Sit tight, my friends, as I weave a tale of magic and night. Let the fire burn low and let the wind howl through the ridges of this lake as the muses sign unto me, and the night speaks with my voice...
There was once a young man, who lived, worked, slept, and ate along the ridge of a great, dark lake; Devil's Lake, in which he fished and drank. He was a wild man, in harmony with nature, loving all things in nature, alive or otherwise. But nature was not in harmony with him.
The man lived in peace with the world for many years, each day and night the same as the last. But one night was different. The day was normal for the man, and the sun set, just as it had for millennia before. The night settled in, and the wind whispered through the trees. All was at peace, for a time. And the moon rose, a bright eye high above the earth. But the moon, this night, was different. It glowed orange. The young man sat high on the cliff above Devil's Lake, and watched with trepidation as this new moon rose.
He knew the orange moon was a natural occurrence, but this was not a natural day. This day was Hallow's Eve, when the veil between this world and the next was thinnest. The ominous moon bearing down on him did not ease his fear. The moon appeared to have as face, and it watched, and waited.
The tall ridge of stone over the lake seemed to glow with the light of the moon, sparkling like a sheet of frosted glass. The ground below the man trembled slightly. Something was coming, he knew. But he did not know what. And for the first time in his life, he was truly afraid of the dark.
The lake below shimmered, still as the sky above, and placidly reflected the trees around it. But there was a ripple in still water, and something below the lake moved. The reflections of the trees and the moon far overhead broke into shards of glass, and the wind stopped humming. Everything was silent as the water broke.
Impossibly slowly, something appeared to be rising out of the water. The lake rippled as this new apparition, slow as ice, stretched its way higher and higher into this world.
What undulated out of the water was, at first, nothing but a single tentacle, sharpened into a spear at its tip. It was red like fire, and spotted with dark blotches of night. It wiggled slowly, quietly, almost unnoticeably as it slid between worlds. It shimmered in the moonlight. But there was some unmistakably off-set quality about it, something not of this world. And it most certainly wasn't.
The man quaked, watching this monstrosity carefully. He had never seen anything like this before, but this was Hallow's Eve. He prepared himself for what else might appear above the water, fastening himself in a protective leather suit and wielding a heavy stone axe. But even with his weapon, a feeling of deep dread settled in the pit of his stomach, and he waited...
Eventually, after what felt like weeks, the young man saw something more substantial than a tentacle float out of the water. It was, at first, nothing more than a red lump, as it was the base of the tentacle. The base, too, was covered in patches of nothing. Then the mass grew, and space itself seemed to spread apart to create a void for the beast to pass through. The young man saw that creature rising out of the water had ten thousand eyes.
The eyes were intelligent, large, and a deep yellow. They had slits like those of cats, but these slits were deeper, and showed a way into unimaginable horror. They darted around, watching everything, especially the young man. The ten thousand eyes circled the monster's great head, and observed all, learning best how it could be destroyed.
Then came the smell, a scent like rotting fruit and decaying flesh that reached down into his throat, causing him to gag and taste something awful, something sulfuric and evil. The appearance of the devilish creature stopped the man cold in his tracks. He could feel a very real pressure in the air, like something building and growing...
