“they were damnably human in general outline despite webbed hands and feet, shockingly wide and flabby lips, glassy, bulging eyes, and other features less pleasant to recall… Polyphemous-like, and loathsome, it darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith, about which it flung its gigantic scaly arms, the while it bowed its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds. I think I went mad then.”

~H.P.Lovecraft, Dagon.

The humans were shivering.

Even under the dark robes of the Esoteric Order, it was easy to tell who was of the weaker species, untouched by the great gods to which they now prayed.

The leader, a tall creature that loomed far above them when standing, now was at eye level. The humans could not form the name with their pathetic mouths. Still, the human’s dropped their gaze and bowed their heads as the leader moved among them.

They half walked, half crawled to the altar. This world of stone and gravity under the unforgiving stars, was not made for the Deep Ones. So they had to debase themselves to do what must be done. It did not matter, This world and its obstacles would soon be theirs and molded to their needs and the desires of their gods just as the world below was. The world of the deep and dark ocean. The womb of Mother Hydra herself where Father Dagon’s seed flourished, creating the brood who have grown in strength and power since before the stupid apes crawled across the land. Now, the next step in holy evolution was at hand.

They looked down at the altar - a slab of ocean jasper laid across two darker stones. In the center was a child of the accord. Part human. Part Deep One. Being young, even for human standards (their lives so quick, so meaningless), she still had her human form. There, the toes beginning to web, the slight bulging of the pale blue eyes - signs of changes to come. Well, that would come if it were not for their current needs.

The knife was jagged, serrated, and made mostly of gold. The handle was twisted into the writhing, mating forms of their gods. The holy coupling of too many limbs and not enough separation to tell which was male and which was female glinted in the starlight.

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The leader spoke in guttural tones to the crowd. Only the other brood of Dagon and Hydra could comprehend. Some of the hybrids tilted their misshapen and malformed heads to decipher. The humans quaked under the sound.

It was time. They would bath first in the blood of the sacrifice then in the waters of the new world. They would open the way for their beloved gods, Father Dagon and Mother Hydra. Through them, they would honor the Old One from which all came.

Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah-nagl fhtagn-

A scream pierced the air as the knife found purchase in the sacrifice’s chest. Not deep enough, not yet, but just enough to begin an opening.

She writhed but did not fight. There was no point in fighting fate. The will of the gods.

A few slow movements, a few guttural screams, and she was open before them. Malformed organs spilled forth - some mammalian, some amphibious, and some so cancerous and strange it was impossible to tell what formed them. The slaughterhouse stench rose from the twitching soon-to-be corpse. Some of the hooded figures shivered but this time in anticipation and giddiness.

Others of the holy brood moved forward. They bathed their limbs - some hand some more like tentacles - in the red warmth. Their own blood could never be so disgustingly heated and sluggish.

So marked, they continued their chant.

The humans who dared look up and watch the sky break lost what little sanity they had left.

It took hours that felt like moments between breaths for the first holy stone to rise. It shifted from the deep and primordial heart of their home and into this world.

The geography was all wrong at first. But that was no matter. Another sacrifice, more unfathomable hymns, and they would set it to right.

They’d waited eons. Moments, breaths, of a human life would be nothing to them.

Around them, the nighttime forms of the residents of Arkham paused in their movements, stirred in their beds. Foul dreams filled their minds, waking or asleep. Dreams of moon-splashed stones rising from dark sand, marked with hieroglyphs and images they could not comprehend but instinctually feared. Some, those touched by intuition and insanity, saw more…to their detriment.

The brood brought another sacrifice to the altar. The previous slid off with a sickening thud. Blood turned the altar a dark color that would have been red under more forgiving light. The stars only saw blackness as screams sliced the heavens once more and cruelly changed this section of the world.