"Sorry," says Ray, hanging back as Danforth and Dyer look more closely. The Elder Things' blood is pooled on the floor here, and he has no desire to tread in it. It smells awful, to his nose; but its stench is half overshadowed by a newer and stranger stench, here more pungent than at any other point along our route. He raises a hand to rub at his nose, grimacing- and the instant he does so Danforth, remembering certain very vivid sculptures in the upper galleries of the Elder Things' history in the Permian Age one hundred and fifty million years ago, gives vent to a nerve-tortured cry which echoes hysterically through that vaulted and archaic passage.
"Danforth! My God, man, what's wrong?" asks Dyer, striding forward.
Ray shivers as Danforth points his flashlight at the corpses. The sight is of something he knows all too well in its substance, though never in the manner of its acquisition. Ray's lived many years with slime of all kinds, natural and unnatural; and in the upper galleries he's seen the Elder Things' primal sculptures, too. All three men had shudderingly admired the way the nameless artist had suggested that hideous slime coating found on certain incomplete and prostrate Old Ones - those whom the frightful Shoggoths had characteristically slain and sucked to a ghastly headlessness in the great war of resubjugation. The headless, newly stinking bodies of the Elder Things are covered with a black, glistening, iridescently reflective slime which clings thickly to every surface.
Alone of the three men present here, Ray has seen such slime before- in the animated continuum, at a meeting of cultists of the dread Great Old Ones, attended not by men alone but also by one of the dread Shoggoths they had summoned forth.
Somewhere in the black and tunneling distance a white mist began in response to Danforth's scream. Or surely it must have done, because it snakes its way into the light now; and the sound of terrified squawking in the farthest abyssal reaches can be heard, ahead of some weird, unholy piping noise of the sort Ray is phenomenally glad he's never stuck around long enough to hear.
"Mumble?" he says, looking down as Dyer and Danforth look at each other.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-11-04 12:17 am (UTC)"Danforth! My God, man, what's wrong?" asks Dyer, striding forward.
Ray shivers as Danforth points his flashlight at the corpses. The sight is of something he knows all too well in its substance, though never in the manner of its acquisition. Ray's lived many years with slime of all kinds, natural and unnatural; and in the upper galleries he's seen the Elder Things' primal sculptures, too. All three men had shudderingly admired the way the nameless artist had suggested that hideous slime coating found on certain incomplete and prostrate Old Ones - those whom the frightful Shoggoths had characteristically slain and sucked to a ghastly headlessness in the great war of resubjugation. The headless, newly stinking bodies of the Elder Things are covered with a black, glistening, iridescently reflective slime which clings thickly to every surface.
Alone of the three men present here, Ray has seen such slime before- in the animated continuum, at a meeting of cultists of the dread Great Old Ones, attended not by men alone but also by one of the dread Shoggoths they had summoned forth.
Somewhere in the black and tunneling distance a white mist began in response to Danforth's scream. Or surely it must have done, because it snakes its way into the light now; and the sound of terrified squawking in the farthest abyssal reaches can be heard, ahead of some weird, unholy piping noise of the sort Ray is phenomenally glad he's never stuck around long enough to hear.
"Mumble?" he says, looking down as Dyer and Danforth look at each other.