The Eye of the Dagon (short story)

[ctg]

I know I might be stepping on the Great Old One toes, but I wanted to hear what you guys think about this start.

“Van Buran, what you are doing?” Fenrir, the headman of our deep-sea harvester rattled through my helmet headphones. “We don’t have whole day to be wasted on collecting these samples. You got twenty minutes of air left.”

“Yea, yea, boss, stop worrying. You sound like my mother. I’ll be back before it run out,” I replied, while my eyes were fixated in a shining piece of metal that glittered in the middle of dark nodules. Even though I knew that, this area wasn’t suitable to find top layer gold deposits, my spirits went high. If it wasn’t a gold nugget, then maybe it was a piece of a treasure that some poor ocean dweller has lost a long time ago. With my hopes high, I hopped through the field and landed on my knees next to the gold piece. In the light of my head lamp, I saw it was ornamented. I wrapped my fingers around it and tried to pull it out. It didn’t budge. The piece was so stuck in the layer of mud that created the top soil of the deep sea landscape. In a couple of minutes, I dig like a mad man and made a small trench around it. The water around me clouded, but it became clear to me that what I saw had to be part of something bigger. I couldn’t be leave it here nor I couldn’t let the harvester to rip it in pieces.

As I wrapped my fingers around the pieces, I heard drumming in my ears. The next thing I understood was that I was standing on a ledge high above the temple floor. Underneath me, a purple robed priest raised his tentacle like hands high above his head and started to chant in a strange but somewhat familiar tongue to a hundreds of deep-sea genejobs. The one thing was common, was the fish-head stuck into a humanoid body.

When the priest had finished a one line, the deep ones raised their gaze to look directly at me and repeated the chant. “Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhatgn! Ph’nglui mglw’nfah Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn …” Then their voices disappeared under a piercing whistle that chattered the dreamland scenery I’d been visiting.

“VAN BURAN … NEIL … ARE YOU LISTENING?” Fenrir shouted in my ear.

“Yes, you can stop shouting.” I replied. “I can hear you loud and clear.”

I heard a deep sigh at the other end before I Fenrir continued, “Neil, you got to get back. You only got five minutes of air left.”

“Really?” I checked the gauges on my sleeve.

“Yes, get back NOW. That’s an order.”

...

 

[BookStop]

Did you want al ine by line edit, ot jsut a general critique? Just an opinion?

As far as my opinion goes, the idea sounds great so far.

I think you may want to go back and slowly reread what you've written however. I realize this is probably just a quick first draft so it's to be expected, but there are quite a few grammatical errors, and a couple of words that don't belong. The descriptions are nice, but could do with some expanding.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Technical note. he's wearing a helmet with a sound system in it but he's able to hear a 'fish' in an obscure dialet without any difficulty

Liked the idea of being mysteriously whisked away though the destination end seemed a bit vague. Has merit as Bookstop says need a little work and expansion.

Course my opinion counts for little.

 

[ctg]

Of course it was a quick draft. And as I said, I wanted to know what you guys think about the beginning. Does the setting at the bottom of the sea work. I'm sorry for being deceive.

On a note with the helmet, yea, I thought about it (for a couple of seconds), and decided to skip it as the whole dream sequence isn't that long. Then again, with the Cthulhu stories, it's about the creeping paranoia that you should get from the characters isn't it? You wouldn't care about writing every move, as it's not important.

The grammar people, please don't bother at this point. Its not worth of your attention. Not yet.

 

[MetalJon]

I like the start - pretty intriguiing stuff! Keep going, sounds like it's going to be a good tale!

 

[Grimward]

Not bad (will leave the editing to others). Might have a bit of difficulty with the title, as Stephen King has a book called Eyes of the Dragon...

 

[ctg]

Lol, well look at the bottom of the critiques section, and you might notice a story called 'The Eye of the Dragon'. However, on the note, I do not believe that Mister King owns rights for every single title out there. Nevertheless, this story is my tribute to the Great Old One - H. P. Lovecraft. Man was a genius.

Please do not edit this piece. It's not worth of that sort of attention. Not yet.

 

[Grimward]

No, would agree with point on ownership. Was more concerned about the ambiguity factor...

Book Shopper: "Do you have The Eye of the Dragon, by ctg?"

Book Seller: "Oh, you mean Stephen King, right?"

Or some such....

 

[ctg]

Grimward, you said "Eyes of the Dragons", not just one eye, but a pair of them. Nevertheless, I would like to point out that Dagon has nothing to do with the Dragons. Dagon, is one of the great old gods (there are others). Dragons are fantasy creatures, and nowhere near to the godhood.

You want to use a bookseller that is selling you short stories from one single author, fine. I wouldn't use them. I wouldn't use bookseller's who don't know their trade.

* goes away to make a pot of coffee *

 

[chrispenycate]

OK, I held off, see - no grammar remarks.
I would like to know how his communication works - wired? (I've had considerable problems with that, when you can't use radio and infra red and optical are seriously short range. Modulated ultrasonics, perhaps? low bandwidth, which would explin the voice breakup - it must be a data channel because air usage modifies with depth, so you can't just time it…

And he's going to have serious problems depressurising in five minutes (yes, you've not told us how deep he is, nor even stated the metallic refection came from his helmet light, But it is a "deep sea harvester" so it's hardly likely it would be working at ten metres depth)

Sorry, this is irrelevant to this piece; how many people reading a fantasy would worry about the technical details?

I personally didn't like the "topsoil" metaphore in the

The piece was so stuck in the layer of mud that created the top soil of the deep sea landscape

; the ooze isn't like topsoil, and I imagine him too deep for vegetation.

Mind you, I have no problems with the suddenly being (seeing, hearing, probably smelling) in another space totally independent of the one he had been inhabiting; that holds equally well for hallucination or psychic transport; I doubt whether he was wearing his helmet and suit on the ledge.

 

[ctg]

OK, I held off, see - no grammar remarks.

Very good Chris. Thank you.

I would like to know how his communication works - wired? (I've had considerable problems with that, when you can't use radio and infra red and optical are seriously short range. Modulated ultrasonics, perhaps? low bandwidth, which would explin the voice breakup - it must be a data channel because air usage modifies with depth, so you can't just time it…

In certain limited range the normal electromagnetic transmission works. But yes, modulated ultrasonic would work as well. As well as Infrared, but if I remember correctly unwater long range communications are done on low frequencies.

And he's going to have serious problems depressurising in five minutes (yes, you've not told us how deep he is, nor even stated the metallic refection came from his helmet light, But it is a "deep sea harvester" so it's hardly likely it would be working at ten metres depth)

Pressurised suit, no problem. Staying long time in the bottom of the sea, no problem (NASA does it at the moment). Different compositions of the gases or liquid filled lungs, could answer on many problems.

Sorry, this is irrelevant to this piece; how many people reading a fantasy would worry about the technical details?

Not really that many, but they would worry about the details of their creatures and the usage of the magic or magical instruments.

I personally didn't like the "topsoil" metaphore in the ; the ooze isn't like topsoil, and I imagine him too deep for vegetation.

It the top most layer of mud, silt and whatnots, and it's equivalent to the our topsoil, so why not?

 

[BookStop]

Of course it was a quick draft. And as I said, I wanted to know what you guys think about the beginning. Does the setting at the bottom of the sea work.

In that case, yes, I think the setting for the beginning is a wonderful idea. Draws the reader right into the story without spending forever setting up the scene. This may seem a bit oxymoronic, but I would still love to see you expand the desriptions just a little bit. And about the title, it's fine, yes, confusing I guess if you weren't clear to a book seller, but otherwise....Is there only one Dagon? You could always lose the second 'the' if it feels like an issue.

 

[ctg]

Well I shaped it a little bit. and expanded the description as the people requested. Like with the above piece. I wish you guys wouldn't edit it. It's still beyond it, and I bet there is going to be other 'alternations' to it.

Eye of the Dagon

“Van Buran, what you are doing?” Fenrir, the headman of our deep-sea harvester rattled through my pressurised helmet headphones. “We don’t have whole day to be wasted on collecting these samples. You got twenty minutes of air left.”

“Yea, yea, boss, stop worrying. You sound like my mother. I’ll be back before it run out,” I replied through the wireless, while my eyes were fixated in a shining piece of metal that glittered in the middle of dark nodules. Even though I knew this area wasn’t suitable to find top layer gold deposits, my hopes were high. If it wasn’t a gold nugget, then maybe it was a piece of a treasure that some poor ocean dweller has lost a long time ago. With either one of them, I could be able to take at least a month or two off on a vacation. With my hopes high, I hopped through the field and landed on my armoured knees next to the gold piece. In the light of my head lamp, I saw it was ornamented. ‘A treasure,’ I though as I wrapped my gloves around it and tried to pull it out. It didn’t budge. The piece was so stuck in the layer of mud and that created the seabed in this god forbidden land that no man had explored before.

“Damn,” I cursed and started to dig like a mad man a small trench around the treasure. A piece of nugget I could have left for the harvester to dig out, but a treasure was totally another question. The water clouded around me, but wasn’t enough for to make judgement that the bit I had seen was part of something larger. If I would be lucky, I could pull it out with all my enhanced strength that the hardened deep sea exploration suit gave me. As I wrapped my pressurised gloves around it the second time, I heard a sudden drumming in my ears. Almost as if the drumming was calling a gathering of hunters. But it couldn’t be. I was two and half thousand meters deep and there couldn’t be drummers in this place. The next thing that I understood was that I was standing on a ledge inside a large cavern, looking down to a purple robed priest standing at the front of the pedestal. He had faced his followers, raised his tentacle like hands high above his head and started to chant in a strange, but somewhat familiar tongue to a hundreds of creatures. They all looked like a deep-sea genejobs. Nevertheless, the one thing was common among them, and it was a large fish-head stuck into a scaly humanoid body.

When the priest had finished a one line, the deep ones raised their gaze to look directly at me and repeated the chant. “Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhatgn! Ph’nglui mglw’nfah Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn …” Then suddenly their voices disappeared under a piercing whistle that chattered the hallucination.

“VAN BURAN … NEIL … ARE YOU LISTENING?” Fenrir shouted in my ear.
“Yes, you can stop shouting.” I replied. “I can hear you loud and clear.”

I heard a deep sigh at the other end before Fenrir continued, “Neil, what’s wrong with you? Are you feeling well? It sounded like a throwing up inside your helmet.”

“Really?” I checked a glowing display on my sleeve. Air was running out. How long I had been sitting there? I realised that the water had unclouded, and I could see a part of the treasure between my legs. The gold ornament was part of oval shaped mirror, but what was strange was the mirror part was made from a black opal … and I could see stars sparkling in it.

Another piercing whistle woke me up, and I could hear Fenrir shouting his lungs out. “VAN BURAN ARE YOU LISTENING? YOU HAVE THREE MINUTES OF AIR LEFT. COME IN. THAT’S AN ORDER…”

“Roger,” I replied as I got up and started to hop towards the brightly lit deep sea harvester. Against the lights I could see shadows of two bulgy autonomous robots swimming towards me.

“Neil”, Fenrir said in serious tone.
“Yes boss…”
“What’s wrong with you?”

I sighed deeply as I couldn’t leave the treasure there, but neither I couldn’t keep it hidden. I needed Fenrir’s and her brilliant daughter’s help if I was going to get the treasure in one piece. “I found something,’ I replied finally. I could her him pressing a tangent, and I continued, “I found a treasure Fenrir. A real treasure-“

“You kidding me?”

“Nope,” I replied feeling more confident then I had ever been in my life. “Tell Agatha to move the robots where I was down and you should be able to see what I was talking about. I’m coming in. See you in couple of minutes.”

“Ok,” Fenrir said. “But take it easy. I don’t want to lose my best mate to the sea, Because you are rushing in. You got to-”

“I know Fenrir, I know. You don’t have to repeat the instructions every single time I’m coming in.” I said as I pushed a button to open the harvester air-lock. The heavy door shaped like a massive gear withdrew a little bit in before it wheeled on the side and allowed me to step in. It wasn’t a minute too long as my suit computer started its most annoying routine on reminding me on how little of air I had let.

....

Note, my aim is to make this piece less then 20 000 words long, and in the same time, trying to make it to be a traditional Cthulhu-based science-horror story.

 

[ctg]

I am contemplating since I now added references to my other book, on should do this one on a novel length? I could easily fill in the secret societies, dream land sequences and rest of the classical Cthulhu-stuff, with all the acknowledgements given to the H.P. Lovecraft.

Eye of the Dagon

“Van Buran, what are you doing?” Fenrir, the headman of our deep-sea harvester rattled on my helmet headphones. On corner of my see through visor I could see him trying to open a video-link which I quickly prevented as I didn’t want to his hairy face in middle of my job. “We don’t have whole day to be wasted for collecting these samples, and top of everything you got twenty minutes of air left. You should-”

“Yea, yea, boss. Stop worrying. You sound like my mother. I’ll be back before it run out,” I replied, while my eyes fixated in a shining piece of metal that glittered in the middle of the dark nodules, which littered this lonely and dark landscape like wrappings on the corridors on Deep Sea Colony 7.

According to couple of documents from the previous harvester expeditions, this area was a suitable for collecting magnetite’s and other ferrous minerals. However, it didn’t mean that I couldn’t find a gold deposit from the sea bed, because it really happened. One of the richest Earth based miner had been a geologist like me, working for a deep sea harvester, before he had claimed a stage on previous unexplored part of the sea bed. Now that lucky ******* owned a small part of the Olympus City, and had all sort of deals going on. Oh, how I wished to be in his place.

Even though I knew this area wasn’t the best place to find a top-layer gold deposit, my hopes were high. Although, if this wasn’t a gold nugget, then maybe it was a piece of a treasure that some poor ocean dweller has lost a long time ago. Either one of them, I could be able to take off at least a month or two or possibly travel to the outer solar-system planets to do a real exploration. With my spirits high, I hopped like an astronaut on the Moon surface through the field, and landed on my armoured knees at front of the glittering piece of metal. In the light of my head lamp, I saw a piece of treasure sticking out from the mud. It was an ornament piece size of an onion, and it seemed to be a part of something larger.

‘A real treasure,’ pop in mind as I wrapped my pressurised gloves around it, and tried to pull it out. It didn’t budge. The whole piece was so stuck in the layer of mud that I would had to use other methods to get it out.

“Why it has to be fragging stuck?” I cursed as I started to dig like a mad man. With this sized gold nugget, I could have called Fenrir to move harvester on top of it, and collect the pieces from the cargo-hold. But I was never going to do that with a piece of treasure. The water around me clouded, but it wasn’t enough to stop me from understanding that I was digging out something large. With a small trench around, I was ready to try out if the deep-sea exploration suit enhanced strength was enough to free it from firm and sucking grasp of the mud. As I my gloves wrapped around, I suddenly heard drumming in my ears. It sounded like a calling for a gathering of the hunters. But it couldn’t be. I was two and half thousand meters deep, and there couldn’t be any drummers in this place. Not unless Fenrir was broadcasting that over the wireless, but before I could check my instruments, I realised that I was standing on a ledge inside a large cavern. Underneath me, a purple robed priest raised his tentacle like hands high above his head and started to chant in a strange, but somewhat familiar tongue to a hundreds of sea-creatures that populated the place. They all looked like a deep-sea dwelling transgenic genejobs. Nevertheless, the one thing that was common was a large fish-head stuck into a scaly humanoid body.

When the priest finished one line, the Deep Ones raised their gaze to look directly at me, and they repeated the chant. “Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhatgn! Ph’nglui mglw’nfah Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn …”

As suddenly as they had appeared, they disappeared under a piercing whistle that chattered the hallucination.

“VAN BURAN … NEIL … ARE YOU LISTENING?” Fenrir shouted in my ear.

“Yes, you can stop shouting.” I replied. “I can hear you loud and clear.”

I heard a deep sigh at the other end. “Neil, what’s wrong with you? Are you feeling well? It sounded like you were throwing up”

“Really?” I replied and checked the glowing display on my sleeve. My air supply was running dangerous low. I had been kneeling at front of treasure so long time that the water around me had unclouded. In between my legs I was able to see a larger part of the treasure. The gold ornament was a part of the oval shaped frames that went around a largest black opal I had seen in my life. After a few second I started to see twinkling stars in the opal, and soon after there was million of them, almost as if a universe was trapped inside that stone.

Another piercing whistle pulled me back into the reality, and I could hear Fenrir shouting his lungs out. “VAN BURAN, ARE YOU LISTENING? WHAT THE FRAG IS WRONG WITH YOU? I ORDER YOU TO COME IN AT THIS MINUTE…”

“Roger,” I replied as I got up, and started to hop towards the brightly lit deep sea harvester. Against the lights, I saw shadowy silhouettes of two bulgy autonomous bots swimming towards me. He must had woken up Agatha to get those machines moving.

“Neil,” Fenrir said in serious tone. He only used my first name when he was really serious. It didn’t happen often.

“Yes boss…”

“What’s wrong with you?” He began. “Either I lost contact or then you refused to answer me. I really doubt that I lost the contact, so what is it? What’s wrong? Has someone upset you? Is everything all right in the attic department?”

I sighed deeply. I couldn’t start lying to him, when he could easily tell his daughter to guide the bots over the treasure and see it himself. There was no way, no matter how much I wanted to hide treasure. I needed his help. “Boss, I found something.’ I replied finally and as I heard him pressing a tangent to ask ‘what’ I continued. “It’s real treasure-“

“Are you kidding me?”

“Nope,” I said feeling more confident about the treasure then I had ever been in my life. “Tell Agatha to move the bots on my previous location, and look down. You cannot miss it. I’ll see you guys in a couple of minutes.”

“Ok,” Fenrir said. I could hear from tone of his voice that he was interested. “But be careful when you come in. I don’t want to lose my best mate to the sea, because you’re rushing in. You got to-”

“I know Fenrir. You don’t have to remind me every time I’m coming in.” I said as I pushed a button to open the harvester air-lock. A heavy pressure door (shaped like a massive gear) withdrew a little bit in, before it rolled away and let me through. It wasn’t a minute too late as my suit computer went nuts on trying to remind me that the air-supply was dangerously low. It beeped and flashed colourful text on my faceplate as the door behind me closed and air started to pump into chamber and push out the water. Half way through I released lock on my helmet and took a lungful of cool recycled air.
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