text: [Themes: horror, Lovecraft, Comedy]
  
  > examine the Doctor
  This adorable little fuzzy white hamster is gesturing at his cage with a serious look on his little face. It looks like he wants to get back to work.
  
  Dr. Peanut makes an impatient squeaky noise.
  
  With a tiny motorized whine, the operating table's antenna retracts.
  
  > put the dr peanut in Cage
  (first taking Dr. Peanut)
  Taken.
  
  Dr. Peanut squeaks at you and gestures at his cage.
  
  Dr. Peanut waddles over to his little chalkboard, eager to resume his work.
  
  > ask the dr peanut about the equations
  Dr. Peanut is alternating between scribbling furiously on his tiny chalkboard, and tapping his little chin in deep concentration. Better leave him alone while he's working, it looks like he's about to make a breakthrough.
  
  Dr. Peanut scans the writing on his little chalkboard, re-familiarizing himself with the work at hand.
  
  > Wait
  Time passes.
  
  Dr. Peanut erases the trailing line at the end of the equation, and taps his little chin contemplatively with the chalk.
  
  > wait for a while
  Time passes.
  
  Dr. Peanut writes some more symbols on the tiny chalkboard, then shakes his fuzzy little head and erases them.
  
  > wait for a while
  Time passes.
  
  Dr. Peanut suddenly makes a squeaky 'Eureka!'-type noise and starts scribbling furiously on the little chalkboard.
  
  Thunder booms loudly outside, rattling the windows.
  
  > examine tiny chalkboard
  Dr. Peanut is hard at work, trying to solve the weird equation on his little chalkboard.
  
  Dr. Peanut finishes his writing, takes a step back to check his work, and gives a satisfied little nod. Then he turns around and waves at you excitedly.
  
  > examine the tiny chalkboard
  Dr. Peanut's little chalkboard features a complex mathematical (and probably also occult) equation that you can't make heads or tails of, but which Dr. Peanut seemed quite satisfied with. Trying to figure it out gives you the tiniest, most adorable little shooting pains right behind your eyes.
  
  > ask the dr peanut about the equations
  Doctor Peanut shakes his head and gestures at his little chalkboard. He seems to be expecting some specific recognition of his accomplishment.
  
  Dr. Peanut squeaks and waves at you, trying to get your attention.
  
  A bright flash of lightning illuminates the windows, as presaged by the thunder a moment ago.
  
  > give single Peanut to Peanut
  (Dr. Peanut)
  (first taking the single peanut)
  Dr. Peanut accepts the peanut happily and graciously. Instead of cramming it into his cheeks the way you would expect a hamster to do, he cradles it in his arms as though it were a major award for excellence in science. Which, in a sense, it is.
  
  > examine the coffee
  The clouds in your cup form a gentle ripple. Lack of a symbolic image means that you have accomplished everything you must in your current environment and should move on to find new challenges in order to grow as a person.
  
  A faint smell of mildew emanates from it.
  
  Dr. Peanut basks in the glory of scientific discovery, and gives his peanut a satisfied pat.
  
  > look at the chalkboard
  (the chalkboard)
  One of those big old slate chalkboards set in a wooden frame with a pivot so you can flip it over and use the other side. It also has little wheels so you can move it around, but I'm going to tell you right now that it's perfectly fine where it is.
  
  It has a long and elaborate mathematical equation written on it (in chalk, naturally).
  
  On the chalkboard is a yellow sticky-note.
  
  > Go southwest
  Dr. Peanut squeaks queryingly as you leave.
  
  Abandoned Nursery (Harrison Gerard)
  An octagonal room. Dust coats the walls. In one corner, a crib. In the other, a dollhouse. Exits lead northwest, north, and northeast.
  
  You can see a "Gossipin' Gertie" doll and a vacuum cleaner here.
  
  > 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.
  
  Disheveled Studio (Katherine Morayati)
  Even in half-light, you can tell the studio must have been abandoned in a hurry. The bookshelves are ransacked, the easel in pieces on the floor, bulbs torn out of two of the ceiling lights. The only thing undisturbed is a table, solid like a slab, precisely in the center of the room. Several layers of heavy curtain block off crawlspaces to the north and southeast.
  
  The very existence of this room puzzles you. Peter had never expressed an interest in painting, or any arts really. It was hard enough just convincing him that the bedroom needed more than bare walls. But the room unmistakably smells like him. Specifically, it smells like the cologne he'd bought you on your 18-month anniversary, the kind he'd douse you in every night before bed, every morning after your shower, and really every time he saw you, regular and often enough that you associate it with him, not you. It used to be a comforting presence.
  
  A half-finished canvas slumps like a torso across the table.
  
  > About yourself
  You felt a sense of unease the moment you let the curtain fall behind you.
  
  > examine the coffee
  The swirls in your cup form a pear shape, complete with stem. 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.
  
  > examine the bookshelves
  The wood is cracked and full of splinters, and each book looks as it something's torn into it: spines warped, covers in tatters, dripping out ripped pages. There must have been dozens of books at one point, you'd guess. Surely some must be readable.
  
  > search the bookshelves
  On further examination, one book has survived the assault. You pick it up.
  
  > examine it
  There's nothing else salvageable on the shelves.
  
  You hear a faint cracking noise, and realize that the bat egg you've been carrying around is hatching! The shell cracks and crumbles away, revealing a small red fish. Amazing! You had heard stories of the red herring, which lays its eggs in other animals' nests in a similar fashion to the cuckoo, but you never expected to actually see one!
  
  > look at red Herring
  You hatched this red herring from a bat egg. Well, I guess it was a red herring egg, actually. It blinks at you with big round eyes, wondering if you're its mother.
  
  > Examine book
  Which do you mean, the ruined books, A Rudimentary Taxonomy of
  Known Scent and Grotesque Reactions, Life Beneath
  Nightmares (smelling faintly of mildew), Limerickus
  Dirtius (smelling faintly of mildew) or the small blue journal
  (which you know is a journal because it says "Mein Journal"
  on the front) (smelling faintly of mildew)?
  
  > look at Taxonomy
  The book is old -- by the design, you'd guess centuries -- but compared to the rest of the shelves, curiously unhandled. The title is flaking off and partially obscured by inky fingerprints, but you make it out after a few seconds: "A Rudimentary Taxonomy of Known Scent and Grotesque Reactions, by Artemis Cragne."
  
  A sticker on the spine bears the insignia of the Backwater Public Library.
  
  > read it
  You flip through the pages. Whoever was in here last, it's easy to tell where they left off: the pages are translucent with grease.
  
  Unnatural scent is prohibited in most God-fearing communities of this region, particularly in women, for whom it is seen as licentious adornment. This admonition is rarely heeded, and most community members can be identified by their characteristic stink. The scent becomes essentially bound to that individual, enough for divination purposes -- conveniently, as when one stinks in this way, one has already transgressed against community norms, so divination can hardly increase one's amounted sins. (A footnote cites several theologians you are unfamiliar with.)
  
  Scent is our closest link to the unknown, particularly when applied to other means of divination. When a scent is bound to an individual, and applied to a sympathetic object, it is known to have a sympathetic effect upon that individual. Several common substances are also known to have sympathetic effects:
  
  Cedar: Enhances visions.
  Frankincense: Induces holiness.
  Tuberose: Inflames passions.
  Petrichor: Promotes rot.
  Animalic musk (castoreum, civet): Promotes depravity.
  Blood: Binds an object to the one who bled.
  
  Through my study I have discovered certain compounds with grotesque properties.
  
  Savior's breath: A by-product of holy water. Colorless and curiously insubstantial, apparitional even. Used for purification.
  Peat venom: Extracted from cadavers, submerged in deep river mud, as close as possible to the ninth month of rot. (Two diagrams accompany the entry, one a map with hash markings, one a calendar, both covered in crude equations.) Opens one up to forces beyond this earth. Dispulsichor: Extracted from the air just after a sound has ended, or a scent has dispersed; takes on the appearance of the sky. Undoes the effect of past scent-based divination.
  
  You notice some loose papers stapled to the end of the book, yellowed from age, and are compelled to read on. (Type SCENTS at any point
  to recall the list of scents.)
  
  A sigh echoes in your head. "That's all of them," a voice breathes. "And that's about all I can do. I wish you luck. Find your husband, even though he's another Cragne. And beware the Vaadigniphod." With that, the voice fades away. After a second or two, you realize that your shoulder has warmed up again. You rub the spot absently, almost missing the cold.
  
  > read it
  (Type SCENTS at any point to recall the list of scents.)
  
  You flip through the pages, tearing a few:
  
  Sympathetic objects are traditionally keepsakes, though most trinkets are too small and insufficiently porous for scent-based divination. What seems to work best is a combination of blood and some physical likeness, usually an image of the face. A large, detailed image and close resemblance seem ideal.
  
  I presume an object or image only functions as a sympathetic object if it is activated; otherwise, our world would be composed entirely of conjurers and fainters. My studies suggest the key is intimacy. Looking at a sympathetic object produces little but unease. Touching it begins to produce results, more if by hand than by paintbrush. The strongest sympathetic effect comes from kissing. (The vulgar forms of physical intimacy do not seem to produce a meaningful sympathetic effect. I asked one of the local village boys to try with my image. All I felt was a remote disgust and a phantom mashing by my waist; all he said was it itched for a week.) I must continue.
  
  The pages go on.
  
  > Keep going
  (Type SCENTS at any point to recall the list of scents.)
  
  You flip through the pages, giving yourself a paper cut:
  
  It is said that malevolent spirits can operate through people, if those spirits are made aware of the person's existence, and if those individuals are of sufficient moral laxity. All of the accounts only say "moral laxity." They do not specify further; perhaps it depends on the traditional customs. The literature is tentative on such spirits being cast out.
  
  What is clear across the literature is that a priest cannot determine moral laxity. Nor can it be discerned from prayer or conversation. Yet the constant task of all men is to scour the bodies and images around them for signs of moral leakage, to cast out or drink in. I specify men deliberately. The constant task of woman is to conceal that which she may never know.
  
  There's yet more to read.
  
  > keep going
  (Type SCENTS at any point to recall the list of scents.)
  
  You flip through the pages, tearing a few:
  
  There are more malevolent spirits than the literature suggests, I am sure of it. Nor are they, as theologians say, all manifestations of Satan. Nor am I quite convinced they are even malevolent.
  
  This village appears to be a kind of locus. There is a great entity at work, I am sure of it. But in the day to day, I am less concerned with this entity than his deliverer. The literature says this deliverer may be summoned via divination, but only takes notice of those of the right moral substance. He, because I am convinced the deliverer is a male entity.
  
  You cannot bring yourself to stop reading.
  
  The wound on your finger has stopped bleeding now.
  
  > Keep going
  (Type SCENTS at any point to recall the list of scents.)
  
  You flip through the pages, giving yourself a paper cut:
  
  I have tested these scents upon my image every night for a fortnight. I'm sure I've kept it a secret, yet people shun me. Even that damn Consecration William steers clear. So I work alone now, into the night, half in delirium. I anoint my image with oils and try to inflame whatever it is within my breast that will prove myself worthy to the one who chooses. I have only used my own image; I dare not inflict this upon another, who may prove worthier.
  
  You cannot bring yourself to stop reading.
  
  > Continue
  (Type SCENTS at any point to recall the list of scents.)
  
  You flip through the pages, giving yourself a paper cut:
  
  He knows who I am. He knows who I am. He knows who I am.
  
  You cannot bring yourself to stop reading.
  
  > Keep going
  (Type SCENTS at any point to recall the list of scents.)
  
  You flip through the pages, tearing a few:
  
  Vaadignephod.
  
  You cannot bring yourself to stop reading.
  
  The wound on your finger has stopped bleeding now.
  
  > Continue
  (Type SCENTS at any point to recall the list of scents.)
  
  You flip through the pages, giving yourself a paper cut:
  
  Sympathetic objects are traditionally keepsakes, though most trinkets are too small and insufficiently porous for scent-based divination. What seems to work best is a combination of blood and some physical likeness, usually an image of the face. A large, detailed image and close resemblance seem ideal.
  
  I presume an object or image only functions as a sympathetic object if it is activated; otherwise, our world would be composed entirely of conjurers and fainters. My studies suggest the key is intimacy. Looking at a sympathetic object produces little but unease. Touching it begins to produce results, more if by hand than by paintbrush. The strongest sympathetic effect comes from kissing. (The vulgar forms of physical intimacy do not seem to produce a meaningful sympathetic effect. I asked one of the local village boys to try with my image. All I felt was a remote disgust and a phantom mashing by my waist; all he said was it itched for a week.) I must continue.
  
  You cannot bring yourself to stop reading.
  
  > Scents
  Cedar: Enhances visions.
  Frankincense: Purifies sins.
  Tuberose: Inflames passions.
  Petrichor: Promotes rot.
  Animalic musk (castoreum, civet): Promotes depravity.
  Blood: Binds an object to the one who bled.
  
  Savior's breath: Colorless and curiously insubstantial. Used for purification.
  Peat venom: Extracted from cadavers in river mud. Opens one up to forces beyond this earth.
  Dispulsichor: Undoes the effect of past divination.
  
  The wound on your finger has stopped bleeding now.