrnaeus' The Fall of Troy tells that, while Endymion slept in his cave beside his cattle, "Selene watched him from on high, and slid from heaven to earth; for passionate love drew down the immortal stainless Queen of Night." The eternally sleeping Endymion was proverbial, but exactly how this eternal sleep came about and what role, if any, Selene may have had in it is unclear.

In antiquity, artistic representations of Selene included sculptural reliefs, vase paintings, coins, and gems. In red-figure pottery before the early 5th century BC, she is depicted only as a bust, or in profile against a lunar disk. In later art, like other celestial divinities, such as Helios, Eos, and Nyx ("night"), Selene rides across the heavens. She is usually portrayed either driving a chariot, or riding sidesaddle on horseback (or sometimes on an ox or bull, mule, or ram).

Dr. Mathers consults many books in Reginald's shop as part of this research:

Allen, Thomas W., E. E. Sikes. The Homeric Hymns, edited, with preface, apparatus criticus, notes, and appendices. London. Macmillan. 1904.
Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.
Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica; with an English translation by R. C. Seaton. William Heinemann, 1912.
Catullus. The Carmina of Gaius Valerius Catullus. Leonard C. Smithers. London. Smithers. 1894.
Cicero, Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, translated by C. D. Yonge; Harpers & Brothers, publishers, 1888.
Cook, Arthur Bernard, Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Volume I: Zeus God of the Bright Sky, Cambridge University Press 1914.
Edmonds, John Maxwell, Lyra Graeca, W. Heinemann, 1922.
Evelyn-White, Hugh, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Homeric Hymns. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.
Fairbanks, Arthur, The Mythology of Greece and Rome. D. Appleton–Century Company, New York, 1907.
Hesiod, Theogony, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.
Lucian, The Works of Lucian of Samosata. Translated by Fowler, H W and F G. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. 1905.
Mitchell, Lucy M., "Sculptures of the Great Pergamon Altar" in The Century Magazine, 1883.
Murray, Alexander Stuart, Handbook of Greek Archæology, John Murray, 1892.
Murray, Alexander Stuart, The Sculptures of the Parthenon, John Murray, 1903.
Ovid, Amores in Ovid's Art of Love (in three Books), the Remedy of Love, the Art of Beauty, the Court of Love, the History of Love, and Amours. Anne Mahoney. edited for Perseus. New York. Calvin Blanchard. 1855.
Ovid, Heroides, in The Epistles of Ovid, London. J. Nunn, Great-Queen-Street; R. Priestly, 143, High-Holborn; R. Lea, Greek-Street, Soho; and J. Rodwell, New-Bond-Street. 1813.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, Brookes More. Boston. Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922.

Apollonius of Rhodes is one of the many poets who tell how Selene, the Titan goddess of the moon, loved the mortal god-son Endymion. She believed him to be so beautiful that she asked Endymion's father, Zeus, to grant him eternal youth so that he would never leave her. In alternative translations, Selene so loved how Endymion looked when he was asleep in the cave on Mount Latmus, near Miletus in Caria, that she entreated Zeus that he might remain that way. In either case, Zeus granted her wish and put him into an eternal sleep. Every night, Selene visited him where he slept. Selene and Endymion had fifty daughters who are equated by some scholars with the fifty months of the Olympiad.

The myth of Endymion being not dead but endlessly asleep, which was proverbial (the proverb - Endymionis somnum dormire, "to sleep the sleep of Endymion") ensured that scenes of Endymion and Selene were popular subjects for sculpted sarcophagi in Late Antiquity, when after-death existence began to be a heightened concern. The Louvre example, found at Saint-Médard d'Eyrans, France, is one of this class. The myth of Endymion was never easily transferred to ever-chaste Artemis, the Olympian associated with the Moon. In the Renaissance, the revived moon goddess Diana had the Endymion myth attached to her.

There are inferences to a Cult of witches, sometimes referred to as dream oracles, who hermited away in the caves. They were said to communicate with and get visions from their goddess. Certain implications of language suggest they may have received their visions under the stupor of drugs. Lunar eclipses and the phenomena of the "red moon" were believed to be caused by the occult actions of these dream oracles, who drew the goddess down from the sky in order to extract her blood. It was customary for villagers to beat cymbals at these times, to negate the witches' power and restore the goddess to the sky.

Plato, Gorgias 513a (trans. Lamb) (Greek philosopher C4th B.C.) :
"Sokrates : May that we not suffer, my distinguished friend, the fate that they say befalls the creatures who would draw down the Moon (selênê)--the Thettalides (women of Thessaly)." [N.B. Sokrates alludes to the popular theory that the practice of witchcraft is a serious danger to the practitioner.]

Ovid, Metamorphoses 7. 207 ff (trans. Melville) (Roman epic C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) :
"[Medea the witch cries out to the sky gods :] Thee too, bright Luna [Selene the Moon], I banish, though thy throes the clanging bronze assuage; under my spells even my grandsire’s [Helios the Sun’s] chariot grows pale and Aurora [Eos the Dawn] pales before my poison’s power."

Most mythologists assumed that Selene was an older moon goddess that was replaced later by Artemis in myth. The only other significant story mentioning Selene in ancient Greek mythology is that of the Nemean Lion, whom it is said that Selene had great affection for.

The Testament of Selene includes a collection of several documents saved over the years from scribes who worked at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, home of the famed Oracle of Delphi. In a section known as "The Vampire Bible", the history of Selene is told in full. Before she was Selene The Moon Goddess, she was a simple human woman named Selene who worked at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. It is believed that her sister was the Pythia, or Oracle, of the temple. Either way, Selene worked as a Maiden of the Temple, who assisted the Oracle and cared for the temple. Selene was a worshiper of Apollo (Greek mythology), the sun god, originally, until he cursed her true love, Ambrogio, who eventually became the first vampire.

The couple was given protection by Apollo's sister Artemis, the moon goddess, and they moved to Ephesus to worship and serve Artemis at her famous temple there.

Ambrogio was immortal and did not age, but Selene was still mortal and eventually became older and presumably sick. In exchange for their protection, Artemis insisted that the couple could never touch (Artemis was a virgin goddess and all of her closest followers were virgins as well). Therefore the couple never had children.

On Selene's deathbed, Artemis allowed Ambrogio, now a vampire, to drink Selene's blood. Their combined blood could create their "children" after Selene's death, essentially turning any human who drank the blood into a vampire.

Selene died and Artemis made her an immortal goddess of the moon. Specifically, "Selene the moon goddess" is actually "Selene the moonlight goddess". Selene is the personification of the moonlight that finds its way to Earth. In this form, she can finally touch her husband and children.

SELENE & THE NEMEIAN LION

Aelian, On Animals 12. 7 (trans. Scholfield) (Greek natural history C2nd A.D.) :
"They say that the Lion of Nemea fell from the moon (selene). At any rate Epimenides [C6th B.C. poet] also has these words : `For I am sprung from fair-tressed Selene the Moon, who in a fearful shudder shook off the savage lion in Nemea, and brought him forth at the bidding of Queen Hera.'"

Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 30 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd A.D.) :
"The Nemean Lion, an invulnerable monster, which Luna [Selene] had nourished in a two-mouthed cave, he [Herakles] slew and took the pelt for defensive covering."

Seneca, Hercules Furens 83 ff (trans. Miller) (Roman tragedy C1st A.D.) :
"Let Luna [Selene the moon] in the sky produce still other monstrous creatures. But he [Herakles] has conquered such as these [i.e. the Nemeian lion, born of the moon]."

CHILDREN OF SELENE

Selene was the mother of the goddesses Pandia (All-Gifts), Ersa (Dew), the Menai (Months), and some say of the four Horai (Seasons). Her only mortal child was the poet Mousaios.

Homeric Hymn 32 to Selene (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C7th - 4th B.C.) :
"Once Kronides [Zeus the rain-god] was joined with her [Selene the moon] in love; and she conceived an bare a daughter Pandeia (All Divine), exceeding lovely amongst the deathless gods." [N.B. Pandeia is surely the same as Ersa (All-Nourishing Dew), cf. Alcman below.]

Alcman, Fragment 57 (trans. Campbell, Vol. Greek Lyric II) (C7th B.C.) :
"Such things as are nurtured by Ersa (Dew), daughter of Zeus and Selene (Moon)."

Ion of Chios, Fragment 30A Elegies (from Philodemus, On Piety) (trans. Campbell, Vol. Greek Lyric IV) (C5th B.C.) :
"And Musaios [the mythical singer] is said by Orpheus to have been her [Selene's] son, Ion calls him moon-fallen."

Plato, The Republic 364d (trans. Shorey) (Greek philosopher C4th B.C.) :
"The [mystic] books of Musaios and Orpheus, the offspring of Selene (Moon) and of the Mousa (Muse), as they affirm."

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5. 1. 4 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) :
"Selene, they say, fell in love with this Endymion and bore him fifty daughters [i.e. the Menai, fifty months of the four year Olympiad]."

Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 10. 334 ff (trans. Way) (Greek epic C4th A.D.) :
"Seated at her [Hera's] side were handmaids four whom radiant-faced Selene bare to Helios (the Sun) to be unwearying ministers in Heaven, in form and office diverse each from each; for of these Horai (Seasons) one was summer's queen, and one of winter and his stormy star, of spring the third, of autumn-tide the fourth."

Pseudo-Hyginus, Preface (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd A.D.) :
"From Jove [Zeus] and Luna [Selene] [was born] : Pandia."

[Grognardsw]

Putting the Puzzle Together; Where Next to Focus

Charters Book Shop
Providence, RI
6:00 pm, Sept. 12, 1925

At Charters Book Shop the investigators discuss the murder and cult investigation. Book dealer Reginald Wilkins, wise old man Isaiah Bartlett, Prof. Harold Matthers, BOI Agent Gwen Baines and Reporter Eddie Sharpe share their evidence and research.

They agree there is a cult behind the gruesome and ritualistic murders. Many suspect, with varying degrees of skepticism, a supernatural element in the cult. Timothy Carver's books, notes and strange unknown language; the mysterious and missing Carcosa, his books, letters and gruesome bloody bedroom; the eccentric jazz tonalities of the Hepcats of Ulthar and their singing in the same language as Carver; the eye-within-a-pentragram symbol that keeps popping up; the disturbing revelations found in the Pnakotic Manuscripts; the coincidences of pictures and text having to do with women and perhaps the mythological Selene. These are all pieces of the puzzle which the investigators are putting together. Is there indeed a large cult group, in multiple locations along the East Coast (and possibly beyond) with unknown motivations? Dr. Matthers' story about Emberhead is disturbing, though unfortunate that said town (and evidence) no longer exists.

The influence of drugs is brought up, but Agent Baines seems to discount that.

The Pnakotic Manuscripts makes fantastic claims that stretch the credulity, believed in earnest by only three men in the group. But it would explain much. The Unaussprechlichen Kulten, history of cults, touches upon a few similarities but of most interest is the drawings of heads on a pole, for that seems a mighty coincidence to the headless victims. The implication is there is some sort of ritual or sacrifice involved with the decapitated head. The Testament of Selene, which Dr. Matters is beginning to read, may cast further light on the mystery. There is, after all, reference in the Pnakotic Manuscripts to ancient alien races; and that one of its authors, Hypatia, being under the influence of the oracle-mists of Selene the moon goddess when writing her sections. All in all, Reginald, Isaiah and Dr. Matthers feel they are making headway in uncovering more dark revelations.

Isaiah agrees to go to Boston tomorrow interview the surviving 15-year-old boy whose family was murdered and their heads and hands removed. It is an hour train ride from Providence to Winchester, outside of Boston, where the boy is currently residing with an aunt.

The investigators know they must do what they can. While each individual has limited resources, as a group they bring together considerable expertise and skills. They consider it a blessing that, at least at a mundane level, the federal Bureau of Investigation and various police organizations are aware of the murders. Those organizations can be tapped for resources, and if made aware of the real nature and magnitude of the problem, can certainly become forces to be reckoned with.

The power of the press is also in their hands with Eddie Sharpe. The reporter realizes he must tread carefully in what claims he makes, when and how. He could blow open the story and prompt larger regional and national coverage, or he could embarrass his paper with crazy talk.

The men compare what next steps they can take:

1. Agent Baines confirms there will be a raid on Club Zothique tomorrow night. Given the expertise of the investigators, the BOI has asked them to accompany the agents on this raid. They hope you will see first-hand any signs, clues or evidence that the more mundane minds of the agents might not catch. At the very least, the BOI can shut down the club for violations of the Volstead Act. Best case, they discover proof of the murder ring (or cult, think the investigators.)

2. Interviewing of other witnesses or persons of interest: the teenage boy, the wino who had four heads in a bag.

3. Talking with the mysterious old man Mr. Randolph, who visited Reginald's store a few days ago searching for books on mystic travel.

4. Tracking down the Hepcats of Ulthar jazz band, which according to Eddie are in Boston with some dates at the Cotton Club and Roxy's Moxy.

5. Tying in the Arkham murders and investigation of The Dark Pharoah's Freak Show & Carnivale, where the Seeress had a Miskatonic University ring. One of the victims was a student there. Come to think of it, wasn't there a live headless woman attraction? Marius Albertoni the hunter found the bodies, and saw the Seeress' ring, and has been harassed afterwards. Should he be brought in? The circus is currently in Worcester, MA. Investigation of the circus is best done as a group.

6. Reginald and Isaiah recall letters in Carcosa's apartment. They glanced at them and saw correspondence with Amsterdam, London, Long Island NY. Carcosa said he was going to look those over...

7. Continued research and reading of the Pnakotic Manuscripts and Testament of Selene. This will take 3-4 more days given the translation process, size and density of the books.

[DadsAngry]

Miskatonic Expedition:

Dr. David Clarke, archeologist
Dr. Raymond Randolph - Dead or Missing
Dr. Edith Walton
Dr. Francis Morgan, archeologist, minor in geology
Professor Ferdinand C. Ashley, ancient history - Dead or Missing
Finnegan McClain - Dead

[Grognardsw]

As Harold ruminates on the knowledge he has learned, his mind brings forth old references to poems found in his Azathoth and Others.

In particular, Dark Yuggoth...

The Courtyard...

and Nyerlathotep...

---

Spells from the Pnakotic Manuscripts

Brew Dream Drug and Brew Space Mead...

Dream Vision...

Journey to the Other Side...

Mesmerize...

Send Dreams...

Shining Trapezohedron

This enchantment rewards or damns the caster with visions of other worlds, dimensions, and mind-expanding epiphanies. However, it needs the referred-to trapezohedron crystal to work. Reginald's study of this spell quickly infers this, so he may study a different spell if he wishes.

Elder Sign

Find Gate

[Grognardsw]

Carcosa letters:

- Letters to Carcosa from Konstantin Chertovskii on letterhead from the Shunned House, 16 Shady Lane, Brooklyn, NY. References to import and export of unspecified goods in the U.S. (Boston, New York, New Orleans, Phoenix) and abroad (Amsterdam, London, Brugue/Belgium, Instanbul/Turkey). Discussion of museum collections.

- Letters to/from Church of Starry Wisdom in London, at 121 Chapel Hill Road, about unspecified spiritual and philosophical matters, from an unnamed person signed "Your friend." References opening a church in New Orleans and Phoenix.

- Correspondence with real estate agents in New Orleans and Phoenix regarding properties to purchase.

- Letters to/from discussing astrology with astrology teacher at Columbia University in New York City. Star patterns, movement of stars in sky, etc.

- Letters from a Ubaid Hazrabad, from Egypt, discussing various archeology sites in Turkey.

- Letters to/from two book dealers, one in New York City and one in Cambridge, MA. References book searches for certain occult, archeology and historical volumes.

- Letters to/from a Zydeca Acerant, who Baines deduces is the singer of the Hepcats of Ulthar, discussing the band's tour schedule. The addresses are various hotels in different cities.

- Letters to/from a Providence author, H.P. Lovecraft, about story ideas.

- Letters to/from Algier Joassaint, manager, The Dark Pharaoh Freak Show & Carnivale, regarding tour schedule and "unspecified favors."

- Letters to/from James Ford, president, The Explorers Club, New York. References investment of time and money in unspecified endeavors. Purchases of real estate in New York. Majority interest holdings in entertainment businesses.

- Letters to/from Glenda Heinreich, Amsterdam; Eduardo Himenez, Madrid; and Horace and Henrietta Whateley, London and Luxembourg.

Xaqloui translations:

- In the letters to/from Church of Starry Wisdom in London, at 121 Chapel Hill Road, about unspecified spiritual and philosophical matters, from an unnamed person signed "Your friend." References opening a church in New Orleans and Phoenix. Xaqloui: "Converts are growing. The Truth cannot be denied. We will pave the way Oh Messenger!"

- Letters from a Ubaid Hazrabad, from Egypt, discussing various archeology sites in Turkey. Xaqloui: "We are distributing the artifacts for the ceremonies. Mt. Latmos is the key. oh master!"

- Letters to/from Algier Joassaint, manager, The Dark Pharaoh Freak Show & Carnivale, regarding tour schedule and "unspecified favors." Xaqloui: "We will continue to gather heads."

- Letters to/from James Ford, president, The Explorers Club, New York. References investment of time and money in unspecified endeavors. Purchases of real estate in New York. Majority interest holdings in entertainment businesses. Xaqloui: "Our network of clubs is growing. Closed on majority ownership of Voodoo Harry's in New Orleans and Cactus Club in Phoenix."

- Letters to/from Glenda Heinreich, Amsterdam; Eduardo Himenez, Madrid; and Horace and Henrietta Whateley, London and Luxembourg. Xaqloui: "We live to serve you Master, and await His arrival."

[Grognardsw]

Sam Archer the private eye asks Agent Watson about the elusive Ambrose Carcosa.

"We haven't gotten leads on Carcosa's whereabouts. We have Wanted notices in area police stations and BOI offices. Agents in those areas referenced in letters - New York, New Orleans, Phoenix - are following up on the local persons of interest. We can't exactly put his face in newspapers, as he hasn't technically broken any laws."

Archer uses his time in the Providence BOI office to review the letters in the Carcosa files. They are from individuals known and unknown and contain disturbing revelations. He notes details in letters he examines:

- From Konstantin Chertovski: The Russian cites particular museums and collections that match those that were victims of thefts. There is only one museum and item mentioned that has not been victim: Harvard's Peabody Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and their fragment of the Codex Beltran-Escavy. The gumshoe never heard of this; perhaps one of the professors will know of it.

- From Harlow Shapley, astronomer, Columbia University: Ancient star patterns and their change over thousands of years; positions particularly around the solstice of this year, 1925.

- From Zydeca Acerant, singer of the jazz band Hepcats of Ulthar: Her list of tour date locations goes up to the end of the month (September, today being the 15th.) They are:
Sept. 11-12: Philadelphia
Sept. 18-19: Baltimore
Sept. 25-26: Washington DC

- From HP Lovecraft, pulp writer: Wondering if Carcosa is taking refuge at Lovecraft's Providence abode, Archer decides to call the author. He consults the Providence Telephone Directory and locates the phone number. It rings five times before a lady answers. "Yes, he lives in the building. This is a house phone. Hold on."

A minute later a tired sounding, high pitched male voice says: "Good afternoon sir, this is Howard Lovecraft."

- From Algier Joassaint, manager, Dark Pharaoh Freak Show & Carnivale: The upcoming schedule is -
Sept. 11-12: Narbeth, PA, outside Philadelphia
Sept. 18-19: Aberdeen, near Baltimore
Sept. 25-26: Reston, VA, outside of Washington DC

- From Glenda Heinreich, Amsterdam: Recounting weekends of decadent sex parties in which unprecedented levels of "orgone" accumulation were reached.

- From Eduardo Himenez, Madrid: The self-professed artist of the surreal is, like his rantings Archer heard on The White Ship, writing barely understandable rigamarole about otherworldly something-or-others and love and magic.

Letter One:

There is no place in here, nor moment. No familiar semblances. The mind-forms here being concerned with nothing that's not ultimately mind itself. The shapes here have no correspondence in the formal world. They are the shape of Yevtushenko's poems, Chopin’s etudes, Gödel’s math. Here in these incoherent oceans of unmolded possibility, systems of thought provide the only landmass. Theory and belief are all we have to walk upon, where language is a shell-swept beach, where algebra's an endless ghostly boulevard.

Suspended in this glimmering continuum, islands of supposition, continents of paradigm, tides of opinion lap in fabulous lagoons of proof, bringing a slow erosion, gradual change of contour. Here, the shifts in understanding are tectonic, diastrophic rumbles in the core, volcanoes of renaissance threatening to spit their heat and gold to cover all the world with their bright, dangerous precipitations. Smuts of change and novelty unwinnable borne on the jet streams of cold inspiration.

The depths are soundless, off the map, there is no sextant that will read the constellations here, yet are there hazards, undertows of falsehood, eddies of delusion in the bedlam reefs. Riding elated swirls of reason, bear in mind that nothing is unsinkable. The Palm Court orchestra plays on, beneath these fog-banked ambiguities rear intellectual icebergs.

No paranoid Magellan named these straits, autistic Heyerdahl or thorazined Cabot, the toothpicked scums of shattered coracle and surfs of splinter stitch the white caps to these slick gray shores, with here and there the footprint of some prior explorer, inmate or philosopher. Beyond a ribboned shingle of assumption, shifting dunes of creed, there is the scorched air whiff of a synaptic ozone, spindrift, gusted from cerebrospinal tropics. Underfoot, a tide line litter of rejected notions, worm-shot timbers from wrecked ideologies, discredited beliefs. In reason's rock pools seen, a ferning coral of dead faeries.

Above, strong light bursts out through solipsistic cumuli. The dazzle of near comprehension leaves a gibberish of phosphorescent scribble on the psychic retina. Over these beachheads of corpus callosum, strung between two hemispheres, there burns an equatorial sun of fact and data. Best not risk the information tan that brings disfiguring bikini lines of ignorance or, worse, the sunstroke of religion. Make for shade. The tree line looms ahead. Pull back the snarled anxiety of bramble and plunge ego first, into the undergrowth. Miasmal thicket darkness here, its chill immediate. Press on. Thorned snags of dogma tearing at the ankles, out into the sudden dappled bright, the eerie cross breeze of a clearing. The atmosphere here coruscates, thick with impending diamond. Through the spike lit blur an intimation of delirium's foliage clipped back, ordered into a Magritte topiary. Now a bordered path, redolence of park and arbour, wind chime scent of honeysuckle. With each step, a burgeoning of form, a greater density. Belatedly, the thought occurs: What life might this ethereal clime support? Ecologies of ectoplasm? And what Flora? And what Fauna? The air here crackles, viscous and intense, humid with meaning. The posited terrain grows steeper, rising up towards the domed pavilions of the spectre garden, flickering radiance of its exhibits brushed across the sky ahead. Struggle upslope the last few yards become a headlong rush into the raw mouth of this brilliant wind.

Letter Two

I love you. There is no such thing as magic. Just allow it in your minds. Allow it. This great vaulted ballroom of the sweet intangible, that soars above us, bustling with the throng unseen, their great excitement, their anticipation palpable. Convene the flickering ones and those hilarious phosphorescences that pass through with a pleasant shudder. Bring the ones like sparks, the ones that swoop and drone above massive and immaterial as Mahler. Ones with fine and strange ideas that spin and shimmer on their open palms like gyroscopes. The delicate one, all in crystal, vast as a cathedral. Let us feel the incandescent breeze fanned from its million stained-glass wings that flutter slow and perfect. Synchronized. Let them surround us now and trace their fingers down our cheek and whisper things we never dreamed or had forgotten. There is something happening. I love you. They want to talk. They want to dance. They flare and shimmer in and out of being, throne and power and chimera, sylph and demiurge, the drunk, ecstatic laugh of naked giants swimming in the aviary trill and flutter of this splendid radiance. They soar. They bellow, fierce with joy, and sing sweet prilling scales of blue, of gold, from throats like chandeliers. Trace neon-moth trajectories through Idea-Space and hover in the cold, true glow of an imagined firmament. Here, in the still eye of this glamour, in this roaring white of now, let us perceive the moment's wingèd, burnished soul and read the pure and voiceless name that's written there in strange barbaric characters, we know with other eyes. And it is beautiful and it is frightening. The clouds peel back and vast symphonic forms peer down, inchoate presence, stooping low. The choral sky and thought move to another state, become prismatic vapour in the shuddering light, and there is something happening. There is something happening. You already know this.

I am talking to ourself. We are listening to myself. As everything draws closer in the telepathic susurrus, the kindly night of eyes, and we remember what we are and know it for the first time. Each self now unfolded, gem fern fractal shape of every life revealed in all its tentacled magnificence. The light grows stronger. Something gains upon us from within, and now the banquet, now the rain of stars, now the embrace, the kiss of the invisible. I love you. There is something happening. There is only one moment. There is only one room. There is one person here. I love you. You already know this. You already know this.

There is no such thing as magic.
Is no such thing as magic.
No such thing as magic.
Such thing as magic.
Thing as magic.
As magic.
Magic.

- Or is there real meaning here given the cult? Or false meanings which drive dark motivations with deadly consequences?

- From Horace and Henrietta Whately, London: Distribution of "goods" to fellow supporters in time to prepare for the "celebration." The last letter is a telegram, from Instanbul, dated the day before the Miskatonic Expedition headed out Mt. Latmos. It reads: "Will follow MU party to secure the stone."

[makken123Tabs]

Lovecraft's new story (first page) with locations to investigate in Red Hook, New York.

Red Hook is a maze of hybrid squalor near the ancient waterfront opposite Governor’s Island, with dirty highways climbing the hill from the wharves to that higher ground where the decayed lengths of Clinton and Court Streets lead off toward the Borough Hall. Its houses are mostly of brick, dating from the first quarter to the middle of the nineteenth century, and some of the obscurer alleys and byways have that alluring antique flavour which conventional reading leads us to call “Dickensian”. The population is a hopeless tangle and enigma; Syrian, Spanish, Italian, and negro elements impinging upon one another, and fragments of Scandinavian and American belts lying not far distant. It is a babel of sound and filth, and sends out strange cries to answer the lapping of oily waves at its grimy piers and the monstrous organ litanies of the harbour whistles. Here long ago a brighter picture dwelt, with clear-eyed mariners on the lower streets and homes of taste and substance where the larger houses line the hill. One can trace the relics of this former happiness in the trim shapes of the buildings, the occasional graceful churches, and the evidences of original art and background in bits of detail here and there—a worn flight of steps, a battered doorway, a wormy pair of decorative columns or pilasters, or a fragment of once green space with bent and rusted iron railing. The houses are generally in solid blocks, and now and then a many-windowed cupola arises to tell of days when the households of captains and ship-owners watched the sea.

[Grognardsw]

That night Reginald continues his studies in the Pnakotic Manuscripts. He struggles to learn more of the Xaqloui pseudo-language. The book dealer and occultist  - yes, he accepts that truth now - manages to decipher a handful of key concepts.

[Grognardsw]

Agent Mulder takes out the Mt. Latmos photos as requested by Dr. Clarke. Reginald examines them for any Xaqluoi writings on the cave walls. The book dealer does indeed see such.

Reginald studies the Mt. Latmos, Turkey photographs taken by the Miskatonic University expedition which ended in death, madness and mystery. There are primitively drawn pictographs and writings in an ancient variation of Xaqluoi, likely dating back to the pre-BC period of Greece when worship of Selene the moon goddess was in full bloom.

As far as Reginald can make out, and he feels he could very well be misinterpreting, among the Xaqluoi phrases are:

...Yr nhhngr... the now that is before, the future that contains the now that contains the before...

...Underground we go into our dreams, to lift into their reality...

...downstairs from world, upstairs from dream...

...Let not their reality suppress what is true...

...unfold the true, release the absent shadow always present

...from time remote and country distant, where silvered visions rise tall and men stride amid snarling beasts, the Redeemer will learn what he was, and is yet, and further shall be, when days are reckoned as facets of N___-hotep's eye..."

[Inferno]

Stockpiling story/plot info here:

Sam Archer, soldier of misfortune:

In a low voice, Archer said:

"...It's a long story, and an unlikely one. I hardly believe it myself.

"I was hired to return some stolen artifacts lifted from a number of museums. I fell in with the BOI and we found out the dinguses were nicked by an international ring of self-described "cultists." Turns out this "cult" regularly commits murder in pursuit of its unknown goals. Torture, mutilation, the works," he said, pulling his wooden left hand halfway out of his coat pocket for a second.

"Worse yet, they can pass as normal people, and have infiltrated every organization I've come in contact with in this investigation, including the BOI. Corporations, the mob, universities, museum boards, you name it. They're like a virus. But now comes the crazy part: they can hypnotize people into joining their side. You heard me. Loopy, I know. Except it's real as a dime. It happened to a BOI agent who had to be put down. That's how they infiltrate everything they touch.

"The bottom line is, I can't trust anyone. Anyone on the case could be turned, like that BOI agent. We're sitting ducks.

"We have a list of "cultists." The BOI either don't see the implications, or are already on the "cult's" side. Either way, they're working hard to afford this gang of killers all due process. But that hypnotism gimmick means they can elude capture, escape detention, face down a jury, you name it. They're untouchable. And there's nothing to prevent them from turning US senators and governors.

"It took me a long time to realize it, but the ugly truth is there's only one way to stop them. And unfortunately that's to take the law into my own hands, do what must be done, and put them down.

"I started today.

"...on their New York ringleader. If the BOI don't bury the story, it'll be in the morning edition," Archer said, glancing at the watch on his right hand. "I'm a wanted man, Hal. I need to get indoors for a few days, out of sight, and then I'll be out of your hair."

...Archer told Hal what he has on the carnival.

"Ambrose Carcosa is the cult's ringleader. He's turned one BOI agent and killed another, along with many civilians.
"During a raid on his last known address, letters were found from all his cult lieutenants. A regular global network. One was Algier Joassaint, the manager of the Dark Pharaoh Freak Show & Carnivale. It was correspondence regarding tour schedules and "unspecified favors." Part of the Carcosa letters were encoded. Once we cracked the code, we learned that Joassaint said, "We will continue to gather heads."

"Decapitated victims are part of the cult's MO, after the removal of the hands. So is hypnotism to recruit agents. The phrase could refer to either. Or both."

Archer took a long drag on his cigarette and then calmly continued laying his cards on the table. He was clear of eye and voice.
"So that we're straight, Hal. I'm not going to the carnival to investigate them. That work is already done.
"I'm not going to talk to him. He'll hypnotize me if I do.

"I'm going there to kill him.

"...and burn down the empty carnival if I can. All his men will be part of the cult by now, either willingly or unwillingly. If I could cure them, I would.
"If I could gather evidence against Joassaint and arrest him, I would. But I already told you why the cult will never be prosecuted. They can hypnotize police, judges, juries.

"The ugly truth is, I'm forced to take the law into my own hands. I'll kill him after show hours, ideally in his sleep. It ain't pretty, Hal. But as you know better than anyone, war never is. And that's what this is. Make no mistake.

"The leads I have on Carcosa are all cold. So I'll keep hitting his operations, keep killing his men, until he comes to me.

Then Archer looked Hal dead in the eye. "When I called you, I didn't know the carnival was here. I was just looking to hole up. But now that's changed.
"Now's your chance to walk away. No harm. No foul. You've got a wife, Hal. I won't think any less of you."