The Crimbulmination (1)
You notice that something seems... wrong. The air around you takes on a greasy feel, and the hairs on your arms stand on end. There's a smell like electricity crossed with wet dog, and you can taste the fillings in your teeth (unless you don't have any, in which case whoop-de-do for you I guess, Mr.-or-Ms. Perfect Teeth).
From somewhere in the distance, you can... not hear, not exactly, but you can sense a drumbeat: BOM BOM BOM BOM. A moment later, you become aware of a high-pitched "eeeeeeeeee" sound. Tammy and the elves have started their nature ritual.
It occurs to you that maybe you should not have let things go this far, even if it was correct to do so, narratively speaking. You start to run toward the elf camp. As you get near, you can hear the elves chanting in their piping little voices, shriller than usual. The air feels thicker, and there's a gray haze to it. Unless maybe that's just your vision going. You can hear a tambourine rattling. The voices get louder. BOM BOM BOM eeeeeeeeee BOM BOM BOM. You're nearly at the camp. You hear what might be sound of a drugged stag waking up and wondering what the hell is going on. The rattling of the tambourine reaches a crescendo, then stops abruptly. So does the bellowing of the stag.
The voices keep going though. You can't understand a word they're saying. You're struggling to run, but you can barely shuffle your feet. The voices pause, as every elf takes a deep breath.
Then they all shout: Gaia'ajh-dsli Ak'lwej!
You think maybe you blacked out, for an instant. You stumble, catch yourself from falling. It feels like your blood is turning into tar. It feels like every bone in your body is trying to throw up.
Gaia'ajh-dsli Ak'lwej!
You black out again, and wake up when you hit the ground. You struggle to get back on your feet, but only make it as far as your knees.
Gaia'ajh-dsli Ak'lwej!
This time you wish you had blacked out, because now you hear a new sound: a deep, dark, rumbling sound, a bass note so low you hear it more with your bowels than your ears. It gets louder very quickly, and becomes a noise not exactly like the ground tearing itself apart. You can't quite see the elf camp from where you're standing, because of trees in the way. What you can see is the... creature... that pulls itself out of the earth where the camp is -- or was.
Lovecraft would have described it as "undescribable", but I'll give it a shot. A hundred feet tall. An uncountable number of legs -- legs like trees with muscles. A body of stone and chitin and pink worm flesh dripping and glistening. Teeth like million-year-old stalactites and stalagmites from a cave no human has ever seen. Jagged obsidian claws. Every kind of eyeball.
You start to draw your weapon, and discover you're already holding it. You put it away. What good would it do? You can barely stand; your vision is going blurry -- your brain refusing to see any more.
And then you hear a voice:
"Fascist!"
| What? |
Occurs ???
