THE MYSTERY OF THE TROPICAL DOME
Max gripped the shotgun tightly and squeezed the trigger. The gun barked and bucked back with mechanical aggression; Max let out an involuntary “oof” in response to the weapons kickback. The red-robed cultist who was rushing at him was blasted back by the incendiary. The head gardener let out a chuckle and glanced to his apprentice. Sharlene was right behind him as they entered the dome. The young woman clasped the speargun threateningly. Several more ragged cultists clambered down the stairway from under the chocolate tree. They howled hoarsely with an excited fervour as they charged the gardeners. The cultists were armed with an assortment of garden tools including machetes and one cultist hefted an axe. Sharlene squealed as she squeezed the trigger on the speargun, and it released its prize. The spear surged the few feet to pierce the cultists skull with a *thwack* sound- much like the sound of an overripe rockmelon hitting concrete. The dusky young woman toppled backwards on the slick freshly misted floor. Max reefed on the shotguns forestock and the spent ammunition case ejected from the firearm. He spun on his heel taking aim at the next wave of cultists and squeezed the trigger again. The cultists bore the full force of the scatter shot and the remaining four went down in a bloody heap. Max grasped Sharlene by the arm and helped her up from the floor. The horticulture apprentice cast off the speargun and drew her Croc Dundee knife. “I’ll swap you!” he growled with a grin and passed off the shotgun to the young indigenous woman. His blue eyes met her dark brown and they exchanged a smile. The pair then stepped over the bodies of the cultists and continued up to the domes viewing platform. As they neared the top they saw a brown-robed figure standing on the platform. “Up here! I can’t hold it much longer!” the sorcerer; Brian, huffed gruffly while waving his staff. He was perched on the platform before the domes pool. The floor was caked in mud and blood etched to display some runic enchantment or other. His staff crackled with blue lightning and an eery howling was gradually filling the structure. Brian waved the staff in an intricate pattern, each pass left crackling energy lingering in the air and the astringent smell of ozone. “We came as soon as we got your message Brian!” Max rumbled his response, trying to shout over the din. A wild red-robed cultist burst from the foliage and Max lashed out instinctively, beheading the man with Sharlene’s huge knife. Sharlene swooned as the body slumped over the handrail and plopped to the floor. Max nudged the lump of flesh into the garden bed. The head gardener and apprentice skirted the edge of the walkway to join Brian at the platform. The platform looked over the rather vast dome pond which held hundreds of thousands of litres of water. From the murky pool rose a horrid set of tentacle-like appendages that waved manically in the thick evening air. Worse than the polluted brown water of the Brisbane River, the dome ponds water was dark and oily. Worse still than a savage bull shark was the nether worldly beast that writhed in the pool. “This is not what we expected to be called in for!” Max rasped as he stood agape at the grotesque being. Brian shot a half cocked smile towards the gardeners as the concentration in his brow intensified. “Tenebris Adfundere, ad abyssum revertere. Potestas vestra finita, in aquis perpetuo quiescite.” He howled into the growing maelstrom of tentacles, murky water and crackling energy. Ordinarily Max would be expecting botanical information on the various plants in the garden beds quoted by Brian, Botanical Officer of Brisbane Botanic Gardens. On this eve; however, Brian roared his arcane spells towards the emerging terror of the dome pond. While his white shock of a beard and hair matched the staff and robe combination exceptionally well- the flannel shirt underneath the robe gave away that he had come straight from the comfort of his couch to stem the rising threat. “It’s the Nythraxis tree!” Brian roared into the growing maelstrom. Covering his ears to protect them from the din, Max looked to Brian questioningly. Brian took the half second to point out a dark and shadowy area near the dome pond platform. An area of the dome that had always been shrouded in shadow, where it had been difficult to grow even the most shade loving plants. The Nythraxis tree rose as a twisted abomination in the tropical dome. Its bark was a dull, lead grey, with a texture that resembled charred bone, rough and cracked as if it had endured countless centuries of torment. The sickly tree exuded thick, sticky sap of blood red oozing from painful looking fractures at its base. The trees foliage was necrotic, sparse and drooped as if diseased. Max took a double take at the nether tree, he had thought he knew of every tree in the garden, yet somehow this one had escaped his oversight! Max shot a look back to the sorcerer, Brian waved his staff in gesture and still more arcs of lightning surged forth to strike, crack and sizzle against the pond beasts eldritch flesh. The gardener turned back to face the tree and calculatedly rushed forth plucking up a cultists axe as he did. The first strike landed a glancing blow merely peeling off a layer of surface bark. Fresh sap dribbled like blood from a scraped knee. Max struck again, this time landing a deep cut, a pulse of sap oozed from the wound. The eldritch pond beasts howling intensified and with vigour Max raised the axe again, the muscles in his arms knotted with fury. The strike was just above the first and with a learned technique Max lifted out a wedge of timber. Brian glanced back between spells as Max hacked at the base of the tree, meanwhile… Sharlene emptied the shotgun again as more tendrils slurped and sloshed from the sickeningly heavy water of the pond. Several tentacles, shredded from the shotgun blast retreated under the surface, only to be replaced with a half dozen more. From the pool rose a dank and unnatural stench. Acrid metallic blood scent intermingled with the heady waft of death. Each tendril was lined with jagged horn-like protuberances a mere extension of the horror that lie under the surface of the dome pool. The surface of the pool shone in the twilight; a slick of oily residue coating its surface. A residue that shone in unearthly hues. The beasts great tentacles swung down towards them once more, the unearthly screaming continued unabated. Despite the constancy of the wailing each new gurgling screech rose to a new crescendo. Sharlene poked her head up over the railing and gripped the trigger of the rifle once more. The sound of the blast was at this stage completely overcome by the wailing of the beast. One smoky crimson eye peered up on a raised stalk followed by another. The demonic eyes drew a bead on the apprentice and Sharlene ducked her head to avoid the resulting assault from the spiked appendages. “Hurry Max!” the apprentice screamed into the deepening night. Despite the chaotic turbulence in the dome swallowing up her words Max responded with a shrug of acceptance. The head gardener doubled his efforts striking at the base of the Nythraxis tree, bloody sap spraying into the air with each laboured strike. Max’s arms burned with exhaustion, the tree was unnaturally resistant to the efforts of his felling. Almost as if; in its own way, the tree was fighting back with eldritch energy. However, after landing several more good blows Max was rewarded with a solid cracking sound. Despite this his heart dropped and he was filled with a sense of dread. He could feel the oppressive force of the pond horror intensifying as the beast fought to protect its source of power. Sharlene’s shots rang out behind him, her determination just as fierce, but even she could sense the growing futility in their efforts as the beast’s tendrils multiplied. Suddenly, a deep rumble shook the ground beneath them, as if the earth itself was groaning under the strain of the battle. The water in the pond bubbled violently, sending up gouts of steam that smelled of sulphur and decay. The creature, realising its imminent peril, seemed to double its efforts to break free. Massive tendrils burst forth from the pool, flailing wildly as they tried to swat Max and Sharlene away from the tree. Brian’s gestures became even more exaggerated and his bolt lightning blazing from his staff intensified in raw power. The lightning had initially been blue and sparked on impact, now with each deepening iteration of the spell Brians staff emitted bolts of blinding white that exploded on impact with the beast. “Fulmina ex caelis, feriatur hostis! Tonitrui vis, percutiatur, et ignis caelestis incendet!” the sorcerer roared with a bellow that echoed out of the dome and across the terrified city. In the office Brian was mild mannered with an easy laugh, a warm bloke and experienced plantsman. The being that was fighting off the rising power of the eldritch horror however was a force of nature. An intensity glowed in his eyes as his limbs snapped and words of power boomed with ultimate authority. Somewhat bolstered, Max resolved to continue chopping at the tree. Another crack heralded his success and with two more blows the tree lurched sidewards splitting at the base. A tentacle lashed the gardeners back knocking him to the floor. Max rolled deeper into the bed with the axe clutched closely before leaping up and severing the last pieces of splintered timber connecting the tree to the root. As the Nythraxis tree splintered under Max’s final blows, the eldritch horror let out a final, ear-piercing wail that reverberated across the city. The sound was a physical force, a shockwave of pure malevolence that rippled outward, distorting the air with cruel intensity. The tendrils, once thrashing violently, suddenly convulsed and snapped back toward the pool, dragging with them a torrent of foul water that erupted in a geyser of dark liquid and acrid steam. In its death rattle, the horror unleashed a pulse of dark energy, a final, spiteful act of vengeance. The ground beneath Max and Sharlene quaked violently, and the air thickened with a pressure that felt like the weight of the oppressive summer humidity. Max staggered, his vision blurring as the force of the pulse hit him like a hammer. Sharlene, caught in the same wave of energy, felt her knees buckle. Before they could react, the horror’s last sonic breath sent a shockwave through the air, slamming into them with the force of a tropical cyclone. Max was thrown backward, his body crumpling as he hit the ground, unconscious before he even registered the pain. Sharlene, too, was hurled across the dome, her senses overwhelmed by the crushing wave of darkness. The last thing she heard was the fading echo of the horror’s wail before everything went black. As the eldritch horror’s final wail faded, a sudden subtropical storm rolled in over Mount Coot-tha, the sky darkening with heavy clouds that matched the tension of the battle just fought. Lightning cracked overhead, and fat droplets of rain began to pelt the shattered glass of the dome, washing away the oily residue left behind by the beast’s retreat. The storm’s fury was a strange comfort, the rain mingling with the acrid stench of the horror’s lingering essence. The scent of wet eucalyptus filled the air, blending with the metallic tang of blood and decay. In the distance, the familiar lights of the Story Bridge flickered in and out of sight, briefly obscured by sheets of rain. As the sun rose on the carnage over Brisbane an eery red was cast about the Botanic garden. Like blood hued steam the mist permeated the carpark, the roadways and the garden beds. It was already thirty degrees and unbearably humid. In the distance the thunder crackled and a supernatural wind rattled the half crushed cans of four-ex in the gutters. In the dome Brian mopped at an already sweaty brow. The Nythraxis tree was already starting to shoot away from the base. The bright red new foliage, like new wine, marked a fresh beginning for the demon tree. Brian dragged Max out into the Arid area of the garden and then Sharlene. The pair gradually roused in the beating heat of the Brisbane morning. As they roused Brian waved his staff before them and a sparkling blue mist swirled around their heads. “Obliviorum Aeternum, memorae ex oculis evanescite. Tempus absconditum, cordibus obliviscite.” Brian chanted in a deep and rich tone.
