The Delaurier Invitation | CreepCast

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The Doloy A invitation is by Stranger Counts, or his real name Travis Weaver. Not only an author that we love, we've covered his story before. I forget the name of it right now, but it was the one about the band of headhunters who came across the owl woman in the frontier. And during the live show, we covered his story about the Cole Miner's Daughter, Diary of a Cole Miner's Daughter. Both of the stories we've read from him have been incredible. I love his writing style. I love how he does like these historical fiction things. And now I am very proud to announce, which I shouldn't make it clear this is not sponsored. I'm saying this because I like him. Travis has a book out. He has a book out called Stranger Counts from the American Frontier. That is an anthology book that's a collection of different stories, as the title says, from the American Frontier. One of them is the story we covered at the live show, The Diary of a Cole Miner's Daughter. But there's also stories in there like the Journal of a Louisiana planter or the Journal of a lumberjack. So if you like, you know, his stories, you can get a whole slew of them, we'll have it linked in the description. Again, Stranger Counts from the American Frontier, well worth your time. And you can get it on, I was looking at the link, you can get it on Amazon as a paperback or on Kindle as an e-book. So be sure to support him. This story that we're reading today is not in the book, I do know, no, this story is not in the book, but again, everything we've read from him so far is great, so I'm excited to get into it. No, no comment on that, no, no, no, I would have just, I was actually just patiently listening, I was looking up his book online and adding it to my cart. So sorry, dude. Yeah. Well, you should be because this is a show where we're supposed to, I'm fucking, I'm fucking sorry, man. I'm sorry, I'm sorry that you've been, you know, globetrotting around the world, traveling doing your big time stuff, for those who don't know, Hunter's been on vacation lately. He was, I think, if I could, he was in Kentucky trying to get some charges reversed, which did that go well today, you said you were going to meet someone, well, yeah, this is a live show. We'll talk about my bad, I forgot where live we'll talk about afterwards, but yeah, he's been very busy, but you know, the show must go on, right? You know what, man, fuck you, okay, because you know, good and goddamn well, I would never step foot in Kentucky ever again, that if I recall right, that's the phrase you said that led to a lot of the problems you have, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's all I'm gonna say. Yeah, well, hopefully, hopefully the show could keep going on. And if it doesn't, well, guess what, one of you lucky patrons gets to be the new co-host. What does the Delaurier, what does the Delaurier mean, like what does Delaurier mean? It's a name. Okay. So it's just the last name, yeah, it's like a French fancy last name, Delaurier, uh, software product. Delaurier. Delaurier. Yeah. So I imagine if I had to guess 1930s French, uh, this is going to be a New Orleans story. No, it's gone, but now I might be back down on to buy you, might be down, don't miss the well as, huh? Like that. Yeah. Uh, well, very good. This is a one of two parter, pretty excited, always nice dipping into strange accounts. I feel like we've had a lot of, uh, I don't know, weird stories lately. I feel like this is going to ground us back down to reality. I'm pretty excited. Have we had a lot of weird, Ronald McDonald's sitcom, okay. Yeah. Happy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? After happy happy within a month of this, this is going to be Shakespearean. The, uh, the seismic shift that still is happening, the, uh, the kind of the, the, the, the the third tower that was hit, quote unquote, uh, being happy, happy has been catastrophic for this fandom. Never, there was quite so, I, I mean, like I mean, divisive, I guess, I don't know, people, it's, it's, I don't know. The number of like comments I read that were like, uh, you know what? Today, maybe I work in silence or you know what, this taught me to appreciate not listening to a podcast. Yeah. No matter. Yeah. The amount of people that were just like, actually, I figured out that I don't like podcasts through that episode was, uh, was very harrowing to hear. It was, it was my, yeah, someone hit us with the Justin Bieber copypasta. And it was like, I want to thank you, uh, my sister's been in a coma for, uh, two years. And today while listening to happy happy, she woke up to turn it off. That's a Justin Bieber creepypasta creepypasta. No, copy, copypasta, copypasta. Yeah. It's, the joke is like, I want to thank Justin Bieber because my sister got up to turn his music off. So that's, that's the levels we've got to now, um, there was somewhere. I can't remember what it was on Twitter or I saw it in a comment section or something or someone was like, it was in reply to us reading it and they're like, happy, happy. Didn't cause 9/11. They just witnessed it. And it's like, all right. You know, this is the, this is the, this is the dance we're dancing. You know, we, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, it takes two to ten go and we are tangoing. My guess is it was how it's supposed to be, um, you are, in fact, tangoing, you're like that little slide. That was cute, wasn't it? I saw that. I saw that. Uh, uh, it was something a thousand vulture shirt though, that's, that's, that's hot. Oh, yeah, yeah, uh, our boy, Nathan, our box, um, the pinpal man himself, you know, again, after happy, happy you got a refresh, I got my thousand vultures shirt on. I've got, uh, my, uh, I'm reading strange accounts, you know, we're, we're, we're set up for success here and what, no matter what, Hunter, you can't take this away for me. And that's what matters. Even though the entire chat in the Patreon is saying the word sniff and all caps right now doesn't bother me. It's not going to change things. So I, when the one who said I appreciated it, I don't know why you're coming at me as if I'm one of them, uh, I'm looking, I'm looking at the chat right now and it's just sniff and it's just like lips and other things that you have said about me that are going to follow me to the greatest. Lips and assholes. That's that's what that last one has never applied. That's what you're doing. That's the meat you're made out of. That's the baloney that makes you all together. That's awful. Snips and assholes. This is, this is awful. Okay. All right. Snips, lips and assholes. Also, I like that you're, uh, I'm having a good time. I like that your mouth formed, uh, fucking hand is all healed up now, too. And the glad to see that was, uh, this one's just kind of scarred a little bit. Yeah. Like the scab is so deep, it just, it's just, I think it's going to be like that forever now. That's cool. You've been able to hop back on that dirt bike and really give her hell since then or now. Shot off. My buddy texted me. He saw a clip of, uh, you making fun of me, uh, because he's been making fun of me religiously and he called me just to be like, I saw that guy. You do a podcast with making fun of you too. And I just hung up. So I'm getting it everywhere from every angle. No, it was. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. We're going to have a good time. We're going to have a good episode. All right. Are you ready, Hunter? Are you ready? Let's do it. Let's do it. The Dolorea invitation, 1930, Monday, October 20th, 1930, the invitation. The post came in the afternoon, bundle of political, circulars, and subscription flyers. And one curious envelope, the color of bone, no return address. A gold seal pressed in the wax showed two wings spread inside a triangle. It had the sort of symmetry one finds in the blueprints of the new modernists, neither abstract nor realistic, simply exact. Inside was a letter written in a precise, meticulous hand. Paper was heavier than common stock, faintly perfumed, something metallic, like freshly-minute coins or struck brass. To the recipient, Rowan McCally, you are here by invited to document, as generous in witness, the opening of my private estate in the northern forest of the Adredac Mountains of New York. Your stay shall begin Friday morning and conclude Sunday evening. All provisions have been prepared. You'll be housed in confident permitted full access to the grounds, provided you observe the artillery enclosed within the main hall. Yellow's in Alton order, AD. The AD can only be one man. August de Lourier, who was once the sovereign king of the Art Deco world, his façades rose like temples across New York and Chicago. He had designed the Grand Atrium of the Pittsburgh Stock Exchange, the Ecliptic Theater in Chicago, and half the civic buildings between Albany and Montreal. Then he vanished in 1920, leaving behind no statement, no scandal, and no grave. For a decade, he has been a myth, half genius, half lunatic. And now, 10 years to the month since his disappearance, a letter arrives inviting me, of all men, to document his resurrection. I read the letter's thrice before folding it again, torn on its authenticity. I'd have a mind to toss it into the stove and be done with it, but this is the kind of story that wins a man an entire column. Or better yet, the kind that writes his whole career for him. That evening, I took dinner with Mercer and Denton at the press club. They made short work if they're whiskey before I told them what I'd received. Mercer leaned back and tapped his empty glass. "You serious? The old ghost himself is calling you up into the pines?" "That's what he says." "He's dead." Dent said flatly, "Everybody knows that. It's just a debate on how." Some say suicide, some say it's around in Paris, but they all agree he's gone and buried. "By the hill, would you go and wish your time to see this fraud?" "Because I was invited, and because as far as I'm aware, there's no grave better than name Augustus Dollyway. Do I?" "Are you okay there, Denton?" "It sounds like you just had a stroke." "No, no, no, no, I just had to do a doctor saying I had never seen that name." "Oh, God, this dollar really is low." "I've never heard of August Dollywood in my life." Mercer grinned across the table. "You think he's still alive and well? Waiting up there in a marble palace just for you?" "You know what? Maybe you're right. Maybe the man just wants some company from post most osteoconglimnist, or he just wants someone to tell fuck, or he just wants someone to tell the world he's still worth remembering, men like that don't vanish forever. The only real retreat for a time until the applause grows quiet enough to mishearing. He has a legacy to maintain. Fuck! After, oh my God, fucks it. He has a legacy to maintain after all." "It's not that big of a deal. Just ride over it. It doesn't have to be." "It's so frustrating. I don't want you to come apart every time. It's annoying." "I fucking hate it. I'm just up reading too, and I just keep, I just go back. Do it again. You don't have to beat yourself up. It's okay. It's okay, sweetie. We'll get through this." "Didn't wipe the corner of his mouth with a napkin and frowned." "But honestly, Rowan, if he's gone 10 years, what makes you think the letters legitimate could have been posted by anyone? Hell, could have been written by a loom from Pinnhurst." "I shrugged. Then I'll find out. Three days won't kill me." "He muttered." "I remember that for the headline when you go missing." Mercer raised his glass. "Did the fool with a death wish?" "Did the fool with a story?" "That earned the laugh." "We parted near midnight. I walked home through the cold thinking how the city's newest towers gleam like steel fingertips under the moonlight." "Brite, proud, and lifeless." Dalie truly built his own world in the woods. I mean, to see it with my own eyes. So even stuff like that Travis does, where he'll take. We established this guy to be some huge art deco, like Rowan 20s designer, and now he's gone. And then even he looks at the city and describes his bright, proud, and lifeless, as if it's pride is meaningless because of the greats like Dalie A. So it further mythologizes this figure we've only heard spoken of in a phrase. "My dick is getting hard over a horror, great gatsby kind of thing." That's where I think this is going. I think so too, yeah. It's like Jigsaw, but he's wearing like a 20 swing outfit. Are you talking about just the puppet? Yeah, it's just a belly the puppet. Yeah. He's got like a swing dress on. There's like music, like the the mask music that. Friday, October 24th, 1930. On route to the estate, the train pulled from the Albany Depot near noon. The whistle bleeding through fog that hung over the river like smoke from a nine fire. I carried one suitcase, a field coat, a leather notebook, and a brass fountain pen. Everything else stayed behind. A story travels best when the load is small. The journey north carried me through towns that grew smaller and stranger with each stop. Plaster gave way to timber, timber to sheet metal roofs. Near the end of the line, we stopped at Montclair. I stepped down for coffee while the conductor worked the freight. The diner, crouched by the tracks, windows filmed with both the steam and grease of the griddle. The man behind the counter was old and narrow, with the face weathered to match the road outside. Cold one for travel. He said, as I eased my coat over the back of the stool. Supposed to do. Hitting up toward Labyrinth near Serenac. Deloria Manor, you know the road, I'm gonna lose my fucking mind. Why can't it just be like Jacob's Manor? Why the fuck do we have to do this fringe bullshit, the whole god damn time. Deloria Manor, you know the road? Again, anytime you do that, I mention the character doing that. He walks up to him, says the name wrong, and is in this diner. Is it really like, every time we've got to do it with the French, why can't it be Jacob? Honestly, a very real sentence that has probably been said before. He stopped wiping the counter. You mean the stone house up there need the black fork trails? I'd imagine that's the one. You gotta look at the window. Though there's nothing to see but missed the trees. Ain't much up there. Nothing worth seeing anyway. I wouldn't go by with you. Is there something wrong with it? That house hasn't had a guest in years. I figured that's for a good reason. I took them near seven years and seven doesn't cruise. Open seven years and it doesn't cruise to build that place. And now one of those crew members came back the same. That's quite the declaration. Do you have any sources for that claim? I suppose they're just stories. Lumber men and mason see strange things when they sit on a project too long. A few of them happen to pass by and share a tale or two. August has a proclivity for flair. Where man like him encouraging a few tales to find some workmen seems more plausible. He nodded once they're muttered. Maybe. But I get to see a servant of labor come down that path in the last three years. Doesn't give me a good feeling to think on why. Even a centric man needs a few groceries from time to time. Bro, I am so high right now. Just like this dude in the woods and the people to build the house aren't the same anymore. It reminds me of a it's giving me house of the wormbibes right now that SCP I really like so much. It's just the idea of like this guy building this fortress out there like. Super lovecraftian as you said machinations I'm excited. A waitress sat down my coffee. She looked no older than 20 and had a ring hung from a string at her throat. Are you planning on staying up there mister? Just for three days. Her eyes move towards the black surface of the mug that lay in front of me. I keep the lamps lit with oil if I will you. Bell over the door ring. Blogger came in and beat mud from his boots. Thought died. Talked her in the weather and wages and I finished my cuff. See just sentences like that. It reminds me of old like crime cereals I would read and stuff like that. The talk turned to weather and wages and I finished my cuff. It's like it's like an old detective novella. I love it. I think the old man stepped back into the automare. By noon I had transferred to a hired motor car. Driver was a thin fellow with grease on his cuffs and a pipe clamped between his teeth. We rode in silence for miles. The forest deepening around us until the road itself became rough patches of limestone and dirt. Gap his hands tied on the wheel. Strange place far in the state. He held the pipe stem aside and said. Yes sir. Strangers are still for a man to live in alone. Besides for a staff of course. You've been up there. Close enough to see the gate. A few years back. Didn't like the way it looked. The whole force leans towards it. Strange thing. We felt quiet again. The sky turned the color of lead. Rain flirted with the windshield. Sweat, sweet and earthy in the air. I jotted a few quick notes in my lap. Landscape austere. Atmosphere anticipatory. Something ahead. As the miles lengthened I fell to change. Not in the car or the weather but in the depth between the trees. The woods seemed to draw inward. Branch is closing. like a cage thing. When the driver finally breaked, I saw the start of a private lane vanishing at a black spruce ahead. "This is where I'll leave you. The lane goes on for maybe another mile. Just see the gate when you reach the manor." I stepped out, a frost biting through my gloves. "You're not coming up?" "I'd rather not." I paid him. He had the car turned before I'd finished gathering my things from the forest floor. The wheels hissing away on the wet leaves. I watched the taillights fade into the mist until they looked like two dine lanterns. Then I faced the path ahead. The lane was sparse and tight, choked with needles and half swallowed by soil. The air had the crisp taste of iron and lightning. I felt an energy carry in the wind I could not pinpoint. Set my collar, open my notebook, and wrote the first true words of my record. The road to Delaurier Manor begins where the world decides it does not wish to be followed. I walked on. Friday, October 24, 1930, the arrival. The lane narrowed until it felt like a chute, hewn from leaves and stone. Black spruces stood with arms locked. Their tops swayed as if they spoke to one another in a tongue made of a bitter breeze. "It almost feels like this is like--," I said, does this not have an inkling like Dracula or something? I think it gets you first, but now it just feels like straight up Dracula. Yes. It feels like a Dracula like some ancient manor. It feels not like the original Frankenstein story, but like the Frankenstein movie, Castle Frankenstein. Yeah. Kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. The idea of this anticipation for some great-- the way you said, a whore, great Gatsby kind of thing. I'm vibing with it. I'm excited. I walked counting my steps and keeping the time by marking the small pains of my feet. When I broke from the trees, I met a wall of masonry that rose like a frozen cliff, set into it stood a gate. At its forefront stood a simple crest, two wings inside a triangle, same symbol that had sealed my invitation. I thought to myself, "So you do exist, Mr. Dolorey." The stature of the gateway was a ladder for the eye. Its scale was far more than just imposing, ventured into domineering. Along the ironworks in her band, a faint text had been chiseled into the metal. The letters so shallow, they hid until the overhead light struck them. Push, draw the curtain, set the lights, let moths attend. A mask begins where midnight prays, an actor's bow and bend. I thought, "I think that's a bit of a downplay of what the snake says." Set the light, let moths attend, because we're midnight prays, actors bow and bend. It's like, "Huh, interesting meat." That's kind of a bit odd. Yeah, he walks up to it in the gate, says something like, "If it's like at midnight, you're going to get hit with a comedically large hammer. We are going to kill you. This is not a joke. We're going to kill you." He's like, "Hmm, curious, interesting meat, thanks." I'll have to post this one to the wedded sea of deck, put anything together. Some burst reliefs, so I imagine from that draw the curtain, set the light, so it's like at come night time, a mask begins, an actor's bow and bend. There's probably going to be some masquerade cult thing happening by, I guess. Some burst reliefs crown the top of the arch. Their ray is struck in a metal, as if the very sunlight had been casted and hammered there. Appeared through the bars, "Beyond lay a forecourt, pale gravel. The banner held the far side of the clearing in a single great face, clean and severe. The term sprawling felt diminutive to its true nature. And yet, as I watched, I observed no smoke from any chimney nor birds on the parapets. I stood with my suitcase and said aloud, "Alright, grand architect, I have arrived." The gate did not answer, it did, however, stand unlocked. They just say that trespass was only ever a matter of effort and will. They pushed the latch open and said, "Because the silence made me theatrical." "Of course, only at your beckoning, sir." Gates hinges screech their welcome behind me as they close across the courtyard and took stock. The exterior of the estate bore stacked levels and sharp recesses where a traditional house would have offered bays and porches. Corners of every side cut inward and upward then flared out with a rigid grace. This ran in disciplined bans across the entirety of its face while repeating engravings of triangles ran the length of the roofline. There were statues in the courtyard, not of saints or kings, but figures abstracted into clean effigies. They had no faces, only curved and polished mass. One lifted a disc, another held a spear. It seems you've forgotten to give them mouths, my dear friend. There's no one to sing with me. But that wasn't true. The grounds did sing along in its own way. The gravel sounded to him underfoot, and my own pulse kept percussion with it. If the earth is a throne, it is not cushioned, it must certainly be like this, made up entirely of right angles. Ooh. Ooh, I like the way that one felt. Ooh. What are you doing to me? Ooh, it must be me. That goes hard. I like that. The statues are the things that come alive at night that what, maybe I don't know. What? You said that come alive at night. It was just interesting, after you got done like beating your soft putt there for a bit. You have been dry rubbing at this whole time though, you keep being like, "Oh my god, oh." I want to take a moment to think today's sponsor, Cash App. Some of us on this podcast have been scammed, not pointing at any fingers or, you know, really saying who's to blame could be either one of us, but one of us has had that happen to them, allegedly. Thankfully, Cash App can give you peace of mind when it comes to your money. 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And by making the switch, Tushy helps us use up to 80% less toilet paper, and less toilet paper means less clogged toilets and less gross bathroom experiences. The other thing that I really like about Tushy is that it's really easy to use. You can sit, cleanse, and dry, using the built-in air dryer. Tushy bidets go on easy, and 10 minutes or less over your existing toilet, no power tools needed, restore balance to your bathroom, and get the bidet everyone has been talking about. Tushy. Make going to the bathroom the most comfortable thing you do all day. And for a limited time, all listeners get 10% off their first bidet order when you use code "Creepcast!" at checkout. That's 10% off your first bidet order at hellotushy.com with promo code "Creepcast." Thanks Tushy for sponsoring the episode now back to the f*cking episode. At the foot of the main steps, a single sheet of paper had been fixed to the door. The edges curled and feathered. Rain and kissed it off of the ink remained legible. Head and red. A tinerary and house rules for Mr. McCalley. Let us see you in law. I read the whole of it with care. The directives were set in numbered lines with no ornament. Number 1. Enter alone. Number 2. Remain within marked paths. Number 3. Keep to schedule the events. Number 4. Do not attempt to meet staff. Number 5. Do not deviate from times. Enter alone. I suppose we have begun well at least. I continue down to the itinerary. The schedule was written below the rules and our blocks Friday through Sunday. The first event was a cramophone lecture marked for this early evening. Meanwhile, the final item for Sunday bore only one word. Stay. Very well. I'll keep dear demands, August, if only to see what leads. Press the Iron Latch door-yielded. It's interesting that he's just so willing to just be like, "All right, cool, man. I'm down. Everybody ball. I'll give fuck." Well, it's like I told the guy earlier, like if there's anyone who is going to, like, if this guy's out here, fake or not, he's like a journalist, so he wants to see. So whatever this grand encounter is, he gets to be the one to write about it. He gets to be the witness of it. I imagine the stay at the ends because he's going to die or be trapped there in a very hotel California-esque fashion. Also the mentions of the symbols being a triangle with wings. A triangle is super common in a lot of, like, you know, cold imagery and stuff like that. And the upright triangle represents fire, I think, if I remember right, and fire has to do with, like, passion and purpose and drive and justice and things like that. So, or it could just be a triangle, in the sense of, like, the Trinity, you know, the three, the triangle imagery can mean a lot. With wings, it could be explicitly religious, like, Trinity of Angels, Trinity of whatever it could mean. But there's clues as to what may be happening here. The idea of an itinerary is fun. Like as he stays the weekend, there's going to be a series of things he's forced to see. It's getting closer to a saw scenario as we go on, just saying. The entryway. Across the threshold instead of the vestibule hall. The air held a mineral scent, the kind that lingers over a quarry after rain. Floor tiles formed a radiating script that steered my attention to the far wall, where a colossal bronze sunburst presided over the inner door. At the base of the nearest ray, a bronze plate lay etched with another stanza. On cratered courts, the rebel hosts up a rear of their glittering plan. A city-hune from smoking dreams to crown disbelief of man. I let the word settle and took stock of the room again. There were no rugs, no umbrella staying, no scatter of boots. The place held the undisturbed neatness of a stage set before the curtain call. I raised my side above and witnessed grand statues from the rooftop peering down at me through the atrium's glass ceiling. They appeared to stand in judgment of the guest who arrived at the threshold. Off to my left, clock made itself known. I broke my attention away from the faceless giants overhead and fixed on the dial. I listened past that steady metronome and hunted for any other life in the marble runs. After some time, I became clear that there would be no clatter of servants, no drift of talk. My company, it would seem, would remain to be only the machinery of the manor. I must admit, the hush went to work at the base of my skull in the same way worms work a wet patch of sod that moved with an appetite. Oh, tough. I'm not, you know what, actually, I have to stop because you made fun of me for being into the story before. No, I'm just, I mean, you can, you can, you can jack the soft put all you want. I'm just saying. No. See, there you go. There you go. But the way it's phrased, the, it worked in the base of my skull like worms in the patch of sod, moving with an appetite. It's great. It's great alliteration. I like that. I face the sunburst once more, a pedestal waited near the door, a waist-high granite block with a copper plate in front. Upon it rested a gramophone of black finish and muscular lines, it's horn flared like a night-blooming flower. The crane clay at the side, a single record rested on the plate. Beside that, a leaflet lay pinned beneath a small silver weight shaped as a wink. I laid my suitcase by the wall and read the notice, a simple neat line. Orientation to commence at five o'clock, stand under the eyes of this atrium and play this record, attend the welcoming. My watch read 456. This was to be theater, I would not miss my cue. I worked warmth back into my fingers and paced the best to be able to test the echo of my bootfalls, of which there were many. It each returned with the lag, as if the room's corners ate a fraction of each step. Then my companion rang, its echo outdid my boots. Five had arrived. Steped onto the bronze crescent before the gramophone, the horn waded, flower open, black mouth turned to the room, I wound the handle and lowered the needle. The gramophone answered with a deep, belt-driven purr, a hairline hiss rose from the record, and a man's measured tinner filled the atrium, clipped and punctual, as if each word had been drawn with a gold ruler. "Welcome, Mr. Rowan. I trust your troops served you well. You stand in the vestibule of the Deleuil State, my home, the threshold will function for your comfort, your chamber set, your subarranged your route marked, you will not need to summon anyone. Those who serve will move where they belong, it will not intrude, and kind, you're not a true to hold them. I mean, to give you a story, fit for print, so others may bear witness to my creation. In order for that to happen, I was asked you to attend to what is before you and not what is behind you, who wished to look over your shoulder times, as you resisted temptation. House and prefer your attention for it. As do I. In the meantime, take a moment to look around and enjoy the artistry of my work. I will walk you through this palestotic here, you will see that this vestibule is laid in bands of travertine and Belgian black altering to train the eye forward, stand upon the inner crescent, feel the storm settle in your stance. I walked to the inner circle and allowed the room's presence to close in, there was a strange weight to the air, like a charge in a shock. No, the bronze sun burst above the inner door, a tirade and not all of it, they are vectors, they tell you where to walk, how to hold your frame, how to breathe, if you lose your balance at any point you stay, return to a sun burst and take its structure from its mind. Should that feel you, look upon the baseboards, you'll find narrowed in layers of dark stone, these are also dark rocks, but the room commands you, who resist nothing from it. The horn trimmered a little with the deeper vows, we could feel it through my shoes. Each step is pretty cool. Each step is, each step is the minute in no of order, the minute, the minute each step is an intense minute window, each step is a dementor, each step is taken from an entry in the Harry Potter series, this is the deadly hollows my friend, he's like, what? Demenendo of order, Dementendo, Dementendo, Dementendo, Dementendo, it's all right, we see the word, we get it, Dement, Dement, Dementia, I raised my focus, there were indeed three tears that met me, the echoes of the recording climbed into triplicate and gathered at the feet of the figures on the roof. I studied their empty visages while the record gave off its warm crackle, it almost felt wrong when the architect's voice returned. You'll have no doubt mod those statues above you, but you must understand that they are not mere men, their ideas give them a crown, do not describe the faces of face and weakens and idea. Fire it up, Lord help your fucking, your fingers and your thumbs man, roll that putt around in your hand, must be exhausting, you can, you can, you can alliterate, you can talk about me and join a story without it being some masturbatory, you didn't then then change the sound you make because literally every time I'll be like, I'll say a face gives, like what was the line that said, a face, weakens an idea and I literally just hear, it's not the noise I made, it's on recording, people can hear that it's not the noise I made. This is a horror story podcast, can a man enjoy a horror story, okay, this is what I mean, you put me through happy api, your idea, and you put me through, just, even through good stories like the sitcom one, where you are. are just hammering me about the lips and the dirt bike. And then, and then in this one, it's a perfect story. I'm wearing my thousand vulture shirt, everything's going well. And you just have to find a way to bully me and to wedge yourself in. For some reason, everyone I surround myself with in life bullies me. And I don't know why I do that to myself. Everyone, I keep close is rude to me. Why do I do that? I will say, I mean, like, you know, I feel yeah, it is very good writing. But I will say you are, hey, you got two different colors of play dough and you're rolling around your hand. You can at least say that. Gross. I felt as though more faces joined the congregation above the glass, since a vertigo set over me at the mere scale. Like I'm like in a fucking like video game. Does this feel like a video game or something? Yeah. It feels very ex-positioning in a way that like it's telling you the world and the map yeah, like your objective like where to go and stuff like that. When I'm thinking to the house, it reminds me of a in black ops four zombies. There was a map called Dead of Night that was about like zombies in this giant old grand like Great Gatsby estate. It said like this curse come upon it. So everything's like dimensioned and changed. So I'm kind of thinking of that. Some of the seems very clean. It feel it's almost like a museum, but you're the only one in it. There's something I was trying to think there's a story. I remember I can't remember if it was a video game or what, but there was some story. I remember about a guy being in a large house and it was similar to this where he was getting directions of what to do. And then at the end it turned out as some abandoned rundown building, but the illusion of it made him see it as a new house. I can't remember what story that was, but I don't think that'll be the twist here, but just giving me reminiscent of it making you think about it. Yeah, I took up my suitcase and put a foot on the first tile beyond the crescent. My record said, curiously, and tied with my steps. It will feel long. That's acceptable. Now's the proofs of that feeling. Hot draft moved across my ankles. Final ripple, almost like a chuckle laid beneath the static in a release. The machine fell still. I went on as directed 60 feet from the atrium's heart brought me to the stair. Bronze rail bit the palm with a friction as I climbed somewhere at my back. A footfall followed me from the bottom of the staircase. I did not turn to see what it made it. Oh, that's so cool. It's like there's butlers and like things taking care of him every step of the way, but he's not supposed to see him. It's like he's in a giant. What do you call those clocks where like there's a little wooden statues that come out on tracks and do stuff, you know, a cuckoo clock. Yeah, hour comes out. What? A cuckoo clock? Yeah, I can't like a cuckoo clock. There's like little wooden guys. It's like the whole mansion is one of those. Like as things need to be done, they come out, do their steps, and then go back into hiding. And he's not supposed to look for them. Friday, October 24th, 1930, the dining room and bathhouse. The quarter to the dining room ran close and spare. At the end of its run, it opened all at once into a broad chamber, a lacquer table stood there, linen bare of crumbs, placed set for one. I checked my watch. On the dot of six, the service door eased inwards somewhere out of sight. I turned toward the sound and waited. No figure came. And I faced the table again, steam braided up from a covered dish that had not been there in instant earlier. I raised the lid. Inside lay trout, lost with butter and salt. Beside it, heal a fresh bread and a cup of coffee that carried the same fragrance of the freight station brew. I raised my chin and let the mystery server have their praise. This looks exceptional. Thank you, my friend. No reply came. Only the chandelier gave a faint sway if something had skimmed across it on its way out. I don't like that. I'm excuse me. What do you mean the chandelier's swayed? He's like 80-foot tall giant people serving him trout behind the scenes. He is remarkably cool with all this. Food appears at the table in like impossibly fast time. And he's like, thank you, my friend. My extra-dimensional representation in the darkness. That's awesome. And then just like, he looks out the window. He's like an 80-foot tall giant like tearing down trees. He's like, your trout is exceptional. Also, I also got a drawing for you. Sorry, that's why I've been a little preoccupied. You don't have to see. Here's the problem with streaming to the Patreon. You feel like you need to entertain them by showing out by doing these little drawings. It's going to be a drawing of me and it's going to be something absurd. What is it just going to be for us? We don't get to show this to them, but I felt inclined. This is how this is me. You're ready to send it? Almost. Like two seconds. It's going to be you. It's going to pause the story. It's going to be you reading this story. Here we go. That's probably okay enough. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but you might appreciate it for what it is. You get it? Every time you stop, I hope you realize this is what I see. It doesn't help too that there's the naked condom picture. Like two post about that. I'm speechless. I thought you'd like it. I don't know. You thought that I'd like this? Can you crop it? Can you crop that bottom half out so I can show the audience part of what you've done? He named the file putting around. I was going to see if you saw that. He named the file Pudner. I'm not even playing with you that guys watch this right now. I can't show this to you. It's it is exactly what you think it's me. It's over a table. It's it's me. It's over a table. You're not bugging. You guys are kind of bent. I know you're not like I've got one hand on the table. My other hand. No early days on TikTok. And I saw TikTok start. And it was just a pair of lips with a little bit of hair on top of them. And I knew it was about me. And sure enough, I listened to it. It was about me. That's the level of damage you've done to my reputation to my character. Every time I draw you the more though. Now I feel like you become more more caveman like about me. I'm kind of out of my giant liberate. I'm becoming more caveman. Okay. Here's a censored version for you guys. You have no idea how bad I want to animate the original drawing. I just do oh my god. That is a little rational that it's so good. This isn't funny anymore. Do you know, do you know, because the way the me can in cartoons work, is they're like vaguely based around some controversy a character's ad or like something they've done in real life that's getting joked about. So everyone's going to see that it be like is a win-to-goon like some like perfect like once. Yeah, hold on. Kayla, can you entertain chat for like three minutes while Kayla needs help with the baby? I think for a second. Sure. Okay, one second. Talk to them. That was my kid. I'd fucking punted like a nerf football. If my woman tried interrupting my work, oh my god, don't get me started. I would freak the fuck out. I'd say hey, I've been brought on the table. That's what I'd say. All right, I'm back. I ate. Each bite tasted as if it had been made a minute ago and no earlier. This taste was immaculate. Seasoning knew its place. The chair furthest from me creaked once, as if a knee set against it in anticipation. I kept to my place and finished, folded the napkin, the plates set bare. I turned toward the service corners, only a closed door met me. I weighed whether to wash the dish myself. When I faced the table again, the plate had vanished. "You're a clever whoever you are!" I said, let out a curt laugh. I waited for a retreating tread. There was none. Only the sound of wood settling in a pipe, carding its contents off through the walls. I told my notebook that only an exceptional staff could perform to the minute like this. Then I told my mind they must use a trick of doors and serving apertures to keep from being seen. Most of all, I told my thoughts to keep close to center and not to let fear take me. I'd been provided an exact itinerary for a reason. I was in an orchestral play requiring precise timing. The actors clearly do not want to be seen and spoil the production. I would not rob them of that. The next queues sent me to the bathhouse. It's even creepier. I stood and left the dining room. Even creepier, just being like, "You've come to terms with being like, 'Oh, this is going to be a weird performance art thing,' you know, that it's basically happening here and I'm not going to be, you know, I'm not going to spoil it." I just even the idea of going to the bathhouse and people are definitely going to be watching you. At what point do you say that this is just a bit invasive or, you know what I mean? At what point it does the illusion of this being curious break and you're like, "Actually, this is very fucking weird because I feel like that would have happened to me already. I would have long gone." The guy said the Shane DeLier moved as if something had touched it and he was just like, "Oh, that's kind of weird." I just can't get away with it so I think it takes a lot to break this guy. I mean, it's also like, he may assume that this is some famous guy with sensibility so he wouldn't like pray on him while he's naked, but there are people around the corner. I do agree he's not taking it for as creepy as he should. I followed the marked path that led to the Eastern Wink. What opened the head earned its own line in my future article. A covered way it took me in, glass panes formed a long throat of light, a kaleidoscope of light sun moving over the floor, somewhere in the machinery of the place a fan turned on. It felt a warm air draw across my skin as if the house blew a sweet breath upon me. At the end of the walkway, stood the baths. The room presented itself as a gallery of chrome. Towels lay rolled in pairs with their edges aligned. Soaps scored with the letters A and D lay on the dish by the trap. The tub ran the length of the room like a trough in a temple. It bulged from the water's surface with a white thread of paper. I touched the surface with a finger and pulled back at once. Another man judged the heat for me, and his scale ran high, the water was near scorching to my skin. Alright old man, you mean for me to be comfortable and I must say food was quite remarkable, but you severely missed just the heat a man's body can take. This water is near boiling. The room echoed my remark two beats late, as if a second bather had repeated them from the far end of the tub. I surveyed the shining round of the tub and set my coat on the bench. It took me some time, but I cleaned myself proper. I dried myself with the towel that had been set for me. The mirror above the counters showed a man's face resembling my own through the steam. But that man looked further aged and tired than I'd last seen. I tested my reflection and raised a brow. The image matched, which settled the matter, it confirmed the tired looking man was indeed me. At the edge of the silver back end of the glass land inscription, the conqueror that eats all pageants that paid the house a courteous visit. Friday, October 24th, 1930, the bed chambers. When I stepped back into the covered way, the light had shifted toward late evening. The house grew larger in the half-dark. It's reached extended by the black of his able-ins. A trace of machine oil came through the vents from the generator below. The itinerary called for an early retirement, and I'd argue with that. The dig had settled on me like a commanding hand to the back of the neck. A door marked quarters stood at the far end of the passageway. Beyond it ran a wing of rooms. My name was printed on a small card near the frame of one of the doors. When I pressed my hand to the knob, the mechanism clicked once with a dry, satisfied sound. The hinges swung inward without complaint. I found the bed chamber, prepared with the same meticulous precision that marked every room before it. The coverlet drawn flat as a sheet of paper. Two glasses on the nightstand filled to identical measure, one of water, one of milk. I smiled at the childish, I smiled at the childish touch and spoke aloud. You have a keen sense of pho-hospitality, old building. A wardrobe door stood open, within a hungar robe that was of exquisite quality. Heavy weave, red with a faint gray and black gleam along the lapels. I ran a handle along the sleeve, warm and velvet. I left the bedroom door open behind me. I was not keen to seal myself into any room in this place, yet the latch drew itself shut with a clean, polite click. I tried the handle. No give. Well, so much for free will. All right. Well, now I'm on board with you. He's way too chill with this. I mean, doing it wrong. I'm sure there's something where it's just like, you know, I mean, like how many warning signs has he had since then? I mean, he is completely driven by curiosity. But at what point, I mean, I'm just saying like, in terms of me, like, fight or flight, whatever, I would, I feel like I would have freaked out a long time ago. Yeah. I mean, now you're at the point where it's like, I am, I'm in someone's house, and there's like ghost people in the walls, and I'm now trapped in a bedroom. And his response is, well, so much for free will, it's like, yeah, dude, I guess so. I set an ear to the panel, nothing. I tried the knob again with more force, still nothing. I wanted to better look at my capter. I struck a match and lit the bedside lamp, flame sparked. It was enough to show that the lock on the door was a simple contraption, nothing more than a bolt worked from the outside. A trick of the staff, I reasoned. They mean to keep me from wandering the halls at night and discovering their little machinations. I decided to get comfortable for the night, to pour the water into the washball, stripped down into the dressing gown, and set to make in my notes. The power source blows and a steady hum through the floorboards, deep, rolling draw and release like a beast at rest. I precisely nine, the hum changed pitch. I lifted my head and listened. The sound grew taught, as if the power were being choked away. The corridor light outside the chambers went dark. I crossed to the window and raised the blind. More lights died. Each going in perfect order across the estate. From my window, I could trace the progress and rows, moving east to west. Each room blackened out as if some unseen crew moved wing to wing, extinguishing lamps by a rule of measure who wanted you down, house. Set to the glass, and a single shadow crossed any window pane. When the last glow faded from the clestery over the service wing, the generator gave one last grown and east. The gravel core below turned to a blank field, no moon, no star, the manor held like a husk of a colossal shell. I set my palm to the glass. For a moment, I thought I saw a flicker along the far wing, a movement behind one of the blackened panes, but when I leaned closer, it proved only my reflection. Checked my watch, 930. My last minute's awake, I wrote, "Lights extinguished in perfect sequence, no staff seen, possible mechanical control, it's how sleeps with its guests." Man, this is so cool. I thought I saw a flicker, he sees his flicker on the far wing. Similar to where earlier, he saw his reflection in the mirror and thought it was an older man, but it proved to be himself. Maybe once you're stuck in the house, it's like a timed thing, right? That is him at a different point, later on, aged, older, forever trapped in the house. Yeah. Maybe the hotel California joke earlier, but it may actually be the hotel California. You can check in anytime you like. Or again, we bring it up nearly every story, but I am getting a little bit with the lines of the motor underneath sounding like a beast, a little bit of final prayer vibes, just a touch, you know? Maybe there is. Maybe this is some lovecraft entity, maybe the house is alive. Maybe it's just Monster House. You know? Yeah. I'm happy to have a Monster House. I'm down for Monster House. I love Monster House. Movie's awesome. Saturday, October 25th, 1930. The North LaGia. Don came with the click of the latch, door stood free. I dressed, packed the notebook, set my mind to the day's work. I stepped into the corridor, grahamophone waited on a rolling cart, a typed card set under a silver clip. This play upon waking. All right. Let's hear it. A while in the handle and lowered the needle, belt took hold the same measure tenor from orientation carried down the hall. "Follow that, follow the diagonal marker, set in the base towards to your next stop. Do not strain. When the lines meet, you will be where I need you to be." I lowered my focus. Darkin lays Randallink to the scourting, converging like rivers towards a single point. I set the card in motion along their guidance, nodded to no one, and walked with my eyes set on the stones. "Live to ahead," the record carried. "You are capable of dividing your tension, but your direction will be instructed by the manner. The line under your feet has been given to anyone who's capable of listening." "I suppose I could use that forgiveness. You are the rest of our species." The record answered, as if he had heard me through the horn. "Haw?" "Haw, that's kind of weird. Let's see what the subreddit has to say about this one." "Okay, hold on a second." "Did you just have me talk?" "Guys, this is kind of weird." "Any time one of the secret butler people is behind him. He's like, 'It's right behind me,' isn't it?" "Cordor widened into the North Lachia, long gallery of columns and windows that set the grounds in a frame. The card cannot go farther." The second gram of foam waited on a marble plinth by the first column in the gallery. I crossed to it and set its needle down. "Do you see it?" The record asked me. "Stand at the seam where the floor pattern meets. From there turn toward the panel with a small brass latch." I found the seam. Before show two mosaics, pressed edge to edge, each pulling the eye in contrary directions until they resolved to a single band, brass latch waited in the wall at chest height. Flip the mechanism. A concealed panel slid back to show a shallow bay filled with bake light levers. Warm air fluttered the fine dust within. "A switch board." A record in tone. A link closer. The so-called "board" was not merely wires and screws. Copper paths ran in narrow veins that bent and looped with a purpose I could not parse. Curved cables and released with tiny crossings then sudden angles that meant imparted like fish had aware. Between the traces, tiny marks repeated and grew. Ramer of hooks and circles, stokes, crossed angles not used in any alphabet I knew. Passed nodded at black studs and unwound to a comb of steel teeth that vanished into the wall. The intricacy of this system of circuits superseded any article I had ever read on the matter. The schematics very nearly came across as drawings rather than advanced engineering. I narrowed my focus and tried to follow a single strand from stud to tooth. It led me into a wire figure that was neither star nor wheel, some union of both. The longer I looked, more it felt as if something looked back at me through the copper. "Do you employ me to speak for you? Or do you personally sculpt this house flipping its switches, Mr. Deloya?" I asked the room. Gallery answered with a single click somewhere above, soft thrum, heaved, strained from the walls. The glass beads on the switchboard winked at me with a red light. Ramer phone continued. The shadow shifted at the end of the loggia and a lift door parted of its own accord. The cart waited with its gate open, empty as a mouth that expected food. Its cage lights flickered in a rhythm, but matched the lights of the board. "I set the stairs." Delorie A's recorded tin or repeated. "Don't live just for the others." The gate slid shut again without a hand, the car sank. I found the stairs and began to descend. At the first landing, I paused. A handrail ran along the wall. When I set my skin upon it, the metal had a trace of heat as if a palm had just left it. "So I'm working up here with me. I would like if you showed yourself." Somewhere within the wall, long muscle of piping gave a satisfied groan. "Is it man?" Gosh, so that description of the wires being bent into shapes that he had not in the alphabet he knows of. That almost reminds me of that hole again going to the triangles outside and possibly demonic or spiritual imagery. That almost sounds to me like runes or like the coppers arranged in. You remember, I think I've talked on this podcast before. The idea that technology and wires and stuff is basically sigils and electricity and things like that comfort was calling upon. Yeah, like circuit boards are basically like runic marks to call upon extra-dimensional demons or entities and stuff like that. So the description of the walls and the house speaking to him almost implies that that's how this place is ran. It's like tapped into the other side of the veil. The whole house itself is like an altar almost. Saturday, October 25th, 1930, grounds. A left by the northern gallery and stepped into the grounds, a gramophone waited in a weather hood, a bird house with a black tulip for a beak. A wound the crank, belt steadyed. The even tenor came bright and sure. "It's in the skin of my creation. Paws, ducks, gutters, valves, observe the reflecting pool on the channel that feeds it. We'll find a waste here, only chance it." I took the flag to walk along the basin. The pool carried the manor on its face and broke only when it gusts past against it like a patient knife. Beneath the rim, small slots shrink the overflow at each pass of a wave. The hooded horn addressed me again from its post. "After all, hydrology is disciplined. Old Rome did not conquer with sword alone. I was too as much as spears." The voice cracked and died. At the far end, second hooded gramophones stood beside a square pump house of poured walls and a steel door. The record resumed when I wound the next handle. "You are the pump. Beneath you the veins take rain, melt in groundwater and move across this state. Where you are here is perfectly balanced through a put. What do you pay then or do you drink? All purified through the boughs of this house." I opened the pump house stores and surveyed the room. The interior contained multitudes of gauges, blinking with endless needles, pipes ran their way down into the ground. I stepped out to look beneath the foundation, where a stone culvert ought to spill. The streambed was dry. White pebbles lined the channel like a rinse throat left without water. Yet the path gutters at my feet, clicked with a scatter of drops. "Tick, tick, tick." "Where do you steal this water from?" I asked the soil. The gravel offer no answer beyond a small complaint under my foot. "Now, stand in the next mock, stone. Scotch a cold to wait." I stepped forward. The path carried beyond the eastern winged, down a flagstone staircase and across a shallow terrace where warmth rose again from unseen vents. The woods ringed the property at a respectful distance. I followed the markers set into the paving until I reached a brass plaque that read simply, "Cord of Figures." Another gramophone waited beneath an overhang. "Here the house reveals what it dreams of when it sleeps. Each shape was drawn for the image that kept me awake the longest." I walked the court while he spoke. In the center of 12 statues, each caught between poise and torment. Their bodies were built of brass, onyxed, some darker alloy that refused to gleam even under the noon light. Each one caught in an attitude of movement, yet none appeared to move in the same direction nor toward the same end. Some reached skyward with stretch limbs, others bent as if burned and blind and visible weight. Their faces were featureless mass drawn in long, perfect planes. The light touched their edges like a wound, cauterized in gold. They rose at least twice the height of any man known in the world. The Laurier's voice continued. "When I first saw them in my mind, they were flame, not burning, but right with knowledge. I've tried to shape that light here in hopes they may share some grand insights with those who view them." When swept through the court and gave the statues a faint grove, the metal shifting on its base took a step nearer to one and saw the beneath the polish of its chest. The seams seemed to ripple as if something moved under the skin of the metal, trying to make room for air. "I've stood here many evening. The longer one looks, the more certain one becomes that they have not seized their work. "It is amusing, you know, that we call them scopes just because they do not move. But I counted that thought, perhaps the only way for a proper invitation." And what invitation's that? Sound answered, not from the horn but from the court itself, a faint creek settling bronze, brush of grit where nothing had stepped. When I turned, one of the figures had shifted. Only a fraction, chin tipped lower toward the paving and the light bit differently across its cheek. Told myself it was heat, with a play of shadow. Even so, when I left I kept my back open. to the court of statutes and to not look again, I reached the safety of the terrace. He has put together these like the statues based on something he said he'd seen. So, you know, creature spirits or whatever. And now he's given them life. And they're probably what's given him the power to create this place. And I guarantee the reason that he's only speaking through the the gramophone is because he's become a part of them. Like he's effectively been dragged down to the creatures he created. I was gonna say it seems like it seems like a man talking from the beyond or whatever. It's kind of interesting because it sounds like almost like a ghost like having like a new groundskeeper or something. It's like that intimate and like I don't know. It's very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Man, the idea of the statues, he's like when I saw them, they're beautiful and I've tried to recreate them and probably by recreating them is what did the like the ritual quote unquote that gave these things life. And they're probably what led to this place being a abandoned, all the captive workers. It's why at the end it says stay, I imagine. He's never going to leave. I just noticed by the way, it took me this long, but he posted this in our slash creep cast, which is pretty cool. That's pretty sick. The second night's rest. The afternoons rounds ended at the gallery door where a fresh card waited at the same tidy hand as the others. Supper at 7. It took the corridor that kept the days last slide and reached the dining room. A lacquer table waited. Shandeliers kept their bulbs and white bowls of glass. The table cloth lay stretched tight enough that it would sing if a coin ran across it. Vapor rose from a covered plate at the head of the table. I raised the lid. Prime rib, slice thick and red, spoon of potatoes, dark gravy with a harbour sheen, cup of tea stood steady beside it. I tried once more to catch the staff at work. "Friend?" I said, pitching my voice to the corners. "Let me thank you in person." You prepared another outstanding meal. Timber, he used under a draft and offered nothing else back. I ate an easy pace. The dish held the same impossible freshness as if the stove lived inside the table. When I lifted the napkin, a printed slip slid free. Retired eight. I checked the watch. My bed chambers were already calling. I heated the note and returned to the corners that bore my name. The chamber admitted me. This time the door did not wait before closing behind my back. The latch drew shut almost at once after I crossed the threshold. I tried the knob, knowing I would not like the result. I was expected no purchase. "Very well. We ought to repeat the same experiment for a second night." I lit the lamp and set my notebook on the desk. I began riding about the day I had just experienced. The generator's lament once more spoke through the floorboards as the lights around the manor began fading. The machine gave the steady animal murmur of a draft horse in harness. Then the pattern changed. A soft roll came along the hall, the faint scrape of a cart. It paused outside my door and came to a perfect rest. A heartbeat later, a gramophone woke with the belt's small bite and the horn spoke. It was not with words but with a noise at a no business in a human corridor. While Rose was the rehearsal of noises that a man does not care to name. Yet I must. Voices gathered huddle together. Not speaking any tongue I knew. Children at a school yard heard through a long pipe, a woman laughing until the sound broke, a man counting, but the numbers arrived out of order and then ran backward. Each noise overlapping yet distinct. A massive individual's clined for their own attention. "I set my forearm to the panel as if to brace the door." "Enough!" I said meant it. "You have made your point." A horn replied by pulling everything down at once. Pulse sank as if the floor dropped away. Into the fall came a choir without words, mouth soap and throat's desert dry. The chorus of mouth sounds rose to the wet clack of lips trying on words that did not fit. A scrape crossed the door, frantic and searching, as though the horn had grown a probe tip and a nail that sought an audience with me. "Enough! By all that is holy I shed enough!" Static swelled, chair creaked on the other side, needle skated and silence cut clean. The hall returned to old stone. After some minutes I steadied my thinking. I sat notes in order, trimmed the lamp and lay a top cover lay with my boots on. I kept the lock inside. The earth outside pressed its face to the pain. Somewhere a pipe clicked as it cooled, heard only the soft grind of the earth under the foundations. The house it settled, I did not. Sleep eventually came for me despite my protest. Gosh, man, so sick. There's so many different elements. It kind of sounds like the part of, you know, it's like when fucking Dracula asked the guy to come in and like now he's being seduced by vampires and stuff. And it also has like remnants of like Poe of like House of Usher or something like that. There's so many different kinds of so many different flavors that I'm, you know, getting with the story. So that almost sounds like punishment. Like he did something wrong. So now it's threatening him with like the voices of all those who have trapped or letting him hear hell or something like that. And he's like enough, you've made your point clear. Did he do anything wrong or anything to warrant that? I think he's just staying, but also to be fair, he's done he's bending the rules a bit. He keeps like, he keeps talking to the staff. He's done other things like he hasn't looked back, but I do think also just by staying there longer, longer, he's going to be more subjected to whatever's looking inside. Yeah, I think maybe it's kind of like he's, he's getting close. So now it's coming to him and it's letting him hear sounds of people, maybe all the people at owns or spirits of possesses. And then it said, I love that description. A course of mouth sounds rose to a wet clack of lips, trying on words that did not fit. It sounds almost like a skin walker esque, like, you know, things trying to sound human. So it's like there, like if the sound before is the spirits of people that are in tune there, then that's the sound of the statues, right? The greater the demons or the things that make us come to them. I don't know if it's necessary skin walkers as much as I'm reading is like, almost speaking in tongues or like not. Well, by skin walker, I met the tone people typically attribute to skin walkers. Right. Okay. So like the like that kind of speak that yeah, not literally skin walkers, just the sound. Yeah. That kind of thing. Like it's things trying to speak without really understanding what speaking is. Yeah. Like I have a husk of a man exactly God help me exactly kind of like someone imitating. Oh, yeah, exactly a husk of a man of like, I think that they keep reading as like dead entities. It seems like, I mean, like, I don't know if you feel the same way, but it seems like he's going to be added to the staff at the end. He's being in doctorate to all of their practices to where when the time comes, he's going to be like a groundskeeper as well. There's like a helper. Yeah. Yeah. He's going to be consumed by this thing, this place. Yeah, for sure. Gosh, man, this story so good. All right. Part two. Part two. Sunday, October 26th, 1930, the living manor. Oh, let's go baby. Let's go baby. All right. I woke to a sound I had not heard since Friday, the common music of a lived in home. Water ran in the pipes, a cartwheel murmured down a corridor, somewhere a kettle sang. L.A. still and listened. A hush of careful staging lifted and with it, the dream of a museum kept by ghost finally parted. I readied for the day and stepped through the threshold. The estate did indeed bear life within it. Outside a window showed two gardeners crossing the far terrace with rakes slung along their backs, boots printing the gravels still wet from night air. Inside, a porter passed through the hall with a falter plan in. Good morning, sir. Said a steward at my elbow. His coat was dark and well brushed. Breakfast is being prepared for you. I fought a laugh. Well, aren't you a welcome sight? He gave the smallest bell. I pleased to hear that, sir. Please come this way. As we walked, he kept pace beside me. It steps a half step out of rhythm as if learning to get long rehearsed in theory and never performed. How? How? See stuff like that. Little things like that give the implication like maybe these aren't people. Maybe there's things just trying to be people, but it's like the way he says it, long rehearsed but never performed. Tells everything. It's been an empty house. They've been expecting company, but they've never had a walk before, but now they do. Ah, man. Forgiven and puttin' a question, where were you all yesterday? The parents, sir. For what? For today, sir. I was beginning to think the house was empty. I said after your time. I regret to say your inkling was wrong, sir. We were here listening to you. Listening? He cast a look toward the stairwell. Of course, sir. You spoke to us. What do you mean? When one speaks, one is heard. You were never alone. We valued your kind remarks. It cannot wait for you to join us this evening. And here I thought I was just speaking empty halls. Why if I may ask a pure now? You're not before. Pause to the landing. It was desired. By whom? By those who serve, we have not been seen for a long time. We expressed our desire to attend you in person. We found great enjoyment in hearing the sounds of a guest. And the master approved of this deviation. Trace of Light reached his eyes like the flame of a fever. He was persuaded, sir. Grant works are often amended by necessity and passions. It would help that you saw this out first. Oh, man. Okay. So because he called out a creepy buster and a little creepy fuck walking around. Well, yeah, he's like a demon or like some scary little fucking know whatever. He just mentioned like a known with a full fucking like tent pitch right there. He's just like, maybe you've called to us and we answered, like, you look like a little tripod. Thank you, sir. Why are you a foot and a half tall? It's like, I'm actually the tallest of my species. So because he called out like with the compliments about the food and stuff like that, the house answered, but he wasn't supposed to do that. And with the record playing the night before, I feel like it's a bad thing that he sees everyone now, right? It has to be. It's like, okay, you want to see what's behind the veil. Here you go. Now you can never leave. Yeah. This is this is again, I'll last time I'll say it. This is the plot of the song by the Eagles Hotel California. And that's okay. It's a good song like the idea of a mysterious manor you check into with spirits that you are trapped there. I like that. But this is hotel California, which is good. I like, I like both of those things. So check your discord. Really? This is do what? Check your discord. He's sending the image of me been over the table like at least two dozen times. As as a friend, as a friend and a business partner, I'm asking that this picture does not see the light. Is not is not because if anyone sees a meat canyon drawing of me doing that, it'll immediately become what did he do? And the answer is nothing besides this podcast, which might have been a mistake, but here we are. Just in the middle of me, like just going on about how beautiful this is and the ride in style and stuff, you're just sending me a drawing. You did this. You realize how weird of a relationship this is? You could just draw me doing that. And then no one else has an interaction with people. You can do it to me if you want. That's such as what you can do to me. If you want, I can't do that. Sure you can't do that. I can't actually I was going to do something a bit about and have a pen around me. No, I can't I have no ability to draw. I let the mystery go. Coffee floated up the stairs and with it, the light salt broiled fish and sweet tank fresh fruit. He guided me to the dining room. The vases along the side board held fresh plants and stems. Their leaves still wet. Please, Stuart said, drawing a chair. And if you'd like, your morning paper. He set a folded broad sheet by my cup. The mast had us from Albany and bore yesterday's date. It's on article from Denton, advertised on the front page. A woman in gray sat down a dish in front of me. "If you require another egg," she said, "ring want." Her vows were neat and her attention was fixed on the rim of the plate. I thanked her she bowed him with. I ate like a man found exonerated on all charges. This man makes for some strange bedfellows. I said, the mouthful of sugar fruit. Sir? That wasn't meant to be an insult. You keep good order. That is the intention. Will the master join us at any point today? They get to meet the man who invited me. He opened a shirt pocket and reached inside. An embossed cream card lay within. A letter is raised and sober black. He offered it to me. "You'll invitation, sir." It read, "This evening in the great salon at 8 o'clock. The torrential precession will be presented. Your tins is no longer requested as a mere journalist. There's a profit in it of this estate. Maybe I touched the car. I turned the car." She was like, "You're no longer work for anyone. You live here now." It's pretty much what that is. It's like, you're stuck here forever. So good luck. Maybe it's dimensional, right? He slept there that night. He heard the things and now he's in the other plane where the workers are. This is what it always looks like here. But to the new guests, those who arrive from our world, they're invisible. That's just happening around them. Also, his initials being A.D. is like, you know, Anodomini, year of our Lord after death, after death. Yeah. So it kind of goes back to that idea that maybe he is in a not really, not to say that Delorie is time or mortal or something like that, but it gives the idea that he is all encompassing, right? Yeah. I turned the car and felt the bite of the letters against my skin. At last, a point toward which all this is marched. As you say, sir, will there be many in attendance? All who serve? He answered, which I took to mean the entire staff. And the house shall attend, too. I said, having just ghost of a smile touches mouth. The house is always present. I bet it is. He stepped back and let two porters pass with a folded carpet between them, both sharing its weight. Behind them came a boy with the box of bulbs wrapped in paper and tidal string. Took the sights in and felt ease move through me, which is a sense of safety in the company of others. Today, October 26th, 1930, a library and workroom. When I finished eating, my plate was taken without flourish. Another cup of coffee was prepared for me at my right hand. Steward waited until I had emptied my second glass before asking, "Would you care to walk the room, sir?" All of my staff found out entry. I suppose I would. I stirred for my seat. That sounds like a wonderful gift. We set out on our tour. A library opened like a great chamber car from Amber. Bring glass lamps cast their calm over the reading tables. Shelves rose from floor to ceiling, each tier numbered, gilded characters caught the light. The ladder waited among them. Reels chalked in place. Between the shelves hung frame blueprints of bridges, arches, grid cities drawn in heavy ink. Even though every shelf stood full, nothing felt random. Upper tiers held architecture, city planning, hydraulics. The middle ranks turned stranger with titles such as Treaties on Natural Order. Structures of Elysian design, magnetism and manifestation. On the lowest shelf, a set of volumes in Tarnish Leather bore a single embossed title. Mechanics of de-form adaptation. Their spines carried diagrams of orbits and cogs. The master read from those the most often. Imported from Munich, I believe. He form adaptation. So like the forms of deity. He reads that one. He reads that one all the time. He likes to read that one and float in the garden. And what? Anyway, these, this is the coffee machine. I set a finger to the edge of one of their covers, binding held warmth. The lamp above gave a little heat. Drew back uneasy at the sensation. Good Lord. It's catalogue creation itself. The sewer gave no reply. It is attention lingered on the books as if to confirm my exaggeration. Beside a riding desk, resided a small lectern. Pond it rested a chain, tome of heavier make than the others. It's title read. Murk tables of the ninth configuration. I turned a page and met with the same drawings I'd seen behind the wall panel. Laddist diagrams of motion, spiraling curds, rendered in metallic prose, each depiction labeled with symbols from no language I knew between the lines ran fate notations of ideal temperatures and prime decibel rates. The master craft of that text himself. He called it his great magnum opus. He says shoot the same order that guides both Adam and empire. I'm just gonna say what's it about? It's kind of funny. It's like it guides Adam empire. Hi, really? What is it about? What's it? That sounds cool. He saw earlier, I mean, along with all the supernatural things he's seen, but he saw earlier this configuration of wires that was a language he couldn't perceive. Now he sees in the ghost book room that he has nine tables of these, which nine goes back to Trinity symbolism like threes and triangles and stuff like that. He has this occult book that is these unspeakable shapes and designs that control everything from Adam's to empires and he's like, oh really? Is there like pictures and stuff? I followed the ink line by line. What is it about? The steward studied the text without a change of face. The study of language, I believe. The master held that small, held that small and that vast share of single alphabet. He called the law of resemblance. Is that the the same grammar could guide a living engines. - Oh. living engines? The difference between faith and voltage is smaller than most care to see. Oh, oh, you know what, draw the picture of me. I don't care that line. Ever. Okay. I've talked about this concept like a dozen times on the show before like how cool it is to think the like electricity is ran by like spiritual stuff perfectly encapsulated in the sentence. That's so good. That's so good. That hits so hard. Oh my gosh. I'm fired up. I'm excited. This is this is the most removed from happy happy we can possibly be. I got I got to say. I got to say to be honest with you so far. This is like just just the tone, the setting, the writing and all that. This is one of my favorite stories we've read on the show. Wow. I think mother horse size is still my favorite. I think and that's that's going to be a hard one to beat. But this is this is getting me. This is it's got my go pretty good right now. So and the idea of like he figured out the reason he's so powerful is because he figured out like this secret hidden thing that these spirits gave to him long ago and he's tried to recreate it. And he's almost like a prophet riding down the symbols that control everything. And it's allowed him to create this living house, this extra dimensional space and the statues that he builds as him trying to build like effigies of them to try to give them life again, but they can't have a face like, ah, I trace the outline of one sigil with the bar. Oh, I said sigil earlier too. Man, I just bear trapped this whole thing so hard. I am awesome. I trace the outline of one sigil with the barrel of my pen. It was able to circuit spine, but it's pattern held the balance of a cathedral plan. There was beauty in it, along with something that repelled my eye. I looked toward the shelves again, turned in books, poor no titles. May I see one of the unnamed writings? He considered for a moment that drew a single volume free and set it on the table. You may read what is written, but you may not speak the words aloud. The words admit only for the master's mouth. The pages held mechanical sketches that seemed to shift under the lamp. Some represented tools while others proposed devices of unclear purpose. Among them, studs, human figures composed of gears and valves, limbs of rendering cross sections with their hearts replaced by spoils of copper wire. Let's go, baby, mechs, necro mechs, people like you figured out how to use wires to control. So all the stuff behind the scenes is like mechanized people. That's literally house of the worm. The thing I said earlier that's the SCPI like so much, that's the idea that people were converted into machinery. Necro Avagalian, maim. Yes. Gosh, that goes so hard. He figured out how to get how to use these mechanics and these shapes to bring life into copper, like how to use voltage to create a living house, and he put it inside of people to make these puppeteered like steam punk zombies. That is so cool. This story is so cool. Oh my gosh. I close the cover and step back. The Stuart returned it to the shelf. The master read here at night. He preferred the quiet house of the evenings. He read more than he slept. I must say, this is a different house than the one I walked last night. It is the same house, only seen in different night. Man, bear trap again. I am, I am, okay, yes. So it's like, it's the same house. They were always there, but he was just in a different dimension or a different plane and couldn't see what was happening around him. But now he's with them. He's in the, he's in the space. He's a part of it. And I don't think he can leave. He stepped aside and let me through. We passed the court windows and I looked out upon the 12 statues in the garden. No statue had shifted. The brash giants kept their places. For the first time since Friday, it truly came to me that the last two days might indeed have been a careful spectacle. Simple, long curtain rays designed to sharpen the appreciation of a very private pageant. Stuart halted it at a plane door at the end of a corridor. Its brass knob was unadorned, faintly tarnished where use marked it. We'd like to see the work room, sir. It is not often shown even to servants, though the mast has granted us permission. Very much so. He unlocked the narrow door with a small tooth key. The air within carried a scent of graphite, sweat. The room stood vast and high, lit by a single glass skylight veined with steel. Drafting tables stood against the walls, pencils lay where they had fallen. Campuses set open across sheaves of linen paper. Some patterns around the room repeated the same sigils I had seen in the limerate tables. Only here they were drawn with a deeper intention. Across the room, set of glass tubes ran from floor board to ceiling, filled with a liquid metal that moved at the base. Small pistons pulsed along their links, keeping the substance in slow circulation. The light that passed through them carried the same color as the manner circuits. He used mercury as a conductor. He keeps the thoughts of the house connected to will of his hand. The thoughts. The master believed that a structure could be made precise enough. Thought would follow a perfect ratio invites a perfect mind. Thus he made it this bit. Thus he made this manner. Oh my God. Thus he made this manner of vessel. Bro, he is going to that the end. The master killed himself or whatever. And now he is the house. He's got to be house. It's the monster house. It's monster house. It's monster house with flesh puppet people and like forbidden sigils and like to do things that speak without speaking and see with us. I walk to the central platform. They're a great table stood ringed by iron lamps with shades black and by dust. Upon its surface, rested a full scale model of the manner. The details struck me dumb for a beat. Every corner and recess every window and parapet have been rendered with the jewelers care. Even the courtyard figures stood where they should fixed in their miniature devotions. But what surrounded the manner silenced me further. The forest was gone and its place was a vast city of angles and towers. Bridges arched and strict repetition. Roads formed concentric rings that drew toward the center. Elling closer. Then wires wound through the model space, twisting and strange loops. The manner stood at the heart of the circuitry. The steward folded his hands at his waist. He called this his rehearsal of the world to come. He believed this house would be the newest creation of a grand design. I get we to cities thought unimaginable. The longer I studied the city, the more its impossibility showed. Streets folded into one another, becoming corridors without intrigue or end. Where would a man walk in such a place? We would not walk, sir. We would circulate. He would be provided only what he needs to function. Beneath the table, the machinery stirred. A pulse of light moved through the copper and up into the city. One tower flickered, then another, to the low glow spread outward, like a dawn through fog. The illumination reached the manor's model and held it in the halo. I stood astonished at the glowing city. You've done well. I told the steward and meant it. The show has been spectacular. We endeavour to please, sir. Just remember, eight o'clock you are expected. Until then, your state is at your disposal. We left the room as we found it. The key turned. Breath of graphite and case and stayed behind the door. All afternoon, the house warts best manners. I like to think that the house is like almost breathing. Like, almost like through the house. Instead of there just being absolute sounds, you can kind of hear like a. Or, you know, I mean, like just some kind of like almost like the. Not that the walls are moving, but just the faintest sound of like a breath or something. Yeah, it's like the house itself. Yeah, it's. He's in the house, but it's like in this panorama. He's almost in the city. Like it's this. He's creating a body for himself, this giant structure that goes on and on and on. Gosh, it's so cool. Man, this is so cool. I'm fired up. Okay. All right. Well, here we are, the pageant. Here we go. It was new Sunday, October 26th, 1930, the pageant. I spent the early hours before eight in ordinary pleasure. In a small sitting room, I found a tray of little cakes, sugared just enough to catch the light. Eight, one, and let a laugh slip out. In another life, I might have stayed and written a polite column about a fine estate. And it's so weird. Like, where. Because at the beginning of this, he was just coming to ride about the house, ride about the guy seen it out so much more and out. It's. In mortality through machines, turning yourself into the house, turning yourself into circuits, made of faith, and uh. I made past with the tray of small glasses. Side to serve? Gladly. He said and took one. Tasted like an entire orchard held within a single glass. At a corner before eight, the steward met me outside the great salon. "If you would," he said, smoothing his coat. Several seams had darkened and appeared cinch and rewoven. Paid at no mind and I chose not to break the spell. I bet underneath the coat, he's one of the automaton's. Yeah, I'm alien percent. He's definitely like a scorched piece of like machinery. Yeah. This kind of reminds me of the ending of church in the woods, respire in the woods. Remember? Oh, yeah, with the black ballerina at Tomaton. Yeah. Yeah. The people that got turned into the clockwork machines and stuff like that. Yeah. I had the salon had been set as a theater, chairs, stood in ranks, each aligned to face a stage, chrome lamps climbed in tears, the reflective shades raised a white shimmer that settled like stars across the ceiling. Workers and servants filled in wearing pressed uniforms button with small moons. A curtain at the far end of the stage held my sight. The fall of dark, glassy cloth, not velvet, some soft skin that drank in the light but kept it sheen. Above it a familiar crest showed two wings nested in a triangle, worked in cold thread. Stuart led me to his seat at the center. The master will attend shortly. Will the master be speaking? Courteous curve touched his expression. The corners of his lips parted like cracked paper. Raised to four fingers if to test for rain, then lowered it with a satisfied nod. He's here. The lamp dimmed. From the wings of the room a hush moved in like a tide. Then he came. The architect walked out from the wing like a depiction from a drawing. He stood tall and exact. Courte cut to a blade, hair wide as ground salt. He did not hurry. Nothing in him hurried. When he halted at the center of the stage, the room seemed to lean forward and niche. "My friends." He said, his voice is clear as a bell. "You have labored with me through seasons of frost and mud. You have kept the shine wet belonged and taken the dust from where it did not. I promised you a complete work. Three years ago I delivered it. Tonight I would deliver it again." Raised a hand towards a great window above him. It's glass blackened to keep out the sky. "This is all night. Many years ago we opened our site for the first time. You sat where you sit now. Each of you faithful to my word. That night our world was opened up to the world of dreams. It lasted for only a mere instant. And in that moment we had been viewed with approval." A ripple moved crowd. His hands opened as if presenting a blueprint before the sun. For seven years before that night I walked in the city of dreams only in my sleep. It streets ran beneath my eyelids. It's towers rose in the pulses behind my eyes. I wandered there while my body lay still in this world. I saw patterns that no ruler can measure, lines that knew where they must go before any hand could guide them. From that city I learned proportion beyond reason and from its grid I drew the lifeblood that gave this place its existence. "Every wall you touch. Every stair you climb speaks in the language of dreams." He paused, the lamp surged, a glow deepening to it with its gold. "I did not work alone. As you know hand guided me. Not a hand of flesh, a hand of sovereignty. An emperor that knows how to rule a city without speaking. It placed its hand upon me and moved my tools until they obeyed its rhythm. It taught me to build as the hot builds. They threw at the house with nerves of copper and iron into that could remember the dream for which it came. This is not sorcery. This is order. The law of pattern brought completion. I call this man of the aperture which touches the land of my dreams. I once more bestow this matter with the same name. I see written on the walls behind my eyelids. Attend." The curtain to his back rose without rope or pulley. Behind it a pillar stood revealed, taller than two men and wider than a carriageway. Spanned, forged of brass and pains of dark glass with the depth of water. A lintel carried tall letters that seemed to move while standing still. I read the word and scribed upon it twice before my mind accepted it. Pandemonium. It's sick. It's very sick. It's really good. It's so good. It's so good. Pandemonium, the name of the city of the devils from Paradise Lost. When the devil brought the demons to hell, he named it Pandemonium. All chaos, chaos rules in Latin. He was in his dreams. He was a famous architect who had influence in power. The devils or the spirits reached out to him and showed him visions of things he couldn't understand, but they were too beautiful to turn away from. In his sleep, he was shown curves and architecture and order. Because of that, he used all of his power to build a house that was a Ouija board, a giant summoning stone to bring these things in the world. And he tries to give them shape. And that shape is these giant brass statues without faces. It's the the effigy for these demons that brought him this place. And now he has performed their goal and used his house as a ritual, used his power to create circuitry that has life forms that they can speak through ways for them to interact with the world. He's effectively turned his house and this imaginary city around him into a poltergeist for these things. He has brought Pandemonium from hell to earth. And he thinks it's in the name of power, in the name of greatness, thanks to rule empires not realizing that maybe the things that rules empires and guides man's hand is evil. Okay, so so mother horse size is like still it just did so much right and it took its time and we've together still think it's my favorite. But if this pulls this off at the end, this might be my second. Oh, it's the name is Pandemonium. Okay. Oh, all right. You know, it's funny because in the beginning, you were making the jokes about me with the drawing and stuff like that. And it was like kind of he ha ha them. But now it's just, now it's not even a joke. No, no, I know you have four ropes and spiderwebs in your pants, for sure. My fuckers got the whole entire novel of Charlotte's web right there in his pants right now. I get it. I fold, I fold him. With that word, the heat rose at once. Cloth stuck at the small of my back, air drew toward the pillar and took the air for my lungs. The lamp spried in until they sang. I turned to take in the room as a whole. The audience had changed while I'd attended the speech. Bases I once considered handsome now drew tight. Malfs had been pulled back. Teeth showed like exposed hardware. A footman near the aisle buckled backwards at the knees yet kept standing. Meanwhile, a maid next to him had her skin begin blistering and bubbles across her cheeks. No one screamed, though several mouths opened and did not close. The sound that came out of them was from a parched choir, a gathering of throats without water. Fingernails blackened before me, vapor climbed from skin. The steward who had seated me went to both knees. He slithered on the ground with a grace that would have pleased to dance her. A seam along his collar had parted and exposed a ribbon of copper laid against his throat. It flickered under the light like a small fish beating against a net. He pressed the seam closed with his palm and kept to his dance. Do not be afraid. Step through and be made equal. Step through and be made equal to yourselves. His hand could an arrow path in the air. Will you mistake for torment as only the shedding of variance? What you call death is only a species of waste. The city allows for nothing to be wasted. Three years ago, you were shown the first light. Tonight, you will walk within it. Step through and be made equal to yourself. So it's like the human distinctions, differences between people is condensed down to like code, right? You all become one flesh. You return to the collective, right? You all become exactly the same as tools for this machine, a vehicle for consciousness. It's also the note of the guy slithering away. At the end of paradise lost, all the demons and pandemonium returned into snakes. As punishment from God, they're all made to slither across the ground. So now this is almost like their reckoning, right? They see it as a gift, but this is their torment. Finally, the thing that they've asked for, being made to be. Glass in the high window gave way with a cough. Shards and soot fell over the ranks. The architect smiled. Along the line where gum met tooth were in a deep charred color of coal. People of the work, the gate is open. - Oh, that's so cool. - A woman by the aisle turned her face. Skin at her neck parted like pain on a hot pipe. She did not fault her. She moved for the pillar. Her joints were answering a lesson rehearsed for another stage and another body. - Am I, is this not? - Bro. Like, just like, I need you to nerd out with me a little bit. It's good, I'm just, it's very hard. It's a coming competition. You have an entire, I mean, cake to pants. I mean, it's awesome. I'm enjoying it in my own way. I'm just not like, I need you to freak out a little bit. Just like the way her body is moving. Thank you. There you go. That's what I want. That's what I want. - You're like a god. - Okay. - Oh, fuck. Yeah. Oh, fuck, it can't stop. Oh, fuck. - Child horse. - Child horse. - Ah. - Oh, fuck. - Ah. - Sit. - Ah. - Ah. - Ah. - Ah. - Oh. - Ooh. - I'll have what she's had. (laughing) - Well done. - Thank you. Ah. - Say? - I said to the steward at my side, those pupils clouded ash. - We must leave. - His mouth widened and held. At the base of his ears, said a wheel no wider than a coin. Turned one notch and stopped with a click. And that tick I met with the truth that I'd refuse to name. They were not servants in the old sense. They were living machines, kept, repaired, set to functions. The house had gifted them a form and taken its payment in their pain. Their autonomy had been bargained away a long ago. - Sir, how long have you been like this? - He parted his lips. No word came. Only a hiss of air through a crack. It should've been a flash. He raised his palm as if to call me. Yet his palm shook from a trimmer that did not belong to fear, but to strain without relief. Pillar drew air again. House answered it. It's circuit spoke and rapid code beneath the floor like fluid driven through jets. Each pulse matched the heat to sent until all measured beats became one drum. I fled. The corridor that held the salon bent into a duplicate of itself. I saw a sunburst above the ladder of the two halls and followed under it. Paint blistered and fish scale patches. Light pooled rust red on the floor and turned tacky under my soles. I crossed the gallery and found one statue and stolen a half step. It did not own yesterday. Its brass knees split open. Each crevice widening with a low groan. Heat poured out of the fractures like breath from a furnace. Beneath the ribbon metal, something living turned. Its surface slick as ink. Around, colorless eye opened under the plating and picks through the shell as if trapped there for centuries and now walking to its hatred. The other statues followed. Pracks raced through the figures, light bled from their openings and through the breaks, I saw glimpses of the same eye repeated again and again, each glancing in a different direction. The figures moaned and confinement. Brass screamed when they flexed. I spared them no more of my time. I ran into the nearest passage, stumbling across uneven stone. Beams overhead shook with a low vibration. The cart stood ahead of me in the service lane. A porter braced upon it with both arms, tar melted from the wheel's rim. He turned toward me. Stress lines scored beneath his eyes. - You should be seated, sir. All of us are orders. What are you speaking of? The word, we must keep to the word. His cheeks cracked at the edges and did not bleed. A faint word came from the hinge of his elbow, shivered. - Bring once if you're quiet or anything. - He repeated the phrase and broke in repetition. - Bring once if you, bring once if you, are you in pain? - He pressed his forearm with a cart, metal knocked together. - We remain in service. - His foreword, his words fought against him as a vow he could not break. I pushed past him. At the bend of the corridor, I looked toward a window to gain my bearings. What waited beyond the glass stopped me. The man or no longer said in its clearing. Stood upon a wall at the edge of an endless city. Towers rose without tops, tear upon tear while smaller buildings slanted among themselves and folded like knives. Streets ran in every direction, perfect in their geometry. Endless in their descent. Bronze arches, spanned avenues, choked in smoke. Buildings glowed from within, with light, the color of molten ore. The sky turned in slow spirals, clouds thick with embers that felt like snow. In the far distance, beyond the outer spires, a shape moved. It was vast enough to make the tallest towers seem no higher than undriven nails. It's gargantuan body lay half buried in the ashy haze, but I saw it's terrible heads through the clouds. All three of them, each bending and lifting and turn, each mouth gnashing upon the others, teeth met teeth and endless hunger. Bro, bro, bro, bro, I know you're gonna shoot a fucking fat. After that, I was like, I can smell it too. Did I smell fucking pumpkin seeds and fucking peanut butter? It is horrible. I'm telling you, it is a gnarled, gnarled thick, film or glue that is just dripping out of your screen. Bro, bro, dude, he's, he's hell is a city of right angles and circuitry, because that's what they used to communicate. And now that he's in hell beyond it, he sees Lucifer from Dante's Inferno, half buried under the earth, like he is in that story with the mouths gnashing on each other continuously. He at pandemonium is a city of angles built to be given to a prophet and any Christ to bring it forward to the earth. And this is his judgment day. This is his rapture. Oh gosh, oh, and it's done like a 1920s great Gatsby house, like Gatsby is the prophet of Lucifer to bring pandemonium to the earth. And the mention of the bronze statues, it says he saw countless eyes. It's like the depiction of the Biblically accurate angels, right, the eyes to open him, the wheels within wheels. It's that, but it's the fallen angels. It's the ones that need a new form because they're not holy and divinity with God anymore. So the demons are forced inside of these rest things and are only now given the power to move, but they're trying to burst out of it. They're infinite form in the shape. Oh, okay. I'm, I'm, dude, I'm, I'm about to, I'm fired up right now. I don't know what I'm going to do with this energy, but I got to do something. Whoah. The sounds of its motion reached through the window, a deep grinding that set the glasses to tremble. The sight and sound alone pressed hard enough to nearly buckle my knees. I knew then what had placed its hand upon the architect and it was nothing of God. You're going to keep your hands in fucking screen because you are, you're going to hold your heads up for the rest of the fucking episode. Oh, okay. This is, bro, is this not just like, you get it, though, right? For me, I mean, I mean, it's fucking awesome. It's super sick. I mean, specifically with like everything I like, I mean, this is, this is literally right up your alley. Okay. Yeah. I tore myself from the window. The walls whited more thickly now. Plaster split and thin cracks that widened as I passed. The gram of phones began speaking again in every hall, each uttered a fragment of the architect's dinner all out of order. Stay. Set one. Set another. Return. Kiss the third. Their vocal cords twitch like nerves along the floor. I set my palm to the wall to steady myself and felt the house strong release against the meat of my hand. At the corner, a maid came forward with a basin, the sloshy water wore a skin of muck and dull colors. Steam rose from her wrist and little threads heat a light beneath the skin. She set the basin down, lifted both arms as if for inspection, then spoke in the tone used shop counters and street cars. Sir, the lamps do you're liking? You're burning! We keep the shine. She answered. The words trembled. Her mouth tried to smile and forgot the motion. A brass stable held her lips apart on one side. She added as if her sighting a rule from a hand bug. Who did this to you? Was it the architect or this thing? There are those things outside. She turned showing the back of her neck. They're engaged. They beneath the skin like a coin under parchment. It ticked, stopped, then ticked again. She lifted the basin and went toward the globe behind me. Leaving prints that smoked on the stone. I lurched toward the vestibule. Ahead, the front doors stood a jar. Beyond it waited another, set deeper into the wall. A door that had not existed before. Between the two doors lay a great, plushed out hot air with a smell of iron, oil, animal pins and charred meat. It was from the lungs of something far larger than the house itself. Dude. There it is. There's the final prayer. There's the thing beneath the house that breathes the living contraption. It's my favorite. It's I died. I will. I have a stiffy as well. Anytime a little final prayer, borderlands kind of thing happens. Oh boy. The beast beneath the pagan God kind of thing. I even fucking love it. Behind me came the sound of breaking metal. I turned the entire staff stood attentive. Souls and uniforms that no longer fit their bodies. Patient before a gate they attended to for years. Near them a statue stepped from its plinth and set one terrible foot on the marble. Brass cracked open along the chest and within the tear a heart of brilliant fire turned like a spindle. The room lit as a furnace. The room blazed. Curtains went to ash. A steward walked forward as if conjured by duty. He steadied himself as the floor shook under our feet. Sir. This is the hour. We will prefer you among us. You are in pain. Why would I want this? Pain is a word for those who have not experienced suffering. He said he lowered his regard and let the smallest confessions. Do not leave. Your words help us remember who we were. Stewards mouth moved as if he tried to recall a name. You can leave with me. Enter to the word. Small gear turned under the skin at the base of his ear. Felt to mesh, skipped, caught again. Ring once if you require anything. Ferry's return stripped to reflex. Ring once. Toward himself as if hunting the peace that kept his mind from reaching mouth. Flush and mechanism left him and found a heap on the floor. Statue turned to face him. I took that moment to kneel beside the pedestal where the first gramophone had stood. I set my notebook there. Each page filled. Every line of stake driven down with warning. If anyone finds this, you must retreat. This is not as spectacle. The conqueror that eats all pageants has paid this manner of visit and will not be satisfied with one appearance. I'm going through the second door now because there's no other honest choice. My hope is simple. That it opens not upon that infernal city but back into the living world into whatever grace it still waits for men. If the city takes me, let this record be the warning you need to part. Peek. Peek. Peek. Peek. Peek. End of story. Dare I say, I mean, one of the finest things we've read, perfect pacing. It's interesting. It's like the whole story is literally, it's a three-day march. How many stores we've read where it's been like multiple days of a guy like, like basically uncovering a mystery, you know? But then it just feels like, I mean, to think about like deep woods, all the kind of like woods episodes, usually that or like camps, all these other kind of things. This being inspired in the woods was kind of like that with them trying to figure out the legend and things. Sure. I mean, I just think, yeah, I don't know. This is just so well paced. I mean, I don't know. It just reveals itself in such a great way. It doesn't linger. It kind of gives you what you want to hear and then just like fucks right off. It's just also just a nice two-parter. Two-parter that had actually some meat on it, some meat on its bones. It wasn't just too short. It just, it felt really, really great. I mean, I really think it's one of the, it's one of the best stories we've read. Which granted, which granted, we still are a bit. We're sobering up from happy Appian, you know, all the other stuff that we've been reading lately. But still, I think that this is just really such a treat. I mean, strange accounts. Travis is just, it was just such a great job. Oh my gosh, dude. I can't even, what's funny is I'm reading through the replies right now, because this is posted in our slash creep cast. And someone said, not to glaze you anymore, the window gun already has. They edgelord dark rate. You haven't seen anything yet. You don't know how much I can glaze this guy. Bro, just, I mean, I said most of it during the episode, but not only hitting so many cool themes and the payoffs are cool in ways I don't expect them. And sure, they're things I like, but they're also like so well woven together that by the end, it makes sense to incorporate, you know, demons and the devil and like circuitry being a form of possession and like a multi-dimensional house is like, you get the clues in an order that it makes sense, but also to do that, like you said, at such good pacing to where we figure out pieces of the mystery one at a time. And it never lets off the gas. It just keeps like escalating one point at another. I just like tell you get to that huge ending. I just love to have a trick though as by just continuously unraveling this home, but it really doesn't like it. It doesn't have all these giant visual frills, I guess. It's just, it's just slowly unraveling. And you know what I hate doing this, but like with the new Resident Evil game that's just on my mind is on, but it does feel like just like a Resident Evil kind of like lurking through the house, Resident Evil 2 kind of lurking through the house. Yeah, the story almost has a, what's what's the word everyone's to like the Castlevania style where it's like you have a building that's like continuously expounded upon and you learn more and more about the space. Like it's, the space stays the same size, but it gets deeper as you learn more about it, right? Metrovania. Yeah. No, all in all, this is a really, really good story. I think I do think and not to mention how well like certain sentences are written, the great control of grammar and English. He has. Travis kills time with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's even like little phrases that are there like the thing about worms like moving with appetite. Like it's these cool little moments of poetry in the midst of such a well-paced story that incorporates so many cool ideas and has a satisfying payoff. He is such a good writer, dude. I mean, he's one of the goats. He's on the Mount Rushmore right now. I mean, he's continuously proved it. Also too, I love that his stories just keep hitting, especially you've got to read his stuff in person and all the fans got to interact with it. It was just fucking awesome. I'd love that we keep uncovering new more and more shit from him and it's just, it's awesome. I love it. Yeah. Again, everyone at the end, this is not sponsored. You can just tell how big of a fan I am. Travis just had a book come out that is a collection of these stories. I've just typed, I have to skip through all the pictures that Hunter has sent me to find it. But strange accounts from the American Frontier will have it linked in the description, get it on Amazon or Kindle. I'm going to buy 12 of these and just give them to people at Home Depot. This really is. This would be the perfect book just to get a couple and just like share to your friends as I can actually like pass around book when they're done with it. They pass it to somebody else. You did that with me with, I have no mouth, no scream, whatever, and I passed it. How did you like that, by the way? I loved it. I passed it off to my cousin, actually. So I have no idea if he's passed it off, but it's a really fun thing to do though. Yeah. Yeah. I think this story is incredible. Travis, there's a, I said this with Cain with Cain pixels and honestly, Hunter, applies to you as well. Seeing like Cain make movies and you make like movie shorts, creative process, it is so satisfying to see someone do something that they are so good and efficient at that you know they were born to do it, that there's simply no other place they could be. And reading Travis writing, I feel the exact same way. This guy simply has to write because what else would he be made for, right? He's this good at it. I'm glad that he's doing it and I'm glad I get to live in a world where I know that Travis is a writer and I get to read his stuff. He is supposed to be doing this and I'm glad he's here and I'm glad I get to read it for a living. That's awesome. This is awesome. Life is cool. Never kill yourself. Strange accounts, man. Well, we should, yeah, be sure to show the book coverage stuff too. I feel like we need to start doing that more is whenever we say go check it out. Actually, I have the book cover up because sometimes too whenever you look online, some people have made several copies of their publish book. So I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Which also, yeah, I got up here. Well, I mean, normally in the final edit, wait, this is a great cover too. Normally in the final edit, we show this anyway. But some of these titles like private Jonathan Hartwell, like this guy riding in a war story would be awesome. But yeah, I get this like a dozen times. And of course, when the episode goes up, patrons will have it linked in the description and stuff as well. But you can just search. Strange accounts from the American Frontier now. Thank you so much to all the audio listeners that are listening right now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and giving us a nice little rating there. I appreciate you. And thank you to all of our Wonderful, beautiful. Patrons who helped support the show and even got to hear this story early live definitely no crash outs or anything edited all out definitely nothing happened there. And we will see you next time guys. Take care. Thank you all so much for watching. Check out Travis. I need to change my pants. [Music] (gentle music)