text: [Themes: Lovecraftian, Lovecraft, Comedy, female protagonist]
  
  > Look around
  Cold Storage Room (Jeremy Freese)
  You are in a room that looks very much like Aunt Mavis's cold storage room. But there's a giant eyeball in the wall instead of the door.
  
  On the opposite wall, a small squiddly hole has been covered by the robe like the one from Scream. Below it on the floor a small, similarly squiddular rift, although that is currently covered by a lobster bib. Left of that, there's a catflap in the wall, with a satchel in front of it.
  
  > put the clippings on the satchel
  As you do, you notice something hand-written in capital letters on the back of one of the clippings:
  
  OUR RITUAL CIRCLE OF RYN'VHHD'R WILL STOP IT FROM COMING BACK.
  
  OUR SIGILS OF JNI'PLD'NA WILL LET HER KEEP THE GIFT WITHOUT IT DESTROYING HER SOUL.
  
  BUT CAN THE GIRL DO HER PART?
  
  Beneath which is a drawing of what looks like a cat with wings.
  
  So weird. You make a note-to-Naomi to alta-vista that stuff
  with the apostrophes when all this is over.
  
  > Poke eyeball
  Another squid shoots out of the eyeball, sails across the room, hits the robe, slides down the sleeve and falls to the floor, landing on the lobster bib. A moment later the cat that looks just like Little Nifty sprints past you, darts left and plows into the satchel, sending the tiny squid and charred newspaper clippings flying. The cat jumps and becomes a bat, but with all the blackened objects in the air she mistakenly ends up with a bit from the Backwater Sturgeon in
  her mouth instead of the squid, which continues on its arc toward you.
  
  The squid hits you in the eye. You scream as the scalding, hissing creature latches onto your eyeball and pulls. Your eye socket pops as it breaks. With a searing slurp your eyeball slides out and something gooey and hot squirms into your face.
  
  You grab at your face but there isn't a squid or anything else there. A few moments later the pain begins to relent and before long it has subsided considerably.
  
  When you finally remove your hands, you discover the room is just as it was when you first entered—except the glyphs written on the walls in blood make much more sense now.
  
  > examine glyphs
  Later you will learn that these glyphs are part of an ancient ritual language whose rudiments it has taken decades of collective efforts by linguistic anthropologists in order to barely comprehend. Yet, fairly recently, there were as many as seven people with the ability to read the language fluently, but you are the only one left who remains alive and sane.
  
  "The Griseous Alderman of the Variegated Court has a familiar," the glyphs say, "and that familiar is sometimes a cat and sometimes a bat and sometimes goes by the name Little Nifty."
  
  You realize as you read the message that you understand the ritual language even better than you do English, because in English you sure as hell have no idea what griseous means.
  
  > RESTORE
  %% Enter a save filename to read:
  
  > go south
  As you turn to leave, you think again about the thing Aunt Mavis gave you. You finally understand what it is.
  
  At the beginning of that summer:
  "But why do I have to go stay with Aunt Mavis," you asked your mother. "I hardly know her."
  "She wants to get to know you better."
  "Why?"
  "There's nothing more important than family, Naomi. And also," lowering her voice to a whisper, "she has a very special gift she wants to give you."
  
  At the end:
  "You need me to pack? My ticket home isn't for another week."
  "It's for tomorrow, Naomi. You must have had so much fun staying with me that the weeks just flew by."
  You didn't believe her until you got the newspaper and saw the date for yourself. Which raised a delicate topic:
  "Aunt Mavis, I don't want to be rude. But my mom said you were planning to give me a special present."
  "Yes. And please do be sure to tell her that I did."
  
  > check what you're carrying
  You are carrying:
  a rusted toolbox (open)
  a jar of old keys (open)
  a splintery wooden key
  an ornate bronze key
  a sinister iron key
  a frosty blue key
  an intricately folded origami key
  a silver and ivory key
  a jar of screws (open but empty)
  a teapot (smelling faintly of mildew)
  Legends of Lake Champlain and the Hudson River Valley
  a scrap of paper
  Tatooine 1: Anchorhead (smelling faintly of mildew)
  an ominous-looking painting (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a 'Pataphysical Approaches to Quantum Superfluids
  a snowglobe
  a small rusty iron key (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a black fountain pen
  an old newspaper (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a mallet (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a metal flask (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a pink-bound book (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a pinch of snail paste
  an Italian magazine cutting
  De Zeven Testamenten van de Krijsende Zeeworm
  a police report ("Francine Cragne") (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a note from a seesaw
  a piece of chalk
  a black box (smelling faintly of mildew) (open but empty)
  a shard
  a broken silver amulet (smelling faintly of mildew)
  Mama Hydra's Deep Fried Ones (smelling faintly of mildew)
  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 (smelling faintly of mildew)
  red-rimmed porcelain plates (smelling faintly of mildew)
  red-rimmed porcelain cups (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a spray bottle that used to contain fungicide (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a copper urn (smelling faintly of mildew) (closed)
  a bronze urn (smelling faintly of mildew) (closed)
  a key from an urn (smelling faintly of mildew)
  some mildewed leather gloves
  a gallon jug of white vinegar (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a pair of garden shears (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a rusty flathead screwdriver
  a trophy for a dog race (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a black business card (smelling faintly of mildew)
  Tolerating An Asinine God (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a rusty piece of metal
  some yellowed newspapers (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a well-dressed ghost (haunting you) (smelling faintly of mildew)
  an employee ID card (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a soggy tome (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a long hooked pole (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a grimy rock (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a backpack features guide
  a trolley schedule (smelling faintly of mildew)
  Twin Hearts Between the Planes
  a pamphlet of home listings (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a moldy, waterlogged journal (smelling faintly of mildew)
  an antique locket (smelling faintly of mildew) (closed)
  a wad of cash
  a repaired page (smelling faintly of mildew)
  The Dollmaker's Journal (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a waterproof flashlight (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a tiny leather journal (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a filthy rug (smelling faintly of mildew)
  Daniel Baker's note
  the diary of Phyllis Cragne (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a postcard of Big Ben (smelling faintly of mildew)
  The Modern Girl's Divination Handbook -- Volume Three (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a pull-string doll (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a glass jar containing an insect
  a half-full styrofoam coffee cup (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a familiar gold wristwatch (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a pair of stone earplugs (being worn)
  a trolley pass (being worn)
  a Jansport backpack (being worn and open)
  a hidden pocket (open but empty)
  a key pocket (closed)
  a book pocket (open)
  an old paperback book (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a side pocket (closed)
  a trash pocket (closed)
  a gold jacket (being worn)
  a giant milkweed leaf (being worn as a mask)
  
  > put the small rusty key in the kp
  You unzip the key pocket, deposit the small rusty iron key (smelling faintly of mildew), then zip the key pocket back up again.