Crater Lake as told by Patriciann Heron of SL (the /me denotes an action taken by the story teller)

Once in a distant, foreign land,
Where ne’er did step the foot of man,
There sits aloft a crater lake,
Festering in a restless state.
/me sets the stage, whispering loud enough to be heard in the dim lights.
And on that mountain’s jagged sides,
Carved steps, inhuman, do arise,
Like scars across disfigured face,
For legs of a fetid, alien race.
/me points to the floor, pointing out the path of the steps with her finger, her face mildly disgusted.
On viscuous banks mired in woe,
An unknown story has been told,
Of shadows fleeting, dim and gray,
And things forbidden for one to say.
/me sweeps her hand out towards the audience, her voice still whispering.
Vapours bloom there in the night,
Seeping with unholy might,
To hide the secrets that there lay,
Scents of foul and dark decay.
/me knits her eyebrows together, sneering with this last verse.
One midnight hour I traveled thence,
Ascended steps of pestilence,
And viewed a sleeping scene of old,
Under full moon it did unfold.
/me pantomimes climbing steps; slowly, cautiously, her voice now at normal speaking levels.
For on this eve the stars aligned,
Illumined murky waters brine,
Astral figures sequenced right,
For this one rare and hideous night.
/me looks up gazing into a clear, starry sky.
Around that lake within the mists,
Came shambling, oozing, living cysts,
That danced around that gruesome scene,
I crouched and hid lest I be seen.
/me crouches, her eyes widening, her voice becoming panicked.
From the depths of ancient time,
They quivered to some unheard rhyme,
And as they did, the lake did clear,
I crept out from my ledge and peered.
/me slowly creeps out behind an imaginary ledge, her eyes glued, fixedly, at the scene before her.
Then stirring in the deepest depths,
A glimpse of movement therein lept,
Within the waters there did rise,
An orb of growing, swelling size.
/me ’s voice rises in pitch,  volume, and tempo.
From the surface, then discovered,
A giant, floating eyeball hovered,
It surveyed its worshipers,
Malicious stare and silent curse.
/me slows her words dramatically, pausing for effect, her voice still rising in volume.
Round the bank the eye did go,
Slowly bobbing to and fro,
Rounding corner, it turned to see,
Then paused and focused right on me!
/me eyes become wide with fright, her voice nearly screaming.
To my horror, now insane,
The entire congregation came,
Up the hill towards my site,
I turned and lept into the night.
/me begins yelling the words in the above stanza, then turns and leaps from the audience towards the backstage.
Falling down the mountain side,
I bounced and tumbled to reside,
At mountains base where fading sight,
Did claim me in that awful night.
/me shoulder rolls, landing on her side, eyes closed.
When I awoke, it was all gone,
That mountain and its hellish spawn,
I swear this story is all true,
That none of it was construed.
/me awakens and slowly rises, facing the audience.
So if you go to foreign lands,
Where ne’er doth step the foot of man,
Beware that midnight mountainside,
Where nightmare and this realm collide.
/me approaches the front of the stage, smiling slightly, finishing the story.
/me bows.