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Dim Dwellers; Or, the Ace in the Hole
Topic Started: May 9 2014, 10:08 PM (329 Views)
flashman63
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The Herr From Terre
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Dim Dwellers

You are sitting in a dark theater. It is deathly silent. Several men dressed in either trench or frock coats mutter, wearing hats. They are either those to old or rich to serve, or those who have been put on temporary leave from the War. Somewhere outside, a crow calls over the lonesome grey streets of London. One man for reasons not even he understands shivers at the noise.

In the back of the room, a machine sputters to life, and out of it comes a sickly white light. The men sit down. A title card appears-

THE ACE IN THE HOLE

Of course, everyone here has already saw it. Everyone in the country had. By the propaganda budget had gone dry recently, so a lot of propaganda was being recycled, replayed. Every pound counted, they said.

Screen:"The War is over! The Jerries are done!" It says. None dare scoff for fear of who is listening.

Cut to: Women and children waving Union Jacks in the streets as smiling soldiers wave from Landships and horse drawn carriages. Cut to stereotypical Kraut waving flag of surrender.

Screen:"Or this is what we will be saying vey soon. We have found IT, the solution to the war, the foolproof victory- the ace in the hole, if you will." Again, all must refrain from scoffing.

Cut to: Large sinkhole in a farmers field, leading to inky black depths. Several soldiers curiously peer into it.

Screen:"A massive network of caverns! Formed from nearly indestructible stone, miles below our feet- possibly even this very theater!"

Cut to: A Landship descends down a slope into a pitch black night, with a powerful gas lamp attempting to light more then a few feet ahead. Several nervous Tommys descend behind it.

Screen: This caverns lead directly behind Jerry lines, making victory a sure thing. We will come up from behind- give the Kaiser a nasty surprise!"

Cut to: Map of Europe, with red and grey lines for Entente and central powers. The red lines advance straight through grey lines, then coming from behind, obliterating them. Cut to caricature of the Kaiser being kicked in the arse by the King.

Screen:"Not only do these caverns ensure our victor over the Central Powers, but provide living space and shelter for he continentals."

Cut to: Smiling French family standing in rock grotto converted to a home.

Cut to: Field of mushrooms.

Cut to: Potatoes with gas lamps hanging above.

Screen:"Not to mention the wealth of scientific and archaeological data!"

Cut to: Several men wearing tweed smoking pipes speaking animatedly over a stone spear, engraved with a strange, and oddly nauseating string of glyphs.

Screen: Not to say their aren't dangers associated with it. From some peculiar and occasionally hostile wildlife-

Cut to: What appears to be some sort of bald albino bear, with a face covered in wriggling appendages. It has a gaping wound in its side. Several laughing soldiers are next to it. One of them pouts at it, and another brings his bayonet into its face. The wriggling stops. The men proceed to laugh raucously, or so it appears.

Screen:"-to some downright feisty natives!"

Cut to: A gas lamp briefly illuminates several tall, skinny and a pale figures, which quickly melt back into the shadows before you can get a good look at them.

Screen:"Nothing we haven't dealt with before, eh?"

Cut to: Waving Union Jack.

Screen:" But we can't do it all by ourselves- we want YOU (cut to recruitment poster and then screen in the blink of an eye) to enlist, and give the Hun a run for his money!"

The tape flickers off the role. You hear the noise coming from the projection room. The screen goes blank, and the sickly light white leaves, making the room nearly as dark as those caverns. Everyone rises and exits the dark cinema. You hear the lazy whir of an airship engine somewhere in the distance. Fliers for recruitment and that strange Egyptians technological demonstrations flutter through the air. A crow caws somewhere in the distance.

Dim Dwellers

Or

The Ace in the Hole

Travel back through time and space, to the edge of man's beggining... discover a time when man, woman and lizard roamed free, and untamed!

It is an epoch of mammoths, a time of raptors!

A tale of love in the age of tyrannosaurs!

An epic from the silver screen, brought right to your door!

Travel back to
A Million Years BC

-----------------------------------------------------

Proceedings of the Miskatonic University Department of Zoology

Cosmic Horror is but a dissertation away

-----------------------------------------------------

Some dickhead's deviantART
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Archipithecus
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Ruling Ape
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Cave ecosystem? Sounds really cool. I love the introduction.
Theodosius Dobzhansky
 
Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

My tumblr
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flashman63
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The Herr From Terre
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The focus isn't really on the cave ecosystem (though a bit of speculative biology will come into play here and their). Rather, the focus is on Lovecraftian horrors and man descending further and further into the black depths.
Travel back through time and space, to the edge of man's beggining... discover a time when man, woman and lizard roamed free, and untamed!

It is an epoch of mammoths, a time of raptors!

A tale of love in the age of tyrannosaurs!

An epic from the silver screen, brought right to your door!

Travel back to
A Million Years BC

-----------------------------------------------------

Proceedings of the Miskatonic University Department of Zoology

Cosmic Horror is but a dissertation away

-----------------------------------------------------

Some dickhead's deviantART
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Archipithecus
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Ruling Ape
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Oh, so that's why it's in Cafe Cosmique. I think Lovecraftian horrors will attract a few members here.
Theodosius Dobzhansky
 
Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

My tumblr
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flashman63
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The Herr From Terre
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"When one hole opens, another closes" -De Vermis Mysteriis

The Bavarian Bolshevik Commissardom

The BBC was founded by Vladmir Lenin, more or less. As the war raged on, and many still thought the discovery of the caverns would soon end the war by Christmas, Leninn ventured north into the Bavarian alps. With the help of local socialist elements, he began attempting to rally the farmers. By in those days, when Berlin and London truly had control over land that nominally belonged to them, Socialists would not be tolerated. As the Kaisers Fist came down on Bavaria, Lenin fled to Russia, while his supporters fled underground. On this new frontier, a frontier buried deep in the Alps, the control if any central authority was lax at best. They sat in the colonies, biding their time, until the power of Berlin away from Brandenburg and the Front diminished, and, wih the help of the short lived Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the BBC declared independence from Berlin.

While they were able to retake the surface, they rarely used it- Italian and French attacks would often emerge above ground from unsettled tunnels, making it risky to settle down- another reason for this were the clouds of gas and ash that were beggining to drift across Europe. And so, like countless others, they slunk further down.

Not to say the surface was totally abandoned- several prominent cities (most importantly Neucshwanstein) were preserved, as well as massive artillery batteries. Every now and then, either Berlin or some outlying Germanic state will attempt to pull an Anschluss, making massive defenses important just like everywhere on the continent.

The current Warlord is known only as the Wolf,an Austrian and hopeless German romantic living in the refurbished castle of king Ludwig, with a strong hate for the literal Untermensch that plagued Bavarias caves. He has taken quite a bit of interest into the archaeology.
Travel back through time and space, to the edge of man's beggining... discover a time when man, woman and lizard roamed free, and untamed!

It is an epoch of mammoths, a time of raptors!

A tale of love in the age of tyrannosaurs!

An epic from the silver screen, brought right to your door!

Travel back to
A Million Years BC

-----------------------------------------------------

Proceedings of the Miskatonic University Department of Zoology

Cosmic Horror is but a dissertation away

-----------------------------------------------------

Some dickhead's deviantART
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
trex841
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Entity
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
For some reason I love the idea of major scientific discoveries taking place in eras where they wouldn't exactly be treated with the upmost care. It's fun, in an archaic sort of way.

You have my attention.
F.I.N.D.R Field Incident Logs
A comprehensive list of all organisms, artifacts, and alternative worlds encountered by the foundation team.

At the present time, concepts within are inconsistent and ever shifting.

(And this is just the spec related stuff)
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flashman63
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The Herr From Terre
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"When one hole opens, another closes"- de Vermis Mysteriis

The Year was 1916, what they would call the "Year of Our Lord", as most had not lost faith in the idea of a merciful God yet. But they were beggining to. A war raged in Europe, what many believed to be a civilized and learned land, above the savagery of war for war's sake. They were wrong. Many predicted this to be the 'War to End All Wars'. They could very well be right.

The Verdun was still raging, and the first British Landships were cautiously plodding along no-man's land. ON the Somme, more British blood has been spilt then ever before in her history, and more keeps coming. The people of Europe are desperate. They want out of this war, and fast. Something that will ensure victory, a quick and relatively bloodless way to end the bloodshed. An ace in the hole if you will.

And they found the hole. An American ex-pat, a scion of the de La Poer family, an ancient (defunct) house. Though they adopted the name during the Norman Conquests, rumours hold they date back to the Roman days, and some even whisper they were tribal chieftans to the horrid Druids and Celts that wallowed in the mud of the English isles. This Scion decided he would return to his House's Manor, now known as Exham Priory, and fix up the place, and once again a de La Poer should rule over Exham Priory.

But he found... other things. He and a small team of experts descended into Caverns below, making horrible discoveries, of a place mankind was not meant to know. Ruins, bones, rats. The scion was swept up in some sort of madness, and devoured one of the expedition members. He was restrained and sent to an asylum, where he would live out the rest of his days.

The British government took interest in this place. Not for the archaeological regions, as the things it implied about the origins of humanity were all to horrid. No, the ruins were blown to Kingdom Come, the bones ground into dust and sold as glue, and the rats, all the rats, were gassed, then burned. But below the initial tunnels, a great passageway existed. Several Landships and horse buggies were sent below. Though the casualty rate was 60%, of which 10% had inexplicably gone mad, a route was traced across a section of the Caverns. A route leading below the North Sea, through France, and straight behind German lines.

The British wasted no time. A relatively small group of troops was sent down through the tunnels, under the north sea, through France, and staged a hit and run attack directly behind German lines. The effect was devastating on the unprepared Germans- every single man was facing west, when the attack had come from the East.

Hit and Run attacks were devastating on German ranks. If timed correctly, they could co-incide with an above ground charge. German troops, not knowing where the enemy was coming from, was quickly demoralized. Despite the massive risks involved in traveling through the caverns, many in British high command declared it the key to victory. These feelings would be very short lived.

The blow would come two fold for the Entente. First, was the Beast. The Beast came from out of Exham Priory, or some miles below it. A great albino worm, destroying several landships, and devouring hundreds of troops. Nearly all of Exham Military Zone was destroyed- only a massive artillery barrage stopped the Thing from rampaging through the country side. Then, came the Gassing of Paris. Though Paris had always been close to the front lines, it was growing farther and farther away as Entente victories mounted. Lovers gathered under the Eiffel Tower, men of State and Buisness rushed to and fro, and merchants prattled in the streets. But many noticed a slightly strange scent to the air. Then, after only a few minutes, thousands were dead. Gas masked Germans emerged from the Catacombs, and siezed Paris. Only after heavy fighting were these troops dispersed. Thousands more died.

The Germans had found their own tunnels. The quiet place in the Alps, where the villages dare not tread. Or deep in a Prussian marsh, an area where plants did nopt grow, and when something sunk, it would not come back up, or perhaps it was in the old groves, the places of worship for their Teutonic forefathers. The where didn't matter- all that mattered was that they had found it.

The Tunnels were fortified- gas, landmines, and of course, trenches. The advantage was negated. The deadlock of the land above was transferred to the land below. And, the strange stone that made up the caverns was almost impossible to destroy.

The War would drag on. Battles on the surface grew more and more fierce. The British began drafting massive numbers of troops from the Colonies, and Germany began capturing any men in occupied territory, to fight for their families and the Kaiser. Europe fell int chaos- massive monster attacks, strange and archaic diseases began resurfacing, and bouts of madness wracked the land like a pestilence. And then, their was the artillery barrages, troops stealing your food and daughters, Zeppelins and Aeroplanes bombing your land on the suspicion that troops were nearby, and the Shadow- great clouds of ash and gas swept from the battlefields of Europe. To escape these troubles, many began descending into the caves- most remained largely uncharted, keeping them safe from ravenous troops.
Travel back through time and space, to the edge of man's beggining... discover a time when man, woman and lizard roamed free, and untamed!

It is an epoch of mammoths, a time of raptors!

A tale of love in the age of tyrannosaurs!

An epic from the silver screen, brought right to your door!

Travel back to
A Million Years BC

-----------------------------------------------------

Proceedings of the Miskatonic University Department of Zoology

Cosmic Horror is but a dissertation away

-----------------------------------------------------

Some dickhead's deviantART
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TAXESbutNano
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I'm going back to basics.
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Is good. Is very good. Much more wanted. CONTINUE, MORTAL.
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