text: [Themes: horror, Lovecraft]
  
  > Describe the surroundings
  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.
  
  > look at the woods
  Distant, dark foliage.
  
  > look at Library
  Neoclassical columns frame a grand entrance. A wheelchair ramp has been constructed beside the steps.
  
  > examine the office
  Oddly featureless.
  
  > go east
  This is unusually spacious for a small-town library. You think you remember something about it being a national historical site? That would explain the decor, at least. It's half rustic colonial, half modern budget-strapped public service, with a meager collection of creaky shelves standing in the middle of an old plank floor. A small display case stands prominently near the entrance, and some weird chairs are scattered around for the comfort of the patrons, none of whom are here at the moment. The sole exit is back to the west.
  
  A fleece jacket is draped over the back of one of the chairs.
  
  A librarian stands behind a counter.
  
  > look at the shelves
  The books don't seem to be in any particular order. You can browse if you like, but good luck finding anything specific.
  
  The librarian looks at you.
  
  > examine the librarian
  An old woman with severe features, primly dressed, with slate-gray hair tied up in a bun. She's almost a caricature, and seems as antique as the building.
  
  > examine case
  In the display case are a plaque and a big black book.
  
  The librarian stamps something. There's something odd about the way she moves. You can't quite put your finger on it.
  
  > examine the plaque
  In 1630, the eccentric scholar and polymath Henry Danton Gules came to America to study the superstitions of the Abenaki people, who he was convinced held "the secrets of the earth". He spent much of the next eight years living among them, learning their language and folklore. Or so he claimed; his accounts of his experiences range from the highly exaggerated to the outright fabricated.
  
  "The native storytellers have shown me wondrous things. Under the mountains are caverns without limit, where great beasts roam, and feed upon the buried dead..."
  (Letter from Gules to a colleague)
  
  During this time, he wrote two books, under the pseudonym "Azban" (a trickster figure from Abenaki legend). One, now lost, was a text on a language that he called "Adamic", which he claimed was the original language spoken before the fall of the Tower of Babel. The other, displayed here, is De Vermibus Laceris, which he described as "completing the known principles of ritual magic by reuniting them with the forgotten wisdom of the ancients". Most of the book is written in a mix of Latin and English, but some of the more theoretical passages, including several entire chapters, are in Adamic, and have not been translated.
  
  In order to publish these books, Gules helped to finance the first printing press in New England in 1638. However, he never saw them printed, due to his disappearance in the great New Hampshire earthquake later that year. The few copies that had been made were declared "blasphemous" by Massachusetts Bay Colony governor John Winthrop, who ordered them destroyed. It was believed that no copies survived until 1986, when the volume displayed here was discovered concealed in a wall of the Backwater Public Library during renovations.
  
  > Examine book
  Which do you mean, the bookshelf, De Vermibus Laceris, the shabby journal, The Modern Girl's Divination Handbook -- Volume Three, the diary of Phyllis Cragne or the postcard of Big Ben?
  
  > Examine vermibus
  A massive tome, with ragged pages bound in badly-decayed black leather, laid open on a stand.
  
  > read it
  The grimoire in open on a page describing peeling open the way to someone lost, whether they be in this world or not. You gather from the prelimaries that the ritual involves the horn of a black goat and a cyst from a god, as well as the lost one's true star sign and their most treasured memento. How the ritual is actually performed is further in the book on the pages you currently cannot see.
  
  > ask the librarian about the grimoire
  With whip-like speed, she raises a finger to her lips and shushes you vigorously, then points at a sign on the counter.
  
  You glance around. There's no one around who you could possibly be disturbing.
  
  > look at the chair
  A collection of tired-looking wooden sculptures with orange vinyl cushions on them.
  
  On the chair is a fleece jacket.
  
  The librarian catches your eye and points at the bookshelves.
  
  > take the jacket
  A card flutters to the ground as you pick the jacket up. Almost involuntarily, you stoop and pick it up too.
  
  The librarian nods at you curtly. There's something eerie about how quietly she moves about the library. You can hardly take a step without a floorboard creaking. It's like she weighs nothing.
  
  > look at the jacket
  Hey, isn't this Peter's jacket?
  
  Yeah, it totally is! It's got that worn-off section on the elbow from your bike trip together. I guess he must have been in the library recently and left it there. Only... how could anyone forget their jacket in this weather?
  
  > examine the card
  A battered beige rectangle with rounded corners, printed with the library insignia, and bearing the words:
  
  is entitled to borrow books from
  BACKWATER PUBLIC LIBRARY
  Backwater, Vermont
  and is responsible for all books taken on this card
  Expires APRIL 1998
  No 19078
  
  A little metal dealy clips through the cardboard, with a mirror-reversed version of the ID number stamped into it. They really haven't upgraded their systems in a while.
  
  The librarian disappears between the shelves for a bit, then returns.
  
  > get it
  You already have that.