Session Three - 02/21/2021

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After regrouping at The Wish Doctors in the late afternoon, the group discusses what they should do next. Elijah mentions that he needs to check in at the repair shop he works at before it gets too late, and leaves. Delia searches around the shop for any information on Egyptand the **symbol** in their shop's logo. She finds a sort of general information book on Ancient Egypt. Inside, Delia finds a picture of a pyramid at night with a crescent moon above it, though the page has been defaced. The **symbol** from the **constellation** in Ophelia's vision has been carved into the book roughly over the moon in the picture. Ophelia's reaction to the picture is different than everyone else's. She sees the Man in Black from her vision standing in front of the pyramid, and facing the toward her. He begins to move. He walks toward her, growing closer in the photograph, beckoning with a hand. Everyone sees Ophelia seize up in terror, and Delia wrestles the book away and to close it. Delia suggests they perform a cleansing ritual on the book, using salt. After the ritual, Monte offers to store the book in the backpack on his wheelchair.

There is a knock at the door. Ophelia opens it to find the kid from earlier, Billy. After extorting another $2 from Ophelia, Billy shares that there's a salesman who frequents the neighborhood, Mr. Dooley, who may be able to give her the information she needs. While this is happening, McQuaid calls over to the Central Police Station and speaks with the receptionist. He requests a background file on Steven Knott to be placed at his desk for him to pick up later. There is then some further discussion on if going to Chapel of Contemplation is the best idea, with McQuaid in particular reiterating his concern. Delia reveals her childhood indoctrination in a cult and pushes that even if this church isn't connected, it needs dealt with once and for all. Monte cuts through all of this by saying he's going to the Chapel anyway, and anyone who wants to accompany him is welcome to do so. They all decide to accompany him in the interests of keeping the group together.

They make the trip to the North End on foot, and day gives way to early evening. They come to the given address of the Chapel of Contemplation but find no building there. Instead, its an overgrown ruin, one that looks like it has been abandoned for far more than eight years. They notice a **symbol** painted onto one of the walls of the ruin, one shaped like three Y's in a triangle surrounding an eye. They enter the ruins and into the main area of the former church. The waning light of early evening is nearly gone here, as large trees overgrow where the roof used to be and the streetlights are far too weak to cast light this far from the road. The group walks down the middle aisle of the main area, the rotten wooden boards of the floor creaking with every step. McQuaid notices through the rotted boards not ground but open black space. One of Monte's wheels breaks a board and he starts to fall through the floor. The rest of the group is able to dodge out of the way, but Ophelia instead runs forward to grab him. She is, with Delia and McQuaid's assistance, able to stabilize Monte's chair and prevent it from falling through the floor.

After collecting themselves, they look for safe way down into the underground space. Ophelia, poking around the broken remains of the altar on the pulpit, finds an opening with a lever inside. The rusted metal gives way when Ophelia pulls on it, snapping in half. McQuaid is able to dig off some of the rust in the mechanism and give it another try, this time successfully. A trap door opens on the far side of the room, revealing an extremely steep hewn stone staircase. Before going down into basement, they decide to poke around the rest of the building first. Ophelia and Delia follow a ruined hallway out into the open churchyard. They discover the graves are simply stone slabs with random names on them, no dates and no corpses. McQuaid finds an empty storage room down the other hallway. Monte sticks around by the trapdoor but doesn't risk going down by himself. He occupies himself by pulling out the Egypt book and looking to see if he can find anything additional that may aid their investigation. He does come across a very similar **symbol** to the one painted on these church ruins, a very basic triangle shape with an eye in the middle.

They all reconvene at the trap door and McQuaid goes down by himself with a torch light. The group is able to track his progress overhead by following his torchlight through the cracks in the floorboards. McQuaid sees an empty black room, all carved stone floors and walls. He sees nearly all furniture has been removed, even oddly the altar detailed in the police raid file. An undisturbed layer of dust covers everything. He sees one large cabinet in the far corner. Finding that its not locked, McQuaid discovered a diary and a large, leather-bound tome. He grabs the diary and experiences a brief involuntary pause when he tries to pick up the ancient tome. The leather feels repulsive to him but he grabs it anyway. He climbs back up to the rest of the group, and they briefly discuss going through the books here.

They eventually decide to head back to the shop first, but McQuaid wants to make a pit stop at Central Station first to look at the file on Mr. Steven Knott. After a brief chat with the receptionist, McQuaid opens the file and sees nothing out of the ordinary; just the normal property sales, rentals, and occasional evictions. The file details Knott bought the property from a bank in mid 1918 and the Macarios were the only family he was able to rent it to during his ownership. As McQuaid is inside, Monte suggests taking a look at the ancient tome. Ophelia, who is holding the items, argues that they should probably wait until they are back at the shop. Delia in agreement with her.

After getting back to the shop, they open the diary first and two partially burned pieces of paper fall out, each containing several entries that looked to have been written by Pastor Michael Thomas of the Chapel of Contemplation, detailing their some of their rituals involving a "Dark Man", Walter Corbitt, and Councilman Peter Ellsworth protecting the Church from being found out by the authorities. Turning to the diary itself, they see its in different handwriting and the dates go far back into the 1800's. Surmising the diary belonged to Walter Corbitt, the read about blood rituals and contact with the "Dark Man", a curse that was placed upon the house's original owner Henry Webber, the founding of the Church of Contemplation, Corbitt's friends Daniel Ellsworth and son Peter, the dominating of the will of local pastor named Michael Thomas, and Thomas's subsequent servitude to their cause. There is an entry on the learning a ritual called "Rigor Vitae" that appears to be a method to keep flesh safe from the ravages of time using the blood of children, and the summoning of "the hunter who, once satisfied, fades", all using the same ritualistic dagger. Delia finds a small scrap of paper in the back of the diary that had only one word written: "Amygdala!!"

Delia pulls Ophelia into the back storage room at this point. Delia thinks the "Dark Man" might be one that is similarly mentioned in other cults they know about, including the one in the orphanage they were both lived at as children. After a quick hug, they return to the group. They share with the group more information about the cult they were part of, including the fact that the cult running the orphanage harvested amygdalae from children once they reached a certain age.

They turn their attention to the leather-bound tome, seeing the words "Liber Ivonis" written on the cover. Touching it elicits different reactions from the group, and they are not certain its actually leather that covers the book. They open it up to find handcut pages covered in handwritten Latinscrawling and sketches of a surreal nature. Delia, know some Latin, attempts to make some sense of it. She flips to a random passage and begins reading the words aloud. She decides its still not making sense and stops after a short time. Monte suggests soliciting a priest from a nearby Catholic church in order to read the Latin passages in the ancient tome. They decide to look into that in the morning.

That night, they are all plagued by horrible dreams. McQuaid dreams of growing darkness, as if he is slowly going blind. Eventually he sees two burning eyes in the darkness and awakens from his nightmare with a start. He sees nothing out of the ordinary in his bedroom, however he isn't able to sleep well for the rest of the evening.

Monte experiences the deep sleep of a man untroubled by life. To his knowledge, he doesn't have any dreams during the night. Just a dark period without memory until the morning.

Ophelia dreams her normal dreams, however no matter what the location or subject matter, there is always the sense of being under an endless open sky, a hot sun beating down on her mercilessly, and gritty sand beneath her feet.

Delia dreams of a black ocean at night. There are stars above, though in the distance great storm clouds that flash with silent lightning. She notices that dark water around her doesn't move like the ocean, however. It is completely still. And then she feels a vibration from beneath her, something that would have felt like an earthquake had she been standing on solid ground. And then a pull from underneath, almost magnetic in feeling. The vibrations and the pull grew in intensity, until she is jolted awake by her bed smashing flat against the ground, its support legs shattering outward and the side boards crunching inward. She still smells the briny sea, then notices ocean water is radiating outward from under her bed and submerging her floor. She reaches down and puts her fingers into it, pulling them back and seeing that it is not ocean water, but instead blood. She wipes it on her bedsheet but sees the bloodstain remains on her fingers. She then passes out until morning.