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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mik" data-source="post: 445210" data-attributes="member: 6552">Lord Z:You don't strictly need to connect the horror to HPL's existing cosmology so much as maintain the 'flavor' of things - that beings vastly old and more powerful than we humans exist, and that they have desires and plans that humans can't even comprehend. Additionally, we pitiful creatures can only delay them, not defeat them.I have a link for HPL's works online that might help, though it does not provide the works of his fellow authors. <a href="http://www.gizmology.net/lovecraft/index.htm" target="_blank">H. P. Lovecraft Library</a> Reginald DeMonte could be an old friend of Fiztgerald's. An old French-Canadian handyman in town who was fast friends with Fitzgerald until, in a 'dispute over land', DeMonte killed Fitzgerald in the woods. While the body was never found, DeMonte was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Fitzgerald went to Cambodia to explore the deep wilds not trodden by the Cambodians. An ancient stela unearthed during a dig in Thailand, written in <a href="http://www.anu.edu.au/~u9907217/" target="_blank">Mon-Khmer</a> (ancient Cambodian language) indicated 'the people of the air worm' dwelt in these far off mountains, worshipping a point where ice of the sky fell in ancient eons. Fitzgerald connected the term "air worm" to the flying polyps he had learned of through the writings of Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee (see The Shadow out of Time by HPL). Fitzgerald mounted an expedition that was blocked by the Khmer Rouge closure of the country. While waiting for the political situation to change, Fitzgerald obsessively read everything he could get from Miskatonic's research archives, forming strong ties there.Fitzgerald had to wait until 1993 - the UN pressure for general elections led the government to make some concessions to westerners in hopes of being seen in a better light.Fitzgerald returned from Cambodia as a host of the leading consciousness of the Cambodian Worms. Fitzgerald had changed behavior and personality dramatically, and began searching the mountains for a pocket of trapped glacial water. The King Worm needed to locate a body of water that would not be exposed to light (or something), which damages and kills the embryonic, pre-parasitic form of the worms.Fitzgerald found his trapped water body, and DeMonte was horrified to see his old freind gleefully disgorge writhing, nearly transparent tangles of worm pupae into the cold, ancient waters. The King Worm attacked him, and DeMonte fought back, taking a chunk out of Fitzgerald's head with a prospecting pick. DeMonte fled as Fitzgerald fell back into the black pit of icy water, then hid at his home in the town's old French Hill district.Police searching for the missing Fitzgerald arrested and questioned DeMonte, the local Medical Examiner determined that the blood and brain matter on the pick were Fitzgerald's, DeMonte as much as confessed to the killing, but refused to lead police to the scene of the crime (fearing the worms could be released). The one person he did tell was his defense attorney.  He was defended by one Thomas Edwards, a former 'big city lawyer' who had moved to the area a while back. Edwards argued that his client was unfit to stand trial, but the court disagreed, tried him, and sentenced him to a prison term under psychiatric observation.Edwards investigated the location of the spring, was unable to find the body, but took a sample of the water back to town for testing. Test after test showed no contaminants, so he decided to see what effect it would have on animals. Animal tests showed nothing (worms need a sentient host), so he moved thoughtlessly to human subjects.Starting with people who would not be missed, Edwards was at first horrified by the severity of the flu-like symptoms. The vomiting and convulsions, however, were due to the high blood alcohol content of the subjects - transient drunks and alcoholic drifters. Edwards found that with healthier, less alcohol-soaked subjects, consuming the water from the "spring" led to a short period of mild illness followed by susceptability to suggestion. Possibly, flashes of bright light in a particular shade made the subject mentally malleable or something. At this point, Edwards got Dr. Smith involved - possibly infecting his wife with the real tainted water and giving Dr. Smith plain tap water, fooling him into thinking he was infected.Then the surgical investigations began. Unfortunately, they went wrong from several points of view:1) the townspeople are starting to connect the dots between the deaths, the Doctor, and the greasy lawyer.2) the worms are not pleased about how much Edwards' mucking about is harming them.3) King Worm, in the now fully-transformed body of Fitzgerald, lying in the bottom of the inky pool, is really beginning to get pissed at the death of his broodlings.But now what? How do we get from here to Thomas Edwards bottling the spring water and making the start of a new fortune from susceptible buyers? =Mik (edited to add Cambodia info and fix a spelling error)</blockquote>

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