Ch.100Ch.7 – Elegy to Reason (7)

PM 2:00

Dagon Chapel

Innsmouth

Two worshippers blocked the entrance to Dagon Chapel. At first, they wouldn’t even listen to us, but when we showed them Mayor Isaac Allen’s certificate, they reluctantly opened the door. The inside of the chapel was tall and spacious, with the central hall of the three-story building open all the way to the ceiling. This was thanks to the sunlight pouring in through the domed glass ceiling.

Perhaps because of this, the shabbiness of the chapel’s interior was all the more apparent. The bizarre yet intricately crafted stone statues were covered with cloth. The cloth, which must have been white originally, was now closer to ash-gray due to the thick layer of dust, making it advisable not to touch it.

We descended to the basement. As soon as we went down, a strong ammonia smell hit us, causing everyone to cover their noses. Dr. Hartwell, her face deeply furrowed, pointed to a collapsed wall. Even at a glance, a dark cave gaped open before us.

“Looks like a burst bathroom pipe or something.”

Crayfield, who was about to continue speaking, covered his mouth. Judging by his expression, the stench had entered his mouth.

“Assistant, how on earth did you enter last time? You wouldn’t have had any protective gear then.”

“It wasn’t this bad,” Assistant Klein replied, covering his mouth with his coat.

“Really, it wasn’t this bad.”

“How deep is the cave?”

“I didn’t go all the way to the end. But the inside is relatively well-organized, and there are signs that someone built stairs. The traces of the Salem witch trials were found at what would be about the second basement level.”

“Then we should go at least that far. By the way, phew. If we light a fire here, wouldn’t it explode immediately, Professor Hartwell?”

“Are your eyes stinging? I feel like I’m dying.”

Professor Hartwell squinted her eyes. Finally, she made a decision.

“This won’t do. The original plan was to put on protective gear after going down a bit further, but it would be better to wear it now before descending. It’s never a good sign when our mucous membranes are irritated before we’ve even entered.”

The protective gear wasn’t some heavy armor or anything like that. It was just thin, non-elastic full-body rubber suits with respirators and protective goggles. We only took off our coats and wore them over our clothes, so they felt a bit tight, but there was no major discomfort in moving.

“It will be difficult to speak while wearing the respirators, so focus on hand signals.”

Professor Hartwell instructed as she distributed flashlights. There was some debate about whether Crayfield and I should take our guns or leave them behind, but we concluded that we would remove all bullets from the revolvers and store them safely. We wanted to avoid the risk of losing our guns entirely in this hostile village, while also preventing any accidental discharge that could lead to disaster in the cave.

Click.

With six flashlights illuminating our surroundings, there was nothing to fear. Assistant Klein, who knew the way, took the lead, followed by me and Crayfield, with Professor Hartwell and her graduate students at the rear. I had wondered how large this cave would be, but it was more like a wide tunnel, approximately 8 meters across and 3 meters high.

The floor was smooth stone, and the walls were equipped with frames for holding torches. Of course, bringing torches now would cause a massive explosion. As I approached the wall, I could see complex patterns. A large, scale-covered human figure was tearing apart the mouth of a beast that looked like a whale. The human’s head resembled a frog, and on land, humans the size of ants were looking up at the large human figure. Presumably, they wanted to depict the majesty of Dagon.

The wall patterns were all like this. There were murals of Dagon being worshipped by humans, frog and human figures intimately making love, and countless frog-people holding spears and glaring at the sky. Sixteen stars hung in the night sky, and seeing this made me feel extremely uncomfortable.

But apart from the abstract and somewhat geometric murals, there was nothing unusual. It was just well-polished rocky floor and stone walls. There were no bats, snakes, or insects typically associated with such caves. Perhaps it was due to the terrible stench. In fact, considering it was a cave, this place was excessively dry.

Underground caves don’t drain moisture well. Moreover, Innsmouth is a coastal city. It was hard to believe that an underground cave in such a location could be this dry. There was no sign of moisture anywhere. Nor did there seem to be any proper ventilation. If there were, such terrible gas wouldn’t be trapped underground. But no matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t understand how this phenomenon was possible. I desperately wanted to remove my respirator and ask Professor Hartwell, but she and her two graduate students were busy collecting samples from the walls and floor.

One of the graduate students lightly touched Klein, who was walking ahead. It was a signal to follow. Hartwell pointed to a crack in the floor. She brought her flashlight close and sprinkled some sand from nearby, which dispersed like a heat haze. This proved that gas was escaping quite forcefully from the crack. But what could be causing such gas to spew from a crevice in this rocky cave?

After walking for about four minutes, we came to a staircase that curved downward. Assistant Klein led the way down. Crayfield, looking around, picked up a broken wooden stick. Judging by its charred end, it had probably been used as a torch.

As we descended to the lower level, the shape of the cave changed dramatically. Stalactites and stalagmites had joined to form columns, which somehow resembled the teeth of a marine creature that couldn’t fully close its mouth. The moisture that was completely absent upstairs could easily be found here. Assistant Hartwell took out a notebook from inside her coat and tore off a thin page. She held it upside down in the air and waited patiently until the page fluttered. It was a sign that wind was blowing from somewhere. But the direction of the wind wasn’t from where we had descended. It was coming from ahead of us, from the darkness beyond the reach of our flashlights.

Assistant Klein pointed to Hartwell’s notebook. The professor handed him the notebook and pencil, and Klein quickly wrote:

“There are remains and a chest ahead, so be careful not to touch them.”

Crayfield and I exchanged glances. What Klein wanted might be the contents of that chest. Or perhaps the remains. For a while, we followed him. Klein clenched his fist and rotated it in the air a couple of times. It meant to prepare ourselves.

And then we encountered the corpses.

There were two skeletons wearing tattered men’s suits, one skeleton in a dress that had been reduced to rags, and one skeleton with a small build that reminded me of a child. Looking closely, it wasn’t a child. It just appeared that way because its back was hunched and its limbs were long. If it straightened its back, it would probably be as tall as an average adult male. Klein pointed to the chest, but Professor Hartwell stepped forward and wrote on a memo pad:

“We don’t know what’s down here, so there’s no need to unnecessarily increase our load, is there? If it’s not critically important, how about retrieving it on our way back up? I’m here to measure the gas and danger levels of this city, not to explore modern history.”

Klein hesitated, but even he seemed to have no argument against such clear logic.

“Then let’s retrieve it on our way back up if there’s no major problem. Much of the Salem trials remains unknown territory, so it has great significance in modern studies.”

Klein seemed somewhat disappointed, but like the aspiring politician he was, he moved on. After about thirty steps, we came to another staircase leading down to the floor. This was uncharted territory even for Klein, so he narrowed his stride.

Although we were wearing respirators, they didn’t completely cover our noses and mouths, and I felt the stench seeping in little by little. Or perhaps it was the smell of my own sweat trapped under the rubber suit. To conserve energy, we never hurried. We moved even slower than a leisurely stroll. The darkness grew thicker, the stench became worse, and with each step, the ground became slightly more slippery. Eventually, Crayfield spread his arms. I thought he was suggesting we take a break, but that wasn’t it. He shone his flashlight on the floor, specifically toward the corner of the cave.

The floor was covered with a black liquid. Professor Hartwell stopped Klein, who was instinctively reaching out his hand. Instead, one of her graduate students dipped a long piece of paper into the liquid. Something more viscous than oil, almost like mucus, stretched out more thickly than saliva. It wasn’t like crude oil. It was clearly a black mucus.

And beneath the sampled mucus, something white, elongated, and thin was visible. The other graduate student carefully picked it up with tweezers. The tweezers trembled as they recognized what it was. Professor Hartwell pointed to her own finger.

Yes, it was a finger bone.

All of us, trying not to scatter, carefully scanned the floor with our flashlights. Except for the center where we were standing, mucus was smeared everywhere. Walls. Ceiling. Corners of the floor. Each time we gently scraped with a stick, another bone would appear. But none were thicker than a finger bone. They were elongated and finely “pulverized.” As if a firmly grasped reed had been crushed. While Professor Hartwell’s eyes showed ambiguity and the graduate students’ eyes were filled with terror, Klein was different. He stroked his chest with his palm and pointed ahead. Hartwell handed him a memo pad, and Klein quickly wrote:

“Let’s go as far as we can. If we go back up from here and come again, we’ll have to see this sight again anyway.”

Professor Hartwell wrote back:

“I won’t be here then.”

Behind the safety goggles, Klein’s eyes were smiling. We continued to descend. But I still couldn’t understand whether those bones were indeed human bones, and why they were soaked in mucus.

As we kept walking, another staircase appeared. This staircase was different from the previous ones. Each step was wider and the intervals were longer. The space on either side was also wider. There were indentations between the stairs that looked like places to insert long poles. Black grease had accumulated beside these holes.

Above all, there was a massive stone door at the end of the stairs. It was a stone door engraved with the image of Dagon standing on the sea, but there was a large hole in the center. As if someone had planted and detonated explosives, even the intact parts were full of cracks.

The hole in the stone door was large enough for a car to pass through. Looking down at the splashing floor, it was full of water. It was yellowish water mixed with sand, but I couldn’t tell exactly what it was.

The first thing visible was a row of pillars. The pillars were carved with human figures supporting the ceiling, but they were unlike any statues we had seen so far. Their faces resembled carp, and they even had gills on the sides of their necks—literal fish-people. They appeared to be about 3 meters long, and for some reason, while the fish-people were holding up the ceiling with both arms, they were staring down with their heads.

The splashing sound of water. The fish-people statues silently looking down at us. My shoulders involuntarily hunched. The walls were damp and covered with something like green moss, and the black mucus we had seen earlier was also visible. Some of it had dried up, but some was still distinct.

Suddenly, Klein, who was walking ahead, waved his hand. Crayfield signaled to me. Klein stopped Professor Hartwell, who was trying to come closer to see what was happening.

About 10 meters ahead, a large square stone coffin was visible. At first glance, it looked like a modest altar, or in some ways, a coffin carved from stone. It looked even more so because a lid was placed on it as if it were meant to be opened and closed. But the top of the coffin was not empty.

Five people were lying on top of the coffin. All were white men. Their eyes were wide open, their heads tilted back, and their mouths agape. As if they were shouting. As if they were yelling at us not to come. Fighting back nausea, I looked closer. They were familiar faces. It was the far-right group that had harassed the woman from Boston during the hotel dinner.

And like a shroud, something dark and large, resembling a jellyfish, covered their bodies. It looked like a slug’s body with centipede legs attached. The jellyfish’s body was literally torn apart. It looked as if someone had cut jelly with a knife and then forcibly pieced it back together.

Beyond the altar, leaning against the wall, were human figures. There were three of them, with identical builds, faces, and clothing. Unlike the people lying on the altar, they looked like mannequins. Like broken, cut, and dismembered mannequins, beneath their skin were shattered mechanical devices, belts, and clockwork mechanisms.

I recognized those faces too. They were identical to the replica dolls of James Moriarty that I had seen in Kingsport. Klein, who had examined the bodies of the dolls, gestured to Crayfield and me. There was a note attached inside the doll’s body.

[Oh dear, oh dear, Holmes!]

Click.

Awakening <3/12> / Doom <2/12>