The flickering candle was the only thing that was lighting up the small study. It was a place that was perfectly suited towards the pursuit of knowledge, whether it was knowledge of the mundane science, or something decidedly darker.
As a teenager, Queen Elsa had spent many hours in this room, completing various scholastic assignments given to her by her parents, in preparation for the day she would become Arendelle's reigning monarch.
None of Elsa's royal studies helped her recognize what she was currently reading. Undoing the single metal clasp again and opening up the dark leathery cover of the book, she read the aged letters on the title page.
The NECRONOMICON; Otherwise being known as the Kitab Al-Azif, or the Book Of Dead Names.
Written by the Moor: El Hazzared. Translated from Greek into English: John Dee, Doctor.
Imprinted at London, 1571.
Elsa skipped ahead to around the middle of the book. The first thing that greeted her was an entire page filled with small, detailed text. Her eyes scanned through the words, picking out sentences here and there.
Iä! Shub-Niggurath! As a foulness shall ye know Them. Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold.
The queen could not continue with the paragraph; her head was starting to hurt. She flipped through a few more pages, glimpsing the illustrations of numerous, strange creatures within the pages as she did so.
The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen.
She went back a few pages, and happened upon one that was blank, save for two lines of text.
That is not dead which can eternal lie
And with strange aeons even death may die
The dull pain that had started in Elsa's head was now working its way down her neck and into her arms. With effort, she turned to one last page.
SUMMON YOG-SOTHOTH
A wall of text adorned the thin paper, accompanied by a weird, complicated system of curved lines and angles. Elsa shut the book in disgust when she saw the grim instructions, just as someone knocked at the door.
"...yes?" Elsa called, rubbing her forehead. The pain was already beginning to fade.
Anna opened the door, panicked, sweating, her hair windswept.
"Please tell me you've seen Kristoff."
"I haven't. Isn't he here somewhere?"
"No. I've been looking all over the castle for him. He was only going to the Trading Post, he should have been back hours ago. Elsa...what if something happened to him?"
Elsa put the black book, the Necronomicon, into a drawer, then pulled on her gloves.
"We'll go search, right now, and we'll find him. Come on."
Elsa blew out the candle, letting the darkness consume the room as she and her sister left.
Bits of coal, sticks, and the single carrot floating in the puddle were all that remained of Olaf the snowman. Elsa could not bear to look at him for long, the guilt overwhelming her.
"Your Majesty...shall we clean this up? Or leave it for the wolves?"
The guard indicated the remains of Olaf's animal friend.
"We'll give him a proper burial...but first we need to find Kristoff."
"Of course."
The captain of the guard moved up to the door of the darkened cabin, knocking loudly three times. At first there was no answer, but soon, a light inside flickered on, and the door swung open.
"Hoo-hoo, hello there captain. And your Highness, and your Royal Majesty."
Oaken removed his hat and bowed to the group.
"We're looking for Kristoff Bjorgman. His last known whereabouts were at this very spot, your Trading Post."
"Oh dear, I am very sorry captain, but I do not have any idea vat you are talking about."
The guard frowned, then stepped aside and gestured towards what was left of Olaf and Sven.
"Care to explain that, then?"
"Erm...vell, you see..."
Oaken trailed off, his friendly expression and fake accent fading.
"Damn it all. I thought it would have cleaned this all up by the time you idiots got here. I guess it isn't fully used to human commands..."
Oaken suddenly withdrew a small flintlock pistol from his sleeve, pointed it at the captain and fired into his stomach.
"No!"
Elsa shot two bolts of her magic towards Oaken. The first cut the pistol in half, and the second smacked him in the chest, knocking him to the ground.
The captain clutched at his wound in intense pain, the round embedded deep within.
"Get him out of here, tend to his wounds," the queen ordered three of the other guards. They gingerly picked up their captain and carried him over to the carriage, and were soon off, back down the mountain.
Oaken began to stand back up, but stopped mid-way when he found himself staring down the barrels of five muskets, each one wielded by one of the remaining guards.
"What the hell is going on here?! Where's Kristoff?!"
Anna looked down at Oaken, her voice shaking with anger.
"Hmmm...well, by now, he's probably my pet's dinner."
"...what?"
"You heard me. You won't even find any remains, he's been completely digested."
Anna gasped, clasping her hands over her mouth.
"...Kristoff..."
Oaken chuckled. "Aw, what's the matter? Miss your boyfriend? Not like you should, he was just a dirty ice harvester. But then again, it seems a little strumpet like you would go for his type, wouldn't you?"
"Shut up!"
Anna punched Oaken in the face, and he fell to the ground once more. Anna drove her knee down into his chest as she bent over him and punched him again, and again, and again.
"Anna, enough."
Two of the guards pulled Anna off the shopkeeper, as Elsa stepped forward.
"You've been here for years, and this entire kingdom trusted you. Why, Oaken?"
The shopkeeper got up to his knees, smiling back through his black eye and broken teeth.
"I have reached out to the Deep Ones and witnessed their enlightened vision. I have found favor in the eyes of their god, and on the day of His Rising, I will be dragged down into the waters and be amongst them, as their disciple and their brother."
"What are you talking about?"
"You know nothing of the world to come. I can't stop it, and neither can you."
Oaken drew out a sharp knife and jammed it into his own throat, drawing it across and digging through his neck.
His noises wet with his own blood, Oaken gasped out his final words.
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"
The former shopkeeper fell forward, his clothes stained with his blood. Elsa shook her head slowly, then motioned for her guards to head into the Trading Post.
The guards moved past Elsa and Anna, and into the cabin. They followed after them, standing by as they looked around the room, opening drawers, looking in shelves, turning over chairs, searching every nook and cranny. The only trace of Kristoff they found was his shirt, tucked away behind the shop's counter.
"Look in the sauna. He mentioned coming here to use it," commanded the queen.
There was nothing inside but the usual features that could be expected of a sauna. The room was small, and there was no place to hide anything. They were about to look outside of the cabin when a guard stepped over a spot on the floor.
"Did you hear that?"
He tapped his foot on the spot, hollow noises accompanying each hit against the ground; the point on the ground looked discolored, as though it were a separate piece from the rest of the flooring.
"Found something!"
Still out at the counter, Anna called to the group. On the side wall, behind a coat rack, she found a hidden panel in the wall. Moving it out of the way, she saw two levers.
Anna pulled the first lever, and the panel in the sauna room opened.
"A trapdoor," said Elsa. "There has to be at least a few passageways underneath here. That little hole can't be the only way in. Anna, try the second switch."
The princess did so, activating a built-in mechanism somewhere in the cabin. The counter moved forward, revealing a small staircase that ended at a door.
"You two, stay here with Anna. The three of you, follow me."
Elsa started down the steps, her guards following close behind.
In less than a second, the door had been turned to ice and shattered. Stepping through, the queen and her guards could see that it opened to a dark hallway, another door at the end. When they approached it, they heard quiet, dull knocks coming from the other side.
"Stand back, your Majesty. We will take care of this."
A guard moved forward to try the door, while his two partners stood by, muskets ready.
The knob turned easily in the guard's hand; it was not locked. Its rusted hinges swung open.
Behind the door sat Kristoff, covered in dirt from the floor, his hand up, knocking on the empty space where the door just was. He looked up and saw the people who had rescued him.
"Elsa?"
Kristoff quickly stood up and walked out into the hallway.
"Thank God you came, I thought I was going to die in there."
The ice harvester dusted himself off, wiping soot from his pants.
"We're just glad to know you're safe. Anna's upstairs, let's get out of here."
They headed for the exit door, but Kristoff stood where he was.
"Elsa, wait, listen to me. There's...something you should know."
"What?"
"...Oaken is keeping something in a dungeon down here. It very nearly ate me."
Elsa and the guards stopped in their tracks.
"...'something'? What is this 'something'?"
"It's something big. I don't know what it is, it was too dark to see. But for a while now it seems that bastard has been locking people up in chains and letting that thing feast on them. Here...I'll show you."
Kristoff waved for them to follow him as he stepped back into the room he was just in. This room was yet another hallway, which led down to a final steel door, its window outfitted with bars. He pointed through them.
"It should still be in there somewhere..."
The five of them peered through the door's small window, trying to see if there was still anything within the dungeon's darkness.
"Tekeli-li."
From the other side, a large, black mass slammed against the door. It went back and charged forward again, hitting the door a second time, threatening to knock it right off its hinges.
As the five of them ran back for the relative safety upstairs, they could hear its loud, gutteral voice echo through the hallways.
"Tekeli-li. Tekeli-li. Tekeli-li."
Anna held Kristoff, softly running her fingers through his hair as he sobbed into her arms.
He could not control his grief after seeing the gory remains of the reindeer Sven; his head smashed in, his bones broken and twisted, his blood soaking the grass and the trees, his antlers splintered and lying in fragments, his insides torn open and thrown everywhere.
"He was my friend, Anna. For nearly 20 years..." Kristoff whispered.
"I know, Kristoff. I know..."
The burning cabin lit up the night, flames licking at the wood. While Elsa stood by and watched the entire scene unfold, her guards had already disposed of the remains of Sven and Oaken, and were now throwing the few bits of Olaf into the fire.
A loud, beastly shriek pierced the air, as the inferno reached down and burnt away at whatever had been living in Oaken's dungeon; a funeral pyre for a snowman, a reindeer, a deranged shopkeeper, and an unnamed entity lurking on the fringes of normal existence.
Burning out quickly from the oil that had been splashed over it, there was soon nothing left of Oaken's Trading Post but ashes.
On the ride home, Elsa reflected on the events of the previous few days: Marshmallow, Olaf, and Sven dead; three of Arendelle's citizens slaughtered on the shores of Arendelle; Oaken, the shopkeeper, revealed as a madman worshipping unnameable gods, a monster hiding within his cabin; a disconcerting black tome hidden away in secret, depicting unidentified seals and unspeakable rituals; an inhuman stranger, dressed like the ruler of an unknown kingdom, with long hair and cold, unfeeling black eyes.
Elsa watched the countryside pass by, dimly revealed by the moonlight.
"Your Majesty? Is something troubling you? Uh...aside from tonight's dreadful occurrence, that is."
The queen turned and looked at her guard.
"That thing that we saw tonight...down in Oaken's dungeon."
"Yes?"
"It was locked away in there. It could not have been what killed Olaf, Sven, or Marshmallow."
"Perhaps wolves did it? Or...a bear?"
"No, I don't think so. I've never seen anything that could just...brutally tear through a reindeer like that...or anything strong enough to rip up trees, or cut Marshmallow apart."
Elsa was right. Another one of the things was still out there.