[Abe Sargent]

The Call of Cthulhu - Synopsis

All synopses are spoilers, so do not read this if you do not wish to know what happens.

Our story begins with the protagonist, who in this story is nothing more than a compiler of information. The protagonists uncle, a noted professor of archeology and ancient languages at Brown Univeristy has just passed away under mysterious circumstances. In his papers, the protagonist finds a locked case, and opens it with a key on his uncle's personal key ring.

In the box are some papers, newspaper clippings, a bas-relief that is only a year or two old, and a journal. The bas-relief has an odd figure at once part octopus, part anthropod and part dragon. There is an unknown language on the bas relief and it appears to be a scene on an isle.

The protagonist opens the papers and begins reading. He discovers that the bas-relief was made by a person, Wilcox, who claimed to have seen the scene and carvings in a dream. He then sculpted what he saw and appraoched the professor. Some of the words he remembers hearing include Cthulhu and R'lyeh. The professor began to keep notes on Wilcox's dreams, corresponded with others abroad, and began to research more intimitely.

Wilcox will then go into a long dark stupor that lasts for days until he pops out with no memory and no longer has the dreams.

As the protagonist continues exploring the contents of the box, the science shifts to the professor's own journal from 17 years prior at an archeologist convention where an Inspector Legrasse of the New Orleans police department arrives with an odd statue. Legrasse comes with a story of a black cult that they busted and confiscated the statue.

The assembled archeologists are amazed because none have any information on this statue. It's obviously old, of an unknown substance, high quality and of a octopus/dragon with an upright gait.

Then one distinguished colleague points out that he had heard of rumors of an obscure tribe of eskimo in West Greenland that supposedly worshipped an old demon god. He then ventured out to meet this dark tribe of eskimpo, and observes silently their worship and overhears them recite a chant over and over again.

At this point, Legrasse is asked to recount his story. 20 police officers responded to calls from a group of squaters out deep in the bayou of strange chants and lights in the night from a deep, black area of the swamp where no one supposedly goes. The officers investigate and discover a large number of cannibal worshippers, dancing naked aroudn a statue of an old figure int eh middle.

Legrasse and the one archeologist agree that they overhead the same chant. Legrasse asked the cannibals that they had captured what it meant and they inform him that it means "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."

One older cannibal celebrant is named Castro, and Castro will give information to Legrasse about an ancient cult that worships the Old Ones who have died long ago but continue to await their reawakening at the hands of their servents, with whom they communicate via dreams.

After finishing these tales of his uncle's, the protagonist disocovers on his own a paper clipping from an Australian Newspaper of a ship that was captured with an idol the same size at Prof. Legrasse's. Our protagonist heads to Australia and finds that one person survived, but he has moved back to his home at Oslo. Our protagonist follows but arrives too late. His wife remains, dressed all in black, and informs that her husband died a few days ago to mysertoius circumstances. Johanson, the remaining sailor, left a journal, which our protagonist takers, and then reads.

The story goes like this:

The sailor was on a ship bound for New Zealand when a ship of fifty people tells them to turn back. The ship attacks and overcomes these apparent pirates, and then continues to sail to see why they required Johanson's ship to turn around. They arrive on an island that is where none exist and there they disocver gigantic ruins ("cyclopean" as the author describes them) with an odd, non-Euclidean geometry that does not correlate with the known laws of math and science.

After investiagting, the group stumble across a huge door in the floor/wall (hard to tell with the geology and architecture being unrelateable). The door slowly opens and a positive darkness spills out, darkening the sky and sun. They begin to hear the splash and movement of something gigantic.

Several begin to move away from the door, including Johanson, when out comes a giant clawed hand that sweeps away three of the men. The remaining men began running towarsd the steamer they left behind and out from this cyclopean doorway appears a gigantic figure, part octopoid, with great wings and an erect walking figure.

More will fall, die, or faint dead, but two make it to the steamer. One is struck mad and eventually dies gibbering. The other is Johanson. He begins the ships, but the gigantic figure of the creature folllowing enters the water, where the head only remains above the water.

Realizing that the creature is faster than him, he turns the boat around and sails full speed at the head, hitting it full force and the octopus head explodes like a balloon.

As he looks back, he sees the head reassembling. He continues to sail away. Several days later, a fierce storm hits, and when people go back to the spot, nothing is there.

Our protagonist puts it all together, however. Wilcox has his dream on the same night that an earthquake hit, causing R'lyeh to rise fromt the ocean floor, and Cthulhu to begin to send out dreams. When Johanson and his men landed on the island and opend the door, Wilcox started to go crazy, until the storm occurs, when R'lyeh sinks below the seas, and Wilcox goes back to normal suddenly, and the dreams cease.

The protagonist fears for his life, and that agents of Cthulhu might kill him as they did his uncle and Johanson. That is the last entry in his journal. The journal was found among his effects after his death which occured the following day after the last entry.