The Ashworth Inquiry
An evening at the historic Ashworth Museum is disrupted when a discrepancy is noted in the artifact labeling. The ensuing investigation draws the focus to the careers, reputations, and personal histories interwoven with the university's collection, requiring the player to separate institutional procedure from individual circumstance.
Initial Crime Scene
The scent of beeswax polish and old paper hangs thick in the curator's office, a smell undercut by the faint, sweet tang of carbon paper. A gas lamp hisses, casting a flickering amber light that makes the shadows of wax-sealed ledgers dance across the mahogany walls. One's eye is immediately drawn to the heavy brass fittings of a locked display case, the neat, oppressive stacks of triplicate forms on the desk, and the worn spine of a leather-bound appointments book.
Crime Scene Environment
The sandbox is characterized by a dim, yellow gaslight or early electric illumination, creating pools of light and deep shadow. The air is cool and dry, carrying the constant, low acoustic density of institutional quiet—a silence punctuated only by the scratch of a pen, the rustle of paper, or the distant tick of a clock. The oppressive atmosphere is one of 'Academic pretension' and 'Antique propriety', where every surface of polished wood and brass speaks to 'Genteel neglect' and 'Veiled condescension'.
Investigation Constraints
Early 20th-century institutional setting. Tools include physical ledger books, carbon-copy triplicate forms, handwritten correspondence on university letterhead, rotary dial telephones, manual typewriters, wax seals for document security, brass skeleton keys for display cases, and gas-lamp or early electric lighting. No digital systems, databases, or modern electronics exist.
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