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Mankind, in its broadest sense, is a creature of analogy.
That is, when faced with something that it cannot understand, it describes it in terms of something it can understand. For some reason, this works very well. As a result, Mankind has spread all over its planet, has poked around in the oceans and is now starting to spread out into space, like a ... well ... like something that spreads very easily over a very large area.
Mankind could do with learning yet another analogy: Space is rather like the oceans.
The shallows teem with life. As the waters become deeper, darker and colder, the creatures become more and more fantastic. Eventually, the ocean becomes too deep to support life.
Space is very like this. Most of the creatures on this fair planet are much like ourselves. Wading out of the shallows we find other planets, hosting races who are also quite similar to ourselves: warlike, avaricious and (for some not-readily-apparent reason) English Speaking*.
And then there are the deeps of space: Cold, dark and empty of life. The home of the Elder Creatures.
In a (relatively) quiet tropical forest, next to a large lake, Ebony of Nubilia, High Priestess of the Cult of the Shoggoth, leaned against the bole of an over-large fern. The sun was slowly setting over the lake, and all around she could hear the sounds of the inhabitants of a tropical forest doing what came naturally. It was, all in all, quite peaceful. Rather like her old home, before she left* it to become a High Priestess.
Naturally, this could not last. In the distance could be heard the crashing noise of a large creature running for its life. A few moments later a stegosaurus charged out of the forest and into the lake. In hot pursuit was the Shoggoth. As the stegosaurus was slowed down by the water the Shoggoth leapt and engulfed it. A moment later there was a muffled crack, and the creature slowly rolled on to its side.
The Shoggoth flowed off the corpse and gathered in front of Ebony.
"Finished?", she asked acidly. She had been enjoying the peace and quiet.
Yes. the creature replied.
"And are you going to tell me what that was in aid of? It can't be practice - it's not as if you have to hunt the Old Ones these days."
I wasn't hunting. the creature paused. Lets just say that I may need this some day.
The Shoggoth flowed over Ebony, and they disappeared. The sounds of the primeval jungle slowly resumed.
The Sun finished setting, and the stars came out. If they were right, then the lakeside was in India. When it was, was quite another matter - the Shoggoth tended to have a rather relaxed view of the first half dozen of the modern dimensions.
Unnoticed, the stegosaurus sank into the mud.
In the aforementioned Deeps of Space, a meeting was taking place. At least, that is the closest analogy that can be offered. The Elder Creatures known as The Great Old Ones are not the sort of Cthulic Abominations that are likely to sit round a table, even if one the proper size and shape could be obtained. Carpenters are so reluctant to work in anything other than three dimensions.
The subject was a long-term sore point in, for want of a better term, the history of the Old Ones: Their expulsion from the planetary surfaces by their one-time slave, the Shoggoth.
The problem is, there is so much of It, one of the creatures lamented. The minute an Elder Creature sets pseudopodia on a planet, there it is.
The other Old Ones nodded sagely. One of the problems with the Shoggoth was that they had designed it as a flexible beast of burden. This meant (to them) adding simple mimicry (so it could learn tasks), the ability to split itself (just in case one of them was not enough for the job), and the ability to alter its dimensions at will (so it could fit in the cupboard at the end of the day).
Unfortunately, when push came to shove (or - in this case - rebellion), this meant that they were automatically outnumbered by a very fast learner.
We could try an alliance with one of the Elder Races still on the planet... suggested another.
There was a brief pause whilst this was considered.
The Deep Ones?
No. They hate us as much as It does.
S'huba-Duba-du?
NO!
Shub-Niggurath?
Not after last time. (S)he is still sulking.
Oh? What happened?
Some half-witted Human Wizard* summoned Her/Him in a duel, and then locked the area against summonings. Turns out that It was travelling with the Wizard's opponent*.
There was another pause.
If only... If only we could arrange for one of the Humans to summon one of us...
Been tried before. It keeps an eye on all the deep jungles and remote islands full of degenerate savages.
Well, perhaps we could hold the summoning somewhere else?
This idea was considered for a few moments.
Gentlemen, I have a Cunning Plan.
In a cavern deep under the Antarctic, the Shoggoth oozed into existence. Once it had reached a suitable height, Ebony stepped out, smoothing down her robe. Although travelling by Shoggoth was quick and safe (and held no risk of deep vein thrombosis), it was hell on the creases.
Behind her came the sound of several tapes being loaded into tape players, and a high pitched whistle as banks of TV screens powered up.
"And what is it going to be this time?", she asked.
The Shoggoth paused in its task of inserting a VHS cassette into a Betamax player. It had heard that Betamax, although obsolete, had been a technically better system and had taken to playing all its tapes in a series of very old Betamax players. The fact that the tapes were the wrong size and format did not bother the Shoggoth. In it's view, technological incompatibilities usually happened to someone else*.
Nadesico, Evangelion and Gunbuster, the Shoggoth replied. I want to watch them before the Evening Sacrifice.
"Who is it tonight?", she asked, having lost track of the time.
The Twins.
"Oh yes: The Skuld Fan Club."
And they are cooking Ramen... the Shoggoth added, pleasure evident in its "voice". Unlike most cthonic cults, human sacrifice was rare in the Cult of the Shoggoth - one of two subjects on which the Shoggoth had definite views. It was far more interested in having someone to watch Anime with: Ramen was a bonus.
Ebony thought about this for a moment.
"I didn't think they could cook."
They can't. But then, I can't eat either. Besides, it is "in Genre".
Ebony walked towards the only exit from the Cavern - which either led to a maze of caves and traps, an island refuge that was (notionally, at least) somewhere in the Indian Ocean, or wherever the Shoggoth was feeling like pointing it at the time. She paused.
Errrm, Ebony?
She turned. The Shoggoth being diffident was not a good sign.
You have been a little wound up lately. Isn't it time you had a holiday?
There was a pause, of the kind known as pregnant.
"I AM NOT WOUND UP!"
And Sir Wilton tells me that all His employees have five weeks holiday a year - You haven't had a single break since you started.
Ebony took a deep breath and tried to calm down.
"I am a High Priestess, not an Employee. I live - most of the time - on a desert island: Beaches built in! Besides, it's not as if the job is particularly demanding. In any case, the Refuge..."
Can look after itself for a few weeks. I asked Sir Wilton what sort of holiday would be best, and he said he would sort one out for you.
"Look, I really don't need a holiday."
We had a long discussion about it. He says humans need holidays. He even sent the one called Ashling on a holiday.
Ebony started to marshal her arguments...
It's not as if you are a slave, you know.
...and immediately dropped them again. She knew better than to argue this point - slavery was the other subject on which the Shoggoth had very definite views.
Further discussion was forestalled by a noise at the cavern entrance. Ebony turned (the Shoggoth, being omni-directional, was already pointing in the right direction).
Two young girls, dressed identically in white robes with red piping, and holding what appeared to be crude mallets in holsters on their backs. They each carried a small lidded bowl with wisps of steam escaping from under the lid. The Shoggoth flowed around them, picking them up and forming itself into a sort of settee. The central screen lit up, showing a futuristic cityscape.
Have a pleasant time. it said, as it turned its attention to the screen.
Ebony walked out of the cavern. She was not particularly surprised to find herself in the Boardroom of Wilton Enterprises, looking at a slightly startled girl arranging papers on the table.
One of the Old Ones was studying a map of the World. At least, that is what it looked like to the Elder Creature, who would have considered a relief map to have too few dimensions.
It carefully eliminated the usual sites used by the Elder Creatures and their cults (Deep Jungle, Remote Islands, The Pyramids, Sunken Atlantis, Insmouth, California (not that anyone ever noticed) and Milton Keynes. It then searched for a place that was quiet, unnoticed and largely forgotten*.
In a cliff-face, on the south of a small island, a few pebbles started to fall...
"Ah, You must be Ebony," said the young girl, breaking off from her task. "Sir Mumphry said you would be dropping in. I'm Asil Ashling, his assistant."
Ebony hesitated. She knew of Asil - the Shoggoth had mentioned her in connection with some recent arrivals at the Refuge - but to the best of her knowledge they had never met.
"How do you know who I am?"
"You match the description, and you were materialised in the Boardroom. Sh'ron dumped me there too. Of course, she did it in the middle of a board meeting and also passed in a load of seawater. Step this way, please."
Ebony followed Asil through the building into a small reception area for a large office. Asil put a finger to her lips.
"We need to be quiet - Sir Mumphry is gathering his thoughts before the board meeting."
Indeed, the faint sound of snoring could be heard from within the main office. Asil scooped a large envelope from her desk, and led her out into the corridor.
"He booked you in for two weeks at the Springvale Hotel on the Isle of Wight." she said. "It's a nice place - He sent me there a few weeks ago."
She handed the envelope to Ebony.
"Train tickets to Portsmouth, Ferry tickets to Ryde. Passenger ferry, I'm afraid - Sir Mumphry thinks hovercrafts are newfangled and dangerous even if they were invented there* - and some spending money." She paused. "He said something about dubloons not being legal tender. He also got me to sort out some clothes and things for you - you will find them at the hotel."
She led Ebony to the entrance of the building, helped her into a limousine ("Sir Mumphry's", she explained), wished her well and directed the driver to Waterloo.
The Isle of Wight* - known to the Romans as Vectis - is a small, roughly diamond-shaped island off the southern coast of England. On the north it is separated from the mainland by The Solent, a strip of sea about four miles across. On the south is the English Channel and, eventually, France. Ferries from the Mainland call at Ryde (Hovercraft and SeaCat - passengers only) and Fishguard, East Cowes and Yarmouth (for those with cars).
The island boasts of many fine beaches, several fine tourist attractions* and a history packed with action and adventure. It was a great favourite of Queen Victoria, and - unlike many of the more modern holiday spots on the mainland - still maintains much of the charm of that era*.
On a beach called, with startling originality, Broad Sands, Ebony reclined on a deckchair. If she made the effort to look out across the Solent, she could see (in order) No Man's Land Fort*, the deep water channel*, Horse Sand Fort, more Solent and finally Portsmouth and Southsea on the mainland. The rising tide was just covering the inshore shingle bar (which, she had been informed, was an ideal place to see hermit crabs).
Not, of course, that she was up to making the effort. She was rapidly discovering that the best part of being on holiday was not having to do anything. She simply lounged in the deckchair enjoying the sun, and occasionally opening her eyes just enough to watch the rainclouds sweeping over the distant mainland. For some reason, they did not appear to be keen on approaching the island*.
Much to her surprise she was enjoying herself. Nearly everyone she met was friendly, some of the children had taught her to build sandcastles and taken her crabbing*. In addition, the younger female members of staff at the hotel became really friendly when they discovered that she was (a) an associate of Sir Mumphry - who seemed to have made something of an impression on them, and (b) she was a High Priestess - not a usual occupation for a resident of the hotel.
They had even invited her to a barbecue being held by the local Cheerleader* group, of which some of them were members*. That would be held on the night before she left.
For the next two weeks it looked like there was not a cloud in the sky. Except over Portsmouth, of course.
That night, the earth moved.
The residents of the island - at least those living on the south - are accustomed to this. The cliffs on the south of the island are made up of a substance called Blue Slippy. It is especially prone to crumbling and many of the residents on the cliff edge are immanently expecting a drop in property values*.
In this case, the loss was rather minor. One of the residents - the local palaeontologist - had lost a chunk of his back garden.
He leaped out of his house and scrambled down the cliff in great excitement - the south of the island is also famous for its fossils, which were sometimes exposed after a landslip like this.
He didn't find any fossils. What he did find prompted a call to the police, from them to the local council, and from them to the higher authorities in the country. It also rather scuppered the fossil hunts organised for the tourists that week.
At the bottom of the cliff there was a archway surrounded with ornate carvings opening into a vast temple.
From The Times:
Lost Temple uncovered on Isle of Wight...was uncovered by a landslip in Shepherd's Chine*. The temple is a vast cavern with a central altar. The walls are covered with esoteric carvings which give no clue to the god or gods to whom the temple was dedicated, although expert opinion suggests that it is held sacred to some form of deity older than any currently known. A representative of the Ministry of Certain Things has examined the site and declared that he wants nothing to do with it.
Paradopolis has kindly dispatched two experts to assist in the investigations.
Ebony put her evening paper down. If the photographs were anything to go by, the temple was an ancient one built by the Old Ones. Quite what it was doing in a quiet backwater like this she did not know. Still, it was not her problem. Her problem was the Cheerleader costume one of the girls had given her to wear to the barbecue:
Item: One body covering looking remarkably like a one-piece swimsuit with a blue and white striped yoke.
Item: One very brief wrap-around skirt.
Item: One pair of knee-length boots, red in colour.
In a word: Sentai.
As the final straw, her amulet, her badge of office, had taken upon itself to turn into a tiara, the oddly disturbing pearl in the center turning into a little heart shape.
Someone was going to suffer for this, she decided as she dressed herself.
There was a knock on the door. One of the girls came in, already dressed. She looked at the transformed Ebony.
"Hey - that's amazing!", she exclaimed. "Where did you get the tiara?"
Ebony hesitated.
"It's a ceremonial one.", she improvised.
"Come on and show the others." the girl replied, towing her out to the beach. "The fun is only just beginning."
Ebony followed with as much grace as she could manage. Living with the Shoggoth had at least taught her to make the best of things.
As a matter of fact, she enjoyed the barbecue, the impromptu cheerleading lessons and almost every aspect of the evening apart from one thing - and even that had its uses.
In the cave, two heroes were performing - to the best of their respective abilities - an in-depth investigation.
The first, no stranger to elder creatures, was Dreamcatcher Foxglove, known to the world at large as CrazySugarFreakBoy. He was suffering from jet-lag, the shock of finding himself in a land where there were no comic shops (there was one in Newport, but it closed before he could get there*), but was recovering nicely after several large cups of coffee and the discovery that the locals sold masses of cotton candy - they just called it candy floss*. He was now starting to treat the job with a little enthusiasm, particularly as the place reminded him somewhat of the Caverns of the Manga Shoggoth.
The second was spiffy, renowned wearer of a psionic fern, Mayor of more cities than he cared to contemplate. He was suffering from jet-lag and CrazySugarFreakBoy, and the only bright spot of this entire island appeared to be that it did not have a Mayor and didn't seem to want one either. To add to his troubles, the cavern appeared to be giving his fern a headache.
While CrazySugarFreakBoy concentrated his attention on the wall carvings ("Hey, they look just like the ones in Antarctica!") and burbled on about comic books ("This is just like the scene in insert generic fantasy comic where the insert archaeologist, idiot government employee or random teenager accidentally reads the spell to summon the insert appropriate source of nastiness..."), spiffy directed what little of his attention he could manage to the altar.
It appeared to be covered in carvings, although he could not tell what they were supposed to mean. His fern was really starting to nag at him now. As he stared at the carvings, they appeared to shift and change...as if they were trying to form words*. He read through the inscription again, his lips moving slowly as he did.
As he finished reading the cavern shook, the altar cracked and a vast star-headed creature rose from the rubble. For the first time in uncounted millennia, the Old Ones stood on the surface of the Earth.
On the other side of the Island, Ebony choked on her drink, excused herself and dashed off, ostensibly to the toilet to clean up, although as soon as she was out of sight, she disappeared.
In the cavern, the two heroes reacted to the appearance of the Old One in rather typical style.
"Wow! A Great Old One straight out of 'A Boy's First Big Book of Cthulhic Entities' that Aunt Olivia got me for my eleventh birthday!" exclaimed CrazySugarFreakBoy. Having spotted two of the creatures from the book he was starting to consider keeping a tally. For some reason he was even thinking of buying one of those spiral-bound notebooks and a pencil for the purpose. A lightweight waterproof coat with a hood sounded like a good idea too.
spiffy's fern, on the other hand, decided that the mental atmosphere in the presence of an Old One was not the sort of thing to be conscious in, and promptly became catatonic. The unfortunate aspect of this was that it took spiffy with it.
The Old One reared up, towering over the hapless pair. CrazySugarFreakBoy looked up, thinking that perhaps an "enchanted" suit of armour and a can of silly string might not be sufficient to cope with this...
Then, from the cavern entrance came a clear female voice.
"Holiday Resorts are there to be enjoyed by people. For bringing terror to this peaceful land, I will punish you!"
CrazySugarFreakBoy looked at the cavern entrance. Silhouetted in the opening was a young girl wearing (from the top) a tiara, a rather brief sort of swimsuit-thing, a very short skirt and boots. For one brief moment, he felt as if his eyes had become heart-shaped.
The Great Old One swung round and flailed out at this new opponent. The girl somersaulted across the cavern, narrowly avoiding the each of the blows. Good for defence, he thought, but not too good for attack. She needs a diversion. He readied his can of silly string...
The Great Old One "heard" a hissing noise behind it. Its rear had suddenly been covered by some strange, highly-coloured substance. It redirected its attention to the human it had originally been menacing...who appeared to be looking behind it.
What CrazySugarFreakBoy was watching was, of course, the mysterious female. She gracefully landed and with a flourish, removed her tiara. She raised it above her head then brought it round in a graceful sweeping motion. With a cry of "Elder Creature Entrapment!", she skimmed it towards the Old One like a frisbee.
The elder creature caught it. The heart-shaped pearl on the tiara pulsed, once.
CrazySugarFreakBoy, who was not exactly hot on Great Old One body language, still thought he recognised "...oh shit!" when he saw it.
The pearl expanded and engulfed the Old One. It struggled for a few moments, there was a faint ripping noise, and then it became still. The pearl flowed back onto the tiara, which itself glided back to the young girl.
"This blasphemous temple is about to be returned to the place from whence it came.", she declared, striking a pose. "Don't be there when it happens."
With that, she turned and ran (gracefully, of course) out of the cavern. As she left, the cavern started to shake again. With unusual presence of mind, CrazySugarFreakBoy grabbed hold of spiffy and dragged him in the general direction of the exit. Just as they left, the archway collapsed and the cavern fell in on itself.
As the dust settled, CrazySugarFreakBoy looked around. There was no sign of the girl.
Ebony rejoined the party, feeling a lot less stressed. Not that she would have admitted it anywhere near the Shoggoth, but perhaps Anime did sometimes have its uses...
The following morning, Ebony made her farewells and left for Antarctica. A short walk across the beach took her to the shingle bank, and a short wade took her to a waiting Shoggoth.
Did you have a pleasant break? asked the Shoggoth when they reappeared in the deep caverns.
"Yes.", she replied. "I really must try that again some time. Did you finish tidying up the temple?"
Of course. it replied. I had to do a little fiddling here and there, but I think that most people will be satisfied with the results. Now, I have to sort out something with Xander, so I'll let you catch up at your own pace.
The Shoggoth oozed out of the cavern into the cave complex. Ebony briefly wondered in which particular way Xander was paying for his requests this time.
Oh well, she thought. Back to work.
In the very depths of the maze, there is a small darkened cavern. Inside this the Manga Shoggoth viewed its precious* collection of Anime Models*. In pride of place there used to be a complete set of "Sailor Moon" figures, but they have been displaced. In their place a diorama involving a dark-skinned, fuku'd figure stood, the players repeating a familiar scene. Not exactly Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen, it thought, but a worthy addition to the collection none the less.
And on the south side of a small island on the south coast of England, a dejected figure sat on the beach looking at the remains of his back garden. He knew, as did all the residents on that side of the island, that the loss of house or garden was only a matter of time, but the insurance companies - even with the high premiums he was paying - were not going to cover the appearance and disappearance of a temple to the Great Old Ones. "Act of God", they would say.
He moodily threw a stone across the rubble at the bit of rock that looked remarkably like a horn. In a few minutes, he would probably work out what had been left in place of the temple. But that would be someone else's story.