The Logbook of the Lighthouse-Keeper By Mark Paglia

Instruments: 1d6, 1d20, Provided TideTable

Game Description 

Game Content Warnings 

These are content warnings that are from the game prompts and are present in all playthroughs.

Playthrough Content Warnings 

These are content warnings specific to this playthrough only.

Game Playthrough

Word Count: 4,353     Played: Dec 4-13, 2020

Log 1

 

Date: December 4, 

Weather: Tide: 1, 4 Calm, Sunny with a few clouds 

Ships Sighted: 1

Notes: A slow peaceful day, one ship passed by, no issues. 

 

Personal Happenings:

Uneventful morning with cats.

 

Beneath the Lighthouse

The candles are all still lit, the bones are in order and all are accounted for, no other creature has entered the chamber. 

 

Diary

Uneventful day today…. I had breakfast with the cats. They ate some of the fish I left out for them and Dewbell caught a rat. Hope he doesn’t vomit up the fur again. 

 

I only saw one ship today. It looked like it was headed towards Greystone, bypassing Marnmouth completely. It was from the Granite Isles, so who knows what they want. 

 

Counted all the bones again, same as always. The candles are still lit, so I know I’m the only one passing through them. I’m glad the cats know not to go down there. I want to seal off the tunnels but I don’t know how and I’m not going to hire a mason to do it. Maybe I’ll stop by the library in town and see if they have anything there I can learn about stonework. 

 

The only problem is if I block off the tunnel the only way back to the big island is by boat. Now that I think about it, what I really need is a door I can seal. 

 

Bone Log

215/215 

Disturbed: None 

Log 2

 

Date: December 5 

Weather: Cool Cloudy Day 

Ships:17

Notes: Saw three fleets today. One was headed towards the Granite Isles, one was headed towards Greystone. Three different ships stopped at Marnmouth. Nothing unusual on the sea.

 

Personal Happenings:

Uneventful morning

 

Beneath the Lighthouse

One of the candles was unlit when I got there, but I found a dead rat on the floor 

 

Diary

Another uneventful day. Had breakfast with the cats, fish and a few pieces of toast. I wish I could get some other meat someday. Maybe I should look into different woods to smoke it at least. 

 

There were seventeen ships today. I saw a whole damn fleet going to the Granite Isles. I hope it's nothing bad. I haven’t heard anything about any new war starting the last time I was in town. I wish there was some way I could get news here on the regular. Maybe I should look into carrier pigeons. 

 

But then the cats might try and eat them. Too bad we can’t train sea animals to send mail. 

 

I saw another fleet head into Graystone. I didn’t recognize the flags. It was some sort of symbol that seemed to vanish and reappear when it was blowing in the wind. I guess I should read up on flags again since I’m forgetting them already. 

 

Three little ships stopped in Marnmouth. I think they were trade ships since they weren’t big and royal-looking. I might need a new blanket soon so I hope that someone was trading in textiles. I keep looking at the blank wall and thinking about a tapestry. It’s too expensive but I think it would look really nice. 

 

When I went to check on the bones one of the candles was unlit. 1/45 so I know it was some small creature. I found a dead rat a few feet from the stairs at the bottom. I relit the candle after I finished counting the bones. They were all there. I don’t know why it was so close to the stairs, I don’t know if it came from uptop or through the tunnels. 

If it was just the one rat I’m worried that setting traps nearby will lure more in. I really need that door.  

 

BoneLog

215/215

Disturbed: Yes, small rat, dead

Candles: 1/45 relit 

Log 3

 

Date: December 7

Weather: 3,2 , Calm and cloudy

Ships: 7

Notes: 7 merchant ships passed by, no incidents. 3 stopped in Marnmouth. Sea is calm and fair. 

 

Personal Happenings:

Morning with the cats. Puddles puked in the flower pot again; I wish he would stop eating grass. The other two are fine. They like to spend most of the day inside since it’s getting colder. 

 

Beneath the Lighthouse

Nothing to report

 

Diary

That damned cat threw up in the pot again! I’m going to have to just chuck the plant into the sea if it happens again! I don’t know why he keeps eating it! I don’t think it’s poisonous for him, or else he would have died by now. I don’t know why that stupid cat’s still alive to be honest with you. I love him but he is dumb as shit. 

 

There were seven boats today, all merchant ships from what I could tell. I haven’t heard any news from anyone about the goings on with the Granite Isles, but I haven’t had any contact with the main island for at least a week, so who knows?

 

Three of them stopped in Marnmouth and the other four carried on elsewhere. I keep thinking about that tapestry. I don’t even know what kind I would get? Just a pattern? One that’s got a picture like a mountain? If I were rich I could get a custom made one of the lighthouse. 

Checked on the bones again. All the candles were lit and no rats or anything. I think I'm just being paranoid. I only ever find about five of them a year, which isn’t a lot. I just wish nothing came down there at all. 

 

I’ll need to consult the candle chart again since I’m forgetting what numbers mean what. All I remember is one candle for small creatures and cats are at least a three. 

 

Oh well, I’ll just have to keep hoping for a door someday. Not that I’ve ever met a mason I could trust. Do masons even install doors? I guess it would depend on the type of door. I can’t involve too many people and certainly can’t afford to hire an architect, and finding one I could trust would be even harder. 

 

BoneLog

215/215

Disturbed: None

Log 4

 

Date: December 8 

Weather: 3,2 No clouds, but a bit cold and windy

Ships: 1

Notes: Only one ship today, a fishing ship manned by 2 people

 

Personal Happenings:

Quiet morning with the cats

 

Beneath the Lighthouse

Quiet night

 

Diary

Decided to smoke some more fish today. I hung them on the rack outside to dry since it’s been so nice lately. I made sure to feed the cats plenty before hanging them out. All three of them seem to be doing well. I think the plant is officially dead though. Maybe I can grow something else or keep something in the pot. I placed it outside the door for now. 

 

There was only one ship today, a local fishing ship. I saw them pass by and I waved and they waved back. All’s good I suppose. 

 

It's nice not having to worry about everything, but I am growing restless. I wonder if there is anything else I can do to save me some time in the future. Maybe I should take up a hobby like knitting or something. I don’t know… If only I knew of some use for tiny little fishbones instead of just throwing them out. 

 

Checked on the bones today, everything’s in order. All the candles lit. I moved the fingers back into place since they had started to move out again. I wonder if the bigger ones have started to move too and I just haven’t noticed since it’s too subtle. I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to move the pelvis… It’s too big for just me. Maybe I ought to draw a chalk outline around the damn thing to see if there is any more movement. I guess that’s something for me to do with all the nice weather. 

 

BoneLog

215/215

Disturbed: None

Log 5

 

Date: December 9 

Weather: 6,1 Calm weather 

Ships: 20

Notes: Saw an entire fleet of fishing boats today, and 3 merchant ships, one small boat docked on my island

 

Personal Happenings:

A visitor from town comes to see you 

 

Beneath the Lighthouse

Nothing to report 

 

Diary

Had a guest today! It was unexpected but I saw them approach on boat--took them about an hour and half to get here, usually only takes me about an hour. It was the one of the postal workers, a fresh face, one I hadn’t met before. 

 

I spoke with her for awhile and she said that the post master had sent her out here to deliver my mail since it had been a slow day. I thanked her and told her I usually pick it up when I’m in town, which is every other week or so. She said she didn’t mind coming out here and since she was new she might as well learn how to get here. 

 

I knew she wasn’t from Marnmouth so I asked her where she was from and she told me Greystone. I guess they are hazing the new kid since no one rows out here to give me just some letters. 

 

I asked her what was going on with the Granite Isles since I’d seen so many ships. She said she didn’t know much but she thinks they are trying to re-establish trade since the war ended five years ago. I guess they ran out of something that Greystone has. I can’t imagine it’s the quarry stones though, unless they want to make fancier buildings on the isles than what they have. 

 

Got three letters, one from my mother, one from my brother and one from M. I asked the girl if Marnmouth was finally going to start a newspaper like all the other major cities. She didn’t know but she said if they started she’ll let the postmaster know to hold one for me. 

 

I don’t know if I want to throw away the one from M or not. I don’t really care what they have to say but I am curious. I think I’ll just shove it in the drawer with the other ones. Bastard.

 

The cats are fine, the bones are fine. I managed to find a small piece of chalk around the house and I’ll start drawing an outline around the bigger ones tomorrow. I counted all of them today, everything’s good. No bugs, no rats or anything else in the basement. 

 

BoneLog

215/215

Disturbed: None 

Log 6

 

Date: December 10, 

Weather: 6,1 a supernatural storm

Ships: 3

Ships Lost: 0

Notes: A storm arrived suddenly, there was no warning to it. There are ice chunks in the water but none of the ships were lost. One small fishing boat had to come up to the island to take shelter. One small boat was lost. 

 

Personal Happenings:

A visitor from the mainland 

 

Beneath the Lighthouse

A human happens upon the entity and disturbs it 

 

Diary

… I guess I should start at the beginning of the day. 

I woke up to a raging storm. There had been nothing the previous days to indicate the weather would be this bad. There was snow and ice and wind all blowing throughout the seas. I saw two large ships, the royal-kind, passing by. They struggled in the waves but they were able to keep afloat.  There was also one small fishing boat out. I don’t know why they were there this early in the morning before dawn. 

 

I had to let them onto my island since it was closer than the main island. This was a mistake. Their name was F.T. Rickton, a local fisherman about 35 in age. He was the only one upon his tiny, tiny boat. It felt like the right thing to do when I signaled him to dock and enter the lighthouse. 

 

He was shaking and freezing. The cats were hiding under the bed hissing at him. They don’t like strangers or maybe they knew. He didn’t say much all day but sat by the fire, trying to warm up. I gave him some of my extra clothes and let him use the washroom to try and get the seawater off of him. I guess he fell asleep in front of the fire sometime afterward. 

 

Things were fine for a while. I did all the extra duties and started making plans for how I would fix things in the morning, or next day, or whenever the storm died. 

 

I was up in the lighthouse itself when I felt it. The previous wickie told me I would know if it ever happened but I didn’t expect to feel it in my own body. It was as if someone had taken a spike to my wrist. My own bone moved out of place and I could almost feel all of the candles flicker out. 

 

I don’t know how he found the trap door. I have it hidden under three rugs. I shouldn’t have removed the lock when it rusted last year. Fuck. I should have replaced it. Everyone has a locked cellar to keep out animals and shit. No one would have suspected it if I asked someone to replace it. 

 

I ran down the stairs and into the home, the rugs were removed and it was opened. I grabbed the lantern and the shovel from the wall. 

 

When I got down there all the candles were out. Rickton stood there in the dark, fire in his eyes and one of the wrist bones in his hands. He was holding it so hard he was shaking. 

 

He started screaming something crazy at me about how this wasn’t right, and how it was all as he had seen it. He screamed about how it needed to be whole and how he saw it in a dream and in the fire. 

 

I told him not to listen to whatever dream he had before because things are better this way and The Dreaming God needs to stay dead. He wasn’t listening to me, he began to kick at the other bones and shuffle them out of the pattern. 

 

I lunged at him and tried to get him to stop but something had taken over him and we fought. He clawed at me and kept shuffling the bones. I saw them move out of the pattern and start to realine. 

 

There wasn’t anything I could do, this … and I truly believe this, even though I know I should be persecuted for what I did. I believe that keeping this thing dead is more important than any one life, and so I took up my shovel and I hit him again and again until he was dead. 

 

I cried a good long time after that too. I tried putting the bones back in the places I remembered them being. I know it wasn’t right since they were still vibrating and moving them. I had to retrieve the chart and consult it again and again to make sure it was all in proper order. 

 

The last piece I put back was the wrist bone that Rickton had taken. It was cracked. I don’t know if it was something that had happened before or during the fight. I hoped that it would heal itself like the bones are supposed to. 

 

I’m so tired. The body’s still down there. I need to find a way to dispose of it. I’m sorry to his family. If this is ever read as evidence I’m truly sorry that I had to do it. I’m sorry that he was enticed by another Decider, or whatever entity called to him in his dreams and the fire. 

 

The storm seems to have died down. I untied the boat and pushed it out to sea. I hope that his friends and family believe he drowned in the storm. 

 

I relit every candle. It took almost an entire box of matches... not that the box was full. I’ll need to buy more. 

 

I’ll have to clean up tomorrow… Good thing it’s cold down there, I hope it doesn’t start to smell. It probably will, though. Fuck. 

 

BoneLog

215/215 , cracked

Disturbed: Yes, Human

Candles 45/45 Relit 

Log 7

 

Date: December 11

Weather: 3,6 Calm and mild

Ships: 20

Notes: Saw twenty search boats out looking for the small fishing boat from yesterday. No big ships passed by

 

Personal Happenings:

Uneventful morning, no visitors yet. 

 

Beneath the Lighthouse

Entity is restless, the body has melded into some of the nearby bones

 

Diary

I went back and edited the log so that it doesn’t say anything about Rickton. No one came onto the island today to ask about him but I see about 20 boats all out there searching for him. I hope his boat capsized in the weather. Maybe if they find a piece of it on shore they will assume that he drowned or froze. 

 

I fixed up some of the broken fences and other chores today. The cats seem to be in a good mood. I thought about feeding some of Rickton to them but in the end I don’t think that’s right. I need to figure out another way to dispose of the body. 

 

When I went down to work on cleaning it up I noticed that some of the bones nearby had started growing flesh and blood. They seem to have absorbed the blood from Rickton and I could see them vibrating closer to his body. One piece was sticking to his arm and it had melded into it. I had to take my hatchet and hack away at it. 

 

I officially moved the body all the way across the room and rolled it up into a rug. I think I’ll have to spend most of tomorrow dealing with it. I had to clean off the rest of the bones tonight. I used my knife to scrape away any of the flesh and mop up the rest of the blood on the floor. 

 

I rechecked the pattern and moved everything back. I’m glad the bigger pieces weren’t moved or I don’t know what else I would have done. 

 

Shit. I really need a door down here. I don’t know what would happen if someone came through the tunnels now. I think I’d have more bodies on my hands… assuming I could take them all. Fuck.

 

I think I’ll have to burn Rickton. I could drop him out to sea with a weight tied to him but I can’t risk someone seeing me. I don’t know how to burn bones… The ground is far too frozen for me to dig a grave for him to place them in. I’ll have to think of something else. I need to make them brittle. I can probably find a way to grind them or something. 

 

This is so morbid. The previous warden never told me what to do about this. The wrist bone was the one that was the most covered in the new flesh. It seems to have healed the crack at least. 

 

Half the candles were unlit too, but I didn’t see anything else new in here. I think it was just the presence of the body itself. If it were another person then they would have all been out. 

 

I also need to come up with a straight story in case anyone asks about Rickton. 

 

BoneLog

215/215

Disturbed: No?

Candles: 25/45 Relit

Log 8

 

Date: December 12

Weather: 5,3 Calm Weather 

Ships: 7 Ships

Notes: 3 Merchant Ships, two Official ship from Greystone, two search party boats, one docked at the island the other stayed at sea 

 

Personal Happenings:

Someone from the search party boarded the island and asked questions

 

Beneath the Lighthouse

Still cleaning up, nothing new 

 

Diary

Someone from the island came to the lighthouse today to ask about Rickton. I told them that I saw the ship in the morning and recorded it but didn’t know what had happened. I manned the lighthouse the entire day but there was nothing else I could do for them. 

 

They believed me, there was no reason they wouldn’t. I told them my condolences and they left. I’m still shaking, I’m glad they couldn’t see how nervous I was. I could almost smell the body from downstairs. I’m so glad it's winter. I don’t know what I would have done in the summer when the rot would have smelled worse. 

 

The bones have been moving a lot more. They are vibrating towards the body. Half the candles were out again when I went and I re-lit them. There was nothing else down there. 

 

I took a sack down there and started to hack Rickton apart. I cut him into tiny pieces with my axe and burned the remains in the fire. The bones are still there and there’s still a mess on the floor downstairs but I think most of it has cleared except the smell. 

 

I don’t know if I can stand to look at the axe anymore. I feel sick. I need to make a grave or something for him but I don’t know where. I’m afraid of someone seeing it but I don’t like what I did. Maybe I’ll make a cairn next to the door or something. Something only I know about. 

 

I removed the bones from the fireplace and I have them in a box. I don’t know if they are brittle enough to crush but I’ll figure that out tomorrow. The whole house stinks. I feel sick. I should have never got this job. 

 

BoneLog

215/215

Disturbed: Remains

Candles: 25/45 relit 

Log 9

 

Date: December 13

Weather: 6,6 a storm 

Ships: 16

Notes: Three boats were part of the search party but retreated quickly once the rain and the snow started, 13 were larger boats, 2 of them headed towards Greystone and one to the Granite Isles. The rest of them were headed out westward. The ones headed towards Greystone docked in Marnmouth for the storm. One of the ones headed west sunk into the sea. It capsized and I doubt there are any survivors. 

 

Personal Happenings:

Another person from the search party came on land before the storm.

 

Beneath the Lighthouse

Entity is restless 

 

Diary

Many things happened today. I’ll start with the mundane things. Another person from the search party showed up on the island and asked the same questions. I told them my story again and told them another storm was coming today. They looked really sad and said they didn’t want to give up on the search. I told them they would have to wait until the new storm was over and to not get their hopes up. 

 

They left after that and I prepped for the storm, same as always. The cats hid inside all day again. 

 

Things were normal until I started hearing a scraping and felt my own bones move again, same as when Rickton found it the first time.  I ran down the hatch and saw that none of the candles were unlit but the bones were vibrating and groaning like they were straining against their arrangements. 

 

That’s when -A- showed up. The pattern Decider, the one who laid all the bones out in this pattern to start with. 

 

I’d never met them before but I had heard stories about them. The feeling of warmth on the skin like you’re sitting outside on a hot summer’s day. The sound of the chimes in your head and then I saw the lights. Somehow it can speak out loud, it sounds almost like a chorus of whispers. 

 

I’d known I fucked up but I didn’t realize it was this bad. They didn't seem angry though. I confessed what had happened: Rickton, the crack, the flesh growing back, all of it. 

 

They didn’t do anything for a long time but I saw all the bones shift back into place and quiet down. 

 

They did seem perturbed by the notion that someone was receiving visions in their dreams. -A- said that they’d need to make more preparations for the bones and what I did was necessary. I don’t think it’d come to my trail if I ever got caught though.  They said they’d be back with heavier wardings. I asked them what to do with Rickton’s bones since they seem to be the ones causing the disturbances yesterday and today. -A- said they had to be removed from the island completely, even crushed they would cause problems. 

 

I guess I’ll have to dump them into the ocean. I think if I put them in a sack it’d be more suspicious, if anyone found them they’d just be bones from anyone but if they see it weighted down then they know it’s foul play. 

 

Or I could crush them and dump the powder into the ocean. Maybe I’ll do that. Better safe than sorry. I’m so sorry Rickton. 

 

BoneLog

215/215

Disturbed: none 

-A- visited 

---

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