I walked down the street towards that building marked as Miskatonic University, but the building that was marked as such…wasn’t a university, it was…an art gallery. There was this big historical society building too and probably because of my connection to the sun and the sun’s connection to the spirits of the world…I could sense there was a building here that while the building has seen many, many days’ worth of light…its inhabitants had not seen the light of day in decades, centuries even…there was somewhere here that was incredibly haunted.
I could sense on the air, this…hum, this buzz of magic that vaguely felt like the world’s largest spider slowly making its way up my spine, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up, made me instantly on alert by this creeping, clawing feeling that was mixed into the buzzing which washed me in a sickly, bitter cold. That magic however…was this underlayer to the town, there was an overlayer, like a mask over a mask, the outermost being this thick veil of…illusion magic. My eyes adjusted to the illusions around me as I could start seeing these beads of magic almost inlaid in even intervals along the road, but this bright icy blue string of light cut perfectly centered down the main drag…a leyline. The town’s on a leyline. There was a street that was marked as towards the town of Innsmouth, that had a matching central leyline along it. The town’s center was the intersection of two leylines making the entire town have this deeply rooted magic. The bright beads of magic along the road were in various colors telling me that multiple people had casted all the various illusion magic I could sense on the town. There was not only illusion magic making people believe that this was just a regular little novelty town, but there was also magic to persuade, to alter people’s memories and…a weirdly volatile amount of dream warding magic on the town. My vision was pierced making me blink a few times by this…vivid light down the street, I walked down the street as I recognized not a familiar magic in whom casted it, but a familiar magic in what was casted…the entrance to a pocket dimension.
“Was this entire place…made as a cover story or something?” I asked myself as I walked before turning down a street marked as Lich St as I followed the light before I found myself in front of…what at first looked like a very large and stately park, but…the sign said Old Arkham Burial Grounds. The pocket dimension entrance was…on the gates to the cemetery, the cemetery had been retrofitted less into an active cemetery into something more along the lines of an open-air museum with sprawling gardens, spotted statues, and various other fixtures. I reached up a little as I stood in front of this huge sprawling green swirling pocket door before I reached ahead and touched it, I felt the familiar pull as I was lurched forward and the only way I could describe this pocket’s doorway was…unsettling: the air was cold and calmy, almost like I was in a very wet cavern with constantly dripping water making my skin crawl before I stumbled forward and looked around. The sound of footsteps on pavers and concrete filling my hearing as I found myself not in a sleepy little town, but…a bustling town: the roads were wider and occupied by various people walking down the sidewalks or moving along them in strange steam-punk looking cars or on various animalistic lower bodies, the town had that air of a town building around a very, very large college campus: lots of restaurants and bars, towering almost Victorian era buildings clashed with a Cape Cod like style with the same sweeping gabled roofs and fixtures, the same colorful bunting and flags, all sorts of gardens and statues along with many…many other features.
“First time?” a voice asked making my flinch a little as I looked over to see a very…very petite, extremely elder woman standing in front of me.
“Yes, ma’am”
“Welcome to the real Arkham, just visiting…seeing someone?” she asked, what is it and old women being nosy?
“Where…. where is the university, please?” I asked
“Ah, you’re visiting the university” she said quite chipperly and before I could protest or anything, she had grabbed my wrist and with an unsettling level of strength just started walking, “it’s just this way, it’s a lovely school if you’re planning on attending next year, I remember when I was a young girl and just started attending Miski.” She said before sighing fondly, she also moved a bit spryer than you would think a woman of her age could, but she did walk with those extremely short and rapid steps that elder women walk with, gray hair piled up in a large bun where she had her knitting needles stores, more shawls than person, massive glasses, and a chunky pair of Tevas on her feet as she walked which made her footsteps slightly squeaky. “So, who are you affiliated with?”
“Excuse me?” I asked, I had tried to slip my hand out of her grip, but I would have better luck trying to single-handedly pull a ship out of a whirlpool.
“Who reached out to your clan?” she asked, “I personally am of the dime a dozen Yog-Sothoth families, who haven’t they blessed…so many families are blessed by them.”
“…who?”
“Did your family never tell you? Quite strange to hear of a child like one of us who hadn’t been at least found at a young age and brought into the fold” she added, “Any idea as to whom gave you your lineage?”
“Aamon” I said making her pause as she let go of my hand
“…one more time please, I’m afraid my old ears may be acting up again” she said
“My father is Aamon.” I said
“That’s ridiculous, why would anyone who isn’t affiliated with one of the families be here in Arkham…and if you really were the child of an archdemon, well that’d make you a warlord.” She added laughing as if what I said was a joke.
“It’s true…my name is Vladislav Marks…I am a warlord…I am the son of Aamon…cousin of the other warlords like Kálmán Varga, Nickolas Andreas, Sammy Sovereign, Travis Nel, Sultan Ahmed, Juliana Vesta, Cassandra Vita and Heather Greenspan.” I said, her expression shifted as I told her the first time, at first looking ahead with a chipper light that shifted to an amused pity to something…strange and unplaceable, something I couldn’t read as she looked at me, but as I mentioned the top eight by their full name, with each her expression shifted to one of discomfort and like I was invading her space or like my very existence was below her, she flicked a few fingers as her dark eyes behind her glasses started shifting before milking over into this glassy sickly yellowy tone, no pupils and looking almost like her eyes were actually made of glass before she took a step back.
“Oh…oh…” she said surprised before her expression fell to a slightly annoyed look of almost disappointment as I noticed her not so casually wipe her hand on one of her many shawls, “Why is someone like you here?” she asked, almost insulted, the way she snapped you being the biggest marker of my existence being an insult to her.
“A friend of mine works at Miskatonic.”
“Who?”
“Aden Ashmore” I said, she laughed again
“Please, like Elder Ashmore would affiliate himself with a warlord, he’s beyond that…he should be affiliating himself with the other elders, not the child of an archdemon who would allow themselves to be bound by a foolish pathetic mortal…and don’t let people hear you refer to Elder Ashmore by anything other than his proper title and name, he is Elder Ashmore and nothing else to everyone, the only people allowed to call him by name are those who he has given permission…you must owe him some kind of life debt or something, that must be it, why else would someone as high and noble as Elder Ashmore affiliate himself with someone like you. I may need to write again to the town board about warding the pocket from any sort of dreck that isn’t a member of one of the families, I cannot believe the town is being tainted by your very existence walking around here.” she added
“The university?” I asked, she sighed regretfully as she rolled her eyes, face that was more wrinkles nearly going full raisin as her expression was one of extreme bitter discontent before jerking her chin behind her with a roll of her eyes.
“Miski is down the street that way, make a right when you see Nebula Avenue…you can’t miss it. Though I don’t know why they would let someone like you onto the precious grounds of our university.” she added before walking off with that short rapid gate as I heard a hiss in a language that…even I didn’t know, it wasn’t something my ears could translate even with my knowledge of any and all languages, it wasn’t…something I had heard before and it made my ears buzz with static white-noise.
“Elder?” I asked as I walked
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