Saturday, February 11, 2023

Through the morgue door

• After a week of downtime after getting back from the Mauritius Dodo Preserve, which I spend some more time working on home defense with Griff (made decent progress on getting him to Retainer 2), we decide to head through the morgue door

...and into the cellar of Dupin House

The first room

• We find ourselves in a small room with two doors:
  • One to the south, which we came through
  • One to the east
• Agnes thinks she saw a flash of movement, and after that we all hear a disembodied voice that feels like it came from right over each of our shoulders
  • It's some sort of the Narrator, the voice mentioning Dupin House and our motely possibly being able to solve "the mystery"
• We proceed through eastern door, which opens into a narrow hallways with another door immediately across the way to the east

The library

• We find a small library with books, which appear to be of varying ages, some quite old and others very modern (like mass market paperback thrillers)

The pantry

• North up the hallway, the next door to the east opens into a pantry room full of old canned and jarred preserves
• There is a door to the north that opens into a wine cellar

The wine cellar

• There is a door leading south, which opens back into the hallway
• There are two doors to the west
  • The southerly one opens into a room with old suits of armor on stands and a crossbow on the ground
  • The northerly one opens into what appears to be a general store room
• There is a set of stairs leading upwards on the eastern wall

The chapel

• Across the hall from the pantry, and slightly further north is another door which opens to a tiny chapel
  • It contains a small altar and font of holy water
• Moira comments that she thinks were in the Rue Morgue, and the Narrator makes a comment that even though Augsust Dupin may be fictional, with enough belief fiction can become real

The armory

• I pick up the crossbow, looking expectantly for the Narrator to say something
  • He obliges and talks about the armory as having become a bit of an eccentricity of family history rather than anything practical over time

The storeroom

• Various boxes, all dust covered and a few sets of luggage ranging from probably 10-50 years ago
• The luggage have tags that all look to be from airlines that fly to France

Ground floor

• As we ascend the stairs into a small kitchen space, the Narrator makes a comment about how the house may be dangerous, and warns of the "creature"
• Our cell phones regain signal and when we check our location, we find we're in Paris, France.
• To the west is a dinning room with spectral figures seated at the table, but they don't seem to react to us
• That room opens into a sitting room with more spectral figures
  • There is a cold and empty fireplace that is the place the balefire would burn if the freehold were active
  • Out the windows we can see the Dreaming version of Paris, France
• When Blaze mentions looking for the key, the Narrator mentions that the Dupin family were all Kinain and they "installed they key within the house" (or something like that)

Second floor

• We ascend to the second floor and find a spiral staircase that continues up, and several doors from the landing room
• The first room to the west has a strange echo that doesn't fit with the size
• The Narrator mentions
• Through one of the windows we can see the Eiffel Tower, which looks particularly solid and vivid here in the Dreaming

Third floor

• There are numerous bedrooms here
• There is a spectral couple arguing in French
  • Agnes casts "Between the Lines" to discern what is being said
  • She discovers that the Dupin house was torn down to build a hotel, and that the

Fourth floor

• We make our way up another spiral stair and while talking a door bursts open and we see the Orangutan who comes in swinging
  • I try and talk to him but he tells me exists for murder, so a fight it is

• We defeat him!

The secrets of Dupin House

• After we defeat the Orangutan, the Narrator tells us the Dupins were kithain and part of The Society of the Key who guarded the key until the last was killed by a bullet from a German solider during WWII
• A ghost in a mirror tells Blaze she's coming for her and will herald all of her failures, but then disperses
  • It's not actually a mirror, but an extremely shiny breastplate disguised by a frame and secured into the wall
    • It's the armor Aoife was wearing in our vision
• We piece together that a number of the freeholds we've found through the courtyard doors were destroyed at some point
• We find the key on a hook behind the door of a small writer's study on the floor at which point the Narrator speaks again and we learn he was the house itself.
  • The Narrator reveals the study belonged to the house's original identity, which was 'murdered' by time, the Nazis, and the fictional influence of Edgar Allan Poe.
• Agnes snatches several books from the study before we make our way out of the house through a hidden door in the back of a hotel, emerging into the Faubourg Saint-Germain neighborhood of modern-day Paris just after sunset on Saturday, February 11th, 2023.

Ah, Paris

• Before heading back home, we spend the evening enjoying Parisian nightlife, with Agnes buying French butter and cheeses, Moira wanting to visit the Louvre, and Blaze performing parkour on the exterior of the Eiffel Tower.
• I come up with a great idea that we should stage a future rematch with Catriona, the French cat burglar she raced and beat in Galway, on her home turf, because (I think) she's French.
• We gather a large quantity of French pastries, butter, and cheese and then head back home to get some rest.