Robert Harrison Blake
The Haunter of the Dark
A young writer who moved to Providence, studied the Church of Starry Wisdom's abandoned steeple, gazed upon the Shining Trapezohedron, and was found dead in his chair with a expression that no living face should wear.
Overview
Robert Harrison Blake came to Providence as talented youth do, seeking atmosphere, antiquity, and the kind of Gothic scenery that sells stories. He found instead the abandoned steeple of the Church of Starry Wisdom, a windowless black stone that had housed a congregation devoted to the Crawling Chaos, and a gem that held light without reflecting any lamp in the room.
His death in 1935 closed a circuit that began when he extinguished the Haunter's darkness by accident and reopened when curiosity drew him to look again.
Biography
Blake's fiction had already attracted notice - strange, sensitive work that anticipated places he had not yet visited. In Providence he mapped the city's occult geography: the Shunned House, the legend of Charles Dexter Ward, the Federal Hill church whose belfry had no bell. He kept a diary, corresponded with Robert E. Howard and other writers, and convinced himself that fear was material for art rather than a warning.
When the trapezohedron was uncovered in the steeple's vault, Blake looked into it. What looked back was not Hastur, not Nyarlathotep in name, but the Haunter of the Dark - a winged entity that cannot endure light. Blake's final days were a siege of shadows until a thunderstorm cut the power and the thing entered.
Historical Record
Blake was found dead at his desk, face contorted, finger bones fractured as though he had clawed at something unseen. The church was destroyed by lightning the same night. The trapezohedron was removed by Dr. Ambrose Dexter, whose later behaviour suggests the gem was not destroyed - only relocated.
Blake's papers passed to literary executors; his account of the steeple was suppressed in favour of a verdict of heart failure. The archive holds the complete diary.
Archive Notes
Link to shining-trapezohedron and church-of-starry-wisdom entries. Personnel assigned to Federal Hill must carry independent light sources rated above 50,000 lumens. Do not reproduce Blake's final photograph of the steeple; three viewers reported identical nightmares.
Citation: Miskatonic Expedition Archive. Record CHR-007. Access subject to institutional review.
Related Records
Cross-References
GOO-003
disputedHastur
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OG-003
activeNyarlathotep
The Crawling Chaos
A protean messenger who walks among humanity in countless guises, sowing madness and progress alike, the one Outer God who seems to enjoy our suffering.
CON-003
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The frequent terminus of contact with the mythos - not always dysfunction, but sometimes expanded perception mortals cannot sustain, and sometimes the only sane response to an insane cosmos.
LOC-002
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An aging Massachusetts town of gambrel roofs and winding streets, home to the university and countless quiet horrors, the kind that do not shriek in the night but wait in attics for generations to pass.