Note: 'Dag*n' should read 'Dagon', but the censor won't let me write it out fully unless I italicise it like this. My apologies.
> Head to the house to the south and bunk there till the morning
> The possibility that these mounds are actually enormous Pokemon buried in the ground is terrifying. Id say head to Olivine as quickly but cautiously as possible. However, be sure to keep Vesta involved with whats happening. Shes a smart little girl and is probably even more helpful than she seems. Say a quick prayer to Tabiti for safe passage and head to Olivine. (On a side note, I am absolutely adoring the R'lyehian and all the other Cthulu and Lovecraft references. I happen to also own the complete works book you mentioned previously. Also, all the little miniepisodes with Vesta are incredibly touching.)
You utter a quick prayer to Tabiti for safe passage, something that might have had more effect had you done it when you first set out on this journey rather than when you were twenty feet from your destination, and head to the house to the south. There's little of note inside – you think. It's a bit too dark to be sure.
Settling down on a comfortable old sofa, you consider sleeping until dawn – but that's only two or three hours away, and you're still buzzing from the milk. You could probably climb a mountain right now, but sleep is definitely off the agenda.
bad earth, says Vesta again, abruptly. earth bad here.
You stare at her for a moment, surprised.
"You said that before," you reply. "Were you talking about that pit? Or something in the pit?"
in earth, she hisses. bad in earth.
"Something bad underground? So not the earth itself?"
Vesta has to pause at that, trying to unravel your sentence. You give her all the time she needs. You're in no hurry, after all, and even slow conversation is better than all that 'deadflesshbonemeatburn' stuff. It sounded, you think, feeling clever, like something e.e. cummings might have written while drunk. There are only two problems with this exceptionally erudite witticism. One is that there's no one around to appreciate it. The other is that it's wrong.
bad thing in earth not itself, she says effortfully. crushcrushmanglemunch...
"Hey," you say, wagging a reproving finger. "None of that now, Vesta. Proper words, remember?"
The little knot of flames contracts with a contrite pop.
sorry, she mumbles. vesta try harder.
"Will try," you correct. "Will try, because it will happen in the future."
vesta... will try harder.
"That's right."
will try...
She lapses into silence then, occasionally muttering 'will try' to herself in her strange, crackling voice. It doesn't seem like you're going to get much more conversation out of her, but that's all right as just then the milk wears off and sleep hits you like a black velvet brick.
--
You are sinking once more into the abyssal depths of the sunless ocean, past the light, past the monstrous fish, past a lone, sad-eyed whale and a fat, spiny squid – past the indefinable point where the water shifts from blue to black, and past the topmost towers of that blasphemous city...
You want to wake up, but you aren't sure how. You reach out, trying to feel the arm of the sofa that you know is next to you, but your fingers brush fruitlessly through saltwater.
It's as if you really are stuck at the bottom of the sea.
There are voices beneath you, but you don't look down. You haven't lost that much control, not yet. Still, you want to hear what they're saying; the voices are tantalisingly faint, and there's a certain strange quality to them, a kind of gurgling croakiness, that rings faint alarm bells in the back of your head.
"Iä!"
You're not sure if it's just a bark or if it's actually a word; it sounds like it might be, but it seems equally like some kind of wild animal cry.
"Iä! Dag*n!"
No. Definitely words, though the voice cannot be that of any human.
"Iä! Dag*n! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!"
Your eyes are sliding downwards of their own accord, over precipitously-tilting rooftops and hideously twisted crenellations, and despite everything you do you cannot hold them back, and now your gaze sinks past the hieroglyphed walls, and down into those awful streets, and along into a spreading square where unnatural creatures cavort and chant, flinging webbed arms wide and yelling aloud with croaking voices:
"Iä! Hydra! Iä! Dag*n!"
A sudden panic seizes you, and you try to swim away, kicking at the water, but nothing happens; the current holds you still, and as you thrash and scream and wail still you keep on sinking, and the ghastly piscine figures beneath you throw their heads back and shriek through needle-like teeth:
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu Rl'yeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"
And as if in answer, some awful noise reverberates through the water, a noise like a mountain tearing up its roots, and as the sea boils around you with the vibration passing through it you feel your bones shake loose from your body and go spinning away in shards and fragments all around you—
---
You start awake and fall off the sofa, right into the middle of a patch of mid-morning sunlight. Vesta's jar rolls across the floor towards you from where you dropped it, bumps into your cheek and burns it badly.
warm, she says happily. vesta warm.
"Yowch!" you reply, pushing her away. Then, equally eloquently: "Ugh."
You get up and rub your cheek. It's nothing major, but it's going to sting for a while.
Right. New dawn, new day. What's it to be now?
Note:You have that book too, c1234321? It's lovely, isn't it? Such shiny pages, and so beautifully bound... I think I'm justified in calling it a miracle of the book-maker's art. I do love me some Lovecraft, as is patently obvious given the Lovecraft/Pokémon crossover nature of this work.