The Big Lie

This week, a small team of researchers have mapped the largest and most complex known mathematical object: the E8 Lie Group. A method of modeling E8 has eluded mathematicians since Norwegian Sophus Lie theorized the existence of this eponymous continuous group 120 years ago.

Surface and symmetry are two defining features of Lie Groups. In the simplest family of Lie Groups, a sphere has two surface dimensions, thus any place on its surface is defined by just two numbers. On its surface, a sphere has locations described in terms of longitude and the latitude, but its symmetry is described in three dimensions along its three axes. In the most bedeviling family, E8’s “surface” has 57 dimensions- that is, it takes 57 coordinates to define a point on it, and it has 248 axes of symmetry.

For mathematicians to map E8, they needed 453,060 points and express how each of these points relates to another. That meant they had to devise a matrix with 453,060 rows and the same number of columns for a total of 205 billion entries. Resolving the matrix is beyond raw, state-of-the-art computational power, so the researchers resorted to a combination of clever strategy and supercomputers to map E8.

Possibilities

1 Since it’s cheaper than building a particle accelerator with a track along Pluto’s orbit, particle physicists could use this map of an incredibly complex multi-dimensional object to advance String theory. However, resolving the mystery of E8’s structure has attracted the unwanted attention of alien intelligences, such as the Great Race, who wish to limit humankind’s understanding of outer dimensions. If ambitious investigators can stifle this attempted suppression, they might unlock a new technology, opening up another means of inter-dimensional travel or a novel portal for eldritch horrors to enter our world.

2 While Sophus Lie developed his theory of continuous groups in the winter of 1973, it wasn’t until 1884 that a young German mathematician, Friedrich Engel, came to work with Lie on a systematic treatise for publication beyond obscure Norwegian mathematics journals. The resulting collaboration was printed in three volumes of Theorie der Transformationsgruppen, which shipped in 1888, 1890, and 1893. Engel, however, authored an unpublished fourth manuscript. As it turns out, he was a rather powerful sorcerer and the last text reveals a means of creating doppelgangers of one’s self across all of the dimensions described by E8. Investigators could use this text to summon clones of themselves, yet they might bring back, for better or worse, some form of Freidrich Engel created decades ago and left to the sanity-wracking outer dimensions for any sum of relative time.

3 Dyscalculia, or the difficulty in learning or comprehending mathematics, occurs across the whole range of human intelligence. This affliction may also cause trouble with concepts of time, measurement, and spatial reasoning. Investigators attempting to discover arcane significance to the mapping of E8 may just, through a series of odd effects, ravage their own mental health and develop an acute case of dyscalculia.

© Jasen Johns

The Anachronomicon

A sensational find has been announced in a leading bibliographical journal - a book was discovered in the archives of a German family by one Professor Hasburg of the University of Munich. The book has been reliably dated using physical methods to the early 11th century. It is written in three languages - Latin, Arabic and Akkadian, the language of the ancient Sumerian and Babylonian Empires, which was thought to have died out in the 1st Millennium BCE and was not rediscovered until the late 19th century. While the find is largely denounced as a hoax, the scientific support for its veracity is considerable.

Possibilities

1 The human race will not dominate the earth forever. Humankind will be succeeded by an alien race that we would find horrific to behold; a race far more accomplished than our own. Their remote ancestors in our own time have not yet discovered Earth, but our planet presents a rare opportunity for them, as it can be transformed with relative ease to the conditions they require. The Anachronomicon has been sent from the future by their descendents to help them to realise this destiny. It contains rituals that will alert the present members of the race to the presence of humanity and grant them passage across the cosmos. They have used their limited knowledge of human history to prepare the manuscript in the three human languages of which most knowledge has survived into the far future. The anachronistic dating is a result of the stress of time-travel on the material of the book, and small inconsistencies between the results of available dating methods are apparent upon closer examination.

2 From the Latin text, the tome appears to have been written by Giordano Nola, an 11th century Benedictine monk. In the seventh century, a pious young girl called Dymphna was possessed by a Yithian, one of a race of creatures from the distant past who send their minds travelling through time by taking possession of human minds. Usually, they erase all memories of this possession from the minds of their victims, but this particular Yithian was careless. The memories were enough to drive Dymphna mad. For her trials and the strange events surrounding her life, she was later recognised by the Catholic Church as a saint, patron of the insane. Some hundreds of years later, the fingerbone of St Dymphna was held as a sacred relic in the monastery in the care of Giordano Nola. This connection drew him to the attention of the Yithian that had caused St Dymphna’s legendary insanity in the first place. Nola was able to record some of the creature’s memories before being overwhelmed like Dymphna before him.

3 The book is a hoax. Hasburg, a disciple of Nyarlothotep, had found a mainly empty book from the 11th century and created the Anachronomicon from it using his specialist knowledge. His intent is to disseminate the Akkadian writings - Hasburg feels that a controversial tome will receive more attention than a simple discovery, hence the Anachronomicon. The writings contain a hypnotic image, which is being used to recruit experts in ancient languages in order to perform a ritual which will summon Nyarlothotep in his pure form.

Copyright (c) 2001 Barbara Robson and Stuart Barrow

The Machine Beneath the Earth

Beneath an old city, the sounds of machinery can be constantly heard. The council have tried to locate the source of the noise by exploring the sewers. So far they have been unsuccessful.

Documents in the library indicate that below the city there are uncharted catacombs from medieval times, extending beyond the sewers. The historical or religious significance of the catacombs is unknown, though they are clearly not Christian in origin. The documents do indicate that one entrance to the catacombs begins beneath the house of an eccentric. The eccentric claims to know why the catacombs were built and what purpose they currently serve, but he refuses to elaborate.

Until recently, city folk have endured the noises with admirable stoicism. However, a recent spate of clinically precise killings have the locals in an uproar. The murders have been conducted with technologically advanced equipment, leaving no trace of a culprit. Each murder victim has been found near an entrance to the catacombs, and fingers of suspicion are starting to point at the eccentric.

Possibilities

1 The eccentric is bluffing and knows nothing about the catacombs nor the murders.

2 A criminal organisation hides out in the catacombs, creating the noise with forging equipment. The catacombs, whose purpose is unknown, amplify the sounds of the equipment so that on quiet nights the sounds can be clearly heard. The eccentric is a lookout for the organisation. The murders, however, are committed by an unconnected individual hiding in the catacombs.

3 With uncharacteristic viciousness, the Great Race of Yith are trying to create a perfect vessel for their minds, using both the organs of humans and machine parts. The murders are committed by their minions to provide the necessary organs.

© Michael Blenkarn

Cold Logic

Miskatonic University professor of Higher-Dimensional Mathematics, Dr Simeon Rasen, disappears in mysterious circumstances just after submitting for review the research paper that he proclaimed would take his career, and the entire science of mathematics, to a whole new level.

Then, the people reviewing the paper begin to disappear as well...

Possibilities

1 The paper proposes the existence of “angular space” alongside the curved space that we inhabit, and describes how it might be proven. Angular space is indeed real and is home to the nightmarish Hounds of Tindalos. Rasen’s exploration of angular space lured the Hounds to him, and they killed him effortlessly. The same fate awaits anyone who tries to continue his work or attempts to verify the ideas in his research paper.

2 Rasen’s work caused him to suffer from insane episodes, during which he was able to construct part of the mathematical formula that would allow him to summon the Elder God Daoloth, the render of the veils. Once recovered, he was unable to remember the periods of insanity, but he discovered the formula scrawled across the walls of his home. He based his research paper on this, but after submitting it for review he declined into insanity again, and realised he needed the formula in the paper to continue his search for Daoloth. He has since been trying to track down the original version of his paper so that he might complete the unfinished formula and summon the Elder God. All who stand in his way must die.

3 Years ago, Rasen was possessed by a Yithian. Eventually, the creature learned all that it could from Rasen and departed peacefully, and Rasen’s spirit was brought back to his normal body with all memories erased. However, with his formidable strength of mind he overcame the influence of the Tabula Rasa device and recalled many aspects of the science of the Yithians. He incorporated their brilliant mathematical concepts into his new paper before submitting it for review. Only later did he recall the final details that allowed him to create a gate to the Yithian city. From there he has uncovered more of the work of the Yithians and is a master of travelling across limitless space and even time. He has begun to contact his former associates and offered them the opportunity to accompany him to distant worlds. Those who refuse he is forced to kill rather than risk them revealing his secrets to the world.

© Thomas Parfrey

May Tricks

The investigators arrive in a village which, as they approach, seems deserted. As they enter, they are blocked by cars stationery in the street, and surrounded by frozen people and birds hanging in the air. The whole village seems to be under some power that has stopped time across the whole town.

Possibilities

1 This is an illusion. When the investigators enter the local pub, they note that the image on the screen of a TV (or perhaps a thrown dart hanging in the air halfway to a dartboard) is indeed moving, but incredibly slowly. The investigators have accidentally triggered a spell that slows their perception of time a thousand-fold. This spell is powerful but has its price – entropy has been massively increased; the accelerated investigators are ageing a year or two every hour that passes. They must break the spell or wither and die.

2 The Great Race of Yith have frozen time over the village using their stasis cube technology, in order that they or their cultists may study it for them, taking a few human specimens for later dissection. The device generating the stasis field has been secretly built by the cultists in a hidden laboratory and must be shut down to return life to the town.

3 An antiques dealer in the town has discovered an alien artefact which allowed him to communicate with a long-dead sorcerer of the serpent people. The sorcerer tricked him into opening a time warp to the modern age so that he could escape the decline of his people. However, the ritual went slightly wrong and time was frozen around the warp. The sorcerer was able to pass through and reclaim his artefact (the antiques dealer is frozen in the middle of his ritual with his hands clasped as if to hold the absent artefact) and the sorcerer has made the dead town his lair.

© James David Beard

Floating

An investigator wakes late one night to discover that he and everything else in his bedroom are floating several inches in the air. As soon as he realises this, there is a loud crash from below the floor and everything settles back into place, leaving him alarmed and confused. Cracks in the foundations and knocked over items show that whatever happened was a real event.

Possibilities

1 A Yithian time traveller tracking down a mythos tome has heard that the investigator has a copy of it. In true Yithian style, it decided to make the search easier by inventing a combination anti-gravity device and sleep ray to transport the entire building to a spot where it could examine the house at its leisure. However, thanks to a gap in its knowledge of human physiology, the sleep ray failed to work as planned, and the Yithian aborted the effort when it realised the investigator was awake.

The Yithian will try again, as soon as it manages to perfect the sleep ray. A number of people in the neighbourhood will find themselves falling asleep at the strangest times and places over the next few days as they become ‘volunteers’ in its testing.

2 A dying lloigor is trying to exact revenge against people with mythos knowledge, using the last of its failing strength. The floating effect was an unsuccessful use of its implosion power. A series of implosions during the night radiate out in a spiral over several miles from the point where the lloigor is trapped, too weak to move or solidify, but planning further acts of vengeance after resting for a while.

3 Subsiding foundations caused the investigator’s house to drop several inches, and he was woken by the commotion as the building settled. The foundations are being undermined by a gang of criminals tunnelling into the cellar from the basement of a nearby home. The collapse filled in their tunnel, but they’re determined to get into the investigator’s cellar one way or another.

© Chris Kerr

Pharos

Talon Rock – a small island barely a mile across, seemingly untouched by the defiling hand of humanity. The islet serves as an example of the purity of nature; birds wheel in the clear sky while the land is covered by a rampant growth of lush, tropical plant-life and a series of natural peaks. The island is also responsible for sending hundreds to their doom. Talon Rock is known to sailors as “Mariner’s Bane” on account of the many vessels that have been forcibly split apart by the keenly-pointed reefs that border its coastline.

Two months ago – in an attempt to prevent any further loss of life – a lighthouse was built atop one of the island’s peaks; a final warning of Talon Rock’s proximity. A crew of four men were selected to live in the lighthouse and be responsible for its maintenance and continued operation.

Recently, a vessel was sent to Talon Rock to replenish the lighthouse’s supplies. However, upon approaching the lighthouse the crew saw that some unknown force had wrought considerable damage to the exterior. Advancing to the interior, they found evidence of further devastation: papers had been torn to shreds; machinery disassembled; crockery smashed; and drawers thrown open, their contents strewn throughout the lighthouse. No trace could be found of the brave men who had chosen to live upon the rock in almost complete isolation from the rest of humanity.

A careful investigation yields no clue as to the crew’s eventual fate but one item of interest is discovered stuffed beneath a mattress - the senior keeper’s logbook. It contains only seven entries - the first week on Talon Rock. The last entry mentions a great storm approaching the Rock and the keeper’s feeling that they were being scrutinised by a nameless observer.

Possibilities

1 Legend has it that the dead walk on Talon Rock. This is not true; the bodies of the dead have been relentlessly broken upon the crag-like reefs by the unceasing tide. Their minds, however, live on. Talon Rock is now home to a gestalt entity - the amalgamation of all those who met violent ends beneath the islands savage waters.

The insubstantial entity is usually content to roam the island serenely, its presence unnoticed by the living creatures that also dwell there. Even the arrival of the lighthouse keepers went unregarded. Only one thing causes the pooled minds to act in unison - turbulent waters. During the storm the waters became incredibly violent, reminding many of the merged personalities of their own demise. The entity was envious of the lighthouse’s illuminating presence since such a beacon could have prevented the passing of so many previous victims. It struck at the lighthouse, tearing it apart with its wraith-like claws. The crew, believing their foe to be some form of poltergeist, fled the lighthouse and tried to leave the island in the emergency lifeboat. Like so many before them, they were claimed by the murky depths.

2 For countless generations, mariners have sought to steer clear of Talon Rock for fear of losing control of their vessels to the tempestuous waters and being mercilessly driven against the harshly-angled rocks. In reality, very few ships have been destroyed in this way. The actual cause lies far beneath the ever-shifting currents.

A small community of deep-ones inhabit the waters surrounding Talon Rock. They rarely frequent the world above except when performing rituals of devotion to Great Cthulhu or when raiding the ships that pass too close to the island for trinkets or victims for sacrifice.

The deep-ones initially assaulted the lighthouse simply to destroy the beacon which they believed would discourage shipping. However, while within the structure they plundered it for anything of the slightest interest. The four lighthouse keepers were dragged from their home and ritually sacrificed.

The deep-ones seek to keep Talon Rock free of human influence. Any attempt to repair the lighthouse will be met with aggression.

3 At the dawn of time, numerous wars occurred between varying interstellar races for the domination of the planet Earth. One such conflict was between the technologically superior, but less aggressive Yithians and the rapacious conquerors known simply as flying polyps. The Great Race forced their adversaries underground and built great cities atop all the exits - leaving their foes trapped within the Earth. Eventually the polypoids escaped and renewed their assault upon their conical foes. Their vengeance exacted, the polyps returned to their former prison and constructed vast underground cities.

An entrance to one of the polyps’ subterranean cities is located at the base of Talon Rock’s peaks. Even now that ageless elder-race still lurks deep within the Earth, far from the inquisitive eyes of humanity. The polyps viewed the lighthouse as an outpost of an enemy species. Such an outpost could not be permitted so close to their city’s entrance. Under the cover of the storm, the polyps annihilated their enemies.

The polyps also began to destroy the lighthouse until they ascertained its function. Human engineers from the supply vessel now marvel at the amendments made to the lighthouse’s internal components, the lamp now projects a narrow ray of light - more powerful than that of any Terran mechanism. However, the engineers are perplexed as to why the lamp no longer rotates but is instead mounted in a fixed direction. The impossibly dazzling ray now blazes through an aperture in the apex of the tower - and beyond into the uncharted tracts of space. What sinister powers could this beacon be signalling?

© Hadley Connor

The Book of Sand

Very little is known about this volume, but what is known has been reconstructed from fragmentary notes left behind by Dr Anthony Walker (Curator of Sanskrit Manuscripts at the British Museum). Dr Walker vanished from his London home, with the book, a month after his return from India. He had bought the book from an illiterate untouchable for a handful of rupees and a Bible, on the outskirts of Bikaner at the edge of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan.

The book is of octavo size, thick, and bound in cloth. The book has been heavily handled, and the cover and pages are worn and stained. On the spine are the words ‘Holy Writ’ and, underneath, ‘Bombay’. The book is unusually heavy.

The pages are laid out in double columns, as in a Bible, with a tightly printed but typographically crude text ordered by verses. The pages are numbered in the upper corners and out of sequence. The language is unfamiliar.

The Book of Sand is so titled because its pages, like sand grains, are infinite. It is impossible to find the first or last page, for example. Similarly, it is impossible to try to find the same page twice (even with a bookmark) despite the, albeit arbitrary, page numbering.

Possibilities

1 The Book of Sand contains the cursed soul of a sorcerer; the more you read, the more of your personality is absorbed by the book. Worse, the more you read, the more addictive it becomes, until your soul and mind are trapped within the book. When this happens, the sorcerer takes control of your body - providing The Book of Sand remains nearby.

The sorcerer is depraved and immediately plunges into an orgy of sensual pleasure. Eventually, the host dies and the sorcerer is trapped once more in the book.

Several months after Dr Walker’s disappearance he is discovered dead, with the book lying nearby.

2 The book was taken from the Great Library of Celaeno by a philosopher-yogin from a Tibetan monastery at Chamdo, at the head of the Mekong River. From there it was taken to the Cave of Scorpions at the Potala in Lhasa, where it remained for 200 years until it was looted by a Sepoy in the 1903-1904 Younghusband expedition to Tibet. From him, it was stolen by an Indian fakir who, driven mad by the book, eventually sold it to Dr Walker.

The book contains references assembled by the Great Race of Yith concerning the Great Old Ones. Unfortunately, the information can only be accessed by Yithian mental command, otherwise only random pages are accessed. The pages are, of course, still valuable – once you can read Yithian.

The Great Race want the book back. In an attempt to retrieve it, one of the Great Race possessed Dr Walker and is now constructing a time machine to return the book to its owners.

3 The book is one of Nyarlathotep’s avatars. Most of the time it is inert, simply a book - albeit one with peculiar properties. The knowledge it contains is terrible indeed: Nyarlathotep’s perception of reality. Translating it is a perilous course. Descriptions of many of Nyarlathotep’s 1,000 avatars are included in the text.

Occasionally, Nyarlathotep occupies his avatar. The book lurches madly, savagely biting the fingers of anyone holding it, and erupting in a mass of wildly flailing tentacles. The thing then leaps into the air and vanishes, leaving behind only a few torn pages.

This was the fate of Dr Walker - he was unfortunate enough to be holding the book when Nyarlathotep appeared, and was dragged with the Outer God when it vanished. The book, meanwhile, turns up later . . .

Inspired by The Book of Sand, by Jorge Luis Borges.

© Charles Ross

The Last Carriage

During an overnight rail journey the train unexpectedly slows and stops at a small station shortly after midnight. Passengers who are still awake are politely informed that supplies are being collected. Although it is dark, the station looks to be old and in a state of disrepair. A damaged sign reveals only part of the station’s name. Nobody is seen outside the train, but passengers in the penultimate carriage hear clanking noises towards the end of the train, followed by a slight jolt. After about 15 minutes the train resumes its journey.

The next day when the train reaches its destination, observant passengers note that nobody leaves the last carriage.

Possibilities

1 The railway staff are part of a cult serving a small tribe of ghouls using the disused station as a base. The train stops at night and the final carriage is replaced with an empty one. The guards are brutally efficient in silencing non-sleeping passengers in the final carriage. Most passengers are destined for the ghouls’ dinner table, but a few are to become ghouls themselves.

2 The occupants of the last carriage were taken over by the Great Race of Yith who, when fleeing the Flying Polyps, chose to spend time in the present. Rather than move directly among mankind, they have chosen to hide themselves away for a short time and learn about the world. They are currently living in the abandoned station, aided by human allies.

3 The unfortunate occupants of the last carriage have become the victims of a cult obsessed with youth and beauty. Gas rendered them unconscious and they are now prisoners at the station. During the next full moon, the cult sacrifices the prisoners, using Steal Life to regain their lost youth.

© Robin Low

Cop Killers

Four police officers died one night in the small, rural town of Cadillac, Michigan. According to the police department, two officers on patrol drove out to check on a disturbance call. The disturbance turned out to be a group of rowdy teenagers who shot and killed both police officers. The second car arrived soon after, but they too were killed by the teenagers. A third car was unable to locate the murderers.

The bodies of the four dead police officers were immediately examined by the coroner, who declared the cause of death as gunshot wounds. The officers were cremated, the funeral taking place two days later. The group of teenagers has yet to be found, and they have not struck again. No one witnessed the shootings, and the police do not know who phoned in the original disturbance report.

One of the four widows, Jake Dean’s wife, Heather, doesn’t believe the official story. She has hired the investigators to discover what the police are hiding. The only information that Heather can provide is that she was given a call about midnight and told that her husband was dead. Then, she was pressured into cremating him.

Possibilities

1 That night, Spencer Monson’s dog woke him up. The dog was barking quite loudly at a figure in the darkness. Spencer, a 70-year old senile widower, called the police, went back to sleep, and forgot all about the incident.

The first patrol car arrived and quickly found the figure – it was a werewolf! The policemen opened fire, but it killed them both. It killed the next two officers as well. The policemen in the third car were finally able to kill the weakened creature. To prevent hysteria, the deaths were blamed on a group of rowdy teenagers with guns and the werewolf’s body cremated.

Currently, the police are searching for the origin of the werewolf. Within the next week they will find out that four werewolves have been living in the woods around the city for the past several years. Only recently, since construction has begun invading their sacred lands, have they become hostile.

2 The police chief belongs to an in-the-closet cult consisting of several high-ranking city officials. Recently, one of the cult members was arrested on murder charges. The chief caused these charges to be immediately dropped. Since then, the chief has ended a number of other investigations. Jake Dean and three other officers had become suspicious of the chief and started snooping around.

Soon after the snooping had begun the police chief figured out what was going on and killed the officers by summoning a gug. He then invented the story of the armed teenagers to cover up the truth. The coroner, also a cult member, backed up the story by saying the officers died of gunshot wounds.

Fortunately, one of the officers kept a journal. This journal includes the officers suspicions as well as a list of the investigations the chief ended. Unfortunately, the journal appears to be missing.

3 The four murders were committed by a gang of nine teenagers. The police department has leads which leads to the murderers’ arrest within a few days. What the officers don’t know is that the gang leader was being controlled by a malicious member of the Great Race of Yith, which constructed a deadly weapon.

The weapon stopped the heartbeats of the officers, but the gang leader then shot them so the police department would have a murder weapon. Afterwards, the Great Race member returned to his native body. When the police arrest the gang leader he will have no idea what happened. The other members of the gang describe the alien weapon, which no one can locate.

© Vince Vatter

Safely Behind Bars

Mr David Bradley – a violent murderer currently serving his final year of an eighteen-year sentence – was found late yesterday evening swinging gently from the ceiling of his cell. He had hung himself using a thick leather belt.

The penitentiary is renowned for its high suicide rate, but the recent increase is unprecedented. Mr Bradley is the fourth inmate to take his own life in the last month. The prison governor, Mr Torben Stones, is investigating the deaths but refuses to comment on the possibility of corruption amongst the prison staff.

A brief visit sufficiently demonstrates why anyone incarcerated there might wish to take their own life: the drably-painted, crumbling brickwork; the dour-faced guards; the loud and abusive inmates; and the poor recreational facilities; all help to contribute to the general atmosphere of gloom and oppression.

Possibilities

1 For thousands of years the area beneath the penitentiary has housed an immaterial lloigor consciousness. It lay inert for most of this time, only recently - with the construction of the prison - did it recover from its torpor. The lloigor, named K’huterrinlis, seeks to escape by channelling a telekinetic field up to the surface through which it can escape, unfortunately a field of that length requires considerable energy. K’huterrinlis leeches this energy from the unresisting minds of the humans above.

K’huterrinlis’ mere presence is enough to create a noticeable pall of depression and despondency over the prison. This (along with draining the prisoners’ will-power) is the reason for the increased rate of suicides. However, the prisoners are not the only ones to feel the lloigor’s insidious presence. Even senior staff (like Mr Stones) are losing their motivation and the will to continue. More deaths are inevitable.

2 Mr Torben Stones, the prison governor, is a devout servitor of Eihort. Beneath the penitentiary, Mr Stones has created a network of twisting and interconnecting tunnels - a labyrinth. It is in these that he summons his master, the Dark Bargainer. Each week a prisoner is taken into the labyrinth and is questioned by Eihort. Given the alternative, most of the frightened convicts agree to Eihort’s demands. After he has been impregnated, Eihort uses the Cloud Memory spell to make the subject suppress all knowledge of their terrible ordeal.

Occasionally the spell is not fully effective, and the unfortunate victim understands the changes they are experiencing. These individuals would rather die at their own hand than the squirming proboscides of Eihort’s grubs.

Mr Stones plans to spread Eihort’s brood by only impregnating those who are nearing the end of their sentence. The convicts then leave and several months – or even years – later, the brood emerges.

3 Torben Stones is no longer completely human. While his body is of Terran origin, the mind belongs to something greater – a Yithian. Similar minds are housed within almost all the prison staff.

The Great Race uses the prisoners as subjects for temporal mental transference. In this way, the prisoners can escape incarceration by travelling 450 million years into the past. Meanwhile, the convict’s body is inhabited by a Yithian’s consciousness enabling it to study the current period, these individuals are usually smuggled from the prison so they can interact with the world outside.

This is an equitable arrangement; the Great Race can continue their research without the difficulty of having to fool the subject’s friends and family, while the human minds were allowed comparatively more freedom. There is just one small problem; many of the prisoners’ minds are brutal and violent. They caused considerable damage when they inhabited the powerful, conical bodies. While many minds were pacified; terminal force was the only solution for extreme cases. When this became necessary it meant that the minds were returned to their original forms leaving the human body devoid of consciousness. The suicides are faked, in order to disguise the prisoners’ true cause of death.

© Hadley Connor

Cassandra

A psychic research institute is currently investigating a local phenomenon. After a near death experience, Cassandra Wilson, an art student who talks in her sleep, seems to be able to predict the future. However, none of her predictions are remotely happy, and most have to do with people she knows dying. Needless to say, this knowledge is not pleasant, and has resulted in Cassandra seeking psychiatric help. Her psychiatrist, Alexander Marcus, is a firm believer in her psychic abilities, which doesn’t really help her all that much.

Lately, Cassandra has predicted several events of disaster proportions, and she doesn’t know what to do or how to alter the future.

Possibilities

1 Cassandra is not psychic. She is merely a young woman who tends to have nightmares and talk in her sleep. However, Dr. Marcus is profoundly disturbed himself, and the strength of his beliefs in the paranormal will not allow him to consider the possibility that Cassandra is normal. Therefore, he has been making her “predictions” come true.

Investigation will show that every single event that Cassandra has successfully predicted can be accomplished by one person, and that only the predictions that Dr. Marcus have heard come true. He is currently planning a way to make the first of her disaster predictions come true. He will not look favourably on anyone who tries to prevent it or anyone who seems like that might be trying to prove that Cassandra isn’t the real deal. He is also extremely violent when angry.

2 Cassandra is a precognitive. She was always a latent psychic, but almost being killed made her abilities active. If she ever comes to terms with this, her predictions would prove most helpful. It is possible to alter the futures she sees, but it will be difficult and complicated.

3 Cassandra is the subject of a Yithian’s experiment. The Yithian found a way to fragment a human’s consciousness across the time stream. It transposed parts of Cassandra’s consciousness from the future and the present. The nightmares that she has are the memories of her future-self surfacing in her sleep.

As time goes on, it will be noticed that in addition to her visions of the future, she has periods when she can’t remember anything that happened recently. If left alone, the Yithian will eventually become bored with the experiment and abandon it. Cassandra’s precognitive abilities will then start to fade as time catches up to her.

© Megan McKnight

Small Things Forgotten

Following the death of his two children about 30 years ago, and his wife to pneumonia about five years ago, Hiram Dretts has lead a quiet, solitary existence deep in the hills, working his farm. He is well known and liked by the folk of the nearby town, and is known for a sharp mind.

Hiram’s farm does not have the modern conveniences of electricity or gas, but does have a coal burning furnace. While stoking the furnace one evening, a lump of coal broke apart to reveal an object: a worked triangular piece of green stone. The two long sides measured approximately two inches long, and the piece was about a quarter of an inch thick. The base of the triangle was unfinished and appeared to have broken off from a larger piece. Strange marks were along the two finished edges, giving the impression of some kind of writing or symbols.

Hiram has never had a formal education beyond the third grade, but he knew that what he found was very old. Hiram placed it on his mantle with the intention of sending it to a museum next time he was in town.

Possibilities

1 The fragment is a piece of an elder sign used by serpent people in the late Carboniferous period. The whole elder sign had been originally used to seal a gate but has been destroyed and fragmented for over 275 million years. The gate is no longer active, but if the serpent people learn of the fragment, they may make attempts to recover it and discover if more fragments exist.

2 The fragment belonged to a powerful serpent people sorcerer priest called Tthast-smmun. The fragment contains part of Tthast-smmun’s essence, and as the days progress, the sorcerer begins to take possession of Hiram. Hiram begins experiencing dreams of the long past times of the serpent people’s glory, and his sanity begins to crumble. Over a few weeks, Hirem starts worshipping Yig.

Through rituals taught via dream, Hiram begins a physical transformation into a serpent people-hybrid. Tthast-smmun plans to inhabit Hiram’s body as soon as he is completed. Hiram will be no more.

3 The fragment originally comes from an elder Sign used by the Great Race of Yith to trap and contain a flying polyp. The seals holding the polyp have been destroyed over time, but the polyp has long since been trapped in a pocket in the rock. It is only a matter of time before miners discover more of the fragments, then the pocket itself . . .

© Bill Dietze

Headaches

It is just like any other day, except for a blinding migraine that doesn’t subside until evening. It’s one of those crippling, agonising migraines that results in a day in bed, away from work, away from everything.

As a result, it isn’t until the following morning that you learn that two days have mysteriously vanished.

What you were up to during those two days prior to the migraine is a mystery; your friends and neighbours can’t tell you. In fact, some may be a little disgruntled at the cavalier way you broke appointments and ignored calls.

Little by little, you build up a picture of what you did during those two days…

Possibilities

1 The migraines are a result of fragmentary possession by one of the Great Race of Yith. Full possession was never achieved, and the creature had to leave.

Were you targeted by the Great Race? Had you discovered, or read something? Had you recently dealt with the flying polyps? If so, it may attempt to regain possession, perhaps this time it will be successful.

Hypnosis may recover some of your memories, revealing alien scenes and sensations: your time in the body of one of Great Race.

2 When you awake you find that your clothes are torn, muddy and splashed with blood. As you slowly piece together the missing time, you discover that you were the target of a coven of evil witches. They used powerful magic to possess you, and guide you to their obscene ceremonies.

Did the coven choose you at random? Or were you singled out for treatment? And will it happen again?

3 Nothing else ever happens. Ever.

Sometime later you discover that a small figurine is missing. (The figurine was carved from an oily dark brown stone, and vaguely African in design. Until now it was entirely unremarkable.) It appears to have gone missing during the missing two days. But why?

Unnatural Behaviour

It's nothing unusual at first. After all, everyone thinks they see movement from the corner of their eye, don't they? Although it doesn't usually happen quite so often. And, on reflection, it's always around the investigator's house, inside and out. Never further afield. Odd.

Then there are the birds. Lots of them - an unusually large number. Drawn by the beetles.

In fact, there do seem to be rather a lot of beetles. Always a common sight, they now seem to be everywhere, scampering in the yard and around the house. They hide behind jars, on shelves and in cupboards.

They get bolder. The investigator gets the feeling he is being watched - but there is nobody around. Nobody and nothing - except for one of the beetles. A big one, nearly an inch from antenna to tail, sitting on the windowsill. Motionless until the investigator moves - and then it turns to track his movements.

Pest control, doesn't work. Chemicals and pesticides leave hundreds of crispy little corpses, but there are always more.

A bird's painful screeches draws the investigator's attention. The bird, a thrush, flaps painfully in the yard. It seems to be covered in berries, or beads - or beetles, attacking en masse! Eventually the bird stops flapping, and the beetles swarm over the corpse in triumph.

Then the neighbour's dog goes missing . . .

Possibilities

1 It is not only their behaviour that has been altered. Many of the beetles are mutants. Most look perfectly normal, but a few are bloated and corpulent. Some even have seven legs.

Closer inspection shows that not only are the beetles mutated. Other insects look similarly affected - as is simple plant life and, eventually, birds and small mammals. Everything becomes more aggressive, more belligerent.

The mutation is caused by a massive build-up of underground toxins from a nearby government facility. Waste from dubious processes is dumped into fissures in the ground, away from environmentalists' eyes. Over a period of time, people fall ill and even die. Random acts of violence soar, from slavering dogs savaging young children to freeway slayings over minor traffic misdemeanours.

As things get worse, the facility keeps on pumping chemicals into the ground . . .

2 Poorly conducted investigations leave loose ends untied - and those loose ends are rarely pleased.

A sorcerer, warlock or witch has been overlooked in a recent case and is now taking revenge on the investigator. The investigator has been cursed with a plague of beetles, and before long he is suffering from rashes and bites - beetle bites.

Eventually, if no way is found to lift the curse, the beetles attack. Millions of beetles swarm over the investigator and smother him. They fill his mouth, crawl in his ears, his nose. He suffocates painfully under the foul black sea.

By morning, the beetles are gone.

3 The beetles have formed a hive-mind consciousness. This rough collective intelligence is the precursor to the great beetle race that the Great Race of Yith will eventually inhabit, millions of years in the future. But its origin starts here, and now.

The beetle consciousness, in this formative state and a long way from intelligence, is groping blindly, unable to make sense of much what it experiences. It learns slowly, but reacts to anything it perceives as a threat.

The Great Race is naturally very interested in the emergence of the beetle intelligence. Agents are in the area, watching from a distance. It is imperative that the organism survives. If the investigator moves against the intelligence - they will act. If eliminating the investigator looks to cause more problems than is worth, the agents move the hive-mind instead. The investigator wakes to discover that two whole days are missing from his memory - and the beetles have gone . . .

© Steve Hatherley

Into the Darkness

One of the investigators begins to suffer from blackouts. Short at first, they get gradually longer. Each time the investigator cannot account for his movements and can remember nothing except afeeling of darkness and extreme cold.

Any attempt to psycho-analyse the investigator draws a blank. He can only recall the dark and the cold. During these 'blackouts' the investigator undergoes a personality change and does not recognise his friends. He is possessed.

Possibilities

1 The Revelations of Yuggoth is a rare book that only a few have seen. Supposedly brought to Earth from Yuggoth aeons ago, the book is a translation telling of the ecstasy brought by the Crawling Chaos. The book contains a prayer which binds the soul of the reader to The Haunter of the Dark, who possesses the body for his own means during the blackouts. One of the investigators has been unfortunate enough to read it.

Eventually the investigator is completely possessed, and then the Crawling Chaos loses interest in the body and destroys it.

2 The blackouts are caused by a member of the Great Race looked in an ice cavern in Alaska. It has been unable to flee to the future but can still take over the minds of men. The creature is trying to organise an expedition to Alaska to free itself. Once free of the ice it can build a machine and send its mind into the future.

It has no malign intentions towards the investigators unless they try to interfere with its plans.

3 In a previous year, the investigator participated in an archaeological excavation which uncovered the mummified remains of several corpses. One of these corpses, a sorcerer, is not quite as dead as it seems and is able to mind swap with those who have come into close contact with it.

The blackouts are caused by the corpse slowly exercising control over the investigator. As they get longer it can be predicted when they will be permanent. At that point the sorcerer will be free.

The sorcerer has tried this with others, but their weak constitutions have failed before the mind swap was complete. These deaths are recorded in the papers (the 'Curse of the Tomb') and may alert the investigators to the trouble.

© Garrie Hall