Masks of Nyarlathotep

The diary of Robert Huston:

GODS OF REALITY

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

A thick (over six hundred pages) manuscript; it bears the title Gods of Reality on the first page. Dr. Robert Huston is named as the author. The bulk of the work is on standard-sized “letter paper” (8 ½” by 11”) of good quality, in a fluid, if compact, hand; the quality of the paper declines in the final third and appears to have come from several different sources, mostly Foolscap Folio and Large Post Quarto-sized (8 by 13” and 8 by 10” respectively), likely from Australia. The pages are individually numbered and some of the early portions of the book appear to be dated (starting in February of 1920), though this ceases after the first hundred pages. Sometimes small, frequently unexplained, diagrams of unusual looking devices have been drawn into the margins.

CONTENTS AFTER QUICK SKIMMING:

According to the cover, this book contains the philosophical wisdom of Dr. Robert Huston. He claims that he has achieved wisdom greater than has ever been possessed in the history of man through the aid of a mystical being he refers to as the “Universal (or sometimes ‘Cosmic’ or ‘Divine’) Syzygy”. Huston’s claims are hard to substantiate as the work is disorganized, convoluted, and cryptic.

This might be caused by the fact that, as Huston suggests, readers who have not transcended primitive modes of thought cannot begin to understand the truth he claims to reveal; it might also be due to the fact that the author is a raving, bombastic, megalomaniacal lunatic. In some of his digressions, Huston discusses something called “the Master Plan” and his activities in “the Great and Ancient City” towards those somewhat murky ends.

QUOTES:

Madness is the mark of gods, the response to the whisper of ancient secrets, and the unseen hand that turns the world in its disordered course. With it, I have peered beyond mere dream and pattern, beyond childhood impetuosity and adult grief, beyond the analysis of which other men are capable. Accepting madness, I accept the gods and rule well with their gifts thereby.

Human Perception, Dreams:

The repose of the masses shall soon be disturbed. Their dream-filled wakeful sleep will end. I shall open their eyes to the truth and the power and rule by my great wisdom. Their cave is dark and they see nothing. They believe themselves safe, hidden from the light of a new dawn. But the truth reaches them still. They bury themselves deeper and still the water seeps down to them, carrying whispers of truth.

In sleep the woman came to me speaking tongues I do not know. Yet I easily understood her as she led me deeper into dream. I crawled with her under a vast flat rock to escape the heat of the sun. There she opened a door emblazoned with gold-painted etchings and phosphorescent symbols in a myriad of colors. It was then that I knew her. As she opened the door any fear or trepidation vanished, for now I was to know the truth, for my Master wished it to be so. Peering beyond the door, my mind reeled as a bird through the sky. All the laws of physics had no use for me here. Direction was meaningless, as was form. And yet I descended to a series of platforms. Not because of any external force. No. It was because I willed it.

I awoke in a sweat with a servant standing over me. He held up a cloth damp with blood and it was then that I felt its warm wetness dripping from my ears.

It is by the sheer power of our collective consciousness that we form the world to our understanding. The men of science do not work to understand, they work to force their feeble will on the universe, to make it conform to their petty comprehension. How foolish they are! They do not see that the will of the Cosmic Syzygy is infinitely stronger and beyond His will there are Truths yet stronger, though I dare not yet speak of them.

~‡~

… and yet is it not the case that the dreamer who, in waking, fully believes the world to be ordered and structured, finds his conceptions of reality thrown into challenge? The sleeper, now faced with irrefutable proof that his notions of reality are flawed, lacking, fights and exerts himself until he sees that he can not win. It is then that he screams himself awake. This they call nightmare. This I call vision. This I call wisdom.

Gray Dragon Island & Mountain Of The Black Wind

Sweet bride Hypatia—our Master’s. Her honor is the highest—to birth the Child of God! On her throne at the Mountain of the Black Wind she wails in Truth’s Light. Her pain is the Child’s sustenance and surely he feeds well.

Three points in the Mark. The Great City, the Mountain, and the Island. All shall unite in singing His song at the appointed time. His music, performed in rituals of blood and flesh, will be a fanfare of enlightenment to herald in His reign, My dominion, and the End to all ignorance.

January 14^th, 1926:

The day of the eclipse shall arrive and together we bring out of Darkness a new Light. Penhew insists that we use chronometers to ensure proper timing, but we will know the time. His limitations mark his ignorance—he still insists on calling the fourteenth day of January, nineteen-hundred twenty-six. It is propitious though, this Gate formed in the month of Janus, God of Doorways… Only I see this connection, not that puffed-up lover of ancient stones, that drinker of the polluted Nile. Let him worry over his precious vessel. While the Wielders of the Club send the livestock screaming into madness, the Stone Gods shall release their energy to the Dome. The Gate will open. By MY will, Truth will be born!

Purple Temple, Statues

Long before we unearthed it I had visited the place in dreams and visions sent by The Cosmic One’s messengers. Now I have seen it and its power. I would be a fool to let such a power store go to waste. The statues will be as reservoirs; the dome is beyond mortal comprehension but I know it well.

Mind Device

It is so simple, a crown of copper webbing surrounding the crystal spheroid. Though energized by electricity it seems this is not the source of the machine’s greater power. Too perfect! Science defied by such a simple trick! I see the change behind their eyes when I awaken him. He bled from the ears. I stopped that with gauze but some defect of his brain soon killed him. There are others to test.

Lightning Gun

More force was needed, but he showed me the device and its function. None but I, prepared by the visions in my dreams, believed such a device could exist. I knew it to be a mighty weapon and I was right! The apparatus holds the most powerful force of nature. Thunder and lightning bow to my will and smite my opponents, like Zeus! I ventured to the great chamber to test its efficacy in dealing with humans. They roasted quickly, and with a minimum of struggle, just as I saw in my vision.

After some more work, the arrogant creature showed me the schematic and I shall build one myself. The design is complex, but this is no obstacle. The others have brought all the materials and I shall have the honor of assembling the device. Ha! Even the most “gifted” men of science could never imagine such a thing… glory! …to control such elemental forces!

He tells me the piping ones that he so fears flee from the device. I dispatched a party to seek one out and test it, teaching Sullivan how to draw them forth from the darkness. How they burn! The survivors report that multiple applications are needed but the devices are most efficacious. I examined the remains and knew that once armed and equipped my army will suffer no opposition. I will conquer all , even those feared by the City’s Builders. I must make further tests.

The Yithian

I have made the fourth sacrifice to The Timeless and Universal Syzygy and called upon him in his name of Nyarlathotep. Tonight my dreams shall be of the void and I will feel its pull again. In sleep I see them and reach for them, pulling them ever nearer. He has told me my success is near. I shall pluck one from the dark of past eons and bend it to my will. I shall conquer time just as I will hold dominion over space. The Builder shall return to its City as my slave.