Dad's old books

#written by Tymime, Kodiak, and Fishy

    "You don't have any particular plans today, so you try to think of something to do while sipping a cup of coffee."
    "You pace back and forth in your house, absentmindedly glancing at the old furniture and knickknacks that once belonged to your father, not really thinking about them."
    "You come across one of the many bookcases, and your brain perks up."
    "You hadn't thought about them in weeks, but you notice a peculiar shelf by the door."
    "The books resting on it aren't like the other ones, these ones are old."
    "Very old."
    "They're all faded and torn. Most of them don't even have legible titles."
    "You set your coffee down on the desk and pick one up, and it feels like it's about to fall apart in your hands. You  carefully flip open the cover."
    "The inside has a drawing of a Satanic goat demon thing, sitting cross legged with a circle filled with runes around it."
    "She's holding a book in one hand and has her other hand raised with her palm facing you. The opposite page bears the title \"Les Jours du Vide\" printed in a gothic font."
    "There's no author or legal information anywhere, and the whole book is written in French except for occasional images with ancient runes."
    "You put the book away and search for one written in English. How about this one? \"Rouge Serpent?\""
    "You open it up to a random page and skim over some text. Luckily it turns out to be English."
    "Unfortunately it's Old English. Well, Oldish English. You can still make some sense of it."
    "You read a small passage that turns out to be like a poem you guess?"

    #make poem have different text color, a shade of grey

    "\"To upon one\nWho thinks he anything\""
    "\"Consider all the stars\nGreater than him\""
    "\"Burning bright\nHow many have been forgotten?\""
    "\"What can be\nExisted or not\""
    "\"Beloved as vast the sky\nIs nothing\""

    "…"
    "You flip to the next page and find an illustration of two snakes wrapped together in darkness. There's a caption underneath."

    "\"Fear ye when these serpents come undone, for all will be undone, and His merciful reign will come to an end.\""

    "Hmm. Not sure what to make of that, other than your old man had an interest in the occult."
    "That would explain the weird art and furniture that would make Dracula jealous."
    "All that's missing is a collection of black metal vinyl records, the kind of music your mother always said would turn you into a Satan worshipper."

    "You stare at the books on the shelf and find yourself thinking, what the hell is some of this stuff, anyway?"
    "Most of them look too delicate to just pick up and rifle through. It'd probably take an expert on antique books to deal with those, probably."
    "And there's nobody like that in town, as far as you know."
    "You look for the newest, least fragile-looking of the bunch."
    "Your finger lands on the title "Methods and Testimonies of the Possum Springs Witches"."
    "Well that's oddly specific."
    "Did somebody have a printing press in town back then? For something besides the newspaper?"
    "In any case, it's not a fancy book, by any means. It's rather plain-looking, befitting a local publication."
    "You pull it off the shelf and open it, skimming the pages. There are crude drawings and diagrams throughout, which look as though they illustrate charms and objects for cursing somebody."
    "The ordinary, household objects depicted therein seem to take on a sinister aura, managing to make boring stuff like iron nails, corn husks, and locks of hair seem creepy."
    "Your eyes land on a page that gives you a chill. The drawing shows a pile of teeth, each with small markings on them."
    "Why on earth would your father read this sort of thing? For fun?"
    "That's what *you* would read it for- like reading any scary story."
    "You're suddenly reminded of somebody who loves scary stories. Lori. You wonder now if she could give you any insight."
    "You've been curious about your father's weird taste in the occult before, but somehow this book tips the scale. You've just got to get some sort of explanation."
    "Lori seems like the closest thing to an expert."

    "You decide to take this book with you and look for Lori."
*if you didn't help her with her movie*
    "She seemed a little disappointed you couldn't help her with her movie, but hopefully you're still friends."
    "Where would she be on any given day, anyway? The library, perhaps?"
    "You decide to try the library first."

    "You head to the basement and carefully place the book into your motorcycle's saddle bag hop onto it, eager to find out more at the library."
    "You arrive and park near the entrance, and head inside with the book in your hands."

    "It doesn't long to find both Lori and Selma there, sitting at one of the reading tables."
    "Selma has a book in front of her, but she's talking to Lori."
    "You approach them and wave."

    lori "Oh hey, [newname]. I was just asking Selma if she knew any new scary story books she could recommend."
    lori "I've kinda read all of old ones at the library already!"
    selma "New books don't come here very often."
    player "Bummer."

    "Not knowing how else to bring up the subject, you raise the book up for them to see."

    player "So I was wondering about this book…"
    selma "Woah, what is that?"
    player "…Yeah, it's something I found in my dad's office."
    lori "That looks really effin' old."
    selma "Did you bring that riding your motorcycle? I hope it didn't get jostled too much."
    selma "The binding tends to get fragile when books are that old."
#Selma would need to learn that you own a motorcycle for this to work
    player "…Uh, I don't think so?"
    selma "Lemme see it."

You hand it over, a little embarrassed.

    selma "…"Methods and Testimonies of the Possum Springs Witches"?"
    lori "…What."
    lori "That sounds awesome. Lemme see it too."

    "Lori delicately yet gingerly takes it and opens it, gently turning the pages. Selma looks over her shoulder."

    lori "Oh wow."
    selma "This is actually a pretty cool find."
    player "I kinda thought it was unusual."
    player "What do you make of it? It's part of a small collection of similar books that my dad collected."
    lori "There's *more*?"
    player "Some of it's not in English, though."
    selma "Huh. Sounds like your dad had a thing for creepy folklore, then."
    lori "Can I see them? I've been looking for more books about witchcraft anyway."
    player "You mean come to my house? I guess so."

*if you're on the Lori route*
    lori "It's actually near the Shreigeist House."
    selma "Oh, really?"
    lori "Oh [newname], I've just *got* to see your house. It sounds so cool."
    lori "How old would you say it was?"
    player "I dunno. 1930s?"
    lori "Cool, maybe it's got art deco ghosts."
    player "I don't think it's haunted, sadly. No strange noises or anything."
    lori "Oh darn."
    lori "Hey Selma, did you wanna come too?"

*if you bailed out on her*
    "Selma glances up, and quickly returns to reading her book."

    selma "Naw, you go right ahead."
    lori "Oh… ok!"
    lori "Hey! That means I can get to ride on your motorcycle!"

    "Lori hops up and turns to leave excitedly."

    player "Hold on! I don't have a second helmet!"
    lori "So…?"
    lori "Oh. Right. Safety."
    lori "Guess we'll have to walk."

    "You're wondering just how convenient this motorcycle is after all."

*otherwise…
    "Selma glances up from her reading."

    selma "Hmm, well I guess I've got nothing better to do, huh? Sure."
    player "Ok, lemme get on my bike and we can go."
    lori "Hold up, we can't *both* ride on [newname]'s bike!"
    player "Oh yeah, huh…"
    selma "Guess you'll have to walk with us, [newname]."
    player "Guess so."

    "You're wondering just how convenient this motorcycle is after all."

    "The three of you head back to your house as you push your bike alongside you."
    "When you arrive, Lori runs up the driveway, eager to be the first to go inside."

*if on the Lori route*
    lori "Oh wow, your house is just like I imagined it!"

*if not*
    lori "Oh wow, your house is so cool! Why didn't you tell me?"

*
    "You put the motorcycle back in the basement, take the book out of the bag, and return to the front door and unlock to let your friends/Lori inside."
    "Lori is practically skipping around once she's inside, spinning around to look at everything."
    "Selma, on the other hand, smiles and nods in approval."

    selma "Not bad, not bad."
    lori "I love it!"
    selma "So where are these legendary books?"
    player "Right this way."

    "You lead them into the office. It doesn't take long for them to notice the shelf in question- the books stand out amongst the rest quite a bit."
    "You put "Methods and Testimonies of the Possum Springs Witches" back in its place."

*if you said you found the library book in an abandoned house*
    selma "…Hey, hold on."
    player "What's up?”
    selma "That book. Not this one, the other one. The one you returned to the library."
    player "Yeah?"
    selma "You meant *this* abandoned house? *Your* house?"
    player "…"
    player "Well my dad's gone, so it's still… technically abandoned?"
    selma "Wow."
    lori "I think you got hustled, Selms'."

    "You feel a bit embarrassed. That wasn't your intention."
    "Selma returns her attention to the bookshelf."

    selma "Dang, these are even older. Not sure I wanna touch 'em in case they fall apart."
    lori "Holy crap. What did your dad have these for?"
    player "Absolutely no idea."
    player "Nothing I remember about him even hinted that he was into this sort of stuff."
    player "Not that I remember much."

    "Selma hovers her hand over the one titled "Les Jours du Vide"."

    selma "This one's in French. I assume he was multilingual?"
    player "Probably. He never spoke French around me."
    player "Do you know any?"
    selma "Only a tiny bit. Pretty sure "Jour" means "Day", and that's only because I know "Soup du Jour" means "Soup of the Day"."
    player "So… what do you make of it?"
    selma "Not much. Your dad had an interest in the occult, and that's about it."
    player "…To be honest, that's as far as I got."
    player "So… why?"
    selma "There's not much to go on."
    selma "And unless we could read them, we can't find out what exactly they're about."
    lori "And I don't really want to touch 'em."
    lori "I'm getting nervous just breathing on them."
    selma "I could find out if some of 'em have been republished or translated. Would only take a quick search on the 'net."
    selma "Only trouble is I can't make out some of these titles."
    player "…I guess that's a start. Better than nothing!"

    "You're lost in thought, staring at the books as if you could unlock their mystery just by staring at them long enough."
    "Lori turns to look at the corner of the room."

    lori "What's in the safe?"

    "Your concentration is broken, the haze of your inner monologue swept away."
    "You'd forgotten about the safe in the wall. It hasn't crossed your mind since you first moved in."

    player "I dunno, I can't open it."
or
    player "It's a… secret?"

-secret
    lori "Haha, you don’t actually know, do you?"

-normal
    lori "Hmm, maybe the combination is written down somewhere. Have you looked for it?"
    player "I have, but I haven't found anything yet."
    selma "Guess it's staying locked for now."
    lori "Hold on, I just remembered- I think I can open it!"

    "Lori walks up to it with conviction."

    player "You know how to open safes without knowing the combination?"
    lori "I was writing a script at one point about a burglar who tries breaking into a safe in a rich guy’s old mansion."
    lori "But when he tries to get out of the house, he finds that every door just leads to more and more rooms and he eventually loses his mind trying to leave."
    lori "A kind of a cosmic justice thing."
    lori "Anyway, that’s my roundabout way of saying that I did some research on safecracking to give it more authenticity."

    "She leans her ear on the safe and listens closely to the clicking and rattling of the moving part inside the lock."
    "It takes about a minute, but eventually you hear a louder click."

    lori "Ha! Got it!"
    selma "Let's see it!"

    "Lori swings the door open, revealing its contents."
    "It's a tooth.
    "A tooth? Why would your father have a tooth? What is this thing?"
    "All three of you squint at it, trying to confirm what you're looking at."
    "It's still a tooth, a single tooth."

    selma "Wow. Creepy."
    lori "That's the last thing I expected." *Kinda creepy, actually. And that's coming from me.*
    player "Is it… is it really that creepy?"
    player "I mean, maybe it's a baby tooth. Maybe it's actually mine."
    selma "No, that's definitely an adult tooth."
    selma "And unless you happened to get one knocked out the last time you saw your dad, it's not yours."
    player "N-no, I still have all my teeth. Even my wisdom teeth."
    player "Maybe it's his own tooth?"
    selma "Did *he* ever lose a tooth?"
    player "Not that I know of."
    lori "You suppose he collected them?"
    selma "But there's only one."
    lori "Maybe he never got around to collecting more."
    player "But why put it in a safe? Who would want to steal it?"
    selma "…"
    selma "…Same reason *he* wanted it?"
    player "Lemme get a closer look."

    "Reluctantly you reach in and pick it up."
    "Ugh. It's yellow and ancient-looking."
    "You squint again and notice a tiny mark on one side."
    "Your brain swirls back to that page in the book you found."
    "Without breaking eye contact with the tooth, you hold out your hand to the others."

    player "…Hand me the book?"
    selma "The one you brought today?"
    player "Yeah."

    "Selma gives it to you. You set it down on the desk and flip through the pages."
    "You find the same page as before, and point to the illustration."

    player "…That's awfully similar."
    player "…Don't you think?"

    "The others lean over to look."

    selma "Yeah, it does."
    lori "What could that mean?"
    player "Maybe it's like a museum piece. An authentic artifact of Possum Springs witchcraft."
    selma "I *suppose* you could put some monetary value on that, but it's not exactly "safe-worthy", I'd say."
    selma "More like, "Keep inside a wooden box for safekeeping" worthy."
    lori "If only there was some sort of cool story behind it, like your dad was keeping it safe from a rival antique collector."
    selma ""Sorry Professor, but once again we find ourselves on the opposite sides of the chess board.""
    lori ""Damn you, Benson! Antiquities aren't just a way to make money! They're history!!""
    player "Nah, my dad was secretly a warlock and was using the tooth to make his victim a voodoo slave!"

    "You all laugh."

    player "…Why does that sound more likely…?"
    selma "Naw, the tooth looks to me like its older than your dad, even. Maybe even as old as this house!"
    player "It must've been important to him somehow."
    lori "Maybe we'll never know."
    selma "Hmmm…"
    lori "You think of something?"
    selma "I've read some newspaper clippings at the library that mention… old *miners* keeping teeth?"
    player ""Tooth" and "teeth" don't sound like real words anymore."
    selma "Ha, yeah. But there was something about miners keeping teeth and passing them down the generations."
    selma "I forget exactly."
    lori "Hey yeah, I've heard stories like that. Really weird."
    selma "Was your grandfather a miner here or something?"
    player "No, none of my family ever lived here. As far as I know."
    selma "Hmm."
    player "Guess it's a mystery then…"
    lori "Did you notice the weird mark on one side?"
    lori "It's like a symbol or something."

    "You look at the illustration again."

    player "…These have markings on them too."
    lori "That makes the "authentic Possum Springs witchcraft" theory more likely."
    selma "I wish I could remember the entire miner story, though."
    selma "Wouldn't it be freaky if these miners were attempting some sort of creepy folk magic?"
    lori "Oh wow, that would make for such a cool horror story."
    lori "What does the book say that the teeth were used for?"

    "Well heck, it hadn't occurred to you to actually read the book for answers, had it? You look at it straight away."
    "The section about teeth is a little short, but it reads:"

    ""The Uses of Teeth in White Magic""
    ""Teeth were very important in healing magic, and both Possum Springs witches and cunning folk were known to use discarded teeth for protective charms and spells or talismans.""
    ""These traditions were brought over from the "Old Country", and date back centuries.""
    ""A tooth extracted from a person is believed to remain in sympathetic connection with the man from whom it is removed.""
    ""They were also thought to contain traces of the life force of a dead person. In some instances, a tooth was taken from the mouth of a corpse, placed inside in a little bag, and worn around the neck to secure the wearer against toothache.""
    ""A tooth placed inside a so-called "Witch Bottle", among other objects, was said to protect the household from evil witches if hidden inside a wall.""
    ""The effectiveness of a tooth charm could be augmented by marking it with a rune symbol.""

    ""However, a tooth involuntarily and forcibly extracted from someone unwilling is said to have the opposite effect, and would, in rare cases, be used to curse the victim.""
    ""The origins of this belief is thought to be rooted in a fairy tale first documented in the late 1600s known as "La Bonne Petite Souris" ("The Good Little Mouse"). The story tells the exploits of a rebellious mouse who, after sneaking into the royal bedchambers, defeats an evil king by hiding under his pillow and knocking out all of his teeth. The king afterwards was cursed with bad luck.""
    ""The "Tooth Mouse", as the character later came to be known, would in the centuries to come be used as a symbol of anti-authoritarianism and was a mascot for many revolutions, in addition to being associated with sensible dental care.""

    "Oof. That's some crazy stuff."

    selma "Wow. *Super* creepy."
    player "Now I'm even more confused."

    "Your head swims with loosely connected threads that don't seem to go anywhere. There's no possible way to make any sort of conclusion with this jumbled collection of facts."

    lori "I think I know what my Harfest costume is gonna be next year, though."
    lori "I'm just gonna carry a giant, bloody, papier-mâché tooth and make threatening faces at everyone."

    "You laugh, but still stand there blinking."

    selma "…Sorry that we couldn't help more than we did."
    player "No, it's alright. At least you were able to open the safe, Lori."
    lori "My skills are valued."

    "You sigh loudly and run your hand through your fur/feathers/scales, trying to take it all in."

    player "Well, thanks for coming, I guess?"
    player "I don't know what else to say."
    lori "Aw, it doesn't have to end just like that."
    selma "Yeah, why don't we stick around while I look up some of these books on my phone?"

    "Selma pulls out said phone and starts typing in the titles one at a time. The three of you chat about the titles, wondering what they mean and what significance they could've had to your dad."
    "Out of all the books where you still make out the title, only a few have been reprinted. Most of the French ones were still untranslated, and couple were only available as a free .PDF."
    "Well, at least it's a start. Although you're not sure when you'll find the time to read them, much less buy a reprint."
    "And just what you could learn about your dad from them, you can't possibly imagine."

    selma "Hope you get the answers you want."
    player "Yeah, maybe. Thanks for your help."
    lori "Thanks for letting us see these cool books and your awesome house!"
    player "Yeah, maybe I can come up with some other excuse for you to come over."
    lori "Like maybe finding bodies buried in the cellar?"
    player "Haha, that'd be something, only the cellar floor is concrete!"
    lori "Better get out the jackhammer, then!"
    selma "Sure, but what if you damage the bones?"
    lori "Darn, didn't think of that."

    "You laugh, and you say your somewhat awkward goodbyes. You never did know how to end conversations, much less end a visit."
    "Come to think of it, you're pretty sure you've only had one other person visit your house, and that was Gregg when he fixed your bike."
    "Makes you wonder if your dad's old things are the only way to get anybody to come over."
    "As soon as Lori and Selma leave, you immediately start trying to read one of the .PDFs you downloaded onto your phone. It's not easy, since the words are so small on the screen."
    "You ironically find it difficult to focus on it with so many questions tumbling around in your head, so you give up and decide to try again when your mind is feeling less cluttered."
    "Maybe another day. Today you find yourself just milling about again, even after all that happened."
    "You seriously need to work on that."