text: [Themes: horror, female protagonist, Comedy, Lovecraft]
  
  > look around
  Workroom (Andrew Plotkin)
  This is a circular chamber, walled in decaying brickwork. A boundary of grey-glowing runes runs around the perimeter of the room. The air is warm and peculiarly still, and the exit to the west seems clogged with darkness.
  
  A majestic filing cabinet stands in one corner, stuffed to overflowing with antique journals. Next to it is a full-length, badly fogged mirror.
  
  A thick aroma of flowers fills the room.
  
  A large disk, half black and half white, is mounted on the south wall.
  
  > look at the disk
  Upon closer examination, the circle is actually a sphere -- or a hemisphere, anyway, mounted high on one wall. The sphere itself is painted white, but an array of jointed black bands covers one side, leaving it half-and-half.
  
  A wooden ring is mounted at the bottom edge of the sphere. It looks movable; you could push or pull it.
  
  > pull the disk
  You pull the ring to the right. The black bands which cover half the sphere retract, leaving the surface mostly white, with just one black edge.
  
  Aha! This must be a representation of the moon, now in the gibbous phase. Very clever.
  
  The aroma fades.
  
  > Ulnur
  You incant the Word of Invocation. The silence around you takes on an attentive quality; something besides you is listening.
  
  You feel something invisible crawling across your body.
  
  > Khion
  You try to say the Word of Enlightenment, but its sound is already resonating in the air. You cannot speak it any louder.
  
  > recall Gretel
  Gretel Aschar was a Viennese witch, or seeress, who lived in the late 1700s. She was skilled in dreaming projection, but aspired to penetrate the illusion of Dream into the deeper truth beneath. She vanished in 1795 -- whether due to death or success, no one knows.
  
  The next page in the journal has nothing to do with Gretel. It describes the Word of Invocation: ULNUR, which brings forth
  voices from outside the world. A footnote adds, "Combine with Morovor's Word of Summer?" But there is no indication of what that might be.
  
  > listen
  The room is eerily silent, but you can sense words resonating in the air nonetheless: IA, KHION, MALETH, ULNUR.
  
  > Ulnur
  You incant the Word of Invocation. The silence around you takes on an attentive quality; something besides you is listening.
  
  You hear whispers in the darkness around you. Not with your ears, perhaps, but the whispers are there. And a few words are clear enough to understand, if you listen.
  
  > listen
  The room is eerily silent, but you can sense words resonating in the air nonetheless: IA, KHION, ULNUR.
  
  Behind the silence, whispers lurk. You can make out syllables, fragments of names. But one name is repeated over and over: "Jennever, Jennever..." That much is clear.
  
  > Maleth
  You chant the Word of Summer. A thick warmth creeps into the air around you. Sweat breaks on your skin.
  
  The whispers fade.
  
  You feel something invisible crawling across your body.
  
  > look up jennever
  You search through the disorganized heap, and are rewarded!
  
  There are only a few fragmentary notes about Jennever Cragne. She was a summoner of some repute, but "Summoned That from which one Cannot Turn Away," whatever that means. One torn chart shows combinations of moon and season conducive to summoning. High Summer and the full moon are noted for invoking nurturing spirits. "And the Oppositte, if one wishes a Spirit of Intellecte," it concludes airily.
  
  > examine the disk
  The sphere is mounted high on one wall, above a ring. It's a full yard across, and one edge is covered by the black bands, thus showing a gibbous moon.
  
  > pull the disk
  You pull the ring. The black bands retract completely, leaving the lunar sphere showing a full moon.
  
  > Ulnur
  You incant the Word of Invocation. The silence around you takes on an attentive quality; something besides you is listening.
  
  You feel something invisible crawling across your body, and the gaze of a green presence. It studies you, and everything around you, with dispassion; what to nurture, what to prune.
  
  A faint but piercing-sweet scent drifts past you. It seems to emanate from the direction of the filing cabinet.
  
  > Smell cabinet
  An intense orchid scent drifts from the filing cabinet.
  
  The tiniest green shoot has crawled up the side of the cabinet. Its tip blooms into a minute, perfect orchid, which breathes its scent out into the room. The bloom curls over the edge of a journal which bears the name "Margreth Cragne".
  
  > look up Margreth
  You root through the disorderly pile, and are rewarded!
  
  Margreth Cragne studied visionary meditation in this very basement in the late 1880s. She wrote of the art of scrying a spirit who does not want to be observed. "Bring forth an ice-covered mirror under the full moon. Speak the Word of Enlightenment; then polish the glass with your hand. Then wait until the moon is new and allow the ice to melt. Your will shall penetrate the glass and reveal that which you seek."
  
  > recall
  You have learned the following incantations:
  IA, the Word of Sealing
  ZOK, the Word of Unsealing
  KHION, the Word of Enlightenment
  IRNATH, the Word of Winter
  MALETH, the Word of Summer
  ULNUR, the Word of Invocation
  
  You have researched the following names: Anax Cragne, Ladoro Feraud, Francois Crane, Gretel Aschar, Morovor Krahne, Jennever Cragne and Margreth Cragne.
  
  > Ulnur
  You incant the Word of Invocation. The silence around you takes on an attentive quality; something besides you is listening.
  
  A painful prickling runs along your skin. You sense a chill presence in the air, something looking towards you from far away. Its attention is a faded intimation of those undiscovered realms that await the soul beyond this world. Even so, its gaze burns.
  
  If you look more closely at the spirit, you might learn more.
  
  > look at Spirit
  You cannot see the spirit, but you attempt to capture its focus with your gaze.
  
  You are struck by a hideous pain behind your eyes. It mutes, after a moment, to pressure and an icy chill.
  
  There is sentience in the focus, an awareness that nearly overwhelms you. Somewhere something is shrieking; the not-sound scrapes along the thin edge of reality. But you can make out its intent. A name:
  Kteh Nyare.
  
  > Zok
  You speak the Word of Unsealing. The runes flare with grey light and then fade. The sense of pressing silence fades with them, leaving the room feeling dim and mundane once again.
  
  > look up nyare
  You search through the disorganized heap, and are rewarded!
  
  Kteh Nyare was a scribe, or priest, or tutelary god -- stories disagree -- in the legendary Lost Dynasty of Egypt. The rulers in this period sojourned deep into forbidden arts, raising the Old Kingdom to unrivaled sovereignty. When they fell, their ruin was so terrible that their names and deeds have been entirely erased from history.
  
  It was Kteh Nyare who first committed arcane Names to papyrus for study. Modern occultists use newer alphabets, but Kteh Nyare's hieroglyphics were an exacting and precise system of writing.
  
  You study the description of the hieroglyphics. They clarify your understanding of the Words you have learned. By speaking with greater precision, you realize, you can amplify most of those Words -- repeating the Word to intensify its effect.
  
  > recall Margreth
  Margreth Cragne studied visionary meditation in this very basement in the late 1880s. She wrote of the art of scrying a spirit who does not want to be observed. "Bring forth an ice-covered mirror under the full moon. Speak the Word of Enlightenment; then polish the glass with your hand. Then wait until the moon is new and allow the ice to melt. Your will shall penetrate the glass and reveal that which you seek."
  
  > pull disk
  You pull the ring. The black bands retract, leaving the lunar sphere showing a crescent moon.
  
  > pull the disk
  You pull the ring. The black bands retract, leaving the lunar sphere showing a half moon.
  
  > pull the disk
  You pull the ring. The black bands retract, leaving the lunar sphere showing a gibbous moon.
  
  > pull the disk
  You pull the ring. The black bands retract completely, leaving the lunar sphere showing a full moon.
  
  > Irnath
  You chant the Word of Winter. The chill deepens to a numbing, aching wave of cold.
  
  A coarse layer of frost grows over the surface of the mirror, leaving it opaque.
  
  > Khion
  You intone the Word of Enlightenment. The world takes on a peculiar, hollow clarity. Every brick is edged with infinite precision; every crack wants to show you its secrets.
  
  > Polish mirror
  You place your hand against the frosted glass. The cold burns through skin and nerve, but slowly, a pearly glow begins to shine through the ice. When you pull your hand away, the glow remains.
  
  > look at the mirror
  You try to peer into the mirror, but it is entirely frosted over. A pearly glow shimmers behind the ice.
  
  > Maleth
  You chant the Word of Summer. The stabbing cold around you lessens.
  
  The frost sublimes from the surface of the mirror, leaving it clear as ice and filled with a pearly glow.
  
  > look at the mirror
  You peer into the glass...
  
  You see a shifting field of geometry, all illuminated by pearly light. Within it, Gretel Aschar's decrepit face slowly comes back into focus. Her wrinkles twist into a scowl of utter disgust.
  
  "Fine. Fine. You seek the way to the Gates of Slumber? Find
  the writings of my student Ersebet. A fool, she was, but she knew more than a little of the ways of Dream." A glare of unutterable contempt. "And she knew, for a wonder, how to leave an old woman
  alone."
  
  The geometric light seems to turn inside out, and the face is once again gone from your sight.
  
  > look up Ersebet
  You scavenge through the disorderly pile, and are rewarded!
  
  Ersebet Cranyi was, as the old woman said, a student in the Viennese cultic circle at the end of the 1700s. After the group schismed in 1795, Ersebet travelled to America and attempted to barter visionary secrets with the indigenous shamans of the New World. They, by all accounts, wanted nothing to do with her, and she spent her remaining days poring over fragmentary manuscripts in a Boston garret.
  
  Her one creditable discovery was the Trance Word, VULLE,
  which allows the ritualist to project his or her awareness into a visionary realm. This is not the true Dreamlands, but a space within the practitioner's own mind, shaped by the symbology of their perceptions. The visionary state is thus merely a foundation from which greater rituals may be enacted.
  
  > recall
  You have learned the following incantations:
  IA, the Word of Sealing
  ZOK, the Word of Unsealing
  KHION, the Word of Enlightenment
  IRNATH, the Word of Winter
  MALETH, the Word of Summer
  ULNUR, the Word of Invocation
  VULLE, the Word of Trance
  ...along with the ability to repeat a word, intensifying its effect
  
  You have researched the following names: Anax Cragne, Ladoro Feraud, Francois Crane, Gretel Aschar, Morovor Krahne, Jennever Cragne, Kteh Nyare, Margreth Cragne and Ersebet Cranyi.
  
  > Vulle
  You speak the Word of Trance. The basement walls, without moving, become distant and remote.
  
  The Garden (Andrew Plotkin)
  You are in a tidily-trimmed garden, surrounded by topiary, flowerbeds, and orderly hedge.
  
  Above is a haze-swirled night sky.
  
  > look at the sky
  The stars are veiled by a high shredding haze.
  
  > Khion
  You intone the Word of Enlightenment. The world takes on a peculiar, hollow clarity.