Unicorn Milk

Part the Nineth

ix

"NOT a huge vote of confidence, guys!" Taisce yelled.

Lumbar's voice echoed from somewhere down the hall. "Go get them, Tash! We're right behind you!"

"No, you bloody well are not!" she yelled back.

"What!"

Not for the first time, she cursed them all loudly.

"That's the spirit! Just give a holler if you run into any trouble"

Taisce fired a look down the corridor that would have frozen the fur off a musk ox. With a profane grumble, she looked down at the black book in front of her. She read the cover peripherally, trying not to focus too closely to the strange, twisted quality of the letters, but she could already guess the title; known as the Cuttled Bible, the Octofolio. It was the queasifing Cuttlenomicron.

She tried to remember anything about the cults of the Decrepitude Ones, but beyond a salaciously illustrated folio she once found hidden in Incarnatus's underwear drawer, she rarely came across them in her studies. She knew that after the fall of the last human empire, a few cults had sprung up with the intention of raising the Decrepit Ones to return humanity to prominence. They might have even succeeded if they had not spent more time warring on each other. Nowadays they were seen mostly as a nuisance, begging on the streets or preaching the word of Yob Slobbersloth door to door.

Nevertheless, the presence of the book solved some questions. Though not the treasure she sought, it was clearly an object of great value. This complex was likely some old cult temple, sealed off for some unknown reason. She looked at the skeletons that littered the floor and wondered if they had been shut in after they died, or before.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the book. The script was in Old Senilean, common in magical texts, but the words squiggled and ran like ink blots as she tried to read them, refusing to cease moving unless she willed them to stay in place.

It was a diary of sorts, interspersed with cultist incantations, deranged summonings, frenzied ceremonial chants, committee meeting minutes and horrid descriptions of denizens of the lower spheres. Written by the cult leader, it detailed their secret history of the Architoosthlep Cult from their origins as an offshoot of the Amunwayians .... Taisce skipped to the end to see if there were any hints as to the treasure she so desperately sought.

She skimmed the pages, willing the words to stay still and be read. The cult had built this maze as the beginnings of a great temple. They had found a source of great power and were looking for a place to keep it a secret until they were ready, so they brought it here. For ten years they had dug these tunnels in constant darkness and prepared for the ritual of summoning their aged, insane god. The last few pages covered an attack by the Inquisitors of Ruxbinalla, a splinter sect whose heresies were laid out in a complex matrix that covered many pages.

Taken by surprise and nearly overrun, the Head of the Architoosthleps had begun their ceremony prematurely and rushed through it at haste.

What happens next was written poorly, as if the author was in a great haste. Taisce could barely make out the words, but the ritual had been at least partially successful. Something had come through. The words got harder to read here. Whatever it was that the cultists had summoned, it was 'uncontrolled', 'weak' and 'incomplete'.

Whatever it was, it had begun to rampage through the temple, killing cultists of both sides indiscriminately. Some of the cultists had rushed here, to the book, seeking knowledge of the creature, others were going to use the 'great power' contained within the temple to stop it.