The Sunken City
Chapter 1 Part 5
Wherever we turned, we were surrounded by enemies. They turned on my companions simply because they were with me. We ran to the town square, and realised that they were performing a ritual, the only words I understood being his name. Cthulhu, that dark demon from my dreams. Icons and altars laid before us, and not one cultist broke their attention towards us. The unruly woman who had accompanied us, the one I referred to merely as Cat in my head, began circling the pavilion, fully understanding that we were in danger. Ben, not hearing a gun in this reality, did the same, with me following closely behind them. Before we could escape to the back streets, three male cultists on the edge of the circle noticed me, and bellowed, "Be gone, demon!" They swung their torches at me, myself hypnotized by the light. Ben grabbed me, and said, "For God's sake, George! What are you doing? Come on!"
The alleyways of the Sunken City lined the residential area. We traveled down the pathway until we had reemerged into a street lined with dwellings that had only curtains draped across their entrances. Both Cat and Ben struggled to find a place to hide me, both of them in this existence seeming to have a fondness for me. A street watch chimed their bells in the distance, armed with barking dogs and pitchforks. They wanted to lynch me. They wanted to kill me as so many did in my own reality. We hurried into an unoccupied home, and found the walls lined with many dark looking texts. A quick examination of the book titles revealed many occult names, including the nefarious Necrocominicon. I grabbed the book from the wall, and skimmed through the pages, noticing the illustrations depicting many complex procedures for rituals. As I closed the tome, I felt my sanity stroked, and had trouble focusing on Cat and Ben, who were cowering in the back.
The watch passed the abandoned home where we hid, none the privy to where we had taken up seclusion. We slipped out of the home, darting past a woman in tattered black garb who looked as if she was returning to the home. As I barreled past her, she tried to trip me, spewing curses as I left her presence. Ben led us to the back of the residential area, and to what looked like a local precinct. Is Ben a watchman in this reality, too? What can they possibly do for me in such a corrupt city? Ben ushered us in, and sat down near what looked like two other vigilant officers. Than, the truth came from Ben's lips, "I don't know how we got here, but this isn't the same Innsmouth as before." The reason they recognized me was because Innsmouth had been transformed. These are the two people I had encountered in my former reality. The citizens of this former peaceful fishing hamlet had been transformed by the cultists rituals they had been performing beneath the Cartwright home. Seizing the situation, I asked the other two, "How are we to find the Cartwright heir?" Ben grabbed a crude looking dagger from the station house's armory, it being one of the few weapons stored here. He said, storing the blade beneath his tunic, "I don't know, but I want to return to her manor." Cat nodded, her perplexed by her current bearings. She had become wrapped up with us, pulled into the portal by our own relentless pursuit. She is a victim, as has all the other residents of Innsmouth.
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