Free-For-All is here again! I had a lot going on this week and was unfortunately late in starting, but I finally got one finished. This prompt was "Write a Lovecraftian cosmic horror story."
I have always rejected the idea that ignorance is bliss. Though some truths may be unpleasant or distressing, it is still better to know them than to remain unaware. Certainly the discovery when I was ten that my father never loved my mother saddened me a great deal, but I think losing my youthful naiveté benefitted me in the long term.
But as I sit here now, having been unable to sleep for days, writing these words more in the hope of calming my fear than out of desire that any should read them, I must doubt my earlier conviction. I am certain that no good could come from the glimpse that I received of the true terror of the world.
The journey to Mountain Glen that my team undertook was completely unexpected. It was my teammate Blake who discovered that old ruined city to be our target through her investigation of the criminal Roman Torchwick. In the seedier parts of Vale, she utilized her Faunus nature to infiltrate a meeting between his criminal enterprise and the White Fang. There she overheard discussion of a base of operations in ruins to the east of Vale.
Torchwick's stake in the White Fang was unclear to us at the time, for though it is natural for criminals to work together, it seems unlike a gangster to sink to the depravity of a cult like the White Fang. The heinous acts of degenerate Faunus could not be used to gain the money or influence that Torckwick craves, and yet the two factions had made some sort of alliance.
As such, we made plans to investigate Mountain Glen and determine the threat that existed there. This journey would have been far more difficult had we not secured the approval of Professor Ozpin of Beacon Academy. He even asked his colleague, Doctor Bartholomew Oobleck to lead the expedition.
My teammates and I were already familiar with Doctor Oobleck, but it was during this journey that we truly got to know him. He is an excitable and energetic man who often speaks too quickly to be understood. Nevertheless, his wealth of experience would prove invaluable in exploring the ruins of Mountain Glen.
The five of us, along with my partner Ruby's dog Zwei, arrived in the city by airship early in the day. Mountain Glen was a sorry sight, the buildings and streets being in varying states of disrepair. We immediately set about searching the desolate area in spite of the significant presence of Grimm. Doctor Oobleck asked that my teammates and I protect our group from the unnatural creatures while he focused on studying the ruins. I suspect that this was meant as a test for us, one which we proved entirely capable of passing.
Finding no evidence of human or Faunus activity that first day, we made camp in one of the dilapidated structures with Ruby agreeing to take the first watch.
But no sooner had I settled into sleep than I was awoken by Zwei's barking. Immediately realizing that Ruby was missing, we followed the dog to a fissure that had opened in the ground, beside which lay Ruby's weapon. Doctor Oobleck posited that when Mountain Glen had first been overrun by the creatures of Grimm, the inhabitants dug themselves a new city beneath the earth in which they unsuccessfully attempted to hide.
Carefully descending into the fissure in search of my partner, we indeed discovered the structures in which the citizens of Mountain Glen had likely concealed themselves. However, this city was far different from the one above that looked like it could have been a twin to Vale.
The subterranean necropolis was built of stone cut into the most unnatural of shapes. The oversized bricks fit together at odd angles without any use of mortar. Indeed all the angles that made up the city appeared off in some way or another, as if the very geometry of the place were devised by a madman. There were structures whose construction appeared to utilize dimensions apart from our own. At every turn we were greeted by circles that possessed corners and lines that were parallel and yet somehow intersected.
Every surface of the city was covered in nauseating hieroglyphs depicting barbaric scenes of slaughter, both of Grimm against man and of one man against another. Many of the people in these carvings had strange deformities far exceeding those of an ordinary Faunus. The bodies of some were covered in misshapen horns while others possessed extra limbs which writhed like the tentacles of a squid. Dimly lit as the place was, there were many carvings which we could not make out, and for that I am deeply grateful.
Yang and I were sickened by these aberrant carvings, and even Doctor Oobleck's excitement at this discovery was tempered by revulsion. Blake's reaction, however, we purely one of fascination, her stomach apparently made of sterner stuff.
After moving through the city for what must have been an hour, we came upon a plaza of a scale vaster than any I thought should exist underground. It was here that we caught our first glimpse of our targets.
A dozen of the Faunus, dressed in the robes of their cult, stood in a wide circle around a huge stone slab covered in the same strange carvings as the rest of the city. Before the slab, Ruby lay prone, trembling with fear. Torchwick leered over her; occasionally striking her with his cane as he loudly addressed the assembled members of the White Fang.
A part of me wanted to know what he was saying, but Yang reacted immediately to the sight of her sister's distress, loudly announcing our presence. As we advanced upon the cultists, readying our weapons even as they drew theirs, Yang took aim and shot Torchwick in the shoulder, causing him to fall back against the stone slab.
The battle was joined against the White Fang, and we quickly had them on the defensive in spite of their superior numbers. Doctor Oobleck's flame weapon sent our enemies diving for cover amongst the buildings while I advanced with my sword.
One of the White Fang members, perhaps braver than his companions, rushed forward to meet me carrying a crude machete. We crossed blades, but his form was mediocre, and it was clear he had no chance of defeating me. But as we fought a thrust from my blade relieved the Faunus of his mask, and the sight beneath gave me pause.
The man's face was of an unnatural shape, resembling nothing so much as a frog. His eyes bulged from their sockets, and his mouth split his face nearly from ear to ear. A multitude of writing tendrils, each several inches long, grew from his bulbous chin, seeming to grasp for me. It was clear this man was no ordinary Faunus, but one of the deformed people from the carvings.
Panicking at the sight of him, I thrust forward with my blade and stabbed him through his swollen throat. As I withdrew my blade, his lifeblood splattered onto the ground in front of the stone tablet. It was only then that I realized that Ruby had a cut on her stomach which was leaking onto the floor.
No sooner had the bloods mixed than a tremendous shaking ran through the cavern, dislodging dust from the ceiling and making it difficult to maintain my balance. A great sucking sound could be heard throughout the plaza, as if a giant were drawing breath.
As the quake continued, Torchwick pushed himself off of the stone slab to stand upright. He tore his damaged and bloodstained sleeve from his shirt revealing his arm to be covered in short bony protrusions in place of hair. The sight was so aberrant that even now I find it difficult to look at my own arms without imagining with disgust such bones growing from them.
"Great Ixugthol stirs!" screamed Torchwick in an unnatural frenzy.
"Ixugthol stirs!" chanted the remaining cultists from their hiding places. "Ixugthol stirs!"
I must confess I do not know if I am spelling the name that they chanted correctly. The guttural sound grated on my ears even as it was half masked by the rumbling of the city. It may be that it has no proper spelling, for it is not a part of any proper language.
Fearing that the whole place might collapse, I ran to Ruby's side. Torchwick advanced on me and raised his cane, but a gunshot from Yang forced him back. I tried to help my partner to her feet, but she was unresponsive, simply muttering of teeth and blood red wings. I dragged her to her feet and half carried her away the gangster and his cultists.
Only as I turned away the stone tablet did my eyes settle on it long enough to truly see what it depicted, and the sight was so shocking that for a moment I stopped, my mouth hanging open. The lower half was covered in carvings of the same twisted humanoids whose likeness filled the rest of the city. But here they stood side by side with the creatures of Grimm, together slaughtering a number of cowering humans.
And above them all was an image of such terror as to take my breath away. The thing depicted there had the form of an unnaturally twisted serpent with spines covering its back and ribs poking through its chest. The monster's too-wide mouth was filled with more teeth than any creature should possess. Multiple sets of eyes stared out from above them. Wings which must have been wide enough to block out the sun sprouted from its back, looking like those of some terrible bat creature. Ichor fell from the thing's body, and as it descended down the carving it transformed into more of the creatures of Grimm, which moved to join in the slaughter below.
Another tremor went through the cavern. Ruby shuddered beside me, and under her breath she murmured "Ixugthol."
"Weiss, we need to move!" Yang cried out to me, finally waking me from the stupor that the carving had left me in. I gathered up Ruby as best I could and followed my teammates away. Doctor Oobleck unleashed one last blast of fire at the White Fang members before following us in retreat.
We escaped the caverns just as a portion of the ceiling collapsed behind us. The tremors stopped immediately after. With Ruby injured and shell-shocked, we evacuated Mountain Glen as quickly as we could. We reported what we had found to Professor Ozpin in the hopes that a larger force could be sent in later to ensure that the White Fang presence there had been destroyed.
Ruby has remained disconsolate since then. I have remained by her side as much as possible and have heard many whisperings of a hideous nature. I fear that she may have been forced to see the true form of Ixugthol and been driven to this state by its horror.
Yang and Blake dismissed my concerns, insisting that the carving was nothing more than a fantasy and that Ruby will recover soon. But after questioning them, I realized that neither saw the deformities of Torchwick or the White Fang cultists, nor did they pay any attention to the carvings on the stone slab. I suspect that they would not be so optimistic if they had.
Since then I have been unable to sleep for fear of the terror beneath Mountain Glen, and the disaster that nearly occurred there. It is clear that the White Fang sought human sacrifices, and had we all been isolated as Ruby was, we might have become those sacrifices. Who knows what horrors might have been unleashed had Torchwick been successful?
Those musings force me to remember who it was that sent us there in the first place. Only one member of our team actually heard Torchwick say anything about his activity in Mountain Glen, and she was alone at the time. I have no wish to suspect one of my teammates, but in the past days I have felt amber eyes on me everywhere I go. I can only pray that I am wrong, and that no other should be forced to confront the horror that is Ixugthol.
Author's Note: Another entry in my Biannual Fancy Writing (TM) finished! Writing like Lovecraft is definitely an experience. If anybody hasn't read Call of Cthulhu, it's definitely worth it to at least do that.
Thanks for reading!