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Taskforce on Tentacles and Teeth

03Dec2020
Stories have entered general circulation, concerning one of the things that goes bump in the night.  Well, less a story, perhaps, than a description at this point, and a theory or two.  Too little is actually known for it to be a story, as yet.  Which is to say, when faced with a collection of facts, the average human wants very much to assign action and motivation, to create a story, to get a grip.  But that act of creation does not make a truth.  And we here want to discover the truth behind these things that go bump in the night.  

So.  The facts.

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The Theory of Oppositions

07Jan2018
It is still early days in the World of Mad Science. Principles are yet being identified and tested, hypotheses and theories daily advanced and rejected. We are privileged today to stand silent, invisible witness to one such test, performed by none other than two giants of Science!, before they were great.

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The triple-layered, fire-hardened oaken doors to the Hanover Brothers’ chambers in the uppermost levels of the Dungeons beneath the Tower stood sealed and double locked. They opened for no one, not even the Dungeonmaster. But the Dungeon Wranglers were not away on one of their epic hunting trips. The iron-bound portal barely muffled a massive but indistinct ruckus; the Brothers were in, the doors locked solely for the safety of the other denizens of the Tower as they conducted yet another perilous experiment in the name of Science!

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, 1381

the Great Work

10Oct2017

The effluvium of piscine decay was the last scent I expected to encounter as I sat in my favorite coffee shop some five blocks off Salem’s antique waterfront. Initially, it presented as little more than a tickle at the back of my throat – a whiff of something I couldn’t quite identify, but which upset me nonetheless. I became distracted from my crossword without even realizing I’d lost my concentration. But the odor built in both intensity and pungency, until it reached a point at which I could identify it for what it was. It was then that I looked up and saw the thing in the doorway.

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1272

They Pay In Advance

20Apr2017

“Folks down on Murphy Street say the swamps are lit up already,” Mona said.

It was late and she was washing up after dinner while her Mama sat at the kitchen table. The heat and the humidity, like the foxfire, had come early this year, and they punished Mrs. Gardner awfully. Mona repeated some of the town gossip as a distraction. She heard her Mama sigh.

“Just like the year your father went away.”

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