Session 24 Notes
Recorded January 18, 2025
Our thanks to Ben for his extra effort with the notes.
General Summary
- We begin the session with John and Boris heading to the BMV.
- They are able find the building without much trouble and when they enter they find one person working at a desk inside. It is not a big operation, small inside, not many people.
- There is someone already the desk talking to the employee.
- As they approach they see the man’s name is Reuben Kauffman .
- Boris tells Kaufman about the fake accident that he is using as the reason to get the information.
- He says it’s a 2 dollar fee and some forms he has to fill out.
- Reuben says that it will take 5-10 business days.
- Boris tries to charm Reuben, it goes poorly, and he pushes.
- Reuben fills out the form for him getting Boris’ information.
- Boris and Jon head to the train station to head toward Boston.
- They elect to take the train directly to Boston.
- They stop in a diner to wait for the train.
- We switch back to Cillian and Floyd.
- We head to NYU to try and figure out whether or not Anthony Cowles is still at the University.
- Cillian finds several of the same Flyer for a Lecture on the board. There several flyers that are pinned over the flyer for the lecture. It is clearly something that happened in the past.
- We head into Schuyler Hall, planning on looking for the reflection paper, on the lecture that Cowles did.
- Doc asks one of the guys in the offices about said paper an he tells us that they might have recorded the whole thing on an Ediphone.
- He departs briefly but comes back with some paperwork.
- They haven’t been able to deal with the Ediphone recording
- But he does provide his own notes from the lecture.
- We attempt to and are able to get a copy of the student’s lecture notes.
- This student is able to tell us that Cowles was only on campus for the night of the lecture.
- He tells about a very interesting slide show that Cowles showed and tries to get us a look at it, but he gets yelled at and told to stop helping us.
- We know that Cowles is supposed to be at Miskatonic for the rest of the school year before he heads back to Sydney, Australia.
- Floyd decides that we are going to try and speak to the guy that yelled at Daniel Kopinski, the student. Floyd wants to talk to Professor Eagan, the head of the Anthropology department.
Keeper Note:
This was discovered to be an incorrect assumption. Eagan was assigned to Schuyler Hall but not the anthropology department.
- Cillian sends Daniel on his way and Floyd just knocks on Eagan’s door and waits to be admitted.
- Listening through the door he hears someone aggressively typing.
- No answer at first, so Doc knocks again, the door jerks open and an extremely short, round guy, with pince nez glasses. He is wearing a very nicely made suit, but it is definitely too small for him.
- He stands around 5’02” inches, he is angry, mostly rude.
- He doesn’t seem to think too much of Miskatonic
- Floyd introduces himself and offers his hand. He introduces himself as Professor James Eagan.
- Doc tries to get any information about the contents of the lecture Cowles gave.
- Seems very concerned with his own reputation.
- He allows doc to come into his office, but tells Cillian to wait in the hallway.
- We get the Handout Cowles' Lecture Notes.
- The notes are a transcription of the recorded lecture.
- And one glass slide that depicts some ruins in the desert, perhaps in Australia.
- Doc offers to take the Cowles' Glass Slide back to him when he heads back to Miskatonic.
- He also notices that Eagan is not in great shape, likely single, and spends too much time in his office not eating right, drinking too much coffee, and not dealing with his stress.
- Ultimately Eagan agrees to allow us to return the slide.
- We determined that with some additional research and comparison between Daniels Notes and the Lecture more could be determined.
- We switch back to Boris and John, who do manage to make it to the Widener Library on Harvard’s campus.
- The approach one of the librarians and ask for Miriam Atwright.
- John tries to talk to one of librarians, but he seems to look down on John’s economic status.
- So Boris tries to go to his aid and it goes poorly.
- Boris gets the impression that this is a student
- John manages to peel off from Boris, unnoticed, and tries to seek out Atwright on his own.
- He starts wandering around in the employee areas. He randomly walks through the hallways and just manages to avoid running into other people.
- Somehow, through sheer dumb luck, John is able to find Miriam Atwright.
- He strikes up a conversation with her and tells her that he is here with Boris and they are here about Jackson Elias.
- She agrees to go up front with John to collect Boris.
- However, Boris has moved, it takes a while to reconnect with him.
- She says that Elias wanted a copy of Africa's Dark Sects.
- She said that the book disappeared, it was just gone from the stacks.
- There was a really strong odor in the basement where that book was kept.
- Miriam described the odor as strange, like overheated electrical wires and petrichor.
- They noticed the book was missing before Elias asked to borrow it.
- She was going to offer to help him search in their collection, however, he was searching for things outside of the traditional folklore, and she didn’t think that she was going to be able to find much.
- Boris tells her about Elias’ murder and they fill her in on the details and ask her if there is anything else that she can do to help.
- She didn’t believe that Elias remembered her from New Orlean’s and thought he only contacted her because Harvard was one of the only places that had a copy.
- She says that there are only about 20 copies of the book left, they were sought out by the church and other authorities over the years and destroyed.
- They provide her with their contact information.
- Boris and John decide that they are going to go to Miskatonic before heading back to New York.
- We decide to try to just leave a message for Dr. Mordecai Lemming by leaving Doc’s business card.
- Doc is able to grab onto the custom of the upper crust and does.
- The concierge goes over to the phone to try to contact Lemming.
- The conversation seems to go in our favor and he tells us to head up to room 520, that the doctor is expecting us.
- The apartment is large, gaudy, in Lemming’s apartment it has a bit of a hoarder vibe, there are books everywhere.
- We head up and Lemming seems pleased to see us, he waves us into his rooms, and ushers us inside around a cat. There are multiple cats.
- He orders us room service.
- We talk about Elias, an Doc pumps him up as quite the expert.
- The conversation does go around to the topic of the Hilton Adams case.
- We ask him to tell us about what happened with Hilton Adams
- He says that he just thought that the symbols were odd. He recommended the police check the cult angle.
- He said that the community in Harlem was superstitious and were involved in strange things.
- He said he wasn’t familiar with that particular symbol, but it had characteristics of symbols of an African Death Cult.
- He said that he doesn’t believe it was Adams, especially in light of the recent murder.
- He says that he would be willing to send us to his expert. There is a guy in Harlem, a contact of his who he gets things for him sometimes. There is a little shop called the Ju-Ju House, a shop in Harlem, 1 Ransom Court, off of Lenox Ave, owner's name is Silas N'Kwane….. The same name that was on the back of the Emerson Imports Business Card.
- He then breaks into a story about some research that is totally unrelated to everything we are looking into, folklore from the Philippines.
- Cillian is able to extricate themselves from the discussion with Dr. Lemming and we do leave. He said we are welcome to contact him.
- We ended the session there.
Session 24:
Charmed. I'm sure...?
Despite my solitary life, I have found infinite joy in books and writing, and am by far too much interested in the affairs of the world to quit the scene before Nature shall claim me.
~H. P. Lovecraft
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