A Horror Unveiled
24st of July 2006 A.D.
Putting your heads together it isn't very hard to find the people mentioned in the case summary from the FDA, after all you are only a few miles drive from the offices of the Plain Dealer, one of the state's premier papers. Granted from the harried looks of the staff, the creak of the front door and the wallpaper which seems to have seems to have been laid sometime in the last century you do not think they are doing quite as well as that proclamation might entail, but you manage to snag a junior reporter not that much older than you out of the chaos with a smile. He's probably just happy to be out of the din of half a dozen ringing phones.
"He is smitten by your beauty Dark Majesty," Usum chines in.
"Shut up," you snap, distracted. OK so he's about two of three years older than you and kind of cute with the messy brown hair and profusion of freckles along his cheeks, but this is really not the time.
You go with the same student paper lie, though you use the name of the Saint Agnes' paper just to be on the safe side. The fact that Lydia actually has the are bones plan for an article down is really helpful and the reporter, Jack is also really helpful. First he finds the articles, on
microfilm of all things, leaving you staring at them like he had just unveiled carved stone tablets, much to dad's amusement. Then he offers to drive you across town to Helen who used to be the editor back in the day and would know more about that stuff.
"Sure dad can drive us after you," you reply cheerfully. Granted was a little mean of you, but the sinking expression on Jack's face is hilarious all the more so when all dad does is thank him for the help.
Helen turns out to be an interesting old lady, soft spoken and quick to whip up a pot of coffee but still sharp as a tack. "Oh I remember those articles and sure that I do. You youngsters think the wild west was all wild horses and stand offs at high noon. Ha," she snorts. "Nah the real wild west was when folks could do what the pleased selling snake oil, stuff to put on you or in you. Just because the reporters didn't carry guns in those days doesn't mean they could not be targeted by those that did. Muckrakers we called them and it was a mark of pride. Now everyone wants to be a blogger or run an online newsletter. Bah, just chewing old facts like a cow with its cud."
Jack gives you an apologetic glance, but you pay him no mind, someone who is passionate about things is all the more likely to talk and talk Helen does. By the end of the meeting you have gained a new appreciation how how to make a 'proper' latte... and a list of names including everyone who had died from taking too much Dreamless Sleep
So you say goodbye to Helen then outside the apartment to Jack... who much to your surprise and Lydia's amusement hands you a card with his name and number at you mumbling something about 'further investigation.' You glare at dad. just on general principles, but he does not say anything, seeming very interested in the skyline of the city. If you asked him why he's smiling he would probably say he 'd seen a funny pigeon or something.
Gained Jack the Reporter's number.
Alas the good humor does not last long. "I think... I think we should go to the cemetery. I can ask questions looking at the graves."
***
The sun had well and truly faded from the sky by the time you make it onto the flower-guarded alleyways of Lakeview Cemetery, leaves of oak and needles of pine rustling overhead as if sharing rumors in some strange verdant tongue about the strange visitors that had passed its gates so late. The place sprawls over dozens and dozens of acres, marble angels casting shadows over paths that might have been laid down more than a hundred years ago or just last month as though death itself were warding this one place among the bustling city from the passage of time. The lights are few, like electric fireflies among the leaves and ivy, the visitors this late even fewer, all speaking in hushed voices, filled with that instinctive circumspection that most of the living have in the presence of the dead.
For her part Lydia seems more at ease here than she had been all day, not unduly cheerful or anything, but certain of herself as she navigates the paths, hand-drawn map in hand. It seems to you as though the distant smiles chiseled upon marble lips are more for her than any other, a fellow guardian's salute.
So you come to the place you had been seeking and read the name upon the headstone: Edvard Nieminen
, the man who had killed his children, then himself. The grave was wild and unkempt that only bugs and beetles should find joy in it and little wonder, but maybe you could find some answers.
"What did you dream of last of all your days?" you ask softly, a thousand eyes unseen opening around you
Lost 2 Essence -> Not at 8/12
You hear the words like singing far away, carried on the breath of the cold north wind, spoken in crashing of a cold tide upon the sea:
Thousand Headed, Thousand Horned, Son of Old Age, Ocean Monster. Then it seems to you the song becomes color without light and shape without distinction, something that should not be seen but was. It has in it the guise of things that swim in the sea, the ivory tusks of the walrus and the grasping tentacles of the octopus but not arranged in such a manner that would allow any creature of flesh to live. A thousand horns it had indeed, a thousand mouths, like gaping maws that that opened into some other place singing songs of ruin and enchantment.
Fey, you almost call the thing in your mind, but then recalling the presence of the Queen of Air and Darkness it seems ill fitting not in form but substance. Another, older, name comes to you, one you had heard but once before from Usum when he name his offer to you in the depths of Arctis Tor:
Raksha
The vision fades, with the soundless scream of Edvard Nieminen's splintering mind.
"Molly," your dad shakes you urgently. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," you swallow, throat suddenly dry. "He wasn't though, he
really wasn't, saw something terrible, unspeakable, formless seeking form..." You are not quite sure where that came from. After all that thing did not do anything before Nieminen's mind broke, maybe it was from the same place the name came from. "Formless seeking form so that he might unmake it," you finish.
Gain 2 Essence -> Now at 10/12 Essence
What do you do?
[] Look into the names of the people in Soul's reach, see if they have any connection with the experiments in the fifties or with each other
[] Try to find an in with the local supernatural scene, that thing is no more a friend of theirs than it is of mortals
[] Write in
OOC: Once more you are smashing through occult rolls so instead of an uncanny sense of familiarity you get... that. 
