|
Synopsis of Dead of Night
This story opens in the River District as Dona Teresa di Rivera seeks out famed occultist Anton Zarnak, and meets him in his house. She tells him of her uncle, who is now fearing the dark. They owned a ranch in California and found some ancient native burial grounds. Her uncle opened them, and brought some items out. He was chastised by a local Indian cleric after doing so, with this obsidian tablet being the object of scorn. Soon thereafter the man began to fear the dark. Fearing persecution, he fled halfway around the globe and is now obsessed with researching the occult.
Anton Zarnak researches the local native tribe and finds they worshipped a demon named Zulchequon. He finds and researches it in the Book of Iod. Zulchequon is known as the dark and silent one. Many of the details were expurgated from the translations he was able to find.
He visits the uncle and is shown his collection. He has showed the obsidian object and cannot decipher it’s language, although it does strike him as odd. He takes rubbings back to examine for later. After trying and failing a number of languages, they are the same language as the Aklo characters from ancient Germany. The interpretation says to keep this from the light, or else Zulchequan will take you.
As soon as darkness engulfs the amulet, the uncle will be taken, but thus far, it’s always been light, lanterns, and other lights that have been around it. He heads back with a case.
Just then a power outage is caused at night by an odd electrical storm…
A giant breath breathes out the candles in the room of the uncle as Anton reaches it. He pulls a star-stone wand out and incants something from Cthugha (The fire big bad). Light is pushed back, and the demon of darkness retreats, but the uncle has passed.
|