originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010
In Victoria Australia lives the Prof., so-called even though he has no educational credentials. The Prof also has no eyes, or genitals, or apparently several other body parts. He has sacrificed them in his search for enlightenment. He lives with a group of mutants, or possibly lowlives he has altered in some way. In addition, he keeps something he refers to as "The Experiment" trapped in caverns below the house they occupy. Periodically, they steal cows from local ranches and sacrifice them to The Experiment, which has tentacles and wings and who knows what else.
The Prof's explorations are interrupted by the arrival of Robert Huston, another seeker, but one whom the Prof considers highly inferior. He is on the run from two men and a woman who have apparently disrupted his own nefarious plans.
The Prof learns that his mutants are plotting to kill him and take off with Huston on a killing spree. He enlists the two men and the woman to kill them, while he escapes with The Experiment. The sky opens up and they fly off to meet Azathoth.
This unpleasant little tale is dependent on the reader understanding who Robert Huston is. As it happens, Huston is a character in Chaosium's Terror Australis campaign, an offshoot of the Masks of Nyarlathotep scenario. Lacking that information, the tale is largely obtuse.
Even knowing that, the story is not exactly a fun read, being weird, confusing, and more than a little gruesome. We're inside the head of a completely crazed cultist - and its not a fun place. Good writing doesn't make this one any more pleasant.
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