Mystic Tomes

>
> *This page has been marked as needing to be reworked*
>
>
>
>

**Mystic Tomes** is a side case available in *The Sinking City*. You acquire it from reading a letter entitled A plea for help found in your room in the Devil's Reef while owning the Worshippers of the Necronomicon (DLC) . It directs you to the room across the hall, where you find 7 notes leading to books around Oakmont.

## Case

This Side Case mission can be activated as soon as the player wakes up in their hotel room at the beginning of the second Main Case, **Lost at Sea**. There will be a letter sitting on the desk (directly across from the foot of the bed) addressed to Charles Reed.

### The Book Collector's Letter

* ****A Plea for Help****

This letter, written by a collector of arcane literature and address directly to Reed

All entries in this section of the *Lore* tab come from addresses given during the collection mission (included in the Worshippers of the Necronomicon (DLC). This side mission becomes available near the beginning of **"Lost at Sea"**, after the protagonist finds a letter from a distressed fellow inhabitant of the Devil's Reef Hotel on the desk in their hotel room.

## The Whereabouts of the Research Notes

The Book Collector's research notes are all located in the hotel room across and to the right from Reed's makeshift office. They are placed as follows:

* The Collector's notes on the Mystic Tomes#"Bewitched Tome" Research Notes are found [*give location in room*].

## The Writings of a Desperate Scholar

### A Plea for Help

Dear Mr Reed, I understand that you are the private eye that caught the murderer in the port.
My life is in danger, and I cannot trust anyone in this city. Please come to my room, which is just opposite yours!
I am in despair. My studies have drawn the attention of vile forces. They stalk me, and will take me soon. I have cast my lot, and am beyond saving, but the seven books must be saved at any cost. Even if I'm gone, find my notes there. This knowledge must not be lost, as it could be our kind's last hope for enlightenment!

### Bewitched Tome

The local legends may be more than mere superstition. A dozen witches were hanged on a huge apple tree that still grows near the cider mill.
Among these documents is a confession: one of the witches said the devil himself granted them a book with words of power. This book hides itself from mortal eyes, waiting for the witches to be reborn and return to reclaim it.

### The Hidden Book

It took a lot of effort to track down this book. After being stolen from the Throgmorton museum, it was bought by a local surgeon who was found dead in his house after the Flood.

### Tome in the Ruins

Local women were talking about a ruined house in central Coverside, near the radio tower on the crossing of Landing Avenue and Kingsport Street.

### Book in the Bank

Talking with locals is never easy, but this old chap was one of the queerest yet.
He was happy to talk about the book, but only laughed when I proposed to buy it. "I left it in the most guarded place of the city, and paid enough to keep it there until the world ends. And if it is abandoned after the Flood, even better, Ignorance is the best guardian."

### The Tome of the Mair

The fishermen talk of a place near the Blackwood Manor, on the southern part of Whisper Street, where meetings occur in the dead of night. The locals don't like this part of eastern Grimhaven Bay, because they seem to fear those who gather near the half-built ships.
They say a certain book is read at these meetings. a cursed tome that makes people so crave the sea's touch that they go and drown in the ocean.

### The Wheel Tome

I had a dream so real it still makes my hands shake. A huge ferris wheel rose amidst the city. People got on and rode it higher and higher before jumping off at its peak. As the pile of corpses grew bigger, the crowd pushed me to the wheel.
And then I saw a man with a leather bag. He was standing in the centre of the wheel, and reading from a book. His awful dirge was making the wheel rotate, and dragging the crowd to their slaughter.

### Waiting Book

Building the church was his redemption. Day after day he worked without payment, carrying stones and putting them in the moist soil of Salvation Harbor.
At night, when he returned to his house behind the church, he could not sleep. The book his ancestors brought across the ocean called.
When the church was built, the priest found him hanged on the bell rope. But the book is still waiting for someone to come and read it.

## The Hunt for the Vile Volumes

* **Necronomicon**
	+ This book, referenced in the **"Bewitched Tome"** document, is found in eastern Reed Heights, at the far end of the northernmost stretch of Communion Rd., (north of Museum Ave.,) in front of the rusted remains of a gray coupe. Beside the rear of the car lies what appears to be the naked corpse of a woman, but is, in fact, an appendage of thegargantuan abomination that guards the ancient volume. The player is faced with two choices: attempt to slay the enormously powerful (but relatively slow) beast in one of the game's more difficult boss battles, or make a dash for the book and attempt to snatch it and leave the area before their lumbering foe has a chance to fatally maul them.
* **Dhol Chants**
	+ **The Hidden Book**
* **Cassilda's Song**
	+ **Tome in the Ruins**
* **Commoriom**
	+ **Book in the Bank**
* **The Book of Dagon**
	+ **Tome of the Mair**
* **Unaussprechlichen Kulten**
	+ **The Wheel Tome**
* **De Vermis Mysteriis**
	+ **Waiting Book**

## Reed's Notes on the Accursed Mystic Tomes

### Necronomicon

The fabled Necronomicon is heavy and cold. The book is thick and bound in dark, stained leather. Wherever the material came from, it feels too thin and elastic to make for effective binding.
The intricately carved symbols somehow affect my eyes, and after a moment of concentration become readable.
"...then say the words of Sealing - "Shem serep pftoss mavo igerso! Baiaf! Igerso!" - and kneel before the circles. Bow to them and pray thusly: The One All-Uniting who dwells in the dark, In the center of all Things you sleep, And may this darkness be dense forever, So no one see the glare of your Eye!

### Dhol Chants

A library stamp proves this book used to belong to the Miskatonic University's library.
It is not just old--it's ancient. Thewords inside are arranged into stanzas, but the language... It is the tongue of the lumbering dholes of the distant Vale of Pnath, where worlds collide and time does not exist. The letters form meaningless phrases, but if read aloud, somehow become understandable.
"...drrdozh uuroth ezik
ezzurh kssah uhhanuu
zi dhol zi trrshu
trrdo fujjhaz tzonnass...
...the dust falls, it falls
All alive feeds Mother Earth with itself
We dholes we crawl

### Cassilda's Song

"Along the shore the cloud waves break,
The twin suns sink beneath the lake,
The shadow lengthens
 In Carcosa.
Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through the skies
But stranger still is
 Lost Carcosa.
Songs that the Hyades shall sing,
Where flap the tatters of the King,
Must die unheard in
 Dim Carcosa.
Song of my soul, my viuce is dead;
Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed
Shall dry and die in

### Commoriom

The manuscript is written in symbols barely recognisable as a script. Its pages number in the hundreds, and splitting the book in two is a single engraving upon a thin sheet of metal: a deserted city square surrounded by tall pillars, and in the middle, a hideous, crooked monstrosity squats as he devours his screaming victims.

### The Book of Dagon

The book is old and damp. It is a translation, and a rough draft at that, littered with footnotes and corrections.
The rituals of Dagon's servants, including summoning and sacrifice, are intermixed with other advice. One dictates the proper breeding with humans so as to grow the Deep One's numbers.

### Unaussprechlichen Kulten

The book is bound in heavy leather with iron hasps. It is a fairly decent translation, which makes the knowledge it reveals all the more nauseating.
"If one wants to use the ritual of seven desecrated graves, brought by the horrible Ikvabe, rising the six serving undead, you will need to create a wand from oak or maple.

### De Vermis Mysteriis

The cover is made of black leather with copper insets covered in a green patina. It describes the rituals and tools of priests who seek the worlds that lie beyond.

## Trivia

* Like most of the evidence collected through the game, (and unlike the letters the protagonist receives from Victor the Inkeeper at the beginning of the similar collection mission, **"Letters From Oakmont"**,) the Book Collector's notes will appear in Reed's Casebook in the order in which they are acquired.

* The Book Collector's identity is a mystery: they are never seen nor named, and no details or obvious references to them appear elsewhere in the game.

* Like the aforementioned unseen mission-giver, the massive, powerful monster that defends the Necronomicon is never given a formal name or classification, and no information on it can be found in either the Casebook's Bestiary or anywhere else within the gamee
	+ Despite being marked on the map as an Infested Area on the map once discovered, this is the sole creature that spawns at this location, only doing so if the player approaches the back of the dead-end road (which, not uncoincidentally, is where the Necronomicon is found). This may lull first-time players into a false sense of security, leaving them unprepared for the difficult fight ahead.