Post by Hornfist The Gnoll King on May 11, 2010 23:59:21 GMT -5
Kinda long but I hope you guys enjoy
The Odd Tale of Arthur Jameson
It all happened some years when I was on a business trip to the upper end of New England. I am a book collector by trade. This particular trip promised to be rather mundane, an elderly man in Rhode Island by the name of Krane, claimed to have a first edition of some of Poe's earliest works. This was a fairly common claim in the area, often it was a misunderstanding or an unfortunate misinterpretation.
I arrived in Essex county by train, as I enjoy the opportunity to observe peoples as they travel. The weather was slightly chill, and a touch foggy as I disembarked. It was not overly cold, but still the air did bite a bit when the wind blew.
Mr. Krane was to meet me on the campus of Arkham's Miskatonic University, in a open park area. Since I had more than a few hours before our meeting I thought I would visit the Miskatonic University Library, and see their copy of that most dreadful of tomes, the Necronomicon. It was a short cab ride from the train station to the library.
When I arrived, much to my dismay, the library's rare book section was closed off. So I occupied my time perusing the library's not unsubstantial collection. After some hours I started my way to my meeting place.
Upon arriving at our prearranged meeting place, I found a note set upon a bench. It read as follows:
Dear Mr. Jameson,
My apologies for my inability to make our meeting. I have sent my nephew ahead to deliver this note. I must regretfully reschedule for tomorrow, at 5 o'clock PM. If this is agreeable I have arranged for you to stay in a hotel near my home.
Sincerely Edward Krane
On the back of the note were directions to the mentioned hotel. Disappointed but not dissuaded, I began towards what would be my accommodations for the night.
The hotel itself was an old thing, it had aged well, but clearly showed the architecture of a time passed. It's gabled windows and colonial columns showing years of weather and wear. Upon entering the magnificent double doorway, I sensed an odd fragrance hanging in the air, something intangible and yet familiar.
An elderly woman, graying and weary looking, sat at the front desk. I checked in with little additional conversation, and I made my way up the elegant stairs to what would be my room for the evening. The room was mostly unadorned, simple, and plain. It had a bed, dresser, and simple roll top desk.
Fatigue set in on me heavily, and so I resigned myself to the bed for the evening. I was deeply asleep when I was woken with a start. I sensed a presence in the room, and turned the lamp at the bedside on.
What I saw was exactly nothing out of the norm. Yet I still sensed the strange presence within the room. As if there was some invisible phantom observing me with great interest. I could not bring myself to fall back to sleep after that, no matter how fatigue wore upon me.
As the sun began to rise I felt the presence subside, and sleep finally overtook me again. It is a wonder that I was able to gain any sleep with the horrible images that filled my dreams. Somehow familiar , but indisputably alien vistas opened before me. I could see these as if I towered over the landscape, or perhaps flew over. The strange and frightful plants, and creatures that stretched out before me would have, under normal circumstance, surely shocked me back to consciousness.
In these visions I saw a great and strange structure before me. Or more accurately saw it rise up before me. I recall this image being pleasing to me for some reason. After the spires of the cyclopean structure had fully formed itself, I drifted into it, passing through the odd green stones as if I were an incorporeal wraith.
Once inside I could hear some odd sound, or impulse. Well not so much heard as sensed, I cannot think of a more accurate description for the sensation. It seemed to call out to me and draw me further into the structure. Once into the deepest depths I could glimpse, in small portion, a massive beast at slumber.
As I approached the creature the impulse became more and more clear.
“Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn. Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn .Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn"
It now seemed to screech into my mind, and no amount of strain would allow me to block it out. It worsened as the thing before me drew me ever closer.
“Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn. Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn .Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn "
Then the most terrible of horrid things occurred, by all that is holy, the thing moved. Stretching a flabby, clawed hand towards me and still it screamed into my mind!
“Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn. Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn .Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn "
And as I was sure the thing would have me, I suddenly awoke. Covered in a cold sweat, and shaking with terror and confusion.
It was midday by then and I set about leaving this strange room, with it's phantoms and nightmares. I tried to put the terrible vision out of my mind, and went about to make my meeting.
The home of Edward Krane was ancient even for this part of Essex county, it's paint withered, it's columns all but fallen, and the windows sagging oddly in their frames. I tried the steps furtively, and when I was sure that they would hold I strode to the door and rang the bell.
The creature, for I cannot bring myself to call such a loathe some thing a man, that answered my call made me start with fright. His eyes bulged oddly, what was left of his hair was stringy and hung weirdly, and the smell that washed over me was beyond offensive.
“Uh, Mr. Krane? I am Arthur Jameson. The book collector you have been corresponding with.” I said unsure that this, this thing was in fact the man I had been speaking too.
In our correspondence Mr. Krane seemed a world wise and intelligent fellow. This creature could not have constructed the phrase that I had come to know.
“Aye, I'm Edward Krane. I have been waiting for you to arrive sir. Please, won't you come in?” He said, in more of a croak than a voice.
As I stepped into the decaying home I was assailed by more of the same horrible smell. The walls were all but bare, decorated here and there with odd items from far off lands. But what dominated the room I now stood in, was a massive book shelf. Covered in dust and cob webs, the monolithic item stood looming before us. At a glance I could see dozens of rare tomes and grimoires.
Going to the shelf, Mr. Krane produced the book that was subject of my visit. It was in fact, after all I had gone through, a fake. Undeterred I told Mr. Krane the truth and I would be glad to peruse his collection to determine if he had anything of value.
After agreeing he went off to prepare some tea for us. I removed my jacket, and set my satchel down to scan the assortment of books before. Almost immediately I found something of great interest to me.
It was a copy of the Necronomicon, written in Greek. The tome claimed to have been penned by Abdul Alhazred, the Mad Arab himself. I sat down at a nearby table to look into the grim text. I know a bit of Greek, enough at least to translate bits and pieces of the dire tome before me.
As I began to read through the first few pages of the text, my host had entered the room, dropping the tea tray and shouting in what can only be described as a guttural tone.
“Do not read from the Necronomicon!” He screamed at me wrenching the book from the table.
All about us, the air seemed to writhe, and felt electric. I tried to apologize but Krane would have none of it, he simply tried to usher me out the door, until I told him how much I was willing to pay for his copy of the tome.
He took the money, and shoved the book into my hands with equal roughness. Then he told me to be gone, and never to disturb him again. Pleased with my purchase I made my way back to that ghastly, and eery hotel. I would be on a train back to Manhattan in the morning, and I sought to engage myself with this most ancient of volumes.
Taking a meal with me from a local shoppe, I returned to my room and took to the roll top desk. I opened the book reverently, and gazed on it's first pages. The words transcribed within filled me with wonder, and dread.
It told of strange alien worlds, ancient rituals, demons, and gods foreign to this sphere of existence. I thumbed further into the tome until I saw it. The beast of my visions the night before. The passage referred to the horrid beast “Cthulhu”, and told of it's long slumbers and unusual appetites.
Then a passage caught my attention, it read as follows:
“When the stars are right, Great Cthulhu shall rise again, and with him shall come the return of the Great Old Ones. The stars are the key to Cthulhu's resurrection. But at times the stars become close to their proper places, and during these times Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones may influence the minds of man. They come to us in our dreams, and whisper bizarre horrible truths. When they speak, the stars are nearly right, and the time of The Great Old Ones is nearly upon us again.”
I thought back to my dreams of the night before for some time after reading this. When I glanced the clock I saw that it was indeed very late, and I resigned myself to try to sleep. As I took to my bed, I could feel that same presence in my room, watching. It seemed somehow less malevolent than the night before, almost comforting, and before long I had drifted off to sleep.
I found myself standing calmly before the great horrible creature. It sat, silent, ominous, and potent upon a sort of dais. Legions of strange man sized creatures lined the walls of some sunken chamber in which we now stood. The things that surrounded me seemed to simultaneously resemble both a humanoid frog, and an anthropomorphic fish. They croaked, or sang a common chant in rhythm with an odd pulsing sound that seemed to come from the massive creature before us.
“Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn. Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn .Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn "
And I found myself chanting with them, and prostrating myself before the monster. I gazed upward through what seemed like miles upon miles of space to the creature's great unflinching eye and saw within it my own visage, twisted and feral.
I found the image to my liking and I stood, taking a few steps towards the mountainous creature's dais. I felt something in my hand, something heavy and cold. Before me I could see a young blonde girl, perhaps of eighteen years, chained to the dais. Before I could register what I was doing I lifted the object over my head and thrust it with all I was worth towards the girl.
And as the flash of metal passed my eyes, I awoke my hand clenched around a strange looking knife's handle. My window was open, and the cuffs of my trousers and feet were damp. I felt a shiver run down my spine, both of cold and of fear.
It was just after sunrise, and from the look of the dirty condition of my feet and trousers I could tell I had left my room. I tossed the dagger across the room, and it clattered into a corner. I went to my window, and in the courtyard could see human foot prints in the bare patches of soil below.
I turned to the roll top and saw that the book was open, I could swear I had closed it before taking to slumber. But there it lay, open, and something seemed to be jutting from underneath it. I went to the desk to inspect what it was and what I saw, though innocuous enough, nearly made me scream with it's connotations.
It was simply a lock of blonde hair, about six inches in length and seemed to have been cut with an extremely sharp blade.
I spent the bulk of the morning trying to regain my faculties and assure myself that what had transpired was impossible. How could it have happened, I couldn't have been in that hellish place, those things could not have been real.
How would it have been even remotely feasible for me to have traversed the vast gulfs of space between myself and this place of my nightmarish visions. But then I could not know where or if this place even existed outside of my mind's eye. Was I going mad? Had I gone mad? How was I to know what was real and what was fantasy now, if I had indeed gone mad.
My attention was suddenly drawn to that odd knife. I went to pick it up and give a closer inspection. It had a blade about eight inches in length with a harsh curve. Both inside and outside of the curve were extremely sharp, with serrations on the lower half of the inside curve.
The hilt was made of an odd gold like substance, with decorative carvings that resembled two octopoid heads with tentacles entwined to make a cross piece. The handle was formed from the lower most tentacles of the two octopoids, with a small lustrous emerald grasped at the bottom where a pommel should have been.
The whole of the thing could not have weighed more than a few ounces. It felt cold to the touch, even after holding it for a few moments, and seemed to absorb and dissipate heat very rapidly. The edges of the blade seemed very sharp, I tested this with a few scraps of paper, and it sliced cleanly through very easily.
Setting the knife down on the desk, I opened the Necronomicon once more, and seemingly through some strange providence I saw within the tome a sketching of a very similar blade. The entry went as follows:
“Blades such as this one were once very common amongst early man, as they paid homage with sacrifices to The Elder Gods. The first of these blades were given to man by the Deep Ones, and to them from Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones. The knife is designed for a single purpose, and that is to flay flesh from skin and bone to offer up to Great Cthulhu and his kin.”
I found this whole sequence of events most disquieting to say the least. I looked down to the lock of hair, and nearly laughed aloud. Of course I must be going mad. This could not have truly occurred. Could it? Could I have transported myself through projection of dream, to the lair of this great horrible creature, and done … done those things I had seen.
I could not know for myself at this point, so I packed my belongings and designed to get answers from someone. Mr. Krane whom I had procured the ominous tome from the day before. I would consult him.
What was I thinking. I would be thought a lunatic if I showed up on a man's doorstep claiming to have slain some poor girl as a sacrifice to some mythological beast, and had done so by projecting myself through dream into the things dwelling.
Oh I would indeed be one for Arkham asylum then. I resolved to make my train and go back to Manhattan, and try not to think about this any further, for it had to be some flight of fancy. I would pack the knife away and when I went to find it again later it would be gone.
The illusion would have dissolved and this fatigue induced frenzy I seemed to be grasped by would go with it. Yes that made perfect sense, it was simply my mind tricking me due to nerves from a lack of quality sleep.
As I made my way to the train station I noticed more and more that several of the people in this town had the same flaws of countenance as Mr. Krane. Bulging eyes, flabby lips, an odd smell, and a general lack of hair on their heads.
I even thought for a moment that a large group of them seemed to be following me. But I decided that this too, must be a part of my current affliction. I must resign myself to some deep slumber at first opportunity, for my sanity, if nothing else.
Boarding the train I noticed a small group of people that bore those odd disfigurements boarding along with me. I paid them no mind as I had earlier decided that these mutations of form were a mere illusion. I took my seat and as the locomotive began to push out from the station found myself drifting to sleep.
My dreams at first seemed harmless, a glade of conifers dotted with odd little pink flowers. I found myself seated within the midst of these flowers. They had a fragrance similar to roses mixed with lavender.
As I leaned over to pluck one of the pleasant buds, I saw them all wilt and die before. Replacing them was an odd green soap stone floor, and a strange scent. The odor of rotting fish mixed with something far more foul. I looked around myself and saw that I was surrounded by those strange frog fish men.
For every twelve of them, it seemed at least, there was a bizarre mound of plastic looking black ooze. These mounds emitted strange piping, “tekeli tekeli tekeli” they sounded along side chants of
“Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn. Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn .Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn "
I looked to the head of the room and saw what I expected. The great gibbous, alien, and ominous form of the Great Old One known as Cthulhu. Figuring myself mad, I strode forward to him. As I did the chanting and piping intensified, and I felt a familiar cold weight in my hand.
I felt myself drawn to the dais, knife in had, and dressed in strange robes. Once to the altar I looked up to the strange beast before. It gazed back at me and seemed to impulse an odd suggestion to me. I gazed back to where I had come to this strange place.
I saw manifest before me old Mr. Krane, and I smiled as one of the plastic black things slid to him, and embraced him. The thing dragged him to the altar and laid him out. Mr. Krane screamed in horror as I raised the knife above my head and spoke the words “S'phin'th n'qui'sl'th Cthulhu fhtagn!”
Once again I woke as the gleam of the blade fell before my eyes. And I heard those words echo intop my mind. And more horrible, I knew their meaning! Gods save me I knew their meaning! I had screamed as I plunged the knife into his chest.....
“And no more shall Cthulhu sleep!”
It all happened some years when I was on a business trip to the upper end of New England. I am a book collector by trade. This particular trip promised to be rather mundane, an elderly man in Rhode Island by the name of Krane, claimed to have a first edition of some of Poe's earliest works. This was a fairly common claim in the area, often it was a misunderstanding or an unfortunate misinterpretation.
I arrived in Essex county by train, as I enjoy the opportunity to observe peoples as they travel. The weather was slightly chill, and a touch foggy as I disembarked. It was not overly cold, but still the air did bite a bit when the wind blew.
Mr. Krane was to meet me on the campus of Arkham's Miskatonic University, in a open park area. Since I had more than a few hours before our meeting I thought I would visit the Miskatonic University Library, and see their copy of that most dreadful of tomes, the Necronomicon. It was a short cab ride from the train station to the library.
When I arrived, much to my dismay, the library's rare book section was closed off. So I occupied my time perusing the library's not unsubstantial collection. After some hours I started my way to my meeting place.
Upon arriving at our prearranged meeting place, I found a note set upon a bench. It read as follows:
Dear Mr. Jameson,
My apologies for my inability to make our meeting. I have sent my nephew ahead to deliver this note. I must regretfully reschedule for tomorrow, at 5 o'clock PM. If this is agreeable I have arranged for you to stay in a hotel near my home.
Sincerely Edward Krane
On the back of the note were directions to the mentioned hotel. Disappointed but not dissuaded, I began towards what would be my accommodations for the night.
The hotel itself was an old thing, it had aged well, but clearly showed the architecture of a time passed. It's gabled windows and colonial columns showing years of weather and wear. Upon entering the magnificent double doorway, I sensed an odd fragrance hanging in the air, something intangible and yet familiar.
An elderly woman, graying and weary looking, sat at the front desk. I checked in with little additional conversation, and I made my way up the elegant stairs to what would be my room for the evening. The room was mostly unadorned, simple, and plain. It had a bed, dresser, and simple roll top desk.
Fatigue set in on me heavily, and so I resigned myself to the bed for the evening. I was deeply asleep when I was woken with a start. I sensed a presence in the room, and turned the lamp at the bedside on.
What I saw was exactly nothing out of the norm. Yet I still sensed the strange presence within the room. As if there was some invisible phantom observing me with great interest. I could not bring myself to fall back to sleep after that, no matter how fatigue wore upon me.
As the sun began to rise I felt the presence subside, and sleep finally overtook me again. It is a wonder that I was able to gain any sleep with the horrible images that filled my dreams. Somehow familiar , but indisputably alien vistas opened before me. I could see these as if I towered over the landscape, or perhaps flew over. The strange and frightful plants, and creatures that stretched out before me would have, under normal circumstance, surely shocked me back to consciousness.
In these visions I saw a great and strange structure before me. Or more accurately saw it rise up before me. I recall this image being pleasing to me for some reason. After the spires of the cyclopean structure had fully formed itself, I drifted into it, passing through the odd green stones as if I were an incorporeal wraith.
Once inside I could hear some odd sound, or impulse. Well not so much heard as sensed, I cannot think of a more accurate description for the sensation. It seemed to call out to me and draw me further into the structure. Once into the deepest depths I could glimpse, in small portion, a massive beast at slumber.
As I approached the creature the impulse became more and more clear.
“Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn. Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn .Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn"
It now seemed to screech into my mind, and no amount of strain would allow me to block it out. It worsened as the thing before me drew me ever closer.
“Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn. Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn .Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn "
Then the most terrible of horrid things occurred, by all that is holy, the thing moved. Stretching a flabby, clawed hand towards me and still it screamed into my mind!
“Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn. Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn .Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn "
And as I was sure the thing would have me, I suddenly awoke. Covered in a cold sweat, and shaking with terror and confusion.
It was midday by then and I set about leaving this strange room, with it's phantoms and nightmares. I tried to put the terrible vision out of my mind, and went about to make my meeting.
The home of Edward Krane was ancient even for this part of Essex county, it's paint withered, it's columns all but fallen, and the windows sagging oddly in their frames. I tried the steps furtively, and when I was sure that they would hold I strode to the door and rang the bell.
The creature, for I cannot bring myself to call such a loathe some thing a man, that answered my call made me start with fright. His eyes bulged oddly, what was left of his hair was stringy and hung weirdly, and the smell that washed over me was beyond offensive.
“Uh, Mr. Krane? I am Arthur Jameson. The book collector you have been corresponding with.” I said unsure that this, this thing was in fact the man I had been speaking too.
In our correspondence Mr. Krane seemed a world wise and intelligent fellow. This creature could not have constructed the phrase that I had come to know.
“Aye, I'm Edward Krane. I have been waiting for you to arrive sir. Please, won't you come in?” He said, in more of a croak than a voice.
As I stepped into the decaying home I was assailed by more of the same horrible smell. The walls were all but bare, decorated here and there with odd items from far off lands. But what dominated the room I now stood in, was a massive book shelf. Covered in dust and cob webs, the monolithic item stood looming before us. At a glance I could see dozens of rare tomes and grimoires.
Going to the shelf, Mr. Krane produced the book that was subject of my visit. It was in fact, after all I had gone through, a fake. Undeterred I told Mr. Krane the truth and I would be glad to peruse his collection to determine if he had anything of value.
After agreeing he went off to prepare some tea for us. I removed my jacket, and set my satchel down to scan the assortment of books before. Almost immediately I found something of great interest to me.
It was a copy of the Necronomicon, written in Greek. The tome claimed to have been penned by Abdul Alhazred, the Mad Arab himself. I sat down at a nearby table to look into the grim text. I know a bit of Greek, enough at least to translate bits and pieces of the dire tome before me.
As I began to read through the first few pages of the text, my host had entered the room, dropping the tea tray and shouting in what can only be described as a guttural tone.
“Do not read from the Necronomicon!” He screamed at me wrenching the book from the table.
All about us, the air seemed to writhe, and felt electric. I tried to apologize but Krane would have none of it, he simply tried to usher me out the door, until I told him how much I was willing to pay for his copy of the tome.
He took the money, and shoved the book into my hands with equal roughness. Then he told me to be gone, and never to disturb him again. Pleased with my purchase I made my way back to that ghastly, and eery hotel. I would be on a train back to Manhattan in the morning, and I sought to engage myself with this most ancient of volumes.
Taking a meal with me from a local shoppe, I returned to my room and took to the roll top desk. I opened the book reverently, and gazed on it's first pages. The words transcribed within filled me with wonder, and dread.
It told of strange alien worlds, ancient rituals, demons, and gods foreign to this sphere of existence. I thumbed further into the tome until I saw it. The beast of my visions the night before. The passage referred to the horrid beast “Cthulhu”, and told of it's long slumbers and unusual appetites.
Then a passage caught my attention, it read as follows:
“When the stars are right, Great Cthulhu shall rise again, and with him shall come the return of the Great Old Ones. The stars are the key to Cthulhu's resurrection. But at times the stars become close to their proper places, and during these times Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones may influence the minds of man. They come to us in our dreams, and whisper bizarre horrible truths. When they speak, the stars are nearly right, and the time of The Great Old Ones is nearly upon us again.”
I thought back to my dreams of the night before for some time after reading this. When I glanced the clock I saw that it was indeed very late, and I resigned myself to try to sleep. As I took to my bed, I could feel that same presence in my room, watching. It seemed somehow less malevolent than the night before, almost comforting, and before long I had drifted off to sleep.
I found myself standing calmly before the great horrible creature. It sat, silent, ominous, and potent upon a sort of dais. Legions of strange man sized creatures lined the walls of some sunken chamber in which we now stood. The things that surrounded me seemed to simultaneously resemble both a humanoid frog, and an anthropomorphic fish. They croaked, or sang a common chant in rhythm with an odd pulsing sound that seemed to come from the massive creature before us.
“Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn. Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn .Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn "
And I found myself chanting with them, and prostrating myself before the monster. I gazed upward through what seemed like miles upon miles of space to the creature's great unflinching eye and saw within it my own visage, twisted and feral.
I found the image to my liking and I stood, taking a few steps towards the mountainous creature's dais. I felt something in my hand, something heavy and cold. Before me I could see a young blonde girl, perhaps of eighteen years, chained to the dais. Before I could register what I was doing I lifted the object over my head and thrust it with all I was worth towards the girl.
And as the flash of metal passed my eyes, I awoke my hand clenched around a strange looking knife's handle. My window was open, and the cuffs of my trousers and feet were damp. I felt a shiver run down my spine, both of cold and of fear.
It was just after sunrise, and from the look of the dirty condition of my feet and trousers I could tell I had left my room. I tossed the dagger across the room, and it clattered into a corner. I went to my window, and in the courtyard could see human foot prints in the bare patches of soil below.
I turned to the roll top and saw that the book was open, I could swear I had closed it before taking to slumber. But there it lay, open, and something seemed to be jutting from underneath it. I went to the desk to inspect what it was and what I saw, though innocuous enough, nearly made me scream with it's connotations.
It was simply a lock of blonde hair, about six inches in length and seemed to have been cut with an extremely sharp blade.
I spent the bulk of the morning trying to regain my faculties and assure myself that what had transpired was impossible. How could it have happened, I couldn't have been in that hellish place, those things could not have been real.
How would it have been even remotely feasible for me to have traversed the vast gulfs of space between myself and this place of my nightmarish visions. But then I could not know where or if this place even existed outside of my mind's eye. Was I going mad? Had I gone mad? How was I to know what was real and what was fantasy now, if I had indeed gone mad.
My attention was suddenly drawn to that odd knife. I went to pick it up and give a closer inspection. It had a blade about eight inches in length with a harsh curve. Both inside and outside of the curve were extremely sharp, with serrations on the lower half of the inside curve.
The hilt was made of an odd gold like substance, with decorative carvings that resembled two octopoid heads with tentacles entwined to make a cross piece. The handle was formed from the lower most tentacles of the two octopoids, with a small lustrous emerald grasped at the bottom where a pommel should have been.
The whole of the thing could not have weighed more than a few ounces. It felt cold to the touch, even after holding it for a few moments, and seemed to absorb and dissipate heat very rapidly. The edges of the blade seemed very sharp, I tested this with a few scraps of paper, and it sliced cleanly through very easily.
Setting the knife down on the desk, I opened the Necronomicon once more, and seemingly through some strange providence I saw within the tome a sketching of a very similar blade. The entry went as follows:
“Blades such as this one were once very common amongst early man, as they paid homage with sacrifices to The Elder Gods. The first of these blades were given to man by the Deep Ones, and to them from Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones. The knife is designed for a single purpose, and that is to flay flesh from skin and bone to offer up to Great Cthulhu and his kin.”
I found this whole sequence of events most disquieting to say the least. I looked down to the lock of hair, and nearly laughed aloud. Of course I must be going mad. This could not have truly occurred. Could it? Could I have transported myself through projection of dream, to the lair of this great horrible creature, and done … done those things I had seen.
I could not know for myself at this point, so I packed my belongings and designed to get answers from someone. Mr. Krane whom I had procured the ominous tome from the day before. I would consult him.
What was I thinking. I would be thought a lunatic if I showed up on a man's doorstep claiming to have slain some poor girl as a sacrifice to some mythological beast, and had done so by projecting myself through dream into the things dwelling.
Oh I would indeed be one for Arkham asylum then. I resolved to make my train and go back to Manhattan, and try not to think about this any further, for it had to be some flight of fancy. I would pack the knife away and when I went to find it again later it would be gone.
The illusion would have dissolved and this fatigue induced frenzy I seemed to be grasped by would go with it. Yes that made perfect sense, it was simply my mind tricking me due to nerves from a lack of quality sleep.
As I made my way to the train station I noticed more and more that several of the people in this town had the same flaws of countenance as Mr. Krane. Bulging eyes, flabby lips, an odd smell, and a general lack of hair on their heads.
I even thought for a moment that a large group of them seemed to be following me. But I decided that this too, must be a part of my current affliction. I must resign myself to some deep slumber at first opportunity, for my sanity, if nothing else.
Boarding the train I noticed a small group of people that bore those odd disfigurements boarding along with me. I paid them no mind as I had earlier decided that these mutations of form were a mere illusion. I took my seat and as the locomotive began to push out from the station found myself drifting to sleep.
My dreams at first seemed harmless, a glade of conifers dotted with odd little pink flowers. I found myself seated within the midst of these flowers. They had a fragrance similar to roses mixed with lavender.
As I leaned over to pluck one of the pleasant buds, I saw them all wilt and die before. Replacing them was an odd green soap stone floor, and a strange scent. The odor of rotting fish mixed with something far more foul. I looked around myself and saw that I was surrounded by those strange frog fish men.
For every twelve of them, it seemed at least, there was a bizarre mound of plastic looking black ooze. These mounds emitted strange piping, “tekeli tekeli tekeli” they sounded along side chants of
“Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn. Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn .Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn "
I looked to the head of the room and saw what I expected. The great gibbous, alien, and ominous form of the Great Old One known as Cthulhu. Figuring myself mad, I strode forward to him. As I did the chanting and piping intensified, and I felt a familiar cold weight in my hand.
I felt myself drawn to the dais, knife in had, and dressed in strange robes. Once to the altar I looked up to the strange beast before. It gazed back at me and seemed to impulse an odd suggestion to me. I gazed back to where I had come to this strange place.
I saw manifest before me old Mr. Krane, and I smiled as one of the plastic black things slid to him, and embraced him. The thing dragged him to the altar and laid him out. Mr. Krane screamed in horror as I raised the knife above my head and spoke the words “S'phin'th n'qui'sl'th Cthulhu fhtagn!”
Once again I woke as the gleam of the blade fell before my eyes. And I heard those words echo intop my mind. And more horrible, I knew their meaning! Gods save me I knew their meaning! I had screamed as I plunged the knife into his chest.....
“And no more shall Cthulhu sleep!”
