© Andrè M. Pietroschek, all rights reserved

"When you have bewitched or assassinated the unwelcome, then whoever remains, however useless & boring, must be the only audience you still have left!"

Quote from my: Warlock Holmes, the Cumber-Batching speech

It is the fifth of April in the year 2015. I am writing this in a hurry, as a certain pressure makes me expect to be seriously distracted soon. My name is Morton Bryce. I am the son of Walton T. Bryce and Emma-Maria Whiteley. While many would have called me a hopeless scoundrel, a vagabond, and a seriously outclassed small-scale criminal such had never been my true calling.

I was a born believer, a cultist for a real cause, not the mere madness or drug-crazed dreams of the modern, urban folks. And I can proudly note that I will stay that to the very moment of my own death! Like many rural people I had childhood full of hard work, folklore, and familial closeness I actually had to accept as my burden, just as most other folks had to.

Since Al-Hazarded published that book for the bored morons trapped in ignorance, and choosing to stay so, I was part of a living community hellbent on more than the mere survival, cattle herding, and dying on our family farm. And yes, that Necronomicon hysteria blinded shockingly many to the very fact that more than ninety percent of those who dabbled in it met a premature and disastrous nemesis soon thereafter.

My own core suspicion was that the book, combined with Al-Hazarded's personal madness, maybe due the ordeal of reaching his publisher or escaping the equivalent to a book-burning church chorus eager to prevent that, made it a beacon to forces not even cultists would easily sympathize or associate with. But that is just something like bible sermon to Christianity. It makes every yokel barely able to recite a punchline seem like he is a major player involved in global and divine schemes of utmost importance!

I am no necromancer, I am not capable of summoning greater cosmic powers, personalized or abstract, and neither did I ever go insane enough to attempt such. The gruesome years von Junzt needed to learn communicating with ghouls should have made it clear that each cult needs a focus, and enough sanity left to actually survive mundane and cosmic threats. A struggle which usually ends with the cultists loosing it.

Our opponents, envious schemers, and foes work hard to publicly insist such proves we fight on the wrong side of the wrong cause. I always thought such might come from a faint resemblance to the American Civil War, and the psycho-social or cultural aftermath it made people live in. I could err though! All of some decent education or life experience and maturity will, once contemplating it, realize that we actually just do what mortality demands from everybody who was born, survive and prosper, or die trying. Human nature within the laws even larger powers cannot undo completely.

Additionally I am used to both, introspection and retrospection. Many cults, and several cultists, actually never waste a minute of their lifetime on learning the wisdom of such. I think we are the rural peoples dark side of independence. We are, oft depicted, partly criminals, partly manipulative pseudo-clergy, and free from the shackles of a society only accepting us as underpaid laborers, maltreated lackeys, or not at all.

Old letters, letters are predecessors to email, fax, or “What'sApp” kinda technological communicating, and diary notes or family heritage do indeed mention the subtle notes it takes to become a cultist and learn communicating with powers beyond, below, or in cosmic anomalies we fail to understand. Just that nobody promised it is easy, harmless, or guaranteed to be good for us.

My own grandparents heard the vivid memories of their elders, of things manifesting, of barely surviving the first encounter, of feeling the power so much worthier than the farm-life we had to be content with. Many of us actually shared in the joy of mum or dad proudly retelling how they acquired their first real occult book, or how they met the one stranger who was not just babbling the insane sermon of escapees from psychiatric institutions.

When it runs in the family, then it is usually either more freaky or more comforting than the solitary start. Many think us alike the cults doing nothing but indulging perversion or insanity, still those are the people who forget that some of us long succeeded into gaining patronage or tutoring from more powerful minds than those humanity cares to muster. My grandparents spoke of surviving two World Wars. Rarely ever about anything occult or beyond.

It was due the fact that I was born without mutations or signs of dire degeneration that allowed me to participate in the normed society, like kindergarten or base school, middle school, high school, and some university. Henceforth I had my personal expertise about what I disliked about society, why I was not satisfied being a lackey or soldier, especially an underpaid one, and stay content with that.

Noteworthy though is that degeneration, violation, and unintended results are lifelong calamities we have to be cautious about. I think that a major factor of explaining is that the forces we attune with have a habit of making the same reality we all know and rely on in scientific routine has moments, like an ebb and flow, but through the atmosphere and never along the scientific definitions of physical laws.

The moments the real forces manifest or bring about changes are, to mortal creatures and mammals, usually overwhelming, discomforting, or outright pandemonium. Lesser cults hence remain on the same proverbial food-chain like any human, but react differently to those whims of natural law and mayhap the God we once prayed to in church.

Back to me, Morton Bryce: My life went its way, and it is my own decision to write this confession. Because that it is what it comes down to, a confession. Even though I do not even know, if the auto-share will ever upload and spread it. My conscience rested easily, and lived well with producing dozens of what nowadays is called targeted individuals or conspiracy theorists. One of our income sources is providing a service for hire, and terms like gang-stalking, invisible-touch-torment or cyberstalking may be inspired by it.

Sometimes it is a family who just purchased a house 'where we cannot afford witnesses', or have that 'need to remain undisturbed'. Seriously, sometimes we are not at all about home invasion, family-massacring, or normalcy-crushing. But targeted psycho-social harassment, intimidation, and causing alienation to people who found out or witnessed certain procedures actually spawns from the same root, as the decision to kill in cold blood or burn a house down without warning the inhabitants, so the fire-fighters and insurance have a more believable scene to find.

Skilled cult leaders sort their assets, avoiding to discomfort them too far, as risk of discovery, opposition, and angered contract partners are tasks our middle-management is duty-bound to handle. Damn, it is just that, subtle threats, pure intimidation, or brute force, kidnapping or poisoning, if compliance could not be enforced in the first rush. Certainly one reason we are met with distrust and vigilance instead of smiles and the proverbial open arms!

It has something weird how much can become routine to the human mind, and how many changes we can rationalize away, until we realize they are what made us fall from grace. Once we realize that even those who play with dirty tricks can be nailed by consequence, competition, or life itself a lot becomes so much more adult about it... I myself chuckled more than once, lately even about the insight that I actually might die like a figure in one short story written by some Howard Philip Lovecraft, who is rumored to have been member of 'some dilettante social club' reading works like that Necronomicon, and dabbling in anything to snatch attention and easy money.

These memories and thoughts surge up into my mind, because I am ashamed of the blasphemous simplicity which would be my confession! Really, merely typing the words fails to make transparent how one little outrage of bloodthirstiness caused a wrong I never meant to cause, and harmed people I did not want to be harmed, whereby it may indeed be that only due the way consequences made reality turn out to be I found that guilt-ridden lethargy to accept my supposed fate instead of using my skills to escape or undo it.

No apology, no 'forgive me!', and no 'I am sorry' would mean that the family gets their beloved wife, mother, sister, and daughter back. No ritual I ever discovered would even help to recompense them, so they could mourn their loss without the social and financial troubles it already caused in addition. Therefor I made me the weird hermit sitting in a small apartment and awaiting 'that which comes up the stairs'.

I only know due investigative work that my hunter, the man sworn to end my life, was forced out of everything he cherished due my deed. I understood that I had slaughtered his Cthulhu, that I had made his 'magic' leave his world forevermore. For that is what love was to the journalist that man had been before his nervous breakdown, and the aftermath of my outrage, reforged him into another violent prone fate-maker and life-taker.

The wood oft used for stairs in proletarian social classes makes less noise, when one avoids stepping into the middle of each stair, as that pressures it more than stepping on the left or right of a stair, where the structure is more reinforced.

I harshly heard my hunter approach, and I can only hope that he will be far away, when those who would attempt to punish me for a job gone bad show up. Seeing the blinking of my USB surfstick I know this file went online, and talking of the mundane, it is the shadow of a simple golf-club I see as the final hint and herald to my own demise...

The end

Bonus – Poem: Beyond that point of no return

Original & variant © Andrè M. Pietroschek, all rights reserved

Beyond that point of no return

where lusts and loves are damned to burn

I stand, as wreckage of my former self

stuck like an old book into another shelf

Time passes by, tears come and go again

Life, now so bleak, once I was its big fan

Memories of torments from my own past

I still feel young, but yet aged damn fast

Beyond that point of no return

where only anguish and defeat remain

Our cause once vivid, true, and radiant

Now just an altar of more lurking pain

The spirit of urges made one more stand

But all within me longs for that final end

I do something exotic, suppressed a while

as I simply focus life with a honest smile

Beyond that point of no return

where I had always to survive on my own

Abandoned by my friends and god alike

Yes, once it did make me cry and frown

But deep within the indomitable remains

Unimpressed by all those scars and pains

Life will go on nonetheless, and so did I

Condemned to attempt anew until I die

Beyond that point of no return

Cause cosmic evils deserve to burn!

Banish with Laughcraft

First story to win me a roleplayer award, for contributing... Nearly two decades old by now.

Revised Version for my “My Cult of Thoolhoo”

Author: Andrè M. Pietroschek © All rights reserved

pietroschek@gmail.com

At first, some hints to readers who never read H.P. Lovecraft's „Shadows over Innsmouth“, August Derleths „The Star Gate“ and are unaware of Cthulhu style Role-playing Games. Lovecraft "used" his sickness to inspire the myth of evil, chthonic deities, who interacted with planet earth since it came into existence. Small groups or single individuals stumbled across the myth, went insane, suffered a horrible death or came to the shocking realization that they were part of the myth and set apart from all humanity. Main idea is that the myth cannot be understood or countered by neither science, religion nor occultism. Every insight concerning the truth is another step into madness. Please excuse my short cut version, sample is free, but without money no full version will be published. Readers shall be aware that in reality there is no evidence that I write truth about real persons in my fantasy texts. Cthulhu as role-play usually includes the following experiences: The chance to emulate a classic, one could nearly say archetypal, character of your choice. See how it develops in a (for now) loyal team. Yes, emulate, not mimic or transmute into. Role-play style happens with imagination and not like theater. That is LARP. Next, the chance to game in the era of prohibition and gangsters colliding with the unspeakable and cruel reality of myth. The summary of shock, madness and inescapable Destruction via a cosmic and tentacled nemesis and its minions.

Producing a radio audio and computer game remains among my goals. Since I made a sneak preview for my “Grunt the Vegetarian” at http://nwvault.ign.com I proved that it works. Surprising how my small files would already fill a full game. Please be assured I write by my own style, I never tried to imitate Lovecraft and am aware that I lack his talent for making the reader realize what is about to happen without ever really typing it straight onto paper. I will try to learn this though for it makes for a really intense addition of reading pleasure. If you don’t know my other files, be reminded that I tested difficult approaches to writing to test my petty skills. This was my first finished short story intended for publication. Be lucky you didn’t have to read my early files, as those I did handwrite for a german role-play game when I was twelve. Back then I was perfectly free of any talent at all. Just a mindless urge and good intentions. I don’t make my income by being an author, so I keep to looking for better solutions, of course. I plan anyway, to indulge into making a computer game and one of those solo-adventures for cellular phones. Playing as such is low priority to me; it becomes interesting only when it furthers my own approaches. I met several creative minds and I learned from them as best as I could under the circumstances I have to call remnants of my life.

If you don’t have any of the backgrounds I mentioned above, it might help you, to scroll down to the add on info and read it before you read the story. In the German version I name here a link to a short quickstep rulebook and adventure of Cthulhu role-play. I don’t know one as good in English and sadly, translating it would violate copyright and my oath of not without earning money…

This is a FICTIONAL e-text, inspirational file originally intended to become a video game & radio audio tale. But luckily I got excluded from society, and returned with different priorities.

I admit my translation reduced the quality, am just a prosaic German university-dropout & ex-bum.

'The Arkham Instigator, short summary

Today, 01.06.1923, the investigations of the police ended. The last month were filled with a nearly incomparable effort to illuminate the disappearance of the well-known persons struggling versus preternatural incursions. The small town, by the name Dunseith became the stage for an unsolved crime. The central persons: Adriano Putana, Sebastian Crowley and J.T. Presque remain missing. Few hours after the local police was alarmed the government ordered that Dunseith was to be secured by forces of the US army. The scarce evidence comes down to a torn, bloodstained coat, blood and two bullet holes of handgun caliber. Police declared that the assumption of a cult crime might be realistically. With the end of the investigations, the flags were lowered to half-mast. Arkhams greatest newspaper willingly covers all expenses of the investigation and further search for evidence.'

Story: For years, the occultist and small time actor Sebastian Crowley, the business lawyer J.T. Presque and the ex-monk and pulp writer Adriano Putana got drawn into situations, which would shatter the mind of the average citizen. The activities of obscured cults and alien entities left tracks to a horrifying truth that is confronted by inspired people. Sanity threatening discoveries of forbidden lore hint at the possibility that earth is suffering the dark plots of maniac, chthonic deities who undermined humanity for eons. The myth was detected in multiple places and again and again the survivors faced the problem of knowing the truth, while being surrounded by oblivious neighbors, tellurium energy, insane entities and their bloodthirsty minions. Anxiety and pressure of ignoring the unacceptable facts, take their toll. Yet some myth-sleuths gained special insights, which proved beneficial. One of those valiant groups operated in the light of publicity and scored admirable successes in series. They became a symbol of inspiration and prudence for entire humanity. Of course the tentacled conspirators flayed them alive before this story started. Survivor of this bunch was Adriano Putana.

After the death of his fiance he was trying to compensate trauma by indulging in masculine fallacies. The Old Ones had other plans in mind though. In 1918 he was dismissed from the Corpo di Armato and realized gain of initiative.

Confronted by overwhelming forces he decided to deal crucial damage as long as he could. His journey on the fruitless road of retribution. He was seen gazing at a burning tarot card. The desperate assault of a single brave soldier. Illusions of heroism and glory were not for him anymore. A long termed and painful struggle against forces one couldn’t defeat was his more realistically answer. Yet he was aware how many times outgunned individuals stood forthright against cults, criminals and crazed scientists. Where they succeeded they were called heroes, where they faltered they were labeled fools. The necessity of introspection was not to be overseen. In battle with horrors from beyond there was no reason to grant them further advantages due ones own mental instability. Of course such insights came the hard way in a mans younger years.

The three protagonists had their first meeting in 1922, Calcutta, India as they were drawn into a revival of the thug activities and the masterminding influence behind it. Through a lack of subterfuge in the thuggish actions, they found out about occult meaning of their vile crimes. Supposed accidents and sicknesses could be proven ritual murders of this heretic, abstract local cult of hierophants.

Deluded that the goddess Chalice asked to re-establish the cosmic balance with Shiva, there was assassinated whoever stood in the way of the vicious hierophants and their deranged plans. Crowley valiantly stepped up to face the blood magick, Putana welcomed the escape from boredom, and Presque wouldn’t allow a bunch of crazy, strangle-cord and knife-wielding wackos to spoil his investments in this region.

When they discovered first signs that a surprising outbreak of disease was the dirty work of these religious madmen, even the British advisors could no longer hesitate. Need of circumstance and Presque’s political influence allowed them to join forces with the responsible military of the Commonwealth. Weeks passed in the draining heat and short of the breaking point they eavesdropped information about a ritual gathering and even managed to identify some thugs. They followed those cultists and discovered their hideout. Caverns in derelict parts of the country and minor camps along the roads. Duty on side of the British soldiers and grim resolve of the three made them charge into the caverns. During the first phase of infiltration they managed to rescue Dr. Derek Nail from the fangs of a dark courtesan who planned to ritually feed upon him in service to that which lurked in darkness.

Nails natural gift of seduction had blinded him, overconfidence for the price of seeing women only as sex-toys. For the three myth-snuffers it didn’t matter, the cult had to be stopped and if Nail was foolish enough, he would continue to reap forbidden fruits until the consequences tore him apart. After their first case was solved they were honored by the British embassy and the society of early human culture. They had by chance not only fought the cultists, but by their raw courage alone casted a minor banishment versus the dreaded influence from beyond. Now such villains had to expect repercussions if they dared to stomp on law and humanity. Dr. Nail was brought forth to the best asylum of the western world, to purify his shredded self from the torment of his recent experiences. While the media entitled them heroes it was Colonel Fleming who earned this.

It was his tenacity and disciplined leadership that made them prevail, even when body and soul were at stake. The memories were clear enough to still shake all of them. In those dark and dreaded caverns they suffered the sight of a lower servitor, which’s stench and insane chanting, full of soulpain and sorrow, haunted their minds for a long, long time. In midst of those stone carved cavern walls full of ceremonial symbols a strangling feeling hit their guts.

They would never know, if some incense or the alien atmosphere shocked them more. As they entered they had still believed to fight down some thugs, arrest the cults guru and go home. A notch from the truth they were.

As they charged on they encountered the abomination, which the cult worshiped. For an instance insanity kicked God himself from the throne and seemed all-consuming. A second later they had to fight for their very souls. The handful of soldiers prepared for battle while Crowley studied the painted walls. Putana, who was pretty shaken by this intense situation, realized this was no problem solved by simple firepower. Presque, influenced by this thing, was drowning in a wave of horrid self-pity and soultrash. Unable to fire his reliable handgun again, he stared like a drunken peasant who realized he just kissed his cow. Crowley focused on countering the strange rituals formula and achieved some form of banishing power.

The German-Sicilian bastardo guarded the occupied occultist, but couldn’t shake free from the grasp of shock completely. As the magical effort overstretched Crowley’s mental balance and the first soldiers got seriously wounded, Putana focused his self. Mistaken to be the effect of Crowley’s ritual incantation, the banishment of the horrid creature came completely surprising to all of the shocked eyes. The creature faded from flesh to ethereal, much like an overcome nightmare. In this moment of triumph it was Adriano’s realism that shocked his companions. He explained that the creature was neither destroyed nor arrested, capable of returning after a short phase of recovery. While their psyches were marked by this night, they fell into a cheerful victory mood, everyone busy to rationalize these haunting moments.

The look in the eyes of Colonel Fleming was all which spoke of this chapter ever after. After they had withdrawn from the caves, short after the first full night of sleep, the next setback awaited.

Embittered they had to swallow that further investigation was impossible, cause the British army decided to detonate caves in this area to secure the local villages and avoid further spread of this wicked disease. They had saved hundreds of people and gave their very best, yet they felt like beaten dogs as they left India. Presque rapidly ventured back to the United States. An old acquaintance, by then a high-ranking diplomat had asked him to interfere with a political crisis. Gunter von Gotha had manipulated the economy to revive his dream of the German Kaiser Reich. Presque coordinated and led several executives to deal with this mundane danger. This time there were no signs of mysterious influence to be found. Aiding the USA shortly after the Great War proved valuable nonetheless.

The public was pleased and the media celebrated Presque as a defender of western culture. The Arkham Instigator entitled Presque as „a Star shining brightest“. Crowley compared this with his astrological data and made some divination concerning the destiny of JT. Putana was less euphoric and remained silent.

After they had left India some month of recovery and calmer life took place. In February 1923 the three met again, as they dared to intercept some uncommon occurrences in Japan. Work on a planned road brought forth a discovery of some strange relic, which seemingly summoned a group of spooky, pale cultists out of nowhere.

The chanting and dancing of these people irritated the workers and when the heart of a work group leader was found on some savage altar, it was no longer prejudice what spoiled the climate here. The real horror started when a small mountainside monastery was discovered to be the headquarter of some weird Asian sect. Far from the shores there was just one village close by and so the monastery was still filed as deserted in the official Japanese reports. An illusion that was falling apart, as Sgt. Koromiko arrived with a squad of soldiers.

Patient information gathering and his personal cunning made Koromiko realize a sense of weirdness about this mission. Maybe support from Iteki was seen as more appropriate then risking more Japanese soldiers. Officially the honor that Iteki like Presque were allowed to join up on this investigation is nearly inexpressible to western barbarians. Adriano was somewhat uncertain about the usefulness of Japanese infantry equipment for securing a building. This insight should prove real. Koromikos decision made them clash with the lunacy of a culture that was nearly as strange to them as the vile web of the Old Ones.

While the first monk cells still somehow resembled something human, every step towards the center made the foreboding sense of danger more intense. Dirty, degenerate and hideously desecrated was this scene.

The acumen of Crowley would be the only chance of escape for the trio, yet this was totally unknown to them at this point. Anyway, without the glorious sacrifice of the Japanese soldiers, they would have been condemned to a painful slow death. Confronted with an abomination of myth horror and battle ready thugs of this entity it should come to a tunnel fight which equaled the German- French trenches from 1914-1916 in all bitter aspects which fighting wreaks upon human existence. The scene turned into utmost torment for flesh, Ki and Do which was hardly to top. A gory skirmish through the narrow corridors of the monastery was about to begin. As the first wave ended in those tunnels, the adventurers split to support some soldiers.

Sebastian concentrated, forming an astral blade, resembling the dagger he wielded. Thereby he gained the chance to hurt the essence of ethereal beings as well. Joined by two soldiers he entered a corridor, advancing in flickering light and surrounded by nerve ripping sounds.

Close to the end of the passage he recognized an arcane symbol and while the soldiers thought of a dead end, Sebastian chanted versus the walls. Due his talent with Magick he was able to energize the symbol and opened a secret door. The soldiers were struck by surprise due to his innate abilities. Crowley expected the natural, an attack of a dark adept. The bloody dance of blades would demand toll from them. Toll that Crowley was more than willing to pay. The soldiers could fire once before it became close quarters. Meanwhile Presque led another two soldiers and marched on. The dirty gibberish at the walls left him totally unimpressed. Instinct was, what made him survive such situations. The slot eyed cultists felt so superior in their ambush, that the massive counterstrike of JT caught them unprepared.

As he