Risk: Unknown - Effort: Medi­um - Yield: Low

Notes

A pre­car­i­ous romp through a fun­gal fun­house.

I playtest­ed it as a oneshot, but it can stand as an indi­vid­ual mis­sion in the course of a longer career. It’s intend­ed for 3–6 Cut­ters of small skill. If you want, gen­er­ate fresh cut­ters and give every­one £2 for gear (this is a tough expe­ri­ence.)

Inspired by Jeff VanderMeer’s Anni­hi­la­tion, Amouage Fig­ment, my cul­ti­va­tion of mush­rooms, and the con­cept of a wiz­ard tow­er trans­lat­ed to a mod­ern city (and also some ran­dom floor­plan I Googled.)

Context

Pro­fes­sor Alphred Manx, dis­tin­guished mycol­o­gist and lec­tur­er at the Crown Acad­e­my, was min­utes ago forcibly removed from his Sil­ton town­house in a raid by the local Con­stab­u­lary.

He is accused of body snatch­ing, man­u­fac­ture of illic­it sub­stances, and tax eva­sion.

The City Coun­cil has autho­rized Cut­ters hired from Tiber & Fel­lowes to purge the house fol­low­ing the raid. These are the play­ers. 

Rewards + Defining Success

Neu­tral­ize all threats. Specif­i­cal­ly (do not tell your play­ers these specifics) the gang must neu­tral­ize Dieter, the Pel­i­can, all myco­paths, and ban­ish the Shim­mel­ing.

Reward: 240 pounds per cut­ter (six months’ liv­ing expens­es.) £20 reduc­tion per goal missed. Note: The Gang get a bonus of £60 for turn­ing in the real Pro­fes­sor Manx.

ABANDONING THE RAID

The bank is a cru­el mis­tress. Leav­ing the town­house before it’s cleared is con­sid­ered aban­don­ment of the ven­ture. No reward.

Some Guidelines

For the Bookkeeper’s eyes only.

LOCKED DOORS

Unless stat­ed, locked doors are force-able with a suc­cess­ful Might roll (no penal­ty) or pick-able with Lock­smithy (no penal­ty.) Remem­ber: Fail­ing a roll to smash down a door may cost time, cause Weary stress/bruises, or alert foes.

DARKNESS

Dim light applies -2 to actions inside it or look­ing into it; dark­ness applies -4 (tip: these penal­ties are rel­e­vant to sur­prise rolls.) 

SMELLS

Smells her­ald dan­ger­ous air. Make sure to men­tion the smell in advance of the dan­ger. 

LORE Topics

There are a few exam­ples of know­able lore in this dun­geon. You’ll notice that none of the lore entries insist on exact top­ics; any relat­ed top­i­cal skill will do. Cut­ters roll a rel­e­vant skill to check if they know it. If they fail, let them try again if they find a new source of lore (a book) or if they lev­el up the top­i­cal skill. Feel free to offer knowl­edge rolls, when rel­e­vant.

Remem­ber to offer Rec­ol­lec­tion to appro­pri­ate cut­ters who lack rel­e­vant lore top­ics.

GREY SALT

Griso­date kills fun­gal enti­ties (grues & myco­paths.) Dry griso­date grains are use­less, but griso­date ton­ic, a solu­tion of alco­hol, water, and grey salt, is very effec­tive. Any­one with Chem­istry skill can mix ton­ic, giv­en the ingre­di­ents, a flask, and a stir.

A splashed/sprayed unit of ton­ic caus­es a grue or myco­path 1d6+1 burn stress. 

A melee weapon that sheds ton­ic caus­es +1 burn stress in addi­tion to its usu­al dam­age. A unit of ton­ic is good for 4 hits, in a melee weapon.

Drink­ing a unit of ton­ic removes 1 Infest­ed stress & pro­vides +2 to Immu­ni­ty rolls against fun­gal and viral infec­tion (for 1h.)

Map

Link to map file.

FUNGI

There’s a lot of mush­rooms up in here.

List­ed with their sci­en­tif­ic name, then their native sub­strate. 

Roll Top­ic: Mycol­o­gy, or sim­i­lar, to iden­ti­ty fun­gi. +2 to the roll for each sense used in iden­ti­fi­ca­tion.

1. Coprophilous sputatous (dung)

Lit­tle brown caps with leg­gy stems. Smell: fecal.

If touched, releas­es a swift burst of poi­son spores. Those in the burst must suc­ceed Immu­ni­ty -2 or take 1 Poi­son stress (unless they have the Gasper trait, or oth­er­wise avoid breath­ing spores.)

2. Pleurotus cicatrix (hardwood)

Like thick rab­bit ears. Grey, dusty. Smell: qual­i­ty seafood.

If eat­en, dis­rupts the body’s abil­i­ty to recov­er from exer­tion, caus­ing sharp pangs in the limbs/chest from faint intra­mus­cu­lar scar­ring. Con­verts every 1 weary stress into 2 drain stress. 

3. Lancella murrina (soft wood)

Damp, broad white saucers with squat stems. A rich uma­mi smell.

AKA “sup­per caps.” Good fla­vor. Often sliced, bread­ed in maize bat­ter, and fried. Some­times dried and added to stews.

4. Laetiporus sulphureus (rotting wood)

Gold­en piles of shelves, plump.

AKA “capon of the woods.” A del­i­ca­cy from Lee­land. Named for its sim­i­lar­i­ty to chick­en in fla­vor and tex­ture. Give a +1 to Cook­ing if fried.

5. Armillaria oxylucifera (soil)

An army of hon­ey-col­ored bio­lu­mi­nes­cent cones.

A large bunch glow­ing like a can­dle. Stop glow­ing if touched or jos­tled. Cause 1 Poi­son stress if eat­en (Immu­ni­ty roll to resist.)

6. Auris carniculatus (flesh)

Thin, skin­like out­growths, like rodent ears. Meaty like a skin tag.

Infec­tious. Flour­ish on wet skin. Com­mon to rainy, humid Sica­da, where Griso­date soap is used to pre­vent growth of Auris, AKA “orec­chie inguinali,” or “crotch ears.”

7. Pilomisis aerugo (humus)

Bunch­es of droopy, thin, pale-lime phal­lus­es. A sen­sa­tion of toast in the sinus­es.

Weep dusty, tox­ic spores in a 3 aura. Pass­ing through, a cut­ter must roll Immu­ni­ty -2 or gain 1 pain stress until nap/sleep. The spores inflame the nasal pas­sages, killing one’s sense of smell. 

8. Gloria cyanescens (dirt or feces)

Stout white stems and heavy white-gilled caps. Bleeds pro­lif­i­cal­ly elec­tric blue when crushed or cut. Taste: Earthy.

Psy­choac­tive: When eat­en, caus­es 1 Com­fort if the user has any com­fort, and 1 dis­tress if the user has any dis­tress. Pos­si­bly both. Insom­nia for 2 hours after eat­ing. Actu­al­ly quite hearty eat­ing. 

9. Mammillum dirus (wood)

Green, spher­i­cal mounds, fuzzy. Spews spores in lit­tle jets. Gush­es spores when touched. 

If dis­turbed or touched, cre­ates a 1-meter cloud of poi­son spores. Those enter­ing or start­ing in it must suc­ceed Immu­ni­ty -2 or take 1 poi­son stress

10. Kilkamessus vagus (living flesh)

Myceli­um, grow­ing soft and yel­low under the skin. 

AKA “out­land ergot.” Infects peo­ple, turn­ing them into wan­der­ing myco­paths cov­ered in tuber­ous fruit­ing bod­ies.

Those touched by Kilka­mes­sus must suc­ceed Immu­ni­ty -2 or con­tract myco­sis (-0 if rag­man.) They roll Immu­ni­ty -2 every 30 min­utes, gain­ing 1 infest­ed stress per fail­ure.

• Infest­ed stress is removed with griso­date.
• Myco­sis is cured with an antimy­cotic or by rolling against it suc­cess­ful­ly thrice.
• Mycotic cut­ters wan­der around as myco­paths 20 min­utes post­mortem.
• Offer a com­pul­sion to infest­ed cut­ters, award­ing 10 XP if they touch their allies.

ENCOUNTERS

2-in-6 chance of an encounter occur­ring every 3 Dan­ger rounds (30 min­utes.) The entire town­house is played in the dan­ger timescale. Unless not­ed, encoun­ters are unique and do not reoc­cur. Re-roll if you need to. Some encoun­ters are unlock­able. 

Encounters (d10)

1. A creak from upstairs. Flecks of plas­ter fall from the ceil­ing.
2. A muf­fled clat­ter­ing, as if some­thing hard against glass, is heard from the east (from 1.5 Back Gar­den.)
3. A deep groan and gur­gle, as if from a mighty, squelch­ing gut, some­where deep in the South of the home. (Can hap­pen x2.)
4. A win­ter breeze wash­es through the whole house, from upstairs, car­ry­ing sour, dry odors.
5. A metal­lic clat­ter from a near­by room. A key with a half-moon bit has appeared, fall­en from some hid­ing-place (where? Bookkeeper’s dis­cre­tion.) It is the key to room 3.1.
6. A dry-rot­ted floor­board col­laps­es under 1 ran­dom Cut­ter. They roll Agili­ty to avoid a twist­ed ankle (3B to foot.) There’s now a hole between sto­ries. It can be widened enough to pass through in 10 min­utes, giv­en a tool. (Can hap­pen x2.)
7. A tear­ing of wall­pa­per. A myco­path lunges from a near­by wall, sur­pris­ing. It was sealed under a thin lay­er of card, plas­ter, and flo­ral wall­pa­per. Between the joists, a string of gold­en teeth hang on two clout nails.
8. An unlocked encounter. If none unlocked: A wash of roach­es scat­ters from under a near­by base­board. Behind the base­board, in a gap in the brick, there is a [tool the gang might need.]
9. An unlocked encounter. If none are yet unlocked, noth­ing hap­pens.

Unlockable encounters.

1. Dieter, returned. If dieter fled deep­er into the house after being halfway killed, he returns in this moment, hav­ing healed 1d6 stress, cov­ered in yel­low Kilka­mes­sus growths. He appears, mum­bling the phrase “I’m so close.” If he was killed, he appears as a myco­path with +2 to all skills. Either way, dead or alive, touch­ing any of his flesh or trap­pings spreads myco­sis. 
2. The Sup­planter Organ. Only appears for cut­ters who are alone/napping. Reroll, if not. See the end of the doc­u­ment for full details on the Organ.
3. The Roach. The irri­tat­ing roach charges through cut­ters dur­ing the next moment of Per­il, bruis­ing legs (1d4 - 2 dam­age.)

Loot

The Gang aren’t real­ly per­mit­ted to remove items from the premis­es, but if they keep it sub­tle, they can get away with it. (Jean-Michel in 1.5.2 is a great help in smug­gling things out.) Most items are incon­ve­nient­ly large and unwieldy to car­ry around. Their bur­den points are pro­vid­ed as X#, regard­less. If you use the appraisal rule, you won’t want to give these items’ val­ues imme­di­ate­ly.

Notable Valuables

X# denotes weight in bur­den points. 2# = 2 bur­den.

• Bas­pho­ry lead chair in 0.3. 50# £1000 (£20/#, in pieces.)
• Stain­less skele­ton in 1.3.1. 3# £120
• The Young Mas­ter of Gunsway por­trait in 1.4.1. Art asses­sor required. 1# £450
• Sup­planter organ kibo­ri­on in 1.5 8# £200 (£500 to the right buy­er)
• Don­nish Order helm in 2.2. 3# £50-80
• Jar of 30 g yer­ba roja in 2.5. Small item. 1 shilling per gram, £37 10p.
• Ampul­lon­ian Mys­ter­ies in 3.0. 1# £20
• Bot­tle of Auld John­nie-in-a-tub in 3.1.1. 1# £20-40
• Lieserl type­writer in 4.1. 4# £40-50
• The chime box in 4.1. Small item. £130
• Fun­gus Man­u­al in 4.4 1#. £8

SHIMMELING

Do not tell the gang about the Shim­mel­ing in advance.

The Shim­mel­ing, the vast Mold Between Worlds, is a chief char­ac­ter in this sto­ry. Cut­ters are unlike­ly to start with the lore top­ics required to know much about it. Allow them to Rec­ol­lect it or allow them to gain lore lev­els from books found in the town­house (if they risk stand­ing around to read.)

Even if your Gang nev­er learn this, they may even­tu­al­ly learn the Shim­mel­ing lore detailed below below from Manx, who knows all of it.

The shim­mel­ing has estab­lished a salient on the fourth floor of the town­house. It was Manx’s goal, his obses­sion.

The gang need to ban­ish the salient, some­how. For details in doing so, see 4.5.

❦

START

Out­doors. An afflu­ent Forten­shire avenue in win­ter­time. City smog and fry­ing from a restau­rant a block south.

Manx’s home is a four-sto­ry brick town­house. It has win­dows on all lev­els. Some are papered over. The third-sto­ry ones are open to the wind and snow. Drapes flut­ter with­in.

The house is cor­doned by Con­sta­bles in blue capes. Stand­ing in slush, amidst nick­er­ing hors­es in win­ter coats hitched to a deten­tion wag­on.

Two men are being removed through the front door:

• Manx, the mycol­o­gist. Cross-eyed. Dry-rot­ted tweed suit. Caked in soil. He is being frog­marched down the steps.
  • His is lax, unre­sis­tant, unaware.
• A dead man on a stretch­er. Draped in a sheet. Fol­lowed by a coro­ner clutch­ing a black bowler hat. A pale hand, limp, dan­gles.

Manx is swift­ly locked in the deten­tion wag­on and tak­en away. 

The police, deem­ing their job com­plete, set­tle in to main­tain their cor­don while the Gang purge the place. They strike up cig­a­rettes. Some­one pass­es around steam­ing paper cups.

If asked about the raid:

• They report that Manx was seized just inside the home. They claim it’s “rather poor­ly inside, a right mess,” and, “doesn’t smell right at all.”
• They’re leery, embar­rassed, to address the man on the stretch­er.
  • He was a Con­sta­ble. Suc­cumbed to a boo­by-trap.
• If pressed for info, they men­tion that Manx’s file men­tions his asso­ci­a­tion with a large Rag­man named Dieter, AKA The Eater. 

The Gang are free to begin. 

From street lev­el, the house presents three pos­si­ble points of entry: 

• The front door, half a flight of brick stairs up from the side­walk. Enter­ing here starts the Gang at floor 2.
• The gar­den gate, in a short wrong iron fence, lead­ing a few steps down into a small gar­den. Enter­ing here starts the Gang in 1.0, floor 1.
• The third-floor win­dows via lad­der or grap­nel. 

When the Gang enter the low­er floors, it’s not ter­ri­bly cold inside. There’s a moist, rot­ting heat keep­ing things slight­ly above freez­ing despite the lack of a lit fur­nace or hearths. Upstairs, where the 3rd floor win­dows are open, it’s cold. 

The town­house is fit­ted with mod­ern paraf­fin light­ing but none of the wall dials work. 

The Basement

stair 0 | basement

Dark. A faint odor of burnt bread in the sinus­es, and a tin­gling.

These stairs lead down from floor 1.

Down the base­ment steps: Pan­icked, heavy breath­ing and the hur­ried gnash­ing of a full mouth is heard (Dieter, devour­ing mush­rooms.)

In lieu of rail­ings, planters have been installed. They are piled with droop­ing, green­ish phal­lic shrooms plant­ed in excre­ment (Pilomi­sis.) They shed dust and give off a dry odor of toast. Makes the nose twinge as if a sneeze were com­ing. Walk­ing the stairs with­out hold­ing one’s breath risks their poi­so­nous effect.

0.0 | grow basement

Dim. Dank. Water­logged wood and manure.

Rows of hard­wood logs flush with:

• dusty grey pad­dles (Pleu­ro­tus) and
• breast-like green mounds (Mam­mil­lum) 

Lit by hang­ing pots & pans of lumi­nous cone fun­gi (Armil­lar­ia.)

Amidst the rows hunch­es a shape. Large. Emit­ting munch­ing nois­es. This is Dieter, a huge rag­man in disheveled gray trap­pings and a torn brown suit jack­et.

When encoun­tered, Dieter paus­es, hand­fuls of dusty mush­rooms lift­ed to his quiv­er­ing lips. He bears a pained expres­sion, anguished at his inter­rup­tion.

“No, not yet. I am so close. I can feel it!”

His eyes are huge­ly dilat­ed. He is of unsound mind, pan­ick­ing at hear­ing the con­sta­bles upstairs. He aspires to some unknown state.

If incensed, which is not hard to do:

• He seizes a 2x4-sized log cov­ered in spore-weep­ing Mam­mil­lum mush­rooms and wields it fero­cious­ly against invaders.
• If forced to flee, he cries “no, no, I am too close!” and runs upstairs. Whether or not he escapes, add him to the encounter table. 

Dieter car­ries a stained yel­low enve­lope con­tain­ing a note and a torn-out yel­low log­book page (log­book pas­sage 1.)

0.0.1 | oil room

This brick alcove con­tains a pump-works for shunt­ing kerosene from the street-lev­el ser­vice hatch to the boil­er room. Pipes snake around the cor­ners and over the chim­ney to 0.1. 

0.0.2 | chimney base

Base of the home’s chim­ney stack. Wrapped in water and oil lines as head lev­el that run to the boil­er room. There is a small iron soot door 0.5 m off the ground. It’s been sealed with messy run­nels of lead sol­der.

0.1 | boiler room

Dark. Kerosene and wet pen­nies.

Door is ajar. Emp­ty whale oil can­is­ters, the old kind, are strewn about. A lantern, half full, rests on one. The boil­er is not run­ning.

• On a hook: a frumpy waxed can­vas full-body suit with gloves, booties, and a sack head with hemmed gaps for gog­gles and a res­pi­ra­tor. 
• On the floor: a bill of sale for the instal­la­tion of radi­ant heat­ing, some years old. The work order sug­gests that radi­a­tors were installed in the home’s fire hearths, a com­mon upgrade in monied North­ern homes.

0.2 | dank laundry

Dark. Sep­tic and moth­balls. Brown algae on the floor. 

The door to the laun­dry is unlocked.

Tubs and wringer wash­ers are askew, full of moldy clothes. Sev­er­al buck­ets of gold-laced feces are here, sprout­ing leg­gy brown caps (Coprophilous)

A crick­et bat with nails in it (as crow­bar) lay­ing under a pile of soiled clothes beside a box of wet moth­balls.

0.2.1 | plastered wall

Doesn’t match the rest of the walls. Mess­i­ly plas­tered. Can be knocked down with a Might roll -2.

0.3 | red room

Pitch­like, aphot­ic. Iron on the air.

If 0.3 is bro­ken down, a dark space shows with­in. The walls are lac­quered red. In the cen­ter: A crude black met­al chair. There’s a dark stain on the met­al seat, as if someone’s shad­ow still sat there. 

• The chair is con­spic­u­ous­ly heavy—heavier than gold. 50 bur­den. It is soft, hack­able into more man­age­able pieces with an axe. Cut­ters with the right top­i­cal skill know it is Bas­pho­ry lead. 

Noth­ing else remains in this room.

Floor One

1.0 | front garden

Day­light, win­ter air, a faint smell of soil and rot.

Rows of gar­lic, arugu­la, and mache, all per­fect­ly edi­ble, despite the cold. Appear to have been fer­til­ized with excre­ment. Dead cat by the door to stor­age, crawl­ing with white mag­gots. 

Win­dows to the bed­room (1.3) are dark, cur­tained, and have wrought iron bars on them.

1.1 | garden storage

Dim. 

Bags of quick­lime. Bags of fer­til­iz­er. Shov­el. Bags of seeds. Pow­dered insec­ti­cide.  

There’s a hatch in the floor, read­ing munic­i­pal sup­ply, where whale paraf­fin is piped into the house­hold reser­voir. A ser­vice tag says its been 11 months since a deliv­ery.

Near­by, the door to the hall­way (1.2) is locked. There are a pair of mud­dy galosh­es near it.

• In one lies a brass key to 1.2. In the oth­er, there is a bit­ing bed-knob spi­der (suc­ceed Per­cep­tion against sur­prise -4 or suf­fer 1 poi­son stress, unless hand armored.) 

1.2 | front hall

Dim. A hor­ri­ble odor of sewage from 1.3. A moist­ness inside the house, despite the cold.

The exte­ri­or door is unlocked. with­in it, there’s a mud­room. 

Coa­track with sev­en hooks. On 1 hook, a long, thick rub­ber coat; in the pock­et there is a wrapped can­dy (WAXMAN’S ENERVATING CHEWS. Hore­hound fla­vor. Removes 1 drowsy). On anoth­er hangs a set of dust­ing bel­lows. Beside the bel­lows hang a pair of stur­dy gog­gles (armor 3|1, eyes.)

The sec­ond door is locked (needs  brass key from 1.1,) and faces the stairs (S1) once opened.

DOORS

• A locked door to the down­stairs small bed­room (1.3)
• A door to the water clos­et adjoin­ing 1.3, locked from inside.
• The door at the top of the the base­ment stairs (1.2.1) is wide open.

At the far west end of the hall, the door to 1.4 is shut and locked.

STAIR 1 | FLOOR 1

Stairs between the sec­ond and first floors. 

Dim. Tang of rot­ting wall­pa­per glue.

Peel­ing strips of bego­nia wall­pa­per hang down over the stairs. Stairs are brown with accu­mu­lat­ed filth with clear spots where feet reg­u­lar­ly fall.

• If some­one pulls the wall­pa­per away, a let­ter falls out. It smells faint­ly of jas­mine, an incon­gru­ous odor in this place.

Who­ev­er descends or climbs the stairs first trips a trap. It’s notice­able: The penul­ti­mate, the trig­ger, is clean of filth, clear­ly avoid­ed.

• Trap: Whis­per-thin wire is strung between the ban­is­ter and base­board of the penul­ti­mate step. If sprung, nee­dles fly from hid­den holes in the ban­is­ter stan­chion. Suc­ceed sur­prise roll (Per­cep­tion) at -4 and dodge at -2 or be struck, tak­ing 1d4 pierc­ing to the shin + con­tract myco­sis (Kilka­mes­sus vagus) if wound is not resist­ed.

1.3 | latrine bedroom

Dark. Incred­i­ble sew­er-reek of hydro­gen sul­fide (sew­er gas).

Requires some kind of mask, or roll Immu­ni­ty to resist vom­it­ing. The tiled floor is uni­form­ly brown with smears.

Tiled floor. Mud­dy, very dim. Chintz cur­tains are drawn, stained at the bot­toms. Fire­place bricked up. 

Bed: Fun­gus, tall and wind­ing, with lit­tle brown caps (Coprophilous,) are grow­ing in a sub­strate of human feces piled a foot high on  the bed. Dan­ger­ous to the touch. They are laced with gold, as are the feces.

Tables stuffed against walls. On them:

• News­pa­pers, five years deep
• Phal­lic glass tubes, hole in one end (cucum­ber straight­en­ers)
• Round Steel jaw traps. Three of them. Small enough for cats

An iron radi­a­tor is pitched up on its side under the win­dows, dis­card­ed. It clear­ly leaked all over the floor some time ago. Inves­ti­ga­tion shows there are no steam out­lets for it in the walls.

1.3.1 | skele’ closet

Not locked. Inside:

Human skele­ton, pol­ished white, on med­ical dis­play rack, dressed in old-fash­ioned bloomers and a brassiere.

• Those with Med­i­cine 4 or above may know that a white-boned, aka “stain­less” skele­tal spec­i­men like this is quite a rar­i­ty. It is worth 120 gold­en pounds, to a med­ical prac­ti­tion­er or col­lec­tor.

Selec­tion of half-decom­posed  erot­ic pen­ny dread­fuls.

A small demi­john of white ethanol. 1 liter, enough to make 8 units of ton­ic. 

1.3.2 | eel closet

Dark. 

Mir­ror over sink and cab­i­nets shat­tered. Brick behind the mir­ror marked with dried blood and mud. Sink cab­i­net con­tains a sooth­ing oint­ment (2 uses)

Bath­tub full, float­ing with stink­ing algae. There is a light at the bot­tom, under the algae.

• The light is an eel. If dis­turbed, it attacks with Sav­agery 4, with sur­prise, slap­ping with an elec­tric blow (1 burn stress.) It ceas­es glow­ing after­wards and becomes harm­less.

Toi­let full of gold-laced dung grow­ing stink­ing brown fun­gus (Coprophilous)

The door to the hall (1.2) is locked from with­in.

1.4 | grow bedroom

Dim light. Smells of soil and putrid­i­ty.

Illu­mi­nat­ed by broad, glow­ing fun­gus, 

Door locked. Door to back gar­den with­in unlocked.

Bed tipped up against wall, cob­webbed.

Three zinc-plat­ed troughs line the oth­er walls. One is full of broad log rounds, one of dung. Anoth­er con­tains jum­bled bones with meat still on them, rot­ting.

Troughs:

• Wood: White, rich-smelling saucers. Eat­able. (Lan­cel­la)
• Soil: lumi­nous broad fun­gus. Bright. Poi­so­nous if eat­en. (Armil­lar­ia)
• Flesh & bone: small, ear­like pink shapes. Harm­less. (Auris)

The radi­a­tor in this room is still installed.

1.4.1 | roach wc

Lit. Green­ish tint­ed. Win­dows cov­ered in algae and vines on the inside.

Approach­ing the door, a flush of dark roach­es spill from the jamb. Door locked. Chair set against han­dle on the inside. (-3 to Heave, if some­one tries to break it down.)

Inside, in the bath­tub, there is a cock­roach the size of a goat. If dis­turbed, it rush­es out, attempt­ing to knock down the clos­est cut­ter in the way with Sav­age 5. It skit­ters upstairs, becom­ing a nui­sance. Add it to the unlocked encoun­ters list.

• Sink cab­i­net, shat­tered. There is an unopened pot of sooth­ing oint­ment and a bot­tle of aro­mat­ic spir­its.
• The toi­let is full of dung and a flush of 4 huge Glo­ria cyanescens.

On the wall, there is a gilt por­trait of a gen­der­less Firl with bold eye­brows wear­ing an antique mink. Still in good con­di­tion. Titled The Young Mas­ter of Gunsway, signed “Villem Roche,” and dat­ed 3.225.

1.4.2 | grue closet

A walk-in clos­et with a slid­ing door. 

Beside the door, there is a syringe sprayer full of some liq­uid. It is salty.

• It’s full of griso­date ton­ic. Fatal to grues and myco­paths. There’s 4 units of ton­ic inside (max 6.) No roll required to spray, but tar­gets may dodge.

The slid­ing door to the clos­et is barred with iron rein­force­ments, but is unlocked. 

Inside, sus­pend­ed from the ceil­ing, in the cen­ter, hang three skele­tal bod­ies on chains, black with plague. Pearl-like black growths, some­what shiny, extend from their bones, amidst the small­er, lumpi­er buboes. 

When the door is opened, these grues begin wrig­gling and clack­ing their jaws excit­ed­ly.

On the floor, inch­es beneath the grue’s feet, there’s a rub­ber res­pi­ra­tor with bub­ble eyes and a large can­is­ter fil­ter.

1.4.3 | crate closet

The clos­et door (slid­ing) in this bed­room is locked from the inside. Break­able with Might at -2 (or lock­picked.)

Inside, the crates are emp­ty, save old yel­low spores (dan­ger­ous, may spread Kilka­mes­sus vagus.) 

Inside, it is con­spic­u­ous­ly clean. There are two dusty, small pinebox­es on shelves. They bear sta­pled-on yel­low paper labels, old, read­ing “CAUTION: BIOLOGICALS,” and small­er text below: “Spec­i­men: Kilka­mes­sus vagus.”

The import stamps on the crates indi­cate that they are from far­away  Kilka­mesh.

1.4.4 | tarp door

Locked, but break­able.

Cov­ered in a nailed-up tar­pau­lin on the inside. Shat­tered, lead­ed glass pan­els. Break­able, but the sound of demo­li­tion alerts the pel­i­can.

1.5 | back garden 

Bright, cold. Smog, and aging fry­ing oil from restau­rant to the south.

Snowy, total­ly over­grown with frost-witchered celandine and broad-leaf dock. Fel­low row hous­es rise all about, bricks mortared with snow. A five-foot brick wall rings the gar­den. 

Any­one who enters the gar­den is in dan­ger of attack by the giant Holm Sea pel­i­can who nests on the bal­cony on floor 2 (2.6,) attempt­ing to hatch the head of the gar­den stat­ue. 

If the Gang enter the gar­den through the 1.4.4 door, they are in dan­ger of being sur­prised by the pel­i­can.

1.5.2 | over the garden wall

Not on map.

Over the West­ern gar­den wall, past the stat­ue: There’s a nar­row alley sand­wiched between anoth­er gar­den wall to the west. Occa­sion­al­ly, a chim­ney-sweep or street clean­er pass­es, clad in cov­er­alls and flat caps.

If the Gang try and flag some­one down, they get Jean-Michel, a tall rag­man in bleached brown-and-blue trap­pings. He smells of laven­der cologne and qual­i­ty cig­a­rettes.

• Jean-Michel is a win­dow wash­er. He car­ries a lad­der, a car­ton of smokes, and a bun­dle of rags and sol­vent jugs.
• He’s open to trans­fer­ring stolen goods over the wall with his lad­der for a small fee or a share of the booty. After their raid, he will glad­ly go booz­ing at the Gull with the Gang.
• He will per­mit a sin­gle cig­a­rette to be bummed, but only one.

1.5.1 | garden statue

In the cen­ter of the gar­den stands a faux-Nor stat­ue, its head long gone. It ges­tures, pen­sive­ly. 

At the statue’s feet, there piled earth, as if a grave lay open there. 

In the deep bel­ly of the “grave,” there is a glass urn (kibo­ri­on,) smoky gray, sealed, and warm.  It is large as a human tor­so. Worms crawl about it, eager for heat. It is worth 600 gold­en pounds if exchanged at a bank, but its sale attracts the atten­tion of the Office of Secrets.

• The urn emits hex radi­a­tion and caus­es 1 hex stress to crea­tures who car­ry it for more than a day or sleep beside it (espe­cial­ly if they try to exploit its warmth for  com­fort.)
• The urn does not open; it is sealed all around the neck with yet more smoky glass. If the Gang attempt to open it by force, it breaks, free­ing a strange, wet, intesti­nal-look­ing, dark, worm­like organ that shoots away at tremen­dous, wrig­gling speed to hide. Where it pass­es over the snow, it cre­ates steam. It was curled up inside around an oblong of met­al, heavy as lead. The oblong is the source of radioac­tiv­i­ty. Deeply unsafe.
• The escaped Sup­planter Organ is added to the unlocked encounter table.

Floor Two

2.0 | vestibule

Crisp, pol­lut­ed win­ter city air under­cuts the fug of dry feces and rot from inside the house. 

Here, just inside the front door, there are mud­dy boot­prints and dots of blood on the  tile. There is a dirty horse­hair floor mat and not much else. 

2.1 | front lobby

Here, a set of stairs faces the front vestibule.

Fine glass dou­ble doors, now quite choked with dirt and old pep­perelle smoke, are cracked open and lead into the Liv­ing room (2.1)

On a side con­sole, here, there is a dusty cloche cov­er­ing a dried, pre­served mince toad on a wire arma­ture.

STAIR 2 | front stair

At the base of the steps upstairs, there are signs of a trap being sprung. Dots of blood on the floor. Sewing nee­dles stuck in the wall oppo­site the bot­tom ban­nis­ter col­umn. In said col­umn, a bat­tery of small tubes are set, emp­ty of their eject­ed nee­dles.

2.2 | living room

Dim. Burned, waxy herbs and old pep­perelle smoke. Fouler odors present, inter­mit­tent, from else­where. Smoke wafts from the west, with sounds of pitchy cough­ing.

The win­dows are papered over with newsprint. Fire­place bricked up. A small whale oil heater gur­gles near the win­dows. 

• There are two full whale kerosene tanks here, next to a heavy iron radi­a­tor left on its side.
• On the man­tle, there is a diplo­ma (Mag­is­ter of Nat­ur­al Sci­ences) mount­ed over a dusty glass case. The case con­tains a fine look­ing hel­met with a slit visor and a pall of blue feath­ers as a plume.
  The hel­met is the hon­orary garb of the Don­nish Order, an esteemed scholas­tic group. Durable, despite its cer­e­mo­ni­al nature. Counts as a muni­tions hel­met with visor. Worth 50-80gp
• Beside the fire stands a brass stand filled with fire pok­ers, rust­ed. 
• On the wall con­nect­ing the vestibule hangs a dim, sprawl­ing tax­o­nom­ic tree label­ing hun­dreds of species of fun­gus. 

2.3 | hookah parlor

Dim, smoky. Waxy yer­ba smoke and tear-induc­ing incense almost hide the poor­er odors of the house.

Squashy, damp arm­chairs hud­dled around a low table. A huge cone of patchouli burns on a near­by tres­tle, enfold­ing the room in drift­ing resinous ten­drils. A brown mouse sits here, unwashed, enjoy­ing a tar­nished hookah, blow­ing waxy, cool clouds. A swan-neck lamp with a torn paper shade bathes him in greasy light. He has sev­er­al unhelp­ful things to say, and is peace­ful. 

“Who are you?”

“Where is Manx? I am smoked out.”

“Does this mean I don’t have to pay?”

He doesn’t know any­thing about any killings, or body snatch­ing, or Manx’s oth­er crimes (save for tax evasion–Manx often rant­ed about tax­a­tion.) He knows Dieter has a head injury, works for Manx, and doesn’t smoke. He’s only ever been to the sec­ond floor, and only to smoke.  

He smokes a paste of yer­ba roja. He’ll pass the pipe, grudg­ing­ly. Those par­tak­ing of the heady yer­ba get 1 com­fort and 2 move­ment penal­ty until next sleep.

The mouse leaves with­out issue, if pestered, and be prompt­ly and calm­ly arrest­ed if he leaves the front way. If told there are police out­side, he exits the back gar­den way, squeez­ing through the gaps in the lead­ed-glass door (1.4.3) on floor 1 to be eat­en by the pel­i­can.

The mouse’s name is Mint.

2.4 | mushroom feast

Dim. Rud­dy light fall­en from the kitchen and the thick vines over the win­dow.

A din­ing room. Win­dow cov­ered in the vines of a dark green, thick vine bear­ing large red fruit. Grey epi­phyt­ic moss hangs from the ceil­ing and chan­de­lier, brush­ing low over a broad din­ing table. Fire­place is not bricked up.

The cir­cu­lar din­ing table: 

• Dish­es are strewn on the table, smeared with blue stains and oily bread­crumbs 
• A large cleaver stuck in the table­top, recent­ly used to hew a large blue-bleed­ing mush­room cap (Glo­ria cyanescens) into slices.3 units of cyanescens
• A roast­ing plat­ter under a steel cloche. Cloudy ooze leaks under the rim (salty.) If opened, a great flex­i­ble cheese bolts out in a show­er of whey, smash­ing the open­er for 2B if they do not suc­ceed a sur­prise roll and dodge. It sprints, rolling, for the kitchen.

Vines on the win­dow: Thorny, dark green vines and plump berries, large as pome­gran­ates.

• Berries, huge. Deep, bloody red. Crowned like blue­ber­ries and filled with toma­to-like seeds. They are vis­ceres, a fruit bred by the opu­lent and ter­ri­ble empire of Ancient Idra. They restore 1 bleed or drain stress each.  

2.5 | yerba kitchen

Red-lit; glow­ing newsprint over cold win­dows. Sweet herbs, rot­ting toma­toes, spent fry­ing oil. 

Grow beds con­sume the kitchen, sport­ing bushy, long-leaf red plants. These are yer­ba roja. Cop­per heat lamps bathe the plants in hot light that fil­ters through the leaves, bathing the place in crim­son. There’s a half-emp­ty kerosene can here, feed­ing the lamps. 

Range­top: Strewn with red-white putrid toma­toes & glass jars:

• Jar: Light brown liq­uid. Smells of piss (it’s piss.)
• Jar: Light brown liq­uid. Smells alco­holic. (Strong wheat liquor. 6 units)
• Jar: A large jar of red herb (con­tains 30 gram-dos­es of yer­ba roja. Val­ue 1 S per g.)
• Jar: Of dried white Lan­cel­la fun­gus (6 units)

On the coun­ters: 

• Sur­gi­cal spring scis­sors, stained with red Yer­ba, amidst a pile of leaves
• A huge mor­tar and pes­tle. Mor­tar bowl shiny with gold dust.
• A pack­et of crack­ly gold flakes, near- emp­ty, labeled dolce lac­ca d’oro, pura (“sweet gold lac­quer, pure,” in Mapoli­tan.)
• A half loaf of bread, laced with mush­rooms bits (Lan­cel­la) & gold  flakes. Actu­al­ly quite decent bread. 4 units worth of bread.

The cab­i­nets and larder yield most­ly dust & grain moths, but a suc­cess­ful Scrounge roll might find:

• Bot­tle of 6 units of sun­flower oil
• A tin of maize-meal, mag­i­cal­ly undis­turbed by grain moths. 6 units

The pack­et of gold lac­quer:

• Con­tains only a mouth­ful. A sin­gle dose. If eat­en, it locks the eater’s infest­ed stress at its cur­rent lev­el for 24 hours (even if it’s at 0.) The eater won’t know this, how­ev­er. The pow­der is piquant, and gets under the gums.

2.5.1 | papered door

Pan­eled lead­ed-glass pane door past­ed over with news­pa­per. Light glows through. 

• If some­one tears the paper away, they can see the long, squa­mous bird-legs of the pel­i­can in 2.6. Tear­ing more than a few bits of paper away may draw the bird’s atten­tion, caus­ing it to attack, peck­ing its long neck through the frag­ile door and into the kitchen.

Tucked into the past­ed-on papers, glow­ing faint­ly with out­door light, there is a yel­low slip of lined paper (log­book pas­sage 2.)

2.6 | pelican balcony

Cold sun­light.

The pel­i­can has made its nest here: A half-meter high pile of shrub­bery and sticks. In its bowl-shaped mid­dle lies the head of the gar­den stat­ue, look­ing con­fused. There are also two large black eggs, edi­ble (4 units of egg, each.) 

Stats for the pel­i­can are under 1.5 BACK GARDEN.

Floor Three

3.0 | landing

Books are piled around the land­ing in piles at the banister’s base, large­ly rot­ted and illeg­i­ble. If some­one scrounges them, gen­er­ate 2 books here.

Emp­ty plant pots are stacked there also.

• An book with an orange leather cov­er lies open atop one pile of pots, still read­able. Ampul­lon­ian Mys­ter­ies, a rare tome worth 20 gp. 

Doors, off the land­ing:

• The west­ern door to 3.2 is unlocked. 
• The east­ern door to 3.1 is locked. There’s a note pinned to it read­ing I’M SORRY in a mis­er­able and quak­ing hand. 

The door’s espe­cial­ly robust lock impos­es -4 on lock­pick­ing attempts and breaks picks on fail­ure. It accepts the half-moon key.

3.1 | spore parlor

Cold yel­low light. Win­ter air and some­thing cloy­ing, alde­hy­dic.

Per­haps once a music room or day par­lor.

The walls are bare and peel­ing with rose pat­terned paper. Fire­place bricked over. A bat­tered pianoforte has been shoved in the NE cor­ner by the win­dows. Dusty, cold spores min­gle with snow, drift­ed up in piles at the room’s cor­ners. 

• Rum­mag­ing in these drifts risks myco­sis (see 10. Kilka­mes­sus vagus.)

Tall win­dows in deep sills, open. Chill breeze flut­ters the long, creamy chif­fon drapes.Ceil­ing is hor­ri­bly stained and mold­ed with yel­low slime.

Before the win­dows stand sever­al twist­ed fig­ures: myco­paths, heads back as if in rap­ture.

• They are yel­low, spongy, cov­ered in short Chee­to-like  out­growths. They shed spores like snow, gen­tly. Their spores are the source of the cloy­ing odor.
• If dis­turbed, they sham­ble towards sound per the list­ed behav­ior on their stat sheet, try­ing to spread their infec­tion (see Kilka­mes­sus vagus.).

Fire­place: Near­by the bricked-up hearth, there’s a dis­em­bod­ied, rust­ed radi­a­tor rest­ing on the floor near some stray bricks, seem­ing­ly removed from the fire­place. 

3.1.1 | cellaret & humidor

Smell of rot­ting pep­perelle. Spoiled, yeasty booze.

A cel­laret and bar, clear­ly for enter­tain­ing guests. Sump­tu­ous cab­i­netry engraved with dusty veg­e­tal scroll. Crys­tal-front­ed liquor cab­i­nets, some shat­tered, and a small­er pep­perelle cig­ar humi­dor. There’s a mini­bar here, also, with a sink beside (no water avail­able.)

The mini­bar: rel­a­tive­ly undis­turbed, but dusty.

• Ice­box con­tains, amidst spoiled food, two cans of Harrod’s pick­led fledg­ling eels, a Firl­ish del­i­ca­cy. Pop­u­lar cock­tail snack. On the bar­top: An ice buck­et and some tum­blers

The cab­i­nets con­tain 4 untouched bot­tles of Lyre­ness whiskey, among many bro­ken and spoiled bot­tles.

• One dusty bot­tle reads “Auld John­nie-in-a-tub.” Says it was 8 years old at time of bot­tling, and bot­tled 60 years ago. Worth a fair 20–40 gp to a con­nois­seur. 

The humi­dor: 2 Sacadeen puro cig­ars remain. Thin, tealike, mel­low to the nose.

3.2 | giant mushroom

Dim, green­lit. Sweet smell of putrescine. 

Once the mas­ter bed­room. A chest, a bed, a soar­ing hearth, a small cor­ner clos­et.

Bed entire­ly over­tak­en by a great, umbrel­la-like green cap with gilly lamel­lae wav­ing under­neath like hang­ing laun­dry. Lumi­nous spores fall from these fun­gal sheets, ura­ni­um-green.  

• It grows from a heap of car­cass­es sunken into the rot­ten bed. Pieces of dogs, cats, and hors­es, inter­spersed with dead mice and bits of sec­tioned tor­so. 
• If approached, the great shroom shiv­ers, fill­ing the room with a spume of spores. They fill the lungs, caus­ing cough­ing and drown­ing for 2d4 rounds if not resist­ed with For­ti­tude -4.
  If they hear cough­ing, 2 myco­paths appear from the bath­room.
• At the shroom’s base lies a black doctor’s bag with some­thing wood­en stick­ing out. It is clean, rel­a­tive the room, placed recent­ly. A coroner’s flail rests in the bag. A short, heavy can­is­ter with spikes and small holes bead­ing griso­date ton­ic attached to an ash haft by two links of chain. d4+2B, S reach. It slosh­es, filled with 3 strikes worth of ton­ic.

The chest at the foot of the bed is part­ly over­tak­en by webbed myceli­um. 

• It’s stuck shut, takes a Might roll to open. Inside are two antimy­cotic syringes, a burn salve, a bot­tle of lau­danum, a small pouch of Griso­date (enough to make 4 units of ton­ic.)

The hearth, grand and dec­o­ra­tive, is not bricked. Some­one small could crawl up into 4.3.

3.2.1 | man nest

Dark. Body odor and soiled clothes.

A dress­ing area and walk-in clos­et. Filthy. Small cot; indent­ed and filthy with use. Piles of clothes, brown with rot.

Green, fuzzy writ­ing on the walls, indis­tinct. Read­able only if cross-eyed. 

• Behind the words are images of uni­cel­lu­lar-look­ing life­forms and shelled sea life, paint­ed on a calig­i­nous, wet back­drop.  

A mess of hand­ker­chiefs, cut crys­tal tum­blers, cig­ar ends, clothes, dead dox­bells, and slip­pers are mound­ed around it. Some­one lived here, in the glow of the shroom.

• There is a scrap of yel­low vis­i­ble in the detri­tus (log­book pas­sage 3.)

3.2.2 | cadaver wc

Dark. Feces and formalde­hyde. 

The mas­ter bath­room. The tile here is slick with small, slimy mounds of melt­ed, slime-mold­ing feces. The toi­let is piled with gold-flecked dung.

There are 2 myco­paths stand­ing with­in. They aggro, emerg­ing with­out, if the great shroom on the bed is dis­turbed.

The bath­tub con­tains a human fig­ure under a dirty sheet. 

• It’s the exhumed, embalmed body of a mid­dle aged man. He has Avethan bur­ial goods: Gold­en chal­cedony rosary, and a large iron­wood ring bear­ing the face of Saint Ilex, the Pre­serv­er.

On the wall over the mir­ror is a map of a near­by Avethan church­yard. There are Xs over some graves.

Stair 3 | FLOOR 3

Dark. Dust and pale spores swirl.

There is a myco­path at the top of the stairs, hunched mis­er­ably. Giv­en that it is in the dark, it may eas­i­ly sur­prise any­one who doesn’t have a light source.

• It lurch­es down the stairs, falling. It takes fall dam­age. Those climb­ing the stairs are struck by it, tak­ing the same fall dam­age + con­tract­ing myco­sis, if they do not dodge.

Door to land­ing at top of stairs:

• The han­dle is down, at an angle, as if turned by a hand on the oth­er side. It is trapped.

Attempt­ing to turn it caus­es a heavy blade, like from a paper cut­ter, to fall from the door­frame over the hand, poten­tial­ly sev­er­ing fin­gers. Roll Per­cep­tion against sur­prise in order to get a chance to dodge it. It deals 7 slash­ing dam­age to the hand.

FLOOR FOUR

4.0 | clutch hallway

Dark. Cold, but dank. A smell of bleach and sweat.

There are many doors here, close­ly spaced. A wall of yel­low slime blocks the east­ern wall. Twitch­ing lengths of goo, like pedi­palps, wave towards the view­er, shim­mer­ing.

• This serous door-slime only per­mits fun­gal life to pass or those with 3+ infest­ed stress. It attacks all oth­ers. When it opens, it splits down the mid­dle, like the open­ing of a human lar­ynx.

A clutch of 8 large white nod­ules clings to the ceil­ing. Lay­ered like wasp nests, but hard­er; cal­care­ous. Each the size of a balled-up per­son. They con­tain dor­mant salt eaters, and they crack­le open, driz­zling brine, if called down by the door slime.

• If cut­ters loi­ter here for more than 1 round, 1d4 salt eaters issues from these eggs to fend them off. 

Door to 4.1:

• Crooked tin sign on door read­ing “Flam­ma­ble.” Decid­ed­ly locked, and clear­ly armored, stud­ded with steel riv­ets pushed through the wood. If lis­tened at, thin, chim­ing music is heard. 
• Built-in dead­bolt lock with a large square key­hole. The lock bears a brass medal­lion read­ing “Finch and Gor­don – Fine locks and Secu­ri­ty.” Lock­smithy rolls to pick it are made at -4. The lock breaks picks, on an unsuc­cess­ful pick­ing attempt. 

Door to 4.3: Unlocked.

Door to 4.4: Locked. No penal­ty to pick or kick down.
The clos­et in this hall­way con­tains dusty shelves and a sin­gle pack­et of Binwendo’s Pre­mi­um Mas­tic Gum (apri­cot fla­vor.)

4.1 | storeroom

Inside: Dim light from dust-crust­ed pair of nar­row lead­ed glass doors lead onto the ter­race (4.2.) They are unlocked.

The room is large­ly clean. A gen­tle, tin­kling waltz orig­i­nates some­where near the ceil­ing. Shelves, cov­ered in chem­i­cal flasks and bot­tles, line either wall, with a gap in the north shelves for a writ­ing desk and type­writer, strewn with papers. 

Shelves, floor-to-ceil­ing, on the south­ern and north­ern walls, con­tain:

• Chem­i­cal stores: Brown and clear bot­tles and flasks of ethanol, ace­tone, eth­yl ether, formic acid, and acetic acid. 
• On a high shelf, the source of music plays: A chime box–a prized, del­i­cate arti­fice, alike in appear­ance to a metronome–plays a lilt­ing waltz in A major (see irl: Blue Danube.) It must have been wound up recent­ly. It is a mas­ter­piece, worth 130 P.
• Under the shelves rests a large tank with a sprayer hose like a fire extin­guish­er, labeled POLARIZED GRISEOACTIN (fungi­cide.) It car­ries a warn­ing label read­ing “warn­ing: Tox­ic poten­tia­tor. Not for use by unpro­tect­ed per­son­nel. Risk of severe denat­u­ra­tion or death. Do not open. Return to Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Sci­ence, Crown Acad­e­my, Forten­shire.”
• Incred­i­bly tox­ic. See the effect of spray­ing the griseoactin under Ban­ish­ing the Shim­mel­ing.

Writ­ing desk & type­writer:

There is a fine, heavy black type­writer on the desk. 

• It bears a sil­ver badge read­ing “LIESERL,” a Firl­ish man­u­fac­tur­er of some esteem. This is not a cheap thing to own. Resell val­ue of 40–50 gold­en pounds.
• Above the type­writer, affixed, speared to the wall by a pair of seca­teurs, is a note. 

Around the type­writer, there are lit­tered pieces of paper. All are abort­ed replies, writ­ten in a rage­ful, inco­her­ent voice, to the let­ter pinned to the wall.
Small clos­et: emp­ty shelves, save for a pair of thick rub­ber gloves

4.2 | terrace

City air, and a hint of cold wet ash.

A del­i­cate lead­ed glass door leads from here into the armored room.

There’s a firepit in the terrace’s cen­ter, con­struct­ed hap­haz­ard­ly of bricks pulled from the para­pet.  

• The fire was a poor one, hasti­ly made. Amidst the ash­es and bits of charred fur­ni­ture, un-com­bust­ed rem­nants of papers bear the seal & let­ter­head of the Crown Acad­e­my. Research papers. In the scraps, the phrase “Out­land ergot” occurs often.

The ter­race, if climbed to from the pel­i­can bal­cony 2.6, is a poten­tial way into 4.1. 

4.3 | feeding room

Dim. Humid. Graven, like an unclean mouth. 

Inside, all fur­ni­ture is gone. Lit by win­dow cov­ered in a thin lay­er of fuzzy white mold. The floor and ceil­ing are cov­ered in it, too, near­ly con­ceal­ing philo­den­dron wall­pa­per.

A sin­gle step into the room caus­es the floor to groan, dis­tressed. If inspect­ed, the floor­boards show ele­vat­ed, water-dam­aged grain. 

In the room’s cen­ter are var­ied shapes, also fuzzy. They are bones, most­ly ani­mal. Pelvis­es and long­bones and still-joined ribcages. They’ve been vel­veted over by the white fuzz, and lie on dark stains, most­ly hid­den, on the erod­ed floor­boards. Maybe a 100 kg of bones, total.

A sin­gle leuko­cyte picks over the bones, its del­i­cate shell-feet bare­ly mar­ring the car­pet of white mold. It stays well away from intrud­ers.

Manx was pro­vid­ed flesh here to the shimmeling’s sym­bionts. They have weak­ened the floor with their boil­ing spew. If more than 2 peo­ple enter the room, the floor col­laps­es, send­ing every­one crash­ing onto the giant mush­room in 3.2.

The hearth is not bricked over. A muni­tions hatch­et rest on the man­tle beside a match­ing mil­i­tary-sur­plus belt sheath. The blade gleams under a coat­ing of dried gore.

Clos­et door: Crooked on its hinges. Inside, on the ground, there is a sack.It con­tains the bones of a mouse, curled into a des­ic­cat­ed skele­tal puck around a steel tube con­tain­ing x2 lock­picks.

4.4 | spotless wc

Dark. Strange­ly, no odor. Dust under door­frame.

Door locked. A key is stuck in the lock, but it’s in the inside key­hole. 

Inside: A small water clos­et. Lemon-yel­low tile and dusty canary wood cab­i­netry. Beau­ti­ful oval mir­ror over sink. A large green book peeks over the edge of the ele­vat­ed toi­let tank, near the ceil­ing.

The room is clean, save for a frost­ing of dust. It must have been untouched for some time.  

• Green book: Dusty green calf­skin. Cov­er reads Fun­gus Man­u­al. Writ­ten in Ancient Nor, in the pompous style typ­i­cal of schol­ars who insist on writ­ing sci­ence texts in dead lan­guages. It is indeed a man­u­al of fun­gi, pro­vid­ing Lore: Mycol­o­gy 4. It’s old, and well print­ed, and worth 8 pounds.   
• Beau­ti­ful mir­ror: Sil­vered, oval, with Verre églomisé bor­der fea­tur­ing wish­bone pix­ies entwined in throws of sex and can­ni­bal­ism.

4.5 | salient

Dark. A pow­er­ful­ly dark and indolic ani­mal odor, plus a tang of plant oils and fun­gal must. 

There are 2 salt eaters here, and a leuko­cyte. They move to con­front the intrud­ers as they pass through the serous door slime.

This room was once a grand study. Mas­sive shelves of dis­in­te­grat­ed, slimy books line the North and east­ern walls. Every­thing is cov­ered in a wet serum of pale yel­low, stink­ing of dirty mouth and ammo­nia. 

The fire­place is not bricked.

Fill­ing the mouth of the hearth is a gap­ing, yel­low-slimy, sphinc­ter-like ori­fice. Frac­tal ten­drils of yel­low myceli­um branch from it, cling­ing around the walls and floor, high enough to trip on.

• This is a salient of the shim­mel­ing. It has been coaxed from the earth, up through the chim­neystack, to emerge in this study.
• If the gang approach or enter com­bat here, a leuko­cyte spills from the ori­fice.

The win­dows are solid­ly sealed with a com­bi­na­tion of stout planks, tar­pau­lin, and black rub­ber sheet­ing. No air or light per­me­ates from the out­side world. 

Clos­et: Locked from the out­side. Key still in the lock. There’s a myco­path inside (sur­pris­es the open­er,) plus a car­pet beat­er, sev­er­al bushel bas­ket lids, and a wood buck­et.

BANISHING THE SALIENT

The shimmeling’s salient into the town­house can be removed in one of three ways:

• 1. Burst the branch heart (secret end­ing) Pos­si­ble only if the gang enter the salient. This yields the secret end­ing and spares the house from col­laps­ing.
• 2. Expose it to light. The shim­mel­ing with­draws if all the win­dows in 4.5 are opened.
• 3. Douse it with the can­is­ter of griseoactin. A straight­for­ward option, but requires pro­tec­tive equip­ment to do safe­ly.

Options 2-3 cause the shim­mel­ing’s vio­lent with­draw­al from the home.

Exposing the salient to light

Tear­ing down the win­dow seals per­mits nat­ur­al light, which the shim­mel­ing hates. Tear­ing down a win­dow seal takes 4 per­il actions and a Might roll -2 (a stout tool gives +2.)

With every beam of light that graces it, the salient groans and gur­gles with­in the chim­ney, its flesh steam­ing, spew­ing forth 1d4+1 sym­bionts to pro­tect it. Only light from all three win­dows at once caus­es it to recede (see Ban­ish­ing the Salient.)

Using the griseoaction found in 4.1

12 turns spent spray­ing the salient are required to make it recede. Those near­by and unpro­tect­ed suf­fer hor­ri­ble, burn­ing blis­ters that pop like soup bub­bles in gouts of lymph and run­ny blood. 

• Unpro­tect­ed skin: 1 burn stress on each exposed body area (13 body areas in total.) 
• Unpro­tect­ed eyes: 1 burn stress, caus­ing blind­ness until 50% healed.
• Unpro­tect­ed lungs: 2 burn stress; drown­ing until suc­cess­ful For­ti­tude roll (1/turn.)

Violent Withdrawal

The town­house quakes as the chimneystack’s inner sleeve of fun­gal flesh yanks itself down into the earth like a with­drawn fist. Those in the home will, 2 turns after the quak­ing begins, have a 1-in-4 chance per turn of need­ing to dodge falling plas­ter chunks, mason­ry, tiles light fix­tures, and beams as the house comes down around them. If hit, they take d4 dam­age (per the Attack from above chart.) After­wards, the home is utter­ly destroyed, lying in wreck­age between the walls of its neigh­bors.

4.6 | into the salient

Not on map.

This is the secret end­ing. A gross, brief expe­ri­ence, but not too lethal, espe­cial­ly for those who have done the work. It’s for those who already read all the hid­den notes, or (espe­cial­ly) those who have tac­ti­cal­ly infect­ed them­selves with Myco­sis. They def­i­nite­ly deserve to expe­ri­ence this with­out too much addi­tion­al crush­ing dif­fi­cul­ty. 

If they dare, the gang can squeeze into the gooey ori­fice in 4.5, down the sticky, grop­ing throat of the chim­neystack, down into the bow­els of the mold between worlds. 

The climb down the stack is less a climb, and more a peri­staltic squeeze, ush­ered along by the walls of the mold. Enough air comes with the gang that they can breath, gulp­ing.

It lets out into a stom­ach-like, rugose ochre cham­ber, sticky, dot­ted with lumi­nous Armil­lar­ia oxy­lu­cifera. There is a woody odor, plus ammo­nia. 

• Put a few salt eaters and leuko­cytes here. They are aggres­sive, as usu­al, and all dodge rolls made in this cham­ber are made at -2 due to sticky floor. If you feel the gang fought enough sym­bionts already, don’t put more than one in here. They are non­hos­tile to prop­er­ly infest­ed cut­ters.

From here, the gang can pass through anoth­er banana-yel­low sphinc­ter into the depths. The crawl feels as though it takes sev­er­al hours.

What ensues is a crawl though organ-like cham­bers, tun­nels, and cav­i­ties of fun­gal flesh, often of a spongy, yel­low-ochre mot­tle, stink­ing of sap and ammo­nia. For the most part, it is dark, but a lamp can remain lit. There is bare­ly enough oxy­gen to breathe, and what­ev­er vapors it is mixed with yield flick­er­ing vision and a tight scalp.

The gang expe­ri­ence:

• Spongey gul­lies of inva­sive, burn­ing flu­ids.
• Wal­lows, piled with fun­gal tripes steam­ing with for­eign esters.
• Open, dark spaces con­nect­ed only by branch­ing, woody pale stalks of fun­gus. Strange milks drip, dis­tant­ly, from above, tast­ing of sweet­corn.
• Hot, hideous­ly-bio­log­i­cal ver­ti­cal climbs, backs pressed to slick roofs, and hands dug deep into porous flesh, like sink­ing your fin­gers into eyes and mouths.
• Long, nar­row cham­bers strung with orange alve­oli, filled with thin cus­tard. It slosh­es around the gang’s feet, and the the tang of blood stinks through­out, but it’s all yel­low. 

4.7  | hyphal heart

Not on map.

Final­ly, the gang emerge through a final duo­de­nal tube of  mucous into the hyphal heart-cham­ber.

A huge-yet-cramped space, choked sticky floor to gilled ceil­ing with flesh­like, glau­cus fruits, crooked and sprout­ing with crotch­es and limbs. Veins trace through them, red and blue. Touch­ing these man-sized growths is unavoid­able if one is to move deep­er. They are either warm as liv­ing flesh, or clam­my as death.

Loom­ing over the thick­et is a throb­bing, yel­low heart of myceli­um, slick with gooey eme­sis.

Under it, in the chamber’s cen­ter, the thick­et of flesh-mush­rooms con­verge, becom­ing more coher­ent and form­ing a clutch of spongy bod­ies, wet as new­borns. twelve in total; some half-formed with stumps for extrem­i­ties, like the ends of mush­room stalks. Each is dirty, long-haired, and cross eyed: Iden­ti­cal to the man seen escort­ed from the build­ing. Amidst them is the real Alphred Manx, iden­ti­fi­able, as he’s the only one clad in rags.

If dis­turbed, Manx awak­ens as if from a drugged slum­ber. His eyes are clot­ted over with yel­low myceli­um, and he moves slow­ly, nev­er ris­ing.  

The details of Manx’s per­son­al­i­ty and per­for­mance are up to the Book­keep­er to deter­mine, to either match or defy the gang’s expec­ta­tions. Still, all this is true and is help­ful to know:

• Manx has nev­er killed any­one. He only snatched corpses. “I nev­er killed, no.”
• Manx and Dieter were using the Mapoli­tan gold­en lac­quer to resist the Out­land Ergot. They will­ing­ly main­tained (man­aged) myco­sis infec­tions in order to pass through the slime mold and the salient, and to avoid aggres­sion by the sym­bionts. “Dieter is a sim­plis­tic crea­ture, but I nev­er deceived him. He is as will­ing a par­tic­i­pant in this as I.”
• Manx and Dieter had a con­tin­gency plan that involved using a fun­gal dupli­cate to fool the police. Dieter was to car­ry out the final steps. “I admit, I doubt­ed Dieter’s abil­i­ty to per­form under pres­sure. I assume the worst has befall­en him.”
• Manx is com­mit­ted to a per­ceived, mad puri­ty in the sym­bi­ot­ic Shim­mel­ing. All this stems from his trau­ma asso­ci­at­ed with plague. Manx will nev­er put it this way. “The Great Mold is a kind of immor­tal­i­ty. It embraces all. Would you not pre­fer it, over acqui­es­cence to your own clam­or­ing, awful, iniq­ui­tous bones?” 
• Manx will plead with the gang to leave him in peace. He offers that they burst the branch heart. This harm will cause the shim­mel­ing to with­draw, tak­ing him away into the fun­gal bow­els between worlds. “I have ban­ished a salient once before. You will have time to flee, I assure you. I beg you.”

If the gang pop the heart, they need some decent source of pierc­ing dam­age. When it pops, the tun­nels and cham­bers of the Shim­mel­ing begin a painful, cramp­ing peri­stal­sis, and the yel­lows hyphae veins along the walls begin to with­er and die. If left alive, Manx is swal­lowed by the Great Mold, dragged down in the dark mold between worlds, his wish­es ful­filled. 

* * *

Endings

Of which there are three.

BANISH THE SALIENT

The vio­lent With­draw­al pro­ce­dures detailed under 4.5 take place. 

The gang learn that Manx died short­ly after being tak­en to the lock­up by the Con­sta­bles. The atten­dant Coro­ner has sus­pi­cions about the body, report­ing that its tis­sues were fun­gal in nature.

Rewards: The gang are award­ed 120 pounds and get on with their lives. The Bank (Tiber & Fel­lowes) offers dis­count­ed (20% off) treat­ment at a local physi­cian to those who are infect­ed or beat­en up. The gang gain stand­ing with T&F for a job well done. The gang receive 120 XP each.

BANISH THE SALIENT + TURN IN MANX

If the real Manx is removed from the clutch under the hyphal heart, he doesn’t have much strength to resist. At worst, the gang encounter some more salt eaters as resis­tance on the way out in the rugose ochre cham­ber.

If the branch heart is popped, the Shim­mel­ing with­draws over the course of hours, slow­ly drag­ging much the home down into its foun­da­tions. It retreats entire­ly.

The Con­sta­bles receive him with some inter­est, since the orig­i­nal Manx they arrest­ed expired short­ly after his arrest.

The gang get all the rewards list­ed for ban­ish­ing the Salient, plus an extra 50 XP for get­ting a secret end­ing. Plus, if the gang inten­tion­al­ly infect­ed them­selves with Myco­sis, give them a heav­i­ly dis­count­ed Immu­ni­ty lev­el. 

BANISH THE SALIENT + LET MANX GO

As above, the Salient with­draws peace­ful­ly, yet destruc­tive­ly over the course of hours.  If the gang inten­tion­al­ly infect­ed them­selves with Myco­sis, give them a heav­i­ly dis­count­ed Immu­ni­ty lev­el. The gang get all the rewards list­ed for ban­ish­ing the Salient, plus an extra 50 XP for get­ting a secret end­ing, plus the dis­count­ed Immu­ni­ty lev­el.

* * *

Monster Stats

Note Mon­sters take wounds and die just like play­ers. Option­al­ly, make them suf­fer wound stress equal to dam­age dealt (faster deaths.) Remem­ber to describe when foes are stag­gered or suf­fer­ing malus, to con­vey their health state.

⁂