text: [Themes: horror, Comedy, Lovecraft, female protagonist]
  
  > Go downward
  Your reading glasses frost over at the edges. You feel a sharp pain from the cold spot on your shoulder, and feel like there's a library book you--or Emmett, perhaps--hasn't read yet from this location.
  
  Under the Basement (Ivan Roth)
  Tentatively, you lower yourself down from the ladder, and discover that you're in a rocky cavern, colder and wetter even than the dank basement. It is also dim and shadowy, but you can make out strange carvings on the rock walls, a sinister iron cage that dangles from the roof of the cave, and a large black cabinet of ornate design, set into the western wall. An ink-black tunnel entrance leads north.
  
  You blink, and suddenly right before you is a pale figure — one that wasn't there only moments ago.
  
  The ghost speaks. "I am Fedwick Baines, the sub-librarian of the Cragne library's Forbidden Annex. This is the home of the books that the Cragnes could not allow to circulate; as far as I know, each of these volumes is unique in all the world."
  
  > About yourself
  You can't see yourself directly, but you have a pretty good idea. You have dark circles under your eyes, your hair is frizzed. It hasn't been a good day. Peter has to be somewhere, right?
  
  > examine the coffee
  The clouds in your cup form a single cherry. Botanical images mean that while there is much left to accomplish in the present situation, your immediate environment sustains you, and you have everything that you need.
  
  A faint smell of mildew emanates from it.
  
  > look at the carvings
  On the wall are strange, unholy hieroglyphs. You can barely make them out, however, because it seems like the carvings have been scorched and defaced—almost like someone was trying to erase them from the wall, but without doing serious damage to the rock. How peculiar.
  
  > examine Cage
  This heavy iron cage looks like it was last disturbed in the Stone Age. Inside, an angry-looking vampire bat flutters around in a rage. A silver bell on a long chain dangles from the bottom.
  
  In the hanging iron cage is a vicious-looking bat.
  
  > look at bat
  A black ball of fur and fangs sulks inside the cage. "That little ball of furry malice is sulking because it's in a brand-new enclosure," Fedwick tells you. "Chewed right through the bars of the last one, took me days to catch. I had to chase the infernal rodent through every single room in Cragne Manor."
  
  He pats the thick iron cage with a smug expression. "Well, that won't happen again on my watch!"
  
  > look at the list
  This is your notification that your status with the Backwater Public Library is DELINQUENT due to NON-RETURNAL.
  You are NOT PERMITTED to check out books or to access special library materials until your status is cleared.
  
  To clear your status, you must return ALL books you currently have checked out:
  
  To Have, and To Have Knots: An Illustrated Guide
  Backwater Personalities (1915-1925 edition)
  The Lives of the Roman Emperors
  A Rudimentary Taxonomy of Known Scent and Grotesque
  Reactions
  Life Beneath Nightmares
  The Conservative's Cookbook
  ANCHORHEAD. A What-do-I-do-now Book Based on the Works of
  MICHAEL GENTRY
  
  The sub-librarian hovers sternly in the corner.
  
  > look at the cabinet
  An ornate, ebony cabinet, bedecked with curlicues and wingéd cherubs, has been set, improbably, into the western wall of this stone cavern.
  
  > open the cabinet
  The ghost of the librarian bats you away with a spectral hand, a bizarre sensation that chills you to the bone. "Take a book, leave a book," he says icily. "If you want to read something, bring me a book."
  
  > look at Tunnel
  You try to peer into the blackness, but it is absolute. If there's anything that way you'll have to go north, into the caves, to see it.
  
  The sub-librarian hovers sternly in the corner.
  
  > look at Baines
  Hovering before you, pale and ghostly, is an old, bald man wearing a very old-fashioned spectral tailcoat. He bows his head at you when he sees you looking, but there's a faint hint of an amused smile around his lips.
  
  > open the bp
  You open the book pocket, revealing The Modern Girl's Divination Handbook -- Volume Three (smelling faintly of mildew), a postcard of Big Ben (smelling faintly of mildew), the diary of Phyllis Cragne (smelling faintly of mildew), a tiny leather journal (smelling faintly of mildew), a moldy, waterlogged journal (smelling faintly of mildew), a soggy tome (smelling faintly of mildew), an old newspaper (smelling faintly of mildew), Tatooine 1: Anchorhead (smelling faintly
  of mildew), a faded delivery note (smelling faintly of mildew) and an old paperback book (smelling faintly of mildew).
  
  The sub-librarian hovers sternly in the corner.
  
  > examine it
  It is an old issue of the Backwater Chronicle, a local newspaper that ceased to be decades ago. This issue is dated July 31, 1920. The local museum should see this!
  
  A faint smell of mildew emanates from it.
  
  > read it
  You turn the pages and check the next article:
  
  The auditorium of Backwater High saw a festive ball on Satday evening when freemasonry lodge Order of the Eastern Star invited local notables to the yearly Rosencrantz Ball. While the Providence Hot Jazz Orchestra conducted by Robert "Bop" Shindlaw played sudatory tunes and while the kitchen brigade of the Boardwalk Inn provided small delicacies as well as inspiring drinks, money was collected through admission and raffle ticket sales to appease the dolor of the victims of February's fatal spring tide. Among the guests were mayor Joe Slater (accompanied by his daughters) and surgeon in residence Dr. Basil Elton (accompanied by his third wife, Lily). An accompanying picture shows mayor Slater clinking glasses with surgeon Basil Elton, the latter one being a head taller than the dignitary.
  
  > give the newspaper to Baines
  Which do you mean, the old newspaper (smelling faintly of mildew), the clipped newspaper article or the yellowed newspapers (smelling faintly of mildew)?
  
  > give the old newspaper to Baines
  The ghost snatches the book from your hands. "Ah, fresh pages! I haven't read something new in ages." Turning to the cabinet, he plunges his hand through the door and pulls out a book: The Liquid Sky. He hands it to you, reluctantly. "Take good care of it," he
  says. "And give it back to me when you're done."
  
  Fedwick peers scornfully at you.
  
  > examine Liquid
  (The Liquid Sky)
  In black type on the cover of this thin volume are the words "The Liquid Sky", and under them, "Ostregot". It looks like a book of poetry.
  
  > read it
  You flip open to a dog-eared page:
  
  or thumbed through stacks
  that no one mind had pulled apart, and reconvened
  with red twine
  and indices and keyboard dust and forum jokes
  and tacks
  
  but only two things are certain, says Ben Franklin:
  the death of the body and the mind, obliterated,
  dust to dust
  and the death of the spirit of the book
  after it has been read and read again
  every passage explored, inspected, made to fit
  
  so when they had Prohibition they built secret rooms under the stairs, with combination locks
  and now the Prohibition house is a museum and the museum is open twenty days a week
  and you can sign up for a VR tour
  that takes in every detail
  and every visitor knows more than Warren Harding did
  when the bomb went off
  
  > give Liquid to Baines
  (The Liquid Sky, by Robert N. Ostregot to the ghost)
  The ghost snatches back The Liquid Sky, by Robert N.
  Ostregot. "Don't think you're getting another one for giving this back," he says, wagging his finger. "I do this to find new things to read."
  
  > give the faded delivery to Baines
  (first taking the faded delivery note (smelling faintly of mildew)) The ghost snatches the book from your hands. "Ah, fresh pages! I haven't read something new in ages." Turning to the cabinet, he plunges his hand through the door and pulls out a book: The Reign
  of Reason. He hands it to you, reluctantly. "Take good care of
  it," he says. "And give it back to me when you're done."
  
  > look at Reign
  "The Reign of Reason", by Godos Atrakut, is an old red book with yellowed pages, but the curious design on the cover looks distinctly modern.
  
  > read it
  You open to a random page:
  
  "It's true. In gazing at that perfect Law, that unassailable and genius invention of those unsurpassed sages legalis in
  ancient Istanbul... I was enlightened, or lifted from my body, or something changed spiritually within me. I am not ashamed to say it: damn all those religious men! It is not Christ who enlightened me! In the great library of Constantinople, a statute got me high..."
  
  [You can type HINT for a hint at any time.]
  
  > read it
  You open to a random page:
  
  "It's true. In gazing at that perfect Law, that unassailable and genius invention of those unsurpassed sages legalis in
  ancient Istanbul... I was enlightened, or lifted from my body, or something changed spiritually within me. I am not ashamed to say it: damn all those religious men! It is not Christ who enlightened me! In the great library of Constantinople, a statute got me high..."
  
  As you close the book, something on the inside cover catches your eye. In faint, wabbling pencil marks, someone has scrawled a name: Barach'speroth Arguule. You wonder if the ghost knows his book
  has been defaced with these strange words...
  
  > ask Baines about Arguule
  You wouldn't have said it was possible even moments ago, but somehow the pale white ghost manages to blanch with fear. "Bara- uh, that name is not the name of any author, or any human being. If you have to know, B- Ba- Ba- that being is the first servant of the one who binds me here, the one whose name I will not even try to say. The incantation of Arguule may be hidden somewhere in these books; it is not his name, it is something more baleful..." he demurs. "I've said too much," he says, and falls silent.
  
  You resolve to examine these books more attentively than ever when you read them, in case you might discover— whatever that is...
  
  > read Reign
  You open to a random page:
  
  "It's true. In gazing at that perfect Law, that unassailable and genius invention of those unsurpassed sages legalis in
  ancient Istanbul... I was enlightened, or lifted from my body, or something changed spiritually within me. I am not ashamed to say it: damn all those religious men! It is not Christ who enlightened me! In the great library of Constantinople, a statute got me high..."
  
  > give the divination to Baines
  (first taking The Modern Girl's Divination Handbook -- Volume Three (smelling faintly of mildew))
  The ghost snatches the book from your hands. "Ah, fresh pages! I haven't read something new in ages." Turning to the cabinet, he plunges his hand through the door and pulls out a book: The
  Imagined Worm. He hands it to you, reluctantly. "Take good care
  of it," he says. "And give it back to me when you're done."
  
  > look at Worm
  The cover is appropriately worm-y, and prints the title — "The Imagined Worm: My Journey Through the World of Creepy-Crawlies, by Elizabeth P. Stashwart" — in big, loopy script; but it doesn't give you much sign as to why this book is in the Forbidden Annex.
  
  > read it
  The pages of this book are densely-printed and rice-paper thin. You flip through it until you reach an illustration: a cross-section of some kind of slug-like worm. It certainly sounds nasty, but you can't understand half of the words on this page. You're a few college degrees away from getting much out of this book.
  
  > ask Baines about Worm
  The ghost just fixes you with a blank stare as you stutter out whatever question you're trying to ask.
  
  "I can answer questions about people I've known, and the individuals mentioned in the books we keep here," he says. "Because I've chosen to hold on to those pieces of my memory. I am not a general-purpose almanac."
  
  > ask Baines about Stashwart
  (Elizabeth P. Stashwart)
  "Stashwart is a distinguished researcher in the field of blood-swallowing parasites; a brightly-burning woman. She would come over some times to show Leopold — Leopold Cragne, I mean — some of
  the
  things she was working on; he had an amateur interest in parasitology. Someone once claimed to me, and I won't say who, that that she wrote The Imagined Worm as an amusement for her young nephew. But
  as far as I know, she never had a nephew, and it doesn't seem like much of a children's book to me..."
  
  > ask Baines about Leopold
  "Leopold?" the ghost looks surprised. "He never wrote anything. I can comment on the authors of the books on these shelves and some of the people mentioned therein, but my relationship with Leopold Cragne- he was my employer and he took good care of me. I did his bidding, and I have no regrets. That's all I will say on the matter."
  
  > ask Baines about ostregot
  "Ostregot was a brilliant young poet, but emotionally a wreck. He died tragically young, collapsed of nervous exhaustion at the top of the Space Needle. The last time I met him, he told me he was going to throttle God."
  
  > ask Baines about Atrakut
  (Godos Atrakut)
  "Atrakut was slightly before my time. He was close to Leopold; shockingly close, though he was an old, old man before I ever saw him. He was a true believer, that man, though a true believer in such strange things that I could scarcely believe it of him. I wonder if Leopold held him close because of what he found in Istanbul in 1918 — that discovery made it into only one writing of Atrakut's: The
  Reign of Reason. Leopold made sure that no one would ever read
  it... other than me, of course. And perhaps you," says the ghost, and around his lips plays the faintest of smiles.
  
  > examine cover
  (the battered yellow JogMaster)
  A portable audio player with an attached lanyard so you can Wear It While You Jog! It's little more than a yellow brick of plastic with a power switch and a slot in which to insert cassette tapes. Damage to the unit includes a jammed battery cover, a missing lever to eject the current cassette, and a crimped headphone jack. A small speaker permits playback even without headphones.Someone carved the name "Carolyn" along one side.
  
  The battered yellow JogMaster is currently switched off.
  
  > examine the sp
  A heavily reinforced pocket to store your sides in, if you're the kind of person who has too many sides to fit on a sidering. Wait, what? No, it's a pocket on one side of the backpack's central cavity. You can put whatever you want in there.
  
  Fedwick peers scornfully at you.
  
  > Examine bp
  Judging from the book pocket's enormous size and soft velvet lining, you suspect the backpack manufacturer designed it for Johnny Depp's character from The Ninth Gate.
  
  In the book pocket are a postcard of Big Ben (smelling faintly of mildew), the diary of Phyllis Cragne (smelling faintly of mildew), a tiny leather journal (smelling faintly of mildew), a moldy, waterlogged journal (smelling faintly of mildew), a soggy tome (smelling faintly of mildew), Tatooine 1: Anchorhead
  (smelling faintly of mildew) and an old paperback book (smelling faintly of mildew).
  
  > give the postcard to Baines
  (first taking the postcard of Big Ben (smelling faintly of mildew)) The ghost snatches the book from your hands. "Ah, fresh pages! I haven't read something new in ages." Turning to the cabinet, he plunges his hand through the door and pulls out a book: Between
  God and Madness. He hands it to you, reluctantly. "Take good care
  of it," he says. "And give it back to me when you're done."
  
  > look at God
  "Between God and Madness," by Hiram Strangecraft. It's a somewhat beat-up old book that looks like it used to be a library copy. The inside front cover is marked with a strange seal.
  
  > examine the seal
  You already have that.
  
  A seal of curious design, stamped in red ink with such force that it impacted the pages behind it. The design appears to be just an abstract shape, although maybe it's writing in a script you can't read. It gives you the shivers, a little bit.
  
  > read God
  You open up to a random page and start reading:
  
  "them. The nightmares come again, faster this time, as if driven by some invisible engine that makes as it destroys, loosening the innermost screws that hold perception to experience, fastening mortal souls to the invisible word. It is God, it is the Devil, it is the infernal nothingness of an ancient rite betrayed. There is no name for the horror I must face; it is eternal, unburied, unbroken, even though O God I so dearly wish that it could be destroyed, that the endless midnight of my spirit could be leavened by its absence; but absence is all that it is not; it is slithering, it is dripping, it is the god before the god that ever made machine, ..."
  
  It goes on and on like that. Don't you have better things to do?
  
  > No
  That was a rhetorical question.
  
  > read God
  You flip through the book again, but it's all the same: the endless, meaningless ramblings of an insane person. He doesn't even name the thing that's frightening him; you would need some kind of religious reason to be interested in this.
  
  You shut the book, but one page catches your eye and you quickly flip it open again. In the margin, someone has scribbled: "It must be
  said three times, in the presence of the carved seal... that is the only way to banish the spirit and secure what he has stolen... he is covetous, it is the only way... but it is so dangerous that I am afraid to do it, even to retrieve my precious and defiled memory... the god's first servant will be summoned... but I will mark the word, the incantation, before he kills me... it is the only way..."
  
  That's tantalizingly little information — all you need to learn now
  is
  what that incantation is!
  
  > give waterlogged to Baines
  (first taking the moldy, waterlogged journal (smelling faintly of mildew))
  The ghost snatches the book from your hands. "Ah, fresh pages! I haven't read something new in ages." Turning to the cabinet, he plunges his hand through the door and pulls out a book: The Broken Tongue. He hands it to you, reluctantly. "Take good care of it,"
  he says. "And give it back to me when you're done."
  
  > examine Tongue
  The Broken Tongue looks like an old academic text, by one
  Noah Chaplinski. There's some weird lettering in an unfamiliar alphabet on the cover.
  
  > ask Baines about Noah
  (Noah Chaplinski)
  "Noah Chaplinski was a distinguished professor of languages at the Miskatonic University. Leopold corresponded with him occasionally. Of course, Chaplinski made a serious mistake: he requested a pass to the Secondary Archives at Miskatonic U. He went mad, naturally, and worse. In the most literal sense, it's a tale as old as time." The ghost shakes his head.
  
  > ask Baines about Strangecraft
  (Hiram Strangecraft)
  "They used to keep Strangecraft up in the attic, which seemed cruel to me, but I suppose there was no other solution. He was absolutely mad. And they couldn't turn him over to the Asylum — not with everything he'd heard, and not with Dr. Wagner still running the Asylum like his personal panopticon. There are some things that have to stay in the household. I convinced Leopold not to burn all the man's manuscripts, but of course they could never be published, so I keep them here in the Forbidden Annex."
  
  > read Tongue
  You open to the first page, and the symbols you see are incomprehensible. You flip to a random page, and its the same. Not even an alphabet you recognize — although it may match the symbols on the cover.
  
  > examine the lettering
  You can't make out the meaning of these squiggles.
  
  Fedwick peers scornfully at you.
  
  > give the soggy to Baines
  (first taking the soggy tome (smelling faintly of mildew))
  The ghost snatches the book from your hands. "Ah, fresh pages! I haven't read something new in ages." Turning to the cabinet, he plunges his hand through the door and pulls out a book: Out of the Infinite. He hands it to you, reluctantly. "Take good care of
  it," he says. "And give it back to me when you're done."
  
  > look at infinite
  This book promises more poetry from the mind of Robert N. Ostregot. It looks a little more well-loved than the other Ostregot book.
  
  > read infinite
  You flip through the ratty pages and read a short verse:
  
  What is the point of the end of the world if under its skin, you are trembl
  this is the tidepool
  so cling to it, wait for it
  this is the cataclysm
  
  Hmm. You're not sure you like this one very much. It reminds you uncomfortably of Strangecraft's writing. You wonder if the author was unwell.
  
  > read infinite
  You flip through the ratty pages and read a short verse:
  
  What is the point of the end of the world if under its skin, you are trembl
  this is the tidepool
  so cling to it, wait for it
  this is the cataclysm
  
  Hmm. You're not sure you like this one very much. It reminds you uncomfortably of Strangecraft's writing. You wonder if the author was unwell.
  
  On the back cover, you notice a blemish, and you realize it's a smear of blood — but when you tilt your head you see that there are dozens of blood smears on the cover, spelling out a single word:
  ANGARITHEP. The P trails off, as if the one who
  scrawled it was being dragged away...
  
  > say the ANGARITHEP
  The ghost shudders and flickers. For a moment you see a glimpse of tangled limbs. Upon reconstituting, he whispers hoarsely. "Do not say that word!"
  
  Out of the corner of your eye, you thought you saw the carvings on the wall glow red.
  
  > say the ANGARITHEP
  The ghost flickers again, and takes on form after form. A squirming mass of tentacles, a waterfall of slime, a thousand cockroaches in the shape of a body, a blazing orb of purple light, and then again the shuddering form of Fedwick Baines. "Stop, I beg of you! I'll give you anything!" He pulls out a stoppered vial and a stack of books, trying to hand them to you, but they flicker and shudder along with his ghostly body.
  
  > say the ANGARITHEP
  You say the word again, but the moment that the last syllable slips out you can only regret it. This time, the ghost screams,
  before flickering so violently that it gives you a searing pain behind your eyes. An eviscerated tiger; a flock of screaming crows; a burning book, with yellow, judging eyes in the dancing flames; your husband, Peter, his arms bound and a thrashing tentacle forcing its way out of his throat; the tilt of a nauseous ship; the wail of an injured child; a leopard with a thousand eyes instead of spots. And then it's Fedwick Baines again, but his ghostly form is cut, as if with a razor, bleeding from ragged lacerations that criss-cross his torso, almost in the form of a star. His voice is curt and ragged. "You did th-"
  
  But at that moment, a mass of enormous, toothy tentacles bursts from his chest, splattering his ghostly organs in every direction and cutting him off mid-speech. The tentacles flail and grab, seizing chunks of his spectral body and pulling them into the void of his ruptured chest, now seemingly a portal to another dimension.
  
  The tentacles are reaching towards you, too, now, and you flinch in terror as one ice-cold, rubbery tentacle brushes your jaw. You need to act fast.
  
  > go upwards
  You scramble up the ladder in a mad rush, those hideous tentacles lapping at your thighs, and you just slip through the hatch as they're reaching for your body, trying to pull you down. You slam the hatch shut and stand on it, shaking. It's impossible not to hear the slapping and scraping of those horrible tentacles, wherever they come from, desperately searching for something in the Forbidden Annex to devour.
  
  Your reading glasses frost over at the edges. You feel a sharp pain from the cold spot on your shoulder, and feel like there's a library book you--or Emmett, perhaps--hasn't read yet from this location.
  
  Basement (Ivan Roth)
  It's dark and chilly down here. A damp, mildewy carpet of dimly visible design covers half the floor. It must have been luxuriously soft before it started rotting.
  
  A rickety staircase leads back up towards the heavy wooden door to the kitchen. A flimsy plywood door leads north, but you know what lies in that direction. The dimly-lit basement extends in every other direction, south, east and west.
  
  A metal hatch opens into darkness below.
  
  > Go upward
  The Kitchen (Edward B)
  The Cragne family kitchen. Light from a naked bulb feeds shadow down the spaces between old cabinets, counters and bookshelves. A dusty, doorless fridge overlooks an oven just as worse for wear. You'd guess it's been a minute since anyone's used this room to cook. A doorway leads east, and a wooden door set in the floor appears to lead to a cellar or basement.