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A court of cats bars your path. Black fur coats wrapped around alien intelligences, eyes like crescent moons peering out into the night. They form a black mass and are the only thing from the waking world you have seen since all of the clocks stopped at midnight.

Sable furred and sharp of tooth, they wait patiently for some sign, perhaps the right light of the moon, perhaps a delegation of mice from the field, or perhaps even some stray whim that would lead them to mock the idea of being herded thus.

Whispers on the wind catch your ear, and even as you watch one of the cats turns toward you, eyes widened impossibly, then narrowing as it vanishes from view. Another cat, bored and attending to its own cleanliness, follows suit.

You catch a glimpse of another figure in the distance, silent and cloaked by fog, making its way across the campus, though you know not who it is, where it goes, or from whence it comes.

>Stay and watch the cats
>Approach the figure
>Run and hide

>>27167937
>Stay and watch the cats

>Run and hide
If the figure looks like a normal human we can approach it, but until then it would be stupid to stick around.

>>27167937
>Approach the figure

>>27167937
>Run and hide

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You decide that it would be best to be cautious regarding anyone or anything you see at present. You hobble over and duck down behind a nearby tree, mindful of the black cat perched upon a nearby branch that wasn't there a few moments ago. It seems that whatever is happening that the feline inhabitants of the world are just fine with it.

You wait and you wait, and eventually you feel a sensation that calls to mind the ringing of the clocktower, and the way shaking in your hands begins to slow as a steady hum calls the siren song back to mind. Strength leaves your body, but you endure long enough to see a number of the cats leaping up from wherever they were and vanishing into thin air, annoyed by something.

A tune begins to play, and you recognize it as the chime of the clock but played in reverse. Then comes an echo, almost familiar...

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

Ten.

Eleven.

Twelve.

Thirteen.

Your body is shaking as you check the time on your phone. 12 AM and one second past. You are standing on the second floor of the library as though the events of the night had never even occurred. What will you do?

>Find Jack, try and get answers
>Get back to Whateley and go to bed
>Might as well read
>Other

>>27168351
>Might as well read

>>27167817
Im gonna tell you anon. This quest is set in modern times. DO IT.

>>27168351
>Get back to Whateley and go to bed

>>27168351
>>Might as well read

>>27168351
>Find Jack, try and get answers

Jack. Wasnt he meant to watch over us? He was supposed to stay? Wasnt he?

>>27168351
>Other
Go and check the area we saw just a moment ago. Look around for the cats or anything out of the norm.

>>27168641
You can do this op. Answers dont have to be democratic. Thats not how stories are written.

>>27168351
Check ankle

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You decide to do the only sensible thing in this situation: crack open a book and get to reading. You take a step as a phantom throb runs through your ankle. You look down and examine it in shock as you note that, while not in as much pain as it was before during the Thirteenth Hour, it is somewhat bruised.

You make your way down the aisles, and ponder what sort of reading material to seek out. The librarians seem to keep things rather poorly organized, to the point where it is difficult to pick out any one text that you were looking for. The copy of "The King in Yellow" you spotted earlier seems to have found its way to a different spot, but you eventually locate a few things that look somewhat interesting.

One book catches your eye in particular. The cover is a very strange shade of blue, one you don't recall having seen before. It seems to be bound in leather, but it is soft to the touch. The book seems to be a journal, but it is written almost solely in a complex cipher. You have never seen anything quite like it, but in theory you could solve it if you knew the right word to use to crack the code.

The book opens with a poem.

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O’er the midnight moorlands crying,
Thro’ the cypress forests sighing,
In the night-wind madly flying,
Hellish forms with streaming hair;
In the barren branches creaking,
By the stagnant swamp-pools speaking,
Past the shore-cliffs ever shrieking;
Damn’d daemons of despair.

Once, I think I half remember,
Ere the grey skies of November
Quench’d my youth’s aspiring ember,
Liv’d there such a thing as bliss;
Skies that now are dark were beaming,
Gold and azure, splendid seeming
Till I learn’d it all was dreaming—
Deadly drowsiness of Dis.

But the stream of Time, swift flowing,
Brings the torment of half-knowing—
Dimly rushing, blindly going
Past the never-trodden lea;
And the voyager, repining,
Sees the wicked death-fires shining,
Hears the wicked petrel’s whining
As he helpless drifts to sea.

Evil wings in ether beating;
Vultures at the spirit eating;
Things unseen forever fleeting
Black against the leering sky.
Ghastly shades of bygone gladness,
Clawing fiends of future sadness,
Mingle in a cloud of madness
Ever on the soul to lie.

Thus the living, lone and sobbing,
In the throes of anguish throbbing,
With the loathsome Furies robbing
Night and noon of peace and rest.
But beyond the groans and grating
Of abhorrent Life, is waiting
Sweet Oblivion, culminating
All the years of fruitless quest.

>Check out the book and head home
>Play around with trying to crack the cipher
>Keep looking around
>Other

>>27168794
>>Check out the book and head home

>>27168794
>>Check out the book and head home
And then
>Go and check the area we saw just a moment ago. Look around for the cats or anything out of the norm.

I'll shut up about it if no one wants to do it this time, though.

>>27168794
>Play around with trying to crack the cipher
If we take it with us, do we have to check it out? I'd rather not have this recorded. We can take another book with us so we don't look suspicious.

>>27168908
We could always put a different cover around the book. I doubt the librarian would bother taking off the cover before stamping it.

>>27168961
Or just stick it in our coat and check out The King In Yellow.

>>27168794
When was the book last taken out? And could we find out by who?

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You opt to check out the blue book and head home, though you make a point of slipping another cover over it just in case it isn't meant to be checked out. You also grab a random book off the shelves, something called "Sagas of the Ven" and head to the front.

The hourglass that sat on the desk is missing, and the venerable librarians bones creak audibly as he slowly opens up each book and scans the inside covers. After what feels like an eternity he hands them back over to you.

*******************************************

On the way home you make a point of checking out the location where the cats held court. The scent is the same, and the tree is there, but the felines who mobbed the area are gone now as though they were never even there.

>Sleep now
>Other

>>27169072

Asking yields nothing, as the system is having "technical problems" right now. The stamps suggest it has never been checked out before.

>>27169103
>>Other
check the area to see if there's anything unusual left about.

>>27169103
>Sleep now
We want to get what little sleep we can.

>>27169103
Assuming sleep means we reenter our dorm, not just fall asleep on the sidewalk.

>>27169103
>Sleep now

Also cooking, responses will be slow for a bit.

Back, writing out lengthy dream sequence.

Give me about 20 minutes because I don't want to write anything mediocre.

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It is time for sleep, and so you trudge back upstairs to room 314, and you pull the crooked brass key from your pocket. You press the cool metal between your fingers as the lock clicks, and you push open the great wooden door with a creak. A quick glance around the room tells you that Jack hasn't made it back yet. You peel off the band shirt that you wore up to college and put in your hamper, then step out back into the hall and enter the communal bathroom.

You run cold water over your face as you consider the events of the night, and whether or not it might have been a product of your imagination. It all seemed so real, but then again college is a stressful time and so you can never be certain of what really happened. The Hangman from your dreams of Peter seems as real as he ever did when you closed your eyes though. Even now you can see Peter's pale eyes staring off as the knot around his throat winds up into the unknown. You can feel the heavy atmosphere of that room that comes only in your dreams.

After washing your face you head back to your room, which is conveniently right across the hall from the bathroom. It is Thursday night, and class will not begin until Monday morning, so you will have time to kill over the weekend, and a while before you have to start wearing the school's uniform to classes. The notion is already stifling to you, but you find some way of personalizing your things. Something Peter would never have done.

You pull the covers up to your waist and lay down, wondering if sleep or Jack will arrive home first. A short time later you answer the question by allowing your eyes to slowly drift shut.

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Peter sits at the piano, quietly playing a tune with no name you have ever heard of. The song is classical in nature, with a heavy undertone that puts you off for some reason. It is possible that he wrote it himself. Your mother is in the kitchen cooking something. There is an audible clink as she puts down her glass of wine to start chopping something, and a short time later the chopping stops and you can hear her sipping again. Father is upstairs in his study. He may come down for dinner, or he may not, depending upon how he is feeling. You sit in the living room working out word problems as the song reaches its crescendo. The lead of your pencil breaks.

**************************************************************

Mother is crying again. She's been through three bottles this evening and your father is working in the study late. He hasn't come down for dinner, to see you and Peter off to bed, or to do much of anything recently. He seems rather obsessed with some text regarding ancient civilizations, and usually after he dives into something like this it is followed by a trip to some exotic locale with partners from back at Miskatonic to do a field study. Your mother knows this. Peter shuts the door, muting the sounds of domestic sorrow. He looks over at you and forces a smile, then pulls up a chair.

"Hey buddy, how you feeling?"

You decline to respond, turning in your bed to face the ceiling.

"I know, it's rough, but things will get better again. They always do."

Peter always talks like this. Even though he's only a year older he talks like he knows everything. Sometimes you wish he would just shut up. He reaches out and strokes your hair, then gets up and heads to his room, shutting the door gently behind him. You lay awake long into the night, listening to the muffled sounds of a life spent playing second fiddle to tomes of ancient lore and weird tales of a time lost to the fog of ages.

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You awaken to Jack opening the door wearing nothing but sweat pants and the shaving cream lining his jaw. He winces at seeing you awaken.

"Sorry buddy, didn't mean to wake you. Just shaving."

He fetches his razor from his bag and heads back across the hall to the bathroom. You groan as the early morning sunlight from the window hits your eyes. You glance at the clock to see what time it is.

>It is 7:47 AM

You stretch out and ponder how you will spend the day.

>Tell Jack you need to ask him some things asap
>Explore town
>Explore campus
>Try and crack that cypher
>Walk around the dorm and get to know people
>Other

>>27170574
>Try and crack that cypher

>>27170574
>Walk around the dorm and get to know people
Specifically Professor Alhazred.

>>27170574
>Tell Jack you need to ask him some things asap

>>27170574
>>Try and crack that cypher
Try Dis, Sea and Lie.

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You decide to try and crack the cypher. Not bothering to shower or change you sit down and start work on the book immediately. You pull out sheath after sheath of notebook paper, your handy calculator to check your work, and numerous pencils, all sharpened but not to the point where they are easily broken.

Resolved, you decide to start with a few possible codes.

"Dis, Sea, Lie, give me your secrets."

You are so engrossed in your work you hardly notice when Jack comes in and out.

3d100 please

Rolled 83

>>27170941

Rolled 69

>>27170941
Alright.

>>27170941

Rolled 27

>>27170941
Oops

>>27170941
Is our name Walter Gilman?

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You learn a number of things about the cypher.

>The D and the S are correct, you start getting sensible things out of them
>It is not a three letter cypher, it is longer than that
>Randomly guessing cyphers isn't going to give you anything

Somehow you get the feeling that the eerie and untitled poem at the beginning might hold the clue.

>The time is 10:14 AM

What would you like to do?

>Keep going
>Go get ready for lunch
>Other

>>27171226
Do we know for certain that the I is not correct?
>Keep going

>>27171226
>Go get ready for lunch
Maybe we can look for other clues. I think the Hangman is going to be more determined next time.

>>27171319

You know for certain.

>>27171226
>>27171335
Okay.

Might as well go to lunch while we brainstorm. Let our subconscious do the work.

>>27171226
>Go get ready for lunch

Also, if we are going, hide the book. Somewhere secret. Somewhere safe.

>>27171451

If so, 1d100 for a clever hiding spot.

Rolled 35

>>27171496

Rolled 17

Can't we just keep it in our bookbag?

>>27171519

Well, if you want to be all school boy about it I suppose.

>>27171226
>>Keep going

I Try "daemons", musing at the thought of the author.

>>27171226
Demons?
Daemons?

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Ladies and Gentlemen, I must unfortunately call it an early night. It would seem somebody needs me to write something for them by tomorrow and is paying me good money to do it. I do not wish to give you only half of my attention.

>D?S????

This is what you have of a password so far.

My apologies for my abrupt exit, but I can begin again tomorrow, same time. Again, my apologies.

>>27171659
No problem. Waiting.

>>27171659
See you tommorow.