--- On dank waters, the glowering tendrils of a dead sun. This pool is a jagged wound, a maw of shivering fluid in the ash and basalt lunarscape. There is no activity on this haunted plain that which encircles this oasis of filth.
  On its crooked lip are a dome shaped hovel wrought of bone, scrap metal and some rotten smelling "mud" Over the structure's entrance hangs a sheet of tanned human skin. The only sound audible is that of you breaking the surface of the water.
   The egress from this location is a laborious travel to the east, in the direction of a stone spire, which is cantered forty five degrees to the left. What you may notice while traveling towards it is that it seems to be both grand and minuscule. No matter how close you approach it remains the same.
   From the edge of the pool, it seems to be the size of a small mountain but on reaching it, you find you could lean against it and rest. The shadow it casts is expansive and resembles a broad mantle or wing.
   Leaning against the spire it is possible to hear the movement of wings and traces of some feral cry. Upon inspection, you espy some vague shapes in the haze around the sun or by the hovel but nothing specific. If you wait nothing comes or swoops down, no matter how close these sounds come. It remains this way for what seems forever and then you can hear the sounds again.
   At the base of the spike, on close inspection of the great shadow that it casts, you will find a perfectly human sized hole. It looks like it was cut out like some disc of dirty ice. Getting down on one's knees and being foolish enough to peer in, you see a dusty corridor carved in limestone and veined with moss. You hear the hiss of something that may be steam or the slow exhalation of a snake.
   On closer examination a slender rope extends to a unseen floor. It is attached to a outcropping of rock on the underside of the opening. With some experimentation, with both stones and a book of matches, you deem that there is a floor of basalt and nothing moves across it. The passage, which also runs to the east, is humid and ripe with the smell of decay. You can still hear the sounds of invisible animals and shadowy birds behind you. How can it be any worse?----

   The Pool of Agonies was created by Thaumiel to deal with a group of Razide deserters who fled to The Illusion to reap the rewards of human captivity. These six Razides who escaped their infernal servitude lived among humanity, took brides, had children. When these children were born, Thaumiel discovered their hiding places within the illusion. All of them excluding one Razide were found. It is there essence that initially imbued this reservoir.

   Over the ages, Thaumiel has employed it to rid himself of potential dangerous lesser beings. The underlying reason why it remains is for the Sole Deserter of his legions.
   The hovel by the pool is where the bride of the Deserter is interned until her husband is thrown into the dark swirls of pain. Her name is unknown by all including herself and is called She Who Waits.
   She Who waits is disfigured only enough so that all who see her know she was once beautiful. Her mouth is wired shut and her throat is a bloody avulsion through which her ragged breaths pass. She never sleeps and knows no human hunger. She appears to be ageless, trapped somewhere in her thirties
   Anyone who ventures in to see her, looks to her like her husband, and incites her into a murderous frenzy. Her mourning is inconsolable.
   When left on her own, she sows the bloody wedding gown she wears to her body using silver thread and a brass plated needle. Often she listens to the whispers of the disembodied as they tell her their many stories. She refers to The Pool as her family.

   The Sole Deserter's true name has long since been purged from the annals of The Razide. Those who wish to do as he had done, call him Arzael and whisper of him like a myth. He is more a symbol of some servant's dream of freedom among the prisoners than anything attainable.
   Arzael's location in the Illusion is unknown as is how he escaped his eternal servitude. Thaumiel is certain he still lives and has made The Pool of Agonies a means to capture and destroy his "shameful one".

   The Pool of Agonies is a reservoir of a fluid that you could call water by matter of default. How far it descends is unmeasurable since it is actually pocket dimension. If one were to try to get to its bottom by conventional means, for instance by swimming to the bottom, it would extend indefinitely. However the experience would be anything but monotonous.
   The "water", though having the correct consistency and smell, is impossible to see through. In lieu of allowing one to see through it, the medium acts as a conductor for memories. A "swimmer" would slowly lose all sense that they are actually swimming. Any attempt to descend deeper or get out of The Pool of Agonies is resisted by a pull equal to that of five Razides. In a number of minutes equal to the mental balance of the swimmer divided by two, the corporeal form of the swimmer is rended from their body, which then suddenly dissolves, and deposited in a place known as The Vestibule. This transfer of consciousness to this quasi-dream state is painless as it happens but upon arrival is experienced through the collective consciousness of The Drowned. It is like feeling your body being dissolved in hydrochloric acid if you can imagine. This will last in minutes equal to balance. (For those with a negative balance, they become caught in a loop of eternal drowning and disintegration.)
   The "Swimmer" now find themselves in a dark reflection of their own life where every opportunity has gone awry and life is a bleak struggle. Here in the Vestibule, The Swimmer cannot die. All manner of terrible things may occur but only for so many hours (mental balance + 6 = number of hours in The Vestibule). Treat all damage as actual but ignore killing blows. However bare in mind it should be a very unpleasant state of forever. What time exactly in their life that is being mirrored is up to GM to determine with incidents relating to their dark secret being the most likely.
   After this specified amount of time passes begin to allow the incursions of things from the collective consciousness to begin to pervade. At this point they have entered into The Haunt of The Drowned.
   The Haunt of The Drowned is a cycle of constant variations on The Judgment of Thaumiel upon the deserters and the events leading up to it. Slowly any connection to people met or events that transpired in The Vestibule should fade away into mystery. In the Haunt, the swimmer can be killed. If this happens, they are consumed by the hungry minds of The Drowned.
   When, and if, the swimmer eventually meets Thaumiel for this judgment, it is not an incarnate but rather someone from the swimmer's own life playing the part of Thaumiel. Also She Who Waits will not be in attendance, either. To further confuse The Swimmer will be referred to as Arzael.
   Upon coming to the moment of being tossed into The Somber Pool, the otherworldly reflection of The Pool of Agonies, two possible things may occur.
   Either they get away and return to The Vestibule where the whole process begins again or, they are thrown in. On being thrown in , they reconstitute in the Pool of Agonies in a manner just as painful as the entrance into the vestibule but mercifully brief.
   Emerging from The Pool, The Swimmer, now an Emergent, has a confused memory in which events in one's life are mixed with those of The Drowned. They will have the impression that someone in the Illusion whose true name is Arzael is the only one who can help them return to some vaguely idealized perfect state.
   The Emergent is sometimes so set on finding passage back into the illusion that they will ignore obvious things and be prodded or frightened by implanted memories, thoughts or sounds. One such implanted object is The Eastern Spike.
   It is solely a construct of the collective consciousness which marks the location of the hole which leads to a passage back into the Illusion.

   Things have been left open to accommodate the prevalent cosmology of any number of Kult games. But I will take the time now to point out the obvious and the not so obvious.

   - Arzael and The Nature of Thaumiel's Hunt for renegade Razides can be a storyline in and of itself. Flesh it out as you want it sine you will need it.
   - The multilayered and cyclical nature of The Pool of Agonies allows for a variety of Jacob's Ladder style effects but with the benefit a solid recurrent storyline which doesn't shift TOO greatly.
   - If two swimmers were in the pool at the same time, their vestibule experiences can be shared but it is important for The Haunt of The Drowned Segment to have each alone in their own version.
   - The corridor below passes through Inferno, through the borderlands, and ends up at some threshold into The Illusion. What's down there and where it ends up is solely GM's call. I am partial to the idea that it comes out in a burned out mental institution and there's a solitary Psyphagi seeking passage into the illusion down there. Though a prison could fun too....
   - The mental rapport between She Who Waits and her family and, The Implanted images/objects of The Drowned allows for a possible situation where an Emergent is really an emissary searching for Arzael so as to help them escape their infernal prison while under the auspices of meting Thaumiel's rage. This would play up the hive mind angle even more.
   - In my own opinion, The Emergent should atleast have the look of a human. Maybe without gender, maybe a shapeshifter of limited power, possibly the unwitting doppelganger for someone they never knew.