4-8-1921
Last night was a long night with bandaging and triaging everyone. This morning we buried D_______ privately. I got a doctor friend to do up the death certificate. The school has agreed to give me the rest of this semester off and I am going to put in for a sabbatical next year. I asked Lizzie and Roy to stay behind when the others left this morning.
I left Lizzie and Roy watching the house while I went into my “secret study” in the basement to begin deciphering the documents and tome retrieved from the W______ estate. There are ten sets of documents, only one of them is in a language I do not understand. The set I cannot read seems like an ancient form of Italian.
Luckily seven sets require very little interpretation as they are in Shakespearian English. It seems odd that one document would be so old while all the others are from around the same time period. The documents seem to be excerpts from private journals. Most of the documents say the same things. They speak of something, or someone, called The Blackness giving them what they ominously refer to as simply “The Book”. It seems that all of them were given the book while they were researching ancient civilizations. One speaks of the blackness coming to them in a dream. Some of them contain an Egyptian symbol known as the eye of darkness. All of them mention another document that tells them how to interpret the book. Some of the pages have marginal notes, that don’t seem to make much sense but do seem to refer to other documents. One of the documents is of particular interest.
One document is written in more modern English and is sectionalized with the eye of darkness as the separator. This one speaks of the eye as a barrier symbol that can hold back certain beings who may seek this book. It mentions an incantation that needs to be performed to take full advantage of this symbol. It also states the author feels The Blackness was not completely honest with him. Immediately after this statement the writing trails off and there is a splotch at the bottom of the page. The splotch is not ink, but I cannot tell what it is.
After spending the majority of the day doing this I went upstairs to find that Bill and Lizzie had prepared dinner for me. As we sat down Bill expressed an interest in going to L____’s house tonight.
L____ lived in a small house on the edge of town. We had to break into L____’s house. There were only a couple of things of things of note in the house. We found an Egyptian picture hanging in the study in which Lizzie noticed the eye repeatedly so we removed the frame and took it with us. Roy noticed a parchment behind the picture. When he offered me the parchment I used tongs, I grabbed from my kitchen because of what the tome did to me, to grab it. Looking it over the paper appears to be written in an ancient form of Hebrew, possibly even Aramaic.
Upstairs we found a more private study containing a couple other items of interest. This study seems to be in complete disarray. There are papers and books strewn haphazardly about the room. In one of the desk drawers I found L____’s personal journal. There was a safe hidden in the floor which Roy opened to reveal a code book.
After helping ourselves to some fine German sausages and beer from the fridge we retired to my house to sleep for the night. I will start translating the tome tomorrow.
4-11-1921
I haven’t written in a couple of days from being engrossed in my duties translating the tome. However, finding myself unable to sleep after a horrible nightmare tonight I have decided to make an entry in the journal.
Since we returned from the W______ estate Lizzie has had some problems with her left hand, the hand she held that dagger in. It started out as a black lump that looked like a boil. When I attempted to lance the boil it had no effect. Over the last three days it has turned into what looks like a perfect tattoo of the eye.
Thursday when I began to study the book I felt an unnerving sensation just by touching it. The tome seemed to emanate warmth, but a warmth very unlike the one I felt from the mirror in the W______ estate. In studying the covering on the tome, I made the gruesome discovery that it was bound in ancient human skin. The first page only contains the eye emblazoned on it, taking up three quarters of the page.
The first chapter of the book, all that I have managed to translate so far, is a letter from the translator. It explains that the book is titled Il Libro diLuci edOmbre or The Book of Light and Dark. The original tome was found in Egypt during the first crusade. This translation was made in Genoa in 1432 by Daniele Gagliano. In the style of Italian translations at that time this letter gives a complete genealogy of the translator. It also includes the ominous passage, “I fear that just by translating this book I am damning my immortal soul.” There are also details about the book; he translator believes that it dates from one hundred years before Christ’s birth at the latest. The book is believed to have originated in Egypt.
The name Blackness is very prevalent throughout the first chapter of the book. I do not believe that it is referencing the creature the journals referred to.
Tonight I suffered from a horrid nightmare. I was walking down a long corridor surrounded on both sides by columns or tall towers. I heard what sounded like metal on metal and wheels spinning. Something not of this world was urging me towards the sound. As I neared the end of the corridor the most horrific thing came into view. There was a dark skinned man on a chariot wearing a silk breach cloth. The chariot was made of solid gold and drawn by four black horses that breathed fire and had sparks coming from their hooves. The man turned and looked directly at me revealing teeth that were filed to sharp points. At this point I woke up.
Screaming I raced down the stairs to where my bag containing the picture from L____’s house was. With Lizzie and Bill close behind me I raced into the room and looked at the painting. The pillars were almost all gone. There stood but a single pillar in the center of the picture and that had grown very large with the eye emblazoned on both sides. Lizzie noticed that one of the eyes from the corner of the painting was gone. It seems odd that all these things have an Egyptian theme and the tome mentions Egypt repeatedly.
4-12-1921
The tome is beginning to unnerve me. Just being close to it increases my heart rate and quickens by breath. The book is getting into extremely esoteric territory. In some areas I can translate the words but the sentences do not make any sense. It keeps making reference to The People of the Monolith and a place called Hyperborea. With these strange references it is beginning to tax my mind just to translate the tome, how can I be sure that I’m translating the words correctly when the tome doesn’t make any sense? As I continue with my translation I come across the name Cthulu, he is mentioned as being the high priest of Azathoth. After four hours and fifty pages I decided to go upstairs for lunch.
Over lunch Lizzie informed me that L____’s journal talked of him meeting W______. He referred to him as an extremely wealthy man whom he did not like. She said the journal went from being the chronicles of an ordinary man’s life to talking extensively of a coven. Several times a person named Corpse was mentioned. She said it mentioned a discovery and that the circle was complete.
After lunch I returned to my work with the tome. When I left for lunch I locked the tome in my safe, but when I returned downstairs it was sitting out on the desk. There were no signs that anyone had been there. While this may seem strange to others, I am coming to expect things like this.
The language is coming easy this afternoon, but the text makes absolutely no sense. As I translate the third chapter of the book the first two begin to make sense. The first was a simple history and the second was a chronicle of where the book’s knowledge originated from. The third chapter is talking about A_______ as the crawling chaos. A_______ seems to be the chief deity of an ancient and arcane religion.
I decided to meet with Will Weatherston, a colleague of mine in the anthropology department, about the names referenced in the book. He’s never heard of C_____ or A_______ but he tells me that Hyperborea is an almost Atlantean myth that is many centuries older. Hyperborea was a mythological race that existed during the times of Pangaea in the modern area of Egypt. He thinks that The People of the Monolith is the title of a mythological tome that chronicles the existence of another race that existed at the same time as Hyperborea. He is certain of Hyperborea but is not sure about the People of the Monolith.
Roy looked at the picture from L____’s house again and it has changed yet again. The background used to be all sand and very Egyptian looking. Now it seems that the sand is fading and being replaced with grass. Roy thinks the scenery looks familiar but he cannot place it.
4-13-1921
This morning I slept in. As I was getting to my translation, around 11 am, Roy came into my study to tell me that a Mr. Ingram came calling and claimed to be the attorney for Brady Whitcombe. I went upstairs to talk to him.
Brady was the assistant of the local mortician Casey Grescht until Friday. Friday Casey was found murdered with Brady standing over his body, holding the murder weapon covered in blood. He wants me to use my forensic knowledge to prove Brady’s innocence. I inform him that I recommend we claim insanity to buy us more time to work. Ingram doesn’t like that idea but after some convincing agrees to talk to Brady about it. We will take the case but until Ingram gets back to me I don’t know what tact we will take with it. After the meeting I went back to my translations.
I didn’t manage to translate very much today. I got a late start and had a lot of trouble with the language. What I managed to translate seems to be a very intricate spell that allows mortals to speak with A_______ as they would speak with other mortals. This doesn’t seem like it is a good idea. I can only see a very desperate or very insane person doing this. I will continue the translations tomorrow. Tonight I am turning in early, this translation is taking enough of a toll on my mind without lack of sleep playing a part.
