text: [Themes: Lovecraft, horror, Comedy, female protagonist]
  
  > describe your surroundings
  Drinking Fountain (Lucian Smith)
  A public drinking fountain is placed in a nook here, nearly overgrown with ivy. You can return to the town square to the northeast.
  
  A ragged hole graces the side of the brick fountain.
  
  > examine Hole
  (the ragged hole)
  A ragged hole gapes ominously in the side of the fountain where the secondary fountain used to be.
  
  In the ragged hole is Backwater Personalities (1915-1925 edition).
  
  > read it
  You flip through the book, looking at various of write-ups and pictures of men and women in 1920's garb until, with a start, you recognize the well-dressed ghost, staring at you intently from the page. You read his entry:
  
  Everyone should recognize our "darkly beloved" town librarian, always ready with a smile and a book suggestion for all who walk in his doors, especially those of our younger generation. What you may not know is that his family has been here for six generations, which is pretty unusual for someone like him! Even more amazingly, Mr. Josey is a college graduate--as were his father, and his father's father!
  So don't be surprised when you go into our beloved library and see this face: he's an institution just as much as the building is!
  
  There's a clipped newspaper article tucked inside the book at that page, which you remove.
  
  As you finish reading the passage, your own hands grow cold, and the book briefly frosts over before fading again, leaving traces behind only in the library insignia.
  
  > examine the clipped newspaper article
  LIBRARIAN DIES IN ALTERCATION IN TOWN SQUARE.
  
  > read it
  May 24th, 1926
  
  Local librarian and black man Emmett Josey was found dead next to a sledgehammer in the town square last night, a victim of suspected foul play. The sledgehammer has been identified as belonging to the deceased, but why he would have had it with him, at night, in the town square, has been the subject of much debate. Responding to speculation that Josey may have been upset by the recent vote to install a second drinking fountain to better serve the needs of our whole community, the bill's sponsor Vincent Cragne (a second cousin to our mayor), speaking at the bill-signing ceremony, said, "Mr. Josey was somewhat vocal in his opposition to the bill. But like all of us, he knew that bowing to the will of the majority is a cornerstone of a democratic society, and informed me personally that he bore me no ill will." Despite the unfortunate circumstances, the bill-signing ceremony proceeded as planned,  the only hitch being that Mr. Cragne was unable to sign the bill himself, due to a recent farming accident that left his right hand shattered. We wish him all the best for a speedy recovery. The circumstances of Mr. Josey's death are expected to remain unsolved.
  
  > ask Emmett about the murder
  "I can't tell you anything about that," the voice in your head replies. "It's been too long. The books I can remember, mostly. But not much else."
  
  > ask Emmett about the Personalities
  A sigh echoes in your head. "Didn't really think I needed an entry in that, but I couldn't really complain. Jess was so up-beat about the whole thing. The entry about me is..." Another sigh. "She... meant well."
  
  > ask Emmett about Cragne
  Feeling foolish, you turn your shoulder towards the Journal of
  Edwin Cragne (smelling faintly of mildew), but get no response.
  
  > About you
  You're still feeling tired, but confident as well.
  
  > Go north
  A short street terminates here. To the south it opens into the town square. To the east, a few worn steps rise to the entrance of the public library, and to the west you can see a real estate office. A gloomy path leads northwest, towards the woods.
  
  You can see a notice board here.
  
  A phantom trolley stop sign reads Blue Line -- Library Square.
  
  > Go northwest
  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.
  
  Shack Exterior (Michael Lin)
  A clearing, outside a wooden shack. A clockwork doll sits here, utterly incongruous at the edge of the woods.
  
  The woods are to the northwest, while that godforsaken town is to the southeast.
  
  > examine the coffee
  The swirls in your cup form a sailboat. Modes of transportation mean that your current environment presents challenges that can only be overcome by seeking fresh perspectives elsewhere until you're ready to return.
  
  A faint smell of mildew emanates from it.
  
  > go southeast
  A short street terminates here. To the south it opens into the town square. To the east, a few worn steps rise to the entrance of the public library, and to the west you can see a real estate office. A gloomy path leads northwest, towards the woods.
  
  You can see a notice board here.
  
  A spectral trolley stop sign reads Blue Line -- Library Square.
  
  > wait for aqua Line
  You lean against the access ramp, hold out your pass, and wait for the aqua line. Within moments, a phantom trolley arrives. Instead of stopping and allowing you to board, it passes through you,
  and you find yourself transported to
  
  River Walk (Adam Whybray)
  A dirt path along the west bank of the Makaskuta - or Blackgourd - River. The air is motionless and sweltry, the urticariate heat drawing sweat profusely from your prickling glands.
  
  Just below you, to your side, the river burbles in vainglorious stupor, foaming in bright patches from the surfacants released from the rotting deposits of the red maples and poplars that line its banks. A single black ash, denuded of leaves, its corky bark blighted with the telltale signs of parasitic infection, quietly interrupts the Autumnal foliage of its deciduous cousins.
  
  The river's waters slith over rocks as lustrous-gray as seal skin, rending them freshly burnished for the mid-September sun, which casts Her rays in refulgent slats through the rust-honey colored trees. It is though Nature, in celebration of Her own fecundity, has chosen to offer Herself up in Equinoxical sacrifice - the rocks laid out before the blazing altar of the sun.
  
  There is a forbidding sign on the bank of the river.
  
  The way up to Backwater town square is northwest. Following the path north leads under the bridge.
  
  On the Makaskuta river is a buoy.
  
  You can also see a freshwater lobster trap (in which is an eggbound crawfish) and a shattered crawfish here.
  
  A mistlike trolley stop sign reads Aqua Line -- River Walk.