August William Derleth

By then, Wilbur already knew Lavinia would bring Hope the newspaper, and he tacitly allowed it as Hope's daily entertainment.

Hope had also figured out the times Lavinia and Wilbur came to visit him, and he'd settled into a new routine:

He still woke at six every day, and from then until eleven, when Lavinia brought his lunch, he had plenty of privacy. He'd go up to Old Williams' roof to watch the sunrise and the rose garden beneath it.

Dinner came around six. Before lunch, aside from his nap, Hope read Common Herb Collection—he'd once considered using a Reading Potion to speed things up, but it was completely unnecessary; he was already fast enough, and this book was nearing the end of its usefulness.

Every two days, Wilbur brought Hope clean water shortly after dinner. From dinner until nightfall, Hope never left his room, instead reading the daily Arkham GG-Man and New Federation Newspaper.

Hope's bed was in the farthest, most secluded corner of the storage shed, a spot he'd chosen himself.

It looked unremarkable from the outside, but for Hope, it had one very useful feature:

Dunwich's terrain wasn't flat, and the Whateley land, long left fallow, was riddled with slopes.

In the front half of the shed, the indoor floor was level with the ground outside, but not in the back. There, the ground outside was a good ten-plus centimeters higher.

That meant if Hope sawed a ten-centimeter hole in the wooden wall beneath his bed—like a mouse hole from a Tom and Jerry cartoon—the space outside that hole would be nothing but damp earth.

Wilbur had either forgotten or simply didn't care enough to take all the tools from the shed, which let Hope finish his little project in three days.

At midnight, he used a hammer and saw to carve out the hole, then dug away some of the dirt behind it, using "Uncertainty" to move the soil out.

He carefully took some wire, used it to tie the sawed-off plank back into place as a makeshift little wooden door, and bent the wire into two loops on the movable side to serve as hasps.

He shut the door and locked it with Mr. Corey's heart-shaped padlock, keeping the key in his pocket.

When Hope finished his work, it was the night of June 10th. He felt an indescribable field spread outward from the heart-shaped padlock, shifting shape in the air before clinging to the wooden wall, bounded by the shed.

The next day, when Lavinia came to bring food, even without hearing a sound, Hope knew someone was standing outside the door, about to come in.

The entire shed had formed a strange connection with him through the padlock and key, becoming an extension of his senses.

So when Hope saw the campus scenery of Miskatonic University in the Arkham GG-Man, he felt he could go take a look.

With the heart-shaped padlock, he was confident he could leave for long stretches without Wilbur noticing.

Hope didn't plan to send Paul to Miskatonic University. First, because Paul was still in mourning for his parents; leaving Dunwich without a good reason would invite gossip from the townsfolk and might alert Wilbur. Second, and this wasn't rational, Hope wanted to go himself.

Night came as expected. Hope had already memorized the photo from the newspaper. Before leaving, he checked his stats one last time:

Agility: 1.31, Physique: 1.55, Vision: 0.67, Mana: 0.01, 0, 18

Uncertainty: 1

Source-ification: 0.3

Curse of Darkness: 1

The fifth number on the first line had somehow changed to eighteen. Hope was sure it had been sixteen when he checked yesterday; today it had jumped by two.

He quickly ran through the day's events in his mind: attending the funeral, the clash between Paul and Mr. Sawyer at the funeral, that awful-tasting leaf, and his talk with Paul.

He still couldn't find the reason for the increase, but by cementing these memories, he could compare them later when more increases occurred, looking for similarities.

Hope closed his eyes, targeting "Uncertainty" at a spot behind a tree in the photo. He still had doubts about whether "Uncertainty" could work on a black-and-white photo.

The doubts faded quickly. Just like every time Hope had activated "Uncertainty" before, he felt the sounds of his surroundings gradually recede.

The sound faded longer than it had for the rose garden. Hope knew it was because Miskatonic University was too far away; Uncertainty needed time.

He opened his eyes amid the chirping of insects, facing an unknown tree thicker than his waist.

Behind the tree stood the building the article called "Philip," the largest library in Bay State.

The black-and-white photo in the newspaper couldn't capture its grandeur. It was a vast, tall red brick wall, about five stories high, with red tile roofs and clean white stone window frames. Several towers rose from it, each wall bearing rough-hewn patterns, marble corner guards carved into beast shapes Hope didn't recognize.

A magnificent maximalist building.

Too bad it was already midnight. All the lights in the Philip Library were off, leaving only a few streetlamps on black wooden poles along the road outside, casting warm yellow light—Hope noticed they were gas lamps too.

"Who are you?" a voice asked from behind the tree.

Hope stumbled back a few steps, startled that someone was there. In his shock, he almost ran.

He steadied himself, catching the smell of alcohol wafting through the air. That pungent scent clashed terribly with the library, and even outside it, the quiet atmosphere made the smell of booze stand out even more.

The speaker was sitting on the ground, leaning against the big tree, holding a clear glass bottle. Hope didn't need a close look to guess it was liquor.

Agility: 1.00, Physique: 1.51, Vision: 0.95, Mana: 0

Hope crouched and leaned in for a look. The man was practically a vagrant—stubbly, black hair a tangled mess that looked like it hadn't been washed in ages, sticking up half a head's height, a slightly plump square face with a straight nose and deep-set eyes, his features looking a bit small for his face.

"Who are you?" the guy asked again, drunk and clearly out of it.

Hope hesitated, wondering whether to just leave him be or toss out a fake name and chat a bit.

But the man spoke first: "I'm... I'm August Derleth, I'm... a graduate of this university... literature major!"

After introducing himself, August Derleth seemed to forget he'd asked for Hope's name, instead raising his bottle: "You want... want some?"

Hope didn't drink, and of course didn't know much about liquor, but even he could tell from the cheap packaging and the harsh alcohol smell that this wasn't good stuff.

Wasn't Miskatonic University supposed to be one of the best... Was the literature major really that down on its luck?