The Vacation: Part 2, Conference in the Lesser Library

Back within the prison I once called sanctuary, I discover that memory—like damp vellum—buckles under its own stains.  Nevertheless I write, for the story I started remains unfinish.  Eight months have gnawed the edges of these recollections; and I endeavor to capture the essence of the events I recall even if the veracity of my recollection has weakened.

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Rain thrash the window of the Lesser Library as I unfolded my meticulous route: Blue Ridge first, every peak in descending antiquity.  Scourge Lyemirror, ever the arsonist of orderly thought, interrupted me with a smirk, “It seems your meticulously planned itinerary overlooked a few minor details," she said, her voice dripping with irony.  “But don't worry, I always come prepared for such oversights;” and a green‑vellum pamphlet landed with a smacking sound on my mapd

I politely looked over the faded print on weathered pulp.  Its front read, “Über Seltsame Orte und Ihre Mythen: Der Unaussprechliche Gipfel" by F. W. von Junzt.  It was one of a series published in the late 1830s, exploring strange and unusual places and the myths entwined with them.

As I carefully turned the brittle pages, I noted that the text bore an uncanny resemblance to that which was delicately written with festered ink on slick, foul pages of a rare tome that occupied a locked cabinet in my library, safeguarded against both time and unworthy eyes.  Yet, this pamphlet still lacked specifics.  The descriptions were vague, shrouded in metaphor and archaic language.  The only addition was a cryptic mention of a prophet residing in a coastal town steeped in whispered legends and shadowed histories.

I folded it thoughtfully and sighed.  “This is hardly revelatory," I muttered before my child Kirby dropped from the ceiling and I glared at them, “You should be preparing to leave.”  Yet that ever present smirk never left their face as their eyes darted around the room.

Seemingly without care of paying attention to me they chirped, “The thunder told Ty that our Progie would meet a man at the bottom of a mountain path,” then absentmindedly knocked my sniffer off the table, shattering it.

“Back to the Vivarium and Ms. Hatchet before I decide to have you locked in an oubliette again," I commanded and the child disappeared under the table through some new passage they created.

The witches looked at me with infuriating smirks.

“Darling,” Willbreak drew out the work as she addressed Lyemirror, “should we perhaps see where this ‘mountain path’ begins?”

Scourge Lyemirror produced a scrying mirror from within her ever-smoldering bag—a dark, polished disc framed with twisted silver serpents biting their own tails.  The mirror's surface was unnaturally black, absorbing light rather than reflecting it.  She held it before her, eyes narrowing as she whispered incantations in a tongue that made the air around us ripple.

As we watched, the mirror's surface began to swirl, revealing misty images that coalesced into the outline of a city.  “Behold," Scourge intoned, “a city that once sought to cleanse itself of witches, only to become a haven for them—a second capital of our kind."

She traced a finger over the mirror's surface, highlighting hidden alleyways and shadowed wharfs.  “Ancient and forbidden knowledge thrives here, veiled in plain sight from the uninitiated.  It is there we shall find the Prophet, whose visions will guide us to the haunted peak where the timeless horror awaits."

She looked up, meeting my gaze with a sly smile.  “It seems your itinerary has a new, essential stop.”

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What began as a desperate attempt to mend the fractured bonds between me and the Nameless One was about to spiral into a nightmarish odyssey, fraught with ancient evils and dubious allies.  As I sit here, quill in hand, I must admit to the folly that would lead us to that point—an ill-fated decision made in haste, born of exhaustion and hubris.  And so, with the twins and Witches Willbreak and Lyemirror in my company, we set forth by way of the Witch City to seek a haunted mountain peak referred to in a certain green vellum text.