The Cauldron II

Getting into the concert hall proved difficult.

Aside from the security guards, Timberwolves were also all over the place, keeping a close eye. And considering Who else was involved with this business, I had pretty good reason to be suspicious of any bugs I happened across.

And lastly, my arm was still in a cast. Climbing was right out.

But luck was on my side. I managed to sneak in one night, dodging guards and moving through a window that had been accidentally broken by one of the technicians. This happened maybe 6 days after my meeting with Reed. Four days after Lebowski offered me a job.

I got into the building, and I found a fire alarm. It was around midnight, so everyone getting ready for the opening had long since left the building and I wasn't worried about being seen. Security cameras might've been a problem, but...

Well, anyway, I pulled the fire alarm right after I planted my home-made bomb.

Let me tell you, it was hard building a time bomb with only one hand, having to rely on instructions on the internet. I don't even know if it worked yet. I hope it worked. If it didn't, then thousands of people are dead now. Anyway, the bomb was set for five minutes-- long enough for the guards to evacuate the building, but not long enough for the firemen to get there.

With the alarms blaring through the building, I ran. I needed to get out before the explosion.

And beneath the shrill cries of the alarms, I heard something else. A strange chittering sound.

Bugs were following me. Lots of bugs. I saw them behind me, forming a huge mass that covered the floor and walls. Roaches and spiders and centipedes and crickets... flies and wasps and bees and mosquitoes moved through the air. I picked up the pace, and felt a sharp stinging in the back of my neck. With my free hand, I slapped whatever had got me away.

I ran and ran and ran... I was so intent on escaping the Intrusion that it took me a while to realize that the hallway was longer than it had any right to be, that the alarms had faded into the distance, and this was not the same building I had started out in.

The tiles that lined the floor had vanished, and in their place was a layer of wooden planks and metal sheets. The plaster walls had given way to barriers seemingly made from a mish-mash of random objects and parts. The mass of bugs following me had vanished, but I could still see the occasional roach or spider scurrying around, weaving its way through the nooks and crannies of this bizzare building.

I remembered reading about things called Domains and Realms or... well, a whole bunch of other things. Like miniature worlds that They dwell in. The Path of Black Leaves, the Bleak Shore, the Screaming Tower... Could this, I wondered, be the Intrusion's Domain?

Somewhere in the back of my mind, Judas scoffed. Parasites, he said. Like they would have a domain of their own. No, they live in all the other domains, just out of sight. Pests.

I noticed an opening in the strange wall, like a window, and looked outside. Dark, bleak infinity. Nothing as far as the eye could see. I leaned my head out a bit. I was in a tower, one so tall that I couldn't even see the bottom. A tower assembled from random parts and materials. Stone and metal. Rope and wood. Plastic and flesh.

When I pulled my head back in, I saw that a plastic face was watching me. It was the head of a baby doll, hanging from the ceiling on what appeared to be a bit of rebar, extending out from the back of the dead like a long, thin neck. The doll's eyes had been removed, and replaced with golden, organic eyes. Like wolves' eyes.

It regarded me silently, and a tarantula made its way down the rebar and perched itself on the doll's head. I got the distinct sense that the tarantula, too, was watching me.

The Towering Realm, Judas said. It looks like we've been transported to inside the Manufactured Newborn.

I shivered. That was one of Them that I had hoped to never meet. A creature that builds itself out of whatever is nearby, searching for new materials to build itself bigger and bigger, eventually becoming huge and leaving to the Towering Realm, where it joins with its true form.

A true form that I now stood inside. A true form that the Intrusion was hiding in. A true form that probably didn't approve of me wandering through its halls.

I walked-- quickly-- away from the doll head. It turned to watch me go, the ceiling reforming itself to allow the rebar to maneuver.

As I walked, I tried to ignore the bugs following me, moving about in the walls of the Newborn. I tried, but I was not successful. My heart hammered in my chest, and I felt beads of sweat rolling down my skin. A buzzing noise suddenly spread through the tower, and I spun around to see a circular saw spinning toward me.

I threw myself aside to avoid its path, and was surprised when the wall opened up to let me through. I landed in a circular room, floors and walls made of countless layers of glass. Light flowed through the glass, and the ceiling was so high that when I looked up, I saw only darkness.

Darkness, and a skeleton rapidly descending toward me.

It was a large skeleton, and headless. Definitely not human-- maybe a cow or a horse. Bits of meat still hung off the bones, green and rotting. Long, sharp blades had replaced hooves, tied to the bones by wires. Speaking of wires, a whole bunch of them were wrapped around the spine, and they all extended up and above, ascending into the blackness, wrapped around each other in a thick cord.

The skeleton thing moved as if it lived, swinging the four blades at me. I moved and dodged, and the blades scratched against the glass. I was too slow. I felt a sharp pain slashing across my back, and warm blood flowing out. I gasped, and stumbled, and the glass below me began to crack.

I saw Mad Ricky, climbing down the skeleton's wire-cord. His cast was off, and his arm was covered in hard chitin. His limbs moved in a way that no human's limbs should be able to. His skin had been charred black, and his clothes hung off him as ashened rags.

"You will pay!" he called. "You will pay!"

And Mad Ricky leaped off the cord at me, hatred burning in his eyes, and the skeleton moved at him, his blades cutting into his sides, and the glass shattered, and I fell.

I awoke face-down in a field somewhere. The cut on my back wasn't deep, and had already begun to heal. I found a nearby library, and I used the computers there to update this blog.

I don't know where I am, but I need to get to New Rossfield. I need to find out if I destroyed the concert hall.

I need to find out if I saved the town.