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Welcome to the eighth addition to my 2019 Halloween poster selection.
And for this post, I've decided to dwell into an old story from one of the classics, alongside the likes of hg wells, edgar allan poe, and George Orwell, there was a young man from a province not too far away from New-England. He is well known for conjuring up such unusual and cerebral-tinkering stories with strange otherworldly beings, possibly being one the more interesting examples of cosmic horror. The general theme of his more famous stories (eg- the call of cthulu, the colour out of space etc) usually revolves around the idea that we may not be as on top of things as we think, and that there may be beings whose very appearance and legacy are so strangely horrifying, that our brain would go mad, trying to comprehend it...

that's right, I'm talking about a work from the sci-fi/horror writer: HOWARD PHILPS LOVECRAFT (aka- H.P. Lovecraft)
And for this post, I've decided to showcase my favourite of his stories.

an interesting story that goes into what was at the time, still a new frontier...Antarctica.
incorporating both suspenseful cosmic horror and interesting Science fiction....
I present to you....

"AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS!"

now, where do I start....
"At the Mountains of Madness" is a science fiction-horror novel by early 20th century American author H.P. Lovecraft, first written in February/March 1931 and initially rejected that year by "Weird Tales" editor Farnsworth Wright, the main reason for this rejection was mainly on the grounds of the story's length, in fact it was arguably lovecraft's SECOND LONGEST that he had ever officially published. It was eventually serialised in the February, March, and April issues of 1936's "Astounding Stories" Magazine.
It then rose in popularity and has since been reproduced into many copies and collections.

and even more so, this eventually became one of his most famous and successful stories, with numerous subtle connections/references to his other works.

Basically, the story details the events of a disastrous expedition to the Antarctic continent in September 1930, and what was found there by a group of explorers led by the story's narrator, Professor William Dyer of Miskatonic University. Throughout this story, Dyer details a terrifying series of previously untold events in the desperate hope of deterring another group of explorers who wish to return to the continent and explore the icy wilderness. Essentially, he warns of the peril of boldly going anywhere near the MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS!.

and now it's time to explain a basic summery of the story...
are you lot sitting comfortably, then I'll begin.
------------------------------------------------------------------
AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS
Written, by H.P. LOVECRAFT.

This story is recalled in a first-person perspective by a geologist named William Dyer, a professor at Arkham's Miskatonic University, in hopes that he might somehow be able to prevent an important and much publicised scientific expedition, returning to Antarctica, a place that fills his sleep with nightmares. He begins by explaining that he does not wish to tell his story, but is compelled to because men of science will not heed his warnings without explanations, and he's even more reluctant, as he feels that his warning, may be in vain.

You see, Dyer himself had led a team of scientists sponsored by the university that intended to use an advanced new drilling technology to extract deep-level samples of rock, and from various parts of the Antarctic continent. When the expedition began, Dyer’s team included Frank Pabodie, the inventor of the drill, as well as Lake and Atwood, fellow professors from the university, one studying biology, and one studying physics, and a meteorologist, and 16 assistants, 9 skilled engineers and 7 grad students, of the 16, 12 were very quaified aeroplane pilots and all but two of them were competent wireless operators. They had planned to cover an full Antarctic season, or longer if permitted, operating mostly in the mountain ranges and plateau south of Ross Sea, regions previously explored by folks like hamilton, scaclton, scott, and bird.

The public had already known about the expedition through the groups frequent wireless reports and through the latter articles of Parbodie and Dyer.
And as the newspapers told, the expedition set off in september of 1930, traveling further and further south, past the two Americas, until finally reaching the frozen tundra that is, the antarctic landmass, with looming high mountains, many of them extinct volcanoes. Eventually they found a place to set up camp and soon unloaded all their supplies, including: drilling apparatus, dogs, sledges, tents, provisions, gasoline tanks, experiment ice-melting equipment, camera (both both ordinary and areal) aeroplane parts and other accessories, including 3 small wireless outfits, capable of communicating from most parts of the continent that they'd likely be visiting.

the ships equipment, relaying to the outside world, was to relay press reports to the Arkham-advertiser's powerful station on kingsport head in massachusetts
Now, the newspapers had already reported much of the expedition's early work, such as their assent of mount erebus, their successful mineral borings at several points on ross-island, or the singular speed that Parbodie's machine was able to accomplish them (even through solid rock layers), their testing of the ice melting equipment, their perilous assent of the great barrier with sledges and supplies, and their final assembling of five HUGE aeroplanes at the camp, at the top of the barrier (only four of which were needed for carrying the exploring equipment and collected materal, the fifth, begins used as means of reaching the team from the ship, in case all of the exploring planes were lost.

wireless reports had already spoken of the breathtaking four-hour flight of the team, over the lofty shelf-ice, to the vast peaks rising on the west.
and eventually they had arrived to the Beardmore glacier, the largest valley-glacier in the world.
at last they had reached the white, eon-dead world of the ULTIMATE SOUTH.

As the team moves over the South Pole, it sees a previously unknown range of mountains, peaks strangely black and lacking snow. Lake announces that he will take a team to explore this new feature, despite Dyer’s misgivings. Lake and his team fly off in one of the expedition’s airplanes the next "day" (NOTE: Antarctica's day and night cycle is not the same as what we are familiar with, it experiences six months of daylight in its summer and six months of darkness in its winter). However, whilst flying over the mountain range, lake';s plane suffers a technical hitch and ends up crashing into the mountains, thankfully nobody was hurt, but lake requests that eventually, they rest of the expedition should schedule a resume trip to come and get them. til then, Lake's team has set up camp at the foot of the mountains. He also mentions that from his estimations, these mountains seems to go up a staggering 35 THOUSAND FEET or more. (for perspective, Mount Everest is only 29,029 ft) and that they seem to be made largely out of precambrian slate.

Lake's team soon begins core sampling near the crash site and discovers to their surprise a massive underground cave system.
They cautiously enter the cavern and discover that it is filled with fozzilsed bones and shells, showcasing a rich amount of animal remains of all kinds such as early cephalopods sponges, trilobite, sharks etc, to large saurians and primitive mammals, the latter two showing strange markings, marking that suggest the creature was killed by a sort of puncture wound of great precision and strange taking incisions, seems to suggest the work of an unknown predator. But among all of these, one VERY common group of fossils catches lake's eye, a series of strange, triangular shaped prints found all over the place, the same ones he had found at the beginning of their trip. this promps the team to continue on exploring, and eventually, they make an UNEXPECTED TRANSCENDENT DISCOVERY.

Inside the frozen caverns, they find eight complete and six incomplete frozen specimens of hither-to unknown lifeforms, described as “barrel-shaped.” These large organisms are in nearly perfect condition despite having clearly been in the cavern for a very long time. Their curiosity aroused, lake's team proceeds to transport these specimens back to the campsite...

and this is where we come to perhaps my FAVOURITE scene in the story.
wanting to examine these new finds in better detail, Lake and his assistants set up a crude examination table inside one of the camp's larger tents.
and then, they take one of the frozen organisms and begin to perform an autopsy on it.

The main reason why I love this scene is just how complex and utterly ALIEN this specimen is described as being.

*talie walks over to a diagram of an "elder thing"*
As they examine the creature, they note down it's unusual features, including:

-they are roughly 6-8 ft tall and 3 ft wide at their mid-section.
-they seem to be radially symmetrical, having a body shaped like a barrel with five bulging ridges in place of staves.
-large retractable membranous wings or fins, each seeming to stretch to a maximum length of 7-9 ft
-a yellowish starfish-shaped apparent head, two feet wide, covered with three-inch wiry cilia and possessing five eyes at the end of stalks going off in five different directions
-five strange appendages that stick out of the creature's mid-section, each three or four feet long and 3 inches in diameter. These appendages branch after 6 inches into five sub-stalks, each of which branches after 8 inches into five even smaller tendrils, giving each stalk or "arm" a total of 25 tentacles or "fingers".
-blunt bulbous pesudo-neck with gill-like suggestions
-Five slightly longer reddish tubes start from inner angles of starfish-shaped head and end in sac-like swellings of same colour which upon pressure open to bell-shaped orifices 2 inches maximum diameter and lined with sharp white tooth-like projections, mostly likely mouths.
-Slit in exact centre of the top of the starfish shaped head, probably breathing aperture or something.
-Flexibility surprising despite vast toughness of it's shell.
-six Tough, muscular "legs" 4 feet long and tapering from 7 inches diameter at base to about 2.5 at point. To each point is attached small end of a greenish five-toed triangular membraned "pseudo-feet" 8 inches long and 6 wide at farther end.
-five-lobed brain, as a consequence of being a radically symmetrical creature.
-a complex digestion system that eliminates waste through the reddish tubes at its base.
-a respiratory system that seems to exhale oxygen rather than carbon dioxide, more akin to a plant than an animal.
(we later find that, like some plants they also reproduced with spores)
-well adapted for watery/terrestrial/Ariel environments.
-primitive vocal organs are present, but they don't seem likely to make the sounds we call "speech" but more likely a series of piping whistles.

truly a highly complex alien creature.
as the book itself says: "how it could have undergone it's tremendously complex evolution on a newborn earth in time to leave prints in archean rocks was just so far beyond conception"
when most people think of an "alien" they think of either the stereotypical "greys" or at beast, xenomorphs, but THIS, this is what I'd call TRULY alien!
so bizarre, so unusual, so unthinkable and yet I could imagine something like it somehow existing.
anyway...back to the story...

As a snowstorm being to come in, Dyer and the main team lose contact with Lake’s camp. When they travel back to check on the men, they find the camp destroyed. The damaged specimens from the cavern have been buried under snow, but the others are missing. but most shocking of all, is that all but one of both the humans and the dogs are dead, and some appear to have been dissected, having huge chunks of flesh cut out from their arms, legs, torsos etc. It is presumed that the missing man, Gedney, had gone mad and killed everyone and fled into the wilderness with one remaining dog, at least that's what it seems to be, judging from the sled tracks.

After a while, Dyer takes Danforth, one of the graduate student assistants with him, and together, they fly over the mountains. They quickly realize these are not mountains, but an outer wall surrounding the frozen ruins of an ancient city. Danforth and Dyer have both studied the Necronomicon at Miskatonic University; the book describes the “elder gods” and other dark myths, which both Danforth and Dyer think closely resemble the creatures that built this alien city.

They explore the city, and entering inside, they begin studying the murals that decorate many of the walls, very slowly, they begin to piece together the long history of the place. The creatures, referred to as "Elder Things", came to the Earth when the moon had just formed. They created blob-like creatures called shoggoths that can take any form and perform any function to build the city; Dyer theorizes that all life on the planet sprang from the off-shoot remnants of the shoggoths. The murals continue the story: The shoggoths slowly gained independence, weakening the Elder Things, and the Earth was invaded by the spawn of Cthulhu (a demonic entity that I covered here-www.deviantart.com/taliesaurus… ) and the Mi-go (strange alien being that seems to resemble a mix between a fungus and an arthropod), sparking a war. The gradual decline of the Elder Things’ once grand civilization is clear from the way the murals become increasingly less sophisticated and more "primitive" in nature. The murals also hint at an immense evil lurking in mountains even more remote than the city. Eventually, Antarctica became uninhabitable, and the Elder Things moved into an underground sea.

Dyer and Danforth realize that Gedney did not slaughter his teammates; rather, the Elder Things that had been preserved in the Cavern have come out of dormancy and killed everyone—and that they tried to returned to their city. They discover the tunnel that leads to the underground sea and see evidence of an epic battle. They encounter large, apparently blind, and very docile albino penguins. Dyer assumes these are used as livestock.

Dyer and Danforth also discover traces of the formerly frozen Elder Things' earlier exploration, as well as sleds containing the corpses of both Gedney and his missing dog. They are ultimately drawn towards the entrance of a tunnel, into the subterranean region depicted in the murals. Here, they find evidence of various Elder Things killed in a brutal struggle.

And that is when they have a terrifying encounter with a shoggoth—a shapeless mass of bubbling black material, COMING RIGHT TOWARD THEM!!! They run for their lives and just barely manage to escape. Aboard the plane, high above the plateau, Danforth looks back and sees something which causes him to basically lose his own sanity, implied to be the unnamed evil itself, the thing that the elder things were so VERY afraid of.

...as the story comes to a close, Dyer concludes the Elder Things slaughtered the survivors and dogs only out of self-defense or scientific curiosity, that their civilization was eventually destroyed by the shoggoths and that this further entity has preyed on the enormous penguins.

He warns the planners of the next proposed Antarctic expedition to stay distant from the site.
to stay away from those MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS.

Description
Welcome to the eighth addition to my 2019 Halloween poster selection.
And for this post, I've decided to dwell into an old story from one of the classics, alongside the likes of hg wells, edgar allan poe, and George Orwell, there was a young man from a province not too far away from New-England. He is well known for conjuring up such unusual and cerebral-tinkering stories with strange otherworldly beings, possibly being one the more interesting examples of cosmic horror. The general theme of his more famous stories (eg- the call of cthulu, the colour out of space etc) usually revolves around the idea that we may not be as on top of things as we think, and that there may be beings whose very appearance and legacy are so strangely horrifying, that our brain would go mad, trying to comprehend it...

that's right, I'm talking about a work from the sci-fi/horror writer: HOWARD PHILPS LOVECRAFT (aka- H.P. Lovecraft)
And for this post, I've decided to showcase my favourite of his stories.

an interesting story that goes into what was at the time, still a new frontier...Antarctica.
incorporating both suspenseful cosmic horror and interesting Science fiction....
I present to you....

"AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS!"

now, where do I start....
"At the Mountains of Madness" is a science fiction-horror novel by early 20th century American author H.P. Lovecraft, first written in February/March 1931 and initially rejected that year by "Weird Tales" editor Farnsworth Wright, the main reason for this rejection was mainly on the grounds of the story's length, in fact it was arguably lovecraft's SECOND LONGEST that he had ever officially published. It was eventually serialised in the February, March, and April issues of 1936's "Astounding Stories" Magazine.
It then rose in popularity and has since been reproduced into many copies and collections.

and even more so, this eventually became one of his most famous and successful stories, with numerous subtle connections/references to his other works.

Basically, the story details the events of a disastrous expedition to the Antarctic continent in September 1930, and what was found there by a group of explorers led by the story's narrator, Professor William Dyer of Miskatonic University. Throughout this story, Dyer details a terrifying series of previously untold events in the desperate hope of deterring another group of explorers who wish to return to the continent and explore the icy wilderness. Essentially, he warns of the peril of boldly going anywhere near the MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS!.

and now it's time to explain a basic summery of the story...
are you lot sitting comfortably, then I'll begin.
------------------------------------------------------------------
AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS
Written, by H.P. LOVECRAFT.

This story is recalled in a first-person perspective by a geologist named William Dyer, a professor at Arkham's Miskatonic University, in hopes that he might somehow be able to prevent an important and much publicised scientific expedition, returning to Antarctica, a place that fills his sleep with nightmares. He begins by explaining that he does not wish to tell his story, but is compelled to because men of science will not heed his warnings without explanations, and he's even more reluctant, as he feels that his warning, may be in vain.

You see, Dyer himself had led a team of scientists sponsored by the university that intended to use an advanced new drilling technology to extract deep-level samples of rock, and from various parts of the Antarctic continent. When the expedition began, Dyer’s team included Frank Pabodie, the inventor of the drill, as well as Lake and Atwood, fellow professors from the university, one studying biology, and one studying physics, and a meteorologist, and 16 assistants, 9 skilled engineers and 7 grad students, of the 16, 12 were very quaified aeroplane pilots and all but two of them were competent wireless operators. They had planned to cover an full Antarctic season, or longer if permitted, operating mostly in the mountain ranges and plateau south of Ross Sea, regions previously explored by folks like hamilton, scaclton, scott, and bird.

The public had already known about the expedition through the groups frequent wireless reports and through the latter articles of Parbodie and Dyer.
And as the newspapers told, the expedition set off in september of 1930, traveling further and further south, past the two Americas, until finally reaching the frozen tundra that is, the antarctic landmass, with looming high mountains, many of them extinct volcanoes. Eventually they found a place to set up camp and soon unloaded all their supplies, including: drilling apparatus, dogs, sledges, tents, provisions, gasoline tanks, experiment ice-melting equipment, camera (both both ordinary and areal) aeroplane parts and other accessories, including 3 small wireless outfits, capable of communicating from most parts of the continent that they'd likely be visiting.

the ships equipment, relaying to the outside world, was to relay press reports to the Arkham-advertiser's powerful station on kingsport head in massachusetts
Now, the newspapers had already reported much of the expedition's early work, such as their assent of mount erebus, their successful mineral borings at several points on ross-island, or the singular speed that Parbodie's machine was able to accomplish them (even through solid rock layers), their testing of the ice melting equipment, their perilous assent of the great barrier with sledges and supplies, and their final assembling of five HUGE aeroplanes at the camp, at the top of the barrier (only four of which were needed for carrying the exploring equipment and collected materal, the fifth, begins used as means of reaching the team from the ship, in case all of the exploring planes were lost.

wireless reports had already spoken of the breathtaking four-hour flight of the team, over the lofty shelf-ice, to the vast peaks rising on the west.
and eventually they had arrived to the Beardmore glacier, the largest valley-glacier in the world.
at last they had reached the white, eon-dead world of the ULTIMATE SOUTH.

As the team moves over the South Pole, it sees a previously unknown range of mountains, peaks strangely black and lacking snow. Lake announces that he will take a team to explore this new feature, despite Dyer’s misgivings. Lake and his team fly off in one of the expedition’s airplanes the next "day" (NOTE: Antarctica's day and night cycle is not the same as what we are familiar with, it experiences six months of daylight in its summer and six months of darkness in its winter). However, whilst flying over the mountain range, lake';s plane suffers a technical hitch and ends up crashing into the mountains, thankfully nobody was hurt, but lake requests that eventually, they rest of the expedition should schedule a resume trip to come and get them. til then, Lake's team has set up camp at the foot of the mountains. He also mentions that from his estimations, these mountains seems to go up a staggering 35 THOUSAND FEET or more. (for perspective, Mount Everest is only 29,029 ft) and that they seem to be made largely out of precambrian slate.

Lake's team soon begins core sampling near the crash site and discovers to their surprise a massive underground cave system.
They cautiously enter the cavern and discover that it is filled with fozzilsed bones and shells, showcasing a rich amount of animal remains of all kinds such as early cephalopods sponges, trilobite, sharks etc, to large saurians and primitive mammals, the latter two showing strange markings, marking that suggest the creature was killed by a sort of puncture wound of great precision and strange taking incisions, seems to suggest the work of an unknown predator. But among all of these, one VERY common group of fossils catches lake's eye, a series of strange, triangular shaped prints found all over the place, the same ones he had found at the beginning of their trip. this promps the team to continue on exploring, and eventually, they make an UNEXPECTED TRANSCENDENT DISCOVERY.

Inside the frozen caverns, they find eight complete and six incomplete frozen specimens of hither-to unknown lifeforms, described as “barrel-shaped.” These large organisms are in nearly perfect condition despite having clearly been in the cavern for a very long time. Their curiosity aroused, lake's team proceeds to transport these specimens back to the campsite...

and this is where we come to perhaps my FAVOURITE scene in the story.
wanting to examine these new finds in better detail, Lake and his assistants set up a crude examination table inside one of the camp's larger tents.
and then, they take one of the frozen organisms and begin to perform an autopsy on it.

The main reason why I love this scene is just how complex and utterly ALIEN this specimen is described as being.

*talie walks over to a diagram of an "elder thing"*
As they examine the creature, they note down it's unusual features, including:

-they are roughly 6-8 ft tall and 3 ft wide at their mid-section.
-they seem to be radially symmetrical, having a body shaped like a barrel with five bulging ridges in place of staves.
-large retractable membranous wings or fins, each seeming to stretch to a maximum length of 7-9 ft
-a yellowish starfish-shaped apparent head, two feet wide, covered with three-inch wiry cilia and possessing five eyes at the end of stalks going off in five different directions
-five strange appendages that stick out of the creature's mid-section, each three or four feet long and 3 inches in diameter. These appendages branch after 6 inches into five sub-stalks, each of which branches after 8 inches into five even smaller tendrils, giving each stalk or "arm" a total of 25 tentacles or "fingers".
-blunt bulbous pesudo-neck with gill-like suggestions
-Five slightly longer reddish tubes start from inner angles of starfish-shaped head and end in sac-like swellings of same colour which upon pressure open to bell-shaped orifices 2 inches maximum diameter and lined with sharp white tooth-like projections, mostly likely mouths.
-Slit in exact centre of the top of the starfish shaped head, probably breathing aperture or something.
-Flexibility surprising despite vast toughness of it's shell.
-six Tough, muscular "legs" 4 feet long and tapering from 7 inches diameter at base to about 2.5 at point. To each point is attached small end of a greenish five-toed triangular membraned "pseudo-feet" 8 inches long and 6 wide at farther end.
-five-lobed brain, as a consequence of being a radically symmetrical creature.
-a complex digestion system that eliminates waste through the reddish tubes at its base.
-a respiratory system that seems to exhale oxygen rather than carbon dioxide, more akin to a plant than an animal.
(we later find that, like some plants they also reproduced with spores)
-well adapted for watery/terrestrial/Ariel environments.
-primitive vocal organs are present, but they don't seem likely to make the sounds we call "speech" but more likely a series of piping whistles.

truly a highly complex alien creature.
as the book itself says: "how it could have undergone it's tremendously complex evolution on a newborn earth in time to leave prints in archean rocks was just so far beyond conception"
when most people think of an "alien" they think of either the stereotypical "greys" or at beast, xenomorphs, but THIS, this is what I'd call TRULY alien!
so bizarre, so unusual, so unthinkable and yet I could imagine something like it somehow existing.
anyway...back to the story...

As a snowstorm being to come in, Dyer and the main team lose contact with Lake’s camp. When they travel back to check on the men, they find the camp destroyed. The damaged specimens from the cavern have been buried under snow, but the others are missing. but most shocking of all, is that all but one of both the humans and the dogs are dead, and some appear to have been dissected, having huge chunks of flesh cut out from their arms, legs, torsos etc. It is presumed that the missing man, Gedney, had gone mad and killed everyone and fled into the wilderness with one remaining dog, at least that's what it seems to be, judging from the sled tracks.

After a while, Dyer takes Danforth, one of the graduate student assistants with him, and together, they fly over the mountains. They quickly realize these are not mountains, but an outer wall surrounding the frozen ruins of an ancient city. Danforth and Dyer have both studied the Necronomicon at Miskatonic University; the book describes the “elder gods” and other dark myths, which both Danforth and Dyer think closely resemble the creatures that built this alien city.

They explore the city, and entering inside, they begin studying the murals that decorate many of the walls, very slowly, they begin to piece together the long history of the place. The creatures, referred to as "Elder Things", came to the Earth when the moon had just formed. They created blob-like creatures called shoggoths that can take any form and perform any function to build the city; Dyer theorizes that all life on the planet sprang from the off-shoot remnants of the shoggoths. The murals continue the story: The shoggoths slowly gained independence, weakening the Elder Things, and the Earth was invaded by the spawn of Cthulhu (a demonic entity that I covered here-www.deviantart.com/taliesaurus… ) and the Mi-go (strange alien being that seems to resemble a mix between a fungus and an arthropod), sparking a war. The gradual decline of the Elder Things’ once grand civilization is clear from the way the murals become increasingly less sophisticated and more "primitive" in nature. The murals also hint at an immense evil lurking in mountains even more remote than the city. Eventually, Antarctica became uninhabitable, and the Elder Things moved into an underground sea.

Dyer and Danforth realize that Gedney did not slaughter his teammates; rather, the Elder Things that had been preserved in the Cavern have come out of dormancy and killed everyone—and that they tried to returned to their city. They discover the tunnel that leads to the underground sea and see evidence of an epic battle. They encounter large, apparently blind, and very docile albino penguins. Dyer assumes these are used as livestock.

Dyer and Danforth also discover traces of the formerly frozen Elder Things' earlier exploration, as well as sleds containing the corpses of both Gedney and his missing dog. They are ultimately drawn towards the entrance of a tunnel, into the subterranean region depicted in the murals. Here, they find evidence of various Elder Things killed in a brutal struggle.

And that is when they have a terrifying encounter with a shoggoth—a shapeless mass of bubbling black material, COMING RIGHT TOWARD THEM!!! They run for their lives and just barely manage to escape. Aboard the plane, high above the plateau, Danforth looks back and sees something which causes him to basically lose his own sanity, implied to be the unnamed evil itself, the thing that the elder things were so VERY afraid of.

...as the story comes to a close, Dyer concludes the Elder Things slaughtered the survivors and dogs only out of self-defense or scientific curiosity, that their civilization was eventually destroyed by the shoggoths and that this further entity has preyed on the enormous penguins.

He warns the planners of the next proposed Antarctic expedition to stay distant from the site.
to stay away from those MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS.