The team hires a cab to bring them from Charenton to their hotel in central Paris. They find the road blocked a few hundred meters away from their destination: anti-war protests are in progress, with unruly youths taking the streets and mounted policemen assembling to oppose them. The investigators decide to avoid the protests and head back on foot.
Night visitor
That night, Mudiwa wakes up suddenly noting that the temperature in the room has been drastically reduced. He stays still, lying in wait, as he notices a thin fog in the ground. Moments later, the fog retreats beneath the door frame and goes into the next room, where David is sleeping. Noticing the fog creep beneath the door, he lights a candle and notices the fog retreating in haste. He wakes everyone up and rushes to follow the trail of smoke, but loses it in the night.
Remi’s investigations
The next day, they go back to the library to meet with Remi, but he is nowhere to be found. Asking around, they are informed that he left last evening with a group of colleagues to join the demonstrations, that later turned violent. The investigators go to the police constabularies asking for their associate, until they locate his name in an arrest record. All detainees are being processed in hearings of 30 people at a time. When Remi is finally released, he is fuming with righteous anger.
With Remi in their care, the team returns to the library where Remi outlines his latest finds:
- Fenalik was of german origin and not a French noble - this will considerably limit their ability to find relevant historical records.
- His mansion was an architectural oddity at the time: few parallel lines, symmetries and rhythm based on mathematical and musical scales unfit for architecture - there was undoubtedly occult planning at work.
- A plan of the mansion’s compounds was uncovered that may prove very useful when searching for the villa’s remains.
- Clues about the Devil’s Simulare indicate that it was written and illustrated by hand in 1220, and later bound into a tome in Venice in 1505. The last known location of a copy is the church of Sta. Maria Celeste in Venice.
The investigators instruct Remi to search the civil registry for Fenalik or any remaining family, while they will head to the village of Poissy to search for any remains of the villa.
Poissy
The quaint little town of Poissy is located less than 30km to the northwest of Paris. A train ride crosses dense forests, before opening into a valley of snow-covered fields with the town in the middle. Poissy is a family-oriented, quiet rural destination that seems at odds with the troubled history the investigators hope to uncover.
Their first stop is at the town hall, where a few hours of search reveals useful information. A map of the time pinpoints the exact location of Fenalik’s villa, in the outskirts of the town. This address now belongs to the Lorien family, the town doctor, his wife and daughter.
Meeting the Loriens
The team strolls through the village and reaches the Lorien chateau, a family home of 19th century brickwork that is far smaller than the earlier estate. The estate grounds are covered by a rich rose bush, that would certainly look spectacular in blossom, but is now more like barb wire in the winter snow.
The gardens are covered in snow. They present themselves as historical researchers of the pre-revolution period to the doctor, who admits them into his house.
Initial discussion with the doctor provides surprising developments. The doctor was a recepient of a letter six months ago, from a man named Edgar Wellington in Lausanne, asking about the Sedefkar Simulacrum.
Also, the investigators note a wound in the doctor’s left arm, that has not healed properly in months. His wife is suffering from severe arthritis that has deformed her left arm, and his daughter exhibits extreme skin irritability in the same spot too.
The investigators compare the old estate’s plans with the current house’s layout and identify possible areas of interest. They convince dr. Lorien to allow them to dig around to see whether they can uncover traces of the old villa.
Bogeyman in the window
Their conversation is cut short by a scream by the doctor’s daughter - she claims to have seen the bogeyman, an old man with blue eyes, staring at her from just outside her second floor window. Mudiwa opens the window and sees a figure standing in the snow at the far end of the estate grounds. He climbs down to reach the man, noting that it there are no traces of climbing - how could this man have reached the window? As he draws near, the man suddenly dissipates in fog, but not before Mudiwa was able to get a glimpse of his face.
The investigators leave Dr. Lorien with his family and head to the local inn to spend the night.
The dig
The next day, the team starts digging early. Sampling different locations, they soon spot a flight of stairs, presumably leading to the remains of Fenalik’s basement. It takes them almost the whole day to dig out a stairwell leading to an old door. Forcing the door open, they enter the old, crumbling dungeon.
As they start going in, it is clear they are in a prison: the cells contain the remains of several human skeletons, locked in deplorable conditions. The main chamber contains numerous torture implements and tools, with a luxurious chaize-longue rotting in the center, positioned to offer a comfortable view of the whole gruesome spectacle.
A soft green-blue light is emanating from a far chamber. The glow comes from a bush of roses growing into the room through the walls. The team calculates they must be just beneath the estate entrance and the large rose bush. At the bottom of the roses is a pile of numerous skeletons, with the roses growing through rib cages and eye sockets, puppeteering the skeletons into unnatural poses.
Something glitters beneath the pile of corpses: it is a fragment like a left arm, made of dark ceramic with arcane symbols etched into its surface. Dr. Hart touches the arm in an effort to free it from the thorns and gets a flashback image: in the same room one and a half centuries ago, three of Napoleon’s soldiers are putting a sledgehammer to the whole Sedefkar’s Simulacrum.
As they cover the arm in cloth, a cold white fog starts to swirl around in the floor. The team rushes back to the surface, leaving in a hurry. The fog does not seem to chase them into the Loriens’ house. Inside, the doctor is stunned by everything he has witnessed. He is troubled about what to do with these dire news, but the investigators convince him to sleep on it before making any rash decisions he might regret.
Close encounter
All the team sleeps together that night, keeping constant guard. During David’s shift, he suddenly realises that a stranger is in the room, standing over sleeping Mudiwa. David raises the lantern and hears the stranger say, in lating first and in german later, “you will bring me the others too”, before bursting into a pile of rats, that scuttle around the floor as they run away.
Closure in Poissy
The team return to doctor Lorien, where they talk him into performing a private ceremony to bury the victims, instead of going public and bringing decades of macabre unwanted attention to his family and the village. Oscar Danjou is an anointed priest and can perform the ceremony, returning the poor victims to god’s embrace and putting their remains to rest. The investigators cover up the dungeon door and let the snow cover up their activities.
Already, the doctor’s family show signs of improvement in their respective medical conditions: the doctor’s hand is crusting, Veronique feels less arthritis pains today, and Quitterie’s rash has almost disappeared. It is clear that whatever malady was afflicting them, it was gone as soon as the investigators removed the arm. Undoubtedly, this same baleful influence is now their companion…
With their objectives complete, the team heads back to say farewell to father Julien and Remi, before packing their bags. Next stop is Lausanne in Switzerland, to find Edgar Wellington, the mysterious other researcher of the Simulacrum.