Arachne’s Sunday morning odd encounter(Arachne)
Date: 2025-06-22 11:15
(Arachne’s Sunday morning odd encounter(Arachne):Arachne)
[Sun Jun 22 2025]
In Room 111, Windermere Dormitory/span
Room 111 sits along the ground floor corridor of the dormitory, its heavy
wooden door bearing the brass numerals that have tarnished to a dull green
patina over decades of use. The room itself stretches in a rectangular layout
with two narrow single beds positioned against opposite walls, each
accompanied by a simple wooden desk and chair that show the wear marks of
countless students. Tall windows with original wavy glass panes overlook the
quad, their wooden frames painted white though the paint has begun to chip
near the sills where moisture has settled over the years. The hardwood
floors, darkened with age, creak softly underfoot, particularly near the
radiator that stands beneath the windows, its cast iron surface painted over
so many times that the original decorative details have become softened and
indistinct. A shared closet built into the wall provides storage space, its
doors hanging slightly askew on hinges that have loosened with time. The
overhead light fixture, a simple brass pendant, casts uneven shadows across
the room’s corners where the plaster walls meet the ceiling in gentle curves
typical of the building’s early twentieth-century construction./span
It is about 60F(15C) degrees. The mist is heaviest At Mayflower and Darkwater/span
(Your target discovers a ghost anchored to an old music box at an estate sale. The ghost desperately wants to deliver a final message to their still-living grandchild before they can move on, but the message reveals a dark family secret that could destroy the grandchild’s life. The characters must decide whether to help the ghost find peace or protect the living from a painful truth.)
A soft ping breaks the quiet of Elliot’s dorm room, his phone lighting up with a text message directly from Arachne, detailing one of her drivers are already on the way to pick him up from Windemere University’s dormitories to handle a special assignment. “I need you in Bayview. Celia St. Germaine’s old villa is going through an estate sale. Think art deco ghosts and inherited regret. Tip says something unusual turned up that would be of interest to our contacts in the Invisible College. I’m stuck in a meeting. Go handle it. I’ll send the details as I receive more. Try not to run afoul of anything before I arrive. Please. – A.”
Hearing and feeling his phone vibrate, Elliot stops twisting and turning from the mirror, where he’s been adjusting his suit jacket with a small frown. “Wonder who it is?” he mumbles faintly, eyes flicking downward as he slips his phone into his hand, his eyelids closing partway, brows contorting as he gives a faint and leery squint, reading the message on the screen. Inevitably, though, he sighs and shrugs, before giving a small nod. “Alright. Spooky spirits, let’s hope they don’t possess me, and pray that they haunt me, or they leave a smell or something. Don’t think my more extra-sensory abilities have kicked in quite just yet.”
A moment later, Elliot’s phone buzzes again. This time, it’s a short, dry, follow-up from Arachne: “You’ll manage. You’re clever, and more importantly, I would never send you into something a baby lawyer like you couldn’t hnadle. Keep your eyes sharp, and hit the SOS if I need to leave early.”
Outside, a sleek black towncar idles at the curb, its mirror-gloss finish marked only by discreet, specialized plates recognizable to those familiar with the Whispering Hand. Inside, the air is cool and faintly perfumed with bergamot. A black folio rests on the leather seat beside him, stamped with the sigil of the Hand. The driver, a silent Peacekeeper with dark lenses and a tighter-than-regulation fade, gives no greeting, only a shallow nod as the door shuts. The drive from Windemere through the Ivory Quarter and down the sloped coast into Bayview is made in silence, the city shifting slowly from tight urban sprawl to languid wealth.
Inside the folio, a clipped expose outlines Celia St. Germaine’s fall from golden age starlet to reclusive socialite in the 1970s, highlighting her marriage to a mogul twice her age, known more for offshore accounts and blackmail scandals than studio credits. Her death, allegedly from an overdose in a New York penthouse, was never formally covered in any major outlet; a fact noted and underlined. Tucked in the final page is a brief mention of a music box found in the villa’s drawing room, said to play notes no one could quite place, even when wound down.
When another text arrives, Elliot arches his slender brown eyebrows, flicking his eyes left to right as he reads the text. A huff later and a small smile lights up his face and curves those pouty lips, however, in time, it’s quickly forced away, and with another slant of his eyes, he seizes his cane, with a hidden spear within, and his revolver, flinging out the cylindrical chamber to check it for rounds. A flick of the wrist shuts the chamber closed, and, holstering it behind his back, he proceeds out of his form, ticking and clicking out of his room with his cane.
Upon spotting the towncar, he enters as swiftly as possible, each of his strides confident leading up to the vehicle, despite the hesitance he fights with futility, that which inevitably forms on his face. A sniff of the air draws him to smile gently, once more shifting his expression, but those eyebrows of his knit together again, his lips drawn into a faint frown, his nose wrinkling slightly and lightly, eyes drawn near-closed into a squint. A barely-there nod is given towards the peace-keeper when Elliot is all settled within the vehicle, his cane propped up into his lap, hand always lingering upon the hook. “I’m ready. Drive please.”
The folio, enigmatic dossier is opened, scanned, nodded at, as the towering fellow reads through it, scrutinizes it, even. A twitch of his lips draws a bitter smile on his face and he chuckles dryly, before shaking his head. “Music box. Hope it isn’t like the last one I saw.”
The towncar pulls into a wide, circular driveway paved in pale brick and veined with old moss, the crunch of gravel beneath the tires giving way to the soft hum of idle engines. A mix of polished imports and dusty sedans clutters the front roundabout; curiosity seekers, aging collectors, an a few overdressed members of Bayview’s idle rich, each angling for a piece of older glamour to stuff into their ocean-facing condos. A tastefully weathered sign at the edge of the lawn reads in looping red script: All items negotiable. Bargain in the spirit of the departed. Beneath it, a small framed portrait of Celia St. Germaine smiles out at the world in grayscale, all cheekbones and mystery.
The Peacekeeper doesn’t turn to look at Elliot as he slows the car to a halt. His voice is low, clipped. “Per Miss Fairchild-Montrose’s instructions, I stay parked. You need me? Text.” One gloved hand rests on the wheel, the other already thumbing a screen. “Otherwise, she trusts you can handle a simple matter like this before she arrives.”
The locks disengage with a muted click. The world outside smells like salt and old perfume, desperation, and touched faintly by something half-forgotten.
Ignoring the peacekeeper and stepping out of the car, and with that endless confidence in each swift and lengthy stride, Elliot/span makes his way past all those dusty imports, sedans past the roundabout, ignoring any who gaze at him, eyes affixed to both the sign and portrait of Celia. Frowning, he makes a symbol of a cross around his chest, but makes no other further religious references, deigning to instead, inhale. Exhale. The scent upon the air is tasted, a strange thing compared to his own scent of electrical fires, storm, and mountains.
People mill about the front garden and foyer, their murmurs soft but eager. An old woman clutches a vintage jeweled clutch, while a pair of middle-aged men in golding polos argue over the authenticity of a lacquered drinks cabinet one of them claims to be a gift from the Reagan family. A young couple giggles over a vintage feathered coat, unaware of the faint layer of dust still clinging to its sleeves. Ahead, a maze of rooms spider out beyond the foyer, with a curved double staircase winding up to the upper reaches of the home that have been sectioned off by silk rope and discreet security.
Something subtle catches on the back edge of Elliot’s senses; a trace in the air not carried on salt or perfume, but older, almost metallic, like music left out in the rain. It tugs him gently, drifting from a side door just beyond the main parlor, where a drawing room waits quietly, all but invisible to the casual eye, passed over without thought by those still distracted by the glitz and glam of Old Hollywood personal effects.
Observing the pairs and groups, Elliot eyes them somewhat warily, wrinkling his nose. Deterred by the joy, he swivels through, as if to flee forth, his eyes scanning though for the artifact within the dossier, the folio, searching and scanning for that music box.
The scent, the senses that draws him like flies to something sweet, has him stepping cautiously forth, like a gazelle. No longer does he flee away. The music causes his head to tilt, his lips to stretch into a wan smile. And passing into the parlor he looks around, searching for the source of the noise.
The drawing room holds its breath in quiet contrast to the chatter outside, its air steeped in the understated elegance of another era. The scent here is unmistakably powdered rose, pressed silk, and the cool hint of a vintage gin, clinging to every surface like an afterthought that won’t quite fade. The furniture is curated with an obsessive precision: soft green velvet settees, curved walnut side tables, and a bar cart with etched glass decanters all polished to a mirrored gleam. Photographs line the mantel in silver frames, each a glimpse into a life once limned in camera flash; Celia St. Germaine smiling beside a young Ronald Reagan, another beside a long-forgotten heartthrob whose name might be found only in archives now. Nestled between them sits a delicate music box, its ivory enamel chipped at the corners, golden filigree worked in curling vines across its lid.
As Elliot approaches, the air around it stills. The light through the window dims, just slightly. A soft, near-invisible ripple rolls across the room’s edge, like heat shimmer where no warmth should be. Then a whisper, not spoken aloud, not quite audible, curls at the base of his skull: “… I have but only one regret in this life. It haunts me, even now, watching… watching these … people go through my effects with no regard for a lady’s privacy.”