what seems to me from what people are telling and from omni's desc, is that our abilities are unlocked when we find a certain item (or more according to twg), items which are somehow found in different rooms. It appears that wire is found in the basement.
I found a metal cog in the downstairs dressing room. Perhaps
Timdood3 and
Stranger from Planet 9 did too.
Brief summary of our night chat. I read page 21, tim read page 7, and stranger page 15. Im not sure what was in their pages we only discussed their content real briefly. Tim also mentioned 'keys' and asked us if we knew anything about them.
Page 21 is on the darkness. It says the darkness takes over a player, and weakens the player it takes over. It also mentions the darkness cannot move to what im guessing are the black rooms, but can use the dark around it to kill. Lastly it says that the kill is nearly unstoppable, only those with grim (if anyone has any idea if this is merely flavor or actually useful) souls can survive.