Chapter 114 Lake.
"Do not struggle, my dear," Loris said, moving up towards her, a bandage wrapped around his head from the struggle in the shop. "Soon, you shall bear witness to the rise of the Deep One. Once our final members arrive," he added with annoyance. "And afterwards, we shall have cake!"
Ireen glared at the sorcerer, her hands curling to fists, shaking with such fury they knocked on the rotting wood. "You’re such a prick!" she snapped. "You’re a real piece of shit. You know that?" Ireen leaned her head out as far as it would go. "And your art was derivative anyway!"
"Well that’s just hurtful," Loris said, wagging his finger at her. "And we both know not true. You’re just upset we’re sacrificing your womb to a creature beyond reality itself. Really now. Haven’t you ever heard of removing the art from the artist? You know, this is a serious problem with our current culture."
"Bring that fucking finger closer and I’ll bite it off."
"Philistine," Loris scoffed. "Not that it will matter. Once you bear the heir of the Deep One, we shall rejoice in the knowledge granted. Wisdom from beyond the realm! And I-"
"We," one of the other cultists said.
Loris waved his hand. "Yes, yes. We. We shall gain power untold!"
"I’m only saying this is a team effort," the cultist put in. "We all contributed, and it should be marked as such."
"Yes, we all did," Loris sighed. "But really, I contributed the most. I did provide the boat. And I did find the artifact. So it’s both our triumph and also mine. And soon, all will know of..."
He trailed off suddenly, turning. Ireen raised her head, tensing. Footsteps sounded down the corridor, the sound rising, almost drowned out by the chanting. Ireen’s heart beat faster. Hope bloomed in her.
Then the man in shorts and wearing a sweatband came puffing into the room, a tennis racket in hand.
"I’m so sorry! I got held up at the gate and then someone came by and tried to sell me a new premium horse carriage and I... I... Oh," the man said, looking about. "Um..."
Loris stared at the newcomer. "Clarence!" he hissed. "What are you wearing?"
Clarence nervously spun the racket in his hands. "Was... wasn’t it tennis tonight?"
"No, Clarence!" Loris snapped. "Tonight we summon the Deep One, offering His chosen sacrifice to the Catalyst, and our reward shall be forbidden knowledge from beyond the very cosmos of human reality, plumbed from the darkest reaches of eternity. Tennis is on Tuesday."
"Ah. I’ll just... get my cloak then, shall I?"
"Yes, do that," Loris growled.
Clarence shuffled back towards the black mouth of the tunnel. Ireen watched him go, mouth a tight line of anger. Loris sighed, shaking his head. "Honestly."
Ireen tensed when she suddenly heard the heavy, sloshing sounds of the water behind her. She twisted her head, trying to see what was going on, straining against the block, peering over the edge.
Ireen had seen a lot of strange things. Twisted things. Working in the magic district does that. When magic went wrong, it went very wrong. But this was something that stole the aplomb even from her.
The black waters of the underground chamber churned. Bulged.
A mass strained the surface, water cascading down a slick, pale body. Rubbery flesh rose, nearly big enough to fill the chamber. The chanting of the cultists built.
The sculpture set atop the bloody altar pulsed, the twining shapes creaking as they undulated, moving like beckoning fingers to the denizen of the deep.
A single huge, yellow eye glowed from the monstrous thing’s massive head, colours washing over it in dizzying patterns. Colours that Ireen recognized. Patterns she had seen on the canvas while she and Ava had writhed in pleasure.
"It has come!" Loris cried, raising his hands in triumph, sleeves falling down to his shoulders. "The Catalyst! The servant of the Deep One! Behold! Behold, my friends! Our time is nigh!"
Ireen’s jaw went slack with horror. More things moved beneath the waters.
Before her eyes, tentacles slithered out of the oily depths. Long, ropy limbs like those of an octopus, swirling with hues and dark, primeval colours.
They stretched out of the waters, moving towards her. Ireen started, strained against the ropes with renewed vigour, but without success.
The tentacles ran over the wood. The stench made her gag as they stroked her face. Her cheek. Slid down her with an oily caress to touch her stomach. Her mons.
Ireen closed her eyes tight, waiting for the horror to begin.
The tentacle paused against her.
Prodded her stomach.
The chanting slowly faded away.
Ireen opened her eyes, looked down at the Emerald Circle gathered before her. The cultists stared at her as the tentacle patted her body like someone searching their pockets for their keys.
"Um..." one of the cultists said. "Is... that supposed to happen?"
Loris licked his teeth. "I-"
The bellow rose from the waters. A thunderous sound like an undersea volcano erupting. It thrummed through the rotting masonry of the undercroft, loosening dust and bits of rock, reverberating in the ancient stone and the wood Ireen was perched on.
"Is that a good sign?" another cultist asked.
One of the Catalyst’s tentacles lashed out. The cultist never even had a chance to scream before the limb battered them aside, pulping bone even before the robed figure slammed into the far wall.
"Holy shit!" someone cried.
Hell broke loose. More tentacles tore out of the waters, grabbing for shocked cultists.
Some of the robed figures broke from their paralysis as their fellows were snatched up, smashed against floors or flung, screaming across the room like toys in the touch of a child having a tantrum.
Spells crackled from hands. Green fire plumed and lighting tore through the dark, striking the assaulting tentacles as warlocks scrambled and fought.
But the tentacles weren’t only killing.
Ireen gaped as a woman was lifted, screaming as more tentacles plunged under her robe, into her mouth, wrapping around breasts and claiming ass and pussy.
Other cultists met similar fates, some being dragged towards the oily waters by the writhing tentacles, robes stripped away, feelers doing things best left to the back pages of certain magazines.
Loris looked about in dull shock as everything went to merry hell.
Clarence stumbled out of the chaos, sweatband askew, his panicking hand still holding a broken tennis racket. He grabbed the artist. "What in the hells is going on?" he gasped.
"I... I don’t understand," Loris said, his voice tiny in shock. "She was the one. She... I don’t..." His eyes suddenly cleared. "The elf!"
"Elf? What elf!" Clarence snapped.
"There was an elf as well. During the painting. She must be the one."
"You brought us the wrong one!" Clarence screamed into Loris’s face.
"I thought the witch was it!"
"You dumb bastard!" Clarence cried, shaking Loris by the collar of his robe.
"Don’t worry! Don’t worry!" Loris gasped over the crackle of magic and screams of the dying and maimed, a man set on fire from an errant spell running by, his robes roaring with a curtain of flame. "We can fix this! We just have to find the elf and-"
A tentacle smashed between him and the other warlock. Like a whip it thrashed, slamming into Loris, bowling both men over, then wrapping around Clarence’s ankle.
The warlock squealed as he was hauled towards the water, even as other, smaller tentacles squirmed, tugging down his pants.
"Wait! Wait! No! Not there! Don’t put it in theaaaaaaah!"
Ireen winced, turned her face away. "Ooof," she said, not without a certain sense of satisfaction.
Craaaaaack!
Ireen tensed, the beams she was bound to creaking. She looked down quickly and found a tentacle tightening around the structure, the old wood breaking where it had been driven into the ground.
"Oh no," Ireen gasped. "Oh no no no!"
Snap!
The X fell back, slamming into the ground with a boom that echoed even in the chaos of the chamber.
Ireen gasped, the impact jarring her, the back of her head smacking against the wood, her senses spinning.
She groaned weakly, barely hearing the scraping sound as the wood was dragged towards the churning waters of the underground lake.