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"Both. They hide from what they do not understand - but they keep the people safe," she admitted begrudgingly. "I cannot bring this there," said Sea Devil unhappily. She explained what she meant by driving her trident into the ground, hard, its tines disappearing into the pavement with a faint crunch and pop of electric energy from her suit. "But they cannot keep me out," she said with great absurdness before leaping up into the air and over the top of the gate. She gave a short, quick bellow as she went, singing the counterpoint to the song of the wards so she could make her way through unscathed. On the other side, she ducked her head to the ground, then croaked triumphantly, "I can smell them! They have been here, with meat! A pig! Oh it is alive..." With Sea Devil on the other side for comparison, it could be clearly seen that the grass inside the compound was distinctly the wrong shade of color, a shade of lime green that was no natural grass's shade. 

 

 

Reaching out his senses, Nick had the sensation of a wooden barrier beset by termites - the wards around this place did indeed still stand but they had been worried at and worried at over the course of some time, until a strong enough blow would send them tearing down. Even now something not far away was worrying away at those barriers, a slow, gradual pinprick of a ritual that for all its weak power was another chink in the complex's armor. He judged it to be near the center of the place, or what had been its center before all this began leaking out. 

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With Sea-Devil having done her and Nick the honor going through the breach first,  Astrid rushed in herself with Porrklubba at the ready, the weapon already crackling with magical energies of its own. The inside of Dunwich was hardly better than its rundown grounds. In facr, to Astrid's eyes it was even worse of a creepy mess that made her skin crawl.

 

Fortunately, Nick was able to distract from the weirdness of the place by dropping some much needed info about where they needed to be. The wards keeping whatever was in this place sealed were breaking down just like everything else and the very center of the school was where all this eldritch nonsense was leaking from. "Cool. We know where going now. Let's get to it and see whether there's some creepo cultists there, ja!"

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Nick could feel the picking at the scab of reality - the sense of somebody viewing where a wound was healing and desperately trying to get at the hot blood beneath.

 

It was never a pleasant feeling.

 

He rushed in behind Ms. Thursday, realizing he was never going to be the necromancer who'd win the 100-yard dash. Once he had a good sense of the magic in the area, and a relative sense of where the cultists might be, he tried to reorient his senses so that he could hear the cries of departing souls. If the pig was being used for a sacrifice, he'd know it.

 

But, there was always the possibility it wasn't being used for a sacrifice. It might be used like the canary in the coal mine.

 

I really, really do not want to fight Hogzilla. Again.

 

He readied himself to draw up wards against whatever eldritch influx might be ready to burst out like a ruptured boil. He really didn't want to grow more eyes by the end of the night.

 

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The heroes interrupted the ritual on the steps of what had once been one of the school's main buildings, now looking damaged by what must have been a fire and then several years of winters. The plant growth here was thicker than it should have been, thick mossy vines with woody stems that reached through the burnt-out windows of the broken building like fingers erupting outwards through a thousand eyes. It was raining here too, of course, the downpour casting a strange light on the assembled cultists. There were about a half a dozen of them with black robes and eldritch symbols; albeit robes that didn't quite fit and symbols that looked straight out of a catalog. But there was power here too, power in the cultist pinning down the struggling pig in the middle of the pentagram carved into the steps. She had a knife in her hand, a serrated blade that looked like an exotic steak knife, but whatever magical energy here was hers. When she spoke, she had to shout over the rain, her accented voice carrying over the chanting of her fellows. 

 

"By the power of...the dark gods, and in the Unspeakable Name! I take this life, to open the door to-" 

 

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Astrid saw the crazy cultists before they saw her. She smiled like a maniac. She would have preferred to fight them face-to-face and duel whatever tentacle monster freak of nature they were trying to summon to Midgard but Astrid figured that the night was still young and that there was still plenty of time for her to have a good throw do with some beasties. 

 

The demigoddess held Porrklubba up high above her head and felt the rush of electricity course through her. When blue sparks of lightning started to leap off her and Porrklubba she knew it was time to start blasting. Astrid knew she had to act fast if Piglet was going to survive this but made sure that she controlled the burst just enough that it would frighten off the cultists and not fry them in their Halloween store looking robes. 

 

She told Aquaria and Nick to back up a little as she pointed Porrklubba above the heads of the cultists and screamed out a word in Ancient Norse. "LEIPTR!!!"

 

In a instant the entire room was awash with a blinding blue light as a bolt of lightning was emitted from Porrklubba and traveled across the room until it flew out a window. 

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Well, there were a lot worse things that could have been sacrificed. Many of which had two legs.

 

Of course, Nick knew that there was a quick and easy way to make sure that sacrifices like this did not occur. Then again, given that the unfortunate pig already seemed to be pinned down, he really didn't want to risk playing tug-of-war while one of the backup cultists moved in to make sure the bloodshed took place. 

 

So, it was time to make them all see how the pig felt.

 

Tapping into the dead here felt strange. He didn't like the angles of the ectoplasm that emerged from the soil, and the grasping talons that snatched at the robes of the cultists seemed a little too sharp for his liking. And he knew from sharp, eldritch talons. Still, the grasp was certainly tight enough... and he was somewhat surprised that the arms, almost of their own accord, reached in and snatched up the pig, taking it far away from the ritual blade.

 

Still, there was something about the chanting that didn't seem right...

 

"You know, it's rare to find cultists that don't even know how to name the thing they're sacrificing to. I know, a lot of these Outsiders sound like if you hocked up a loogie while talking into a fan, but even then, that's no excuse." 

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The cultists screamed with the gratifying surprise of people who'd been trying to summon a god but not necessarily this one! A few fled entirely, running quickly down the broken-down road towards the gates the heroes had passed by, a few backed up quickly, pressing their backs against the broken bricks walls hereabouts. A small number rallied around the cult leader, who cursed as the pig was yanked away from her. "This-this is a violation of our First Amendment rights!" she called, her hood falling back from the rain to reveal brilliantly crimson hair, a shade of red that seemed decidedly off for the colors of human hair. Well that was what dye was for, right? "That animal was going to be slaughtered humanely!" 
 

Sea Devil landed in the middle of the summoning circle, hard enough that she cracked the concrete upon her landing. Her opalescent armor gleamed with its inner energies, and with a sudden sound she drew back the helm of her armor to reveal the face within - a first for the cultists and the heroes alike. "What do you think you are doing!?she bellowed from a mouth large enough that she probably could have popped one of the cultist's heads in it if she was inclined. "You think...this would summon the One Below? This...this sham!?

 

One of the cultists was vomiting at the sight of goggle eyes that gazed into his own, but the cult leader was not. "You! Hydra's champion! What are you doing with them?" 

 

Aquaria took a step back, evidently surprised at the term. "So-so you know me. Whatever _they_ are, you are fools! You play with things for which you are nothing, Surface-woman! They know nothing of you!

 

"But this is _our place_!" the young woman fired back. "How dare you come here and tell us how to live?" 

 

As cult leader and Deep One talked, Nick and Astrid distinctly saw one of the cultists slipping out of their sight and disappearing into the ruined administration building. They'd only caught a glimpse of the ruddy-faced young man, but they'd managed to make out the giant book clutched to his chest. 

 

"

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  • 2 weeks later...

"'Our place'?" Nick took into account a few things - the age of the woman, the unnatural tint to her hair that might not have entirely been dye... "Wait, were you --" 

 

The inquiry was cut off as he saw the young man sprinting into the building, and what he was carrying. Great. Cultists with books. That never ends well. Especially when it means running towards the heart of chaos. He broke off from the other young cultists, tearing towards the building. "Come on!" he yelled to Ms. Thursday. "This is the worst place for a solo ritualist to try and pull something big!"

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just as the last lightning sparks had finally begun to fade away into the ether her Astrid heard Nick warn her about the fleeing cultist. "Figures," she said under her breath as she saw the cultist take off. 

 

Astrid knew that Nick was more than right that having one of these cultists run off so that he could complete whatever stunt he and the rest of his posse of cloaked weirdoes were trying to pull only seconds ago was a bad idea that needed to nipped in the bud right this second. Not only because fighting some giant tentacled monster from another dimension seemed a whole lot grosser than battling your average giant but also because Astrid wasn't exactly a fan of the bad guys thinking they could pull a fast one on her.

 

"I'm right there with you, boss!" Astrid lifted Porrklubba once again and with but a single word she started to magically rise into the air. Sure, the Dunwich Prep didn't exactly have the highest ceilings in the world but Astrid was much faster flying than she was on land and so she chased the fleeing cultist afloat, trying her best not bump into anything as she moved farther into the building.

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Leaving Sea Devil and the cult leader to shout at each other (the former seeming to have the situation well in hand despite not having her trident with her), Ms. Thursday and Nick Cimitiere chased the fleeing cultist into the ruined structure that had once been the complex's main building. This place had once held offices, classrooms, and other, perhaps more sinister, accommodations - but it was hard to tell now. Something had smashed this place from the inside, breaking windows and pushing aside walls, and years of rain and other things coming in through the collapsed roof had done their work. Something didn't quite add up about the angles of the rotten timbers and fallen beams, and the two heroes had to pick their way carefully through (even in the air) rather than risk the whole structure caving in on them. 

 

The rain was still thick, too, cascading down through the remains of the building, coming away with a strange chemical smell as it reached their nostrils, as if it had passed through something unwholesome between sky and ground. They could hear Sea Devil's echoing voice even here, the bass calls of "You were deceived!" sounding far more annoyed than fearful.

 

By the time they'd caught up to the fleeing cultist, he'd reached the center of the building - and a pit. A deep, dark pit that gaped wide behind him. "You think you can take this from me?" he demanded of them - his beard and eyes wild, his face younger than they might have expected. "Go ahead! Show everyone what you _really_ care about -" and then, before either of the two could stop him, he threw first the book - then jumped after it himself! 

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Great. There were times Nick hated having to make the snap decisions. Especially when they involved sacrifices to things beyond.

 

The book was a loose variable. If it was "primed," perhaps, it could serve as a ritual component, just as potent as a life offered to whatever lurked in those shadows below. 

 

Then again, that was a "could." The cultist throwing himself into a pit of his own free will, likely offering chants to some hot blasphemy on the way down, was a "would." And Nick had played enough video games to know that you never gave the sorcerer a chance to dance on the threshold of death and possibly come back changed by it. 

 

He turned to Ms. Thursday. "Can you tackle the book?" he asked. And, without really stopping to get an answer, he extended his will outwards, trying to get a hold on the young cultist before he did something truly terrible - either for himself, or for everyone else. 

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"On it!" Astrid yelled out back to Nick. She had been navigating through Dunwich's ruined hall, which was just as difficult as she feared, when she heard Nick's call and couldn't help but be annoyed that things had gotten this far..

 

There had been broken beams and debris everywhere she looked as she pursued the fleeing cultist and it made her lag behind him with even though she was in the air.  The fact that delay allowed cultist to make to a giant pit, which to Astrid seemed like a prime spot for insane summoning rituals, just helped to make her madder. 

 

But what was done was done and Astrid made sure to make up for her earlier failure by catching the nutcase's book before he could fall into the nothingness. 

 

She flew right into the pit with Porrklubba in one hand and another reaching out for the book. "I got this. I totally got this!"

Edited by Cubismo
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"Wait, you...oh, I see how it is!" Ungrateful or not, Nick's actions seemed to have taken him by surprise. "You send your brainwashed lackey to get the book, because you think anyone who worships the Old Ones needs the master's touch!" He sounded a bit like he was trying to convince himself, while above them the rain gradually began to slacken, leaving them standing in deep puddles beneath grey skies. 

 

Catching the book was a near-run thing - Ms. Thursday wound up having to go rather deeper into the pit than she'd wanted. It was cold down here, and wet, and she could hear things...moving in the wet dark below. Then the book spoke to Ms. Thursday. "...I'm free! Oh, thank the Powers Above and Below! Do you have any idea what would have happened to me down in the bottom of that pit?" The voice in her head that began the moment she grabbed the book sounded...sounded almost exactly like her own! 

 

From outside the ruined building, Aquaria's voice boomed, "IT IS NOT FOR SURFACE-MEN!" and then a distinct human voice shouting back, "Not all men!" 

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"You know, I could stand here and count all the ways that you're wrong while waiting to see whether gravity is stronger than the grasp of the angry dead..."

 

Nick extended his will, and the telekinetic bonds started to reel in, drawing the struggling teenager out of the pit. "...but that's really not how I play." He lay the teen on the ground, making sure to extend a token hold so that he didn't try doing this whole thing over again. "Now. What's going on in your life that would make you think throwing yourself into the gnawing void to give yourself over to Shub-Niggurath would be a good idea? I'm really kinda curious."

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