"The Fish-Men," she said, "What about them? They had a colony here... they may know some secrets of the island we do not."
"That's a good point there, Chief," I replied. "I say we try it."
The others were skeptical, but Chief paid them no heed and dropped the small golden coin she'd received into the deep waters below, intoning the words that had been on the coin under her breath. From there, all we had to do was wait and see if it worked.
Fortunately, it wasn't a long wait. A few minutes later, we saw the dark and familiar shapes of the creatures we had come to refer to as the Deep Ones swimming beneath the waves. They surfaced just enough to glance at us, and not long after that we saw Scar leap onto the deck of the ship and land frog-like on all fours with a heavy, wet thunk. This time, we weren't nearly so frightened by his appearance, although I really don't think any of us will ever get used to the smell... or those unblinking eyes.
"What is it you require of us?" Scar inquired as he turned his one good eye to us, and I was quick to respond.
"The Island. We need to know if there's another way in," was my statement. "The boat's too obvious; we can't take down 50 of those villagers and cultists, too. Is there another beach, or a secret entrance, maybe, around back?"
Scar thought a moment, breathed wetly, and then continued. "There is one, yes. However, it is underwater, and you are not like us. You cannot breathe water." Scar's fellows laughed croakily, almost like a dolphin's calls, and he continued after calming them down briefly. "There is a way, however... We may bring you there, but it requires a certain seaweed. I fortunately have such material."
A webbed paw reached towards a small satchel I hadn't noticed before, made of what I assume must have been cured shark skin, for I'd never seen a leather like it. I didn't ask, however, as he removed several strands of a strange-looking, purple seaweed from the pouch and offered them. "Consume these," the Deep One extolled, "And you shall be able to breathe as we do. It only lasts a few hours. They are not gifted often save to Mother Hydra's faithful followers on land, but this is an exception."
I was leery, as were the others. What if they turned us into one of them or something? But Chief and Li, being more adventurous, decided to bite the bullet and try it for themselves. It was almost bizarre to watch the material's effect - I saw strange slit-like markings appear on their necks, like skin folds, which then deepened and took on a reddish-purple color. Soon, the both of them had gills - functional, actual gills, like those of a shark - on their necks.
"Uh... Chief?" I said, pointing, and she seemed just as concerned as me when she felt the new growths. Then Scar turned to the rest of us, offering the seaweed, and we realized we had little choice despite how disturbing the transformation was.
I wish I could tell you it was mildly pleasant to go through at least, but it wasn't. The seaweed was like any other in taste, though as I swallowed, I felt a strange tingling through my chest and spreading upwards, then a terrible itching on the sides of my neck, followed by the feeling of my flesh... remolding itself. It was disturbing to think of, and even more disturbing to feel, but otherwise absolutely painless. Scar then barked something to two of his fellows, and they landed on the deck.
"We will bear you underwater to the tunnel," he explained. "But you will need to ride upon our backs."
"Do you suppose you may carry two at a time?" Mahmoud asked. The Deep Ones nodded and croaked to each other, then proceeded to let us climb on. I could hardly believe we were doing this, trusting these alien creatures this much, but desperate times called for desperate measures. I called back to the New China members to distract the rest of the village so we wouldn't be seen, and they agreed, taking to getting the ship's anchor up with intent to cruise the island's shore 15 yards away.
"Cling tightly," one of the amphibians warned, before suddenly taking a running leap off the side of the dock and into the water with Mei-lin and Mahmoud.
For a second, I thought we'd made the wrong choice. The feeling of cold seawater rushing into your face triggers a reflex or something, I guess, because I gasped for breath immediately when it hit and inhaled a good amount of water. I panicked momentarily, thinking I was drowning as we sped through the sea, but then I realized something. My lungs were... expelling the water somehow, through the gill slits I'd grown, and within seconds I was fine. I didn't have to even hold my breath, the gills did all the work for me, like I was breathing fresh air. I didn't dare open my eyes we were moving so fast, but I could hear the chattering calls of the Deep One pod around me, a bit like hoarse whale song or dolphin cries.
Soon, I felt them slow down, and opened my eyes. They stung from the salt, but I could clearly see that we were approaching a coral tunnel, brilliantly colored in flaming red, an beyond that, an orange glow. In we went, moving gently, the orange glow growing more and more prevalent and the water growing warmer, until we finally surfaced. And what we saw... God, it was like something out of a Weird Tales story.
"They are preoccupied," Mei-lin whispered, pointing out the cultists. "I think that Scar and his boys might be able to communicate with, maybe even free, the ones over by the pit. If he can keep them distracted, we could make our way to those doors over there."
"Smart idea," Li replied, and the others nodded in agreement. "Someone should scout ahead, get an idea of how many of them are here. Those welders working on that thing up there are pretty engrossed in their work, I think."
"Do not worry, I shall lead my fellows to communicate with the others," Scar added, and the first part of the plan was hatched. Scar and his pod headed over to the other Deep Ones, and we quickly gathered ourselves behind a huge rock outcropping, thankful that the heat in here was drying off our clothing so quickly.
"What is that thing they are building?" Mahmoud asked, and I thought a bit.
"It seems airborne," I replied after a moment. "You see those fin-like things on it? They're for aerodynamics. They stabilize the whole thing, keep it on track. I think... it may be some sort of rocket or torpedo. A weapon. And you see how the tip is missing up there at the top, where the nosecone would be? That's where the payload would be, I bet. But it's not attached yet. Why?"
"Perhaps it is not ready to launch yet," Chief guessed, "But it is certainly a danger to the mainland. It must be stopped."
"Muuzaji, she is right," said Mahmoud. "It must be stopped, at all costs. I will go ahead, and look for something. The payload cannot be far away. If we can find it, the rocket will be useless, yes?"
"I'll cover you then," I offered. "Take it from the other side. You go one way around, I'll go the other.
We agreed this was the best idea, so we split at this point. Mahmoud proceeded to take the shorter route, while I took the longer one, leaving my prosthetic behind due to how uncomfortably hot it was becoming to wear. I wound around the chatting Deep Ones, Scar at the forefront of the conversation, and moved around the fetid pit. That one Deep One with the grey blobs on his hands seemed to be moving them with purpose, controlling something that was stirring in the pit. He clearly saw me, but he apparently couldn't say anything, and on closer inspection, I saw his throat had been cut and healed in such a way that his vocal cords would have been severed. He couldn't have called for aid even if he wanted to, and I felt pity for him. What sort of monster would do this to another sentient being, even one as grotesque and odd as the fish-men?
I have no idea what was down in that hole, but it was moving, moving with clear purpose... and it seemed incredibly shaky and nervous, like it really didn't want to be here. I thought it was liquid at first, but then I realized the liquid itself was moving, and the entire pit was its massive body. I pretty quickly decided to stop observing it after that. Just when I thought it was out of the way, a massive and slimy tentacle-like appendage rose from the pit and slammed down wetly before me, feeling for something, then grabbing a large boulder and pulling it into the pit with it, pushing it elsewhere. When it had settled down, I continued forward. To say the whole situation got my heart pounding in fear isn't giving me enough credit. Let's just say I'm damn grateful I wore my brown pants this time. But even that... thing deciding to give me a heart attack and nearly crush me to death paled in comparison when I ducked behind a boulder, and saw Mahmoud as he approached the cult.
There were at least a hundred cultists, all gathered around a massive statue so grotesque, it hurt my eyes to look at. It was the Lady of the Black Fan... but she was different from the last statue we'd seen. She was even more of a monstrosity this time, slug-like and bloated from decay, the fetid purge fluid that dripped from her orifices sculpted into the bronze alloy in loving detail. She had four mouths, all suggestive of the female anatomy, and all with lush lips and shark-like teeth. All over her body were writhing tentacles, some holding sickles like those the cultists had. Yet, her eyes were inlaid with two large emeralds, glimmering enticingly, and her face was almost human... almost. Covering the statue were hundreds of severed arms, many in advanced stages of decay.
My stomach churned, and I looked away, just in time to hear a woman screaming and the sound of Ho Fong's voice commanding someone in Mandarin Chinese. Then I heard another voice, a British one, and looked up just long enough to see Sir Aubrey Penhew, intoning words that no human mouth should or could speak. I didn't see what happened, but I know I heard the woman from before suddenly stop screaming as the sound of flesh being hacked apart split the air. No doubt, they had sacrificed the poor girl. And then, from between the statue's legs, a portal opened and a figure emerged, a figure I almost didn't realize until it was too late. The Lady of the Black Fan herself.
She was beautiful, more beautiful than any woman I'd ever seen. Her hair flowed like shining rivers of ink down the back of her yellow and black silk robe, which bore seven silver sickles on its belt. Her eyes were all I could see behind the luxurious black silk fan, piercing green. I wanted to drown in them, I felt myself pulled towards them, I almost fell under her spell... but then, something snapped me out of it. A sound, one I realized too late was the sound of a small rock skittering across the floor and echoing in the vast cavern. I blinked, turned to Mahmoud, and saw the mesmerized look on his face as he lay sprawled on the cavern floor, climbing slowly to his knees. One by one, the cultists heard him, and one by one they turned to face him.
I don't know what game over him, but the Lady of the Black Fan had certainly noticed. She beckoned to Mahmoud, and he seemed horrified... but he obeyed. He went to her whimpering in fear, but he couldn't help himself, like he was smitten, and she embraced him as the crowd closed around him in a circle. I couldn't see what happened next, but I certainly heard it - terrible sounds of pain, and disturbingly enough, of pleasure. I don't like to think about what happened to Mahmoud, but the others soon joined me beyond the pit, having heard Mahmoud's screams earlier. The crowd dispersed into their own prayers and ablutions, we heard the Lady of the Black Fan cackle madly as she stepped back and the portal closed, and all was eerily quiet as both Ho Fong and Penhew left. By the time it was over, all we could see was Mahmoud, bleeding, collapsed unconscious on the ground with a knife nearby.
Within moments, we were in a large chamber with several cultists too busy doing their own things to notice us, one of us bleeding out, and the rest of us horrified beyond measure. At first, we thought the Lady of the Black Fan had injured him, but this wasn't the case. When we turned poor Mahmoud over... well, let's just say he was missing a third leg and leave it at that. His clothes were rumpled, his face was pallid and sheened with sweat, and he looked exhausted, but between all of us we managed to at least cauterize the wound somewhat and drag him behind a boulder to keep him safe. He did come to eventually, but it took a bit, and even then he seemed distant and very quiet, and wouldn't tell us what had happened to him.
It was at this point that Mei-lin pointed something out to me. "McCloud," she muttered. "Do you see that seam in the wall? It does not look natural."
I looked it over as she pointed it out to the others, and we all agreed it wasn't normal. On closer inspection, we realized it definitely wasn't - nearby was a sort of lever, and when we pulled it... Well, let's just say Chief's eyes widened in awe. The whole place was like the inside of a pharaoh's throne room, glimmering with gold and gems. There was a massive throne to one side, built in an Egyptian style, and nearby was a pull cord which we discovered was to slide the door back in place. The adjacent cavern beyond held a large, slightly askew golden casket, upon which was Sir Aubrey Penhew's face. A nearby door was much different - more clinical and cold-looking, like a metal hospital door. A tiny window, we discovered, viewed into a workshop - and who should be in the workshop but Penhew, madly typing away at a typewriter that clearly had never seen a tune-up in its life. Ho Fong entered from the metal doors to the outside we'd seen earlier, and began talking - we couldn't tell about what, but Penhew did not look happy to hear it, and after a few seconds, he turned the chair around towards the window!
I don't think any of us have ever gotten ourselves hidden away so fast in our lives. Mahmoud was shaking from adrenaline, and even the normally unflappable Li was breaking a nervous sweat. The door opened, and Penhew entered looking rather annoyed, before sitting on the throne, setting up a gramophone nearby, and relaxing as the sound of big band jazz filled the room. He hadn't even noticed us, and didn't notice even as we crept past him to the door. Now was our chance! We had Ho Fong pretty much alone, and occupied with work in the shop. What better opportunity to strike could we have asked for?
Mahmoud's eyes blazed with the sort of fierce warrior instinct only a soldier in times of stress could muster, and it didn't take long for him to volunteer. Creeping in behind the madman, Mahmoud slammed his bayonet into Fong's neck. He hadn't even had the time to cry out, his blood flowing freely from the wound as his eyes weakly swiveled to notice us. Then suddenly, Mahmoud cried out in pain, clutching his chest, and staggered back. "Shit, he's having a heart attack!" Li swore, but he barely needed to say anything before Mei-lin rushed into action, quick as a cat, and drew her battle fan. One slash later, and Ho Fong lay on the floor dead and bloodied, his neck slit ear to ear - a hell of a coup de grace if ever there was one. I even cut off the guy's finger and kept it to prove to New China that we'd finished him, once and for all.
More impressive than how easily we took out the man who gave us hell the whole time we'd been in Shanghai, however, was the wealth of information in the workshop. Mahmoud discovered a clock, which he pointed out was ahead by eight hours from GMT - about the right amount of time for Shanghai's timezone. Chief opened a cabinet to find several cult robes. Mei-lin found a blueprint on the desk, covered in odd and alien-looking glyphs, complex mathematical equations, and build plans for what was clearly the rocket in the main chamber. Li located a box, wooden and easily opened, wherein there was a strange metal cylinder made of what appeared to be lead, judging by how easily his fingernails gouged the material. On it was a gauge, which on closer inspection I recognized as a pressure gauge like the kind in my plane's cockpit. As for me, I found Penhew's entire journal from 1921 to now in his typewriter, waiting to be read, and in it was the ramblings of a madman. He mentioned how he had enslaved the Deep Ones and his struggles to commune with his god Nyarlathotep. He discussed how he built the rocket in the chamber. And he talked about Dr. Huston of the Carlyle Expedition, and discussed something called the Great Race.
My interest was piqued as soon as I read those words, and on a sneaking suspicion I glanced at the blueprint's odd glyphs, trying to decipher their meaning. Then something... clicked. Something almost jumped into my brain, like a flash of sudden knowledge from another mind, making my head throb from the intensity. I had a vision then, a strange one - I was in another body, an alien body, and I was reading spiraling pages of those same glyphs in some sort of library. It was like no library I had ever seen. The architecture was foreign and almost inhuman to me, and the shelves upon shelves of scrolls there were all organized in neat rows. It was like a bizarre dream, and for some reason... I instantly knew precisely what type of body I was in, and who had created such a great library.
"The Great Race," I muttered under my breath. "The glyphs... Those are written in Yithian glyphs..."
"Written in what?" Li asked, incredulous.
"Yithian glyphs. They're a writing system, an incredibly old and alien one, used by something called the Great Race... But how would these creeps know this system?"
"And you know this... how, precisely?" Asked Mei-lin, an eyebrow cocked in skepticism.
"That's just it," I replied. "I don't know. It's like it came into my head from nowhere..."
"Perhaps," murmured Mahmoud, the first he had said in ages, "They are using it as a code." That answer seemed to satisfy the others, though I felt in my gut it wasn't quite true. In fact, thinking more and more about it made me a bit uneasy...
"Listen," I said, switching the subject abruptly. "That blueprint over there is clearly for some sort of rocket or torpedo. And you see that cylinder with the gauge on it? I'll bet you anything that thing's the payload. That's a pressure gauge, looks like it's supposed to possibly explode at a certain altitude and air pressure. We gotta destroy that rocket, or all of Shanghai could be in danger."
"You are right, of course," Li responded. "But I fear throwing the payload into the lava may be a disaster waiting to happen. There must be another way. I noticed several welding torches near the entrance we came in. Perhaps..."
Li smiled cryptically, and then it clicked for me. A smile spread across my own face, mirroring his.
"We could melt the supports! That'll really ruin their plans... Great thinking, Li!" Already an idea was forming in my mind. "You guys, get those robes on, we're gonna sneak our way out while I get working on the supports for the rocket."
The plan decided, we headed back through the metal doors, sneaking past the pit where only one Deep One and the thing in the pit now remained, and back to the pack-like welding torches. There were three, but I elected to do the deed while the others made themselves a distraction. Sure enough, as soon as I walked over with the pack on, one of the workers shouted at me in broken English to get back to work, and so I did. I cut two of the five main supports on the middle through, the rocket groaning under its own weight. We had about fifteen minutes, or so I thought, before it would slump into the lava, plenty of time to get out.
Of course, it couldn't be that easy. As I was about halfway through one of the smaller supports on the bottom, I heard someone shouting in broken English at me again, this time in confusion at what I was doing, and I didn't waste any time. I booked it as fast as I could, dropping the pack and trying to shed the bulky robe.
"Guys, it's done!" I yelled. "We gotta run for it!"
"We are over here, with Scar!" Chief yelled back.
Before I could respond, I saw the remaining cultists in the chamber take notice... and they were none too happy we'd infiltrated their lair. Then, they heard the groaning of the metal from the rocket, and I could see the Oh, shit look in their eyes as they panicked. Within moments, mass chaos had erupted in the chamber, plenty of time for us to clamber onto the backs of our fishy allies and dive into the water, swimming for our lives. And right before we dove in, we heard a shriek of anger, a man's voice - Penhew's voice, swearing violently.
And then, the world exploded. Under the water, we heard muffled booming, and the tunnel nearly started to collapse on us. The Deep One pod, now several members stronger, sped up and powered through the water like bats out of hell, us clinging for dear life. When we finally surfaced, we saw Grey Dragon Island's cinder cone erupting, spewing smoke and lava into the air and water, huge rocks flying into the air, the cone of the volcano slowly destroying itself.
"Great Cthulhu have mercy," Scar growled in awe, as sobered by the sight as we were.
It wasn't a far swim back to the boat from the island, and even as we watched the eruption further, we saw a man on its shores - a very bedraggled-looking, but still recognizable man. It wasn't until Scar's pod got us back safely on the boat, our temporary gills vanished, and I got my binoculars out that I could tell who it was - Sir Aubrey Penhew, glaring at us from a distance, snarling and cursing us angrily. Then, some of his cronies pulled around the island in a smaller yacht - the Luxuriant Goddess, we think - to take him from the island. Fortunately, the Dark Mistress' speed outclassed her rival, and we were out of his range without a chance he could ever catch up to us.
Seems we've made an enemy today, folks, even though we managed to take out a good chunk of the Order's power in one fell swoop. Sure, the Deep Ones are damn grateful for our help and have offered their assistance in the future, and I don't think the Order is going to last much longer without its head, Ho Fong anyway, so they should never be enslaved again. But that doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot. Sir Aubrey Penhew's definitely not as dead as we wanted him to be, and that means he's likely going to try to hunt us down, meaning we need to leave Shanghai very, very soon. As in, yesterday. That's even if he doesn't tell other cults about us and alert them. For all we know, there could be even more people like the Order, or the Brotherhood could even come back to haunt us - he did have ties to them, after all... What if he became their new head guy?
Not only that, we have other problems. For one, the New China members had disobeyed us - directly against our orders, they decided to get closer to the island and took one of the lifeboats to shore in order to attack, and that was their idea of "creating a distraction". They were not prepared for the Order to have an entire enslaved village, even more of the enslaved Deep Ones, weapons, and magic on their side. From what the lone, traumatized survivor told us, they summoned some sort of gigantic, walking octopus that slaughtered almost everyone who had landed on the island, friend and foe both, villager and cultist alike. He survived only because the beast had been preoccupied, and he was able to take the boat somewhere safe to anchor. Most of the Deep Ones on the island were able to escape to the sea before they were hurt, but many of the hybrids, including many of the cultists and almost all of the villagers, were not so fortunate.
For another, Mahmoud has not been doing well, at all. We're at least halfway back to Shanghai, and the poor man hasn't come out from below deck the entire trip. Chief went downstairs to check, but he only screamed at her to leave him alone. Then I went down there, and found him huddled in a corner, nursing his injured groin and deep in thought.
"Francis, I am no longer a man," he said, his voice utterly defeated. "I have defiled myself and broken every tenant of my faith, and am no longer pure. I am a disgrace to myself, to my wife, and to all of you."
"You did great out there," I replied, smiling gently. "You kicked Ho Fong's ass and survived whatever the hell weird ju-ju he tried to curse you with. So what if you don't have a... well, a little Mahmoud anymore? I don't have a leg, and I'm not any less of a man for it. And you survived seeing the Bloated Woman up close, which I doubt I'd have been able to do. I'd say you beat me ten times over in the manliness department."
Mahmoud didn't look encouraged, and he looked to me sadly.
"No, you do not understand. I was supposed to remain pure for her. For Munna, my wife. The Bloated Woman, she violated me... and I enjoyed it. Allah help me, I enjoyed it. For that, I can never show my face to my family again. I have failed, and will not be forgiven."
"Hey, it wasn't your fault, you know," I continued, sitting next to him. "You didn't know what was going to happen. None of us did. From any way I see it, you're the victim here. I'm sure your god will forgive you for something that wasn't your fault..."
"I am not a victim!" Mahmoud screamed, tears running down his face. "I am not... I... I should have been stronger, I should have done something, I..."
There was nothing I could do after that. He was inconsolable. All I could really do was take his shotgun off him and leave. But what I didn't know was that he'd had another gun, a pistol hidden in his satchel, so when I left him alone...
God, I still blame myself for this. It was about half past six in the evening, and we were nearly to Shanghai's coast, when we all heard Mahmoud start shrieking in terror, screaming about seeing Satan himself and cursing in Arabic. Then, before any of us could react, a single gunshot rung from downstairs, and then silence. Crushing, terrible silence. When we found him, he was bleeding and slumped over, dead, from a gunshot wound somewhere just below his jaw. The bullet hadn't even made it all the way out. We buried the man at sea, weighing him down with some heavy materials we found in one of the crates and saying a few rites for him. The rest of the trip was sober, each of us settled into our own brooding, silent mourning. He shouldn't even have been here in Shanghai. It's my fault he was on my plane. Chief tried to comfort me by listening to me, letting me cry on her shoulder, but I don't think it helped much.
On a higher note, New China was pleased to hear that Ho Fong was dead when we made landfall. Isoge Taro showed back up, angry we had sent him on a wild goose chase, but he changed his attitude when I showed him the payload I'd taken from the island. He was intrigued, and seemed to have forgotten the whole thing. My plane was even all fixed up, and better than ever - brand new hull, repaired holes, new propellers and engines... it was like the Tin Man's Heart was a whole new gal. Then Clayton came to us, and Sarah with Mah'muhd, and they were glad to even see us alive. They had leads for us, leads to someplace called Cuncudgerie down in Australia, and they wanted us to investigate.
I guess adventure calls again. Anything to get our minds off Grey Dragon Island. But I still can't help but wonder - how did Penhew survive the explosion, and what did those glyphs on the blueprints mean? I have to know. I'm too involved in this mystery now, too deeply interconnected. I have to find the answers... and something tells me that I'm going to find them in the Land Down Under...
-- Francis McCloud, Sobered and Steely-Nerved (June 13th, 1928)