Story Base 8

Tittering, horrible tittering, and then abruptly all fighting was drawn quiet. An eerie silence fell upon the hobbits' ears, and no longer could they stay underground. As the little folk left the safe haven of the rabbit hole the stench and smell of rotting death overwhelmed them. A great mist hung in the air, and strewn about the marsh were orcs and other foul nameless things that were the abominations nightmares were made of. The carnage seemed never ending as they viewed the hacked off arms, legs and other unrecognizable limbs. Many of the half-orcs or whatever they were seemed to have burst open from the inside...their oversized fish-shapen heads swelled like a giant balloons until popped. Bodies lay strewn about like discarded sacks, torn, broken, and lifeless.

“What treachery is this?” said Frodo as he and the other hobbits sidestepped the blood, guts and other amorphous lumps of viscous black slime, and traveled on toward Amon-Sul.

“Gandalf, Stormcrow where are you?? Of what devilry is this…Won’t you come to us in our time of need?” The Lady Eowyn’s words fell upon deafened ears of her closest and most honorable riders, for the wind was howling like some frenzied Hound and the darkest of shadows was upon them. The dust storm marking the uncountable Orcian warriors approach and their foreboding battlesong bleated their moral to an utmost low. It surrounded them, and they knew death was near.

And then the lady Eowyn and the brawn men of Gondor saw it.... Growing larger with raging fire beneath it, and looming like living death upon the battlefield.

The loathsome beast moved closer, part demonic, part machine, Hellion through time/space, attracted by the stench of fear, and hell-spawn of augmented great Cthulhu. The ever brooding and terrifying legend handed down generation after generation by the Elven Kings. Many considered it only a story, but here and now the unnamable monstrosity rose up before them, quite alive, with massive claws worthy of gory bloodlust and a fleshless body covered with the dripping and caked on blood of uncountable deaths. It moved upon the armies of good in middle earth and began its unheeded wrath of desolation and Symphony of Destruction…………….

Twisting...turning...through...the...nether...

“Strange…” Said Q as he snapped his fingers a second time and was unable to accomplish his wish….

Gandalf had disappeared leaving NO trace or trail to follow…not even the Q Continuum could track him…

“Well Hyuj,” Q mocked, “it looks as if everyone’s favorite wondering wizard is not himself today…………..”

Kirk ran to Gandalf's side almost tripping himself in a rut of the forest floor as the old man looked about to go down.

“Back I say!!” Gandalf suddenly reeled up snatching the key from around Kirk's neck now seemingly full of energy. He pushed his staff into Kirk's soft stomach nearly knocking the wind out of him.

Gandalf looked to old Indy and to Kirk…“You humans are most troublesome!”

“See you on the Other Side…” And with that Gandalf clapped his free hand against his staff and vanished in a blinding light.

“Do not fear Jim, this is the beginning of the end…this is the way events are supposed to happen.”

Indy didn’t let Kirk finish. It was time he started clueing in the good Captain.

“Imagine a place where space and time are not existent as we know them. Where time is an illusion. A place where what we call dreams are a true reality. You have had some influence in its effects…the trivial nature of a waking thought turning into a savage dreamscape of alternate states of being. In this condition known to us as the madness, time and space are unreal and echoes of some primeval prehistoric past beat insistently upon one's inner soul.”

“It is a place where those fortunate enough to have the gift of the Force are only beginning to glimpse into the infinite gulfs and unknown depths of supernatural consciousness………”

“See…there is a book Kirk…A book which I partly deciphered long ago…learning secrets of another universe...secrets not meant to be known by mortal men…”

“What scares me most is not what is known so far, but what we don’t know, the fear of the unknown…. “

And suddenly Kirk had the feeling of a million eyes watching him. Even Old man Indy seemed to get chills as well….

“What I am now worried about Kirk, is what is not foretold, but what hideous things are only hinted at through that abhorred manuscript’s Cryptic Writings…….....there are things more fowl and loathsome in the universe that mankind is not wholly prepared to know even exist...”

As Indy flipped the switch he felt the floor give way, plunging them all into the odious Pit of Shoggoths.…

They were again free of their confinement. Powerslaves for eons, the Shoggoths would never again be controlled by the Old Ones. The hypnotic state was broken. Realms of space and time were merged; disorder, instability, and confusion emerged. In some unfathomable form of multiverse the proto-shoggoths evolved - rising to become their own empire.

They would stop at nothing to destroy the one man who had the keystone to their only possible future imprisonment.

In addition to eliminating all traces to their old rulers, the dreaming sleepers or their hybrids, all of the human race would pay for their intrusion into their strange, almost mystical life essence.

Kirk’s babbling reached a flaming crescendo. McCoy gave him a sedative…The madness had taken him.

Suddenly Sulu’s voice echoed over the speakers drowning out the thumping sounds of Sickbay's monitors.

“Zykorrian troops have entered the Enterprise….Zykorrian troops have…” ........Complete static prevailed.

Within seconds uncountable numbers of troopers entered the room and slaughtered all who were living. Bones grabbed a laser scalpel and attempted to blind one of the things coming at him... the attempt was futile and soon his innards were strewn everywhere. Nurse chapel was routed from the rear lab and butchered next with systematic precision. Her blood adding to the coagulating carnage which was flooding the Enterprise decks. On the bridge the killing was much worse as the proto-shoggoths searched for the Captain, and their inhuman cries reverberated though out the hull of the ship…. “Tekeli-li Tekeli-li…”

Kirk suddenly regained consciousness and took in the abysmal spectacle playing out. The Zykorrians had passed him up. He quickly spied McCoy's severed and mutilated arm, and pried the laser scalpel out of his old friends bloodied fingers. Grabbing the nearest Zykorrian from behind he took the make shift weapon to one of its elongated tentacles. Greenish gel-like fluid oozed out. The rest of its body deflated to the floor and Kirk was covered in slime. He wiped his eyes of the inky ooze and saw that the rest of them were morphing into bubbling, formless entities of some gelatinous proto-matter…

“Enough!”

“I am Gandalf and Gandalf means me!” There was a sharp flash and all of the Shoggoths were gone, and everyone slain, simply, woke up…. “Come on Jim,” Gandalf said, “We’ve got to talk………..”

…The old wizard finished his tale. He had frozen time and Kirk had no idea how long the explanations had taken.

“I realize how hard it is for you to understand. However, we aren’t done yet. Not by a long shot. So I’m afraid all this info must be crammed into the back of your mind as a post-hypnotic suggestion. In future times, you will remember again, and all will be well. Until then, you’ll have a great feeling of confidence and sense of purpose, even if you have no idea what’s going on.”

All of a sudden, Gandalf the White, or Grey, or whoever he was held out a rod which yanked Kirk’s head to it.

Life in the Enterprise timestream continued normally, no one knowing they had just experienced the most shocking moment of their entire lives………..

Far and away, the demon sultan Azathoth rolled and boiled on his black throne in mindless ecstasy. The Old Ones would be now be distracted from their veiled plans with the release of the Shoggoths.

…The drumming madness and fluidic piping continued, as did the spread of pure chaos…

“So what you’re telling us is that the Greys have been on our side all along?”

Clearly, many were not taking well to the whole story.

Avalon didn’t like the way things were being directed here…………… Perhaps there was another way……….perhaps there was another member of council who was not present he could turn to……………he made plans to contact one who was abolished long ago………………….…….Saruman of many Colours.