Ghouls of the Miskatonic/Chapter 6
Plot
Finn awakens at Ma’s boarding House, severely hungover. Despite the blurry details, he recounts the events from the previous night. He knows that both the Newburyport gang and Arkham hoodlums will perceive him as a betrayer due to him being the sole survivor, and will seek revenge. He considers using the mysterious silver sphere to bargain for his life. As he inspects the sphere, he discovers it has movable parts. Experimenting with these, he inadvertently causes the artifact to emit a deep, disturbing bass note that disorients him, making the room distort and stretch in impossible, terrifying ways. He drops and then quickly recovers the sphere, stopping the unnerving effect. Realizing the dangerous nature of the object, Finn decides he desperately needs help with the sphere.
Rita and Amanda are having lunch at a park on the Miskatonic University campus grounds. Amanda informs Rita that her nightmares have inexplicably ceased since her conversation with Professor Oliver Grayson. Rita suggests that simply talking about her experiences might have provided the necessary relief. Their conversation is interrupted by a group of male students – Spencer Osborne, Wilson Brewster, Arnold Derby, and Randolph Derby – who attempt to invite them to a movie on Friday and later to a frat house gathering the following Saturday. Rita, visibly annoyed by their presence, curtly declines the movie invitation, but does not entirely decline the invitation for the party.
At Aunt Lucy's Restaurant, Rex and Minnie meet with Gabriel Stone, the father of the murdered woman Lydia, found on campus. Gabriel presents himself as an agent of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, a formidable organization known for its tough, brutal, and effective investigators. He explains that Lydia would send him letters every two weeks, and when they didn’t arrive, he immediately set out for Arkham. Gabriel stresses that Lydia was a "good girl" who loved music and dancing. Rex and Minnie suggest that they can track Lydia's last known whereabouts by identifying Arkham's few dance venues. Gabriel then reveals that his daughter was not the sixth, but the twenty-fourth victim, with many previous missing persons cases dismissed as mere runaways. Gabriel then requests Rex and Minnie's assistance in gaining access to the Arkham Advertiser's records, specifically to find information about a man who knew his daughter and was keenly interested in her work: Professor Oliver Grayson.