Roll up, roll up for the first part of what will be a hugely satirical parody on the works of H.P Lovecraft. If you want to know what to expect, just follow these simple guidelines: Mix 4/5th H.P Lovecraft (i.e. horror) with 1/5th Douglas Adams (i.e. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) in a bucket. Sprinkle humour liberally. Pour in a pint of blood and various off-cuts. Throw over someone you don't like. HUZZAH! You now have 'Cthulhu Muyo'.
WARNING!!! This story may offend old aged pensioners, small children, people with bladder/heart problems or personages of extreme religious upbringing. That also includes people with absolutely no sense of humour whatsoever. It starts with a weird chant and ends with a roar and that may offend people, so anyone with a dislike of Blasphemous Books of Evil shouldn't read any further.
It's recommended to have at least a small knowledge of the Mythos before starting, but it isn't necessary. If you don't know your Necronomicon from your Nyarlythotep, and you muddle your Mnar stones with your Mi-go, it doesn't much matter. It's all in good fun and will be explained along the way, although if you don't know who Tenchi or his friends are (THEY'RE MAIN CHARACTERS) you'd better go back to Sailor Moon or the other less debauch series you usually watch.
BEWARE THE FNORDs! And remember this is not SI.
TWO MEN WHO CHANGED WRITING FOREVER.
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"Yes, if we could decipher even the weensiest rune of some of the noisome mysteries to be found in certain Forbidden-Book-Of-The-Month Club selections, humanity in general would endure a mind-boggling freak-out of such duration that the world's underwear would be ere long filled with fear-pinched crap-logs of madness."
- The Brouhaha Of Cat-Hula ; Mark McLaughlin
PRE-PROLOGUE:-
The Shadow Over Inne's Mouth
Thirty years ago, today...
The men swayed as one. Each was stripped to the waist, their bodies sweaty and strangely oiled. All of them were in a circle around the stone altar that was sitting in a wooded grove beneath the Louisiana stars. Slowly they stood up and one of their number stepped forward to the altar. He clambered atop it and waited there, arms outstretched, eyes gazing at each man in turn.
"Brothers," he said slowly, "Fhtagn Cthulhu."
"Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn," chanted the others in unison.
"Brothers," said the man again, "I have had a Dream."
The other men looked at each other in apprehension. A dream, they thought. Or rather, a Dream.
"Last night, I opened my mind to the Great Old One," he continued, "and he spoke to me!"
The cult craned their heads forward to hear more clearly.
"And he said, 'Tell my followers that soon I shall awake. And Lo', shall I teach new ways of killing. For those who worship me are to be the first of many. Doth for that is my wish." The man hung his head for a second. "So I asked when he should awaken. Once again he said, 'Soon."
A few men of the cult nodded sagely, but others muttered to those standing next to them.
"Pull the other one," cried one of the men.
"Yeah, you told us that last January," said another.
"Same speech too."
And then all the cultists were calling out.
"You expect us to-"
"Cthulhu said that? That's bullsh-"
"I've been doing this for twenty years and-"
The man stamped on the stone altar to try and bring a bit of order, but only succeeded in hurting his feet. "Brothers, I am your deacon. Listen to me!"
"Shut up Inne. You've been calling yourself Deacon since Old Crawley died!" shouted the cultist who had started the heckling.
"Okay, okay. He didn't say 'Doth' or ''Lo" or whatever but he did say 'Soon'. All right?" the man spluttered, flustered.
The other cultists nodded, if a little unhappily. He was, he thought, now back in control. "Now for tonight's meeting we've got a special treat." He smiled. "A fresh young sacrifice."
The cultists groaned. "Are you mad?" screamed the heckler from their midst. "You're gonna have police crawling all over the place."
"Yeah, and those investigators," said another solemnly.
"Don't mention Investigators to me. I was in a cult over in Ipswich, MA when they hit us for stealing some occult book."
"Goddamn Investigators. Always stopping our plans!"
"Meddling kids, annoying antiquarians, pesky professors-"
"Don't forget their mangy mutts."
The man hopped down from the altar and stormed over to the heckler. "Would you shut up?" he asked, clenching his fists. "We are supposed to be Brothers. Men and woman against a world that no-one wants to return to its rightful owner. Do you get me?"
"Screw you, you boring old goat. I'm going to worship a different evil deity. One that doesn't allow arseholes to be deacons."
With that he and the rest of the cultists filed out of the copse and back toward civilisation. "DAMN YOU!" screamed the man, waving his fist, but no-one was listening and very soon he was the only one there. He shrugged sadly, "You'll pay," he said quietly. "All of you are going to pay."
The Lurker near Yuggoth
- Evil Beasts and How they work for You ; Julius Van Mare
(Deposited in the London Museum by a shady man circa 1923)
Seven planets down from Yuggoth; nestled innocuously between a red planet and a very hot rock sits a blue green planetoid its inhabitants had the misfortune to call Earth.
It wasn't as though Earth was a particularly bad name, if you were human at least, but rather it was other races that had a raw deal uttering that single, ill-fated word. For instance, in Sodonium (the standard language of the Eagle Nebula) the word Earth actually means, "What is that weird nodule?"
This was a mixed blessing as, when a Sodonium speaking Z'rukzii crash landed at Roswell in 1947, the first thing he said to the National Guardsman who found him was, "Mlan' Lafds Bittle Stashfender." or roughly translated, "My heads hurt like the eternally watery pits of Stashfender." The soldier was so surprised at finding a sixteen limbed, talking goldfish that he made the majestic mistake of saying, "What on Earth?"
The Z'rukzii flew into a rage at this believed insult and killed three military personnel before being subdued with a machine-gun. The United States now has a policy of blowing seven shades out of any UFO entering American airspace, and on two occasions that has actually saved humanity. The other five incidents destroyed benevolent races hell bent on bringing peace and love, but we can't all be winners now can we?
Be that as it may, the real beginning must be returned to, and that was the entire huggermuggery that human kind had thrown upon the alien societies. In fact the only peoples who could say Earth without fear of embarrassment were those of the Galactic Union, who had languages so close to humans that it was uncanny. In particular, the Juraian Empire had a language nearly exactly like modern Nipponese that it begs the question: Why?
The answer: We'll never know, but leading scientists believe it has something to do with back-learning genes and sex. Lots of sex. On the other hand, perhaps it doesn't.
So once again we turn back to the item at hand and that is the indescribable terror that will soon befall this minute planet. For although Earth may believe the dinosaurs lived a long time, and the populace of the Eagle Nebula may believe they've lived a long time and even the now thought deceased scientist, Washu Hakubi, length alive is believed to be a long time, none come even close to the Great Old Ones and their friends and foes. For compared to them, all those other lengths of time added together are still likened to dust on a beach. INFERIOR GRAINS OF DUST COMPARED TO SANITY BLASTING UNDEAD GIANTS!
Are you getting the picture?
So our story starts one Sunday at 10 o'clock in the morning (GMT) just outside Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight, where one investigator of strangeness is to be embroiled in the greatest adventure since… well, Gustaf Johansen sailed into a bit of bother in the Pacific.
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CHAPTER I:-
THE FALLING OF THE STAR
"15) When a religious artefact begins emitting light, CLOSE YOUR EYES. Thousands of cultists could be saved every year if they'd just remember this simple safety tip.
16) During ritual sacrificing, taking bits home for later is now generally considered 'bad form.' "
- 'Being a Cultist' pamphlet ; Society For Evil Overlords
Spender House was, from the outside, quite an awe-inspiring piece of work. Turn of the century architecture with a creative flair far beyond its years combined to create a building both pleasing to the eye and functional to boot. The six acres of land was kept in perfect condition by four part time gardeners. The windows were cleaned every five weeks. It really was quite a beautiful estate.
By the way the outside has been described you've probably been led to believe the interior wasn't up to the same standards. You'd be wrong. They were doubly impressive. All twenty-two rooms neatly cared for.
This is what comes of having money. Something that Charles Spender,
technically orphaned, twenty five year old owner of the house had in rather an abundance. For you see, Charles was not another
dilettante. He wasn't another foppish squanderer.
Charles was an investigator, and right now he was investigating the contents of his kitchen fridge. He stood there, dressed in pyjamas and dressing gown, rummaging through the contents of the salad drawer. Taking a bit of carrot from its bag, he thoughtfully gnawed on it as he set off toward his bedroom. He bid one of the maids who was sweeping the stairs good morning and entered his dormitory. Just like all the other rooms in the house this one was totally spotless (apart from the crumpled sheets on the
bed) and strangely unused. Almost as if the building was kept as some sort of
life-size dollhouse. However, there was one unique aspect about this room. Charles Spender's £2 million telescope sat silently on its tripod staring out of the window with its one good eye. Quietly Charles pulled up a chair, swallowed the last remaining bit of carrot and stared up at the heavens.
Spender perched the notepad on his knee and squinted through the telescope's eyepiece. Carefully he jotted the co-ordinates of a particularly pretty supernova into it. There was a curt knock at the door. He didn't bother to look up and so, just called out for the person to enter. After a pause the door opened and a panda shuffled in. It wasn't actually a panda of course, because A) Pandas don't carry trays of tea or act as housemaids; and, B) A panda opening his door, would have been very silly, even in the strange and disturbing world of occult investigation.
The bulk was actually Mrs. Perriwinkle, Spender's housemaid. She put the tea tray she was carrying down on the bureau by the door and smiled. "Getting on with your hobby, Master Spender?" she asked, wiping her hands on her pinny. "It's nice to see you doing something without squamous overtones. I was just saying that to the gardener, I was, and Mr. Honeydew really did agree-"
Spender rolled his eyes silently. "Thank you, Mrs. Perriwinkle, but I must admit I was looking for Formalhaut."
The fat old woman looked at him in a way that was universally reserved for Encyclopedia salesmen and smelly gutter people. If he'd bothered to look at her he would probably have burst into hysterics at the way her already furrowed brow creased into even more intricate lines.
"Formalhaut," she said uncertainly.
"Yes, Mrs. Perriwinkle," smiled Spender. "And it is imperative I find it, as it may influence my investigation into the Cult that follows Hyoexyoop, The Unclean Unholy Sultan of the Underworld with The Evil Insane Maw." He crossed himself and sneezed violently. Mrs. Perriwinkle looked at him sadly. "I thought you were giving all that silliness up."
"No," he said and went back to looking through the telescope. Maybe Fate had used her immense destiny shaping powers to move the space viewing item the barest fraction of an inch to the left. However that is rather unlikely because if you were to pick one of the (hopefully) saviours of the world it really would be a nice idea to pick someone who had more than a snowball's chance in Hell of accomplishing it. Another answer, would be that Spender had knocked the telescope himself, although that was also a bit far-fetched because it was a rather big heavy telescope and it'd take more than a tap to move it. So the only plausible theory, although incidentally the wrong one, is that a large microwave using object, (say a communications satellite) colliding with a suitably advanced ionic field, (for example an advanced ionic field using spaceship) could cause a massive electromagnetic pulse dragging anything suitably charged (as in a £2 million telescope) toward it. The theory's totally wrong, but it's interesting to note that every television in Connecticut jumped a sixth of an inch east when the Yagami crashed, resulting in a few mildly amusing fatalities that were quickly picked up by supermarket tabloids the world over.
("Television Possessed by Satan Squashed my Son" being a brilliant one that, for some obscure reason, started a rash of legal actions against television manufacturers. Daemonic possessions are obviously a technical flaw).
Instead of seeing what he believed was Formalhaut, he saw this: A bright light fell towards the Earth and at first he thought it was a meteorite. Suddenly, it stopped. That isn't a very normal thing for meteorites to do and even a relatively amateur astronomer as Spender realised this. Then, even more inexplicably, it began to reverse and after going back about 400 yards it stopped again.
There it sat, immobile for a good minute or so, when after that it screamed toward the ground and disappeared over the horizon. Spender turned to his
housemaid.
"The phone Mrs. Perriwinkle, please."
"I'm SO sorry, Kiyone," wailed Mihoshi trying to hold back the flow of tears with her uniform's sleeve. It wasn't really working. "I'm really, really sorry. I didn't see it…" She tailed off into a series of short sobs. Her partner patted her gently on the back. "It's okay, Mihoshi," she lied, "I expect it wasn't a very important satellite."
"Really?" sniveled Mihoshi.
So Kiyone put the ship into reverse, and the scratching of debris against the Yagami's hull showed just how bad the damage really was. "What country has the initials CNN?" asked Mihoshi all the while looking at the glittering shards of metal on the viewscreen.
"I don't know. Let's ask Tenchi when we get back," smiled Kiyone, as she silently wondered whether Earth investigated space accidents.
There was a pause. Then; "Well let's hurry up, or we'll miss the start of 'Galaxy's Most Dangerous Police Chases'!" the blonde detective laughed, apparently instantly forgetting every worrying event that occurred more than a second ago.
"We've got another three hours yet!"
"More time to get ready!"
Kiyone put the ship into top gear and slammed her foot down on the gas pedal. "Damn Bubblehead," she whispered as the Yagami sped toward Japan.
Spender listened to the voice as the phone was picked up at the other end. "Greenwich Observatory, who is this?"
"Erm, my name's Charles Spender. Did you spot a-" He groped for something to say without sounding totally mad. "Did you spot an anomalous meteorite over the pacific?" He rattled off the co-ordinates.
There was a gasp at the other end. "You saw it too?" A whistle. "I thought I was seeing things. I mean the way it moved…"
Spender interrupted him. "Sorry, I'm afraid I didn't see it."
"But you said you'd seen it!"
"No," continued Spender. "I'm afraid I asked whether you've seen it. Sorry. Bye." He gave the phone back to Mrs. Perriwinkle and leaned back in his chair. He ran every clue he had through his mind and recited them aloud. "A strange movement of my telescope. A strange meteorite. A strange movement of said strange meteorite. What does that add up to for you, Mrs. Perriwinkle?"
"Why, something strange of course, Master Spender."
Spender suddenly shot bolt upright, his eyes ablaze. The only thing needed for him to complete the image was to shout-
"Eureka!" He jumped from his chair and stood there looking out toward the horizon. "Mrs. Perriwinkle, this is not something strange. It is something four-foldly strange. And that means Occultism." He hissed the last word like it was something that could harm him if it was spoken any louder.
"You always say that. The time that man was killed with no visible signs of entry, what did you say it was? Occultism. It didn't even cross your mind to think he'd slit his wrists, and there you were upsetting every relative by asking if the poor man was a practitioner of Hoodoo."
"Well, of course, you just have to bring up my one true failure."
Mrs. Perriwinkle shook her head. "Or how about that time you believed Mr. Kershaw the butcher had been mind-swapped with a beetle."
"Well I was close wasn't I?" Spender brought his hand down hard on the window's glass to emphasise the point. "Depression is very, very similar to mind-swapping. Now give me the phone. I have to talk to associates."
The housemaid stared at him. "Those associates are little more than rapscallions and ill-kempt wanderers." She held the phone tighter. "You shall have no word with them. All they do is hunt horrible, squamous beings. What would your father say?"
Spender smiled at her warmly. "Seeing as that my father turned into a horrible, squamous being a few years ago and lives off the coast of Cornwall, I feel that he would say little bar some obscene frog-like croaking noises."
"What would your poor dead mother say?"
He groaned. "My mother, as you well know, is living with a greengrocer in York."
"Don't be so silly," snapped Mrs. Perriwinkle. "You've never been able to accept it. You're just living in denial."
"Right. If it makes you feel better. I killed my mother with a shovel. I bashed her cranium in after listening to a particularly frenzied bout of Metallica's 'Killing Time'. I then proceeded to bury her under the thorn bush but only after lopping off her head and feasting upon the rancid brains therein. And in your happy sugar-coated Never-Never Land she'd cry, "Oh my son, stay at home and be a layabout like your father."
He sniffed loudly. "In the real world though, between mouthfuls of cucumber, she'd sputter, 'Son, go and do what you want. Because frankly, I don't give a stuff.' Do I get the phone now?"
She handed it out to him and he snatched it from her grasp, speed dialling before it had even warmed to his palm. It was picked up on the third ring. "Hello, Adams here," came a soft Liverpudlian accent from the other end of the line.
"Adams it's Spender, listen-"
"Spender," said Adams. "Oh God, brilliant! We're in Cardiff, after that bat beast. It's totally spectacular."
"Tell him about the policeman," whispered a voice in the background.
"Oh yeah, there's coppers everywhere."
"Tell him about the dead policeman," grumbled the voice again.
"Oh, Jesus, yeah. There's a totally dead rozzer down here."
There was a crash and suddenly a new voice with a heavy New York accent hissed down the phone. "Spender, it's me Burton. There's a dead cop here, ripped up like a Hell's Kitchen junkie. It's the best thing we've seen all week."
"Drop everything. Get everyone you can to Heathrow by six this afternoon. I've got something bigger."
"Full gear?" whispered Burton.
"Yep," said Spender and hung up. He looked out toward the sun that was already close to its peak. "Pack my bags Mrs. Perriwinkle and don't spare the kimonos."
- - - - - - - - - -Tenchi:- I thought my life was hard.
Ryoko:- What do you mean Tenchi?
Tenchi:- Well, I wouldn't want to spend my life hunting monsters. It's silly.
Ayeka:- It's just as silly allowing a monster to hunt you.
Ryoko:- HEY!
Spender:- Can't you two shut up and do a simple epilogue? Look out for the next chapter. You may even find these three in it. Though I doubt anyone would want that.
Ayeka:- Shut up.
Ryoko:- Yeah.
Tenchi:- Cthulhu Muyo; it's seriously occultist with strange, decidedly violent overtones.
Spender:- And it has women too.
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The Call of Cthulhu RPG (on which this is based) is the property of Chaosium Inc. Tenchi Muyo is the sole responsibility of the company known as Pioneer. Many characters and ideas are also based on Pagan Publishing's excellent supplement 'Delta Green', and it also has to be said that many Mythos monsters/characters are not from H.P Lovecraft but from other just as able writers. If I knew your names, guys, I'd write them but until I remember who from who… I'll just not take any niceties from people. The Guide to being a Cultist is from RPG.net. I couldn't find the original author. Ministry Agent owns all else… Got it? Good.