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| o     T H E   A S H C R O F T   M A N O R   B E C K O N S     o |
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|   To the Esteemed Seeker of Forbidden Truths,                   |
|                                                                 |
|   The mists coil thick about the forsaken streets of Arkham,    |
|   that ancient seat of trembling scholarship and decayed faith. |
|   Gas lamps flicker with a sickly glow, casting spectral forms  |
|   that quiver as though they breathe some dreadful remembrance. |
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|   Three nights past, a letter came to your hand — parchment     |
|   yellowed with age, its ink trembling as if set by a dying man.|
|   It bore the name of a colleague thought long perished, one    |
|   who vanished amid the Cyclopean ruins of Innsmouth, where     |
|   the sea and madness are one.                                  |
|                                                                 |
|   Now you stand before the gates of Ashcroft Manor. Iron teeth  |
|   corroded with the centuries part at your touch, moaning like  |
|   the damned. The house looms vast against the void, its        |
|   silhouette watching you with a patience older than mercy.     |
|   The air itself is wrong here — it tastes of brine, despair,   |
|   and secrets best left unspoken.                               |
|                                                                 |
|   Above, thunder murmurs like some titanic heart beneath the    |
|   firmament.                                                    |
|                                                                 |
|   The letter bade you come, yet now, as you stand before that   |
|   yawning threshold, you cannot shake the sense that the house  |
|   has awaited not your arrival — but your return.               |
|                                                                 |
|   What is thy name, wanderer? Thy calling? And what dread       |
|   shadows haunt thy sleep when all lamps are dimmed?            |
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|   If thou possess an anchor — an object bound to memory or      |
|   meaning — speak of it now, before the wind takes thy words.   |
|   Or else, tell us...                                           |
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|   What do you do next?                                          |
|                                                                 |
|                      - Written in trembling hand,               |
|                        beneath the light of a waning moon.      |
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| o     T H E   A S H C R O F T   M A N O R   A W A I T S       o |
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