Planet of the Evil Ones

Chapter 9: To the Top

As Areex clawed the door open, they could hear it audibly creaking. To their fear-addled ears, it sounded like a bomb going off - a siren announcing their presence to the Great Old Ones.

Behind the door was a roughly octagonal room. It could easily fit hundreds of Jirrhnu warriors within it. A staircase winded up to the top of the sky - stretching beyond even Tom's eyesight - which could zoom inwards.

"We're not going to have to climb all of that, are we?" said Areex as they stared upwards.

"Probably. Going to guess that the staircase was only built for the Great Old Ones who refuse to teleport."

"Wonderful."

Tom then stepped foot onto the staircase - with Areex following suit. They could both hear a grinding sound and then could feel the staircase moving as something quite spectacular happened.

The staircase began winding upwards - corkscrewing rapidly. Both Areex and Tom had to hang on for dear life.

Even at the rapid speed that it was traveling, it still took nearly an hour for the staircase to reach the top. It halted with a screech - leaving Areex and Tom only a few stairs to walk up.

As Tom walked up the stairs, he had an observation to make. "An impressive display of mechanics. Or the power of suggestion. Whatever powered that staircase."

Eventually, the duo came to a door. It silently slid open - revealing a room dimly lit by red lights.

Inside, they could hear something banging around. As Tom turned the spotlight feature of his eyes on, he illuminated a tiny creature banging about. It must have been three or four feet tall and had a reptilian aspect to its form. Pale - almost transparent - skin was visible in the glints of light that hit its body. Veins could be seen underneath - black and sickly green. Rusting glasses were jammed atop its snout and at first appeared to have been pushed into its eye sockets. Closer examination revealed that they were actively meshed into the eye sockets.

It shrieked as the light fell upon it. A shrill shriek that very nearly spooked Areex. Tom yelled boo at the tiny creature - which promptly skittered off and shut the door behind it.

This let Tom and Areex examine the machine it had been working on. Multiple screens - several at eye-level for the tiny Great Old One - were attached to the cylindrical machine. A massive dome sat within. Splotches of pure black liquid fought with splotches of pure blue light within - a furious flowing war.

Areex immediately reared up at the sight of the machine. "A dimensional siphoner. They tear other dimensions apart - ripping dark energy, dark matter, and other unusual matter from them until they are left dead. Illegal and immoral in almost all dimensions."

"What do you propose to do about this?" asked Tom as he stared at the siphoner. "Shut it off?"

"Well... We could scuttle it and make it into a dimensional portal. But it would be an extremely rough method of transportation. Dark matter portals have a tendency to explode... or tear the people in them into a billion pieces... or..."

It was then that Tom heard two footsteps running up the stairs. "Just do it!" he spat as he grabbed the only other thing in the room - a large filing cabinet - and set it against the door.

Areex quickly set to work on overloading the siphoner in such a way that it wouldn't immediately blow up or dissolve. The two warring liquids very quickly started to flow together - forming a writhing, pulsing, glowing globe that sent bolts of light into the surrounding ether.

Once this had run its course, Areex smashed the globe of the siphoner - letting the portal fly upwards until it hovered a foot above the siphoner.

"Do you know where this will end up?" asked Tom as the door was smashed on by something or somethings that were extremely angry.

"It's going to whatever is eclipsing this dimension. Hopefully that isn't Derleth's World but I couldn't control it! We'll just have to jump in and hope nothing goes wrong!"

Tom leaped in - yelling as he was sucked into the depths of the portal. Areex followed closely behind - letting out a chittering primal scream as they entered into the eye of the portal.

The door was then bashed open by two forms - the one that had chased Areex and Tom in the wastes of Derleth's World and another that resembled the heretical form of an anthropomorphic statue of a golden bull.

They both stared at the portal as it fizzled and died into nothing - leaving behind nothing but the crackling remains of the dimensional siphoner.

If they had listened closely, they would have heard the laughter of something extremely ancient and even more powerful than the Great Old Ones cackling as two players in its game reached the next level. This was completely malevolent - without a hint of mirth. Only malice was within its heart.

Something that perfectly suited its owner.