Bab 21: Necronomicon
"Through the eyes of a higher dimensional being, humans are but fireflies. They'll Burn with high intensity and suddenly dim when their time has come. But they have something that Gods do not, Humanity and Emotions." — ??
——————————————————————————
It's easy to get lost in the rhythm of the Underworld. It's easy to get lost in it when it holds so much knowledge and story of the Primordials, Titans and the Gods.
It's easy to get lost in it, it doesn't help that Icarus was always a sucker for wisdom and knowledge.
When Icarus was pulled out of the darkness— River Styx— Hecate didn't waste a moment to let him get accustomed to the Underworld atmosphere. Its rich mana and mysteries would've shattered any mortals that still have a physical form in the Underworld, if you stay for a prolonged period of time like Icarus does that is.
Two months— if Hecate can be believed— It has been two months since he arrived at the Underworld. And he has done nothing but mediate and let Hecate do her crazy rituals on him.
It was crazy, it was expected—
It was boring. Icarus sighed.
One thing that was interesting in the past months was his meeting with these so-called 'Outer Gods'. It was an interesting experience, he could say. Interesting…. If they didn't sicc him with one of the Outer Gods' craziness inside him. A key, they said. A key to open a gateway to the world from their dark dimension.
Well, it isn't as much as Icarus himself wanted that. He got in contact with them knowing that they'll Trojan Horse him.
He needed knowledge, fast and with desperation. The fastest way to get that was through the Dark Gods, Key to their world notwithstanding.
He became the 'Key' and the abomination he's connected to is 'The Gate'. They're throughly connected.
And for all intents and purposes, he just sold his soul.
Icarus sighed softly.
Icarus laid his hand open and facing the heavens, then a book— A Grimoire— appeared in his waiting hand.
Necronomicon.
The book contains Magecraft and, dark and forbidden knowledge. The book known to drive any person or entity who reads it go mad— if they don't have the mind to comprehend it, that is—
And Icarus is in possession of it.
He never did get the chance to read it as he's been busy and, it doesn't help that Hecate is suddenly suspicious of him. Icarus thinks Hecate knows that he made a contract with some deity. She's been whispering about how his 'Weight of existence' has increased. It confused him greatly but if he wanted to know about it he can ask Hecate politely or—
Icarus looked at the book in his hands.
What he's doing is risky. He didn't need anyone to tell him that and he has to use the book sparingly, otherwise he'll be the one going insane. Just because he made a contract with those abominations doesn't mean he can suddenly comprehend them or gain a resistance to their contradictory nature. So, he'll have to use it sparingly.
Icarus ruffled his locks in frustration. Limitations. 'O how he hates them. He didn't want to get limited, he just wanted to read the book, comprehend it and use the knowledge in it in his own leisure time.
'Urgh.'
Nevermind. I'll have to adapt and compromise where it's needed.
Maybe he can rob Prometheus and Athena in his madness while he does so.
'That's a good plan, actually.' Icarus nodded.
He'll have to contact Athena.
"Relaxing I see." The cold, hard voice of Hecate said.
"Gurk!"
Icarus flinched back in surprise and hastily dismissed the book.
"M-my lady! I was just taking a short break, nothing more." Icarus even held his hands in a 'surrender' classic move.
Hecate gave him one of her 'I'm unimpressed' look and said, "Get to work, Icarus. When you're finished we can get to finally introducing you to my other students and continue teaching the Arcane." Hecate sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of her nose in disgruntlement.
"R-right."
Icarus will get in contact with Athena….. As soon as he gets free time.
Sigh. God help us all.
——————————————————————————
Days passed until it was the day that he was going to meet his fellow students.
Surprisingly, Icarus has finally found the time to read the book. Hecate had gone to Olympus, saying she'll be back after three days. Leaving him alone for three days.
If Icarus didn't have the book to focus on, he would've cried bloody murder for being left alone.
Nonetheless, Icarus figured he'll read the book and contact Athena before getting busy again with studying magic and stuff.
Icarus summoned the book, Necronomicon.
The book is dark in colour and on its face is a skull with large tentacles coming from where the teeth will be. And It got red gem eyes.
Just staring at it gives him the creeps, but not the kind of creeps he had when seeing the Outer Gods.
Icarus cracked the book open and lay his eyes on the first page, and—
Only to find gibberish and strange symbols written on the page.
'Disappointing.' Icarus sighed. What's the use of this book if he doesn't know how to crack the coded language or even understand it? He had no time to decipher the book.
Icarus was about to close the book but suddenly, the letters and symbols came to life, and arranged themselves into something more… comprehensible. He almost dropped the book out of shock.
Icarus looked at the first page before him and grinned.
First things first, knowing about the abominations.
Icarus would be a fool if he didn't try and get information on his 'benefactors'.
Icarus manifested his 'desires' to read about the Gods and the book's pages shuffled themselves until it came to a page where there's a large tentacled monster with a large conned head(?)
It's a kind of amorphous and a bloated mass, with a mass of feelers and eyes.
[Yog-Sothoth]
The Great Old One, Gatekeeper, Keykeeper.
The first abomination that he spoke to, and the one who he 'sold' his soul to.
And thus hours go by as Icarus reads about the Great Old Ones, Outer Gods and all within the Dark dimension.
Icarus had a migraine while reading this, the pain pounding on his skull like a mad man in jail. His eyes blurred with the pain but eventually, the pain and migraine passed.
...
Icarus closed the grimoire with a snap and placed it on the ground. Icarus can distantly, feel the fear, terror, horror and madness that plagued his soul the further he had read.
Icarus wiped the sweat that had built on his brow and breathed heavily.
'T-this….' For a second, Icarus regretted making a contract with them but his determination flared up.
He won't back out.
Not that he can anymore.
Hours later, Icarus came back to the book. Shuffling the pages until he found one page that stood out in particular.
[The Eye Of Azathoth]
Icarus read the description and details surrounding the eye and found out that it's almost similar to a Mystic Eye. Certainly powerful as it can dimension hop or something. Certainly is as this is the eye or copy of it of the Idiot God, The Blind One. The first of the Great Old Ones.
Icarus had often wondered about his own Mystic Eyes sometimes. He does not have that much knowledge on them or their abilities, or how to train them. What he knows is that they're Mystic Eyes Of Distant Viewing and unlike others, you can't 'turn off' these eyes. They're passive but Icarus had learned how to not consciously use them. It's like his eyes are multi-reality layered. It's like wearing permanent shades, but you can make the shades less dimmer and thus see like how you originally did. It's suppressing the power of his Mystic Eyes to a low level. Otherwise it would've taken him a long time to get accustomed to them.
How can you go from seeing things in 3rd dimensions then go from seeing them in 4th dimensions THEN being able to see almost everything in 360° in a mile wide radius?
Icarus knows he's scratching the surface of his Mystic Eyes because if he can see things in the fourth dimension then surely, he can see the past, present and the future. The Time dimension— Fourth axist. The time dimension. That's what Icarus know theorically. It'll take a lot of time to train them and use them to their whole potential. …. That is if his speculation about the fourth dimension is true.
Suppressing them is a lot of work but Icarus did it.
One of the reasons why he went with Hecate was so she can help him discover the how's of his own Mystic Eyes.
Regardless, The Eyes of Azathoth sounded… quite tempting.
Should he acquire them?
Hm.
As Icarus was busy pondering, the book shuffled by itself. Before a…. Ritual?
Icarus gave the book a confused look — he deliberately ignored the signs that the book may have some Sentience—
On the grimoire was a ritual, he guessed that he had to do the ritual if he wanted to gain the Eyes Of Azathoth. He glanced at the top of the page to see that he's right. It is called 'The Ritual Of Azathoth.'
Should he or should he not?
Truthfully, there's no backlash that he can see from this.
The eyes are a blessing, the creamer on top is that they can see the Truth.
Quite suspicious for them to come without restrictions or such. It almost seems convenient.
With a great mental power, Icarus closed the book with a snap! Then dismissed it.
Icarus placed his hand to his heart, hearing it beat fast against his ribcage. A contradictory thing because he longer has a heart— he's truly Hollow now— He has the key as his heart now. The key to the dark dimension and the dimension that holds all knowledge known, and unknown to the Multiverse.
'Damn.'
Icarus didn't even realise that the book could tempt him like this. Suppose he's lucky. Some could've gone insane just from reading a single page, Icarus had read five and he doesn't show symptoms of insanity aside from a migraine.
It's like a devil seducing him. Promising great riches,woman or power in exchange of his soul.
Icarus couldn't believe he almost did that ritual. I mean, he knows that he won't summon an Eldritch— That's one of the first things he knew after they implanted basic knowledge in his head— Incidentally.
Icarus sighed.
He'll have to evaluate the danger of this damn thing.
"Rhaaargh! Why can't things go my way once?! Just once!"
——————————————————————————
POV change.
There's a certain time once a century that thing's get stale. The stillness in the air, a hanging warning and a premonition of a darker future.
The previous premonition was the Titanomachy coming. Truly, Athena can't figure why Kronos would want to wage war against them again. She knows that it is the pride of a monarch that drives him to wage this futile war that she knows won't end well for him.
As a Sky father, her father is protected by the Fates themselves. All Sky Father's are.
So why does Kronos do this knowing this?
It's foolish. It's stupid.
It's something that male Gods will do in a heartbeat. Nay, something every god will do, her reluctantly included.
Okay, so she does understand what he's doing but that doesn't mean it's any less foolish.
Great forces are steering in the dark bowels of Tartarus.
Athena resisted the urge to tear her hair out. She knows her father will lump all the logistics on her. She won't have time to work on her current projects or read, or compiling another book for the humans or working on Architecture or…
Athena sighed softly.
She has a mountain size of work to do. And get this, Athena would've tackled it but she's feeling lazy today. Something she won't freely admit to anyone.
She won't sa—
Athena paused.
She just received a prayer. Now this won't be strange or something that can make her pause as they're an ordinary occurrence to her— or any God in particular— but this prayer….
The prayer has an a Weight of Existence that all Humans, Demi-gods included, doesn't have. For a moment, Athena was confused on why is a God praying to her then she understood. It's not a God but a human. A human that has an astronomical Weight of Existence.
Athena frowned. She tracked the prayer until it led her to the Underworld.
But as she peered longer, she found that it's the mortal who had the nerve to hug her— She ignored the blush tainting her cheeks—
When did his Weight of Existence increase? Athena knows it's almost impossible for Humans' concept to increase without external interference.
Nonetheless, since she can decipher his intenent in his prayers, she contemplated on going in person or sending a Thought Projection but dismissed those thoughts.
She'll go in person. B-but not because she wants to see him or anything. Certainly, she has a great respect for him, — He's a fellow intellectual. A fellow Thinker— so it'll be an insult if she sent a Thought Projection.
— She ignored her own Domain telling her she's lying—
——————————————————————————
Icarus side-eyed Athena as she departs from the Underworld via teleportation and turns his eyes to the massive scroll before him.
As he said earlier, using the Necronomicon now without precautions is a foolhardy endeavour— but that doesn't mean he'll stop using it. He will but with caution— So, he defaulted to a safer option. Using Athena's library.
As Athena is a Goddess of Wisdom and she's over a million years old, she does have records of the world, and how it came to be. It ranged from all topics in the world.
So, it goes without saying that Icarus would want to enter her library.
Of course he has to sacrifice some things but they're not that important.
The first thing he did after Athena granted him entry to her library was to search for a scroll on History. To first understand the world, he'll have to understand its history, both Divine and mundane.
Two days. That's how long he'd have to wait before Hecate descended.
He'll have to read, interpret and comprehend the scroll before.
As he doesn't need food to eat in the Underworld, he'll have much time on his hands.
Icarus sighed.
Right. Back to reading.
——————————————————————————
A/N: As I have no knowledge of Cthulhu Mythos, there may be some inaccurate things I wrote but I you did see em please just point them out and I'll solve em out.
Anyway, I got free time on my hands for a week or two. I'll try my best to push a chapter everyday. I give no promises but I'll try.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone