Dear friends, the next installment of our Lovecraftian tale, related to the upcoming new album "MANTA" of the Czech post-rock project Postcards from Arkham has arrived!

If you saw the previous two episodes, you know that Roger J. Greeves, reporter from Arkham Advertiser, visited, as part of his investigation into the Orphic Assembly of Manta Primordialis, the ancient Innsmouth, which brought rather striking developments. However, with a strange twist of fate, he gained another clue that brings him to equally ancient village of Dunwich.

Thus, join us today in visiting yet another iconic location of H. P. Lovecraft's weird universe. Have a weird one!

"When a traveler in north central Massachusetts takes the wrong fork at the junction of Aylesbury pike just beyond Dean’s Corners, he comes upon a lonely and curious country.

An upland of dense woods scarred with gorges and ravines of problematical depth, of stretches of marshlands that one instinctively dislikes, and when a rise in the road brings the mountains that dot this region in view, the feeling of strange uneasiness in increased, as their summits are too rounded and symmetrical to give a sense of naturalness and sometimes the sky silhouettes with especial clearness the queer circles of tall stone pillars with which most of them are crowned.

At the heart of this dismal place, huddled between one of Miskatonic’s upper tributaries and an especially prominent round mountain called the Sentinel Hill, lies a small village – a cluster of mostly ruined and deserted houses with rotting gambrel roofs – that looks and feels as if being there since time immemorial. It is always a relief to be clear of this place and to follow the road away across the level country beyond till it rejoins the Aylesbury pike.

Afterwards one sometimes learns that one has been through Dunwich. Except I was not here by accident, but searching for another, who sought the Manta and Her Cosmic Song.

As in Innsmouth, the local, the few that still inhabit this place, are weary of outsiders, whereby I had to be careful in my inquiries. Through skillful questioning, I managed to learn that some years back, an artiste of sorts took residence in an old cabin on the slope of Sentinel Hill. Who he was, or what brought him to Dunwich, no one knew.

It slipped their tongues though that in the days before his appearance, the local whippoorwills, whom locals mortally fear for some reason, were shrieking cacophonously day and night, and even more bizarre noises were heard in the hills.

Naturally, I pried from them the cabin’s location and went to investigate.

The cabin was deserted. As if no one has lived for long time, which brought an unpleasant reminiscence of what I experienced in Innsmouth.

Did the artist leave, just as suddenly as he came, or was I too late, preceded by the Orphic Assembly?

I was determined to thoroughly search the please, both within and without, hoping to uncover any lead, any clue that would shed some light on this Manta Primordialis. I was also keeping an eye on any proof that the OAMP might had been here.

Yet when I approached the front door and touched the doorknob, I was assailed by ghastly visions…"

 

Chapter overview:

I - Black day at Miskatonic | II - Weird séance on Arkham battlements | III - Mystery deepens | IV - Innsmouth | V - From Innsmouth to Dunwich