Hallie and the Sepulchre of Destiny, Chapter 2

Hallie and the Sepulchre of Destiny:

Chapter 2

“We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.”
–Will Rogers

Rasputatius was compiling a list of everyone he needed to wreak awful vengeance upon. It was a long list. A lot of the people on it were dead, but when you’re a ghoul that doesn’t necessarily preclude wreaking horrible vengeance. “And Mrs Lipkovowicz,” the Abyssal called to Buggerov. “Put Mrs Lipkovowicz down. She was very nasty to me in Sunday School.”

“You went to Sunday School?” snickered Fingers.

“No, of course not,” Rasputatius denied.

“Only you told us you were raised by disciples of Satan in the ways of the dark arts, imbued from birth with sinister powers to shake reality.”

“Do you want to go on the list?”

Fingers shrugged. “It’s not like you’re ever going to get a chance to wreak horrible vengeance on your list of Urthula’s boyfriends. These plans of yours to rule the world always end up in somebody being mangled.”

“First, it’s not a list of Urthula’s boyfriends, because Urthula yearns for only me. And secondly, when Buggerov and Chompvski get back we can…”

Just then Buggerov and Chompvski slithered back into the foetid cellar. “We got it, boss,” Buggerov called, laying a heavy iron-bound tome onto a handy sepulchre.

“That old scholar sure didn’t want to give it up,” Chompvski added, pointing to the severed hands still clutching the Prague Latin edition of the Necronastycon, as inscribed by Morbidus the Depressive in 1645 just before he ate his own internal organs.

“His brain tasted of sawdust,” Buggerov complained. “But at least now I know how to write index cards.”

Rasputatius ignored his followers, elbowing them aside to look at the ancient tome. “With this, we can…”

“Rule the world?” Fingers interrupted. “Look boss, it’s just a copy. I heard the real Necronastycon got stolen last night, but this isn’t it.”

“It isn’t it yet,” the Abyssal spat at him. “But you know nothing! You don’t get the Abyssal’s newsletter, published quarterly for the thrusting dynamic ghoul clan leader!” his mouldy green hands caressed his new prize. “When the physical form of the Necronastycon gets destroyed, its essence imbues another copy, and that becomes the prime Book of Vile Names, with all its lore and power. All we have to do is wait for the champions of light to find and get rid of the current vessel…”

“Hey, that actually sounds like a plan that could work,” worried Chompvski. “I wonder what’s going to go wrong?”

“It seems to have been some kind of neurological inhibiter” Al B. was explaining to them as he examined the dagger they had pulled out of Hallie's back. “Really, quite an elegant design to be able to affect so many different alien physiologies with such minimal side effects.”

“Um… the side effects are minimal, right Uhuna?” Visionary checked worriedly for the 18th time. “She's going to be all right?” He leaned over her prone form. “That drooling is going to stop eventually?”

“Grrrrr.” Hallie managed with considerable effort.

“I would think so.” the Abhuman Princess and medic considered. “There's no lasting damage for me to absorb and transfer to another. It seems to be some kind of synaptic interference that's dissipating. Her angry guttural noises are becoming more pronounced, after all.”

The patient was in no mood to be teased, no matter how reassuring such bedside manner was meant to be. “Aahrey.” she gurgled. “Eezh aht Aahrey…”

“Ease hot airy?” Uhuna ventured.

“Sounded more like Fleabot's hairy“ Al B. noted. “I've never really looked at him under a microscope...”

Surprisingly, it was Vizh who first put it together. “He's got Kerry!” he blurted out. “Who? Who's got Kerry?”

“This is Vaahir of Caph, calling the vile Visionary, oppressor of my countrywomen and tyrant of infamy!” the self-important little worm announced over the communicator.

“Hi. This is Fleabot here, screening calls for the tyrant of infamy while he's in the bathroom” the little robot replied casually. “Can I take a message?”

Hallie was in no mood for clever banter. “Get out of the way, you silly robot.” she growled, clumsily swiping up the comm-link left behind by her assailant and Kerry's kidnapper. “Let me talk to the sleazy cowardly pointless little worm. Hello? Big Caphan bully? This is Hallie, the person you stabbed in the back with a neural dagger.”

“I am Vaahir of... I am Vaahir, and you will speak to me with due respect.”

She gritted her teeth. “This is due respect, buster. Where do you get off attacking me and marching off with Kerry like some kind of...”

“Er, perhaps I'd better handle this, Hallie?” Hatman chimed in, swiftly moving to retrieve the link from her hand. “If you don't mind.”

She would have given more of a fight for it had her fingers been up to full dexterity. Instead she did her best to scowl at the capped crusader despite her lax face muscles and considered telling him exactly what he could go handle...

“Yes, be letting of Hatty talk to uncute slave-catching Caphan,” Yo suggested, putting a consoling arm around her shoulders to lead her away from the communications array before she broke something, either on purpose or simply due to poor motor skills.

“Thanks, Yo” he noted with an appreciative look. “Okay Vaahir, this is Hatman for the Lair Legion. What do you want?”

“Be sure to be telling of uncute-Vaahir that he is to be being very naughty, and is to be being ashamed of himself,” Yo added sternly, guiding spastic former AI across the room to a seat. “I am thinking you are not to be out of bed yet” the thought being scolded her gently. “Cute Rabito bounces off of less walls than you do currently. And you were not being especially graceful to begin with.”

“Stupid meat puppet” she grumbled, looking to her own hands. “I'm fine, Yo. I want to do my part.”

“Is Hatty's part right now. Not to worry. He is to get the best possible resolution out of the negotiations. You will see.” The Legionnaire looked at her shrewdly. “Now what is it bothering you?”

She tried to look incredulous at this question, but judging from the reflection on the video screen behind Yo, the best she could pull of was 'sleepy'. Or maybe brain-dead. She sighed instead. “I hate this. I hate this body. I hate this helplessness. I hate...” she stopped and closed her eyes before continuing in a small voice. “I hate that... it happened again. I couldn't protect her. Vizh asked me to watch her, and I couldn't do anything.”

“I am thinking cute Visi asked you to be watching Kerry for the protection of others, rather than the protection of Kerry” Yo noted rationally. “No one is thinking you were assigned to disarm and capture any armed uncute Caphan warlord who might be showing up out of nowhere.” The thought being gave her a reassuring pat on the hand before going back to check on Hatman's progress.

“Yeah” Hallie noted quietly as she watched the others. “Nobody expects me to do much of anything anymore.”

Lee Bookman stopped dead; except dead was probably an unfortunate word to use in the lair of a cabal of flesh-eating ghouls beneath All Saints Cemetery in Gothametropolis York. “Ohhh,” breathed the Lunar Public Librarian ecstatically.

He was surrounded by books. Hundreds of books. Handwritten scrolls and lovingly bound parchments, philosophical treatises, histories, mathematical speculation, folios of art. He reached out with his natural ability to catalogue written material. “There are thousands of works here,” he breathed. “All original. All unique.”

“We have a lot of time for study,” the Abyssal Greye shrugged. “When our mortal lives ended we elected to collaborate in undeath to continue our researches.”

“The documents here… I need copies for…”

“That’s not why we brought you to our enclave,” the ghoul lord told the Librarian.

It suddenly occurred to Lee Bookman that he was all alone in the subterranean lair of undead creatures who absorbed information by eating the brains of scholars. “Then why…?” he swallowed.

“Because while your colleagues hunt for the stolen Book of Rude Names we must consider other precautions,” Abyssal Greye told him. “We are not the only ones who will be searching for the Necronastycon.”

The scholar-ghouls shuffled forward in the darkness. Only the tallow candle guttering in Greye’s fist offered any light at all. “So… what do you intend to do?” the Librarian wondered.

“We have rites,” the Abyssal told him. “Occult techniques that will bring us into contact with any seeking for the Book of Rude Names.”

Lee flinched as the ancient scabbed hand clutched at his arm, but he allowed himself to be led through an archway into a vaulted chamber with a smooth flagstone floor. A complicated diagram had been traced across the ground, with skulls as candle holders at the points of the star. “There are over three million books on necromancy at the Moon Public Library,” the Librarian reported defensively.

“Activate the ritual,” the Abyssal Greye ordered his fellows. “Let’s see who quests for the stolen Necronastycon.”

The scholar-ghouls shuffled round the circle, muttering and gesturing. Lee Bookman watched nervously. “How long will this take?” he ventured to the Abyssal Greye.

“Not long. We are familiar with the target. We have brought you as one of the focal points of our spell because you have the gift of sensing books that are nearby, and we can enhance that with our rite. Very soon we should sense the identity and location of any who strive to gain the Necronastycon.”

“Good,” shuddered the Librarian. “Although I hope that our colleagues can retrieve the stolen volume anyhow.”

“Even if the missing Necronastycon is found its primal essence may slip away to some other edition,” the ghoul-lord replied. “It is our part to prevent that if we can, or track it if we can’t.”

Just then the black candles atop the human skulls flared. “Contact!” Greye called out. “We have discovered one who seeks to use the Nec…”

And then he and the other ghouls were hurled back and pinned to the walls with an unseen force. The skulls around the circle shattered and the chalk diagram glowed luminously, pulsing like a heartbeat. Lee Bookman was hammered to the floor by the psychic presence that suffused the room.

You are as great a fool as always, ‘Abyssal Greye’ a dry old voice crackled. Did you believe your charnel parlour tricks could sneak up on me?

“What?” Lee Bookman asked. “Who?”

The Ghouls Under Gothametropolis squirmed as the pressure on them became greater. A few began to seep a thick greenish mucous that might have been their blood. You never were able to stop me, scholar, the voice boasted, even in life.

“No!” gasped the Abyssal Greye. “This isn’t your time. It’s not your future.”

But it will be.

The Ghouls squirmed as the malevolent force that pinned then began to squeeze. The Librarian felt the merest echo of the power pitted against them and it almost made him vomit.

But he had to do something. The ritual had been anticipated, had gone awry, was being used by some ambitious enemy to destroy those who sought him. Lee Bookman was the only chance they had left.

Painfully he reached a hand out to touch the inscription on the sundered circle. The Librarian used his gift to absorb written material and internalised the writing that made the occult diagram work.

The force vanished and the scholar-ghouls toppled to the flagstones, coughing and wheezing.

“Well done,” admitted Abyssal Greye. “That was resourceful. He would have destroyed us otherwise.”

“Who was that?” Lee demanded. “Someone who seeks the Necronastycon, obviously, but who?”

“A very old enemy,” the Dean of the Scholar-Ghouls Under Gothametropolis told him. “Things have just become far, far more dangerous.”

“Should I take a sword?” Visionary was asking nervously. “Isn’t that what one usually takes to a duel? I don’t want to be underdressed…”

“Do you know how to use a sword?” Lisa countered absently as she plotted the coordinates that Vaahir had sent for the Balok Gorn into the tactical operation room’s computer. “There’s more to it than knowing which is the pointy end.”

“Really? Hmmm… I don’t suppose Donar has left Mjalcom lying around, perhaps?”

“I’ve seen your high score at ‘Whack-a-mole’… This Vaahir guy will likely pound you either way” she assured him. “Oh, relax, would you? Sure, he’s a battle-tested warlord who has the technology and the strategic know-how to take the entire world hostage just to get the chance to carve you up into little bits… But, on the plus side, you’ll have a pocket full of snot. What could possibly go wrong?

“Um… am I interrupting?” Hallie ventured after giving up trying to decipher the finer points of their strategy. “I was hoping to talk to Vizh…”

Lisa nodded, looking from one of them to the other with a sly smile. “Yeah… okay. I’m going to go get some rest.” She leaned in close to Hallie as she passed by. “See if you can’t get him to get a couple hours sleep before we go. He’s wound tight enough to pop a spring. And considering where you would have to insert the key to rewind him….”

“I heard that” Visionary growled to his fellow Regular’s back. He turned his attention to Hallie. “Hey there… good to see you up and about. I was going to come check on you before I went to toss back and forth endlessly in bed.”

She nodded, then decided to skip the small talk stage and get right to the argument. “I want to come with you.”

Visionary blinked. “Um… Wait. What? You do?”

“To get Kerry back. To face that Vaahir slimeball tomorrow. I want to come with.”

“Oh! Right… Not to… I follow. Um… okay.” He took a deep breath to steady himself. “Not a chance in hell.”

“What?! Why not?” she demanded.

“Uh… well… Because I’m supposed to come alone” he noted carefully. “There are rules to these duels to the death, you know. You can’t just go about killing each other all higgily-piggily.”

“You’re going to go face a Caphan warlord in a place of his choosing all by yourself?” she asked in the voice she reserved for when he was being exceptionally stupid.

“Oh, heaven’s no. Lisa’s coming with me.”

Hallie glared at him, and she was apparently getting better at it, as the former LL leader squirmed under her gaze.

“Well, obviously Lisa doesn’t count. She’s a lawyer… she’s expected to cheat.”

“Then take me as well!” she argued. “I’m sure slaves don’t count to him either. He already thinks I’m Caphan… I could go put on a tiny metal bikini and act all slutty and hang all over you… I’m sure it would work.” She waited for his response, but he just stood staring into space. “Vizh? Vizh?”

“Hmmmm?” he answered, coming back to reality. “Um… what was the topic?”

“You need all the back-up you can get!” she told him. “I can help you!”

“Ah. Right.” He nodded in agreement and picked up a pen from the conference table. “Catch” he suggested, tossing it at her.

To her credit, she did manage to smack the pen with the back of her hand after it had already bounced off her chest, which was sufficient to send it flying across the room and into Lisa’s coffee. She met his bland gaze with all the pride she could muster. “Well… Uhuna says that will wear off and I’ll be up to full dexterity in no time” she noted carefully.

“That wasn’t your full dexterity?”

She considered returning the pen, mug and all, but with her aim decided that lodging it into the computer console two feet to Vizh’s left likely wouldn’t help her argument. “Dammit Vizh… don’t you think I should get the chance to face him again after he stabbed me with a knife?”

“Oh, well, when you put it like that…” he noted sarcastically. “Not exactly the precedent you want to raise to get me to give him another chance.” His expression softened, however, when he noticed the tears that were straining at the corners of her eyes. “Whoa… time out. What’s the matter?”

“Everyone here has something to contribute!” Hallie yelled, letting her frustrations out with surprising vigour. “The people here are all the best at what they do… the most skilled, the most brave, the most powerful. And then there’s me… the awkward klutzy girl that can’t even type more than 25 words per minute, let alone program thousands of lines of code! I’ve got no skills, no powers… I’m completely and utterly useless in this stupid human body… I’m a charity case the others put up with out of kindness! I’ve been reduced to… to…”

“Me” Visionary noted quietly.

Hallie froze as this registered. “I… That’s not… I didn’t mean…” It was no good, however, as she couldn’t seem to regain the reins on her emotions.

“I know” Visionary replied, reaching out to pull her close and let her cry into his lapels. “Don’t worry… We’ll bring Kerry back. Everything will work out. It’s one of the benefits of being surrounded by exceptional people… There’s always someone there who can make things better.”

“Is that it?” Chompvski demanded. “Only I don’t feel like I’m ruling the world now.”

“This is it,” Rasputatius told him, pointing to the volume stolen from the Minsk Archive. “This book has now become the prime Necronastycon, imbued with all the powers and dark lore that the Fairly Great Old Ones passed through Nyalurkotep into the mind of Abd Al Agro, the Unstable Arab.”

“That would be before he was eaten by things with too many tentacles while he was shopping in the marketplace one day, right?” Buggerov checked. “I hate shopping during sales.”

“Abd was driven mad by what he learned from the book he wrote,” Rasputatius admitted, “but those who ate of his flesh afterwards…”

“The bits not swallowed by the things with all the tentacles,” Chompvski clarified.

“Yes, those bits,” admitted the Abyssal, “Those who ate of his flesh became the founders of the ghoul clans. So this book is kind of our ancestral heritage.”

“Can I get a photo of me with it then?” wondered Fingers. “Perhaps with those violated graves in the background?”

“But how do we know it’s the prime Necronastycon?” Chompvski persisted. “It doesn’t look any different. I thought it’d… hum, or squirm, or whisper dark secrets or something. Frankly it looks pretty boring.”

“Get out, the lot of you,” Rasputatius fumed. “Here I am, plotting my strategy to…”

“Slip Urthula some tongue?” suggested Fingers.

“Change the course of Earth’s destiny,” Rasputatius clarified. “Anyway, it’s not always a good idea to put your tongue in Urthula’s mouth. Not when she’s hungry.” He shuddered at some old dark memory and scowled at his minions. “Just get out. I have some reading to do. And then tomorrow we’ll use the Book of Rude Names and conquer the world, okay?”

“Well, I was planning on playing knucklebones with Glopski and Rippoff,” Fingers admitted. “Could we…?”

“Out!” Rasputatius screamed, hurling bits of corpse after them to illustrate his command.

“I think he wants to be alone with his world conquest,” Buggerov told the others.

When the other ghouls had left, the Abyssal Rasputatius returned to the Necronastycan, opened it, and waited for the lark lore to suffuse him.

Greetings, Rasputatius a dry old voice from almost three hundred years ago spoke in his head. I’ve been waiting for you.

That was about the time that Marie Murcheson, the banshee who haunted the Lair Mansion and protected it in her blind grief against occult threats of a devastating cosmic nature, awoke and began to sob gently in the deep tunnels beneath Parody Island.

Footnotes and Epitaphs:

This chapter takes place concurrently to events in UT#202 Untold Tales of the Tenth Caphan and the episodes that follow. Briefly, a young Caphan rebel, Vaahir, mistakenly sought to rescue nine Caphan slave-girls he believed were being held in vile bondage by Visionary and the Manga Shoggoth. His plot included kidnapping Kerry Shepherdson, Visionary’s ward, after stunning Hallie, then challenging Visionary to a duel. Along the way he stole the Nectonastycon, the Book of Vile Names, and inadvertently awoke the Fairly Great Old Ones. After Kerry burned the book it remanifested in Rasputatious’ version of the text.

Marie Mucheson became the banshee at the Lair Mansion after her untimely murder in UT#63 - Untold Hallowe’en Tales of the Lair Legion: I Married an Elder Blasphemy .

Post By The plot thickens, thanks to The Hooded Hood, Visionary and The Tenth Caphan Wed Mar 30, 2005 at 07:32:33 pm EST	Subject Hallie and the Sepulchre of Destiny, Chapter 2

	[ Reply ] [ New ] [ Edit ] [ Email ] [ Print ] [ RSS ] [ Tales of the Parodyverse ]	Next In Thread >>