The Gentleman From Hell |S1| Ep. 51

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I just woke up.

I'm in the

field just beside the mansion.

No idea how long I've been here, but

according to my watch, it's just past six in the morning.

I still have all my belongings.

Everything I entered the apartment building with.

Though I

have no idea if my car is still where I left it.

I just checked the cassette.

It's all still there.

Marsha, those

things

in the apartment house,

Milton.

But none of it really proves anything.

Except that I somehow managed to drag other people into my little

prank.

Oaks.

What else could anyone possibly make of it?

I could show it to Amelia, but that would put us both in an awful position.

She couldn't possibly take it as real.

Not without tossing aside every scrap of common sense she has.

All she could do is call it what it must seem to her, an elaborate trick.

And worse still,

she'd have to assume herself the intended victim.

Because there's no other way for her to see it.

But far more important than proving anything is to understand why it's happening at all.

This must be my father's doing.

But why?

What does he stand to gain by subjecting me to all this, plunging me into realms beyond belief, night after night?

And yet there are clues.

The model of the city, the red threads describing some kind of ritual, outlining the flow of its terrible energies.

I've every mind to put a gun against Rupert's temple and compel him to tell me what he knows.

But once I cross that particular line, there's no telling what happens next.

One thing is crystal clear, however.

I need to get away from this place.

My father's wealth be damned.

I retrieved my car from the apartment house, packing it with enough provisions to see me through an extended absence.

Still, I couldn't shake the question gnawing at me.

How long before my funds were cut off for violating the terms of the will?

Regardless, I'm leaving.

It would just be nice if I had my wealth to help furnish my escape.

Before I set out, I want to take a few of these books with me to see if I can't use them to make heads or tails of what's been going on.

Though I'm quite certain I'll be obligated to return them once it's been determined I've fled.

I've been on the road for a full five hours, and I'm nearly to my destination, the Hotel Rosewood in Searing Falls.

Once I'm checked in, I intend to get some rest, as as I hope to make good progress with the research materials I brought with me.

No,

no, no, no,

it can't be.

The fog is right outside my hotel window.

The lights, just just like back at the mansion, they're flickering on and off.

The phone is dead

and I can't hear anyone in the halls.

There's not even any traffic outside.

Please, come on, please, this must be a.

It absolutely has to be a nightmare.

It just, it just, it just has to be.

Wait,

I hear something outside.

There, there are footsteps outside my room.

In the hall,

lots of them.

Go away, please.

Go away.

Are you there?

You've been naughty.

Running away without even saying goodbye.

I'm afraid that just won't do.

Not at all.

Go away!

Leave me alone!

Why?

Why are you doing this to me?

Are you going to open the door, Ben?

Or are we going to have to come in you?

This is my father?

Did he do this to me?

Why?

Why?

There you are, Ben.

Time to come home.

Oh boy.

You know what they say, Ben.

There's no place like home.

No, let me go.

This isn't real.

This isn't happening.

It can't be.

No.

Well, that's the end of the tape.

Good lord, the poor man.

I guess we've got our answer.

To what?

If there's any use in trying to leave the city,

Ben didn't have the resonator.

We had it for the moment.

Until they decide to take it from us.

They can certainly try, but...

Margaret's right.

They let us have the machine to see if it would work, how it would work.

And I think they've got their answer.

It may only be a matter of time before they take it away.

Maybe you two along with it.

Are you saying you've seen this via your clairvoyance?

Or that's what you think?

It isn't only my waking clairvoyance that's sharpened.

My dreams have changed too.

I've seen...

things.

Fragmented, jumbled visions.

Oh, some are clear enough to chill me.

I've glimpsed gatherings of wicked beings draped in human guise, yet human they are not.

I've seen machines buried in lightless, forgotten places, and sometimes.

Sometimes, I hear your names whispered, and I catch the faint outline of both of you laboring in the dark.

Are you saying this will happen, or that it might happen?

I wish I knew.

Before the resonator, prophetic dreams were never really my thing, at least not like these.

I can't say how true they are, but just before we found them in that dreadful place, I dreamt of the Sodas.

Of course, I'd had nightmares about them before, but again, not like this.

In the dream, I knew I'd see them again.

I saw them down there, trudging through the smoldering ash, hunting for their god in that accursed black labyrinth.

And I saw lines of burning children following close behind them.

My gift has become like a...

like a window to horrors without end, and it's getting to be more than I can bear.

Oh, God, I'm so sorry, Phyllis.

We had no idea the Resonator could even have that effect.

It's not your fault.

It's their fault.

They brought us here.

I just hope now that we know there is indeed a hell, that those bastards burn in it.

Phyllis, you said that the richer their plan and brings up the Sutters.

But how does that connect with what the tape did to us?

I need a little help here, Mason's head.

Jesus gold, what happened?

Is that a good shot wound?

Bring him into the living room, onto the couch.

I'll grab the first aid kit.

Just look so worse than it is.

Bullet passed right through.

Just stop the bleeding.

Oh, yeah, voggy.

What the hell happened?

The cultists...

They caught us trying to take the stuff for the ritual.

Did you kill

any of them?

They didn't leave us much choice.

Then good fucking wins!

Quick, get his shirt off.

We need to clean out the wound.

Shit burns like a mother.

You're right.

The bullet passed cleanly through your shoulder.

Doesn't look like it hit an artery or anything.

We just need to pack it up and bandage it.

I'll be fine.

What I really need is for you to read nonness.

What is it?

My Arna Emily's necklace.

They took it from her to use in whatever kind of fucked-up ritual they're planning.

There's blood on it.

I gotta know she's okay.

Of course I will, Mason.

Did you get any of the other stuff they were planning on using?

Yeah, there was a bunch of shit that must have belonged to the Sauters, including their bones.

And there was a pile of stuff that belonged to us.

At least, Mace and me.

I begged as much as I could before more of the bastards showed up.

I tossed it in the corner by the door.

Quadra hodgepodge, but nothing I recognize.

Wait, that's

my mother's brush?

And this is my school pen.

Yeah, I'm not seeing anything that belongs to me.

Because the ritual isn't intended for you.

Just us.

They want you for something else.

Yeah,

but without this shit, they can't do the ritual, right?

I don't know.

But if they do need it, I'm sure they'll come back for it.

Let them fucking try.

Come on, Mace.

We both know they could roll right over us if they wanted to.

The only reason they haven't is because they need us for whatever they're planning.

In that case, we should just destroy this stuff, throw it all in the fireplace, and burn it to ash.

I'll gather everything back up into the back and throw it in there right after you start a right good fire.

They'll likely just get more of whatever they might need, but I suppose it could slow them down.

Could also mean they go after my family again.

I need you to do that reading, Phil.

Please.

I'll do it right now, Mason.

All right, here we go.

That was such a terrible movie.

Did you see how many people left?

All the smart ones.

Hey, here comes that guy who was jegging you out earlier.

Uh, hi,

uh, what movie did

hey, get away from her?

Let go of me.

Help!

She's alright, Mason.

Thank Christ.

She was mobbed as she was leaving a movie theater, but she's fine.

I'm sure they could have done whatever they wanted to her.

My whole family, they're just sitting ducks.

All we can do is keep making moves, Mace.

That's how we get through this.

I know.

I know.

Let's get that fire going.

You got it.

You stay here and try to relax.

Was there anything we could use on Ben's tape?

Ugh, I

really don't know how to sum something like that up.

But uh,

yeah, there were a few realizations, not least of which is what happened to him when he tried to leave the city.

Jesus, what happened?

Things happened to him.

Shades, ghouls, I don't know what the hell to call them, but but they broke into his hotel room and took him.

They said they were bringing him back home, which I assume was back here.

And just for fun, when he woke up in his hotel room, all the way in Saring Falls, everything was covered in fog.

So there really is no getting out of here.

Don't give up too soon, Leon.

They're not infallible, just

monsters.

History is chock full of decent people triumphing over such horrors.

I just hope we're decent enough.

I think that's everything.

It just needs to be packed into the car.

car.

You mean the new $180,000 car?

Look, like I said, it has a built-in external speaker system.

We can blast a chime out all around it while we're driving.

It's a hell of a lot more cover than the speakers the old car gave us.

I suppose you're right, but my finances do have their limits.

Finances are the least of our concerns.

I'm more concerned about why those people are in Cold Sparrow of all places.

I would have to assume it has something to do with the mass disappearance.

It certainly wouldn't surprise me to know the damned had something to do with it.

If they knew anything about the damned, being in an abandoned town in the middle of nowhere was a pretty stupid play.

I just hope they're still alive, wherever they are.

Well, we're not taking any chances, which is why I split the trip into two legs.

It's a 12-hour drive, but to stay safe, we'll stretch it over two days, driving only during the brightest hours.

By tomorrow afternoon, we should reach the nearest city to Cold Sparrow, Portafoy.

That'll give us plenty of daylight to explore.

Well,

we should be on our way then.

Right.

Just give me a hand with this, won't one of you?

Dad, did you ever figure out those references to Shol?

I believe so.

I was going through the file recently and found a passage that sheds some light.

I've been comparing it to what I know of the Mephitican cycle.

Sheol is strikingly familiar to its Mephitican analogue, Ungrul-Ker, or simply Ungrual, as I've seen it written.

But there are some key differences.

Sheol is a realm seemingly fashioned for the dead, sometimes even likened to hell.

Ungruol, on the other hand, while resembling Sheol in some aspects, bears the mark of something unmade.

It was never constructed, never purposed.

It is, so far as I can tell, the residue of the void from which all creation was drawn.

In biblical terms, it's what remains of the formless chaos before God began his work.

So does it serve a purpose at all?

Not by design, but by happenstance.

It sometimes becomes a refuge or a prison for the souls lost to the Mephitican cycles of life and death.

Here, listen to this excerpt.

At last, Ungrual rose from the mists, a place where the cheerless dead stumble and wail, their withered souls pacing the dust until the spool of time frays to nothing, and all returns to ash.

The havens once held for them in life and the ever after have long since passed.

Forsaken is the machinery of the the world.

They linger as hollow tollings in a realm without hearing, fading into the silence that swallows all things.

I suppose that answers my question, then.

What question is that?

The manuscript I'm reading now describes how Sheol divides the spheres as the still waters of death stretch silent between the stones of the river Styx.

Given what you just read,

it seems to be that Sheol,

Ungruel,

just sort of filled in the spaces between all the major cosmic constructs.

And to cross into any of those other creations,

you have to cross through Sheol

first.

Isn't that from one of Lisa Mirchov's papers?

Yes, I downloaded a bunch of them.

This one's about how Ungruel slowly evolved into the concepts of Sheol and Erebus.

But when you read her stuff against some of the materials from the file the church gave you,

well, it makes a lot more sense.

Well, I'm glad you two are getting something out of all that, because all I got was a bunch of gibberish.

Maybe we should talk about something a little bit more practical.

Like what?

Like, what exactly are we gonna say to these people when and if we find them?

And what do we intend to do once we're all one big happy gaggle of demon haters?

I suppose all that will be answered when and if we find them.

I suspect they have their own stories to tell, which may help determine the direction things will take.

I wish that Godwater of yours could help us break through this damn communications barrier, because I'd sure like the heads up on what we might be diving into.

I think it might be prudent to expect the absolute worst.

Anyone object to a little driving music?

I could use a break from the dissertations for a

The sun's out, and it's just past noon.

I think we could give the chime a break.

Thank God for small miracles.

Has Dekka returned yet?

No.

You don't think they

killed him for failing to protect the materials for the ritual?

Yes, it's entirely possible.

What do you think they might do to us?

We weren't the ones who failed.

We did exactly as we were told.

Do you feel that?

Yes.

Temperature just drops.

Make sure the shutters remain closed.

We don't want anyone seeing our lights.

You don't think.

Just do as you're told.

I uh

I can I can see my breath.

It's them.

They've come to...

If that be their will, then so be it.

Now quit your sniveling.

No!

No, I'm not just gonna sit here and wait to get killed.

I gotta get out of here!

You'll do exactly as I...

get out of the way.

There are punishments to be built out.

Yes, my master.

I am ready.

With the chaff now cast aside,

only the wheat remains.

We may proceed.

What would you have us do, my master?

If the stolen materials cannot be reclaimed, you must procure replacements.

It will place the ritual in greater peril than I would wish.

But what is done is done.

What shall I bring you, my master?

Their blood.

The Gentleman from Hell is a Maltopia production.

Today's episode was written by Mark Ansloone and voiced by Stephen Zivick, Sam Stark, Aubrey Akers, Jesse Van Hove, Kelly Baer, Gina Smith, Trenton Butt, and Matt Van Hove, Lou Sutcliffe, and Harper Taysent.

Sound editing was completed by Stephen Ansloan and script editing was conducted by Walker Kornfeld.

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What changed for the team today?

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Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

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