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The tale of which I now must tell is still beyond my own understanding. The visions and nightmarish creatures which I have encountered on this job will haunt me for the rest of my days. If I did not witness these horrors with my own eyes I would think myself insane and have myself institutionalized. Well if I am to start anywhere it would be best to start at the beginning.

It was the week before the winter solstice; I was called to investigate a few mysterious disappearances and deaths. The people from the city of Arkham seemed to not want to divulge any useful information and the victims had naught in common with each other except that all the bodies were found in the woods near the uptown area. As I searched the area I came across a horrible sight as I found a strange sigil traced in a circle of stone. I drew my sidearm and slowly approached the circle almost as if being drawn to look at the markings in the sand. Standing next to it I felt like a great doom was to befall humanity and I was drawn to look with awe at the diagram in the circle. I felt myself snap back to reality as I heard rustling from behind me. I quickly turned and raised my weapon to see a woman with a dagger and hands covered with what at first glance looked to be dried blood.

I called out to her, "Drop your weapon and put your hands on your head."

She just started to laugh and she took a firmer grasp on the dagger and started to look intensely at my chest. I warned her again to drop the dagger but with no avail. She then raised her dagger and charged at me screaming with a maddening fever of bloodlust. I fired at her hitting her leg but still she charged so I put the next bullet in her head. She fell limp to the ground and let go of her weapon. I had to regain my composure after she had fallen for she had not but the tendons holding her leg together after the first shot hit but it did not slow her assault. As I put on some gloves I notice that the same symbol which was in the stone circle was branded on her chest. I put in a call to St. Mary's Hospital to come pick up the body and then looked at the dagger she had. The hilt had what looked like a squid-like head with the tentacles forming the grip. As I looked at the dagger and I felt drawn to the circle. I walked to the circle almost in a trance like state.

What I saw next defies my understanding of reality. I was no longer in the woods but standing in the streets of a great city. The figures of great beings that looked odd and I could not understand the reason why these large figures would have been sculpted. I then noticed a figure whose head looked similar to the image on the dagger. As I walked up to the statue there was an inscription under the image. As I wrote down the inscription I could feel something grasping at my legs. As I looked down some greenish plant-like tentacles reached for me I slashed at them with the knife as I removed myself from the reach of the plant-like tentacles and keep moving. As I looked around I noticed a small door at the end of an alley. I gently push on the door and it slides open. I shine my light around the vacant room. On a table at the end of the room I notice a small stone which almost beckoned me to take it. On the stone was a symbol which looked like a star bent at the points with an odd symbol engraved in the center. As I firmly grasp the stone I suddenly was startled by the lights and sounds of an ambulance and I dropped the stone and the stone circle was gone along with the symbol which was inside of it. The stone I had dropped was at my feet but when I went to pick up the stone; there seemed to be a force, which was binding the stone to the Earth. The rescue workers approached the body of the woman I had shot and asked what had happened. I told them that she came at me with the knife I was still grasping in my hand after I warned her twice to disarm herself. I dared not tell them of what seemed almost like a dream for fear they would have me tossed into the asylum for losing my mind. I went to the hospital with the paramedics to oversee the items on the woman.

She had just rags on for clothing but she had an old tome and the sheath for the dagger. I took the tome and the knife and sheath for evidence. I headed back to the police department and began to look threw the tome. The tome was scrolled in a language which was unfamiliar to me. As I flipped threw the pages of weird texts and diagrams I came to a page of particular interest which was marked by a membership card. The card had a picture of a lodge over in the French Hills area. The page which was marked had a diagram similar to the one I found in the woods and the same inscription which I saw in that great city which read, "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn". I was intrigued by this and figured that I could get more of my questions answered by the people at the lodge.

"The Silver Twilight Lodge" was burned into a large piece of wood which swung with a horrid sound of grinding metal which could be heard a good distance away. I approached the front door and though the lights inside seemed inviting the building itself offers a cold, unwelcoming air. I walked through the door and found myself standing in what looked like a hotel lobby from the 1920's. I stood there for a minute and just awed at the magnificent design of the large ornate architecture. I slowly walked to the large desk with beautiful designs but when concentrated on seems to fill your soul with a feeling of unavoidable doom. The top was made of shined marble and I placed on hand on the cold marble which seemed to pull at my life force and the other I used to ring an old bell. As the bell rang it resounded throughout the lobby and I could feel my spine shutter. I stood there for what seemed like an eternity. Then a figure came from a back room and moved down the desk to stand in front of me.

The man dressed in a bellhop uniform asked me, "How may I help you?"

I pulled out the card with the lodge's picture and asked, "I found this on a woman that attacked me in the woods yesterday and I have a few questions I would like to ask the manager here."

The man looked at the card and nodded in acknowledgment and walked back into the backroom. I stood there continuing to look at the architecture with awe when a fairly large heavy-set man dressed in a suit and tie walked up to me.

"Where did you get this?" He asked me sternly.

"I am investigating some mysterious deaths that had taken place in the woods over in uptown. As I was taking a look around a woman attacked me and I had to neutralize her. She had this card on her person which now links this place to the deaths."

With some hesitation he shifts threw some papers in front him then looked up at me and said, "I am Carl Sanford and may I welcome you to The Sliver Twilight Lodge. However before I tell you more I will need your dues for this month."

"How much are dues?" I asked hoping that I might be able to gain a wealth of information for some money.

"Fifty dollars my friend and the knowledge of the order will be at your disposal." He smiled evilly.

I pulled out my wallet and laid down the cash. He picked up the cash and placed it in his pocket. He then motioned me to a stair that was behind the large main stair. As we walked down he explained that I would have to go threw an initiation of members. I tried to get a greater understanding of what I was about to face but he would say no more. Once at the bottom of the stairs Carl opened a large door and we walked into a sanctum which looked like a crazy world with tomes and weapons and idles in which some looked like the huge statues from my journey through the great city. I was escorted to a side room where a few others were standing as if waiting for me. I was told that I must sit in a circle with a symbol traced on the floor. I was told to close my eyes and clear my mind and let the experiences flow threw me. I could hear the figures chanting in an unknown to me language around me but slowly the chanting faded away to nothing.

After silence fell over me; I called out but no one answered my calls. I opened my eyes to find myself in front of a brazen temple. The large doors cracked open spewing forth a stench of the sea and a vast blackened corpulence. The horrible sight and stench tore at the very fabric of my mental fortitude. I had to force the doors close to stop the horror from emerging I physically pushed on the door but with no avail. I then envisioned the doors closing and trapping the horror back inside which seemed to tear at my mind but I finally was able to seal the beast back inside. As I let my mind rest after the ordeal but my eyes beheld the visage of the creature I saw in the great city. However this place was had not just one statue but many. It looked like this might be the place in which the horrible monster with a squid-like head, squatting down with its knees at its chest and the long tentacles laying over the knees. The idea of standing in the place where this great horrible evil existed made my soul sink and I could feel my sanity slowly slipping away. But just before I totally lost my mind I could scarcely hear the chanting from the lodge. I sat down and closed my eyes and imagined myself back in the sanctum with Carl and the chanters. After a while their voices grew louder and clearer yet I still could not understand them. I was relieved to hear Carl's voice call out to me to open my eyes.

I opened my eyes and was relieved to see the robed figures and Carl. I could feel my head pounding and my legs felt like jello. I could hardly stand but I was congratulated by Carl and the robed figures as they welcomed me into their ranks. I asked Carl if I might have a room to rest in as to give me time to organize my thoughts and memory. As I sat in my room I began to recall my outer world experiences I recalled that in both cases I noticed that the squid-like creature appeared in both places. I now start to feel that whatever that creature is; is trying to escape from the world on the other side and come to this side and wreak havoc and destruction on Earth. As I came to this realization I knew that I had to make sure that this horror never saw the light of day.

I tried to sleep but to no avail. I tossed and turned as I continually heard the chanting of crazed mad men calling out to the water. They called out a name over and over, "Cthulhu! Cthulhu!" As people called out I could see great and towering buildings rising from the sea.

One of the leaders of the mad men called out, "R'lyeh has risen from the sea. Oh great Cthulhu come forth and take your rule over these humans putrid souls. May you rule here forever more."

As he finished his call; a loud crashing came from the middle of the city on the water. A great figure, similar to the statues I had seen in my outer world journeys; rose up from the middle of the city. I could not fathom the enormous build of the monster, whose body alone was as large as four or five large mansions. I watched in awe as those who had called out to this monster willingly offered themselves to feed its hunger. The monster devoured them without hesitation or regret and I watched as the monster stepped on to the land and wreaked havoc and chaos everywhere it tread. As I felt my mind rending itself in to pieces I was awaked suddenly by a loud echoing crash.

I, still half in a daze; picked myself up from the floor and noticed that the lamp which was next to my bed was pushed over and laid now on the floor. I shuddered as I tried to recall my own hellish nightmare and went to sit at the desk in the room. I quickly wrote down the name of the monster as best I could and the name of the city under water. As I pondered over these two words I felt like I had seen them before. I quickly returned to the police station and paged threw the musty old tome to the page where found the lodge membership card. In the incantation under a diagram both words appear in that incantation. As I looked at the words, for lack of a better term; I could not decipher a meaning. I thought it silly to just sit there and stare at the page as if threw enough force of will I would gain an understanding of the text. I must have looked at the page for a good half hour. I began to get a headache but I could start to feel that the words had given me the translation.

"At such a time when creatures not of this world walk upon the earth you shall know my time of ascension from deep R'lyeh is near. On the night of the solstice, my city shall rise from the sea. Call me by name and I shall come. My dominion, once great and terrible; sunk to the bottom of the sea by the elder gods, now will rise once more to rule over all the creatures of this world."

As I finished reading from the book I pulled my eyes away in fear of what I saw in my nightmare and what the book was telling me. I closed the book and reflected on the passage I had read. The phrase I read which rung in my mind was, "on the night of the solstice." I quickly grabbed a calendar and noticed that in four days was the winter solstice. As I sat at my desk I had this feeling as though I had been sent here to stop this tragedy from coming true. My ponderings over these matters was broken when a call came in about another death this time near the docks.

As I pulled up to the scene, a crowd had gathered curios no doubt about the activity. It did not help that the college was just a few blocks away. As I approached the body I was shocked and nauseated. The victim had a whole cut into her chest and her face wore an expression of pure terror. Upon closer examination I noticed that her heart was missing. I checked the body over and noticed that she had strange markings on her body as if they where made by suction cups. As I studied the strange marks I suddenly saw a flash of a strange fish like monster with tentacles around its mouth that grabbed her and embraced her as it drilled its maw into her chest and then left her to die. I ordered that the body be bagged and taken to the hospital for autopsy. The crime scene photographer who had been there for a while came up to me and urgently wanted to show me something. As he pointed to the ground his hand shaking with fear I looked at the place where the woman was attacked. Her footprints looked as though she was running from the second set of prints, which were unidentifiable but as closely as I can guess as a human sized frog. I thought that I would have gone mad at this revelation if not the sights I had experienced before. I told the other officers to keep the area clear and not to let anyone in.

I then I looked over the area for any clues to help me figure out this extremely blurred puzzle. I followed some of the prints and noticed that the frog-like prints came from the nearby docks. As I neared the docks I felt a feeling of dread wash over my whole body as if someone just threw a large bucket of water on me. The air was humid and I felt like I was swimming threw the air because it was that heavy. I looked out and saw the area from which I had visited in my dreams. I could feel the presents of a great evil near this area which beckoned me to the waters edge. I had to summon every ounce of my will to not heed the call of the sea. As I observed the area where the mad men danced and chanted in my dream I found a small wooden box that contained a photo of the dead woman. Though the box was wet and damp on the outside as I reached in to pull out the picture the box burst into flames as I quickly let the flaming box fall to the ground. The ashes were caught by a bone chilling wind and scattered upon the ground. I knew that what ever killed that girl was birthed in this area and that it was by men that these creatures where being loosed upon the earth to cause this destruction.

I now knew that the way to stop this terror from rising from the sea was to stop the men who were trying to bring forth this doom. The only problem is that no evidence was remaining to put people at fault and to help remove the possibility of the terror from the deep coming to the surface to wreak the maddening chaos which I saw in my dream.

I went back to the police station to begin to figure out a way to stop this horror from rising. I flipped through the book I found on the woman who attacked me in the woods. No matter how much I studied and stared at the book; the secrets bound within the book did not yield any information. I, having no other leads to follow walked over to The Silver Twilight Lodge. As I walked the path, which leads to the lodge, I was called out too by a voice beyond the tree line. A man dressed in all black emerged from the forest and spoke in a low but determined voice.

"I sense that you are looking for answers to questions. Questions, that no ordinary person; would find a sane man asking. But sanity, is in itself is a blindfold that the ignorant wear for they have not the mental fortitude to understand that which cannot be understood. I see in your eyes that you know the beauty and horrors which no man has seen for many years. So I ask you what is the answer you seek?"

I looked at him quizzically as I absorbed the information he had given then answered, "I seek a way to stop a great horror from the sea which will usher the doom of humanity."

He stood there for a moment and lifted and resettled his coat and said, "So you wish to make sure that the great old one Cthulhu stays in his sleeping shrine at the center of the sunken city of R'lyeh. That is no easy task sense he is so near to awaking. But there is a way to banish him forever but it will tear at your mind and rend your flesh. The power of the destroyer of all is what you need to seek. However time is not on your side, the time of the awakening is near and you must gain this power and learn to harness it before time runs out."

As he finished speaking he vanished as quickly as he appeared. I took to the words that the man in black said and went to see Carl at the lodge. I inquired about whom the destroyer of all was and was surprised at his quick retrieval of a tome. He blew the dust and cobwebs from the book and laid it in front of me and opened to a page in the beginning. The top of the page had a bold title reading "Azathoth, Bringer of Absolute Destruction." As I skimmed the text I believed that I found the power the man in black referred to in his tale. It was an incantation to focus the natural destructive powers of this outer god to your will. I knew that I would have a lot of knowledge to acquire before I could take on this massive foe.

So for two days I studied and practiced the incantations. I gathered the materials needed to perform the ritual and on the night of the solstice I went to the docks where I waited for the terrible monster Cthulhu to raise his hideous head so that I may destroy him forever.

I saw the cultists gather in the large clearing which overlooked the sea; I new that the time was drawing near. I watched in silence as the men began to dance around in a circle. From the trees came the man dressed in white robes who covered his face with a mask which resembled the being that they were going to summon from the depths. I waited and watched in horror as a woman I had not seen was being forced into the middle of the circle.

The man in white robes raised a dagger into the air and called out to the sea, "We offer this humans soul to you oh great Cthulhu. Take this offering and return to us once more." He then turned to the woman and plunged the dagger deep into her. The screams of pain and horror combined with the glee that the cultists had as her life faded away. I could not fathom the madness which these men had to delve to find pleasure in killing a helpless woman. They let her fall to the ground and then begin calling to the sea, "Cthulhu! Cthulhu!"

I then saw the sunken city of R'lyeh rise from the sea. I then started to perform my ritual to destroy the old one Cthulhu. I drew a circle with a star with the elder sign inside of it. I pulled out the book and began to chant the monsters pray. I called out to the outer god and as I did dark clouds, which seemed to swallow the stars themselves; started to circle the rising city. The lightning started to strike across the sky without the comforting sound of thunder. My nerves started to get to me but I continued the chant with determination to send this evil back to the abyss.

I finished my chant just as Cthulhu broke free from his place of slumber in the middle of R'lyeh. As the head of the old one reached to the sky a bolt of pure white lightning struck the creatures head. The creature was struck by four more bolts which burned points into the head of the great beast. I then imaged saw myself standing at the point where the lightning struck the creatures head. I pulled out the dagger and cut the sign of the elders into its forehead. I watched as great white lightning strikes forced the monster back into the center of the city of R'lyeh. As the monster faded from view the dark clouds fell onto the city; covering the city and as it the dark void touched the sea it spread throughout the city. As the dark fog-like clouds lifted; the cultists where standing around confused and stripped off their robes and blasphemous accessories and returned to their homes in a trance like state. I felt great relief that it was over.

I now sit at my desk pondering how to report on what transpired that night without being set up with a one way ticket to the asylum. It seems that the entire town save for me has forgotten the terrible horrors which had transpired over this previous week. All of the evidence which would aid in making people believe in my tale had vanished. The only things which remain from the week's events were the tome from which I learned of the rise of R'lyeh and the dagger which held the image of Cthulhu.

Though I lied to my boss about the events of the last week, I spoke of looking for evidence to a rumor of murders but with no solid leads thus far. He told me that I was to disregard the rumor and wait for solid evidence to come to light.

Even if no one is in this town are able to recall the events which happened; everything that actually happened I have transcribed into this journal. I feel that it is my task and curse is to carry the information, sights and sounds of that night which are now forever burned into my memory. I hope that this power I have used never needs to be brought out again. I have sent the book which holds the incantation into the depths of the earth. I left the location of the book and this journal in the hands of Carl. I only hope that no one ever has to go retrieve the ancient tome.

I now leave this place and this tome for may it serve someone well in the future if the horrors come back for which the power is needed.