Risk: Unknown - Effort: Medi­um - Yield: Low

Notes

A pre­car­i­ous romp through a fun­gal fun­house.

Intend­ed for 3–6 Cut­ters of small to mod­er­ate skill. For a tough oneshot, gen­er­ate fresh cut­ters and grant £3 per for gear.

Inspired by Jeff VanderMeer’s Anni­hi­la­tion, Amouage Fig­ment, mush­room cul­ti­va­tion, and the con­cept of a wiz­ard tow­er trans­lat­ed to a mod­ern city.

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. A judge has approved cutters—hired from Tiber & Fellowes—to purge his home fol­low­ing the raid.

Rewards + Defining Success

Neu­tral­ize all threats. Specif­i­cal­ly (do not reveal these specifics,) neu­tral­ize Dieter, the Pel­i­can, all myco­paths, and the Shim­mel­ing.

• Reward: £100 per cut­ter. £20 reduc­tion per goal missed. Secret: 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 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. Both penal­ties ger­mane to sur­prise rolls.

SMELLS

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

LORE Topics

You’ll notice that none of the lore entries insist on exact top­ics; relat­ed top­i­cal skills 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.

Offer Rec­ol­lec­tion to 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 effec­tive. Those 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

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 com­fort and 1 dis­tress if the user has 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 per 30 min­utes, gain­ing 1 Infest­ed stress per fail­ure.

• Remove Infest­ed stress with griso­date.
• Cure myco­sis 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 per 3 Dan­ger rounds (30 min­utes.) The entire town­house is played in the dan­ger timescale. Unless not­ed, encoun­ters do not reoc­cur. Re-roll if you need to.

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.) Cre­ates 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. 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, lies a [tool the gang might need.]
9. An unlocked encounter. If none 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 his flesh or trap­pings spreads myco­sis.
2. The Sup­planter Organ. Only appears for cut­ters 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 must ban­ish the salient. For details in doing so, see 4.5 | salient.

12356

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, win­dows on all lev­els. Some papered over. Third-sto­ry ones open to the wind and snow, drapes flut­ter­ing with­in.

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

Through the front door come two men, both car­ried by offi­cers:

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

The Gang must begin.

The house presents three pos­si­ble points of entry:

• Front door half a flight of brick stairs up from the side­walk. Enter­ing here starts the Gang at floor 2.
• Gar­den gate: A short wrought iron fence lead­ing a few steps down into a small gar­den. Starts the Gang in 1.0, floor 1.
• Third-floor win­dows via lad­der or grap­nel.

When enter­ing through the low­er floors, note that it is not ter­ri­bly cold inside, despite the lack of lit fur­nace or hearths. A moist, rot­ting heat keeps things above freez­ing. Upstairs, with the 3rd floor win­dows 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. 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 large man emit­ting munch­ing nois­es. This is Dieter, a huge rag­man in disheveled gray trap­pings and a torn brown suit jack­et.

Inter­rupt­ed, Dieter paus­es, han­ks of dusty mush­rooms lift­ed to his quiv­er­ing lips, his eyes huge­ly dilat­ed, his face twist­ed in anguish.

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

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. Add him to the encounter table—even if he dies.

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

On the north wall, the 0.2 | laun­dry room door stands unlocked, peel­ing with paint.

0.0.1 | oil room

This brick alcove con­tains a pump-works for shunt­ing cetasene 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. A small iron soot door stands 0.5 m off the ground, sealed with messy run­nels of lead sol­der.

0.1 | boiler room

Dark. Cetasene and wet pen­nies.

Door is ajar. A dozen emp­ty fuel can­is­ters strew the con­crete floor. 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.

Tubs and wringer wash­ers askew, full of moldy clothes. Box of wet moth­balls and borax. An iron­ing board and heavy black iron.

Against the rough-plas­tered north­ern wall, sev­en buck­ets of gold-laced feces sprout plen­ti­ful leg­gy brown caps (Coprophilous.)

Under a pile of soiled clothes hides a crick­et bat with nails in it (as crow­bar.)

0.2.1 | plastered wall

Doesn’t match the rest of the walls. Mess­i­ly plas­tered. A Might roll −4 demol­ish­es it, open­ing a rent into 0.3 | red room.

0.3 | red room

Dark. Iron on the air.

Red lac­quer adorns the floor, ceil­ing, and walls, simul­ta­ne­ous­ly absorb­ing and return­ing light, inky and aphot­ic.

A crude black met­al chair stands cen­tral, a dark stain on the seat, as if someone’s shad­ow still occu­pied it.

• The chair is con­spic­u­ous­ly heavy—heavier than gold. 50 bur­den. Soft met­al (bas­pho­ry lead,) hack­able into pieces with an axe.

Noth­ing else remains in this room.

Floor One

1.0 | front garden

Day­light, win­ter air. Soil and rot.

Rows of gar­lic, arugu­la, and mache fer­til­ized with excre­ment. Dead cat by the door to stor­age, crawl­ing with white mag­gots.

Look­ing in, the dark, iron-barred short win­dows to 1.3 | latrine bed­room present a view of shut chintz cur­tains.

1.1 | garden storage

Dim.

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

A hatch in the floor reads munic­i­pal sup­ply. This is where cetasene is piped into the house­hold reser­voir. A ser­vice tag says its been 11 months since a deliv­ery.

Near­by, the door to the front hall is locked. Mud­dy galosh­es stand near it.

• Trap: In one lies a brass key to 1.2 | front hall. In the oth­er, there is a bit­ing bed-knob spi­der. Suc­ceed Per­cep­tion −4 vs against sur­prise 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.

Exte­ri­or door unlocked. With­in lies a mud­room.

Coat rack with sev­en hooks. On 1 hook, a long, thick rub­ber coat; in the pock­et: 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.)

Sec­ond door: locked (requires brass key from 1.1 | gar­den stor­age.)

Doors:

• A locked, peel­ing door to 1.3 | latrine bed­room.
• A water clos­et door (1.3.2,) locked from inside.
• The door at the top of the base­ment stairs stands wide open.
• At the far west end, the door to 1.4 | grow bed­room 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. Steps 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.

Trap: Who­ev­er descends or climbs the stairs first trips risks trig­ger­ing the penul­ti­mate stair. Clean of filth and clear­ly avoid­ed.

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

1.3 | latrine bedroom

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

Requires a face­mask, else roll Immu­ni­ty to resist vom­it­ing. Tiled floor uni­form­ly brown with smears.

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

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

Tables stuffed against walls. On them:

• News­pa­pers, five years deep
• Phal­lic glass tubes, hole in one end (cucum­ber straight­en­ers)
• Round steel jaw traps, 3 of them. Small enough for cats

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

1.3.1 | skeleton 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 it’s a “stain­less” skele­ton. A rar­i­ty worth £120 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 WATER 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. A light gleams at the bot­tom, under the algae.

• An eel emits the light. 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)

Door to the hall 1.2 | front hall locked from with­in.

1.4 | grow bedroom

Dim light. Smells of soil and putrid­i­ty.

Illu­mi­nat­ed by green-glow­ing fun­gus. A filthy mat­tress leans against the west wall. A rust­ed radi­a­tor has leaked, beside.

Three zinc-plat­ed troughs line the east­ern walls. One full of broad log rounds, one of dung, one of jum­bled bones and rot­ting meat.

• Wood: White, rich-smelling saucers. Eat­able. (Lan­cel­la)
• Soil: Lumi­nous broad green fun­gus. (Armil­lar­ia)
• Flesh and bone: Small, ear­like pink shapes. Harm­less. (Auris)

Two doors in the north wall:

• Tarp-cov­ered glass door to 1.5 | back gar­den. Unlocked.
• Wood­en door to 1.4.1 | roach WC. Approach­ing it, dark roach­es spill from the jamb. Unlocked, but blocked from with­in.

Two clos­et doors stand on the south­ern side:

• A slid­ing walk-in clos­et door rein­forced with iron strips (1.4.2 | grue clos­et.) Unlocked.
• A nar­row clos­et door: 1.4.3 | crate clos­et. Locked.

1.4.1 | roach water closet

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

Entry to this room is blocked. Chair set against han­dle on the inside. (-3 to Heave, if some­one tries to break it down.)

Inside the bath­tub: 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. 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 hangs 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 rein­forced in iron. Unlocked.

Beside the door hangs a syringe sprayer full of salty liq­uid.

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

Inside hang 3 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 wrig­gle and clack their jaws excit­ed­ly.

• A rub­ber res­pi­ra­tor with bub­ble eyes and a can­is­ter fil­ter lies inch­es beneath the grues’ feet.

1.4.3 | crate closet

The nar­row clos­et door is locked. Break­able with Might at −4. Lock­pick­able at -2.

Con­spic­u­ous­ly clean inside. 2 dusty small pine box­es rest on a shelf, bear­ing paper labels. “CAUTION: BIOLOGICALS. Spec­i­men: Kilka­mes­sus vagus.” Emp­ty save for old yel­low spores. Import stamps indi­cate an ori­gin in far­away Kilka­mesh.

• Dan­ger: Touch­ing the spores caus­es myco­sis expo­sure.

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 fry­ing oil from a near­by restau­rant.

Snowy, total­ly over­grown with frost-with­ered celandine and broad-leaf dock. Fel­low row hous­es rise around, bricks mortared with snow. A 2-meter brick wall enclos­es the gar­den.

Enter­ing the gar­den risks attack by the giant Holm Sea pel­i­can nest­ing on 2.6 | pel­i­can bal­cony. Enter­ing through 1.4.4 | tarp door risks the same.

1.5.2 | over the garden wall

Not on map.

Over the West­ern gar­den wall, past the stat­ue: 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: A hole and heap of earth, like an open grave. In the deep bel­ly of the “grave” rests a glass urn (kibo­ri­on,) smoky gray, sealed, and warm. Large as a human tor­so. Worms crawl about it, eager for heat. Worth £600 gold­en 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 around the neck with yet more smoky glass. Attempts to open it by force, shat­ter it, 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 a fug of dry feces and rot from inside the house.

Mud­dy boot­prints and dots of blood track over the tile and dirty horse­hair floor mat just inside the front door.

2.1 | front lobby

Dank herbal smoke. Rot, earth. Fouler odors from else­where.

Grand, dark wood­en stairs rise north, oppo­site the vestibule.

Fine glass dou­ble doors lead west into 2.2 | spore par­lor, the panes choked with dirt and pep­perelle residue. Cracked open, per­mit­ting fresh pep­perelle smoke.

On a mar­ble side con­sole, east, a dusty cloche cov­ers a dried, pre­served mince toad on a wire arma­ture.

STAIR 2 | front stair

Dots of blood pat­tern the bot­tom step. Sewing nee­dles pro­trude from the wain­scot­ting oppo­site the ban­is­ter’s ornate newel.

• In the newel: A ver­ti­cal bat­tery of small tubes faces east, emp­ty of their eject­ed nee­dles.

2.2 | living room

Dim. Burned, waxy herbs and old pep­perelle smoke. Her­by smoke from the west. Inter­mit­tent cough­ing.

Newsprint dims the front win­dows, heav­i­ly past­ed. A small portable heater hiss­es beneath the sill, fed by a cetasene tank.

Clum­sy brick­work blocks the fire­place. Near it, 2 next to an iron radi­a­tor left on its side. On the man­tle sits a dusty dis­play case. A diplo­ma hangs framed above.

• Dis­play case: Con­tains a hel­met with slit visor and blue feath­er plume. As muni­tions hel­met. £50-80 val­ue.
• Diplo­ma: Mag­is­ter of Nat­ur­al Sci­ences, grant­ed to Alphred Manx.

Beside the fire stands a brass stand filled with fire pok­ers, rust­ed.

On the east­ern wall 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, 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, peace­ful. His name name is Mint.

“Who are you?”

“Where is Manx? I am smoked out.”

“Does this mean I don’t have to pay?”

He doesn’t know about 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 yer­ba roja paste and can be grudg­ing­ly con­vinced to pass the pipe. Par­tak­ing caus­es 1 com­fort and 2 move­ment penal­ty until next sleep.

Mint leaves with­out issue, if has­sled or con­vinced. If he leaves by the front way, he is prompt­ly arrest­ed. If warned of the police, he exits through the back gar­den, squeez­ing through the gaps in the lead­ed-glass door 1.4.3 | crate clos­et and is eat­en by the pel­i­can.

2.4 | mushroom feast

Dim. Green­ing light through thick vines over the win­dow.

A din­ing room. Win­dow cov­ered in the vines of a dark green, thick vine bear­ing large red fruits. Grey epi­phyt­ic moss­es hang from the ceil­ing and chan­de­lier, low over a broad din­ing table. On it:

• Dish­es smeared with blue stains and oily bread­crumbs.
• A cleaver sticks near­by a sliced, blue-bleed­ing white mush­room cap, saucer-sized (Glo­ria cyanescens, 3 units.)
• Trap: A roast­ing plat­ter under a steel cloche. Cloudy ooze leaks under the rim (salty.) If opened, a great flex­i­ble cheese bolts in a show­er of whey, smash­ing the open­er for 2B if they do not suc­ceed a sur­prise roll and dodge. It rolls for the kitchen.

Vines on the win­dow: Thorny, dark green vines bear­ing plump fruits large as pome­gran­ates.

• Berries, huge. Deep, bloody red. Crowned like blue­ber­ries and filled with toma­to-like seeds.

Fire­place is not bricked up.

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: yer­ba roja. Cop­per heat lamps bathe the plants in hot light that fil­ters through the leaves, bathing the place in crim­son. A half-emp­ty cetasene can sits feeds 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. (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
• Huge mor­tar and pes­tle. Mor­tar bowl shiny with gold dust.
• Pack­et of crack­ly gold flakes, near- emp­ty, labeled dolce lac­ca d’oro, pura (“sweet gold lac­quer, pure,” in Mapoli­tan.)
• Half loaf of bread laced with mush­rooms bits (Lan­cel­la) & gold flakes. 6 units. Decent fla­vor. Odd crunchy flakes, like sug­ar.

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 (x6,) undis­turbed by grain moths.

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 | pel­i­can bal­cony. Tear­ing more than a few bits of paper away draws the bird’s atten­tion, caus­ing it to peck its long neck through the frag­ile door and into the kitchen.

Tucked into the past­ed-on papers, glow­ing faint­ly with out­door light, 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, beside 2 large black eggs.

• 6 units of food per egg.

Floor Three

3.0 | landing

Stacks of books clut­ter the banister’s foot­ing, large­ly rot­ted and illeg­i­ble. If some­one scrounges them, gen­er­ate 2 books here.

Emp­ty plant pots stacked beside. An orange leather book lies open atop them. Ampul­lon­ian Mys­ter­ies, a rare tome worth £30.

Doors, off the land­ing:

• The west­ern door to 3.2 | giant mush­room stands unlocked.
• The east­ern door to 3.1 | spore par­lor is locked. A note is pinned to it: “I’M SORRY,” in a mis­er­able, quak­ing hand.
  • The door’s espe­cial­ly robust lock impos­es −4 on lock­pick­ing attempts and breaks picks on fail­ure. -6 Might to break the lock. 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 hor­ri­bly stained and mold­ed with yel­low slime.

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

• Yel­low, spongy. Cov­ered in short Chee­to-like out­growths. They shed spores like gen­tle snow­fall, 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, a dis­em­bod­ied, rust­ed radi­a­tor rests 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. A mini­bar by a mar­ble sink. An under-counter ice­box.

Mini­bar: Undis­turbed, dusty. Many emp­ty bot­tles and:

• Ice buck­et, mix­ing glass, 9 whiskey tum­blers. 2 bot­tles Lyre­ness whiskey. 2 bot­tles Som­mar dry gin.
  • One dusty bot­tle reads “Auld John­nie-in-a-tub.” 20 years old at time of bot­tling 40 years ago. Worth £20–40.

Ice­box. Mounds of spoiled cock­tail snacks. Some are still good.

• 2 tins Harrod’s pick­led fledg­ling eels (6 units ea.)
• 3 bot­tles pick­led pearl onions (9 units ea.)
• 2 tins fan­cy Fries­land mini sausages (6 units ea.)

Humi­dor: 2 Sicadeen puro cig­ars. 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: Over­tak­en by a great umbrel­la-like green cap with gilly lamel­lae wav­ing 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.

• Trap: 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. 2 myco­paths appear from the bath­room, respond­ing to the cough­ing.

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 + 2 B, S reach. It slosh­es, filled with 3 strikes worth of ton­ic.

Chest at the foot of the bed, part­ly over­tak­en by web­by myceli­um.

• It’s stuck shut, takes a Might roll to open. Inside: 2 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 | feed­ing room.

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, paint­ed images of uni­cel­lu­lar life­forms and shelled sea life wrig­gle and swim on a calig­i­nous, wet back­drop.

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

• Vis­i­ble in the detri­tus: A scrap of yel­low paper (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.

2 myco­paths stand with­in. They emerge 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. Penned Xs mark some of the graves.

Stair 3 | FLOOR 3

Dark. Dust and pale spores swirl.

A myco­path hunch­es atop the stairs. In the dark, it eas­i­ly sur­pris­es those with­out a light source.

• It lurch­es down the stairs, falling. It takes fall dam­age. Those climb­ing the stairs get 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.

Trap: Attempt­ing to turn the han­dle caus­es a heavy blade, like from a paper cut­ter, to fall from the door­frame over the hand. Roll Per­cep­tion against sur­prise in order to get a chance to dodge it. Deals 2d4 S to the hand.

FLOOR FOUR

4.0 | clutch hallway

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

Many doors stand 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 oth­ers. When it opens, it splits down the mid­dle, like the open­ing of a human lar­ynx.

8 large white nod­ules cling 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 emerge from the eggs.

Door to 4.1 | store­room:

• 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.” −4 to pick with Lock­smithy; breaks picks on fail­ure.

Door to 4.3 | feed­ing room: Unlocked.

Door to 4.4 | spot­less wc: 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

Dim light from dust-crust­ed pair of nar­row lead­ed glass doors lead onto 4.2 | ter­race. 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, con­tain­ing:

• 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 its effect under Ban­ish­ing the Shim­mel­ing.

A fine, heavy black type­writer rests on the desk.

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

Around the type­writer: Lit­tered papers. Abort­ed replies to the let­ter pinned to the wall, writ­ten in a rage­ful, inco­her­ent voice.

Small clos­et: emp­ty shelves, save for a pair of thick rub­ber glove.

4.2 | terrace

City air, and a hint of cold wet ash.

A del­i­cate lead­ed glass door leads into 4.1 | store­room.

The terrace’s cen­ter hosts a firepit hap­haz­ard­ly con­struct­ed of bricks pulled from the para­pet.

• It was a weak fire, hasti­ly made. Amidst the ash­es and bits of charred fur­ni­ture, uncom­bust­ed 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 2.6 | pel­i­can bal­cony, is a poten­tial way into 4.1 | store­room.

4.3 | feeding room

Dim. Humid. Graven, like an unclean mouth.

Fur­ni­ture absent. Win­dow cov­ered in fuzzy white mold, back­lit and lumi­nous. Floor and ceil­ing, too, con­ceal­ing the philo­den­dron wall­pa­per.

The floor groans under­foot, dis­tressed. The floor­boards dis­play raised, water-dam­aged grain and sag towards the cen­ter.

• Trap: If more than 2 peo­ple enter the room, the floor col­laps­es, send­ing every­one crash­ing onto the giant mush­room in 3.2.

Fuzzy lumps occu­py the cen­ter. Moldy bones. Pelvis­es, long­bones, and par­tial ribcages. Vel­veted by white fuzz, lying on dark stains on the erod­ed floor­boards. ~100 kg of bones.

A sin­gle leuko­cyte picks over the bones, its del­i­cate shell-feet scarce­ly mar­ring the car­pet of white mold. It ignores intrud­ers.

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

Clos­et door: Crooked on its hinges. Inside, on the ground, a sack con­tains the bones of a mouse curled into a des­ic­cat­ed skele­tal puck around a steel tube con­tain­ing 2 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 hefty green book peeks over the edge of the ele­vat­ed toi­let tank, near the ceil­ing.

The room is clean, save for a frost­ing of dust. Untouched for a while.

• 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.
• 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.

2 salt eaters and a leuko­cyte guard here and move to con­front intrud­ers through the serous door slime.

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.

Fire­place is not bricked.

• Fill­ing the mouth of the hearth is a gap­ing yel­low-slimy sphinc­ter-like ori­fice. Frac­tal ten­drils of yel­low myceli­um branch out of it, cling­ing around the walls and floor high enough to trip on. This is a salient of the shim­mel­ing. Coaxed from the earth, up through the chim­neystack, to emerge in this study.
• Trap: If approached, a leuko­cyte spills from the ori­fice.

A com­bi­na­tion of stout planks, tar­pau­lin, and black rub­ber sheet­ing seals the win­dows, per­mit­ting nei­ther air nor light.

Clos­et: Key still in the lock. A myco­path lurks inside (sur­pris­ing the open­er,) plus a car­pet beat­er, 3 bushel bas­ket lids, and tin 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, yield­ing the secret end­ing and spar­ing the house.
• 2. Expose it to light. The shim­mel­ing with­draws if the win­dows in 4.5 are opened.
• 3. Douse it with the can­is­ter of griseoactin. A straight­for­ward option requir­ing 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 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 make it recede. Unpro­tect­ed skin near­by the stuff suf­fers 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 the hid­den notes or 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 | salient, 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. A woody odor, plus ammo­nia.

• Put a few salt eaters and leuko­cytes here. Aggres­sive, as usu­al. Agili­ty rolls to dodge made in this cham­ber suf­fer −2 due to sticky floor. If you feel the gang fought enough sym­bionts already, don’t put more than one in here.

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. Bare­ly enough oxy­gen to breathe. 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. 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 clot­ted over with yel­low myceli­um. 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 nev­er killed. 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.”

Pop­ping the heart requires a 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.

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Endings

Of which there are three.

BANISH THE SALIENT

The vio­lent With­draw­al pro­ce­dures detailed under 4.5 | salient take place.

The gang learn that Manx died short­ly after being tak­en to the lock­up by the Con­sta­bles. The atten­dant Coro­ner sus­pects sor­cer­ous med­dling with the body, report­ing that its tis­sues were fun­gal in nature.

Rewards: £120 reward. The Bank (Tiber & Fel­lowes) offers dis­count­ed (20% off) treat­ment at a local physi­cian to those who infect­ed or beat­en up. The gang gain 2 points stand­ing with T&F for a job well done. 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 appre­hend­ed 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.

12356

Monster Stats

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