Chapter 5 - When the stars are right...

Norman walked across the campus with Leonardo to get something to eat while the doctor went to get a mage. The mood of the two was clearly clouded and the conversation was halting as they repeatedly paused to think.

A little further ahead, the students were jammed. Norman pushed himself forward a little until he could see over the shoulders of the others what was going on. A student in a white robe with a large golden circle on it was jumping up and down like the classic HB man in front of a man in work clothes, eloquently stating that he was against the "unholy and blasphemous" use of the undead. Before he could figure out what exactly the student in white wanted. In any case, he sounded like a fanatical vegan who had caught a butcher butchering heads in his kitchen.

Leo pulled him back by the arm and towards a small side path that ran between two of the large buildings: "Come on, it's a shortcut."

The little-used path was shrouded in deep shade by the tall buildings and appeared somewhat unkempt.

Around the middle of the two buildings, the path became much narrower again, as a staircase on the left led down to a basement entrance. As the two of them walked past chatting animatedly, Norman suddenly stopped and listened: "Do we have a Gregorian choir here at the university?"

"Not that I know of."

Leonardo also stopped: "Sounds funny..."

He descended the stairs and tested the door handle. The door opened with a soft squeak. The chanting grew louder: "... mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn ..."

Leonardo shook his head: "Doesn't mean anything to me. Since the veil doesn't translate it , it's probably not even a reasonable language."

"I'm afraid I know exactly what that is. It's from one of H.P. Lovecraft's books. I didn't think it was all true. That's all we really need here! A couple of madmen summoning Cthulhu on the university campus. We have to stop them!"

"Kutulu? Lovecraft? I'm sorry. Never heard of it. But this is one of the clubrooms. You can't just barge into one of the clubs. Besides, demon summoning isn't illegal."

"No demons. They're calling one of the Great Old Ones! Imagine a cross between Godzilla and a mind flayer from AD&D. Only worse-tempered and more dangerous."

"Okay, sounds like we should stop that. So... move aside!" Leo grabbed Norman by the arm and yanked him wildly away from the door that had just slammed outwards. Gigantic tentacles burst through the opening from the basement room. A strand of muscle more than the thickness of an arm slapped plate-sized suction cups against the wall directly above where Norman had just been standing. Large chunks of plaster were torn from the wall. Dust and splinters swept through the narrow alley .

More tentacles pushed the door fully open and then slithered into the alleyway. Leonardo was pushed up the steps by the groping mass and into the alley, where he immediately took off running. Norman escaped the first blindly snapping tentacle and quickly climbed on top of him. From there, he used the door handle as a stepping point and jumped up to the cast iron railing at the top of the stairs. He had almost made it over the banister when he was enveloped. The tentacle pushed itself further and further up from the basement room and, with the student in its grip, spiraled up to the height of the windows on the third floor of the two buildings. There it came to a halt, swaying slightly.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Let him go!" yelled Leonardo from the end of the alley. The weapon he frantically pulled out of his book bag looked like a toy laser. However, the ominous, menacing buzz that sounded as soon as he pressed the small switch immediately ended the harmless impression. The inconspicuous red dot of the rangefinder was completely lost in the teeming mass, but informed the weapon of the exact distance to the spot where it was about to cause a highly exothermic nuclear chain reaction. Before he could pull the trigger, one of the tentacles whirled around and knocked the weapon out of his hand and against the wall. The device shattered, sending sparks and lightning flying.

"Hey, my phlogiston detonator! These parts are from a dimensional sled, they're irreplaceable!"

Norman interrupted his attempt to free himself from the tentacle's grip. Something was wrong. The blow just now had not looked as random as the other movements of the tentacles. The monster had deliberately and precisely destroyed the weapon that could have been dangerous to her. Not that Norman wasn't grateful for that. Apart from the not insignificant probability that he would also have been grilled by the inferno of Leonardo's ultra-flamethrower, a successful attack on the tentacle monster would have landed him in serious trouble as long as he was several meters up and still held firmly in its grip. As soon as he had freed himself, he wanted to try to jump to a window.

How had the creature been able to aim at its target so well? He took a closer look. And where was the damage to the building, where the suction cups had torn off whole chunks of plaster earlier? The swirling tentacles and the fact that he himself was being whirled around again and again made it difficult for him to make out the details. Only a few seconds later, however, he was sure. What could that possibly mean... Then the penny dropped: "Leo! These are just material illusions! Don't you have any spells against that?"

Leonardo shook his head downstairs, but Norman didn't notice. He still had over three dozen sayings on his list that he wanted to learn. Preferably before he retired. In his opinion, lifting illusions of others was quite useless. Before he could reply, however, another voice rang out: "Cut! He has noticed. Put it down and end illusions."

The tentacles carefully brought Norman down to the ground and then dissolved with a glittering sparkle. Instead, a scaffold became visible a few meters up between the two buildings. Several students and Professor Groschen, who had just taken a video camera from his eye, pressed it into the hand of a student next to him and began to applaud slowly, were standing on it. He seemed only moderately satisfied: "Okay, Heinz. Now explain to me how our two test participants were able to realize so quickly that it was just an illusion."

The man in question gave Norman a bitter look: "I don't know. I thought it was good. Maybe not enough slime?"

"No, I don't think so. Any other ideas?" Heinz just shook his head.

"Inconsistency. You didn't maintain the changes to the setting. The damage to the door, the bent banister, the slime stains on Norman's clothes...

"And the chipped areas in the building's plaster," Norman interjected.

Professor Groschen nodded at him: "Exactly. The first impression was very convincing, but then you concentrated too much on shock effects and let the illusionary changes fade away. Either you stabilize them or leave them out altogether. We'd best practise that now. Have a drink, eat something and in half an hour I want to see a tentacle smash through the wall and rip out a water pipe. A burst water pipe, falling stones, water splashing everywhere, a wet house wall and puddles."

He shooed his students towards the cafeteria and then sat down on a folding director's chair that materialized directly beneath him.

Leo was about to move on and follow the others, but Norman turned in the direction of the professor: "Professor Groschen..."

"Not so formal." He waved his hand and more folding chairs appeared. Norman noticed that they were labeled with his and Leonardo's first names. The professor knew him, even though he hadn't had a single lecture with him.

"Professor, maybe you can help us. Our friend Samantha is injured..."

"The little blonde goddess?" The usual permanent grin disappeared from his face and gave way to a slightly worried expression: "Something serious?"

"She's an angel, not a goddess. And she's in some kind of magical coma. We're waiting for Dr. Ferguson to bring in a magician for a more in-depth analysis.

"If the healing mages at the hospital don't know what's going on, they'll probably call Dean Majere right away. Professor Rohal is an even better analytical magician, but the boss has sent him on a diplomatic mission to Tibet. He's probably supposed to be looking for the guys who kidnapped the fat Chinese man. Should be easy to find. He had such a dreadful aura of boredom about him that all you have to do is follow the trail of sleeping people. Majere will find out what's going on. I'll bring over some flowers tonight so it doesn't smell like a hospital."

He gave everyone a movie voucher for their participation in his test and then shooed them on towards the cafeteria.