Austin's Entry for May 2013

 (4 points)

I know most of you couldn’t care less but here’s my situation as of now. The connections I’ve tried to establish over the past year are starting to unravel, and forging new ones is proving to be a real uphill battle. At least there isn’t much in the way of actual fighting going on for the moment. Darrel’s people were able to swing northwest and repulse the Turkish invasion much to my relief. I was able to refly the Naxxanar once a few... technical issues had been dealt with, but I’ll get to that in a moment. For now an uneasy mutual defense pact against Turkey has been struck between the Iraqis and the new Islamist government I helped to establish in Syria. That’s about it as far as good news goes.

I’ve been dreading the day my partners would discover just who else I was in bed with no homo, and now it’s come at last. The Greeks want to have nothing to do with either the Muslims or the Jews, and they’re not too fond of Scientologists either. Michalakos is furious that I’m using his airplanes to deal with Israel and wants me to send them back along with the tiny ship he lent us. He accuses me of betraying his trust, deliberately sabotaging the campaign in turkey, and threatens to confiscate the vessel and and all cargo once it returns to the mediterranean. This wouldn’t be a problem if she wasn’t hauling my entire Arkham library AND the Fist of Zeus, something I pray the crew doesn’t find out. She’ll need a lot more protection for the final leg of the trip, but of course the Syrians and Israelis are as mistrustful of one another as they’ve ever been and they both refuse to work with Sea Org.

Israeli institutions themselves are polarized. The government has claimed they’re more than willing to accept my offer to protect Jerusalem, particularly after the deadly toppling of what was left of Solomon’s temple. But the Magi in Israel are as orthodox as the Pharisees themselves and forbid cooperation with the Exarchs. Out of everyone only the Scientologists seem to understand the concept of an alliance of opportunity and just how desperately one is needed. I have to say, I like ‘em. Chairman Mueller’s people are still wonderful. Polite. Punctual. Hygienic. Brutally and refreshingly honest. More than I can say for anyone else I have to put up with.

Around me they’re perfectly ready to come out as frauds and manipulators; none of their directing brains ever actually believed in the mythos of scientology. It was and remains a front for living comfortably at the expense of stupid, desperately bored and lonely upper-middle-class people. I can honestly respect an agenda like that.  I’d even go so far as to call it quite ethical, at least under the circumstances. We agree that fellow Cynics ought to look out for one another.  I’ve been calling in a lot of favors from them recently, and anyone else I can get in touch with. Let’s wait and see what it’s going to take to rescue us from THIS limbo.

Now to the fun bit. Like I said, I’ve been calling in favors from the Union, one of which was granted to by someone named Amon. Amon represents the ‘Ascending Ones’, vigilants in Egypt and Saudi-Arabia who I visited some months ago. Apparently he’s one of Darrel’s close associates. I didn’t know what to expect from the old man or what to ask of him, but he offered to show me through his stock of artifacts and answer any questions. We came upon an ornate iron breastplate frilled with gold feathers. Amon said it was one of the most ancient and mysterious relics he possessed and that it was called the Breastplate of the Alak’r Warrior after the heroic bedouin vigilant whose name was lost to time. The Warrior supposedly possessed the ability to transform into a mythical beast and rend his foes, and that power remained in his breastplate long after death. Harnessing that power was as simple as putting the armor on and working the slightest amount of will. The piece would change shape along with its wearer and continue to provide some protection. Removing it involved simply turning a catch on one of the buckles.

I asked if it worked, he said it did indeed. Need I say much more? Of course I asked about side-effects and complications and... apparently there weren’t ANY. It’s one of the most sophisticated enchantments ever wrought upon an inanimate object, and I really, really couldn’t bring myself to the look the poor guy in the face when I asked for it. He wasn’t expecting that. There was so much else in his collection that could and would confer weightier powers, but I wasn’t expecting to ever run across anything remotely like this. Amon was bound to an oath, and this was a prize too good for me to pass up, even if only for the chance to finally live out a childhood dream.

So that’s what I did, and all seemed well until I embarked with enthusiasm on that  joint venture to smash the Turkish reactionaries. Then immediately I was contacted by Amon, Darrel and some others who were afraid I might disrupt the balance of this land whilst they were trying to form their own consortiums. Amon promised he would take action if I didn’t withdraw Naxxanar south of the Turkish border, but I didn’t have a clue what was bothering them, let alone why they thought it was any of their business. Neither did it seem likely they could inconvenience me all that much so long as the Lords of the Sky were at my back.

But that’s what they did. Even though we all seem to be strangely guarded against sympathetic magic, somehow Amon was able to get to me via the same iron vestments he’d reluctantly given up a few weeks earlier. The curse made it so I couldn’t disengage the armor. Believe it or not I was actually trapped in the shape of a griffon for several days, which meant I could no longer pilot the Naxxanar. When a mage tried to interface with the stellascopic control column he started retching up blood, and then we all fell right out of the sky.

We’d have been stuck there a lot longer if Darrel hadn’t eventually turned up. Once it was safe I left for Amon’s Nile estate some two-thousand miles away, or I dunno it certainly felt like that flying the whole way by myself. Not that it wasn’t an incredibly mellowing experience.  You’ll recall I wasn’t in the same exultant mood as the month before. I was ready to discuss terms and forswear myself if necessary. It was late when I finally arrived, but the porter assured me I was expected and it would be no trouble to fetch his master. He directed me to wait in the expansive oasis in the courtyard,  home to a menagerie the likes of which hasn’t been seen in Egypt since the reign of the pharaoh. At that hour the air was full of the piping of what must have been thousands of frogs and bloated Nile toads. To think that not much more than a year ago I wouldn’t have found those cracked chimes the least bit frightening! It recalled to me many a chilling poetic verse from the Necronomicon. How does anyone sleep at night in a place like that? Amon took me inside without a word. Not much needed to be said. I think he understood better than I how I felt.

Anyway, yes, he lifted the curse then and there, though he suddenly seemed quite insistent that I should keep the armor, partly because he had no intention of having me escorted back to Syria. Evidently the griffon is an ancient commanding symbol in the Middle-East, demanding the respect of all who were symbol minded. Once I was human again we stepped outside thinking to cut across the garden to a far wing. We were both astonished to be greeted by a sudden, perfect silence. Though perhaps it was a coincidence after all, at my step the cracked jeering notes of the frogs and night insects all ceased. But whether this was of any significance isn’t important compared to what thoughts struck me. I remembered that dead Cthulhu and his hosts were and are entombed in R’lyeh for a reason. They lost. It was the people of Leng, our forefathers, who thwarted their malign desires unto death, even the designs of Elder Gods.

Even the puffed Shoggoths mourn the loss of our first parents, the Elder Things. Now they look to us their brethren with a glimmer of hope, and I know now exactly what I must do. While there is yet time I must return to Leng and plumb its depth more fully. I know I will be welcomed there.

It never occurred to me that Awakening would be such a long process. I’d thought it ended months ago, but it continues even now.