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#Post#: 4092--------------------------------------------------
John DeShane & The Terror of Two Harbors
By: Thorgrimm Date: April 5, 2016, 12:48 pm
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[center]Prologue[/center]
[center]14 November 1932, Los
Angeles California[/center]
Professor John DeShane looked once more at the obituary he had
been sent, which dealt with the unusual death of his room mate
from college. Rick Feldman was that colleague, and so happens to
have been a good friend of John’s.
Rick had been living in Minneapolis and was investigating a
small town just north of Duluth Minnesota. The town had an
infamous reputation amongst the followers and opposers of occult
happenings.
Rick had told John several months ago, in a letter he had
written, that he had stumbled upon an old manuscript that had
hinted something was about to happen, something that had not
happened in one hundred years, in the sleepy village of Two
Harbors Minnesota.
John had advised Rick to wait until he was free to join him in
the investigation, since it would be safer for him if he had a
partner to cover his back. Rick had refused, saying he needed to
go before the beginning of Samhain.
Rick’s usage of the Gaelic name, instead of the modern name of
Halloween, had given him pause. However, John could not get out
of his previous engagement, and so had wished his friend the
best of luck and told him to be careful. It seems the last part
had fallen on deaf ears.
John put down the obituary and picked up the last letter he had
received from Rick before he met his demise, wondering if the
two were, somehow, connected.
[center]John[/center]
It happened on Samhain. The sound of the waves lapping on the
shore of Lake Superior told me that I had reached my
destination.
The road ahead curved steeply towards the left and right. The
road to the right led to the ancient cemetery, which was perched
atop the lonely, windswept, cliff-side.
Its crypts and sepulchers were outlined against the
silver-yellow waters of the lake, which reminded me of a drowned
and blackened corpse’s teeth. It was Samhain, and I shivered at
the thought of what lay before me.
All through the long trip from Minneapolis my mind had returned
again and again to the task at hand, the same way a person’s
tongue will return to the cavity left by a rotted tooth.
As I paused in my long drive the moon, rising, bloated and
angry, burst through the swiftly scudding clouds to light the
landscape with a ghastly yellow corpse light, which drained all
of the color from the nefarious and noisome surroundings. It was
then that the first of the torches appeared out of the woods,
their destination seemed to be the same as my own.
Once more I struggled forward. I was the last of my family. No
more would my kith and kin return after this evening, to help
with the ritual that my ancestors had called ‘The Opening’. It
is a ceremony as old as time itself, as ancient as the ritual
that had taken the sanity, and then the life of my nephew, Blake
Feldman.
Blake’s death was the sole reason for my being at this
loathsome, and demon-haunted, place. I had sworn an oath to his
father, my brother, that I would shield the boy from the horrors
of our family’s calling. Failing this, I would take my revenge
on those who had brought about his demise.
My nephew had been pulled, half-drowned and nearly dead, from
the frozen waters of the lake the day after Christmas, two years
ago. When he had awakened in the Duluth hospital he had told a
nigh incoherent tale of a gathering that he had attended on
Christmas night. The doctors and nurses had tried to calm him,
even going so far as to bring to him a copy of the dreaded Book
of the Dark Ones.
In the pages of that tome of evil Blake had found a passage that
had confirmed his worst fears as to what had befallen him on
that fear-drenched night. Instead of calming him down, it had
sent him down the path to his incarceration in the Duluth
hospital for the mentally disturbed, and his eventual death.
I had visited Blake there, in that ghastly place of eternal
screams, shortly before he died and he had told me what had
befallen him. Things that he had told me he dared not speak of
to his doctors.
What they would not, and could not believe, I did. On the day of
Blake’s funeral I vowed vengeance upon those who had brought
about his destruction.
The Opening occurred only once every one hundred years, but it
was not the only ceremony held in this accursed town. The Book
of the Dark Ones told of another gathering, held once each
decade, known only as ‘The Birthing’.
Through study, and some occult contacts, I had learned when it
would be held and, unfortunately, this year was the time when
both ceremonies would happen. These events are something very
bad for Humanity, very bad indeed.
The Birthing was to take place on Samhain of this year, as for
the Opening, I can only guess as to when that night will occur.
For years I had felt the overwhelming pull of these ancient
ceremonies and had managed to studiously avoid them, unlike my
father. For even though I am a student of many strange and
esoteric arts, there are some things that are better left buried
in the past.
Yet, here I was, with a torch giving off a greasy light in my
hand. My mission of vengeance was driving me towards a
confrontation with those that, I felt, was responsible for my
nephew’s death.
As I cleared the curve, the lights of the town appeared through
the darkening sky. The lake, driven by the rising winds, pounded
against the rotting, wooden pilings, of the town’s wharves.
The dark, eternal Lake Superior, Gichigami to the Ojibwe Indians
of the area, concealed many of its secrets from the eyes of man.
While brooding over the cold light of the houses was a towering
steeple of an ancient church, which spread its mocking shadow
over the homes in the sleepy lakeside village.
At the fork in the road I was presented with two choices. To
continue on, into the town or turn my eyes right, once again to
the cemetery that hung like a vulture to the side of the road.
Without hesitation I continued my journey to the right.
Crowded around the mouth of the cemetery, the torches of the
robed strangers fluttered and smoked, giving off their dim,
greasy light. I was the last to arrive.
Now the ceremony could begin.
At the gate I was greeted by the leader of the group, a tall man
dressed in a hooded robe and wearing a hideously carved mask,
which looked like a crocodile with six eyes! With a curiously
scaled, and at the same time, fleshy hand, he indicated that he
was a mute, and beckoned me to follow him into the graveyard.
As I passed through the portal to the cemetery the others fell
in behind me, and I could only shudder at the half-guessed
reason for their silence. Not only did they not speak, I could
not hear any trace of the sound of their footsteps on the
hard-packed earth.
Through the ancient graveyard, past the weed-covered tombs and
crypts of the denizens of this accursed town, we made our way to
a patch of unconsecrated ground.
It was the ‘Potter’s Field’, where the lost, the criminal, and
those who had dedicated their lives to the Dark Ones were
interred. It was a lonely, miserable place, where the only thing
to indicate the presence of the graves was scattered clods of
hastily overturned soil.
One of the robed figures had brought a spade with him, which he
threw on the ground near my feet. The leader indicated that it
was my duty to dig, pointing at a patch of ground that seemed
less weed-choked than the surrounding area. Handing him my torch
I picked up the shovel and furiously attacked the half frozen
sod.
It was hard work. The ground was dry, hard, and constantly
turned aside the shovel blade. However, at last I managed to
break through the frost encrusted dirt into the softer soil
below. It only took a few more minutes before my blade, with a
dull thud, struck the half-rotted wood of a cheap casket.
A sudden and disturbing hiss, which sounded like a dozen tea
kettles at the boiling point, passed through the assembled
worshipers, it was, somehow, more horrifying than their previous
silence.
As quickly as I could manage I scraped away the soil that held
the lid closed. Before I could raise it to reveal the contents
of the box, hands that were horribly scaled, soft, and clawed,
grabbed my coat and pulled me from the hole.
I watched in silence as the robed figures crowded around the
newly disinterred grave. From the burial place something was
pulled out, something that snarled horribly and writhed as if in
great pain.
A mask, gloves, and a robe were quickly produced, and whatever
it was, was swiftly covered. The huddled acolytes stepped back,
revealing a new member who wobbled and stumbled like a newborn
colt trying to get to its feet.
The leader came up to me and handed me my torch. He motioned to
me that the ceremony was over and that I was to approach the
newest member, to give my loyalty. However, in my foolhardiness
I pushed past him and approached the new arrival. He had gained
some semblance of balance and stood silently in front of me.
Before I could be stopped, I stepped forward and ripped the mask
from its head.
Madness rides the night wind... death born from a venomous
hunger... unholy things that ought never see the light of day...
My screams must have awakened the sleepers of that accursed,
demon-haunted town. I staggered back, the bile rising in my
throat.
Without thinking I took my torch and set afire the rotten rags
that covered its hideous carcass. It went up in flames, a holy
fire that cleansed the earth of a hideous abomination.
There are things that walk, things that crawl, and things that
slither. A merciful God would always see to it that one does not
beget the other.
In the confusion I attacked the robed figures, setting them
afire with my torch. They tried to run, but I was too fast for
them, and when I was done a dozen smoldering corpses were all
that was left.
What happened next I cannot be sure of. I must have staggered
out of that abominable reliquary and down to the road, for the
next morning I awoke in my car. In the light of day it all
seemed a horrible nightmare.
Steeling myself I went back to that graveyard on the cliff
overlooking the lake, but there was no sign of what had occurred
on the previous night.
Had it all been a dream? I try to convince myself that it was,
but at night, when the nightmares come, I know what I saw was
the truth. A dark truth that can drive men mad with its knowing.
It’s hard for me to sleep now. Sometimes I feel as if my sanity
is beginning to slip away, especially when I think of the horror
that may lurk under my very feet.
This cannot be the only place where such rituals take place. On
how many demon-haunted nights have similar events taken place? I
dare not think about it, or surely I will go mad. This knowledge
killed my nephew, but I am stronger than he was.
My only hope is that in other parts of the world there are
others who also know and make sure that their demons are burned
to a very fine ash, which leaves nothing for the worms to gnaw
on.
If only I could forget what I saw that night, what I saw when I
tore the mask from it’s hate-filled face, that scaled, six-eyed,
crocodilian face, staring at me, that reptilian countenance
where there should have been a human one!
John, I beg you to come to Two Harbors and help me rid this town
of its loathsome curse.
[center]Your friend, Rick[/center]
John never even questioned whether or not if he would go. A
friend had begged him for help, and even though that friend was
now dead, he could finish the job Rick had begun. He headed out
to the railroad station to find out the departure time of the
Flyer to Minneapolis.
#Post#: 4093--------------------------------------------------
Re: John DeShane & The Terror of Two Harbors
By: Haegan2005 Date: April 5, 2016, 9:15 pm
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I gather there is no 10k character limit here?
#Post#: 4094--------------------------------------------------
Re: John DeShane & The Terror of Two Harbors
By: Thorgrimm Date: April 5, 2016, 9:21 pm
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[quote author=Haegan2005 link=topic=229.msg4093#msg4093
date=1459908957]
I gather there is no 10k character limit here?
[/quote]
None as far as I can tell. Thank goodness!
Cheers, Thor
#Post#: 4095--------------------------------------------------
Re: John DeShane & The Terror of Two Harbors
By: Thorgrimm Date: April 6, 2016, 7:39 am
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[center]Chapter One[/center]
John was standing on the edge of Two Harbors watching the taxi
head back towards Duluth, the cabbie had refused to take him to
a local hotel or boarding house. The hack driver had even
refused John’s attempt to pay him extra money to take him into
town.
The cabbie had just murmured something about ‘bad mojo’ and sped
away, leaving John standing on the edge of the village.
DeShane turned to face the oddly disturbing little town once
again. After giving it some thought John felt that the cabbie
was right. This burg did give off ‘bad mojo’. Something was
definitely wrong with this place.
John sighed, picked up his luggage and headed for Mom’s Boarding
House.
[center]***[/center]
Kara Rollands was nearly finished with her shift at the First
National Bank of Two Harbors when her boss came over to her
station.
“Kara, the accounting department has just notified me that they
have discovered an accounting error with your account here. The
good news is that it is in your favor. The one thousand dollar
mistake has been credited to your account.”
Kara looked up at her boss, with a confused look on her face.
“Sir, as much as I would love to accept that thousand dollars, I
don’t have an account here at the bank. My savings account is
located at the First National Bank of Duluth.”
Her boss looked at Kara like she had gone crazy. “Miss Rollands,
my accountants assure me that the error is real. They checked
the figures three times, just to be sure. Moreover, if that is
not enough to convince you, here is the signature card. Is this
your signature?”
Kara could not believe what she was seeing. The signature on
that card was hers, and there was no doubt in her mind about
that fact. The problem was that she knew that she had never
opened an account here. She was a part-timer, and as such was
only up here in Two Harbors for her schoolwork.
“Mr. Collins, that’s my signature, but I have never…”
“Take the thousand dollars, and be happy Miss Rollands. There’s
a depression going on, and many people would love to be in your
shoes.” With that her boss spun on his heels and headed to his
office, the matter resolved.
Kara continued to stare at the signature card. Not knowing how
this account had been opened made her question what was really
going on around her in this odd little town.
[center]***[/center]
Kara has been a student at The University of Minnesota, the
Duluth Campus, for the last four years, attempting to acquire
her doctorate in Biology. She had been assigned to Two Harbors
to study the reports of strange and unusual plants and animals
that have been reported to be found around that town. Although,
in her time in this village she had seen not one example of the
strange plants and animals that have been reported to be here.
[center]***[/center]
John had finally reached Mom’s Boarding House and registered
after a brisk twenty minute walk through the center of town, all
the while noticing the fearful glances thrown his way. He did
not know if those glances were caused by his appearance, or if
they were due to the villager’s fear that another stranger was
about to disappear.
Before coming to Two Harbors John had done some research on the
small town, including any reports of death, disappearances, and
strange happenings. What he had found was a real eyebrow raiser.
The Two Harbors area had five times the number of disappearances
over any other place like it in the state of Minnesota. This, by
itself, should have raised a few questions in the state police
headquarters. However, when you add in the reports of non-lethal
attacks by strange creatures it should have set off some serious
warning bells with the state and local police forces.
However, it had not.
Not a peep, not a paragraph written in the papers.
Nothing.
John could only guess as to why the conspiracy of silence was
occurring. He doubted the entire state police force and press
was involved in what was happening, but he would bet his bottom
dollar that somebody’s palms were being caressed by a few extra
greenbacks.
John’s gut instinct was telling him that something was very
wrong in this burg, and the furtive glances thrown his way only
confirmed it. Now he just had to go about finding the truth,
which, he suspected, would involve violence and gunplay.
Mom had been friendly enough when he had registered, even if a
bit on the nervous side. John made his way up to his room, on
the second story, to freshen up a bit before he got a bite to
eat, at Joe’s diner, down the street.
After getting to his room John put his clothes away and began to
check the room, for what, he was not sure. The habit of giving
his room the once over had become routine, ever since his run in
with the Dark One cultists in Upper New York State had nearly
gotten him killed, due to the hidden door located in his room.
Ten minutes of searching revealed to John a little cubbyhole
that had something wrapped in paper stuffed inside. He grabbed
the item and unfolded the paper to reveal a cigarette case.
For a moment John thought that it was just an ordinary cigarette
case someone had left behind. Until he saw what the case was
wrapped in.
#Post#: 4096--------------------------------------------------
Re: John DeShane & The Terror of Two Harbors
By: Thorgrimm Date: April 7, 2016, 2:19 pm
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“My God! That’s Sumerian Cuneiform! From the Ubaid 1, or Eridu
Period, no less! Only a handful of scholars in the world could
understand, much less compose this!” John suddenly blurted out.
DeShane, being one of those scholars, could clearly make out the
unique Eridu form of this type of Cuneiform. It is vastly
different from the Babylonian, Hittite, Assyrian, and Persian
forms of cuneiform writing.
Yet, what John read did not make any sense at all. None of the
syllables were coherent, or formed into any words that he could
see. It was as if the writer did not understand what he was
doing and just scribbled down any symbol that he took a liking
to.
Although, the longer John looked at the parchment, and that was,
indeed, the paper that it was written on, he could tell that
this was no simpleton just scribbling away. The parchment was
too new, the lettering too precise, and too well-written, to be
nonsense. It just did not add up, or make any sort of sense, to
him.
Why would a scholar of Ancient Sumeria write such a well-crafted
tome of nonsense in a dead language? John thought to himself as
he slowly shook his head. He just could not wrap his head around
why one would do so.
John figured that he should talk to Mom, and learn what he could
about the boarder that had resided in his room before he had
checked in. He quickly walked downstairs and found the old girl
in the common room.
“Mom, I have a question for you,” John said politely to the old
lady.
“Yes dearie, how can I help you,” Mom said as she waddled over
to the check in desk.
“Who was the boarder that had resided in the room I am staying
in, before me?” John asked as politely as he could.
“Hmm, let me see,” Mom said as she pulled out the guest
register. “It was a Mr. Gage Delafield, an English gentleman, of
some years.”
“Gage Delafield! Are you sure?” John said as he tried to hide
his surprise and excitement from the caretaker of Mom’s Boarding
House, lest she become frightened and asked him to leave her
establishment.
“Why yes dear, did you know the man?”
“I'm a colleague of his and would like to meet with him to
discuss the archeology of ancient Sumeria. Did he leave a
forwarding address?”
“No, I'm sorry, dear. He checked out this morning, real sudden
like, as if he was in a hurry to leave.”
“Thank you Mom,” John said as he headed back to his room to
ponder over what he had just learned.
[center]***[/center]
In the field of archaeology all of the known Sumerian cities had
been excavated, save one, Eridu. Eridu was the home city of
Enki, the Sumerian God of the underworld and water. Enki is,
according to the Sumerian Mythos, also the Sumerian God who had
created man from clay.
Every archeologist worth his salt has begged the British to
allow them to excavate that city, but every request has been
denied. A policy that the Ottoman Empire had enforced for
decades, and for the British to continue an Ottoman policy
unchanged was, unusual, to say the least.
There had been a rumor floating around the archeology community
that the Ottoman policy came to be after they tried to run an
excavation site at Eridu in 1895. Gage Delafield was, according
to the official Ottoman statement, the English archeologist that
they had hired to oversee the expedition.
According to the Ottomans the expedition was wiped out by
bandits and all of the members of the team had been killed,
including Delafield. Yet, here was proof that Gage Delafield do
not, in point of fact, die at Eridu.
So why did the Ottomans put up a quarantine around Eridu, and
why do the British still enforce that quarantine today?
[center]***[/center]
Another set of questions bothered John just as much as the first
one. Delafield was an expert on Enki and Eridu, and he had the
ability to write well-crafted Sumerian Cuneiform. So why did a
man of his scholarly ability write such a finely-crafted scroll
of nonsense? Moreover, why here in Two Harbors Minnesota?
Did the death of Rick and the presence of Delafield have any
connection? Was Delafield here to observe, help, or stop, the
ritual Rick had described in the letter that he had sent?
The more John thought about it, the more he was convinced that
both men were here for the same ritual. However, as to their
purpose in that ritual, was it the same, or did Delafield have a
hand in the death of his friend for ending it in disaster for
the bad guys?
John was certain of one thing, he would find out, one way or
another, the answer to these questions.
#Post#: 4097--------------------------------------------------
Re: John DeShane & The Terror of Two Harbors
By: Thorgrimm Date: April 8, 2016, 7:44 pm
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John had decided to wait for morning before he went to
investigate the cemetery where Rick said the Dark One ceremony
had taken place. He knew that he needed to keep his
investigations quiet and, as such, he had decided to walk
instead of getting a cabbie to take him to the site of the
ceremony.
John approached the cemetery, his nerves on edge. It seemed that
the color and sound of the world around him faded into some sort
of perpetual twilight-like gloom the closer he came to the
graveyard. He could imagine just how much this place would give
him the heebie-jeebies at night. It was definitely oozing with
'bad mojo'.
This dark and foreboding patch of land was not a plot one would
seek out as their final resting place. Only the damned, doomed,
and destitute, would ever end up here in this filth encrusted
garden of stone.
The rusted gate to the cemetery was covered in dead vines,
giving the white-painted metal a skeletal feel while the dead
vines provided the impression of the remnants of desiccated
flesh.
When John pushed on the gate it gave easily, but at the same
time it let out a screech that chilled John to the bone. He
could have sworn that it was the same as the Bane Sidhe he had
come across in Kilkenny Ireland.
It had the same effect on John that the wailing spirit had, it
chilled him to the core of his soul, and he was sure that it had
alerted anyone, or anything, in the graveyard as to his
presence. He would have to be doubly careful now.
As John crept into the cemetery he knew that it was daytime, yet
his instincts told him that it was night, and it damn near felt
like midnight, on a moonless, and dead air, night. Nothing was
moving. There was not one hint of a breeze moving in this dark,
dank place of the damned, even though there had been a very
brisk wind blowing in off of Lake Superior just outside of the
graveyard’s entry gate.
In point of fact, there was not a sound, at all. No breeze, no
insects, nothing. The highway was no more than fifty feet from
the gate, yet John could not hear a thing, even though he could
see the cars passing by. It was completely silent.
“Hello, is anyone here?” John said in a quiet tone. He could
tell that his voice had carried no more than five feet. It
simply had no ‘energy’ to carry it any further. It was as if he
had crossed some sort of boundary that dampened all forms of
vibratory energy. For what purpose this barrier should exist,
John could only hazard a wild guess.
John continued his search of this forlorn place. He came across
a maintenance shed that had an odd symbol painted on the door
next to the mowing machine storage bay. It looked like a
Caduceus, it was pearly white and had two serpents coiled around
it.
The staff itself was one foot long, although the serpent heads
rose a good foot and a half above that, and it was crowned by a
pair of wings while an inverse swastika topped off the staff.
John was amazed. He had never seen this combination of Sumerian
and Sanskrit elements in the same artifact before. He noted that
there were also traces of Norse elements in the design.
Even with that the strangest thing was that the paint looked
like it was centuries old. It had the look of great age to it.
Yet, the peeling of the paint never completely broke the design
into fragments. It, somehow, remained whole.
John jotted down a reference to the caduceus in his notebook and
continued his search. He was about to move on when he heard a
low moan coming from the back of the maintenance shed. He ran to
the back and noticed an old man laying on his stomach.
The man was trying to crawl away from the shed, but John could
see that he was severely injured. His right leg was bent in the
wrong spot and he was dragging his left arm along, as if it were
useless.
“Hey old timer, I got you.” With that John steadied the man and
helped him turn over on to his back. DeShane immediately
recognized the man, it was Professor Gage Delafield.
“Professor Delafield, what happened to you, and why are you out
here in this...” John could not help himself as he looked around
this unholy ground, “boneyard all by yourself?” John said with a
sense of increasing worry.
“It was a trap, *cough, hack choke*, servants of the Dark Ones
caught me bloody unawares. I was trying to set up a barrier to
keep the demon from entering our world, but its servants were
waiting for me.”
“Where did they go?” John asked as he, instinctively, spun
around, suddenly on alert as the hairs on the back of his neck
stood on end. He definitely did not want the Dark One cultists
to get the drop on him.
“They heard the muted warning from the gate and fled before they
could be found out, and left me out here to die, bastards.” The
professor said in a blood-choked snarl.
“Professor, I have to ask you, what is that parchment you left
in your room back at Mom’s? I recognize the Sumerian script, but
the words make no sense,” John said as he could not stop himself
from looking around the cemetery.
He got the feeling that something was trying to suppress his
senses. John could not hear a thing, he smelt nothing, even
though he could see rotting logs and driftwood.
However, the thing that bothered him the most was that it felt
like he was looking at a post card. The sights of the cemetery
were flat somehow. Nothing had any depth, and John could only
ascribe that to the lack of any shadows.
Beyond the deep feeling of unease, due to his senses not being
up to snuff, John was sure that something was watching them. The
hairs on the back of his neck kept standing on end.
John turned back to Professor Delafield as he began to speak,
“Something I found in Eridu, a ward of protection.”
“A what?” John asked, doubly confused now.”
“A spell of protection. It will keep you safe from the servants
of the Dark Ones.” Delafield said as he suddenly broke out in a
fit of coughing that had John convinced that the old man was not
long for this world.
“Professor, I have to know, what happened to your expedition in
Eridu, in 1895?” John suddenly asked Delafield. The Archeologist
in him had to know what happened, even as the civilian in him
was screaming for him to pick up the professor and run.
“That is of no import. You must stop the portal from being
opened tonight. You must take these spells and use them to close
the portal before the demon steps through. If you do not, then
you must defeat it and then close the portal.
“The boundaries between our world and Gehenna are exceedingly
thin. Evil things are slipping in through the cracks in space
and time, in preparation for the arrival of their masters, the
Dark Ones themselves. The more portals that open, the closer
doom is approaching our world.
“YOU MUST CLOSE THEM!” Delafield suddenly shrieked out, nearly
breaking John’s eardrums. DeShane suddenly glanced over his
shoulders positive that the professor’s screams would have
alerted whatever it was that was watching them. Yet, the man’s
shrieks never went past a couple of feet from them. The dead
air, once again, sapped the very energy out of the words.
“Here, take these,” Delafield said with great pain in his voice,
“One will close the portal and one will banish the demon back to
Gehenna.” With that the professor handed John two more pieces of
parchment with the Sumerian script written on it.
“Professor, I need to know what happened in Eridu. Nobody in the
Archeology Community knows what took place there.” John just
could not put Eridu out of his mind, even with Professor
Delafield’s apparent injuries. “What did the Ottomans try to
hide, and why are the British doing the same thing?”
“John, you must forget about Eridu, it is of no import. What is
about to happen is a greater danger, to all of mankind, and you
must stop it.”
The intensity, and fevered look in Delafield’s eyes made John
realize that something more important than Eridu was about to
begin. He finally looked at the parchment he had been given.
“Professor, how do I use these? I cannot make any sense out of
them.” DeShane said, desperation creeping into his voice.
“Just read the syllables, as written, out loud. However, be
careful Mr. DeShane, if you are not ready for their power they
can cause you irreparable harm.”
John was stunned, Professor Delafield must know his name! Twice
now the man had called him by his name! “How do you know who I
am professor?” John asked, feeling as if he was in a fevered
dream.
“Rick told me of his asking you to come with us to stop the
ceremony.”
“Rick never mentioned you in his letter.”
“That was my doing. I needed to keep my name out of any possibly
intercepted writings.”
“Professor, what happened to Rick?”
Delafield immediately took on the look of a heartbroken man. “I
arrived too late with the ward of protection. The servants had
found him, and killed him. So I left the ward for you to use, to
help you avenge his death.”
“How did you know I was coming to Two Harbors?” John asked, not
knowing what the dying man would say.
“I was the one who sent you the obituary. Rick had told me of
your character, so I used that information to bring you here Mr.
DeShane. I am too old to continue the battle anymore. You must
carry on the fight to keep humanity safe from the blackest of
evil that is scratching at the door, trying to enter our world.
“One last thing Mr. DeShane, seek out the Ea-Su. They are the
protectors of this world, for they are the allies you will need
to purge Two Harbors of its gateway to Gehenna, forever.”
With that, Professor Gage Delafield, of late a professor of
Archeology at Oxford University, leader of the only expedition
to Eridu, sighed once, and died in John’s arms.
#Post#: 4098--------------------------------------------------
Re: John DeShane & The Terror of Two Harbors
By: Haegan2005 Date: April 8, 2016, 8:49 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Alone, in a graveyard, with a dead body that has been murdered,
and its a creepy place.
Yeah, so not staying there.
#Post#: 4099--------------------------------------------------
Re: John DeShane & The Terror of Two Harbors
By: Thorgrimm Date: April 8, 2016, 9:02 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Haegan2005 link=topic=229.msg4098#msg4098
date=1460166575]
Alone, in a graveyard, with a dead body that has been murdered,
and its a creepy place.
Yeah, so not staying there.
[/quote]
That would be a good assumption! ;) ;D
Cheers, Thor
#Post#: 4100--------------------------------------------------
Re: John DeShane & The Terror of Two Harbors
By: Thorgrimm Date: April 9, 2016, 6:40 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
“Who the hell are the Ea-Su?” John said out loud. His words
failed to reach the ears of any living thing. The power of the
dead air overwhelming them.
John could only wonder what he had stumbled into, and whether or
not he would survive to see Christmas.
[center]Two Harbors Police Station[/center]
As Kenneth Meadows entered the interview room he reflected on
the fact that it had to have been a pretty surprising suspect to
pull the Chief of Police out of his office for another one of
the frequently found dead in this town. On the other hand, he
had finished the normal stack of paperwork an hour before.
Meadows had been flipping through the fishing section of the
Sears & Roebuck catalog when Lieutenant Anderson had come in.
The Lt. had told him that they had arrested some guy carrying a
body out of the old potter’s cemetery, south of town.
Meadows just sighed when he had been told this. It seemed to be
the perfect culmination to the series of events that had been
the height of town gossip for weeks, ever since Halloween. As he
got a look at the culprit he was more than a little surprised.
‘Some guy’, indeed.
As he sat down across from the suspect, Chief Meadows tapped the
autopsy file, a few reports and pictures of the crime scene
inside a manila folder, were lying on the table.
“You know,” Meadows began dryly, “We get quite a few ‘jelly
beans’ who are all wet wandering into town, gumming up the works
for folks, folks who have taken offense to these crumbs one too
many times. We just haven’t ever gotten one who was a ‘Joe
Brooks Abercrombie’ college type before, Professor DeShane.”
Meadows said as he dropped the file he had picked up, in front
of John, a police file that had a transcript from a telephone
interview with the Dean of UCLA stapled to the front.
John just smiled at the policeman’s attempt to insult him. He
leaned forward, putting his manacled hands on the metal table.
“Why, thank you Chief, I am rather smartly dressed, but alas, I
do not know everything, otherwise I would know who killed my
friend Rick and Professor Delafield.”
Meadows ignored John’s attempt to provoke him into revealing any
information. “So, why’d you do it?”
John looked at the middle-aged man as he pulled out a metal
flask marked Old Number 7. He knew that the flask was not filled
with water, he could smell the Tennessee Sippin’ Whiskey from
where he was sitting.
DeShane continued to look at Meadows with a gaze that mixed
deference with surprise in the face of seeming insanity. “Chief,
I assure you I had nothing to do with his death. As a matter of
fact, I dearly wanted to speak with him about the Ancient
Sumerian City of Eridu.” Chief Meadows just rolled his eyes at
this.
“Are you telling me that you think that I killed a man with my
bare hands, even though I was packing heat, and then walked out
onto the highway with his body in my arms?” There was surprise
in John’s voice, along with a touch of bitterness.
Were these people so stupid that they did not recognize a
threat, one that lurked in their very midst? John thought to
himself with building incredulity.
“Look DeShane, I don’t know what’s going on, but I know I’m
going to find out before you leave this station, or head on over
to the Minnesota state big house.” Meadows said as he walked
around, switched on the sun lamp, and hovered over John. Even at
5’11”, the sight of him leaning over the archeologist should
have been intimidating to the man.
Then Meadows began asking more questions. “What were you doing
in that cemetery?”
John had to squint to keep from going blind from the sun lamp
the Chief had turned on, to make him sweat. DeShane knew that if
he told the Chief the truth he would, in all probability, be
locked up in the Duluth state nut house.
“I have been told that there were some civil war era graves up
there, and since I am in town investigating my friend’s death I
figured that I would indulge in my civil war history hobby by
collecting some more American Civil War era names.”
“Did you meet Delafield in that cemetery, to buy or sell
something, and the deal headed south? We all know how you
archeologists are nothing but tomb raiders.”
John just laughed at the insinuation. “At all times I adhere to
the standards required by the international conventions for the
protection of antiquities. As for the second part of your
question, Professor Delafield was already dying when I found
him.”
“Or is this because Delafield found out a secret of yours and
was going to bleed you, until you fit him for a Chicago
overcoat, by beating him to death?” At this John’s face had the
look of utter incomprehension plastered across it.
“Look, I realize that when someone is trying to bleed you that
bad blood will abound. Never-the-less, you have to realize
something too: this is America, we do not follow vigilante
justice, and we follow the law. As sure as God made little green
apples, you should have reported his attempt to bleed you.”
It was then that realization suddenly dawned to John. The people
who had killed Rick and Delafield had mandated secrecy...
apparently they were very good at keeping secrets.
With a look that held a touch of fascinated bewilderment and,
especially in his grin, the hint that he was not totally around
the bend, John asked a question that infuriated Kenneth Meadows.
“You have no idea what is going on, or who is behind all of
these deaths and disappearances, do you?”
[center]***[/center]
John had been bumping gums with the Chief of Police for several
hours before they finally let him go. Insufficient evidence they
had said. Although, John would have bet a sawbuck that Julian,
the Dean of UCLA, had something to do with it.
Julian James had contacts within the FBI. Moreover, John was
sure that ‘ole JJ’ had dropped a few hints about having a few
G-Men show up to take over the investigation.
One thing John knew about small town police chiefs, they
despised the thought of the Bureau getting in their way and
taking over their investigations. However, as much as John
smiled at the thought of the chief sweating over that
possibility, it did nothing to help him figure out what was
happening in this town.
Once John was released he had returned to the cemetery to
retrieve the notebook Delafield had had in his pocket. Some sort
of journal the man had used to keep track of his evidence.
#Post#: 4101--------------------------------------------------
Re: John DeShane & The Terror of Two Harbors
By: Thorgrimm Date: April 9, 2016, 6:42 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
John started to go through Delafield’s notebook, trying to find
some clue as to what was going on. Most of the data in this
notebook was rambling and would take time for him to decipher
it. One of the images Delafield had drawn was of a creature, the
likes of which John had never before seen in his life.
It was humanoid in its basic appearance, but it had some sort of
metallic-looking arms that ended with claws on its hands, large
dragon-like wings, and a reptilian snout, not unlike a crocodile
with six eyes. Its outline was done in crude pencil while the
picture itself was inked in, in some sort of weird homage to
obsidian as the color. Beneath the drawing was written the
words: ‘The Dark Ones’.
John’s initial thoughts on this drawing were that the image was
simply a figment of Professor Delafield’s fevered imagination.
However, as much as he tried to dismiss it and look elsewhere,
something about the creature depicted on the page forced him to
continue looking.
It was the eyes of the monster that entranced him. John could
feel himself becoming hypnotized as the thing, whatever it was,
drew him into the page with its penetrating stare. Those eyes,
they seemed so alive, so real…
And then John was no longer in his room. He seemed to be
standing amongst a vast field of structures constructed with
black stone. On each stone was etched a form of writing, of the
kind he had been pondering over, just a few short hours ago,
Sumerian Cuneiform, and they were all covered in dust and
debris.
Somehow, John knew that he was standing in Eridu, looking
through Delafield’s eyes. Seeing what the Professor had seen in
1895.
The standing stones, or stele, seemed to go on for miles; their
writing was very strange, made no sense, and was disturbing in
the extreme.
I must be dreaming, John told himself, this can’t be real. Yet
even in this knowledge, the sheer beauty of the place engulfed
him. John/Delafield began to walk slowly around the stele and
their associated structures, being careful not to touch the
writing on the surface, while he desperately tried to wake up.
Then John/Delafield saw it, the monster in the notebook and it
could only be described as a truly diabolical creature. However,
this time it was not a picture, but an enormous, and living,
monstrosity.
John/Delafield was rooted to the ground in fear as he/they
stared at its huge form, which seemed to tower above them,
encased in what seemed to be glass. It’s ebon-colored, scaly
skin, had a sheen that one would usually associate with
obsidian, its thick, leathery wings and its crocodile-like head,
were unmoving.
However, what John/Delafield heard was a disembodied voice
emanate from the creature, as if it were being projected into
his/their head, “We are the Dark Ones, serve us and live, oppose
us and die.”
John/Delafield was still unable to run and the clawed, leathery
hands of the monster began to wrap themselves around
John/Delafield, all the while that demonic chant getting louder
and louder until it felt like his/their head was about to
explode.
John/Delafield was picked up off of the ground and brought up to
the monster’s head. It looked at him/them with one of its evil
red eyes and the fear became too much. John/Delafield began to
scream hysterically, writhing uselessly in the grip of the
creature.
As suddenly as he had been whisked away, John found himself back
in his room, breathing heavily and sweating profusely. He was
lying on the wooden floor and remained in a fetal position for
an unknown amount of time, his mind needed time to process what
he had just seen.
All the while, John stared into the darkness and reminisced on
the terrors of the waking dream and the creature that he had
seen, while also remembering the words of the creature: “We are
the Dark Ones.”
Who, or what, are the Dark Ones? John thought in rising terror.
Suddenly John jumped to his feet and picked up the notebook, and
just as suddenly he jumped backwards in fright, only barely
managing to stifle a scream. John was certain that the image in
the notebook had moved, although his rational mind had scolded
him, and told him that the notion was ludicrous.
The scaled arms had seemed to extend out of the page towards his
face. However, John was sure that he had tricked himself into
believing that the picture was moving and it had done so only as
a result of his exhaustion.
Real or not, John needed to steel himself, if he was to stop the
portal from opening later this evening. If he did not, he was
sure that he would flee this town, and never look back, allowing
the evil to fully manifest itself, to the detriment of all of
mankind.
John cautiously picked up the notebook once again. This time the
picture remained inanimate. He continued on with reading the
notebook, but most of it seemed to ramble on, not making much
sense, until he came across the following: “The Ea-Su, they are
our only hope, and they are here, in Two Harbors. I MUST FIND
THEM!!”
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