Example of epistolary play: The Figment of Eustace Morrigan
Normally this part of play would be done as correspondence with Sir Raleigh, of which the incoming letters were catalogued and preserved for players of the Night's Black Agents portion of the game to study in the present day. In this example of play, the dates reflect where a player would break, learn consequences and pitch next courses of action. The letter is written to emphasize what is fact, what is speculation, and where there are definite holes of information that a different character or different approach would have been able to follow up on.
June 17th, 1887
It is an auspicious occasion for which I am drawn into fieldwork, but I find myself compelled in this singular case. I have made my personal cowardice no secret, and in fact hold it to be in the highest of virtues. As a younger man I had held fast to the idea that my fear was rooted in ignorance, and knowledge would be the systematic weeding of a mind that had festered with such fear. Instead clarity brought certainty, and I learned that the desire to rid myself of fear was the ignorance I had thoroughly removed. Knowledge is a fragile seed, and it is already the work of a full lifetime to collect and disseminate it. I see no sense in the risk of foreshortening that vital time.
Still my path leads to the residence of Eustace Morrigan, as I can scarce think of a colleague better suited to this investigation, though I have surely tried. And even the most exhaustive efforts of my practiced imagination cannot conjure what risk could befall me from an inspection of the afflicted.
Eustace was brought to my attention as a matter of psychiatric curiosity. A man who claims memory of a person he has never met. The matter was brought to his attention in recounting an anecdote to his wife, and committing a most common faux pas of the long-together couple and forgetting that Mrs Morrigan had been present for the story in question. Eustace clearly recalled another man in her place, a man that his wife had no memory of. And when asked, Eustace could not recall having how he had ever met this man.
I have already done the prior readings. Eustace Morrigan has no psychiatric disturbances present in either parent or in any of his eleven brothers and sisters. He has no head trauma to speak of, and no recent period of intense stress that might have acted as a catalyst for a mundane explanation of dementia praecox.
I have two working hypothesis, should mundane explanations fail - one must never rule the possibility out, the human mind must not be forgotten to be a Swiss mechanism of impossible complexity and fragility.
One is of what my esteemed Victor Roebling would call a reality-eater. Eustace has remembered a man that has otherwise been consumed, the remaining trace being a 'hiccup' or an 'incomplete digestion'. I have already deemed this the lesser theory, or else my erstwhile carriage would be heading in the other direction.
The more likely, though, I believe, is that this is an entity making contact with Mr Morrigan in a rather limited and brutish fashion. If this is such an amateur attempt at magick, then my duty is only as a physician, to care for the damage done by misaimed trespass.
June 19th, 1887
I have ascertained with some certainty that the case of E. Morrigan is supernal in nature. I have not said as much aloud, however. Eustace is a kindly older gentleman who I have found I'm rather fond of, and as his physician it is my duty to reassure him with vigour. His wife, the Mrs Agatha Morrigan, seems closed to any suggestion that this is more than merely medical, and I fear I lack the aptitude to convince her otherwise. So long as she's closed to such a line of questioning, such questions must remain unasked.
I have come upon a test to examine the boundaries of Mr Morrigan's remembered entity, hereafter referred to as the Figment. It is no surprise that it cannot be remembered directly. Instead, I sought to catalogue a list of common substantive memories - the memory of first awareness, first conceptualization of death, the wedding, a favourite Christmas, the loss of virginity. This last was met with resistance, but E. was assured by my explanation: It would be a strong memory, and the most inappropriate for the Figment to appear in.
Of these, the Figment was recalled clearly as in the crowd of the wedding reception, sitting on the groom's side of pews. Rather inconspicuous, but an unsettling confirmation of my suspicion that it was not a single affected memory. I find this the most disconcerting of supernatural perversions: When one's memory is altered, there is no way to remember having remembered things differently. This, of course, makes self-correspondence vital in this matter. Written notes will be crucial to ensure E.'s Figment lacks a contagious element.
When the Mrs Agatha ventured that perhaps she had merely forgotten him, E. shook his head. I was quite shaken by the physical account. A tall man, gaunt and hollow cheeked, with the dress and countenance of an undertaker, standing a full head and shoulders above the next tallest guest. Mrs Agatha quietly confessed my own thoughts; It should be impossible to forget such a man.
Quietly, I have asked A. Morrigan for her best account of a guest list, and sent queries to all I could find an address for. It is still possible that the causality of the Figment in E.’s memories is quite reversed: That he has successfully removed himself from A.’s memory and unsuccessfully removed himself from E’s. Surely, in such a case, the imperfection would be evident in another?
There is a secondary importance of the catalogue we have created today. In future days I will ask E. if the Figment has appeared in memories that were previously untainted. If the affected memories remain static, then it is further evidence of a misaimed application of novice magick.
If, however, previously unaffected memories become afflicted, then we will be in uncharted waters, and must begin drawing new hypothesis. Blessedly, I consider such an outcome highly unlikely, though I have scheduled a further week with the Morrigans for their peace of mind, and my own.
June 25th, 1887
I have most definitely put my foot in it. I curse, curse and thrice curse my imagination for its limitations. Having seen so much, had I dared become so foolhardy as to believe there were no surprises left to me?
Doubtless I turned more pale than either Morrigan when, upon working through the daily catalogue, old E. identified the Figment in his memory of first conceptualization of death, when playing with his childhood dog King and first realizing that he would outlive his companion. The Figment appeared there, then. Concerningly, Eustace believed he had remembered the Figment in that memory in previous days. He was a quick study of his wife and my own reaction, however.
That would have been fearful enough, but previously E. had described the Figment as a benign, even friendly figure. His first appearance, after all, had been taking the place of his wife in a half-recalled anecdote. Now the Figment feels foreboding to him, malicious. He says that he has stopped deliberately trying to conjure memories he knows the Figment to be in, as its details are growing sharper and more concrete to him with passing days.
Still, that is the thing with memories. To try to avoid one is to tell oneself; "Try not to think of a pink elephant". A doomed exercise for which no blame can fall upon Eustace's shoulders for failing.
Another upsetting development is that Eustace now believes with absolute certainty the Figment has spoken to him, but he cannot recall what the Figment said. I have cautioned him against trying to find the memory, as it is likely to worsen his condition. I am still careful to speak in grounded medical terms, but the pretense is beginning to wear thin on all involved. Even Agatha has come to speak to me, in confidence, about her beliefs that this is not a psychiatric disturbance as a doctor might understand it. That I agreed with her steadied her somewhat. I fear that it is now too late for any good to come from asking the questions I had wanted. Time closes all doors. Let us hope it has not closed a peacable exit to this.
I have drafted a more rigorous collection of memories to interrogate. I have foregone powerful memories and am moving to the insignificant and recent, sorted by rooms of the house and hour of the day. We begin with this new volley tomorrow.
June 26th, 1887
The Figment has contaminated most of these recent memories, even ones from as recent as hours before. Eustace recalls it whispering to Agatha and I. Of course we don't. He fears we are conspiring with it. I fear that it is driving a wedge between us. My affection for the gentleman, and the knowledge that it is interfering with his memories, is I believe the only bulwark we have left to keeping him on our side. Myself and Agatha have begun to write E. letters in sealed envelopes, proof that our stories remain unchanged as his memories of what we have told him are altered.
I fear for him greatly.
June 27th, 1887
First he remembered seeing us steam the envelopes to release the glue to make alterations, but only when we thought he was confined to bed. Then he remembered, having opened the letters, that they said something completely different. Eustace has taken to carrying one in hand at all times. The man weeps, and I weep with him. I have sent out for bottles of laudunum. My proposed course of action would be to keep Eustace in a deeply medicated state, to addle his mind to such an extent that a hook is shaken loose, that a parasite is starved, that we might induce shock of some kind into whatever has affected him.
For now, there is whiskey, and Eustace has broken a lifelong conviction of teetotallness. Now when he remembers his father drunkenly beating him, it is the Figment who stands in his place, laughing while he strikes. Eustace assures me the laugh is the most terrible thing of all.
June 27th, 1887, cont.d
The alcohol has only worsened the condition. I had put too little value in the role of willpower and the offering of resistance against invasion. E. has begun to see the Figment as an afterimage, as a thing that was not there but had been just a second before, standing in places he was looking at without seeing.
It had spoken to him, now. Mr Morrigan repeated to me; "Dr Raleigh, I think it's time for you to leave." I sent Agatha for a priest to perform an exorcism, knowing the ineffability of such enterprise.
Here I must once again put pen to paper that would have me to the gallows should this writing reach its wrong audience. It is at this point that I resorted to shooting Mr Morrigan in the head, with the hopes that the leading struggle could be best explained as me trying to liberate the gun from Morrigan's hand, and not vice-versa. My rigorous accounting of his descent into paranoia, and the supporting testimony of his wife - and for that may you grant me the forgiveness I will not grant myself.
Inside his skull was black ichor, with nodules of festering onyx stone, like gallstones. This far progressed, and with such extant damage, the benefits of further examination are forever lost.
This I take as vindication that I acted correctly, and I will grant no quarter to speculation that my bias lies in my own favour. I have failed a kind man who sought my healing and my understanding. But I can confirm suspicions formed towards the very end. I do not know what was the catalyst, what planted this black seed. But I know that dwelling on the memory must strengthen the connections of the brain with this contagion, feeding it as surely as bile forms a gall stone. The physical manifestation of these symptoms signal to me that this is the parasitic-embryonic stage of... I dare not speculate. A hopeful interpretation is that it might become less malevolent when no longer in need of a host, though I most surely am beyond keeping such hopes. But there is no other explanation for how such inorganic components could grow organically in such uniquely human tissue.
One hope that I will keep close to heart and nourish. That whatever this thing was, it died with Eustace. If this is only the severing of a finger, then the owner of the hand would now know my name. I choose to believe, then, that this was larval, not tendril.
