sanguine, and did nothing to better their position but let them pretend together that they had, while time and circumstance marched around them like the armies of the world.
Such optimism during all this death and madness was ridiculous, really.
Although the group had long been on the trail of the mysterious Deep Ones, the horrors of Project Black Water truly began during the Karotechia’s study of a book known as Cthaat Aquadingen , or The Book of Black Water . These researches were led by the young and studious Oberscharführer Hermann Weber. Weber had spent almost seven years abroad in the United States and England during his college years, studying archaeology and anthropology, valuable tools which he placed at the disposal of the Reich with his return in 1936. He was added to the ranks of the Karotechia by Himmler in 1938. What could be a safer way to serve in the army while war loomed on the horizon than by researching racial doctrine?
Previous inquiries into the subject of the Deep Ones by the Karotechia involved many other books: Unter Zee Kulten , Fishbuchs , Hydrophinnae , Dwellers in the Depths . These books simply proved to be a primer for the more complex and demonstrative text found in the Cthaat Aquadingen , seemed almost to have been created for precisely the purpose the Karotechia was pursuing—to open diplomatic relations with the aquatic civilization of the Deep Ones.
When it was discovered in a private collection in Krakow in December 1939, the book was rushed back to the newly established Institute of Ancestral Studies in Offenburg. Initial consideration indicated that inscriptions in the Cthaat Aquadingen matched some of those found in Unter Zee Kulten and other restricted texts, and the book was handed over to Oberscharführer Weber to continue his researches.
On December 29, 1939, Project Black Water became an official reality, brought into existence by a secret executive order penned by Himmler and signed by Hitler himself. Its mission was to explore the possibilities of the mystical formulae found in the Cthaat Aquadingen and to utilize those processes in defense of the Reich.
Four Karotechia researchers were assigned to the project under Oberscharführer Weber. Two of the team were academics with reserve ranks in the SS but who had been rapidly absorbed into the group: Dr. Max Soldin, an ethnologist from the University of Berlin with extensive knowledge of the Polynesian cultures, would study the sociological aspects of the text; and Dr. Franz Mors, a former associate of Bohr at Gottigen with an impressive record of mathematical excellence, would study the formulae.
The two others were SS men who had been in the Karotechia since its inception, and pursuing the same aims even before that, who would handle the actual implementation of any of the formulae discovered within the text. Scharführer Egon Schwelm and Scharführer Otho Lutzen both had served in the Sonderkommando-H , an early Ahnenerbe SS project to collect all documentation relating to the torture and killing of Germanic witches by the Catholic Church. Originally, it had been hoped that this information about the church’s oppression could be used one day to cause the German public to abandon Christianity, but much darker secrets were uncovered by Sonderkommando-H’s investigators.
Lutzen and Schwelm were both present when the first “magick formula” was discovered, buried along with the remains of a long-dead wizard named Jurgen Tess. They were also present during the first test of the twisted science called “magick” as it was utilized on Tess’ remains. What happened in that bunker in 1937 gave birth to the Karotechia, and gave Lutzen and Schwelm experience in an art very few others had. Black Water would test that resolve, and some would be found lacking.
During the early months of 1940 the Black Water team dissected the Cthaat Aquadingen in Offenburg, working relentlessly to place