You open & read a parchment scroll. On it, in English, is written the following words:
’
“They lumber through the night
With their elephantine tread;
I shudder in affright
As I cower in my bed.
They lift colossal wings
On the high gable roofs
Which tremble to the trample
Of their mastodonic hoofs.”
You hear a strange thumping from the ceiling…
what to do?
Start reading letters to Penthouse.
“THANK you, God!”
In take it back to the library before the due date. They will roll it back up, like rewinding a videotape. (Remember those?)
Is it too early for the Halloween Pterodactyls pulling Jack O’ Lantern’s black, flaming sled of Evil? So Jack can come down the chimney and steal your pleasant dreams and leaves nightmares instead? Because it is that time of year.
Say the following: ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
Edit it for scansion and sense: mastodons didn’t have hooves, and the sixth line is missing a syllable.
Change to: “from the highest gable roofs…”
Lovely poem, by the way.
Dennis
I tell Hobbes to knock it off and get back in bed. Then I grab my bat and helmet, awaiting the inevitable onslaught.
Wonder why it was parchment and not papyrus.
You may as well drop the mic, nobody is beating this one
Ring the bell, shut the Bible, blow out the candle.
Thumping? How often? Twice?
Thump, thump.
Who’s there?
Little old lady.
Little old lady who?
I didn’t know you could yodel.
I keep bear spray and insect spray at my bedside. I’d use both.
I unfurl my fireball scroll.
Be Kind. Rewind. 
Grab the long sword +3 and have the wife grab the ranseur and then head up to the attic and deal with the balrog.
You need to read them out loud for the spell to take effect, so I’d read it, say “man, that’s some gobbledish gobbledygook!” and go back to whatever else I was doing before finding the scroll. No stomping noises.
If there happens to be someone else in the room and they do read it out loud, then I’d call 112 and proceed to get the heck out of Tucson. It’s a rental anyway.
Usually monsters drop loot.
Was it 3 thumps on the ceiling?
Then Tony Orlando & Dawn want you - twice on the pipe means the answer is no <singing smiley>.
Or just scroll up to before the thumping started.