The Order of the Gash
From the Journals of Konrad:My introduction to the strangeness of this shadow began with a simple puzzle box that Channard possessed. He claimed that it could open doors to other places. I assumed at first that it was some simple Trump device, but as I looked closer I noticed the traceries of Abyssal energy around the object. There was something more to this...but I was afraid. I dare not open a gate to the Abyss again...even inadvertently. Were I to make that colossal mistake again, I doubt that any Amberite would see fit to spare my life....
Later....
Impatient at my refusal to aid him, Channard went there of his own accord, and now the results face me in the form of the gruesome specter that was my mentor. As I looked over Channard's new body I found myself even more confused. He had solved the puzzle box and gone to some other place, but what had it done to him? His skin now had some bluish tinge and his body was marred by cuts and wounds that did not bleed and did not heal. His very clothing was sewn into his flesh in some parts. He had gone beyond the normal biological functions of a mortal man. I touched his flesh, and it was cool, and as I opened my other eyes to him I saw much that startled me. Like me, he was suffused with abyssal energy, though to a much lesser extent than myself. And his tissues contained that same factor that enabled me to shift my shape, though it seemed that this ability had gone dormant already in him, save in his hands, which now seemed to be able to sprout strange wonders. Something on the other side had changed him profoundly...had temporarily given him the power to change his body...to adapt to the energies of the Abyssal Pattern...and he had thus gone beyond death. And his words were those of one who had seen great power and vowed to serve. He spoke of a Leviathan...and the Labyrinth...and I realized that I, too, would have to learn more...would have to go there myself.
In the Labyrinth...
Strange creatures reside in this fell place. They call themselves the Order of the Gash, and claim to be minions of Order. They serve a god called Leviathan and call this demi-shadow the Labyrinth. Their flesh is uniformly blue and they possess strange markings. Body modification gone mad...grotesqueries that defy simple explanation. And interestingly, no one is like another and few are symmetrical. I felt fear when first they approached, but they seem to take me as some kind of god figure, and call me the Favored Son. I suspect this is due to the Abyssal energies that suffuse my body. It reminds me too much of my relation to the Kashmarin in Carcosa. Nothing new ever happens in this world...in all worlds...repeating themes...and so I've found a way to my power source and my minions again, through a different analogy. But this time I will not make the same mistakes again....
The image of Dr. Channard is a video capture taken from the movie Hellbound, which is the basis for the Labyrinth, the Order of the Gash, and the Channard Institute, which are ideas based upon the works of Clive Barker.