The headquarters of the United Nations New Continent Scientific Research Station sprawled across a vast stretch of the New Continent. Helicopter rotors thundered above its futuristic buildings as the aircraft descended vertically onto a cleared landing area.
Heavy boots struck the black ground with a series of thuds, then carried their wearers into the station's conference hall.
The hall was already noisy. Staff members, theologians, scholars of religion, folklorists, and biologists huddled together, asking one another what had happened and why everyone had suddenly been called in.
Only when the conference hall was packed did an elderly man in his seventies step up to the podium, wearing a headset microphone.
"My name is Ye Men. I'm a Hebrew Theologian..."
"I won't waste your time with anything else. Let's get straight to the point."
He pressed a few buttons on a remote, projecting a set of images onto the large screen behind him.
They showed a magnificent stone tablet seven or eight meters tall, carved from some unknown rock. Its surface was covered in pictographic symbols no one could understand.
"One of our survey teams found this in a cold, damp cave on the New Continent..."
Before he could finish, someone interrupted him.
"Mr. Ye Men, you should know that in the world of the occult, there are things you must not look at, listen to, or even think about."
"Could I ask you not to display the images directly? You could use other pictures or a written description instead."
The speaker was a theologian from the Eastern Isles. His eyes remained tightly shut as he spoke.
After the invasion by the Evil God Cthulhu Fhtagn, the people of the Eastern Isles had come to regard the occult with caution and awe. They wanted to embrace the mysterious, yet feared being