Laufey’s Testimony
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This handwritten parchment was found in 1987 during a routine sweep of an old American naval base’s historical relics. The excerpt has been directly translated from a western creole into modern English by Dr. Taufiq with permission and special thanks to the military staff of NSA Pennsylvania.
By January 2008, Jon E “Jonnie” Laufey’s testimony is known to many as one of the most ghoulish yet close hand encounters with the Ninth Plague that brought upon the Hyborean age’s collapse. The Collapse is also confirmed by sources such as the Corinthian Massacre Records and the historical oil paintings from the Indonesian peninsula.
We at Miskatronic Com U have bought the rights to scan an authentic parchment of his testimony for our virtual library. Feel free to head to our website and subscribe!
Be warned, his testimony is not for the faint hearted and contains segments not meant for the youth.
General TW: Self harm and child abuse. Nothing sexual.
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7 February 1903 AD
I am writing down this document with faint and shivering hands after last night’s bout of feverish madness and degeneracy. The Skipper of our vessel, the Nordic Flight have decreed that all rum and alcohol not meant for sale be dumped overboard. A decree that we all followed without question, it feels absolutely ludicrous to the thoughts of my conscious mind when writing it down on pen and parchment.
But the sheer weight of my replaying nightmares made my hands shiver even now, several weeks after the New Year celebration.
We had sailed up the cape of Africa for a fun bout of drinking and partying at a British pub. All of us men had disembarked en masse after stopping to top up coal for our steamship, pockets full after a successful sale of cheap frozen food meant for the pauper publics of London.
It was a new and lucrative trade after the ingenious development of the first ceramic freezer, and our Skipper, bless his cunning heart, had managed to secure a contract to bring several fresh grapes from Damascus to London.
We were happy that night. Even the Moslems crew and blacks we hired from upper Africa were celebrating with us, all inebriated together by the cheap beer afforded by a New Year surplus. The pagans were happy with their solstice rituals and while I was a convert to the Lord Himself, even took the time to indulge myself in nostalgic customs.
Perhaps it was the overindulgence. None of is do know of the horrors to come, least but not Idaho the Reader. He was the Flight’s navigator. A skilled man of Hubuti descent, he always wore a stillsuit and the technological trinkets of his people as a statement to his homeland.
Idaho was a good man, a kind and diplomatic soul as any. Gods bless his heart. He had brought along two well spoken and mature children with him, Aaliyah and Siti. His wife was called Nurin the Reader, and she was the ship’s smart mechanic who used the trinkets of her people to accurately read the boiler coals. The both of them were god-loving people, always praying in accordance to the tenets of Aza-Islam. Always a kind saying and quick prayer for any wayward soul in our long journeys. When working together they made sure our ship sailed like seafoam on the ocean waves as if on the shores of Jotunheim.
That night Idaho was happy. Celebrating with overflowing riches like any good Moslem, he had indulged us in a massive feast of roasted turkey and fine vegetables to keep away the scurvy. We bought rounds of fine mead for everybody, and even he himself had downed a bottle of drink.
I envy his stillsuit’s properties. It must feel so relieving to never have to go piss from the railing of our ship. I have the nagging feeling that the merfolk of the Celts laugh whenever my trousers fall.
We were having fun as a roight and proper crew! All of us made sure to get the new crew-dog, a factory working boy called Enoch, as drunk as possible before signing his contract. Poor little sod I think, I grew up around the forests of Scandinavia free as a lark! But to think that all Enoch ever knew was industrial drudgery?
Horrifying.
When the dawn came we were all drunk as the whores we fucked. Happily stumbling and screaming out drunken vulgar rhymes with Idaho in tow.
Only Enoch noticed that Idaho seemed to be having a little bit of a sore throat and runny nose. It was a weird sight when thinking about it, none of us had ever seen him sick. Not even a sniffle and after a round of drink he was now sick for the very first time?
In hindsight we should’ve known he had something going on.
The ship set sail during the afternoon under an unspoiled yellow sun, nary a depressed cloud in sight. Enoch said it was a rare occurrence, and that it meant good luck for those out at sea. Ignorant little bastard wanted to tempt fate. Our hold was packed fully with trade goods meant to be dispersed amongst the North-Eastern Americas. There we will exchange for fine native goods to sell in Pulau Benteng. The great wet jewel of the Indonesian peninsula.
I took Enoch into my apprenticeship as an armorer. It was his new job to take note of any keys being drawn in and out whenever the workday began, and to make sure the weaponry was kept ready in case of boarding. Nurin usually talked them down but you should never be sure amidst the pirates of the Orang Laut. Later when he fully knew how to read a map and spell his own name right, I will teach the boy how to take note of the places we’ve been and the cities we’ve visited. Eventually I’d retire, so it would be his job to count the beans.
The day went on like any other, all of us functioning like a well run machine keeping the larger machine of the Nordic Flight across the mid-Atlantic ocean. The funnels were pumping out a healthy stream of coal and I had my work cut out for me in counting down all the amount of neatly sealed boxes into my parchment.
Enoch had been speaking with Siti the Reader and both children were getting along fine as children usually do. I was busy counting down a stack of neatly folded blankets when I heard something that froze me to the bone.
I heard Siti sneeze.
It was crazy, looks like Idaho wasn’t the only one who got sick after that night of indulgence in the pub. The sneeze was cute and innocent, and both children laughed like it was no big deal.
Perhaps it wasn’t. But I could’ve sworn I heard Idaho sneezing when he went to walk after his angry wife into the coal room.
-–
8 February 1904 AD
Morning just like any other. Woke up in the crew quarters, shared a little ciggy with the other men and even taught Enoch how to peel a morning tangerine to keep away the scurvy.
Yang called him a poor little “mountain tortoise”. Weird little slant eyed arsehole and his magic metaphors. A real nasty fecker that one, but he is a good doctor.
Big John also talked about seeing his wife back home in the Americas. We ragged on him by saying that we should bring her here in chains for a full half hour, good times. My jaw still hurts badly from his punch.
We went out to the dining hall for a breakfast of tea and canned sardines. But when we got up, there was some crazy shitstorm going on between Idaho and Nurin.
I had never seen Idaho so angry in my life before. He was usually the peaceful diplomatic type capable of talking down even the most riotous of Somalian.
Really.
Behind most men and their veneer of civility there was always a little hint of anger and revulsion waiting to get out. My father was that kind of man, and I was back when I was younger. But we shan’t talk about that here.
And both of them were angry. Real angry by the Hubuti’s silent standards. Idaho was livid, screaming and shouting line my own angry pa as his wife snarked and rolled her eyes in angry indignity. Their children looked shaken up like caught brig rats, hiding under the soggy table as their parents shouted and screamed like animals.
It very very nearly escalated. Could’ve gotten physical before the Skipper came along with the Cook. Both of them Aussie bastards had experience with these kinda stuff, talked down both angry adults til they shut up and ate with startling diplomacy.
Breakfast was shitty as usual. Big John spat in my drink when the cups were being passed, I deserved that. The water was good to get rid of our throbbing hangovers.
The rest of the day went on like any other I suppose. Just a regular workday where I taught Enoch how to draw the keys another time and to sign his own name in English script. Siti made him cry whenever she tried teaching him how to read that Hubuti script.
I laughed but I can’t read that bullshite either. The spirals always made my head hurt.
-–
9 Feb 1903 A
Things got bad quickly. Real fucking quickly.
Yang woke me up earlier than usual in the morning. Wanted to ask him what was the slant eye’s problem when he quickly shushed me. Even loud Ahmad and Big John sat eerie still as Leopard bit his lip at the tension that hung over the entire ship.
Seems like the parents were bickering yet again. Except this time it was worse, with real cuss words meant to wound. The insults hit deep and I don’t even speak their babble, but I remember my own youth.
Seeing Siti cringe like that reminded me of myself when I was younger and my parents still hot blooded. Was a twisted fear like this confined in such a horrid environment full of strangers, at least back home I could always run away to the solitude of the woods.
This only ended with a loud smack across Nurin’s face and Aaliyah crying like a babe.
I had enough of this bullshit by then, and quickly went out to keep the both of them in line. I didnt want Siti to go through the shit I did, so I got up and opened the Hubuti’s door to make sure they behaved.
They were almost like animals. A far fucking terrifying cry from their usual silent but emotive selves. What the fuck was happening?
I noticed that their furniture had been messy and unkempt, even stranger since they both had a history of being meticulous as a shaman. Aaliyah just cried under the tables as both her parents stood tall and frenzied, literally snarling at one another like rabid dogs. Their skin covered with scars.
Breakfast was a solemn affair. We all ate in silence after washing up, even the Skipper couldn’t keep things pleasant.
I could’ve sworn I saw inkish red in Idaho’s cup. Swirling about like an ominous oil spill on a clear lake, full of dark evils.
Day went on as usual. A regular day where me and Siti taught Enoch how to count. The boy learned fast, he definitely had a future in arithmetic. Maybe he could be a merchant mariner one day. Haha. As if.
Night was when things went a little bit…different.
Night hung and stank like a salty motherfucker. But I still got to piss despite everything, so I told Yang, Leopard and John not to cheat like the slimy bastards they are. Took my money and headed straight to the top deck, the sea breeze oddly foul smelling despite the vast emptiness. Nary even a seagull or shark fin in sight.
Went to piss but I saw Idaho perched on the railing like some sort of…I don’t know? Gargoyle maybe?
He had this knife with him at all times as some sort of exotic tool. A sharp blade that seemed to shimmer and wane whenever it left its metal holster, and Idaho was…
He was pointing it everywhere up at all the stars under the clear starry night all at once as if stumped by the insignificance of things. Overwhelmed like a panicked child under the bright lights of a barber’s surgical chair.
I got up to piss a few meters away from him, my mind racing with questions. He was a friend and confidant of mine who taught me how to count using Arab math, someone I dearly trusted watching my back. But just seeing him unhinged like that and babbling was disconcerting.
He looked through my presence, ignoring me as my piss soared down to the murky black ocean. Each trickle and drip made him flinch like he was hearing gunshots in the trenches.
I got worried. This felt wrong, I remember the man didn’t need to piss from the starboard side due to having a stillsuit. So why the fuck was he out here babbling like a damned lunatic?
“Mate, what have you been up to? You alright?”
Cabin fever was a horrid affair. Everybody knew it, the insanity could be stemmed when being surrounded with friends. But compounded when friendships go rotten.
I knew that family matters wasn’t a thing any man likes being pried into. So I tried to be as diplomatic as possible, trying to get to the solid bottom of things.
But he rambled like a man incoherent, foaming at the mouth whenever he gazed at the stars or the water. Yet always unfocused whenever facing anywhere else.
“Deep things! DEEP THINGS CRAWLING RIGHT UNDER MY SKIN!”
I knew that there were things way under the leagues that shouldn’t be talked about. Resting in their eternal slumber under Davy Jones’ locker, I know the Skipper was a strange man who spoke of the dreaming ones in hushed tones. But Idaho was rambling.
“CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY THEY’RE UNDER ME! RIGHT UNDER MY SKIN!”
The only thing glistening under his bloodshot eyes were his pitch dark skin with jagged lines that seemed to squirm under the starlight like caterpi on a wooden branch.
“I FOUGHT IN THE WAR AGAINST WARS! I WAS THERE WHEN IT HAPPENED! THE POLYPS ARE CREEPING AGAINST MY SPINE!”
I was a tough man, but this shit was way out of my league.
“I AM NOT CRAZY!”
Nope. Fuck this shit, I am the ship’s QM. Not a damned asylum’s orderly.
As soon as his eyes locked on to something at my general directions I drew my revolver and waved it at him.
“Fuck off.”
Idaho listened to me, his only reaction was to go completely and utterly still. Jaws and shoulders slack despite the added weight of his suit and all the dirty trinkets on its rigging. He always kept those clean.
I back track into the door where I came from with my gun cocked and the radium sights locked onto his chest despite the churning of electric turbines and the dim glow of electric gas-lights from the portholes.
Behind me was Siti and Aaliyah, the both of them huddling while staring out at what had become of their father.
I let both of them sleep in the crew decks tonight. We were all men with colorful backstories but I trust that they’d be safer here with us than their parental lunatics at the officer decks.
None of us slept a wink.
-–
10 Feb 1903
I don’t know about it anymore.
Maybe it was cabin fever, maybe it was the madness in every syllable from their shouts.
“YOU HAVE SHAMED ALLAH WITH YOUR DRINK! LOOK AT THE HAVOC YOU HAVE BROUGHT TO OUR FAMILY”
Or maybe our good thing was about to come to an end.
“I WOULDN’T HAVE DONE THIS IF NOT FOR YOU! CRUEL HARLOT! CAN’T YOU SEE THAT THEY ARE IN OUR VEINS?”
Even the Skipper was shocked when Idaho, a pacifist man of peace and love stepped out into the breakfast table. His whole body disheveled and stillsuit rumpled, the esoteric seals and mechanical piping broken and torn as if someone had tried to run razor blades over them.
His eyes were almost entirely red with black tar like tears that streaked over the red scratch marks that adorned his face. It was…
Horrifying. Like an apparition out of Hel.
Large black gouges had ruined his gentle but exotic features, cutting apart years of delicate care and implantation in one silent but desperate night.
Yang wanted to offer medical help or at least some ointment. But all Idaho did was to pick up several mugs of water and chug them down as if they were ambrosia.
He reeked to high heavens. Smell worse than any cigarette known to man.
Didn’t speak to any of us either, and the Skipper had decided that something had to be done. Apparently Idaho had been too distracted even to plot out a basic course, damning work and our travels to Hel.
But Skipper didn’t mind that. According to him, the Hubuti had used things like artificial stars to plot courses across the ocean on their journeys.
And Idaho’s stars haven’t been responding for the entire time. Man wanted to only try at night when the world was silent.
I didn’t ask any questions.
Me and Big John didn’t ask any questions as Leonard welded the Hubuti cabin’s door shut. The Skipper was equally silent as he set up an elaborate array of blue metal wards across the entire hallway as Leonard scattered sea-salt dust across the floor and the whole officer decks. Enoch had to be consoled the entire time by the Cook.
I give the Hubuti children keys to the weapon lockers just in case another bit of madness struck too hard. I remember how much black and red oils had accrued at the bottom of the cups, the vile fluids coagulating into thicker and thicker chunks as Cook worked fervously trying to scrub them clean.
Threw them into the boilers. They’d be better as fodder for ‘em dynamos for none of us would ever drink from their gunk encrusted bottoms ever again.
Didn’t do much other work today. Didn’t want to, didn’t care to and we was too tired from last night’s lack of sleep. The Skipper had to “call up some friends” in order to plot a course in Idaho’s stead.
God bless their souls.
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11 Feb 2023
All screaming today. Nothing but the Skipper had the balls to walk around the ship’s now silent decks.
Nobody decided to work, not even the ever persistent Big John and young Enoch. We spent the afternoon huddling amongst Leopard’s Good Book as Yang prayed to his golden idols. The Hubuti twins huddled against one another, sneezing and breaking out into heckling coughs as their dull stylus clattered against a mute tablet.
I remember how beat up Idaho’s trinkets looked like that night, could it be that those tablets somehow talked to their synthetic stars?
Why weren’t their stars responding? Was something wrong?
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12 Feb 1903
All screaming again.
-–
13 Feb 1903
We were all woken up from our midnight false nap with a loud and ear piercing shot.
And then when the ringing in our ears subsided, there was truly nothing but complete and utter dreadful silence.
All of us tough, rugged and veteran swashbucklers were scared to silence by a single solitary gunshot that ended it all.
We all stood still and silent, panicking in passivity while clutching on our knives, guns and daggers. Whatever spells and wards we had ready arrayed at the bottom of every door amidst all the magical trinkets we had. The Hubuti twins huddling and clinging onto each other’s phlegm encrusted suits for dear life as Enoch valiantly sat in front of them, a bolt action rifle in hand. Unloaded except for a bayonet under the barrel.
Damned near took the Skipper’s ‘ead off when he slammed open the door. Very very fucking frazzled with a blue hued firearm of R’lyehian origin clutched in his hands like a lifeline to whatever vile god he prayed to.
“What. Are. You. Landlubbers. Doing. Like. Rats?”
Skipper hissed like a demented snake out of hell as he threw one of my keys down to our feet.
“Officers are silently mutinying until we get to the bottom of this madness. I want all of you on your feet and to cut open that door right now, we are going to purge the demon that took over Idaho before we reach the Americas.”
So we got to work, with me and Big John readying our power saws as we cut open the armored bulkhead door with the whirr of electronic engines and metal grinding against metal. The rest of the crew were armed with all the extra weapons we could muster, our boarding shotguns and lever actions ready to slay whatsoever monster that could come swinging out. The dread and silence gnawing on our minds whenever the drills went quiet.
You couldn’t even hear the ocean sway from here, just the stinky mouth breathing of several dozen panicked crewmen and the officers right behind us. Their own weapons and spells ready to fight off the abomination that made the better part of this journey hellish.
The smell of salt, acrid burnt steel and whatever stink that came from Idaho was almost murderous.
I do not know what I had expected to see behind the metal doors but it had filled me with utmost disgust and repulsion. Good God and the Son and the Holy Spirit I was not prepared for the scene of utmost brutality that awaited me from here…
Idaho stood over the hunched over and bent form of his once loving wife, the both of them stuck in a position that was the mockery of a loving embrace.
Their room was smashed and discordant, furniture all slashed to bits and torn down as if struck by a storm of self perpetuating fury. Rare gems, precious parchment, valuable trinkets and bits of fragile technology strewn all over like the trash found in a scrapyard. Smearing of brown feces and blood red blood stains that shimmered under the sunlight scrawled all over the wall.
I couldn’t make out the Hubuti writing and all of its swirls. Made my head hurt, made it throb.
“THEY ARE STILL INSIDE OUR WALLS! THE GREAT ENEMY STILL BECKONS FROM BEYOND THE VEIL!”
Idaho’s once soothing voice was harsh and ragged from days of inhumanely loud shouting. The bout of insanity took a great toll on his corporal form, bloodied, inky foam leaking from his mouth like a rabid dog.
Could this be what this was? That night on deck? Could it be rabies with how scared he was of the water? I didn’t even know anymore.
Idaho rose from his prone position as me and John stood back to back, our saws drawn and ready as weapons while the former dropped the body of Nurin onto the deck floor with the most ungodly thud that sounded like dead meat on a chopping board.
A vibrant and mature life full of adventure…now just reduced to meat for a literal feast.
His stillsuit was quite literally torn open to reveal his bare chest. A well built body now defiled to expose bare, tattered muscles that writhed and throbbed with inflamed tumors of diseased flesh. The inky red-black tatters on his body criss-cross cut as if to resemble a chopping board, yet the major scars were too clean for mere fingernails.
No, they were too precise for any wild beast to make.
I gasped as I saw his bloody, exotic knife on the floor. Still humming with ethereal energies from a distant plane.
His mouth was beaten and bloody, lips all cut and chaffed as if freshly finished after a night long street fight. Broken teeth bared into an animalistic grimace as bits of Nurin’s neck still clung between the gums.
Nurin was now in-differentiable from any skinless piece of meat. Her body was covered in a festering canopy of swollen tumors, as if slowly broken down right in front of our eyes.
“Oh mother of God in Heaven…” Big John whispered. He looked sick and for once I didn’t blame him.
Idaho didn’t react to us at all, not to our presence. Not anything else except for the occasional limp and twitch and senseless babble about worms and the Great Enemy beneath the skin.
Then he started moving.
We both screamed in infernal fear and terror as Idaho started strutting forward like a veteran from one of the newer wars. Nurin’s smoking blunderbuss gripped tightly in his hands like a true soldier despite the bite marks that had already pockmarked his biceps and the torn skin over his forearms.
Idaho watched his corners as he gently strode past us and the rarely terrified Skipper. His bare bloody feet thudding across the deck as a serene look filled his bloody face.
He should be on the floor screaming in pain from his body and riveted by mental sickness at this point of time. How was he still going?!
Idaho paused as he turned to look at me. Voice disjointed and sounding as if speaking to someone else on a distant battlefield so far away and so many eons ago, pieced together from events now lost to time itself.
“Laufey…I got…I got…I finally got the worms out.”
Idaho laughed while pointing down at his cabin. I gasped like a child was I noticed the throbbing implant laid tenderly across a navigator’s table.
It was a shining steel device that still clung to whatever electronic unlife that animated it. The machinery futilely tried to fulfill its unknown purpose as it sprayed some sort of black fluid across the parchment of a map that had long been covered by senseless spirals.
I knew that dem Hubuti were often born with those mystery machines in lieu of proper humors, but…how…if they needed it to survive then…
I was stuck silent and confused, and for one lucky moment I thought that Idaho had finally stepped out to die.
Then all hell broke loose.
-–
14 Feb?
I didn’t know what had happened.
It-it all happened so fast that…I didn’t know. I just had time to drop my saw and whip out my gun. I should’ve done more, reacted faster maybe. Perhaps that would make quite the difference. I don’t know.
All I knew was that Idaho beelined to Siti and Aayliah, I didn’t know why. I wish I still didn’t.
That kind of brutal ferocity and violence upon one’s own child. The sheer casual strength he had, used to swipe Enoch aside. The sheer fucking force of his broken arms as he beat his own screaming daughter to death.
We hesitated, we wished we hadn’t. We tried talking and talking and pleading with Idaho to see reason as he leaned down to feast onto his own flesh and blood. Siti screamed all the way like a cornered dog as we leveled our iron sights at the bullets already embedded at Idaho’s back.
I don’t remember what happened next. The crescendo of gunshots, the kick of a revolver firing up into the air many many times. The screaming of Aaliyah and Siti going on long after they ought to have stopped.
I wish I had aimed better and true.
I wish I had aimed at Aaliyah to make her death quick.
-–
15 Feb 1903(?)
Funeral rites and burial at sea. But not really, just burnt both bodies and sanitized the entire room. Burnt everything else that we didn’t want either.
Whole ship went back to work today, the men and women of the ship were talking like normal people again. We were all still shaken from the trauma of taking Idaho’s life but it had to be done.
He was too far gone. His heatiness levels had gone out of sync, explained Yang as he peered over Idaho’s now dying organelles of steel and their fervent pumping of black-red ink.
They were pulled from what remained of Idaho and his wife as we literally knelt down and scraped bits of their mushy flesh and bone from the deck’s crevices. Even with our utmost effort and care, we all knew that as a crew and ship, we shall never be clean ever again. The smell would linger on forever despite the cleansing power of the sea.
Aaliyah would recover.
We had to remove her arm and she shall never speak of the trauma ever again. But she will still live a normal life.
Siti and Enoch huddled together, the both of them staring out into the columns of smoke in the distance as one of the other navigators, a woman called Sandra called out for land-ho.
At the very least. At the very very fucking least, we weren’t the only ones suffering from this madness.
The piers were choked full of desperate, silent ships that bobbed up and down like saddled things. Crewmembers and mates wandering up and down their sordid decks as American dockworkers shooed them away.
“Jesus…my god. They-they’re burning them all…”
Big John whispered in a tiny sing-song voice that chilled me to the bone as we both perched on the top deck of the ship, his muscular hands clutching a telescope until their sockets turned blood white.
I gently prodded his fingers apart and hazed through the aperture of the scope. And what did I saw?
It didn’t scare me no more. Brought us a strange little relief that our trauma wasn’t as unique as we had dreaded. And that there were others that shared our fate and lived to tell the tale.
A line of American Union soldiers stood tall and proud as they herded the crazed members of their Hubuti populations against one another. The soldiers stood tall yet unharmed, only retching against the smell of foul decay as they tried to contain the maddened, dying remains of a once great race from spilling over.
We didn’t know it then but we just saw the decline of a great and wondrous people in a most undignified way. God it would stick with us. It would stick with us.
I’ll hand a copy of this testimony to any Union guards still loitering about after Enoch finished making other spare copies.
Although we were denied medical treatment for how sick Siti and Aaliyah were getting, we shall ensure that what we had seen stay known in the era after we have all passed.
I don’t know how much of these testimonies will survive the ages, but since we topped up on coal, we shall be spreading the word all the way to Indonesia.
-–
Addendum (circa 22 September 2022
Professor Proton from Miskatronic Com U speaking ;)
While certain details about the brutality of this particular event have been definitely embellished, the abrupt and overnight decline of the Hubuti(now known as the Descendant Culture) people was historically recognised to be a bloody affair that left millions around the globe traumatized.
The Ninth plague brought an end to the Hyborean age’s guardians. It also left quite a large power vacuum to be filled by European powers. To learn more from historical testimony straight from Miskatronic Community University’s archives, sign on our website!
Yes we have sanctified PDFs of the Necronomicon to share! For paying subscribers only!
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