The Delver Within

Entrusted with these manuscripts I promised to publish the secrets held within, to ward others from the lonely path taken by a once dear friend. Now having not heeded his grave warnings, I must publish these manuscripts to serve their intended purpose. I warn thee, take great heed of these writings for I have followed his path into the lonely realms of terror, evil and eternal mind rending agony.

went to Coventry in the fall of '87 to start my degree at the polytechnic. Now I can look back on the thrill of my new life with the contempt it deserves. How I wish I had passed my exams and managed to get to university, instead of this doom laden place.

I remember, I walked through the town, the night after my parents delivered me to Priory Hall. I wandered aimlessly, down dream haunted alleys, darkness creeping through the streets and the bare branches on the trees reaching out, imploring me to help them.

That night I dreamed, my first in a long time and the only one I can recall in such vividness and clarity. I dreamed I was walking through towers of paper, upon which were printed the economic policies of the occult. A whole, somehow primordial, savage city was built out of these policies. Monstrous beings dwelled within, hideous, vibrating entities, mindlessly following their programmed tasks. Music drew me into the heart of this hellish place, music played by no human hand. Just a voluminous, wailing cacophony, which reached into ones very soul and tore it apart. Then I reached the centre of the city, where an immense plaza stretched from me. In the centre, resting upon bags of gold, stood a throne, a monumented throne but debased and corrupt. And upon this edifice sat a gargantuary figure. At the sight of this colossus, I awoke, screaming, but mercifully without memory of the beast, but with the words

"Ctholera wgah'nagl flhtagn."

echoing through my head. Meaningless and in a tongue I'd never heard of. Gradually, during the following week, this image faded as I immersed myself in Freshers Week. I made many close friends during that week, how I would betray their trust and friendship comes later. On the Thursday of that week was a Societies Fayre and I went to join the clubs which appealed to me. I had membership of all the societies I wished to join and was about to leave the building, when I was suddenly drawn down. I abandoned my friends and followed the ghostly pull down to the sub-levels. Here I found the Economics Society and joined at once (even though I had no interest in the subject).

That night I dreamed again, the same frightful dream. The same horror, which has haunted me each night, until this one, where if my body dreams at all, it will not be me who does the dreaming.

I attended the first Economics meeting and there met the group of people who led me down that doom laden path to my own destruction and their gratification. I lie here in this distorted body, enveloped by rubbery, putrid flesh, a body which is no longer mine. Only my mind belongs to me and this is gradually going, eaten away by a cancerous growth within me. Delving away through my nerves and flesh, corrupting my very fibres with its lies, turning them against me. But I get ahead of myself, my mind wanders as my body no longer can.

The group of people to whom I was attached, were sat, isolated from the others in a gloomy corner. The same ghostly hand pulled me stubbornly toward them. In the gloom I could have sworn they were all exactly alike. Round, gold rimmed spectacles, and sour mouth, stooped shoulders and an awful taste in cardigans, all sitting with their legs crossed. This moment passed as quickly as it had come, and I made out several differences between them.

Not one of them said hello, they just started as if waiting for me to finish a conversation with them, started long ago. "If you want to follow our path you must read certain books we will give you, and we'll achieve everlasting glory for Ctholera together!" a monotonous voice came from the corner. A bundle of books was thrust into my sweating paw, as I was dismissed.

"Welcome back!" I heard as I walked away in something of a daze. I glanced back and saw the group sitting in a circle, not speaking, not with their mouths at least.

I returned to my room and glanced at the books given to me, a feeling of terror came over me. 'Cultes des Taxes', 'Unausprechliehen Macroeconomizics' and worst of all the dread 'Economican' by the Hapless Hibernian Micheal Kelly.

I spent the next two weeks, doing nothing but reading those books. From those books I was led into a world of horrific economic theories. Such terror and stress was instilled in me that my hair turned grey and my eyesight was ruined, so much so, that I was forced to acquire a pair of spectacles. I isolated myself from my friends as much as possible, but when I did meet them, their worried visages commented on my stooped figure and then strangely distorted torso and face.

The night I finished the Economican, I tried to destroy the books in the hope that this would save me. But by then the books had too much power over me, they consumed my will and accelerated the transformation my body was undergoing. As I touched them I felt their longing to possess my mind as well as my body, which would soon adorn their covers.

That night the economic cultists came for me. They led me to an underground chamber where they arranged me on a wooden pallet and smiled in expectation and longing. For a whole week I lay on the pallet festering in my own filth. Slowly changing. My flesh and fat swelled and my limbs deteriorated to mere boneless stumps of no use. The pallet broke beneath me, as it could no longer hold my expanding bulk. It was then that I first felt the delver within me, gradually taking me over, so it could escape into this reality from my body.

It gradually worked its way up, until the last day, 31st October when all that remained of me was my mind. My body writhed and pulsated and hundreds of mouths grew out of the nauseous membrane of the creature. They immediately started to eat into the flesh surrounding them, bringing me agonizing pain and despair. Then the cultists entered and started walking around me. Singing a dirge that would bring forth their master and slave. Keynsurath the Unspeakable, he who must not be named. Brother and sister to the Great Ctholera and servant to that Dread Old One.

The chant was building up to a climax, and the delver within was pulsating more forcefully, I felt control over my mouth being consumed and my sight was slowly slipping away.

Now the only thing I can see is my friends and some policemen bursting into the chamber. Then realizing with terror that it is I, their friend, who is the bloated monstrosity wallowing on the floor.

Then I see the cultists, upon them, beating, scratching, pulling and tearing with no regard for their own safety. They are too much for the policemen who are pushed back out of the room. But my friends are seized and bound, forced to kneel before me. The chant starts up once more and my sight fades and I'm left in complete darkness.

Slowly the delver sends his threads into my mind, this is the end and just as I'm slipping into oblivion I hear coming from my bodies tortured vocal cords, the hellish words..

"Penny For The Guy!!"