With Kind Regards To Victor Pelevin

 Investigation 1, Day 4
Moon Phase: Waning Crescent
November 4th, 1920

Steve and Fawn decide to return to the site where they had previously seen the crack in the rock face. Fawn asks Steve to take him to the crazy woods where all the dangerous and strange stuff has happened. They’ll be fine because Fawn has a gun and “[is] hot.” They drive there, parking halfway up the mountain in an awkward make-out spot. They don’t end up damaging the car (much) but do get it stuck between some trees. A problem to be solved later. The two of them find themselves at the top of the cliff which the crack (which widens at the base to a hole) is. Fawn demands Steve carry him down, while scaling the near vertical cliff face. No one thought to bring rope, but they make their way down without harm. Fawn succeeds on a listen roll and hears ominous chanting coming from the crack in the cliff. He sees this as perfectly fine and decides to head down the crack after it. As he approaches he can make out a few facts about the ominous singing. One: it’s Russian, linguistically. Two: based on what few words he can recognize, he gets the vibe it’s probably about a wolf eating the sun. He shouts back out the hole to inform Steve, and gives away his position, causing whatever being was singing to stop.
Fawn makes his way into the cavern, slowly, and with his hand on his gun, which he knows how to use, Fawn says, “I am not threatening! I am very frail! Please, if you’re going to hurt me, tell me what you’re going to do first!” to which the only response is a young, feminine voice, coming from all around him in a seemingly empty cavern asking:
“What… is the sun, to you?”
“I have… never looked my best in the sun, and recent tidings… mean I’m… led to prefer other sources of light.” He replies.
His attention is caught by a mysterious book sitting on an altar at the center of the strangely lit cavern. Looking at it, he asks “Man cannot serve two masters. Am I to sign a name, or am I to read?” and is not answered. Fawn takes the book. The lights go out, with just enough time for Fawn to see another person in the chamber. Someone in tweed. Said figure invites Fawn out into the sunlight.
There is an altercation in which Fawn seems to get the upper hand on the professorly type man, disarming him and holding him at gunpoint. The following conversation is had:
Fawn: “Tell me, do you think homosexuality is a sin?”
Interlocutor: “I’ve seen too much to be religious. If there is a god, then he’s already angry at us, and there’s no way to abate it.”
Fawn: “Excellent!”
Interlocutor: “So may I please have the book it is my job to come get.”
Fawn: “What would you do for it?”
Interlocutor, with far less remorse than one might expect: “Well, I came prepared to kill you.”
Fawn, more predatory than offended: “What ELSE would you do for it.”
At this point, Steve arrives, interrupting what might have otherwise gone certain places. Immanuel, the professor and agent at Lacuna Bay Athenaeum, as he introduces himself, retrieves the book from Fawn, in exchange for a promise of goodwill and a favor. He reveals to Steve that yes, werewolves are real, and no, they aren’t what caused this. Werewolves were more of a symptom of the book infecting people with negative chakras that gradually transform them into werewolves. Immanuel was led here by information shared the previous day by Asif, who has spent the day caring for a comatose Ernest. Won’t he be pleased to know he was helpful!

Asif does quite a number of useful things!

Investigation 1, Day 3
Moon Phase: Last Quarter
November 3rd, 1920

Ernest wakes up in the Clinic, feeling a bit wolfish. In specific, he is convinced he’s transformed into a wolf. He has not. Yet. Ernest attempts to break the window, and hits it without issue, but can’t deal enough damage with an unarmed blow to break it. Asif notices the escape attempt and enters to grapple with Ernest. Ernest remains ungrappled until Asif jabs him with some sleep juice. Dreamlands time for Ernest again! While not busy dealing with his wolf-minded patient, Asif spends his day visiting the Athenaeum trying to get information. He goes to the clerk and asks for directions to a book that might be related to the experiences he’s had. While sharing these experiences, he notices the clerk taking shorthand notes, seemingly about what he’s saying. He decides not to press matters in this case, instead checking out The Unexpurgated Autobiography of Efraim Krantz the First, the only title in English seemingly relevant to his current line of inquiry. It deals with Efraim’s own experience with psychosomatic werewolfism, and explains some of what has been happening, if not entirely “how” or “why”. At the clinic, Asif fails a pushed pharmacy roll, causing an almost-overdose to poor Ernest, who pushes through with a hard CON roll, managing to not be damaged and instead just be EXTREMELY asleep.

When you feel like a wolf

 Investigation 1, Day 2
Moon phase: Waning Gibbous
November 2nd, 1920

Ernest wanders back to Asif’s clinic, is treated with bandages, stitches and opiates, sending him on a bit of a trip to the dreamlands. He spends the day sleeping, the rest of the party spends the day hitting the books. Steve finds a copy of Sacred Mysteries of The Wolf, Fawn comes across Prehistory in the Pacific: A Preliminary Investigation. Steve, Fawn, and the npc Emmett, who'll definitely survive, go looking in the woods for interesting things. They find a crack in the cliff, with a small clearing around it. And decide not to go in, wisely returning to society to report their learnings. Asif exchanges information with the clerk at the Laguna Bay Athenaeum public library.

That's Not A Wolf But it Bites Like One

 Investigation 1, Day 1
Moon phase: Waning Gibbous
November 1st, 1920

Ernest decides to go into the woods by himself and is attacked by a crow with the mind and aura of a wolf. Where the bird’s talons should merely scratch, and its beak merely peck, instead large claw marks and phantom fangs meet Ernest’s pretty face. He ultimately loses 10 APP from the wound and scars to be. Ernest gets a little lost in the woods, and a little bit infected with the idea of being a wolf. While Ernest is dealing with finding his way back to civilization, the rest of the party start doing some research.

Where Wolf, Club?

Investigation 1, Day 0
Moon phase: Waning Gibbous
October 31st, 1920

Steven “Werewolf Steve” Lowell, a heretofore fledgling parapsychologist studying at the Laguna Bay (no actual body of water involved) Athenaeum, founds Werewolf Club, formally called [something that I’ll have the recording experts forward to me when possible] on Halloween Night. The members are a wealthy dilettante with certain occult learnings, who goes only by “Fawn”, his well-paid and long-suffering doctor, the former field surgeon Asif Macrae M.D., and Ernest Elliot, who, commissioned to print the posters advertising this first gathering, had himself found the event interesting enough to be worth joining. They do some preliminary searching in the woods but find nothing but a misidentified paw print and a herd of deer so nice that everyone regains a little bit of sanity, thanks to a critical success on listen. They do also encounter a cougar that acts strangely wolfish. As they approach a section of the Diggins, some of the members find themselves briefly influenced by a psychic field, pulling their chakras into unnatural alignments reminiscent of psychosomatic werewolfism. Both Ernest and Steve are temporarily reduced to animal (wolf, specifically) intelligence and ability to speak. They take shelter from the moonlight - which they blame for their affliction - in the mouth of an abandoned mine. Eventually, after stumbling around in the forest, they return to their homes and beds. Little do they know, their activity has drawn the attention of Steve's alma mater, and unseen eyes are already upon them.