The Crack’d and Crook’d Manse 04: ‘The Walls Have Eyes’

*“In which a haunting is proposed, but the investigators find their progress hampered by things both seen and unseen (like gravity)…”*

## The Walls Have Eyes

### Players

Joseph Chance as Rose Damien
Danann McAleer as Sebastian Palmer
Dan Wheeler as Dr. Bergmann

### Podcast Link

The Crack’d and Crook’d Manse 04

Picking up immediately after Sebastian has put his hand through a wall, we find him dealing with what is inside. Meanwhile, Rose — attempting to change in the closet — is scared a second time by unknown forces, then hears a bump and smash sound from just above them. The three reconvene and cautiously make their way up the stairs, but while Rose and Sebastian find a useful room behind a locked door, Dr. Bergmann finds more ways to get into trouble. Rather than continuing upstairs, they look through more rooms on the lower floor, including the kitchen and accompanying storage. Going to investigate yet more sounds, they find a surprise waiting for them back at the stair.

## Synopsis (Spoiler Warning)

### Intro

This episode opens once again in South America, a brief scene of a terrified Arthur Cornthwaite running from something he does not understand. Audio clips from previous episodes fill out a “previously on” section, taking us up to the point of Sebastian putting his hand through the wall.

### Scene 1: Rescue! And Upstairs

Sebastian removes his hand from the break in the wall, and it’s covered with a thick, mucous-like substance that stinks of rotting vegetable matter. Dr. Bergmann is more excited that his experiment seems to have worked and calls out for Rose, who is in the closet changing still. The door having just shut on her, she reaches toward her lantern when it suddenly gets snuffed out; she screams, alerting the two men. Frightened, she tells them something blew out the lamp. Sebastian and Dr. Bergmann attempt to come to her aid, both going in to the closet to check.

> Hey Doc, you know when I said maybe take it easy with the Luger? Maybe you take it less easy for a minute.
>
> Sebastian Palmer

While they check the closet, Rose hears a bump and smash from just upstairs and alerts the two men once again. Before checking on the source of these noises, they consider the cylinder that Sebastian found, which appears to be a scroll of some kind, but go ahead with Sebastian and Rose leading the way (Dr. Bergmann uses this opportunity to take another bump of coke, naturally). The door where the noise seems to have come from is locked, so Sebastian decides to kick it open, a bit recklessly but with success. The room behind the door is covered in dust and filled to the brim with artifacts and souvenirs of all kinds. They go to open these windows as well.

> All you see are the idols of dead gods staring at you with a sort of flat hostility.
>
> Dom as The Keeper

On the stairs still, Dr. Bergmann sees the wallpaper shifting slightly - or rather, the walls themselves are moving, sagging… bulging. Transfixed by the movement, he leans forward on the bannister, which suddenly breaks and he falls to the lower floor, injuring himself slightly. The other two rush out to check on him and find him alive, if sore and a little embarrassed. Rose gets the feeling they are being watched somehow and sees a similar bulge in the wall like the one that spooked Dr. Bergmann, but is better able to shake off the creeps.

### Scene 2: The Kitchen

Rose brings theIr attention back around to the scroll: it is covered in a cramped, dense scrawl and initialed with “A.C.” (most likely Curwen rather than Cornthwaite, based on the handwriting). It unfortunately is mostly illegible, having been damaged by the damp. Regardless it seems mostly to be mad ravings and does not provide answers for either Cornthwaite’s disappearance or the state of the mansion. Rose is convinced the house is haunted, a dangerous and “thin” place. Sebastian offers to continue the search alone if the other two are no longer comfortable, but they decline. Further on, they encounter what appears to have been a ballroom, now empty. Rose does a little turn as they move along. She is starting on a new dance piece.

> Is there any sense of the mystery of the greatest art, that causes such sacrifice, or is it just a ballroom?
>
> Rose Damien

In the kitchen they open up the shutters; checking for evidence of recent habitation, they find the sickly sweet scent of rotting meat, which appears to be coming from a neglected icebox. Sebastian finds the salt conspicuously absent. Rose is concerned that another family might buy this dangerous house and muses about what to do, and about the strange vines and tropical flora. Over in the dining room, a single silver service is laid out, with a broken glass pepper shaker (but no salt). The plaster is spiderwebbed with thin cracks everywhere. Sebastian again offers to search the house alone, which makes Rose nervous. Dr. Bergmann notes that they have not come armed, whether with weapons or with salt, but they determine they should press on since they don’t have much house left to examine. Dr. Bergmann and Rose hear a creak and footsteps from the staircase. They move cautiously toward the sound, and as Rose listens more carefully she hears the sound of shifting movement in the wall and knocks the plate from the table. Having lost any element of surprise, they start running toward the sound in the corridor, and Sebastian tells the mystery sound to stop their games. Sebastian sees the silhouette of a man holding a gun at the top of the stairs — it’s Sheriff Whitford.

## Places

* Fitzgerald Manse - lower level
* Fitzgerald Manse - upper level

## Quotes

DANANN: ”THIS. IS. CTHULHU!”
JOSEPH: ”Imagine if you will a drama student committing to the idea of performing the notion of retreating from a celestial horror.”
ROSE (JOSEPH): ”I saw a strange bulge upstairs.”

”SEBASTIAN” (DANANN): “Sorry about that.”

## Trivia

* The wooden diorama labeled “*pishtakus*” is another reference to Masks of Nyalarthotep, as an alternate name given to the *kharisiri* found in the Peru prologue of that campaign.
* Dom teases the players that the icebox is a “Spilsbury” brand, a reference to the scenario Spilsbury 9485.