by T. K. Kato
Adrenaline rushed through me and my heart pounded. I supposed it all been leading to this. The ultimate monstrosity those Deep Ones could call up. Under ideal circumstances, I’d have been at full HP … And hell, maybe have a little bit of Sanity left. But when had this game ever given me ideal circumstances?
Maybe that was part of the beauty of it. I continued forward for another minute or so, before eventually coming across a side exit to the path. This led to a corridor with several rooms off of it.
With a shrug, I decided to investigate. Lots of games have ammo dumps or other secrets available just before a boss fight. I might as well explore everywhere, right? I mean, I’d come this far, and I didn’t think I’d missed much on the way.
So I wandered down the corridor throwing open the few doors I came to. Each opened up into a small one-room apartment that looked like they belonged in some crappy hotel. They had threadbare beds, worn and splintered dressers, and not much else. Maybe a cracked mirror here or there. What was this, where the cultists shacked up? The Deep Ones needed rooms for those cultists they brought down here, and if the apartments I’d seen earlier didn’t do it, then why would these cesspools be worth it?
Maybe just because they were closer to this summoning chamber. Oh well, it was worth a look. I had kind of expected to find something … Wait. On the dresser in one of these crappy little rooms sat a photo, just beside a bin with a wallet and keys. I almost hadn’t recognized the picture at first, but that was me and Elise, back in high school.
Despite myself, I entered the room and picked up the photograph. It was from one of those nights we stayed up late playing the Cthulhu tabletop RPG. Elise looked so happy. Was she batshit insane back then and I didn’t know it? Or had it happened to her now, working in this place?
I pulled open the dresser drawers. Inside one was a cardboard box. This I opened only to find old stuff from the very same RPG. She still had this crap? Huh. Must’ve meant even more to her than I’d realized.
I grabbed the book and flipped through until I got to the entry for a shoggoth. As I touched the page, images bombarded my mind. Flashbacks of us playing the game together, of me watching her, of her coming up with yet further ways to make our characters go insane.
We had so much fun … Maybe I … Maybe I had overreacted. I mean, sure, the thing about having a baby was a little insane and certainly not at the right time! But still.
Maybe I could give her another chance. She’d always been weird, and I’d always liked that about her.
The entry about the shoggoth indicated it might be vulnerable to fire or electricity or other extremes. It was clearly not affected by bullets or knives or any other such mundane attacks. So it probably wouldn’t matter if I did still have a gun, and the creature certainly wouldn’t care about the crowbar.
Speaking of the shoggoth, I had better hurry this thing up. Otherwise I was likely to find it right behind me. After putting the book back in the box, I shut the dresser drawer.
I stood up, using the top of the dresser for leverage. My fingers brushed against the car keys she’d left there. The moment I touched them, a cascade of images filled my head.
An empty and desolate road, not too far from a bar.
A Toyota.
A screech, as another car T-boned my wife’s vehicle. Her car was driven right off the road, flipped over, and came to rest upside down.
Elise stepped out of the other car and stalked over to the wreckage where my family lay. She crouched down, shone a flashlight inside. The glare fell upon Zoe’s face.
Blood dripped from the top of her scalp onto the car’s ceiling.
Elise turned the light to the backseat, where Grace was still strapped into her car seat. Her tiny form still as well.
I saw the slight smile on Elise’s face. Her nod of satisfaction.
I fell over backwards and choked on my scream.
“What the … What the hell?”
I tore the headset off and flung it aside, barely noticing as it skittered along the floor.
This was impossible. How could the game have shown me that? How could it have known? Hell, now that I thought about it, how could it have shown me anything from my past with Elise? It didn’t make any sense. There was no way that a game should’ve been able to … Should’ve been able to show me scenes from my real life …
But everything else had been real. Was it possible … Could Elise have … Have killed my family?
Even if it was real, what possible motivation could she have? No matter how I turned it over in my mind, none of this made any sense. I mean, what the fuck was going on?
I didn’t know, but I was sure as hell done with this game. I should have trusted my instinct and walked away the moment Elise got crazy. Maybe even walked before that. Cthulhu World had taken things too far almost from the moment I accessed the game. Like an addict, I turned to this game in order to hide from my problems. Yeah, that’s right, just one more hit. Just a little bit longer, and I could avoid the wreckage of my life.
Well, no more of that. Screw the game—I was going after Elise. She better have a damn good answer for what I had just seen.
Between my rage and confusion, I was half stumbling as I left the tiny apartment. Honestly, I was mumbling to myself, playing out all my accusations against Elise. All the things I would say, even if I couldn’t quite imagine her responses.
A few steps into the hall, though, I faltered. The shoggoth had climbed the path, its massive, amorphous bulk now blocking my exit from this hallway. And it was lurching closer.
Reflexively, I jerked my hand forward to send a telekinetic blast at it.
Nothing happened.
I stared at my hand, dumbfounded for a second. Then it hit me. I wasn’t wearing the headset.
I gaped at the shoggoth as it drew closer, oozing down the hall with slow inevitability. That was … That was impossible. I wasn’t wearing the damn headset. So how could … How was this even …?
I brought my hands up before my chest and tried jerking them apart, trying to warp space. Again, nothing happened.
I had no powers without the headset.
But absolutely everything, every sense I had was telling me that the shoggoth was closing in on me. I could see it. I could hear the hideous slurching it made. I could smell its noxious stench, a muddle of sulfur and ammonium.
The abomination before me defied rational explanation, but how could I deny it was here?
Babbling in incoherent horror, I dashed back into the room, tripped over my own feet, and landed rolling upon the floor. Desperate, I scrambled over to where I’d tossed the headset, praying I hadn’t damaged it when I threw it aside. With trembling hands I pulled it back on, reactivating the AR display.
Even as I rolled over and turned around, the shoggoth had moved into the doorway completely closing me into the room. Its mass squeezed through like Jell-O being forced through a funnel.
Oh, God.
I thrust my hand forward, striking with the telekinetic wave.
1 Damage
Oh shit. I tried again, this time aiming my hand directly at one of its bulging eyes.
1 Damage
It was like its cells re-formed around the blow. No location was vulnerable because every cell could perform any function, could become any needed organ or limb.
Still on my ass, I scrambled back as far away from the creature as the chamber would allow. Which wasn’t far. With every passing second the monster oozed closer to me.
It was going to be on me in the space of a few heartbeats.
I pulled my hands in front of my chest and jerked them apart, focused on nothing, just wanting to be anywhere but here.
Reality warped around me, and I fell at a stomach-churning angle.
I slammed face first into the floor.
-2 HP
After a moment of disorientation, I managed to push myself up. I lay on the floor at the base of the long path. Right in the middle of the shoggoth’s chamber.
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Heart racing, I scrambled to my feet. There were large grates in the floor from which steam vented up. A series of glowing orange tubes pumped some unknown energy source. If I had to guess, I’d imagine some kind of geothermal power. It would make sense the Deep Ones would use that to generate electricity for their city.
There were drainage gutters along the rim of the room, but no other exit I could see, save the path going back up. The shoggoth may have managed to squeeze through the gutters, but I never would.
Panic rising, I looked up along the path. The shoggoth was already lurching its way down toward me, blocking any attempt to flee from this place.
No escape from the final battle.
Maybe no escape from the city at all.
Dammit! I thrust my hand out again, launching another telekinetic blast, even knowing it would be in vain.
1 Damage
“Gah!” There had to be some way to fight this thing!
I dashed about the chamber, desperately searching for anything I could use as a weapon. I still had my crowbar … Ha ha. Yeah, great idea, Bobby. Go up and smack it in one of its many faces.
No. The weapon was useless and I had nothing else.
I glanced up. The shoggoth was nearly down on my level.
Out of options, I tapped my chest to activate the camouflage. Back on the rooftop above the waters, it hadn’t been able to see me while I was concealed. So could I sneak past it? Just run, escape?
That seemed doubtful. If the designers intended this as the final boss fight, there would be no way out. It would just keep hunting me. I needed a way to slow it down, contain it, or destroy it. At the moment, though, I didn’t have any of those things.
Instead, I ducked down behind some of the raised tubing. It was large enough that it almost concealed me entirely, on the off chance the shoggoth might recognize the giveaway shimmer of my camouflage.
Even as I hid, it had the ground level. The creature now began a slow circuit of this chamber.
It was a big room and the thing didn’t move quickly. On the other hand, sooner or later it would eventually get wind of me. Then what would I do?
Lacking any kind of plan, I waited, barely daring to breathe.
The shoggoth continued its circuit of the room, not even bothering to go around the tubing, simply oozing right over it and re-forming on the other side. A flash of sudden insight struck me and I reached out, telekinetically lifting the tube.
My camouflage vanished the instant I started using another power, but I just kept on heaving. Several tentacled eye stalks swiveled toward me in an instant. And then the tube ruptured, electricity crackling and surging through the shoggoth. It lit up like it had been struck by lightning, its strange flesh forming and un-forming into tentacles and claws and mouths and all manner of unidentifiable horrors.
I dared to stand up and tried to back away. The shoggoth recovered too quickly, though. With a tendril it lashed out and struck me in the chest, sending me careening along the floor.
- 10 HP
I gasped in pain, clutching my chest where it felt like my ribs had all cracked. I didn’t even have time to right myself before that same tendril was wrapped around me. It felt like being covered in solid oil. Slick and sickening. It began to drag me along the floor toward a massive maw that suddenly opened up in its form. From nowhere mighty teeth grew inside its mouth.
Screaming, I reached out to the tubing and lifted it straight into the shoggoth’s open mouth. Fresh jolts of electricity surged through the thing, and the tendril that held me broke off and turned to a pile of goo on the floor.
Almost immediately, that severed piece of the shoggoth begun lurching back towards its owner, getting reabsorbed the instant the two came into contact.
I took my chance to reactivate camouflage, then scrambled away as fast as I could manage. In the moment the shoggoth took to recover, I had ducked down behind more tubing.
Now, the shoggoth lurched forward in the direction I had last stood at, seeming to grow with rage as it moved. Indeed, I could’ve sworn its size increased by a good 50%.
The electricity had hurt it, but it was far from destroyed. I needed to hit it again, but I seriously doubted it would make the mistake of crawling over tubes once more.
+1 Stealth
I crept toward one wall of the chamber, careful not to make noise, while my gaze remained locked on the shoggoth. I would have to lure it to the tubes, wouldn’t I? No. That wasn’t going to work. If I let it see me it would hit me with a tendril. It wasn’t like a bull I could lure into a charge.
I needed another way to get it onto the tubes.
So …
Oh. I stood, focusing my mind on the ground beneath the shoggoth, and also on the next set of tubing. I probably only had one shot at this. Once my camouflage dropped, it would see me and no doubt smack me once more. I probably couldn’t take another hit like that. So I had to make this count.
I pressed my hands together in front of my chest. Then slowly, careful to maintain focus, I pulled them apart, warping space to create a rift directly beneath the shoggoth. The creature’s amorphous cells seemed to bulge and flow around the hole I created, like the beast would manage to slither out of it.
I could let the rift slam shut and slice it in half. But severing the tendril hadn’t hurt it much; the two halves had just rejoined. I couldn’t take the chance of that happening again. So I held the rift open.
And then it fell through, plopping down onto the tubes’ side. Immediately, I dropped the spatial warp and reached out to the tubes, telekinetically ripping them apart. A surge of electricity rushed through the shoggoth. It spasmed, once more its tendrils taking on myriad forms.
As if fighting through the pain, it lurched toward me again. And then it fell still, turning into a pile of black ooze. And then, without further warning, it began to evaporate into green particles.
I dropped to my knees and breathed out ragged breaths, my heart beating so fast I thought it would explode.
Moments after the shoggoth vanished, a hidden door in the back wall slid open. I looked up from where I knelt, worn and ragged, almost broken.
Was there any reason to go on?
No. No, but then again, there was no reason to stop, either. Nothing remained but forward. If even that.
Dazed and only half-coherent, I rose and made my way toward the new opening. This door led me into a new corridor, one lit by glowing rocks set on the wall like lamps. I followed this passage for maybe a hundred feet before it dead-ended at another great stone door engraved with the likeness of Cthulhu.
This one bore no gems, nor any other clear method of opening it. Instead, the Great Old One stared relentlessly into me, almost as if it could see into my wretched soul.
“What do you want from me now?”
Of course, no answer was forthcoming. My voice echoed off the corridor—the only sound in this desolate place.
And then the silence was broken by the grating of another door opening behind me.
Almost apathetic, I turned to see what the game had in store for me here at the end. In finding the answer, all I could manage was a sneer.
Elise strode toward me, grinning, with the grace and confidence of a cat. “You really pulled it off! Damn, Bobby, I knew you could do it. I suppose congratulations are in order.”
Congratulations?
The lethargy that seized me vanished in a blinding fire of rage. I tore the headset off and tossed it aside, then stalked closer to this woman I’d once believed I knew. “I saw it! I saw it, Elise—I know what you did. What I can’t understand … is why?”
The infuriating grin slipped from her face. “Why …?”
Oh, no. Did she think I would tolerate her playing dumb? Not now, not after all of this. “The car, Elise. My family! My wife! My daughter! Why would you do that?” I spread my hands, inviting some answer, even knowing that no answer could ever suffice.
Elise faltered, even fell back a step. “Oh, Bobby, you
know … I had to. We had to be together. I mean, you know, I had to get you to the park.”
Maybe she expected an answer. My brain couldn’t even form a sentence. I was stupefied by the absolute insanity infecting this woman. This creature … More abhorrent than any monster Lovecraft had ever dreamed up.
“I know everything seems confusing now,” she said. “But don’t worry. It’ll all be clear soon. You can help us herald in a new age by awakening the Great Old Ones. Because of you, the glorious uprising is beginning.”
I stammered, befuddled to find she was even more insane than I had thought a moment ago. “Cthulhu? The Great Old Ones?” I stepped over until I stood mere inches away from her face. “They’re not real! They’re just horror stories made up a hundred years ago!” I wrapped my hands around her throat and shoved her up against the wall. “It’s all nonsense. You … are fucking insane!”
I squeezed, actually lifting her up off the ground and pressing her harder into the wall. Her eyes bulged and something between a wheeze and a whimper escaped her lips. Her face turned flush, then almost purple.
In it, all I could see was a wrecked Toyota, lying upside down. My bleeding wife. My breathless daughter.
And a slow descent into madness.
She had finally brought me down with her.
And so I squeezed, until her body fell still and limp in my hands. Then I dropped her and backed away, panting with exhaustion as the edge of rage slipped off me.
Dizzy, I stared at the corpse of the woman I had just murdered. Then, almost without warning, it began to evaporate. Elise’s body turned into green particles and floated away in the air.
+3 Lore
Aghast, I staggered backward, bumped into the wall, and turned to look at the headset where it rested on the ground. What the hell …?
The engraved Cthulhu door began to draw open. Dumbfounded, I stared at it until the dark passage beyond lay bare, beckoning me to walk into its shadows.
