text: [Themes: Lovecraftian, Lovecraft]
  
  > Look around
  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.
  
  > look at the bookshelves
  A blue plywood bookshelf leans haphazardly against the wall beside the fridge. Marks on the dusty shelves suggest a formerly robust collection. A few of the remaining cookbooks catch your eye...
  
  On the bookshelf are Hyper-Gastronomy, Exactness, and String Theory: a Theoretical Subdiscipline of Cooking and Baking by Chef Wheldrake, A Culinary Overview of Superstitions in the Miskaton Valley Region by S. Jarret Zornwharf and Mama Hydra's Deep Fried Ones.
  
  > look at mama hydra'S
  A funny little cookbook. The cover is a picture of a massive deep fryer sitting in a vast cavern. It must be a doctored photograph, the fryer looks like it's the size of a swimming pool.
  
  > read it
  (first taking Mama Hydra's Deep Fried Ones)
  
  Flipping through the pages, it seems to be a rather standard cookbook. The pictures, however, are disgusting.
  
  > examine the Hyper-the gastronomy
  A ragged book with a dark green cover.
  
  > read it
  (first taking Hyper-Gastronomy, Exactness, and String Theory: a Theoretical Subdiscipline of Cooking and Baking by Chef Wheldrake) Flipping through the pages, you can see that this work is clearly over your head... or more likely straight gobbledygook. Many pages are nothing but mathematic equations but one chapter appears to cover the "mouthfeel" of different Quarks in great detail. Another rants about the differing politics and ideologies of "certain well-known mineral deposits." Good lord.
  
  > examine the culinary overview
  A massive tome of a cookbook, bigger than The Joy of Cooking by half. The back of the book says the author lived in villages up and down the Miskaton river and painstakingly gathered "an oral history of superstitious meals and snacks" throughout his life.
  
  > read it
  (first taking A Culinary Overview of Superstitions in the Miskaton Valley Region by S. Jarret Zornwharf)
  A few of the passages stand out...
  
  The Ritual of Lost Luck
  The Chewed Pit and Other Detritus
  The "Rat Hole" Legend
  The "Ghost Libation" Legend
  
  > continue
  A few of the passages stand out...
  
  The Ritual of Lost Luck
  The Chewed Pit and Other Detritus
  The "Rat Hole" Legend
  The "Ghost Libation" Legend
  
  > read the introduction
  One of the more rambling, self-righteous introductions you've seen for a cookbook. Lots of unreadable lines, a highlight being: "Food takes on this form of expression which no doubt all families are bound to take part in and in the case of aforementioned societal trauma a way of speaking these so-called unspeakable or unknowable things sidestepping logic insisted upon in language with a primal glance towards truth one never sees or hears but rather smells or feels." ...yikes.
  
  > read the goad cragne
  Ingredients: 1 jar pickled Herring 4 slices rye bread 1 beet, cubed 1 teaspoon mustard 4 tablespoons sour cream 2 tablespoons olive oil 374 grains salt ½ shallot, thinly sliced 3 sprigs green onions 2 springs dil 1 tablespoon butter 4 teaspoons capers 2 tablespoons broccoli florets 1 hardboiled egg
  
  Instructions: "Goad was a fisherman called towards cruelty. It was Goad's youngest who they say finally put a stop to him. Seven years old, poisoned her father's favorite lunch. They say he dropped dead on the first bite, the little one hadn't known what was too much or too little. But then... they also say Goad stood up the next morning. Say he walked straight to the Miskaton, caught twenty eight fish in two hours, and died again. No one really admits they believe that part of the story... but you can tell by the droop in their eye which ones tasted the fish Goad caught that day."
  
  > read lost Luck
  Ingredients: 2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, unpeeled and chopped 4 to 5 white or yellow onions 3 tablespoons unsalted butter 3 cloves garlic, crushed 7 cups chicken broth 3 springs thyme 3 bay leaves 3866 grains salt ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper 1 cup heavy cream
  
  Instructions: "What sickens me is how quickly the vendors arrive, only minutes after the search party. The soup they hawk is an expected element of the searching ritual. We never find a child lost to the Miskaton River. We always have a bowl of soup."
  "Last chance for luck! One bowl's one prayer! The cost's unkind but the price is fair! First bowl for luck! Second's for grief! The third spits a curse on the whole belief!"
  
  > read the chewed pit
  A five-sided glass jar with a colorful commercial label that reads "Forgotten Frontier's hyper-corporeal salt." Wait, was it five sides? When you look again it seems to only have four...
  
  Ingredients: 1 Peach Pit 3 cups blueberries 3 cups blackberries 2 tablespoons butter 1/3 cup white sugar 2/3 cup brown sugar 3 tablespoons cornstarch 18041 grains salt 1/4 cup lemon juice
  
  Instructions: "No one had time to think that day. I think that's why none of us went mad. We were all so busy undamming the river, up to our waists in shit... not one of us had the energy to... to see what we were pulling out. It wasn't all just bags and bike tires. It... No one else'll talk to me about it. Fuck, I don't even know what there would be to say. Anyways, it's like I said, after that day is when we started getting berries growing along the river. I don't think I'd like to talk much more about it."
  
  > read the rat hole
  Amaranth "Rat" Cakes Serves Twelve to Sixteen
  
  Ingredients: 2 cup amaranth grain 1 ounce dried chanterelle mushrooms 4 tablespoons shallots 2 eggs 4 tablespoons flour 62031 grains salt 2 teaspoons Floridian snail paste 2 tablespoons fresh summer savory
  
  Instructions: "Holes that are crisp to the eye which appear in wide turns of our river at no particular time nor for any godly purpose." "Nothing but beer to drink and Verm Cakes to eat, that's the trad aspect. But you know, I think back in the day people drank somethin nicer than beer... (laughs) And it was a Rat Cake back then! Not a Verm... But yeah, usually it takes a few days a" waiting. Lucky when it does show it's loud enough to wake us if we're sleepin... so yeah we all hustle to dump what the Verm Hole wants into the river. They, that stuff, it always floats straight to the hole, every time so yeah. It's not pretty but at the other hand it's honest work... three of my grandparents fed the Verm Holes. And like... I mean, sometimes it's just a cow."
  
  > read the ghost libation
  Ingredients: 1 part cold gin 2 parts warm apple cider 1 pinch cinnamon 8 grains salt
  
  Instructions: "It alls means something, thids drink. My great-grandfather... a Cragne! Keening Ken Cragne! Through from the... to the top. Is he here now? Is he dead? (laughs) And we remember wha (unintelligible) Kenneth Cragne! It all meanses something... listen to me... listen... Two parts cider, yeah? Because two days outta three, ol" Ken Cragne put cider in his flask! Calm days, they say. My dad said thad. Calm Ken days... Calm. But I wasn't alive then I don't (unintelligible.) But still I remember the gin days, you know? I shouldn't remember 'em right? Because that's crazy, right? (laughs) Why do I remember Ken Bastard Cragnes cold gin days, huh? Thas weird, right? My grandpa's the only kid of nine to like... Hold on okay. Lemme EXPLAIN the DRINK. The pinch of cinn- of cinnda- the punch a cibadon... cinnamon. That's Ken's lonely work! Train conductor, and actually the only one in my family to do that particular occupation. Big money becauss he smuggled cinner... cinn... he smuggled lots of things actually. They'd all be dead by now anyways, right? (unintelligible) What were we talking about? Oh! Oh god! EIGHT GRAINS OF SALT! EXACT! PRECISE OR HE DOES THE THING OKAY? Eight kids eight grains eight bloody brains. I would sing thadt. Perfect or Ken... Ken is here right now, right? Don't tell him I said- he just dead but he's here... He usedta beat up my mom and dad... after they died! I don't know knowww whyyy. We Cragne's got space in our blood. Space times. Very dignified, do you hear me? Very dignified! That's the name. That's hell. LISTEN TO (unintelligible) dig... we got.. we... please...
  
  > get the snail
  You scoop a bit of the goop into your pocket.
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying:
  a pinch of snail paste
  A Culinary Overview of Superstitions in the Miskaton Valley Region
  
  Hyper-Gastronomy, Exactness, and String Theory: a Theoretical Subdiscipline of Cooking and Baking by Chef Wheldrake
  Mama Hydra's Deep Fried Ones
  red-rimmed porcelain cups (smelling faintly of mildew)
  red-rimmed porcelain plates
  an Italian magazine cutting
  De Zeven Testamenten van de Krijsende Zeeworm
  a police report ("Francine Cragne")
  a piece of chalk
  a pair of stone earplugs (being worn)
  a black box (open but empty)
  a note from a seesaw
  a shard
  a broken silver amulet
  a teapot
  a tiny leather journal
  Daniel Baker's note
  an old paperback book (smelling faintly of mildew)
  an old newspaper (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a metal flask (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a half-full styrofoam coffee cup (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a familiar gold wristwatch (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a glass jar containing an insect
  a pull-string doll (smelling faintly of mildew)
  The Modern Girl's Divination Handbook -- Volume Three
  a postcard of Big Ben (smelling faintly of mildew)
  the diary of Phyllis Cragne (smelling faintly of mildew)
  The Dollmaker's Journal (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a repaired page (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a wad of cash
  an antique locket (smelling faintly of mildew) (closed)
  a moldy, waterlogged journal (smelling faintly of mildew)
  Twin Hearts Between the Planes
  a trolley schedule (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a backpack features guide
  a grimy rock (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a long hooked pole (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a soggy tome (smelling faintly of mildew)
  an employee ID card (smelling faintly of mildew)
  some yellowed newspapers (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a rusty piece of metal
  Tolerating An Asinine God (smelling faintly of mildew)
  loose bricks (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a black business card (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a trophy for a dog race (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a rusty flathead screwdriver
  a pair of garden shears (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a gallon jug of white vinegar (smelling faintly of mildew)
  some mildewed leather gloves
  a key from an urn
  a bronze urn (smelling faintly of mildew) (closed)
  a copper urn (smelling faintly of mildew) (closed)
  a spray bottle that used to contain fungicide (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a waterproof flashlight (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a pamphlet of home listings (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a mallet (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a gold jacket (being worn)
  a filthy rug
  a hovering spark (haunting you) (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a giant milkweed leaf (being worn as a mask)
  a Jansport backpack (being worn and open)
  a hidden pocket (open but empty)
  a key pocket (closed)
  a book pocket (open but empty)
  a side pocket (closed)
  a trash pocket (closed)
  a trolley pass (being worn)
  
  > go east
  Dining Room (Roberto Colnaghi)
  A long, rectangular mahogany table takes up most of the room. The room is old and dusty, and it seems decades have passed since the last time someone had dinner here. On the table lies a broken machine, and a calendar is pinned on the wall. Doorways lead west, east, and south.
  
  > go to the east
  The floorboards groan against your footsteps as you enter the dusty sitting room. Light struggles to penetrate the grimy bay window, hinting at the space around you. Various pieces of furniture are covered by moldy, moth-bitten sheets. The remains of a portrait hang above the fireplace. Leaning against a wall is a large mirror.
  
  Seems like no one has used this room in some time.
  
  > About yourself
  You are Naomi, and you look exactly as you should. Since your arrival in Backwater, you've discovered it helps to remind yourself of this fact as often as you can.
  
  > examine the coffee
  The clouds in your cup form a roller blade. 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.
  
  > examine the window
  The window is covered in a thick layer of grime.
  
  > look at the portrait
  Whoever it was has been ripped to shreds.
  
  > examine the fireplace
  It's empty.
  
  > look at the mirror
  You gaze at yourself in the mirror, marveling at the way the afternoon sun shimmers across the gold and gray hues in your neatly coiffed hair. Moira has such a talent for the latest styles that you can hardly help but employ her assistance every morning, even when you have no plans to go into town.
  
  Today you chose to wear one of your violet dresses with thin black stripes and velvet trim. The high neck and full sleeves of the tailored coat are double-lined to protect against any errant draughts. Lord knows how they like to scurry through the house this time of year. And it has been so especially cold as of late.
  
  "Really, darling, with all the time you spend gawking at your own reflection, I don't know how you have much time for anything else," Eustace says, his words soaked in irritation. The argument from the night before lingers between the two of you. You can already taste a bitter retort forming on your lips. You swallow it back down.
  
  He continues. "Would you be a dear and ring Moira for me? I believe I saw the postman come through and am expecting an important letter." He motions to the bell pull before turning his newspaper to the next page and shaking it stiff.