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NuclearBuddha wrote...
We were escorted by the lopsided pair through the darkened manor, for it was only the front windows that were lit, it seemed. As my old acquaintance spoke of trivialities, I began to apprehend the feeling of strangeness afflicting the household: lights all extinguished, portraits and lintels laden with dust, furniture covered, debris littering corners. All these signs pointed to a house nearly empty of inhabitation. Indeed, Miss Williams happened to make comment on the overgrown nature of the verge surrounding the estate. To this, Lt. Alenko noted that the groundskeeper had quit his position, leaving the job quite unfinished. The groundskeeper had been an excitable sort and overfond of his drink besides, and had fancied he witnessed certain abnormalities in the creeping verdure. It seemed that before the gardener fled, he had made a great many slanderous utterances regarding the respectable Dr. Newstead while in his cups, spreading his own panic like a contagion through the rest of the staff. Thus most of the master’s servants had long since fled, save one, a scullery maid who we met as she tidied our rooms.
The maid, an Oriental of distinctly sickly and unnatural hue, said nothing though she glared at us boldly as one would intruders. I suspect that she remained because she was more accustomed to strangeness, having been born in richly-legended Macau. Miss Zorah regarded her warily, though she herself was reduced to leaning heavily upon me for support, such was her exhaustion from the trip. Before I helped her to her own room, she paused at each of the doors to the guest chambers, muttering in a low voice and making vague and somewhat unsettling gestures. Though I did not glimpse them with complete clarity I was reminded, with some trepidation, of certain rituals hinted at in Margaret Murray’s treatise alleging dark practices of witchcraft and debauchery through Europe. The name had come up, during our frequent discussions on the matter of Egyptology, a field in which Miss Murray also excelled, so perhaps that was how my gentle companion had knowledge of such things.
As the others settled in for the night, Lt. Alenko drew me aside and speaking quietly, confided in me that he was grateful for my unforeseen appearance. Dr. Newstead, he warned, always an eccentric, had been acting more strangely of late and to an ever-increasing degree of mental perturbation. The doctor had taken the Russian pair into his employ following his general discredit by the scientific and academic community, claiming that his detractors might not be satisfied with the destruction of his career and reputation. There were a great many valuables and rare manuscripts in the house, such as unscrupulous treasure-hunters might think to steal with the assumption that none would care if the scandal-ridden explorer were to meet an untimely end. Though no such threats had materialized, the doctor remained wary to a paranoid degree, as if a great terror hung over him, a terror which he must have perceived drawing ever nearer as the servants fled and the grounds of the estate became overrun with leprous foliage.
Creepy maid who I'm sure is somebody, but can't place...
Tali pulling out more of her telling sorcery and witchcraft...
Extrortionist treasure hunters...
This keeps getting better.
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