A solitary figure, heavily bundled in warm clothing, slowly left the top step of a staircase that had been roughly hewn into the mountainside so long ago that it looked like a natural feature. Hunched over against bitterly cold wind, mirrored goggles were clear above two months of unkempt white beard that had long since frozen solid. The blizzard intensified as he surveyed the relatively open plateau ahead. There might have been other mountaintops still visible, though he had lost count of the number of steps that he had taken. That mattered little, compared to the billowing snow that pressed in on all sides, from above and now below. The pale light overhead that could pierce the heavy clouds might have been the Sun, once, but it had ceased moving hours ago. He stepped forward wherever the open ground chose to take him, avoiding the areas where snow had managed to drift.
The man had been climbing deliberately since before dawn, when he had set off with his hired climbing crew of three and the wilderness guide that had brought him to the base of this remote and uncharted peak. Somewhere around the first five thousand steps, the tight caravan halted. No one else would agree to go any further, but he simply paid them the second half of their fees and kept going. He did not begrudge them their hesitation. The natural archway over the stairway directly ahead had been carved ornately in a looping script, each cut shining forth as if the entire stone were glowing with an unnatural color that was hard to name, just below the surface. The man knew that this had been a warning, but also a marker that proved he was close to achieving his goal. And, it was a boon. His very expensive correspondence school studies had been worth it. He could read the carvings and understood their significance. He could read the name, too. The rumor was that no one had ever before spoken the name aloud and lived to tell the story. There was, in fact, plenty of evidence to the contrary, and also a different theory that claimed all you really needed was to simply be at the right place, at the right time.
He stumbled near a snowbank, dragging through the dry snow with his left glove as he tried to break his fall. Time passed for a while as he looked at the boot he had uncovered, then he brushed off his own knees and kept going. He stole one last glance over his shoulder before the winds picked up again, draping his prior path in white. Those had been his guide’s boots.
The man wandered into an area where the ground had been blown clear to reveal a floor of tightly interlocking, immense slabs of stone. He carefully stepped over the greenish pink light of another carved threshold, and nodded as the wind died down completely. He opened his backpack and pulled out a black robe and a knife, before removing every stitch of clothing. He kept a simple leather cord around his neck, and the jeweled medallion that had started this whole adventure swung back and forth as he wrapped himself in the robe. He pocketed the knife, and left everything else, continuing on ahead, silent and barefoot.
It was not much farther before he reached his destination. His viewpoint gave the brief illusion of a lakeside campsite, courtesy of a small ring of the same stone as the floor, though this fire pit was covered with dark ice. Only a few paces away, a calm, shiny, frozen surface, also black, dominated the remaining landscape until it too was lost in the heavy mists. Far ahead in the distance, a gargantuan four-fingered hand and most of a forearm hung motionless. Again matching the floor’s material, the statue was positioned as if thrust vertically through the ice. It was conceivable that the original builders of this temple – and tomb? – could have sourced from a single quarry for all of their carvings.
He flashed a little thigh as he slammed his right heel into the frozen camp ring, smashing a thin layer of ice in a jagged spiral, revealing a roiling pool of thick, black mud. He cleared the remaining ice from the circle, looked at the pointy shard in his left hand, and threw away his knife. He extended his hands over the pool, and stabbed into his right thumb as he yelled a certain name as loud as he could. The sound of someone gargling broken glass echoed over the frozen lake. As blood dripped into the mud and sparks began to fly, the man stepped back. A gradient of flames, chartreuse to puce, rose tall in the air.
The impossible fire spoke clearly in the man’s language, though he learned of new internal organs, not yet described by his people’s medical scientists, as he throbbed in unexpected places with every syllable. “Of all the recent glimmers of intelligence on this plane, it is a member of Hominidae that stands before me. Interesting. What business could a mortal like you possibly have with me? I was sleeping.”
The man faced the flames defiantly, before bowing so low that he brushed the ground with his hood. “I traveled here to proclaim this truth. The seal that binds you was meant only for the source of a great pestilence.”
Lavender and seafoam flames waved in the absence of wind, yet remained silent. The man stood back upright and was about to speak again, when his pineal gland twitched. The same voice said, “I know that. Go on.”
“Your loyal flock have uncovered conclusive archaeological evidence. Yes, it is cave paintings that retell a story of a lost civilization that was itself translated from a dead language, but it is conclusive. The disease eons ago, recorded by those historians, is described as a natural phenomenon. What is your response, Great Old One?”
“What is it that opposes creation, what balances the scales, my young cosmic whelp? Entropy? Chaos? Mere Pestilence? Those are but a few of my tools. My agents. I have been able to feel each one wandering below all this time. Sure, they have their moments, but it is all such embarrassingly aimless, wasted potential without my expertise to guide them.”
A deep chuckle interrupted this obviously prepared speech, and the man absentmindedly wiped a sudden nosebleed on his sleeve. “You conspire to release me, don’t you? Gaia will be quite angry with you. It was one of her first lineages of followers that misguidedly placed me here, blaming me for her own mistakes.” The flames grew hot and blue, then flickered violet before they winked out entirely. The voice continued nonetheless. “Will you testify in front of the Others who claim to be my equal? You may even survive to see what transpires after that, statistically speaking.”
The man thought briefly about custom winter hiking boots, before he refocused on why he was here. “Yes.”
The meager overhead light slowly faded as lake ice cracked. The immense hand in the distance closed and rotated, raising its thumb towards the heavens.
“I’ll be right out.”
Reddit WritingPrompt [WP] You arrive at the remote site where the elder god is sealed and perform a little ritual to speak to it, you simply state: “you committed many sins, but I have historical evidence you are actually innocent of the one they sealed you for millenia, I can free you, but need to hear your side first” continues the 2023 spooky story season just fine.