Chapter Summaries

Peter explored a strange world where he met the pastor Familiro and found that its drinks restored his strength and Spider-Sense. After catching an arrow and recovering some abilities, he chased the shooter near the waterfall.

• Peter awoke in daylight in Big Valley Town and followed Familiro to his house, where drinks and food eased his weakness.
• Peter dreamed or encountered Doctor Schiller, who warned him that someone had noticed him and that he needed to return soon.
• Familiro took Peter to the waterfall, where Peter drank lake water and realized that his Spider-Sense had returned.
• Peter caught an arrow, chased its shooter, drew his gun, and fired near the waterfall.

Peter killed the archer who had attacked him, then discovered that drinking the waterfall’s water restored his Spider-Sense. After Bruce joined him and analyzed the water and air, he realized the evil spirit might have restored Peter’s abilities unintentionally, leaving the spirit racing against the Players’ recovery.

• Peter shot the archer who had tried to kill him and searched the body while Familiro reacted in shock.
• Peter drank lake water until his Spider-Sense began returning, then gave Familiro the choice to report the killing or help hide the body.
• Peter threatened Familiro away and dragged the corpse toward a hidden crack in the cliff, where he planned to conceal it.
• Bruce found Peter and learned about the attack, the lake water, and Peter’s growing sense of emptiness and depression.
• Bruce deduced that substances in the air, water, and food had heightened people’s brain activity and that Peter’s unusually high baseline let the water restore part of his Spider-Sense.
• Bruce wondered whether Schiller had remained there to recover his own powers and concluded that the evil spirit had little time before the Players regained theirs.

Peter and Bruce pieced together Big Valley Town’s history and the conflict between the evil spirit and Mormonism’s mental world. Bruce suspected Peter had been possessed during the car accident, leaving the evil spirit in control of his body outside.

• Peter and Bruce compared their clues and theorized that the circus had trafficked people to grow Big Valley Town’s population.
• Peter suggested Aunt Kane’s corpse had been controlled by the evil spirit, and Bruce theorized that the spirit could read memories to imitate people.
• Peter and Bruce concluded that Mormonism controlled the mental world while the evil spirit controlled the real world, and that the two forces were fighting for dominance.
• Bruce and Peter realized that people became vulnerable to entering the mental world when physically weakened, possibly through interference from its master.
• Bruce suspected Peter’s car accident had been an attempt to draw him into the mental world, then warned that Peter might already have been possessed and that the evil spirit could be controlling his body outside.

Agent tested Peter by shooting him and exposed him as an evil spirit when he showed no real injury. The spirit demanded to know why Agent had attacked him, while Agent remained calm.

• Peter told Agent that Kate was not pregnant and that the false claim had helped them return to town.
• Peter and Agent walked around town and discussed Kate, the deserted streets, and the possibility of supernatural phenomena.
• In the church, Peter asked whether Agent had burned the warehouse, and the two fell silent.
• Agent suddenly shot Peter, then accused him of being a ghost because he remained standing and showed no genuine pain.
• Peter transformed into a savage-looking evil spirit and demanded to know why Agent had attacked him.

Agent killed the evil spirit controlling Peter in the Consciousness World, triggering an attack by the town’s dried corpses. Bruce returned to the real world, where he discovered the water might contain stimulants just before a dried corpse attacked him and Kent.

• Agent shot Peter out of the church, beat the evil spirit controlling him, and snapped its neck, then faced an army of dried corpses as his health ran out.
• Bruce and Peter saw the Consciousness World’s inhabitants disappear and realized they were returning to their corpses in the real world.
• Pursuer told Bruce that the evil spirit was sending its followers into the real world and that Peter could not leave because his body was likely dead.
• Bruce woke in the real world beside Kent, warned him that the water might be contaminated, and heard that nothing unusual had happened.
• A dried corpse burst through the window, clawed Kent’s back, and slashed Bruce’s neck when his crowbar failed to stop it.

Kent failed to notice a mummified corpse, and Bruce took its fatal claw strike while protecting him. After Bruce’s consciousness left for the mental world, Kent mourned him and began to understand the vigilance and sacrifices behind Batman’s strength.

• The mummified corpse slashed Kent, and Bruce intercepted its attack, suffering a ruptured carotid artery.
• Kent furiously beat the corpse, then followed Bruce’s weak instruction to burn it until it stopped moving.
• Bruce told Kent to find Schiller before his body died and his consciousness entered the mental world.
• Kent believed Bruce had died and realized how vulnerable ordinary people were without superpowers.
• Kent connected Batman’s relentless vigilance to his fear for human lives and felt ashamed of having misunderstood him.

Agent escaped the church rafters and found Kate Kane, who explained Bingge Bohr’s origins and role in the town’s destruction. When Kate finished speaking, Agent recognized that she was possessed and shot her.

• Agent used the rafters to evade the dried corpses until dawn, then smashed an acrobat corpse apart by crashing through a window with it.
• Agent searched the church cellar and freed Kate Kane, who said she had seen the evil spirit in a spiritual world.
• Kate told Agent that Linda had given birth to Bingge Bohr, the son of a Mormon elder, and that Aunt Kane had wanted to raise him as her own.
• Kate explained that Bingge had prophetic powers, knew forbidden magic, and was responsible for the town’s destruction.
• Agent drew his gun and shot Kate after she finished speaking.

Agent exposed Kate’s fabricated story and was struck by the evil spirit, while Pursuer used the ensuing attack to trap the spirit inside Agent’s body. After waking in the church, Agent explained how the spirit’s plan to escape Big Valley Town had backfired, leaving it sealed and trackable.

• Agent pointed out the flaws in Kate’s story, shot her, and rejected the evil spirit’s attempt to deceive him.
• The evil spirit attacked Agent through Kate, but Kate suddenly moved and stabbed a spike into Agent’s chest before collapsing.
• The spirit took control of Agent’s body and staggered out into the night, while Pursuer sensed its movement from Aunt Kane’s house.
• Agent awoke in the church, where Bruce told him what the other Schiller had learned about the mental world.
• Agent explained that the evil spirit had mistakenly sent Pursuer into the mental world and left him in the real world, where Pursuer trapped it inside Agent’s body and tracked it.

Agent and Bruce investigated the waterfall for clues about who destroyed Big Valley Town and how the evil spirit could be defeated. Agent found Bingge, who confessed to exposing the town’s corruption and explained how the powerful factions arranged a massacre that killed everyone.

• Bruce and Agent concluded that Bingge was the likeliest person to have destroyed the town and headed to the waterfall to investigate.
• At the cave, Bruce noticed the remains had been moved, and Agent heard birdlike sounds coming from underwater.
• Agent swam through the lake, found a pink sphere, and was transported to a room filled with pink chambers.
• Agent met Bingge, who admitted that he had destroyed the town as revenge for its people killing him.
• Bingge explained that he had exposed the town’s polluted water supply, prompting Xivi City councilors to poison the town and kill its residents within a month.

Agent and Bingge discussed how Big Valley Town’s leaders and cultists exploited the town before arranging a poisoning that killed most of its residents. Agent questioned Bingge’s account of his family and the evil spirit, while Bingge asked him to uncover the truth or take his surviving mother away; the chapter ended with Agent learning that Old Bohr had helped prepare the cultists’ hidden bank boxes.

• Agent reasoned that declining circus tourism had made Big Valley Town less valuable, leading politicians and cultists to exploit it and eventually poison its residents to cover up their secrets.
• Bingge explained that a leaked stimulant may have caused the dying townspeople to create a supernatural world, and that his mother strangled and buried him to spare him from being burned alive.
• Bingge told Agent that his mother, Linda, was the town’s only surviving resident and that the evil spirit controlled his dead grandmother, Aunt Kane, to keep watch over her.
• Agent questioned how Bohr had gained a modern education and deduced that Bingge’s grandmother may have helped him escape the cult’s control.
• Bingge asked Agent to uncover the truth or take his mother away, offering him the location of hidden bank boxes; Agent learned that Old Bohr had helped prepare them and that Linda held the credentials.

Agent, Bruce, Peter, and Bingge traced the town’s massacre and spiritual world to Old Bohr’s occult practices. They found evidence that Old Bohr could use dolls to enter the real world, but his remaining plans were still unclear.

• Agent concluded that Old Bohr was connected to the bank’s scare box and took Bingge to help persuade Aunt Kane.
• Bingge explained that he had possessed Bohr’s corpse and killed the town’s leaders who tried to leave, but two had escaped.
• Peter found a telephone directory listing Familiro and Derby, then connected them to a magic circle he had seen in a memory.
• Bingge recalled seeing a similar design in a photograph among Old Bohr’s circus props, leading the group to search the Bohr house.
• The group found a semi-transparent Tool Room and a doll containing an adult finger bone and a design like the magic circle.
• Agent concluded that Old Bohr had practiced black magic and may have possessed Aunt Kane through a doll, causing Bohr’s escape plan and the town’s tragedy to fail.

Agent and Bingge learned how Old Bohr’s awl could trap an evil spirit in reality, while Peter discovered that killing in the spiritual world let him return there. The evil spirit, trapped in Agent’s body and struck by his own artifacts, tried to manipulate Kent but instead drove him to investigate Linda’s past and punish those responsible.

• Bingge explained that Agent’s brother had used an awl to try to trap the evil spirit in the real world, and Bruce proposed returning through possession.
• Peter used the Magic Circle on the doll and confirmed that someone who had killed in the town could return to reality; Peter went back, while Agent and Bingge stayed to investigate and Bruce searched for Kate.
• The evil spirit, trapped in Agent’s body and afflicted by the awl and a curse from his own Scare Box, headed for Aunt Kane’s Tool Room.
• The evil spirit told Kent that Linda’s son had become the evil spirit, but Kent focused on the boy’s abuse and demanded that those responsible be brought to justice.
• Kent left to uncover the truth about Linda’s son, frustrating the evil spirit’s attempt to deceive him.

The evil spirit struggled to control the Agent’s cursed body and worried that Kent would uncover the town’s past. Kent spoke with Linda in the Tool Room and asked her to reveal the truth, leaving her suspicious of his intentions.

• The evil spirit followed Kent but found the Agent’s body increasingly difficult to control as the curse spread across its left side.
• The evil spirit hid outside the Tool Room and listened as Kent told Linda he understood the pressures of small-town life but would not excuse the town’s cruelty.
• Linda stopped sharpening a wooden stake and asked Kent what he wanted.
• Kent said he wanted the truth about what had happened and promised to make those responsible pay.

Kent told Linda he intended to expose the town’s past abuses, and Linda directed him to a back-alley entrance on the eastern street. After the evil spirit attacked Linda and was nearly strangled by a mysterious figure, Kent entered a cramped basement and found something that enraged him.

• Kent told Linda he would expose the people and institutions that covered up the town’s crimes, and Linda pointed him toward a back alley east of her house.
• The evil spirit attacked Linda, but she fought back with her sharpened harpoon and drove him outside.
• A pair of pale hands seized the evil spirit, and he escaped only after the mysterious attacker released him.
• The evil spirit feared Kent would expose the town and chased after him, while Linda went back inside.
• Kent squeezed into a tiny basement entrance on the eastern street and saw a scene that filled him with rage.

Kent discovered the remains of women and children murdered by the cult and tried to carry an infant’s skull outside, but the evil spirit killed him. The infant’s spirit revived Kent, left him able to hear the victims’ voices, and appeared with the dead in a camera photo as he escaped into sunlight.

• Kent examined the female corpses in the cages and gathered their belongings, including a dead digital camera, to document the cult’s crimes.
• Kent picked up the infant’s skull and tried to take it outside, but the evil spirit blocked the exit and attacked him.
• The evil spirit tore Kent’s heart from his chest, but the infant’s spirit bit him and revived him with a wound that soon healed.
• Kent heard the victims’ voices reveal that the evil spirit practiced black magic, that priests and nuns in town remained alive, and that he should beware moonless nights.
• Kent found a photo showing the dead victims and the infant beside him, collected their belongings and a bone from each person, and crawled out into the sunlight.

The Evil Spirit pursued Peter’s doll but failed to catch it, while Peter searched for Old Bohr’s hidden passages. Peter found a flooded underground route beneath the Burnt Warehouse and swam through it to a cellar near Aunt Kane’s house.

• The Evil Spirit went hunting for mummified corpses to replenish his soul energy, then spotted Peter controlling the possession doll and chased him across rooftops.
• Peter escaped by using a grappling line he had made, then slipped into Aunt Kane’s house and discovered newer bricks beneath the Tool Room’s black box.
• Peter reasoned that Old Bohr had several hidden entrances and concluded that the Burnt Warehouse was the likely middle entrance.
• Peter found a cellar manhole beneath the collapsed warehouse and discovered that the underground passage had flooded and partially collapsed.
• Peter’s wooden doll squeezed through the remaining gaps and swam toward Aunt Kane’s house, surfacing in a flooded cellar.

Peter explored the ancient bone-lined chamber and found Old Bohr’s research notes to be incoherent and unscientific. Meanwhile, Agent, Bingge, Bruce, and Kate discovered the evil spirit’s plan to escape town through Kate’s unborn child and began questioning whether the spirit was really Old Bohr.

• Peter found human bones covering the chamber walls and concluded that the remains predated Old Bohr’s arrival.
• Peter examined Old Bohr’s rambling notes and older manuscripts, then decided to investigate black magic himself.
• Agent and Bingge found a floating point of light beneath the cathedral that might stabilize the mental world, and they planned to search for it in the real world after Bruce brought Kate back.
• Kate told Agent, Bingge, and Bruce that the evil spirit wanted to use her pregnancy to escape Big Valley Town and grow up in a larger city.
• Agent argued that the spirit’s need for a baby body did not explain his plan, and Kate described how Old Bohr became furious after she insulted his appearance.
• Agent and Bruce considered whether Old Bohr’s memories were deceptive or whether the evil spirit was someone other than Old Bohr.

Bruce, Kate, Agent, and Bingge questioned whether the evil spirit was truly Old Bohr and why it had failed to stop the town’s groundwater contamination. The discussion led Agent to suspect Old Bohr had died somewhere else and that witnesses had been forced to keep silent.

• Bruce outlined the town’s history, from the circus’s abductions to the cult’s attacks on travelers and the town’s destruction.
• Kate and Agent questioned whether Old Bohr had possessed Aunt Kane, since targeting his own family seemed to bring him no benefit.
• Bingge argued that the evil spirit might have lacked the knowledge and political experience needed to oppose Xivi City’s government.
• Agent reasoned that investigating and stopping the contamination would have required careful infiltration and could have exposed the evil spirit to powerful retaliation.
• Agent asked how Old Bohr had died, then suggested that Old Bohr might have died elsewhere and that witnesses had been threatened into silence.

The group investigated the air-raid shelter beneath the waterfall and learned from Peter that Old Bohr had studied black magic but died before completing his attempt to become an evil spirit. Peter suspected the evil spirit had inherited Old Bohr’s research and might have killed him, while giving the group enchanted dolls to use against it.

• Bruce, Agent, and the others suspected that Old Bohr had resisted the town’s pollution scheme and searched for the air-raid shelter where a black magician might have kept a base.
• The group found a hidden entrance beneath the waterfall, entered the shelter, and discovered blood seeping through its ceiling from the cave above.
• Peter arrived and explained that Old Bohr had tried to use a ritual to become an evil spirit, but died before performing it; his body was the mummified corpse in the Joker costume.
• Peter gave the group dolls infused with soul power, explaining that they could be activated without sacrifices and would operate for about twelve hours.
• Peter said the evil spirit may have inherited Old Bohr’s black magic research and could be the person who killed him.

The Agent uncovered Derby’s ties to a state senator and learned that Old Bohr had discovered the town’s water pollution before Derby killed him. As the group gathered beneath the church, they found Pursuer waiting in a vast chamber, while Kent arrived at the police station to see the Sheriff.

• The Agent searched Derby’s house and found letters revealing Derby was the illegitimate son of a state senator and that Old Bohr had learned about the pollution from a councilor’s daughter.
• The Agent deduced that Derby had killed Old Bohr, taken his black magic, and sacrificed Farmino, but suspected another force was behind the spiritual world and the townspeople’s possession abilities.
• As the curse weakened the nail in his chest, the evil spirit abandoned the search for Kent’s corpse, took Aunt Kane’s body, and headed for the church on a dark, moonless night.
• Linda asked Kate to teach her to drive and asked whether Kate wanted to know where she was going; Kate offered her a place to stay in New York, while Bruce led the others toward the church.
• The Agent, Bruce, Peter, Bingge, and the others descended beneath the church and found Pursuer enjoying rock music, coffee, and a magazine; he told them to deal with the approaching evil spirit while he waited for the real mastermind.
• Kent arrived at the Xivi City police station and asked to see the Sheriff so he could give him something.