rookwurmwood

[rookwurmwood]

In an attempt to escape the dense mists of writer’s block: I rewrote my treatise on Vampires using my Royal Classic typewriter. Header is a shoddy attempt at Kurrentschrift using a fountain pen I got for Christmas last year. Was inspired to write this after rewatching Nosferatu (2024) and reading through a copy of The Land Beyond the Forest courtesy of Forgotten Books

[rookwurmwood]

Apologies for the lack of content as of late

I’ve got a few drafts I’m trying to iron out but I haven’t had the best luck

[rookwurmwood]

Attention!

I will no longer be uploading zine content to this blog as I feel it disrupts and distracts the flow of my short stories. If you would like to see more of my zines, I have made a new blog where I will be posting them

I’m going to be creating them digitally and uploading them as pdfs so you may read and print them as you please

If that interests you, give my other blog a follow https://www.tumblr.com/blog/chthoniczines

[rookwurmwood]

Decided to make yet another zine, this time dedicated to my favorite genre of music. I figured it was only appropriate since zines have been used to discuss music in the past. Went for the DIY punk look again, I hope to scan it so I can tweak the colors digitally to make them pop more.

[rookwurmwood]

Decided to breathe life into an old project by making it into a zine. I had a bunch of craft supplies and scrapbooking stuff laying around and threw this together. Based on an old setting I made for a table top game which I never got to use.

[rookwurmwood]

Just wanted to drop you some kudos for “The Rituals of Maggots”. Loved how creepy it was!

Thank you, kindly

I’m glad you enjoyed it

[rookwurmwood]

The Rituals of Maggots

Many are of the belief that there is no room for superstition in our secular world. The Scientific Enlightenment would dispel the ignorance of the Dark Ages, bringing about an Age of Reason marked by progress and industry. Slowly, but surely, modernity crowded out the Old World:

The lightbulb would outshine the candle,

The saber would find its bride in the pistol,

The motorcar would outrun the horse,

Wilderness gave way to village, then town, then city until the ground mirrored the night sky above with countless lights which would banish the darkness to the loneliest corners of the world. There are those who know otherwise, however. Folks who have seen things so utterly fantastic and horrible which defy explanation. Very few boast of being counted among those tortured few. Those who discovered that the Old Gods of the Heathen Times never left and that magic and mystery still lurk behind the facade of the enlightened world. It all started in October with something which would otherwise be benign: a new exhibit at the local museum, an old book to be exact.

It was an ugly thing, that book. It sat 'neath a glass prism upon a marble pillar, illuminated in a halo of an electric light which shone from above. The centuries were not kind to it as the edges of the pages bore the marks of destruction inflicted by worms and water while the leather cover was cracked, dry, and riddled with mold. It had been shoddily bound in the Coptic style with dried sinew; a raw-hide cord affixed to the right cover which would of been wound around the codex to keep it shut was coiled up next to it like a serpent. The pages were of papyrus and velum, each bearing to columns of text written in a barely legible hand which was occasionally interrupted by some odd diagram or macabre illustration.

The placard set upon the pedestal below was engraved with the letters CÆREMONIAS VERMIUM which was doubtlessly the title of the tome, subtitled in English "The Rituals of Maggots". It had been unearthed a year prior in a mastaba amongst the sun-scorched desolation of the Black Desert of Egypt. The mud-brick tomb was bereft of inscription and bare of any semblance of grandeur. Only composed of a small room with an opening to a precipitous drop down a narrow chute which led to a small burial chamber containing a sarcophagus. The codex found tightly clutched in the mummified hands of its previous owner. The book was infamous and had been described by the Roman philosophers who inhabited Egypt at the time as the "handbook of dark mysticism" as it contained rites and ceremonies which were considered profane to their sensibilities. All copies which remained had been burned, the only evidence it had ever existed being the occasional reference to it by scholars who condemned it as soon as it was mentioned. The finders of the manuscript believed without a shadow of a doubt that this was the original copy.

The book itself was a compilation of several texts written in Koine Greek, Coptic, Latin, and even Ancient Sumerian with interjections and treatises interspersed throughout which were written by the unnamed priest who created the book. The passages outlined the practices of certain mystery-cults throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, practices which certainly deserved the ire of the ancient sages as they detailed how one may reach beyond the curtain of death through acts of necrophagy, necrophilia, and necromancy to excavate hidden or forbidden knowledge from beyond. As well as incantations which were said to conjure forth inhuman spirits, called dæmons by the chronicler, who may aid one in this pursuit. Many incantations bore such names as: Namtillaku, Agaku, Tuku, Lugalugga, Ahkharhu, and Ninnghizhidda which were identified to be Sumerian in origin. Curiously, the authors of the texts as well as the compiler made no attempt to syncretize these entities with other gods of the region, as is common when ancient authors would document the gods of other cultures, and instead always referred to them by their Sumerian names which points to these cults having their origins nestled between the Tigris and Euphrates.

News had spread far and wide. Many came to gawk at its gruesome drawings during or read the translated portions which were provided on pamphlets to the visitors during its brief exposition who wished to feed their morbid curiosity. Other, more devout, folks thronged the entrances of the museum while holding signs bearing Leviticus 19:31, Deuteronomy 18:10-11, and Revelation 21:8; demanding the item of supreme blasphemy be taken off display. Then one day, the police sped down to the museum in response to the high whining of a burglar alarm; finding the display case broken and the codex gone. The security guard had neither seen nor heard anything save for the breaking of the glass and all the doors and windows were found to be unmolested; bearing no sign of entry nor exit. The case went cold as there was hardly any evidence to follow to find the culprit of the heist and many forgot about the book save for the scholars of the local colleges who bemoaned the loss of an opportunity to study it. Some rumors were even abound that the security-guard had orchestrated the robbery himself and sold the book to a jealous antiquarian while others said that it had been the work of the local evangelists who wished to destroy the book, though such claims were easily disproven. Later that week, a grave-digger had arrived to St. Callistus' Cemetery early in the morning to begin preparing a plot for an upcoming funeral to find the grounds had been desecrated. Many of the stone crucifixes had been overturned and graves had been dug up. An investigation was sparked in order to find the grave-robbers but the inspection of the splintered caskets brought more confusion than evidence. No valuables had been taken but the bodies which had been interred in those worm-eaten pine boxes had been carved up like livestock. The grey skin peeled away to reveal the putrid black flesh beneath, crawling with maggots and gnawed by animals in the night. All of the corpses which had been unearthed the night prior were all uniformly bereft of the flesh on their abdomen, thighs, and hips. The incisions around the affected areas were precise and meticulous; showing that the portions of tissue which had been flayed off were deliberately selected by the ghoulish plunderer. At the same time, people began to tell of odd strangers coming into to town. Many assumed were vagrants who were forced to leave the prairies behind after the drought and dust-storms of September, 1930; which rendered the lands east of the Rockies a wasteland which refused to yield crops. Yet these wayfarers all bore a uniform aspect of furtiveness and secrecy, exacerbated by the fact that many of them often went into town hooded and veiled. Those who spoke to them claimed that their voices were of a frightfully singular intonation which hinted at some form of shared anatomical abnormality; while others who had seen their unobscured faces claimed that they were horribly deformed as if afflicted by leprosy or syphilis, a fact which garnered sympathy from some and disgust from others. Soon people began to darkly whisper about the cluster of tents the drifters had erected as they were all deep in the forest near the home of one Orey May, otherwise known as the Witch of Westfield.

Ms. May was a bent and ill-looking husk of a woman, a recluse who lived in an isolated shack deep in the remote Pine Barrens outside of town that was only accessible through a winding, thorn-bordered path through the forest. She had lived alone in her hovel long before the township of Westfield had been established, proudly boasting to those few visitors she hosted that her grandmother had fled from Salem during the panic of 1692. She was a practitioner of old ways and a prodigious scholar of wood-craft and herb-lore; nearly every shelf and windowsill of her cabin was occupied by pots and terrariums. All of which contained specimens of odd mosses, phosphorescent fungi, and baneful herbs. A few of the faded labels bore such names as: henbane, mandrake, belladonna, monkshood, and all manner of amanitas and boletes. Her reputation as a witch came about after a shocking incident in the Spring of 1909, when Orey had been seen dancing about a druidic circle of stones which crowned the hill, of whose shadow her cabin rested within, in the midst of a thunderstorm. This event would forever tarnish her reputation in the eyes of the largely Protestant inhabitants of Westfield to the point where now, even decades later, many avoid her without wholly knowing why.

The strangers openly conversed with Orey with an almost familial openness which they neglected to extend with the people of Westfield, speaking to her in unfamiliar tongues which even the most well-traveled and cultured of villagers could not place. The recluse tended to the charges whom she harbored and they often joined her during her sojourns into the forest and dances about the wheel-like arrangement of round stones which topped the hill, often lighting great fires which could be spied from miles away. Those among the misshapen interlopers who were questioned on the subject and answered with more than a wordless leer spoke vaguely of a coming event in their meeping voices.

Around Mid-October, another episode of grave-robbery had broken out in the town over and the sheriff's department managed to apprehend one of the perpetrators. He was one of three individuals who had broken into a mausoleum and spoiled its contents. The sexton who tended to the timeworn churchyard had phoned for the police after he had witnessed the three figures scaling the wrought-iron fence with ease and throwing aside the door to the crypt before stealing away within. The authorities had arrived to a scene taken from the deepest nightmare-depths of depravity. Three perverse shadows of men were hunched over the bodies of the dead, toiling away at some unnamable task of utmost degeneracy. Somewhere between consumption and copulation. In the ensuing struggle, one man was shot, the other detained, and the final one managing to escape back into saturnine safety of the forest. The police took their captive to the station, but upon returning to the cell they had left him in while he awaited questioning, he was gone. It was as if he had vanished into thin air as there was no sign of egress. The only remnant of the man's presence being a strange pattern on the floor reminiscent of a square within a square, framed by a series of strange glyphs or symbols drawn in coagulated blood. One of the officers on-duty said was really familiar to a piece of bizarre graffiti he had seen outside the museum while assisting with the investigation of the break-in earlier that month. The news was brought to Westfield where the pieces had finally been assembled and it was now widely understood that the slew of recent phenomena which had unfolded over the month had not been independent of each other.

The case of the missing artifact had been reopened, fortified by the additional crimes of grave desecration. The prime suspects were Orey May and her commune of degenerate vagrants. The authorities had received a warrant for search of Ms. May's property in search of the stolen codex as well as warrant for arrest for anyone who was suspected of being involved with the recent grave-robbery.

The police were content on awaiting for an opportunity to strike, then came the fateful call. In the early morning of November 1st, a series of frantic phone-calls were made to the police station, all of which were frantic summons to Westfield. As that night, the devil-flames were ignited atop the solitary hill which towered over the forest and the witch and her cult began their typical nocturnal revelries with an increased fervor. The baneful bacchanalia could be heard echoing throughout the Pine Barrens and the people of Westfield could take no more. At the same time a call came in from St. Callistus'; The grave-digger had been wandering the burial ground nightly after the first instance of grave-robbing and found that all of the graves in the cemetery had been disturbed and that none of the bodies could be found.

The police seized the opportunity and organized a posse at once, calling reinforcements from the town. Reports on what happened next are vague but there is an ongoing conspiracy regarding the events of that morning. Some say that the police dispersed the cultist with a series of warning shots that caused them to flee but those who were a part of the raid have never made an official statement. That was until the suicide of police inspector Lucas Emily. He had taken his own life that following December, having shot himself in his own home. The note accompanying the lifeless body explained the otherwise sane man's reason taking his own life and is summarized as follows:

The entourage had walked the path through the lugubrious pines towards the shack of the recluse, guided by the amber beacon and the echoes of the orgy atop the hillock. As they grew closer, the carnal ululations began to take on a more legible sound until the men could hear a demoniacal chorus of:

Ia! Enki! Lugal-la-ki! Ia! Marduk! Amar-utu-ak! Ia! Nergal! Lugal-ush! Ia! Namtillaku! Gu-de-da-adda Ia! Ahkharhu! Ummum-la-udug!

which harmonized with the hellish trills of ritual-flues from above the skeletal bows and branches which fruitlessly reached for the ephemeral jewels of the night sky. The group soon came across the shack and the veritable city of tents and shelters which encompassed it, finding it to be completely abandoned and assuming that all of the residents were on the hilltop and thus made their ascent. The gathering which they had haplessly intruded upon is what drove Lucas to take his own life and why the men had sworn an oath of secrecy, the breaking of which would be his final act.

They climbed the hill via a dirt path which coiled around the sides like a python about its prey. As they ascended, they were assailed by the foul odor of burnt hair and putrid flesh and the chanting grew intolerable. The men, having finally mounted the hill, laid eyes on the horrible spectacle at the height of its intensity. The revelers were leaping and frolicking about a ring of stones arranged like a six-spoked wheel. At its center was the blaze which acted as their corrupted Star of Bethlehem, though no wood nourished the flames and what wasn't being consumed by the fire was instead being ravished and devoured by the revelers. Many of them were unclothed, revealing an almost inhuman aspect which had been hitherto concealed by their vestments. Their legs were a crooked, canine shape, terminating in feet which sat in some liminal region of form somewhere between padded paws and cloven hooves. In the fire-light, some of them who had never been seen unmasked had strange, elongated faces like those of dogs. Orey May was present, similarly nude, and holding in her hands the moldering volume which had been taken from its place beneath a glass case.

Some of the posse cursed, the others screamed, and a few prayed, yet it was all drowned out by the sounds of the Boschian nightmare which festered before them. Though the detail which drove the group to silence and Mr. Emily to self-annihilation was the fact that the cadavers which were being both burned and fed upon moved and undulated in time with the chorus, some of them even contributed with raspy voices from decayed vocal-chords.

In an act of primal autonomy, divorced from reason and spurred on by indescribable terror upon sight of the abominable display, the men unanimously began to fire upon the cultists without regard or remorse. An act purely motivated by the desire to remove the act and its participants from existence. Orey May was killed in the ensuing massacre and the wretched, leprous abnormalities which were not also exterminated either escaped into the forest on all fours or seemingly evaporated once they had realized their ritual had been compromised. Once the slaughter had ended, the men methodically and diligently erased any evidence that it had ever occurred. They piled the bodies until they had burned to ash and then buried what remained, they swore to never speak of what they saw or what they had done and returned back to Westfield with wild eyes and pale faces. The Cæremonias Vermium was returned to the museum where it is still on display until this day under tight lock and key and unrelenting supervision.

[rookwurmwood]

A bit out of left field but I personally think that the folkloric werewolf is far more interesting than the modern interpretation, at least from a literary/worldbuilding viewpoint.

Folkloric werewolves, in most European stories, are completely lucid and their transformation is 100% voluntary with them functioning more like skinwalkers in the sense that they are usually practitioners of witchcraft who achieve their transformations via enchanted trinkets like wolf-skin belts or cloaks while others may use an ointment similar to the flying ointment which was said to have been made by witches, such is the case with the account of the Werewolf of Dole. Others still will use baneful herbs to become a werewolf, as seen with the character of Moeris in Virgil's Eclogues.

From a writing standpoint, it makes the werewolf a more compelling villain. They're not victims of a curse and are instead deliberately malicious, practitioners of black magic who only seek to sow seeds of woe and suffering. It's only ironic that they take the forms of animals in an attempt to cloak their all-too-human wickedness.

(image is Sorcerers by Nicholas Roerich)

[rookwurmwood]

"...ℑ𝔱 𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔡𝔢 𝔟𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔩𝔢𝔰𝔰𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔫 𝔞 𝔣𝔬𝔯𝔱𝔫𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱 𝔞𝔣𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔡𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔥 𝔬𝔣 ℌ𝔞𝔩𝔤𝔯𝔦𝔪 𝔖𝔫𝔬𝔴-𝔗𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔞𝔱 𝔴𝔥𝔢𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔭𝔞𝔩𝔢 𝔟𝔩𝔲𝔢 𝔤𝔩𝔬𝔴 𝔬𝔣 𝔤𝔥𝔬𝔰𝔱-𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢 𝔟𝔯𝔢𝔫𝔫𝔢 𝔦𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔙𝔞𝔩𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔐𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔡𝔰, 𝔴𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔨𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔯𝔦𝔬𝔯𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔶𝔬𝔯𝔢 𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔬𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔬 𝔞𝔴𝔞𝔦𝔱 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔇𝔬𝔬𝔪 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔊𝔬𝔡𝔰 𝔴𝔥𝔢𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔶 𝔰𝔥𝔬𝔩𝔡𝔢 𝔯𝔦𝔰𝔢 𝔞𝔤𝔞𝔦𝔫𝔢 𝔞𝔰 𝔞 𝔯𝔞𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔥𝔬𝔰𝔱 𝔱𝔬 𝔣𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱 𝔞𝔩𝔬𝔫𝔤𝔰𝔦𝔡𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔦𝔯 𝔬𝔫𝔢-𝔢𝔶𝔢𝔡 𝔤𝔬𝔡 𝔦𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔟𝔞𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔩𝔢 𝔴𝔥𝔦𝔠𝔥 𝔰𝔥𝔬𝔩𝔡𝔢 𝔢𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔩𝔡. ℌ𝔞𝔩𝔤𝔯𝔦𝔪'𝔰 𝔰𝔭𝔦𝔯𝔦𝔱 𝔡𝔦𝔡 𝔫𝔬𝔱 𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔢 𝔢𝔞𝔰𝔦𝔢, 𝔥𝔬𝔴𝔟𝔢𝔦𝔱, 𝔞𝔰 𝔥𝔢 𝔴𝔞𝔰 𝔯𝔬𝔟𝔟e𝔡 𝔬𝔣 𝔞𝔫 𝔥𝔬𝔫𝔬𝔯𝔞𝔟𝔩𝔢 𝔡𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔥 𝔟𝔶 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔪𝔢𝔱 𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔣𝔞𝔱𝔢 𝔟𝔶 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔟𝔦𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔨𝔦𝔰𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔭𝔬𝔦𝔰𝔬𝔫. 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔱𝔯𝔬𝔩𝔩-𝔠𝔲𝔯𝔰𝔢𝔡 𝔰𝔭𝔦𝔯𝔦𝔱 𝔴𝔬𝔲𝔩𝔡 𝔯𝔦𝔡𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔥𝔬𝔴𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔫𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱-𝔴𝔦𝔫𝔡𝔰, 𝔣𝔲𝔯𝔦𝔬𝔲𝔰𝔩𝔶 𝔠𝔯𝔶𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔳𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔞𝔫𝔠𝔢 𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔥𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔴𝔥𝔦𝔠𝔥 𝔱𝔦𝔭𝔭𝔢𝔡 𝔭𝔬𝔦𝔰𝔬𝔫 𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔬 𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔠𝔲𝔭 𝔴𝔞𝔰 𝔫𝔬𝔱 𝔬𝔫𝔢 𝔟𝔢𝔩𝔬𝔫𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔬 𝔞 𝔣𝔬𝔢𝔪𝔞𝔫, 𝔟𝔲𝔱 𝔬𝔣 𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔬𝔴𝔫𝔢 𝔟𝔯𝔬𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯: 𝔄𝔪𝔩𝔢𝔱𝔥 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔖𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔩𝔡-𝔅𝔦𝔱𝔢𝔯, 𝔴𝔥𝔬 𝔥𝔞𝔡 𝔰𝔢𝔦𝔷𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔦𝔯𝔬𝔫 𝔠𝔯𝔬𝔴𝔫 𝔴𝔥𝔦𝔠𝔥 𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔡 𝔬𝔫 ℌ𝔞𝔩𝔤𝔯𝔦𝔪'𝔰 𝔟𝔯𝔬𝔴 𝔫𝔬𝔱 𝔩𝔬𝔫𝔤 𝔞𝔣𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔥𝔢 𝔥𝔞𝔡 𝔟𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔩𝔞𝔦𝔡 𝔡𝔬𝔴𝔫𝔢 𝔦𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔫𝔢 𝔥𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔰 𝔟𝔢𝔰𝔦𝔡𝔢 𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔣𝔬𝔯𝔢𝔣𝔞𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔰.

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔅𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯𝔡-𝔎𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔴𝔞𝔰 𝔳𝔦𝔰𝔦𝔱'𝔡 𝔟𝔶 𝔞 𝔭𝔥𝔞𝔫𝔱𝔬𝔪 𝔴𝔥𝔦𝔩𝔬𝔪 𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔩𝔲𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔡, 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔦𝔱 𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔡 𝔥𝔦𝔪 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔡𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔪𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔣𝔬𝔲𝔩𝔢𝔰𝔱 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔱𝔢𝔯. 𝔎𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔄𝔪𝔩𝔢𝔱𝔥 𝔰𝔬𝔫𝔢 𝔰𝔥𝔲𝔱 𝔥𝔦𝔪𝔰𝔢𝔩𝔳𝔢𝔫 𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔨𝔢𝔢𝔭, 𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯-𝔤𝔯𝔦𝔭𝔭𝔢𝔡 𝔟𝔶 𝔣𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔦𝔞, 𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔦𝔪𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔥𝔢 𝔴𝔞𝔰 𝔟𝔢𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨𝔢𝔡 𝔟𝔶 𝔴𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔰 𝔞𝔪𝔬𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔫𝔬𝔴-𝔠𝔩𝔬𝔞𝔨𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔯𝔢𝔢𝔰 𝔴𝔥𝔦𝔠𝔥 𝔢𝔶𝔢𝔡 𝔥𝔦𝔪 𝔞𝔰 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔴𝔬𝔩𝔣 𝔡𝔬𝔱𝔥 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔠𝔞𝔩𝔣. 𝔗𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔠𝔬𝔫𝔱𝔦𝔫𝔲𝔢𝔡 𝔲𝔫𝔱𝔦𝔩 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔢𝔞𝔰𝔬𝔫. 𝔅𝔶 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔫, 𝔄𝔪𝔩𝔢𝔱𝔥'𝔰 𝔪𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔢𝔢𝔡 𝔴𝔞𝔰 𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔪𝔬𝔫 𝔨𝔫𝔬𝔴𝔩𝔢𝔡𝔤𝔢, 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔣𝔬𝔩𝔨 𝔬𝔣 𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔡𝔢𝔠𝔞𝔶𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔨𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔡𝔬𝔪 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔪𝔢𝔡 𝔥𝔦𝔪 𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔦𝔱. 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔥𝔞𝔲𝔫𝔱𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰 𝔥𝔞𝔡 𝔭𝔯𝔬𝔤𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔡 𝔣𝔯𝔬𝔪 𝔦𝔩𝔩𝔲𝔰𝔦𝔬𝔫𝔰 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔞𝔭𝔭𝔞𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫𝔰, 𝔱𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔭𝔲𝔱𝔯𝔦𝔡 𝔟𝔬𝔡𝔶 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔴𝔞𝔰 𝔬𝔫𝔠𝔢 𝔎𝔦𝔫𝔤 ℌ𝔞𝔩𝔤𝔯𝔦𝔪 𝔖𝔫𝔬𝔴-𝔗𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔞𝔱 𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔴𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔴𝔞𝔶 𝔬𝔲𝔱 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔫𝔢 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔣𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔥𝔩𝔶 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔴𝔢𝔡 𝔰𝔬𝔦𝔩 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔠𝔯𝔢𝔢𝔭𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔴𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔰 𝔲𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔯 𝔠𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔡𝔞𝔯𝔨𝔫𝔢𝔰𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔞 𝔪𝔬𝔬𝔫𝔩𝔢𝔰𝔰 𝔫𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱. ℌ𝔢 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔪𝔟𝔩𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔠𝔬𝔟𝔟𝔩𝔢𝔡 𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔢𝔢𝔱𝔰, 𝔟𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔥𝔦𝔪 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔫𝔠𝔥 𝔬𝔣 𝔤𝔯𝔞𝔳𝔢-𝔰𝔬𝔦𝔩, 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔪𝔬𝔩𝔡𝔢𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔯𝔢𝔪𝔫𝔞𝔫𝔱𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔟𝔲𝔯𝔦𝔞𝔩-𝔰𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔡 𝔡𝔯𝔞𝔭𝔢𝔡 𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔩𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔶, 𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔦𝔠𝔠𝔞𝔱𝔢𝔡 𝔰𝔨𝔦𝔫 𝔴𝔥𝔦𝔠𝔥 𝔴𝔞𝔰 𝔟𝔩𝔞𝔠𝔨𝔢𝔫𝔢𝔡 𝔟𝔶 𝔡𝔢𝔠𝔞𝔶 𝔩𝔦𝔨𝔢 𝔞 𝔯𝔢𝔤𝔞𝔩 𝔠𝔩𝔬𝔞𝔨. 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔲𝔤𝔯 𝔥𝔞𝔪𝔪𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔡 𝔲𝔭𝔬𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔡𝔬𝔬𝔯 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔊𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔱 ℌ𝔞𝔩𝔩 𝔲𝔫𝔱𝔦𝔩 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔭𝔩𝔞𝔫𝔨𝔰 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔡 𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔬 𝔰𝔭𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔦𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔰. 𝔑𝔬 𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔯𝔦𝔬𝔯𝔰 𝔠𝔞𝔪𝔢 𝔱𝔬 𝔄𝔪𝔩𝔢𝔱𝔥'𝔰 𝔰𝔦𝔡𝔢 𝔞𝔰 𝔥𝔢 𝔴𝔞𝔰 𝔡𝔯𝔞𝔤𝔤𝔢𝔡, 𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔪𝔦𝔫𝔤, 𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔪𝔞𝔯𝔰𝔥𝔢𝔰. 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔥𝔬𝔯𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔞𝔤𝔬𝔫𝔶 𝔣𝔯𝔬𝔪 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔫𝔤𝔩𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔞𝔱 𝔬𝔣 𝔄𝔪𝔩𝔢𝔱𝔥 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔅𝔞𝔠𝔨-𝔅𝔦𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔰𝔬 𝔩𝔬𝔲𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔶 𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔩𝔡 𝔟𝔢 𝔥𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔡 𝔬𝔫 𝔫𝔢𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔟𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔦𝔰𝔩𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔰. 𝔄𝔣𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔴𝔞𝔦𝔩𝔰 𝔟𝔢𝔠𝔞𝔪𝔢 𝔤𝔞𝔰𝔭𝔰 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔤𝔞𝔰𝔭𝔰 𝔟𝔢𝔠𝔞𝔪𝔢 𝔰𝔦𝔩𝔢𝔫𝔠𝔢, 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔤𝔥𝔬𝔰𝔱-𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢𝔰 𝔞𝔱𝔬𝔭 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔟𝔞𝔯𝔯𝔬𝔴 𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔰𝔫𝔲𝔣𝔣𝔢𝔡 𝔬𝔲𝔱 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔎𝔦𝔫𝔰𝔩𝔞𝔶𝔢𝔯 𝔴𝔞𝔰 𝔫𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔰𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔞𝔤𝔞𝔦𝔫 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔫𝔢, 𝔚𝔦𝔤𝔞𝔩𝔞𝔢𝔠𝔥 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔚𝔞𝔯-ℜ𝔞𝔳𝔢𝔫, 𝔱𝔞𝔨𝔶𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔠𝔬𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔢 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔲𝔫𝔡𝔬𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔨𝔫𝔬𝔱 𝔬𝔣 𝔡𝔦𝔰𝔥𝔬𝔫𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔴𝔥𝔦𝔠𝔥 𝔄𝔪𝔩𝔢𝔱𝔥 𝔥𝔞𝔡 𝔱𝔦𝔢𝔡 𝔞𝔟𝔬𝔲𝔱𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔨𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔡𝔬𝔪."

~Halgrimasaga, lines 267-306

[rookwurmwood]

Got my hands on the Lemegeton Clavicula Solomonis which sits rather nicely on my shelf next to my copy of Simon’s Necronomicon. Very excited to read it as I hope to use it as inspiration for some of my upcoming stories.

[rookwurmwood]

I know it is probably far too early to be saying things like this. But to those of you who have been reading my stories, thank you very much!

It’s very encouraging to see people enjoy what I create and I will be sure to keep up the good work as best as I can.

~Rook Wurmwood

[rookwurmwood]

there’s a podcast I think you’d like, have you listened to unexplained?

I don’t usually listen to podcasts, I prefer audiobooks, but I’ll look into it :)

[rookwurmwood]

The Hidden-Folk

Woe to those unwary souls who so carelessly tread about the wild, lonely places; for that is the domain of the Hidden-Folk. To intrude upon their realm is to doom oneself to a short life of suffering and misfortune. When lost in the forest, keep to the path of the deer. For all beasts, great and small, still abide by the olden ways which mankind so easily forgot.

According to Scripture: In bygone days, the angel Lucifer made war with God and his heavenly host. He and all his armies of rebel angels were banished from the heavens into the cold, unfashioned outer-darkness as punishment for their pride and arrogance. Forever damned to drift among the empty expanses of cosmic oblivion. However, those spirits who claimed no side in the war of heaven where cast down unto the infant earth. They fell from the sky like snow. Some landed in the cold bogs and raths, others fell into the stones and mountains, while most would land in the briar-choked forests. Here is where they would forever remain. Other Hidden-Folk find their beginnings as the forlorn souls of the unhallowed and unbaptized dead who were intombed within the great mounds and cairns which dot the landscape.

All of these unclean spirits dwell under the earth, only venturing out from their hollows and burrows when the sun sinks behind the horizon. They shy away from humans, living in company of none but their own. They are just as likely to help as they are to harm those who enter their lands as they are capricious things whose temperaments often change on a whim. Those who live close to the wilds have been known to offer blood to placate their wrath and spare their families from their wrath. As the dreaded Book of Dead Names says:

"...blood is the very food of spirits, which is why the fields after the battles of war glows with an unnatural light, the manifestations of the spirits feeding thereon."

Some have even been known to impart their knowledge of wicked spell-work as boons for these offerings. Which often led to many civilizations believing that these spirits were gods of the forest. There are even tales of Witch-Cults offering up kidnapped children to these spirits in exchange for command of the otherworldly. Many Occultists still call out the names of these "Old Gods" around the monoliths of old on Samhain Night.

Much like their kin, the demons, the bodies of the Hidden-Folk are composed of a sort of vaporous cold-fire which they can will into whatever shape might suit them best. They can be fair, grotesque, or corpse-like with some even taking the forms of animals. Though the prevailing descriptions always tell of haunting beauty and bestial features like hooves or a tail. They are semi-corporeal and are able to interact with the world around them yet they cannot be seized as they are not beings of flesh and blood. However, iron implements (particularly swords) frighten the fairy-folk greatly as the blades can pass through their bodies with ease as if they were being cleaved by them. Bear in mind, they are immortal and attacking them will not kill them, but they will endure the agony of death when struck with iron.

[rookwurmwood]

The Bringer of Fire

The Lofty-Minded, the Bringer of Fire, the Fallen One. All titles and epithets refer to the being which all Conjurers, Alchemists, and Magicians owe their power to. The one who gave his freedom so that mankind could understand the secrets hidden to them by the Monad. He who sits chained to the bottom of the Lake of Boiling Sulfur until the end of linear time, when entropy overtakes order and chaos reigns, for his slight against the Supreme Being.

Known to the Men of Tigris and Euphrates as Enki, Lord of the Earth; To the Hellenes as Prometheus, the Fire-Bearer; and to the Twelve Tribes as Azazel, the Scapegoat; for it was he who bore the burden of the sins committed by Those who Watch.

Neither benevolent nor malign, yet he is not indifferent to mankind, as many of the Great Ones are. It was he who taught the sages of old how to perceive and manipulate the minute mechanisms of the universe to bend and disrupt the laws of nature to enact their will upon the world. It was he who told the Alchemists the secrets hidden in the stones and the necessary formulae to conjoin spirit with matter. It was he who gave King Solomon the names of the unclean spirits who dwell in the desolate lonely places upon and below the earth, and of the shapeless beings who blindly flounder through the unrelenting darkness between the stars as well as the necessary sigils and words to command and constrain them.

His name is the key and his sign is the gate. Those who draw his seal and sing his name under the right stars may gain his favor and see him upon his throne of bondage in his prison-kingdom of brimstone among the unfashioned realms betwixt reality and unreality. The churning crucible of primordial chaos at the ultimate, nethermost depths of confusion amidst the black gulfs of infinity which the Mystics of the Cross merely glimpsed into their delving into the mysteries of God and called Hell. Only those who have been fortified by relic and ritual and gaze upon such nightmarish vistas of alien geometry and ulterior darkness without falling mad or dying from shock. Those who gain his favor will be granted the techniques and formulae one may use to exhume knowledge of the inner-workings of both our sphere and spheres beyond necessary to ascend the Tree of Life, cross the abyss, and achieve Gnosis; the highest form of enlightenment.

[rookwurmwood]

At Devil's Rock

At Devil's Rock, You'll Find him there, Underneath the moon, At Devil's Rock, He'll meet you there, He hopes to see you soon! To Devil's Rock, Where ancient words had been sung, To Devil's Rock, Near the tree where witches hung, Bring with you a sacrifice, Be it bread, or wine, or fish, Call out to Be'elzebub And he shall grant your wish.

[rookwurmwood]

The Witch-Stone

Part Two: The Beast of Shepherd's Creek

Preface: Apologies for separating this story into two parts. I intend on making a final draft in the future which combines parts one and two into one continuous narrative but until then, enjoy this rough draft!

At the crest of dawn, a new carcass was found in the trampled snow, viciously maimed and completely exsanguinated but the culprit was always absent whenever the sun shone radiant between the brooding clouds. The townsfolk feared that incarceration had not been enough to spare them from the machinations of Mr. Ogden or that this was the product of devilry woven by the He-Witch that Halloween night. Regardless, they began to grow weary when the sun sank below the hills, fervently barricading their homes come twilight and spending their nights in troubled, dreamless sleep or standing shifts at their doors and windows; armed with whatever implements they had on hand which would suffice in the place of a weapon. Many kept themselves alert by anxiously reciting prayers under their breath so as to not draw unwanted attention. Yet the night was always broken by the crack of the rifle, distant screaming, or cries for mercy which fell upon deaf ears.

Occasionally, someone would report glimpsing the fiend before it disappeared among the dark trees with some morbid burden in its claws. The dominant description claimed its robust body sat somewhere between the lupine and the simian with a head obscured by a tangled mane of wild hair. It walked about on all fours with a stiff, limping gait as if supporting itself on broken limbs. One even managed to chance a look at the creature's face in the light cast from his curtains as it stumbled down the street in search of another life to claim. The witness described a human or human-like face, ruddy in complexion, with yellowed teeth set into receded black gums. The ragged, cracked lips looked as if they had been curled up into a sardonic and wicked grin, from which issued forth thick webs of drool and mucus. Its eyes were white and clouded, staring mindlessly out at strange angles independent of one-another from within their deep sockets. However, besides the deathly countenance of the thing, the face bore the unmistakable shape and contour of the young girl who was last seen trailing Chester Ogden into the forest all those months ago.

Overtime, less and less houses bore lit windows and the formerly charming small-town streets of Shepherd's Creek sat derelict and abandoned. The storm from October had knocked out many of the communication lines running out of Shepherd's Creek which was already set in a wild region where help can't ever seem to come fast enough. Those who tried to brave the backroads never returned. Ice had choked the river and no barges were projected to come until March so Shepherd's Creek was left isolated from the rest of the world. Those few who remained huddled together in St. John's Church, armed with hatchets and rifles, under the tried and true principle of safety in numbers. By night, it would incessantly paw at the oak double-doors with cracked, dirt-crusted fingernails. Begging to be let in between gurgling croaks and animalistic snorts, it would often adopt the raspy voice of an ailing young girl though it would also masquerade with the voice of a person it had killed, a trick which had claimed the lives of a gullible few who longed to see their departed loved ones.

Pastor Zadok Harper was at his wits ends attempting to care for his flock which now numbered on only a couple dozen, many of whom beseeched him for guidance on a matter which he had not wisdom being the keeper of a small-town church. His faith told him that they were dealing with something beyond themselves, an evil outside the grasp of humanity which had been conjured forth by a man led astray and which had taken a young girl as its vessel. He sought answers to what he was up against and journeyed to Hangman's Hollow in search of Chester Ogden's cabin in the hopes that the rituals and formulae which he had used to bring this thing forth could also be used to send it back. After tramping through the deep snow and frozen mud, he came upon the cabin set upon the backdrop of skeletal trees. He returned just before sundown, with an immense tome bound in black leather tucked into his coat.

He spent days in his cloister behind the pulpit of the church flipping through the contents of that grimoire in attempts to fortify himself with its eldritch knowledge, only exiting to eat with the others and pray. One day, he had even conducted an expedition to the accursed Witch-Stone accompanied by several armed men where he poked about the blasted dell and took many notes regarding the inscriptions and engravings on the table-like stone which was far less ominous in the light of day but still cloaked itself in an air of the otherworldly. Eventually, he exited with a look of grim resolve on his face. He gathered those with high standing in the town and told them to take everyone to the schoolhouse just down the way, for he intended to lure Dorothy Huffman into the church so that he may exorcize her, only requesting that someone linger behind with a rifle in case things did not go according to plan. That morning, everyone had been corralled to the agreed upon location while Pastor Harper and his guard, an older woman named Josephine Smith who was renowned for her brawn. They began by moving all of the pews aside and drawing a great six-sided start in the center of the church and they anxiously waited for the dark of night.

As expected, the beast had come to the church and was drawn into the church by the sound of the Pastor's prayer, all while Josephine sat in the pulpit with her rifle trained upon the twisted form of what was once Dorothy Huffman. As it limped in, the candles extinguished themselves, as if smothered by the very presence of the creature until it had finally entered the chalk outlines of the hexagram, the lines of which seemingly prevented its escape. Pastor Harper then produced a knife from his pocket and cut into the palm of his right hand while making the sign of the cross in a mirror to Ogden's own sinistral offering. Flecking the floor in front of him with the beads of crimson which seemed to move at their own accord towards the sigil before meeting the lines of chalk and spreading out to form a rippling ring of crimson around the star. The Pastor then began to bellow as loud as he could, so loud that it could be heard from the school house which drew those hiding within to the windows to that they may watch spectacle which unfolded before them:

"Almighty God! I ask that you send one of your angels to guide my hand and protect me from the gnashing fangs and claws of this demon which has taken up residence in this unconsecrated corpse! Bhu'thok yng ghuilathhaes, Phrhesh ia tuilh'lishh ahzharnol, I command you! I constrain you! Dweller of the Outer-Dark! Formless Larva of the Old Gods!"

All at once, the hills erupted in the cacophonous roaring and howling both sonic and subsonic which shattered windows and caused slight tremors which toppled some of the less structurally sound buildings. This phenomena failed to break the pastor's repetition of his incantation. The rotted frame of what had once been a human writhed and squirmed, seemingly tortured by the words spoken by the binder as if it were being prodded by hot iron. The candles which had been extinguished by the coming of the horror then reignited themselves into a blazing blue inferno which licked the rafters of the building and cast great columns light from the long vertical windows of the church. Harper continued even as smoke began to billow from the roof which had been set alight by the unnatural flames and as the blood gushed forth from the gash on his right hand which he held in front of him towards the seal which held the demon. It's body seem to reshape itself to try an escape its invisible confines, it's ribs protruded from its back with a great ripping and squelching, the skin stretching over them to form membranous, bat-like wings which it desperately flapped only to be met with a visually intangible dome. It then seemed to unknit the sinew of its body into a form like a serpent composed to pulsing viscera and offal which slithered and coiled about before rearing up like a cobra to strike at the pastor with its jagged fangs only to be met with some form of barrier yet again all while the flames grew brighter and larger.

In-between the recital of his spell, Pastor Zadok Harper told his warden to escape to the school-house as the white walls of the church became black and the timbers which supported the roof began to groan and crack. Josephine was seen leaving the burning church, coughing and sputtering to remove the smoke from her lungs which seemed to avoid her charge. Just as she made it through the door, the church began to collapse, first the roof fell in as the ghostly flames reduced the ancient wood to cinders and the walls soon followed, all falling towards the center to bury the pastor and the monster beneath the rubble.

All at once, the hill-sounds stopped and the fires extinguished as some shape began to manifest from the smoke which appeared vaguely like the nebulous outlines of the formless things seen silhouetted against the blazing ghost-fires on Halloween Night. The things swirled about for a moment before vanishing upwards into the starry night sky, leaving behind only the stench of sulfur and ozone.

By the Spring of 1927, the name Shepherd's Creek was largely forgotten, seemingly expunged from the public consciousness altogether. The families who had once dwelt there fled to places far from the forest, save for old Josephine Smith who still lives there to this day amongst the dilapidated ruins of that Witch-Haunted town which is slowly engulfed by trees and vines. People will occasionally go missing while passing through the area with others come back bearing reports of a hazy something like a vaporous jellyfish seen about the trees and those in the know claim that whatever old Chester Ogden had called down from the stars during his Samhain ritual never truly left and now wanders that dark neck of the woods in search for another suitable vessel.

[rookwurmwood]

The Testimony of Professor Edward Swan

The following manuscript was found among the scattered papers of the late Edward Swan, former professor at the University of Oxford who had flung himself from the high balcony of his tenement on Brasenose Lane shortly after returning from an archeological expedition. While many suspect the act to be one of suicide, neighbors claimed to have seen him stumble over the railing whilst engaged in fleeing some assailant which has spurred rumors of foul play, yet no culprit has been found.

I write this now under considerable mental duress. For recalling the events which befell my doomed expedition to the remote deserts of Arabia always conjures back vivid fancies of the horror I witnessed in that sepulcher of woe. I, however, must bear the burden of recounting this tragedy as its sole survivor. Both to dispel the mist of conjecture and in the hopes of obtaining some sort of closure by committing this to paper.

My name is Edward Upton Swan. I am, or rather was, Senior Professor of Ancient Languages at the University of Oxford. One bitterly cold morning during the winter of 1897-1898, I had received a letter from a dear colleague of mine; one Dr. Gabriel Enfield, of whom I had not heard from since our days as grad-students. He was three years my junior and I had never quite shared in his zeal for adventure, preferring the library and lecture hall to the tent and the dig-site, yet we remained good friends none-the-less. He was a prodigy in the fields of archeology and anthropology who made a considerable effort to set himself apart from the grave-robbers and treasure-hunters who wear the mask of intellectuals so that their irreverent plundering may go unpunished. I always admired him for his staunch adherence to a burning passion for the exploration and preservation of humanity's past.

The letter itself was an invitation to join Dr. Enfield at an excavation he had been supervising. In summary: the letter stated that he, Dr. Enfield, as well as another associate of mine; one Professor Heinrich Johannes who was a brilliant folklorist and occultist, had been meticulously unearthing the remnants of a settlement which dated from around the late Chalcolithic Period to the early Bronze Age in a small valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers not far from where archeologists had found the ruins of Uruk nearly a half-century prior. My presence was specifically and enthusiastically requested as on-site translator by both Enfield and Johannes. For among the low crumbling walls and prehistoric foundations of houses and temples; the crew had found several ornate copper war-daggers, statuettes, and fragmentary clay tablets which all bore the unmistakable marks of written language. Enfield was no-doubt aware that I had studied Assyrian and Sumerian Cuneiform as well as being well versed in Akkadian and other rather obscure dialects of Semitic languages and said was adamant that I was the one he saw as most fit for the task, going on to promise that if I were to accept this invitation, then my name would appear next to his when we submitted our findings to the British Museum.

Enclosed alongside the letter were two other articles. The first was a prepaid ticket for the Express d'Orient which would take me from Paris, to Vienna, to Constantinople where I was to meet Enfield and Johannes at the train station according to the postscript of the letter. The second item was a rather childish photograph which did not fail to get a chuckle out of me depicting a crew of eight people engaged in a mock brawl, armed with shovels and picks. Among them I saw the familiar grin of Dr. Enfield, who had matured significantly since our last outing. He had grown quite brawny, in stark contrast to my own paunchiness. His previously juvenile, bald face now sporting an uncouth and scruffy beard which made him appear more like a flea-bitten drifter than a learned scholar; his clothes were of a similar state, his sharp slacks and waistcoat traded for a shabby linen shirt and a pair of denim trousers.

I responded to his summons at once and promptly boarded the first ferry from Portsmouth to Cherbourg, once I had gathered all my necessary charts, books, and other provisions.

The journey was arduous. Foul weather had crept in just as I had boarded the ship and my violent episodes of sea-sickness were scored by the sullen dirges and shanties of sailors in rhythm to the ceaseless pitching and rolling of the ship amidst the turbulent waves. Once we pulled into Cherbourg and moored to the pier, I rushed to find a stagecoach which would take me to Paris. I hadn't much time to soak in the sights of the City of Light with only a brief breakfast at a charming cafe by the Seine before I had to make my way to the Gare de l'est. The next three days was spent watching the bohemian countryside sail by from the window of my rail-carriage, the vineyards and scrublands of France triumphantly rising to the verdant ranges of the Vosges as we neared Strasbourg where the ruins of the Franco-Prussian War still lingered. The landscape then descended yet again as we entered the dark domains of the Black Forest once we had crossed the border into the westernmost reaches of Bavaria, that legend haunted wood where tales of all manner of witches and malign faeries find their origin. Upon reaching Vienna, I had gotten the impression that we had now left the west and was now entering the east as I saw the last of the gothic spires fly past my window.

Gradually, the landscape shifted from the mountainous forests of Austro-Hungary to the idyllic Mediterranean shrublands accentuated by many cliffs and crags where the last remnants of the Roman Empire had transitioned into the Byzantine Empire. Finally, my train came to a screeching halt in Constantinople where I saw Dr. Enfield accompanied by Prof. Johannes waiting for me on the platform who stood out amongst the crowds of Turks with their baggy trousers and wide sashes, garish vests, and bulbous turbans. Enfield had snuck up on me whilst I heaved my trunks and satchels from the train car, taking me in an excited embrace which sullied my waistcoat and white shirt with reddish desert dust.

We strode through the narrow streets between the domed roofs of the many tall buildings which were all at once Roman and Islamic in their architecture. We then took shelter from the punishing sun beneath the vaulted roof of the Grand Bazaar where I beheld merchants peddling extravagant wares from all corners of the world from silks, to spices, to fine jewelry which glittered in the golden rays of the sun which spilled forth from the skylights. Dr. Enfield tried to catch me up on the situation at the dig-site though it was hard to hear him over the din of the markets so he resigned to just show me once we had arrived. We had to travel via caravan from Constantinople to Baghdad across rocky steppeland and arid desert along the palm-lined Tigris River. Once in Baghdad we had to make our own way to the dig-site on horseback. I thought the journey would surely kill me, though Enfield looked right at home. We thundered across the windswept sands where the remnants of the old world jut from the ever-shifting dunes like the bones of an immense carcass laid to rest in an irreverently shallow grave. The regal arches and columns of empires passed slowly eroding away to rejoin the desert, ever-haunted by half-memories of ancient sorrow.

Eventually, we arrived under the cover of darkness. Cresting the ridge which overlooked the ruins, I saw the outlines of mudbrick foundations and a small hillock which stood alone at the northern corner of the shallow valley which it rested in. On the western edge of the gully were four canvas tents of varying sizes around a small campfire. I was guided down the slope to the encampment where I received several greetings and many handshakes from the rest of Enfield's company. Once I had supped and mingled with the rest of the group, Enfield guided me to the largest tent and bid me to enter. It had been converted into an improvised head-quarters and field study, this was where my friend enlightened me regarding all the discoveries made thusfar (after a customary glass or two of brandy).

Dr. Enfield believed that the ruin which he and his crew had uncovered was the remnants of a temple-village or monastery which had been ransacked and abandoned, a theory supported by the skeletons which had all shown signs of blunt-force trauma or had arsenical copper arrowheads imbedded in them, alongside the thick layer of ash found during the initial survey. He believes that the attack may have been religiously motivated as many of the tablets containing what he could recognize to be religious texts had been deliberately smashed and Johannes says that much of the records from the surrounding city-states claim that it was an unclean place wherein wicked men dwelt and worshipped their gods of sacrifice and bloodshed, though he believes that the accounts had been obscured by bias and time similar to what was done to Canaanites and their deities. Finding available contractors from surrounding villages to assist was nigh impossible, as it seems traces of that ancient predisposition has passed its way down the dark roots of history to the modern inhabitants who avoid the region without entirely knowing why, regarding it as an unholy place forever haunted by its heathen past. In fact, entire roadways circumvent the area as many of the locals would prefer a longer journey as opposed to cutting through the so-called "Valley of the Demons".

Progress as slow as the other people in our company were miscellaneous alumni and undergrads from Oxford and Cambridge who Enfield had similarly coaxed with the promise of recognition and praise he had used to entice me, a fact I felt somewhat betrayed by. Alas, many hands make light work. After I had finished with Enfield, I was shown where I'd be sleeping by Prof. Johannes. I was never as close to him as I was to Enfield for the sole reason that I always found the jovial enthusiasm he displayed during his lectures regarding the more repugnant customs of especially diabolistic cults quite unsettling.

The days were spent carefully clearing debris from the foundations with picks and brushes under the oppressive desert-sun, the monotony occasionally halted when someone unearthed an artifact, usually nothing more than a shard of pottery or a fragment of bone. Our work was always pestered by swarms of biting flies which festered around the campsite in abnormal perfusion. Prof. Johannes took great delight in attempting to frighten us with ghastly morsels of occult lore, claiming that flies of this type were thought to have been the envoys of demons, with their nocturnal chittering and droning being the wild howls of those very same demons as they rode the night wind to search for defenseless travelers. Our nights were spent theorizing, debating, and corroborating over that day's findings around the campfire. I rarely partook, however, as I was further occupied with decoding the tablets the crew had found before my arrival. This proved to be an exceedingly vexing endeavor as the unfavorable condition rendered them nearly illegible, both due to them being shattered and from being left to the elements for uncounted centuries. I'd spend entire nights staring into the faded, wedge-shaped impressions in the desiccated clay hoping they would somehow look clearer or their meanings would suddenly don upon me.

My efforts were not entirely fruitless, however, as one of the tablets was in a far better condition than the others and contained half of a mantra or chant, the subject being a sort of deity. The name itself was composed of two characters which spelled out AK.KARU which was preceded by another symbol, that being the symbol DIĜIR, a star-shaped impression used as a determinative which denotes the subject as a supernatural entity such as a god or demon. Rendered as such: 𒀭𒅽𒀝

The following is the text which I had taken the liberty of translating, though it is incomplete as mentioned before:

AK.KARU, child of Tiamat, Loved by few, Scorned by many, Come now to the call of your disciples, Accept our offering of --

I inquired Prof. Johannes as to the nature of such a figure, as this seemed comfortably nestled in his field of interest. He said that the name was quite similar to Ahkharhu, a rather obscure figure in local lore. According to what little information he had in the dread-grimoires he had brought along with him: they were not truly a god or a demon but they were associated with baleful magicks. Other sources label them as an Ekimmu, a ravenous creature which haunted the loneliest places in the wastelands. We again assumed that this was merely an abstraction from the original figure made by later inhabitants, though I had a sinking pit in my stomach that perhaps those tales of diabolism and wickedness were not entirely unfounded.

At some point during the night I must have fallen asleep at my desk in the field-study while looking over the fragments for I awoke; drenched in cold sweat and screaming as I was wrenched from the most terrible of nightmares by the flapping of my canvas shelter in the signing desert wind and the distant groan of that grotesque nighttime symphony woven by those legions of flies. The images which drifted through my mind still lingered long after it had ended, a fancy of utmost terror conjured for by stress and the environment and no doubt spurred by the grim jests by Johannes concerning demons of the deserts, yet I couldn't help but feel as if they had some ominous quality, almost as if a portent. I was ascending the mud-brick steps of a small ziggurat which overlooked a small cluster of houses which huddled close at its base. I was accompanied by three other figures, all of whom were dressed in dark, fringed skirts and shawls with deep hoods that obscured their faces. At the summit of the ziggurat was another figure, garbed in an ornately patterned tunic with a mask made of the skull of some form of canine which was stained black by charcoal. In their left hand they bore a tablet close to their chest, and in their right was a broad dagger with a leaf-shaped blade cast of copper which glinted in the faint light cast by the gibbous moon.

Upon reaching the summit, I could see a hexagonal pedestal or altar of sorts hewn of a substance like obsidian yet it did not reflect the silver glow of the moon. Upon it was the head of a dog, its glassy eyes fixed upwards and its tongue lolling out from between its slack jaws and a headless human corpse with odd geometric patterns painted upon its cold flesh. The five of us surrounded the altar and began some ritual. I felt as if I were a passive observer in my own body as I sang and swayed atop the pyramid. Then, almost imperceptibly at first, a new light began to illuminate us which was ever so slightly brighter than the moon. Our chanting stopped all at once as we all fell to our hands and knees and looked up towards the shape which had manifested above us. It was a horribly intangible shape. A bubbling, amorphous mass which was neither liquid, nor solid, nor vapor which was orbited by gelatinous spheres which manifested just as quickly as they dissipated. At the form's nucleus was a radiance, from which issued forth wispy tendrils which flailed about. The man in the mask uttered some spell and a few of the semi-solid appendages wrapped around the macabre object atop the altar. My eyes were fixed on the entity which hung above us but I could have sworn in the edge of my vision I could see the limbs of the cadaver begin to squirm and pulse before it threw up its arms and a quasi-human scream pierced the night.

I sat awake for hours, lost in my own head until my thoughts were then brought back to reality as one of the other men open the flaps of my tent and urgently asked for help, as a sandstorm had blown in and everyone was rushing to cover the findings we had painstakingly exhumed so that they may not be buried again. As we scrambling to secure the myriad holes and ditches, my attention was suddenly drawn to the hillock which overlooked the sunbaked foundations of the ancient structures as the howling wind displaced the sand around the base and I could see the gaping darkness of a narrow doorway slowly emerge from the face which pointed towards us. That was when I came to the realization that this was no benign knoll, but a manmade structure. A ziggurat which had been so weathered by wind and dust that its original shape had been lost and it had gotten buried, akin to the Black Pyramid of Egypt or the Ziggurat of Ur when they were first discovered.

I shared what I saw with the others once we had regrouped in the field-study and after much discussion, we decided to shift our efforts to digging out the entrance of the temple so that we could enter once the sandstorm had passed.

The next day, we were fervently digging away at the threshold until we had cleared away all the sand and stood before a narrow hallway whose sepulchral darkness was barely dispelled by the morning light. Upon stepping inside, we were greeted by a heavy, sour stench which Enfield ominously referred to as the "breath of the tomb" after a long-savored breath through his nose. One by one, we shuffled inside, the amber glow from our lanterns cast upon the brick walls. At the end of the brief hallway was a large chamber. Upon entry, we were greeted with the skeletal remains of around nine individuals in total. The posture and accompanying bronze daggers and epsilon-axes suggested that they had died fighting one another. Their clothing was nearly perfectly preserved, four of the mummies were garbed in armor indicative of that which was worn by early Sumerian infantry raiding parties, with open-face bronze helmets, armored cloaks made of leather with small copper discs sewn on them intermittently, and large plank shields. The other group, who we assumed were on the defensive in this conflict wore the moldering remains of an eerily familiar paring of fringed skirts and hooded shawls, while on of the bodies which lay leaned against the far wall wore a mask made of the skull of a canine. I was shocked at how closely they resembled the figures from my dream, though as I stared in awe at the long-dead cultists I was told to look at the far end of the room by Johannes.

There, in the heart of this sanctuary of ulterior darkness was an immense effigy perched atop a black, hexagonal altar. The statue itself was carved of alabaster and depicted a nude, androgynous form which squatted or sat upon its haunches in a lewd manner. Its arms were posed as if it were caressing the curvature of its own body rather unwholesomely with wicked, clawed hands. Though by far the most uncanny feature of the idol was its jackal-like face locked in a permanent snarl. I eyed the statue in silent discomfort as its features were so close to life that I could've sworn that the ruby eyes inlaid in that cynocephalic head leered down upon me with a subjugating gaze which carried an intent that was as sensual as it was ravenous. This must have been the titular Ahkharhu.

At the foot of the altar, almost overshadowed by it was a grand sarcophagus. The lid was covered in yet more writings, much clearer than the tablets found outside, which looked as if they had been etched yesterday and I was wise enough to take a charcoal rubbing of the inscription. The sides were decorated by an astoundingly complex bas relief which depicted a scene most unsavory: An orgiastic feast of humans garbed only in dog-like masks. The ones not engaging in animalistic, carnal debauchery were instead consuming the flesh of a flayed human corpse at the feet of Ahkharhu, who had their arms outstretched in a welcoming gesture. The whole scene was a ghoulish display of primal debauchery accented by the unholy figure wearing an expression of lecherous glee as they oversaw their acolytes. The rumors were indeed true that those who worshipped this being were quite the loathsome bunch.

Not a moment later, Enfield began to move the lid aside to reveal the contents of the infernal coffin, taking great care not to damage either. While we all gathered around, assisting in the effort all while theorizing about this being an honorific burial or the grave of some cannibal shaman or war-lord who was so obscured by legends and time that they were mythologized as some monster and revered by similarly wicked folk. Our excitement vanished in an instant as we opened the sarcophagus and laid eyes on the charnel treasure within. A shriveled, decrepit cadaver laid before us; its arms which were laden with all manner of bangles and rings crossed over its emaciated torso. Even in this undignified state, it still bore a striking resemblance to the sculpture which loomed overhead in silent anticipation, even down to the sunken features of its houndish face.

God knows how long we stood there but our lanterns had nearly died out before we wordlessly and unanimously decided to replace the slab to at the very least conceal the horror which we had just found. As we worked towards lifting the lid and moving it back over the mouth of the sarcophagus, our efforts were halted by what sounded like a faint, raspy exhale from the vulgar thing which lay before us. Upon looking back at it, I could've sworn I saw it shift ever so slightly. I tried to convince myself that the dim light from our lanterns had played upon the shadows to make it seem as if the body had moved due to some optical illusion. Though all attempts at rationality were dashed when we all witnessed the twitch of a clawed finger, then a bony hand shot up with preternatural speed and seized Johannes with an iron grip. As we tried to loose the talons from around his throat, and effort which proved futile, something unexplainable happened. I, we all heard or rather felt it, a voice that was not a voice but rather some soundless utterance from the deepest recesses of our minds manifested as a single command: "kneel."

Before we could process any of the events which had presently unfolded we were struck, all at once, by an incapacitating pain. It felt as if some squirming something was trying to erupt from out of my skull. I assumed it was the same for my colleagues as we all fell to the floor, gripping our temples and writing in agony upon the cold floor. As I laid there, I chanced to look back at the sarcophagus and could not tear my eyes away from what came next. I laid their, in the clutches of indescribable agony and watching with unbridled terror as that abomination of abominations, that Sultan of Elder Night, that thing which the Tribes of Israel half-remember as Lilith and what the Men of the Nile named Sekhmet slowly lifted itself from its stony confines, hoisting Johannes with it until his feet left the floor. Johannes pathetically kicked, sputtered, and choked as he frantically tried to free himself from the clutches of a thing which he had read about so many times in ancient grimoire but was now hapless enough to see in-person.

Once it was to its feet, it took a deep, hissing breath of the stale tomb air and opened its eyes. By God, its eyes! They shone with such a terrible light it was as if all of Hell was regarding us with a blend of pity, disgust, and malice. It ran a serpentine, black tongue across its jagged fangs before it fixed its gaze on the ruddy, tear-streaked face of Heinrich Johannes, who had gone limp from asphyxiation. It then took him by the ankles with its off-hand and turned him horizontally. I managed to clench my eyes shut just as I saw it hoist him above its head followed by a repulsive series of snapping and ripping sounds. I opened my eyes just to see it finish wringing the blood out from the two halves of Johannes into its open maw before it threw them aside. Then the lamps burned out. The bondage of pain seemed to loosen and we all ran towards the pillar of light behind us. Colleague became obstacle as we blindly fumbled through the dark. Desperation soon curdled to treachery as we all were clutched by the primal instinct of survival. That living totem of the Old Gods seemed to take much pleasure in our struggle as the black walls reverberated with a hollow, sardonic laughter which sounded as if the buzzing of insects were being conducted in a sinisterly rhythmic manner. Enfield and I managed to clamor to the doorway before I felt something pull me back. Reeling around, I saw Enfield gripping my shirt-tails with a look of pleading terror on his face, which is when I noticed the gnarled, spider-like fingers which had seized him by the ankle. I only managed to escape because I had turned my face back towards the light of day and ripped myself from the grip of one Dr. Gabriel Enfield, as his screaming, thrashing body proved an adequate distraction.

I stumbled out into the midday sun and fell forward onto the hot sand. The flies were out in sickening multiplicity, their cacophonous droning being the trumpets to herald the arrival of their lord. I looked back upon the stony gate as I scrambled to my feet only to see my pursuer followed no farther. It stood, wreathed in shadow, seemingly incapable of tolerating the light of day. It stared me down with palpable disdain as we were both aware that I had escaped, for now. I seized my chance and hopped on the back of the horse I had come here on and sped off into the dunes, trying to put as much distance between me and that Vassal of Beelzebub before nightfall when it could travel uncontested. By some providence I had made it back to Baghdad, delirious and half-dead having long abandoned my horse. There I stayed in the care of a local doctor who nursed me back to health, though I hardly slept; always keeping my eyes to the desert and straining my ears to listen for that nocturnal sound of insects I now know to be the howling of demons.

The next day, I was taken to Constantinople where I boarded the first train which would take me as far away from this accursed desert as possible, ending up in Budapest where I waited for the next train back to Paris. While there, I managed to catch some snippets of rumor telling of goat-herds and their herds found horribly maimed out in the desert with many blaming hyenas as well as tell of a "werewolf" spotted in Bulgaria which wreaked havoc on several small villages before disappearing to the north. After another lengthy return trip, I made it back to England. I made my way to Oxford immediately with the intent of informing everyone of our doomed expedition. Naturally, I was detained and questioned by the authorities. After a lengthy investigation I was deemed innocent but mentally disturbed. They pinned the deaths on hyenas, citing the reports which had come out of the region regarding the goat-herds with my account being one conjured by an addled mind which had broken under the stresses of such a grueling endeavor at my age coupled with dehydration.

Shortly after my release from the infirmary, I was ousted. I lost my credibility, the respect of my peers, and my occupation. Rumors were abound that I killed Enfield out of envy and pretended to be mad by inventing tales of monsters in the desert to avoid punishment. Pupils who once eyed me with admiration now only look at me with judgement and disgust. It became too much and I have since sequestered myself in my tenement, surviving off the good will of others and my dwindling inheritance.

I did manage to keep that charcoal rubbing I took of the sarcophagus lid and have spent the last few month painstakingly translating it, yet it yielded no answers.

The Queen of Celestial Violence, The Great Whore of Babylon who sits upon the Obsidian Throne, depraved and stained. First of the EKIMMU, Eldest sister of LAMASHTU and LABASU, Beloved by cannibals and necromancers, Honored by bacchanalia and bloodshed, Her temples perfumed by the incense of rotted flesh and burned hair. Great and terrible is the daughter of the night, Her hand is the net and her embrace is death, She is cruel, raging, and primal, Her shrill voice can be heard in the winds through the cedar forest, Her howl in the throats of wolves, To conjure her shape into flesh: create a vessel from the corpse of a beheaded virgin and the head of a jackal, painted with the sacred lines and offer it to her under the stars of ABSINNU and PABILSAG on a night of the gibbous moon, Then she shall guide thee in the ways of the beast.

I can no longer stand the dark and grow anxious when the sun skinks over the horizon. The sounds of summer cicadas which once brought memories of childhood in the countryside now only bring dread and some nights I swear I can see a furtive shape disappear behind the peak of the roof of the building across the street from mine while looking out the window and I fear it will find me.

I know it is looking for me,

I am sorry Gabriel,

I am afraid,