From: "John & Christy Thompson" To: Subject: Chaosium Digest v37.01 Date: Sunday, December 08, 2002 11:16 PM Chaosium Digest Volume 37, Number 01 Date: Saturday, Dec. 7, 2002 Number: 2 of 4 AN EVENING WITH ASMODEUS Part two The following consists of notes and Dictaphone excerpts taken from James Aspera's personal belongings at his last known location, the thistle hotel in Middlesbrough, roughly two months ago, with the final draft of his 'An Evening with Asmodeus' manuscript. Nihil Industries apologizes for the self-indulgent faux-Lovecraftian slurry of the opening few paragraphs.. P.Seth Late September 2001 The nightmares whirl drunkenly, uninvited, from the enigmatic depths of my subconscious. Alcohol is no adequate defense against the horrific images that bombard and intoxicate my mind, enveloping it in a hideous mixture of revulsion and exultation. I have no adequate term to describe the emotional state that these ambivalent visions render, but I find myself inexplicably torn between a pantheon of alternating reactions. Before they started I disconnectedly felt myself slumping in an alcoholic stupor, the Brandy idly dripping from the etiquette-defying wine glass in my hand, a poor receptacle for an unusually fine vintage purloined for this journey from my less-than-extensive cellar. Each droplet sparkling as it hurls itself in suicide towards the plush but faded carpet before the fireplace. Each image is thus etched in my mind, and now autumn is on it's way I compile every memorable image to counteract the vividness of the horrific dreams that overwhelm me with disturbing frequency. I am enraptured, horrified, compelled and defied all in one rushing wave of ambiguity. Where is the portion of my soul where I can determine and destroy the source of such uncharacteristic ambivalence? I have faced hell and felt nothing but hatred and fear of the vortex of inhumanity unfolding before me. I have read bizarre, unearthly books and deduced the 21st century makeover that the Faustian scenario has undertaken, and felt revulsion and the desire to vomit in disgust. But there are those among them that provoke a different reaction altogether...I can't really explain it. These questions I pose to an indifferent universe, an uncaring starscape devoid of compassion. No one should be surprised that I received no answers, of course. Humanity is alone beneath the glare of alien suns, and only the ignorant and stupid may remain in comfort as such a state continues. I am neither, but I feel a sense of belonging amongst those malevolent figures that stalk both my nightmares and fantasies. I understand the ambiguities in my family's hereditary attributes. Yes, I know. I have a sneaking, gut-churning suspicion that the writing career of James Aspera is reaching a concomitant apex and nadir, and that soon my expiration is imminent, at least creatively. The impulses I regulate are warping, my perception of the natural order of the universe is expanding in unforeseen directions and I am beginning to fear that the author James Aspera no longer truly exists, as the material and temporal form that I call my body is wracked with agonies of indecision. I do not care one jot about my critics. I am above them in my reasoning and rising beneath them with the vengeance of the abyss. What am I saying? What sort of juvenile comment is that? The September rain is flurrying outside, pirouetting with unspoken urgency, signifying the maelstrom of emotion and rationality beneath this calm exterior. As I type the night has gathered, and amongst the pines that have superseded the meager flowers of my garden I feel that half seen, shadow-formed, amorphous reflections taunt me, and my encircling environs have been plucked from reality for the occasion of this evening. I feel an agate-stare piercing my soul from beyond the thresholds of four-dimensional reality. I know who you are. I understand everything. I am one poncy bastard. What is this overwrought garbage I persist in writing? I really need to get some sleep for once.... I am always thankful for dreamless sleep after drinking so much, the last few hours have been snoring head down on my desk and I can't say I feel better for the experience, but at least grateful for the lack of nightmares. I've just woken with a monolithic hangover. Black dots are pulsing in my vision as I filter my sight through a haze of bleariness. My head is pounding incessantly and my now-messy hair is stuck to my face. I can honestly say that I feel absolutely dreadful. I've just managed to struggle my way through that little soliloquy I scribbled down last night - Alcohol does dangerously fatuous things to the mind I find. It's still thankfully dark outside, and I dread the moment that sunlight is going to slash through the window above my laptop. There is a certain predawn quality to the outside air, mist coalescing and making the silhouettes of the stark trees vague and enigmatic in their private gloom. Rummaging idly through my disordered papers I realize that this afternoon I have another dreaded, arduous book-signing session to do. I can't imagine what sort of fan this pitiful community will thrust forth for my analysis, but I'm going to do my best to claw through the thickening fog of hangover and drag myself up out of the pit I have recently been intent on digging for myself. Glimpsing at my watch I see that it has flickered to a stop at thirteen minutes past one, which evidently from the light levels outside is inaccurate. The clock overhanging this dingy motel bed also appears to have expired at this irregular time. What could be the significance of thirteen minutes past one? Then again, I tend to find myself pondering sometimes what the significance of anything is. The hotel appears very quiet despite the reassurance that breakfast will be being served by now, which is peculiar I must admit. Considering that I'm likely to be signing books, and feigning pleasantness to the improbable dregs of humanity that Middlesbrough promises this afternoon, I'll take my Dictaphone for notes. Misanthropy is always good inspiration for my writing. Transcripted Dictaphone recording on-the-move. Now this is unusual. I must admit with world-weariness that I've experienced the unusual so often that I feel more at home in these circumstances than otherwise. At least this time I don't have the jabbering, unceasingly GBH-justifiable Matt Swindell to intrude on my cogitation with the almighty power of the cliché. At least, I presume that his uncanny presence is nowhere near. I have not encountered the unmistakable whiff of his habitual combination of cigarettes, old kebab odors and the hint of impulsive gun smoke that always adheres to that tattered leather trench coat that he wears. Neither do I see anybody wandering around with an overly melodramatic manner with the frenetic, irrational hairstyle that Harpo Marx should have been buried with. In point of fact, I can't see anyone, which is the peculiar factor. Bloody hell! It's snowing, and there's a thick carpet of it on the ground already. Snow in September? That's a good indication if nothing else that something unusual is going on. The streets outside are utterly silent, and a thickening blanket of fog descending, sending seeking tendrils tentatively attempting to penetrate the other buildings on the street, which are in themselves, utterly silent. The cheapening light of neon signs seems diffuse through the mist, not so much garish advertising as amorphous, blurred clouds of pastel-coloured residue sprayed across a constantly shifting, intangible canvas. It's impossible to tell what time of day it is, in the perpetual gloom, though- **Static crackling sound muffles a startled exclamation** I don't know if this shoddy Dictaphone is picking this up, but somewhere out there in the fog a bell is tolling. It's deep and resonant, but seems unimaginably distant through the layers of suffocating moisture in the air. I can't tell what direction the church must be, and the sound feels as it is reverberating through the ground, or echoing through the molecules of the air itself; defying a source of origin for me to pinpoint. I think I'll finger my revolver to ease a little bit of the nervous tension I can feel. **Pause, followed by a rueful sigh** I don't have doubts about my abilities as a marksman, you understand. I did once, but they've taken on an element of Cartesian doubt hitherto unconsidered - I no longer feel unsure about my singularly poor abilities, I can verify that I have absolutely no talent with firearms whatsoever. This may facilitate two options; one, my attempts to counterbalance this failing with my developed mental acuity, and the other to run as fast as my legs will carry me and a substantial distance after they have given up but my determination hasn't. OK, determination, or stark terror; eliminate one term as you choose. **Involuntary whimper** OK, this is becoming less and less an opportunity to exercise my prose muscles and more a time to start panicking. I could ruminate for aeons on the peculiar characteristics of the fog surrounding me but right now I'm focusing on the flickers of movement I can see within it. There are definitely figures moving around in there and they don't inspire me with confidence. There's a syncopation to the step, a certain aimless quality which makes me uneasy. **Several seconds of silence** I still can't hear anything though. There is a cessation of bells, so I presume that whatever enigmatic purpose that signal served has been fulfilled, or, as concerns me more, a certain cycle of events has commenced. **Sounds of crunching snow evidently under some heavy, continuous pressure. A hastily drawn-in breath, and a quick pattering of feet** That was close. A dilapidated car just slithered out from the fog on burst tires, in a mindless, undirected crawl. I saw no driver and the insides of the car seemed as decrepit as the outside. Smoke was curling from beneath the bonnet but the engine was utterly silent. The fog has swallowed it again now, and I can tell neither where it came from nor where it's going. Certainly something had to precipitate its movement, but the fog is thickening and swirling so that not only can I not see because of its density, the curling of its wisps and tendrils masks any hidden movements by other agencies or objects. **Several seconds of silence broken only by sounds of walking through the snow** That last statement isn't quite true. From up ahead I can see a suggestion, diffuse and characterless, of some vaguely unusual seeming green light. Yeah, I know, that's got to be promising, right? It is steady, unbroken by any tale-tell pulsing or flickering, and by my estimation it appears to be glaring from the middle of the road, though it doesn't have that focused beam, or duality of sources, that characterizes the headlights of a vehicle. It's still a good way off, so I'll temporarily remain quiet unless something else newsworthy comes up. **Two minutes of hesitant, stealthy walking through increasingly deep snow. There is commentary in between, mostly inaudible and fractured** The fog appears to be thinning slightly, and the green light is getting stronger. I'm becoming increasingly unsure about it, it has a baleful quality and an unnatural tint to it that disturbs me in some unconscious fashion. Whatever ever is creating the light source is at least twelve feet tall. Despite the approximate time of day, it seems to be getting worryingly darker. The mist is swirling and coalescing into increasingly ominous forms and with greater enthusiasm. The atmosphere is becoming distinctly tense. I don't like this. I must say, though- **A horrified indrawning of breath, and the sound of several hurried backward steps** With an electrical hissing the street is bathed with a malevolent, oscillating green light emanating a certain emotionless sentience..I.. It's a crucifix.a damn crucifix but I've never seen one like it! The eyes of the cruciform Christ are crying the wash of virulent radiance like green searchlights. Its mouth is gaping horrifically and a drooping mass of coaxial cables spread, like artificial tentacles into vast, precisely incised wounds in its toast-rack chest. Its crown of thorns is a mass of grotesquely formed blades meshed together with barbed wire. The feeling pouring off it! The mist is alive with the sound of pulsing electricity. There are great, bloated flies circling in lazy arcs around it, but when they come into the beam of those eyes they buzz in insectile agony and then drop to the floor, insensible and dead! No. I'm running NOW. I- **More hurried footsteps coming from the distance and closing. Then the sound of Aspera rushing to intercept** Are you hurt? What's happened? I- **Dictaphone lifted closer to mouth** Some trembling woman has just staggered out of the mist with a look of unrestrained horror on her face. She took one look at the -ugh- despicable Christ thing and collapsed in a heap. I know how she feels, as I've done the same hundreds of times before. Falling into a horrified heap, not looking at bloody awful crucifix things, that is. I'm going to have to turn the Dictaphone off while I move her out of the snow to somewhere even slightly warmer. **Pause for thought** Now I can just make out that that church is up ahead. That'll be marginally more temperate, and there are no sounds from within. It's a step in the right direction. **A break in the flow of the tape** **Recording restarts** Change of plan. I've helped the woman into the vestibule of the church, which is warmer, but I'll take her no further in. There's a distinct feel about this church. This might be what I'm meant to have found. Oh, joy. **Footsteps on echoing flagstones** A dank, unpleasant and nauseating smell is washing over me from the slightly ajar inner door of the church. It's taking my eyes a while to become adjusted to the dimness. Eerily pale moonlight is filtering through the fog now, illuminating inefficiently through such a stubbornly thick veil. My shadow is lengthening, blackening the snow like the graffiti of a depressed electrician, and the dim, towering shape of another domineering Mech-Christ is just visible on the far wall of this alley, wrapped deeply in shadow betraying only mere hints of form beyond the cruciform posture. I feel as if the mechanical, cruel cyclopean eyes of security cameras are gazing indifferently at me, the moonlight glittering on their implacable lenses. A scathing rain is beginning to bombard the frontage of this dilapidated building. This is getting particularly depressing, so I'm going to go into the church and see what fate awaits me. I know that in all probability this will rank among the most ill-advised not to mention stupidest things I have done in my nearly-thirty years of existence, but what the hell. *Sounds of scuffling and the creak of bad hinges. The sound of rain becomes muffled and distant* The vestibule before the nave is lit by dust-smeared, inadequate bulbs emitting the feeblest of sulphurous gleams. Ancient, barely cohesive chairs sprouting insides with abundance line each wall, beneath tattered advertisements for God, always cheerful and always cheap. The walls are painted a nauseating pastel shade like hospital corridors, and a stale oppressive smell permeates the air. A rickety desk covered in an untidy sea of documents stands in the corner, and if I was inquisitive I might bother to look more closely. I simply can't motivate myself that much. Sorry. Oh, alright. *Disgusted vocal sound* The papers seem yellowed with age and spattered with ancient, coppery blood. I can see that much. I'm going to head into the nave, seeing as I don't have much alternative. I hate the sight of blood. Mine especially. *Sounds of a heavy door being laboriously pulled open, scraping on the floor* The chapel is in complete, catastrophic disarray as if attacked by a localized hurricane. Papers are scattered everywhere and spattered with blood beneath the mercurial, sardonic eyes of a considerably uncharacteristic looking virgin Mary, hopelessly abused by repainting. A feeling of disconnected chaos belies the controlled atmosphere of sinister ambience cultivated here. Silent tiers of pews lie dormant, littered with all manner of biblical paraphernalia, all seemingly collected and then abused in one fell swoop. An emotionless hum betrays life in a small computer squatting in the corner. There are nasty incisions slashed into the casing. I'm really not going to say what the screen saver is. I don't think I know adequate words to describe it. The air is stale and chokingly dusty. *Hastily in drawn breath* I think I just saw glimmering hints of machinated movement, sending shivers of nervous tension pulsing down my spine like a rain of icy needles, injecting me with unreasonable fear. Wait, no, it' just shadows. My paranoia is getting the better of me, I see. The quietly amused, enigmatic eyes of that statuette of Mary, is really getting on my nerves. The lights glimmering inadequately in fittings made for oil lamps and don't so much illuminate the room as emphasize the shadows dominating the place. *Disgusted vocal sound* I've just noticed the crucifix hanging above the entrance, behind me. It's a bloated, corpse-like Christ with hanging jowls, grey flesh and a tri-lobed eye that's presiding mutely over the proceedings. It's bedecked with cobwebs. *The sound of pacing on flagstones* How inescapably wonderful. There's four of the disgusting Christ figures hanging on each wall of this building, all of them equally repellent. They're not all identical, of course. They seem to be individual essays of dementia from the malformed hand of one crazed craftsman; technically the work could be called brilliant but I don't think there's a word coined in any humane tongue to encapsulate their deep aesthetic hideousness. I'm not so caught up in my own expressions of revulsion to notice that each Christ has a carving inscribed on an area of the wall beneath him though. A closer look might take my mind off things. Transcription ends. Late November 2001 Breathing unsteadily, and grimacing, Matt Swindell trudged disconsolately in the chilly, chemical tinted air around the tenement clusters of central Middlesbrough, the sickly waning light bathing the cold, cracked and somehow diseased pavements with a jaundiced glow. The thick buckles on his jacket glittered like a veneer of frost over polished metal. His breath made half seen forms in the unhealthy light as he leaned tentatively against a wall crumbled with neglect and parasitic life. Reaching into one deep pocket he fumbled for a cigarette, mumbling an inarticulate mantra. Chilly spires of barbed wire poked sharply through frozen folds and hummocks of snow, wrapped in a sinuous arc masochistic grace across the top of the bricks. Despite the freshness, the snow was already crusted with a brittle veneer of ice. The sharp silhouettes glinted faintly with frost, giving a heightened impression of slim, cruel blades slicing through from beneath the veneer of reality. A sallow and emaciated youth wrapped in several layers of shabby tracksuit approached, bearing a cigarette in one shivering, gloved hand and begged a light. The teenager proceeded to light his cigarette with an almost sadly farcical lack of co-ordination, which Swindell observed with an expression almost at wonder at the absurd, inadvertent technique. Elbowed carelessly by the youth in the exchange, Swindell suppressed an eruption of profanity and tried to prepare a more respectable retort. The youth was evidently engaged in some sort of conversation with beings from another world, his eyes unseeing and mouth working noiselessly. From the corner of one pocket in the outermost tracksuit poked the tip of a syringe. Swindell frowned in moral obligation though in truth had lost any sympathy for such people. He slouched in the other direction and warily eyed the rest of the street, cigarette in hand. Swindell was suddenly aware of a face peering from between two patchy and tattered curtains, which shielded a darkened upstairs room in one of the decaying terraced houses. He would have missed his observer entirely if not for the last flash of the sunset collapsing in on itself, a last flash of imagined nova, before the fire-blanket of dusk conscientiously stifled the blaze. Swindell recognized the apparition. It was Lomas, one of the prolific juvenile criminals of the town that Swindell had contemptuously dealt with in the past for various reasons. Despite the fact that Lomas was the embodiment of violent, dangerously stupid, pettily malicious Teesside youth channeled into one gangly and pock-marked walking corpse, he had somehow acquired one of the county's finest solicitors to represent him. In his frequent court cases he was always acquitted due to dubious evidence and professed delinquent inadequacy in executing the crimes he was accused of. Swindell knew him to be mixed up in -contaminated by- the occult underbelly of the nihilistic teenage quotient of townspeople. Lomas caught Swindell's eyes and grinned a repulsive grin commonly referred to in dentistry as the 'how not to do it' method of oral hygiene. Swindell folded his arms obstinately and leaned back, feigning nonchalance. Of the many things that the private investigator never expected to see, what then happened was conspicuous as being particularly unlikely. With his long and stick-thin arms flickering with movement like the legs of a spider, Lomas opened his window and with a staggering lack of grace swung down to land with the musical sound of coins scattered on ice. He seemed not to notice. Swindell was quick enough to spot the glint of a dagger edge hastily concealed beneath the moron's coat, and prepared his dubious musculature for a bout of unprecedented liveliness. Not that there would be much in it; Lomas was a mannequin for filth and in build more a collection of coat-hangers than a man. 'Swindell, I'll level with you,' called Lomas with his irritatingly nasal, heavily accented whine. Swindell misinterpreted the remark. 'You could never level with me. You aren't good enough,' he retorted with an offensive smile, and swung his fist casually and pendulously, but with threat implicit in the action. Along with Lomas, the rest of the universe failed to be impressed by this show of predictable laddishness; Swindell had a dirty Mack for when it pelted with rain but no machismo for when he got pelted with abuse. As Lomas approached Swindell verified his initial assumption; yes, the youth concealed a knife beyond the palm and wrist of one arm. As if catching the drift of Swindell's thoughts, Lomas with a moderate degree of confidence and skill allowed the knife to slide into his ready hand, which he raised in a gesture of threat rather than imminent violence. It looked healthier than the lad's fingers. Having guessed the clichéd predictability of the youth's actions, Swindell, with a sudden spin, flicked the inferior combatant's knife in a smooth arc with the tensed flat of his palm. The knife clattered uselessly into the gutter. He grabbed the delinquent's greasy tracksuit collar and pulled him close. An odour of stale sweat intermingled with cheap alcohol entered his nostrils without a passport. Lomas's disgusting breath, flavored with extra vodka, misted around his sneer and condensed on his face, drawing moisture from the air with it. Swindell grimaced. 'I meant that I have a proposition for you-' he started, but at the sound Swindell threw the stick-figure contemptuously backward into the street. 'You just don't know when to give up, do you, Lomas? It'd hardly be a challenge to break both your legs and leave you squealing on the floor. I'd lay down my life for my work, but if you push me more I'll lay down your life as well.' Lomas staggered to his feet, looking strangely intent and confused at the same time and tried to close again. He sniggered in a tone that either branded him one of the most stupid and single-minded people ever to exist, or someone absolutely assured of their own prevalence in the unlikely conflict. He leered, revealing skewed rows of yellowing teeth bleached by years of nicotine and the thick breath that rolled out of his mouth was foul. Swindell gagged and lost concentration as he tried to quiet the turbulence in his stomach. Lomas took his chance and lashed out with a scuffed boot. Swindell's eyes crossed slightly as the boot connected with a place at least emotionally close to his heart and emitted a high-pitched whimper, fighting the compulsion to adopt a fetal position. He still possessed enough of his faculties to conceal his own knife at the ready without his hand shaking. Taking another chance, Lomas extended pencil-thin greasy fingers and with an unnerving strength in his pipe-cleaner arm held the private investigator's neck in a grip. With a free hand and insectile speed he scribbled an inscrutable symbol on the crumbling bricks behind, before Swindell's feet lashed out and the youth's face bounced off the pavement with a wet crack. After a startled cry, Lomas began to convulse with spluttering laughter. With contempt and repulsion Swindell stood up, eyeing the youth with undisguised disgust as the ghastly wet chuckling continued. As Swindell stepped back he looked at the symbol scrawled upon the wall. It hurt his vision and he remembered seeing it before. A flash of recollection seized him - James Aspera, clothes disheveled and face pale and rain-soaked, fearfully reached out a shaking hand and traced the outline of a symbol written in malevolent radiance upon a basement door. His feet gave under him as Lomas took the advantage of the reflective moment and kicked viciously out. Swindell staggered, spun and flung a hand back against the wall to steady himself. In an instant the youth had him by the throat, all pretence of twisted cartoon persona drained from his face. Blood oozed from his nose, mouth, a painful gash open on his forehead, and his eyes glittered with the flicker of inhumanity. He pressed Swindell back against the symbol. The private investigator cried out in pain as explosions flashed in front of his eyes and a spasm racked his body. With a convulsion he would have fallen incumbent breathing heavily and irregularly, but he remained somehow glued to the symbol, which now slithered against his back with life. Lomas stood back, brushed himself off and shook flecks of snow from his sleeves. 'You just don't know when to give up, do you, Swindell?' he laughed in grotesque parody of his victim's recent diatribe. His hand flickered to his pocket and came out brandishing a cruel looking, slightly rusted syringe containing an unidentified, translucent liquid. With a masochistic, malicious slowness, he traced hands over Swindell's impotently struggling arms and selected a patch of bare skin just above the wrist, before inserting the syringe into his arm, enjoying the feel of the needle sliding through flesh. Swindell winced with pain, trying to free himself. 'Have fun,' muttered Lomas through clenched teeth and injected the liquid directly into Swindell's bloodstream. The youth stood back, speculatively surveying his handiwork. 'What the hell was that?', gasped Swindell with each word reverberating with fury. 'Oh, just a little substance me and some friends cooked up. It's quite interesting, though I'm not sure you'll find it particularly enjoyable. Can you feel that headache, that compulsive irrationality? That's the result of nicotine addiction. You remember nicotine? It's a highly addictive substance, which results in dependency and subservience.' 'Your point being?' Swindell managed to wheeze. 'What I just injected into you reacts hallucenogenically and emotionally with the chemicals in tobacco to create an interesting effect. You will be subjected to strange visions while your body goes insane and completely out of your jurisdiction. Which is where we step in.' 'You complete bastard!' 'I knew you'd like it. Incidentally, this effect is induced both through directly inhaling tobacco fumes while smoking, passive smoking in the company of others and any residual fumes from everyday life will have a proportionate effect. Exhaust fumes don't have the same effect obviously - we are going to need you to drive at times. You won't remember this encounter later of course, which is part of the joke. You'll continue happily smoking to your wrinkled little black lungs' discontent and handing the biological keys of your cosmic convertible over to us every time.' Swindell's jaw worked wordlessly, inarticulate fury reddening his face. 'Though I must point out just to add the finishing touches to the anguish I've painted on your face, we can't do this without you - you have the raw materials for an active pervert. However much your indiscretions sicken you, however much your stomach twists in the future with each successive action you are forced to make, understand that the central component of it all is the fact that we are merely encouraging the desires you have repressed, the festering canker of filth that you know very well that you've tried to bury in the confines of your own little mind. We know, you know. About the photos you try and hide on your computer. The box of videos hidden under your bed. Your ex-police colleagues would have simultaneous heart attacks if they found out. Of course, it's always been your little secret. You've never acted on your deviant desires..yet. What will commit atrocity, with our blessing, will still be you.' Lost for words, Swindell felt violated by the truth in those that Lomas spoke. Casually and with a slightly overdone sardonic expression looking out of place on his unhealthy face, Lomas took a sliver of chalk from one of the recesses in his dirty tracksuit and idly scrawled a complex pattern of arcs, sigils and lettering in a roughly circular shape on Swindell's jacket. The private investigator suddenly found the restraints on him released and buckled into a crouch, clutching his aching torso. With a mixture of rage and humiliation he looked up at Lomas who was strolling away. 'Why?' Lomas turned round. Swindell leaned back. The youth's eyes were glowing balefully with a practiced malevolence that had nothing to do with his street character, evil red pinpoints in his face. He lurched forward until his face was a bare foot from Swindell's shocked countenance. His grimace widened perversely beyond the flexibility of human facial muscles. The teeth within that abnormally stretched mouth suddenly looked more animalistic, or insectile. 'This is why,' he whispered in an altogether blacker voice. Then he belched a gout of tobacco smoke into Swindell's face. (Continued) -- To unsubscribe from the chaos-digest ML, send an "unsubscribe" command to chaos-digest-request@chaosium.com. Chaosium Inc., Call of Cthulhu, and Nephilim are Registered Trademarks of Chaosium Inc. Elric! and Pendragon are Trademarks of Chaosium Inc. All articles remain copyright their original authors unless otherwise noted.