Grim’s Diner Shortcut

[Archivists note: Below is one of the more well known descriptions of an Old House Route. It’s been floating around on forums since 2008. The original document, hand written and laminated in a notepad, is currently missing, but several copy-cats have been seen floating around. This transcript has been verified by our source at the House of the Old Guides. As always, we are posting for informative purposes only, do NOT attempt this, or any other route.]

Grim's Diner Shortcut to Westylvania. Mapped by Deadlegs.

Here’s the quickest way to get from Pennsylvania to Westylvania. It's one of the more convoluted and dangerous routes along the eastern seaboard, not for the faint of heart. Follow my notes closely, memorize them, and bring a waterproofed copy. One leg of the route travels through a Red Sun Prospect, "people" there will not take kindly to seeing drifters. Don’t even attempt this route if you can’t hijack minds smaller than a poppy seed for at least 30 seconds. There are two Death Gates on this route. One extreme, the other mild.

And throughout, keep heart rate under 130bpm, no beta blockers, no CCBs, no digs. Wild Anchors along this route are acclimated to outsiders, most of them don’t fall for pharms anymore. In regards to physical pain, anything up to T3s are acceptable, but only in the specific circumstances mentioned throughout. 

Bring food and gen for at least three days, four if you can carry the weight. Bring a ventilated jar of at least 10 Gelsheimer Ants (do not buy from Steve & Marsha, they're frauds). Bring a petrified blade, preferably rake wood. It’s a solo route, no team ups, no dogs, no birds (not even cellar sparrows). 

This used to be a Rock route. Headwind and I cleared most of them out last June, but there’s at least two or three left. Kill Rocks on sight, they will be under the same directive. Cover up any Guardian Sigil tattoos.

If at any point you see a fifty-something lanky guy with an ill-fitting suit, a cane, and a limp, also kill on sight and keep moving. Don’t bother burning his corpse, he always revives no matter what we’ve tried. He’s not physically dangerous, but he’ll follow you around and try to sell you blood algae extract, salvia, and/or ayahuasca. I shouldn’t have to say this, but do NOT buy or take any psychedelics from this man. KILL. ON. SIGHT. Aside from being unbearably obnoxious, Cane Man’s constant chatter makes the remainder of the route impossible.

Route begins at Grim’s Diner, right at Gainesville city limits, north entrance. Big sign mounted on the diner’s roof, can’t miss it: “Grim’s Diner Welcomes you to Gainesville”. Leave your pack in the ditch across the street, then walk into the diner right before closing time, 11pm, any day of week save Monday. Ensure the floor is red and white checkered tile. If it is black and white checkered, leave and come back another day. 

Assuming the tile is red and white, seat yourself in the back left corner booth. If someone is already sitting there, leave right away. They’re either another hiker, or worse, a Rock pretending to be a Tree. 

Once you’ve sat in the booth, the Waitress will approach you within 2-3 minutes. She will be in her early twenties, she will have red hair, dark blue eyes, and a strawberry tattoo on her neck. Maintain eye contact throughout conversation, only blink when she is not looking at you directly.

She’ll tell you it’s closing time. She will almost always speak with a midwestern twang. In the rare case she does NOT, apologize for overstaying and leave immediately. Try again another day. 

When the Waitress tells you it’s closing time, say nothing. After about 5 seconds of silence, she will ask if she knows you from somewhere. Tell her she must have you confused with somebody else (your wording here does not need to be exact, speak in a way that feels natural to your own voice). She will smile and make a comment about how her glasses are broken and she is waiting for her new ones to come in. She will complain about how she’s arguing with her insurance over payment, and how her “meemaw” is too cheap to help out. 

She will finish this dialogue by saying: “I’m blinder than a bat without my glasses.” 

This comment will sound like an attempt at humor, but do not laugh or smile. Remain silent, maintain unblinking eye contact until she turns away. Keep your eyes on the back of her head until she strolls into the kitchen. Then, stand up from the booth and leave through the nearest exit, do not step on any of the red tiles as you go. If your foot even grazes a red tile, the Waitress will chase you down and douse you with a bucket of boiling fryer grease. You will (hopefully) die and wake up outside the diner physically unscathed, but the PTSD will likely prevent you from ever attempting the route again.

After exiting the diner, grab your pack from the ditch across the road. Sometimes there will be a family of raccoons watching you from the woods. As far as I can tell they have no bearing on the route’s weather, good or bad. But I feel like it’s a good omen. After all, the raccoon used to be a sigil for the House of the First Guardians.

(Headwind here. Update on the raccoons. I’ve checked the numbers on over 147 Runs of  Grim’s Diner Shortcut, and it turns out that Runs WITHOUT a raccoon sighting have a 12-15% higher chance of seeing the Cane Man, so do with that information what you will.)

Now that you have your pack, head north up the road, away from Gainesville. It should be well past dark by now, no matter what time of year you attempt the route. Walk against traffic. If you see white headlights, roughly 4500K or higher, hide in the ditch until vehicle passes. If you see yellow/orange headlights, roughly 3200K or lower, give a hitchhiking thumps up. By the fifth car, somebody will slow to pick you up. If five cars have gone by and nobody’s stopped, abandon the route. 

The person who picks you up will always be a fellow by the name of Roy. No relation to Kilroy as far as we can tell. He drives a different vehicle each encounter. We’ve recorded everything from Lamborghini Diablos to Volkswagen Beetles. He looks different every time too. Roy will ask you where you’re headed. Tell him: “The Red Gate Inn.” Roy will nod and tell you he used to know a manager that worked there. He will try to remember the manager’s name, thinking out loud as he does. After two or three painful minutes, he will give up. He will offer you a cigarette, and it’s important that you accept. Roy gets easily annoyed, and if he gets annoyed he doesn’t pay attention to driving and might veer headfirst into traffic, causing an agonizing three day death pit (as I'm sure you know, most people end up in a permanent state of terror after experiencing even a fifteen minute death pit).

As you smoke the cigarette, Roy will start complaining about his divorce, his third divorce to be exact. He will take no accountability for his own mistakes in the marriage, and will refer to his ex-wife as “Harpy Harriet” throughout his complaining. It is important that you nod along to his story and pretend to laugh at his jokes. You don’t need to be all that convincing in your performance, Roy is quite confident in his own sense of humor. 

If Roy only ever refers to his ex-wife as “Harriet”, and if he seems to be at all understanding of her decision to leave him, toss your cigarette out the window, and tell him your stop is actually “right here.” Roy will question why you want to be dropped off in the middle of the woods. Tell him you are a park ranger. He will nod and say “I should’ve known just from looking at you.”

After Roy drops you off and drives away, continue walking up the road, hiding from headlights over 4500K and hitchhiking for headlights under 3200K. Eventually another man named Roy will pick you up. This Roy will be mercifully silent and, without either of you speaking a word, will drop you off at The Red Gate Inn. 

Once at Red Gate, walk around to the back. There will be a fire escape door propped open with a five gallon bucket. If the bucket is empty, abandon the route, if the bucket is filled with concrete, continue. Step through the door. Do not touch the walls of The Red Gate Inn. If you touch the walls, you will spend your next life in the Deepest Cellars. And be very quiet while inside Red Gate, its residents are light sleepers. 

Find room #6, its door will be open already, just a crack. Step inside. Do not turn the lights on. There will be a woman sitting on the bed, back turned to you, staring out the window. She will be silhouetted by neon red light from outside. There are no reports on what happens if you disturb her, never a good sign. While in this room, keep your heart rate below 110bpm.

Step into the bathroom immediately, close the door behind you as quietly as possible. Lock it. At this point the woman should start crying and/or reciting passages from the Dead God Scriptures (either in Norwegian or the First Tongue). She may try to turn the bathroom door handle once or twice. Pay her no mind and focus on your breathing, keep that heart rate low. 

With your petrified blade, bloodlet 3 drops into the bathtub drain, then run hot water over the cut for at least 5 seconds. Wrap the cut with gauze. Open the jar of ants, then mind-crawl into an ant and enter the bathtub drain. Unless you are of the Mountain Folk, it will likely take multiple attempts to successfully mind-crawl without killing the host, hence why you brought at least ten of them. 

Once you have entered an ant's mind, crawl down the pipe until you reach still water. Drown yourself in the water. It is important you have extensive experience with mindcrawling into insects. Aside from the mechanics of moving with six legs, it can be very difficult to drown due to surface tension. Do not worry about PTSD, the experience of drowning as a Gelsheimer will feel very distant and dream-like once you revive. 

After a pale blue dot encounter, you will awake back in your first mind, lying on the bathroom floor with a nasty ache in your upper left second molar. Pharms are acceptable depending on severity of pain (nothing stronger than a single T3 as noted before). You may have some residual Gelsheimer instincts, but these should be easy to manage, and will fade in minutes. When you step out into the hotel room, the morning sun will be streaming through the windows. The woman will be gone. You must still be mindful not to touch the walls.

A bedside phone will begin to ring (only answer it if the phone is RED, if the phone is white or black, ignore the call and the remainder of this graph). A young man will be on the other end. He will act like you are the one who called him. He will likely sound scared and confused. Ignore all of his questions. You can only say one thing to him, in these exact words: "You must use the needle-nose pliers to remove all your fingernails and toenails. Once you have done so, put them in the red matchbox and leave the box at the top of the basement stairs as an offering". He will always protest, likely start sobbing. Be assertive. Emotionless. Repeat the directive until he verbally agrees to go ahead with it. End the call, and pray that he will follow through. 

Leave Red Gate through the same door you entered. Avoid being seen by staff. 

[Archivists: this document does not end here, we are working to find the remaining pages.]