Masks of Nyarlathotep

(Sessio 14)

It is the 16th of June, 1925. I’m writing this in a hotel in Nairobi, our friends have just arrived from the mountain. I shouldn’t say that things did not go as planned, since I have no idea, what to expect anymore. On our journey, we are being closely followed by death and misfortune, and they are companions we seem not to be able to shake off. Our expedition was to travel to the black mountain, but some of us stayed behind – namely me, William Moore, who is still hospitalized due to his bad burns, and Oberon Troxler, who is often with him at the hospital.

Dr. Jones, Mr. Stahl and Dr. Descours perform aerial reconnaissance of the black mountain and its surrounding area, and find a way there that is easy to travel with our lorries. It will take four days to travel to Ndovu village by foot, two days by our cars and lorries. The expedition starts their journey on wednesday 3rd, and they are able to travel 20 miles on the first day. The travel to Ndovu takes two days, and after arriving a bit after noon, the expedition can talk to the people of N’dovu village. The village shaman has been cursed by the M’veeru. He is blind, has lost his hair and talks like a child. 12 other people have been taken from the village, but the villagers don’t even try to search for them. They are dead set in their opinion of the cult taking them. They also talk of two corpses of elephants, mauled to pieces, north of the village. They are afraid of them, since there are no animals big enough to attack elephants, to mutilate them like that.

The expedition camps and sleeps a night before continuing northward. They find the corpses of the elephants later, and can only wonder what kind of a beast would be able to commit to such savagery. There are no people around anywhere, and the terrain is starting to transform into rocky hills. Mariga tells them, that they’re approaching the place where Carlyle Expedition met its end. The ground is swampy and smells rotten. The soldiers are distrustful, and keep making signs of crosses. Suddenly one of the soldiers spots movement in the valley below – 5-10 people walking northwards. Later on, they spot small groups of other travelers far away as well.

It takes a few days to reach the mountain. The expedition reaches a hill close to the mountain, and sets up a base camp there, with most of the soldiers and lorries. On the next day, they continue by foot, reach a hilltop and see the black mountain ahead. There’s a valley below, filled with thousands of people – there are hundreds if not thousands of tents, people reveling below between them, some climbing toward the black mountain. There could be more than 5000 people down there! Even as they watch, more are arriving from northeast.

Capt. Eaton, Mr. Romille, Mr. Griswold, Dr. Jones, Dr. Descours and Dr. Paynesworth descend down to the camp by dark. Walker, Stahl and Borel stay behind in the base camp. The people down in the valley pay no mind to the team, concentrating on their own feverish or drug-induced state. Many of them have the sign of the bloody tongue painted or smudged somewhere on them, but not on all. The ethnicities vary – most of the people are black, but there are some european, indian and who knows what colored people down there. After some times, the people start chanting,

“Nyar-shat-an, nyar-gash-anna, nyar-lat-hotep”

Paynesworth remembers reading something similar from Liber d’Ivonis, and tells us, that the language is ancien Iren, and the people are chanting the name of their god. On a path leading up to the hill, there’s a cave entrance, lit by torches. People are facing the entrance and the person on it, chanting. That person is M’veera, who speaks in swahili, telling her revelers that

“The time of greatness has arrived, the lord has sent us his chosen seed. Tonight comes the dread night, and its terror to confirm us!”

The people start chanting louder and become violent, attacking the smallest of the masses. All the same time, some people are traveling upwards to the mountaintop, and our expedition starts to walk up to the cave entrance with them. Dr. Paynesworth recognises the creatures circling in the air around the mountain – they’re not birds or buzzards, but the same flying monsters we encountered in the Misr Mansion, in England. Lightning strikes, twice, and the chanting rises in volume again. The smoke from the lightning lingers and starts taking a shape of a humanoid form, 200 to 300 meters high. It has a large, long tongue in the place of its head, and it starts to pick up people with its enormous hands, rising them up to its mouth, and dropping them down.

Expedition reaches the cavern. M’veera has entered it a while ago, but is nowhere to be seen inside. The walls are unnatural creamy red, and there are fires inside, making the cavern glow. Inside the cavern there’s a throne, and bodies litter the floor, especially in front of the throne. There’s a 20 meter statue of the creature outside. Next to the statue is a pillar, with a wooden box set atop it. Griswold opens  the box, finds a chronometer found in ships inside, and promptly smashes it to bits. The human masses inside the cavern are headed towards a small opening behind the throne, and we decide to join them. The opening leads to a tunnel, rising upwards, with steps hacked into the floor. The air is thick, hot and steamy, and it’s hard to breathe. We emerge from the tunnel up, to a bowl-like opening at the middle of the black mountain, which is already full of people. There’s another throne here, a seat for the mother of god. The mass on the throne could be Hypatia Masters, judging by her face, but the body of the creature is bloated and swollen. Inside her we see something move, and see a pair of glowing yellow eyes through her skin. Next to Masters stands M’veera.

We see two men walking into the bowl, both carrying a half of a man’s body – late Captain Eaton. Then things become a blur – Griswold fires at Hypatia Masters, as does Paynesworth, but missing. Jones runs to M’veeru and hacks at her with his machete. Descours pulls out his pistol and fires at the mother of god. The thing inside her is wounded, and erupts from her mothers body. Next, we see the horrible form of the god father, leaning into the bowl, licking his spawn clean of wounds. At this moment, Paynesworth and Jones finish M’veeru. The father notices this, and starts screaming in a ear-piercing tone. Our group scatters – Paynesworth and Griswold run back into the tunnel, while Descours grabs Jones and starts dragging him down the stairs outside.

Our futile escape seems to succeed – we run to our base camp with all our remaining strength, dimly aware of the masses behind us. The god father has picked up its spawn, gently lifted it to the peak of the mountain, and now changes form, and starts to flow down the mountain as a black wind. In our camp, Jones exclaims having killed M’veeru, and brought back her head as a proof, but the head he is carrying is white by its skin color, and resembles the face of Hypatia Masters. All of us are shaken up, and we quickly gather up our gear, and move into the cars. The masses behind us have realised, what has happened, and have started pursuit. The first of them reach our camp, and our soldiers open fire towards them, while we start the engines and try to flee the scene.

We lose one of the lorries and the people inside, when a makeshift bridge falls apart while crossing a mountain creek. When we reach the forest in the valley, one of the trees wake up, and push one of the cars off the path, and the soldiers inside are lost within the dark forest. Mentally absent Griswold reminds Stahl, that maybe the chameleon could help – Stahl yells this to the car behind, and Walker releases the small chameleon from its cage. It suddenly grows to a height of a skyscraper, and starts grabbing and eating the monsters inside the forest, as well as the flying ones from the air. We drive on.

After some hours, the gasoline tanks of the cars are empty, and we have to abandon them. The journey to N’dovu and Nairobi has to be made on foot. on the 13th, we reach the village, whose inhabitants are kind enough to feed us, give us a place to sleep and help us.

It’s the 16th of June, when we arrive back in Nairobi. The whole platoon of 20 men is gone, its men dead, except for the cook, Revelli, and the driver, Stahl. Most of us are hurt, and in a confused state. Igor is disappeared somewhere along the trip, Dr. Jones only stares ahead. Griswold retreated to his room.

Now he is standing in the dark corridor, knocking on Paynesworth’s door. When Abraham opens  his door, Griswold tells him that we will always be in that cavern, but never really there. That is why he doesn’t need his eyes anymore – he has ripped off his eyes, and presents them in his hands to Paynesworth.