The Gentleman From Hell |S1| Ep. 49

Speaker 1 Rusty Quill presents

Speaker 2 Good evening, gentlemen and gentle ladies of hell. First and foremost, thank you for tuning in.
Your support keeps the flames of the gentleman from hell burning bright.

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Speaker 2 Join us at www.patreon.com forward slash Meltopia and embrace the darkness.

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Speaker 3 Your Excellency

Speaker 3 Your Excellency

Speaker 3 Hello, Robert.

Speaker 11 It's been quite a while.

Speaker 3 Ambrose. It's good to see you.

Speaker 3 Please, please, have a seat.

Speaker 11 Sorry it took me so long to get here, but my flight was delayed at the last minute.

Speaker 3 Ah, no need to apologize. I completely understand.
I had your job not too long ago, it seems. So I know how things go.

Speaker 11 Well, I can tell you

Speaker 11 they haven't gotten any better.

Speaker 3 I'm certain they haven't.

Speaker 3 Is there anything I could get for you before we get down to business?

Speaker 11 No, Robert, I'm fine.

Speaker 11 I have to tell you, I was a little surprised when I saw Dr. Philip Lochrom's name cross my desk.

Speaker 3 So, you're familiar with him?

Speaker 11 We were watching his career with some interest, yes.

Speaker 11 There was even talk about approaching him.

Speaker 11 We went so far as to supply him with some resources.

Speaker 11 Recording of the Belle of Antioch. Unfortunately, he decided the sidelines better suited him.
Well,

Speaker 3 he seems to have come off the bench. He's been talking up a storm to one of my Monsignors,

Speaker 3 Bruce Dyson, my cousin. And it appears he's gotten himself involved with the group I asked you to locate.

Speaker 11 Who's uh, that's an archaeologist, brother. Roger Dyson? One who perished during the Nakuatala expedition.

Speaker 3 The same.

Speaker 11 You do realize that Loctrum was a member of that expedition.

Speaker 3 I was briefed on it when it happened, but I didn't recall his name until Bruce brought it up at lunch the other day. That's when I started to look more deeply into things.

Speaker 3 By the way, I appreciate the college acting as swiftly as it did. Hmm.

Speaker 11 We tend to do that when a former Arch Exodus puts in an order. Loctrum was given everything he needed.

Speaker 3 What about the group I asked you to find? Anything there?

Speaker 11 Oh, yes, we know all about them.

Speaker 11 Yet another case where we've been considering making contact.

Speaker 11 Hmm.

Speaker 3 It all seems pretty coincidental.

Speaker 3 Doesn't it?

Speaker 11 Maybe. Maybe the damned and those who would oppose them run in some pretty tight circles.
But I suppose it's possible.

Speaker 6 A skeptical exorcist.

Speaker 3 I could see why they gave you my job.

Speaker 11 They're in Cold Sparrow, New York. And don't think it didn't take some effort to work that out.

Speaker 11 Our people met with some serious opposition. We've been looking for them long before you ask.

Speaker 11 Cold Sparrow?

Speaker 11 My god.

Speaker 11 What are they doing there?

Speaker 11 We're not entirely sure.

Speaker 11 And Robert, we think he's behind it. Good lord.

Speaker 11 Many of the sex have moved into the area. We think they're going to try and bring the sodders up.

Speaker 11 In fact, that's how we were first made aware of the ex-FBI agents and the psychic, Phyllis Chambers. Anyway, we had our people test the Sodder's corpses.

Speaker 2 They were all marked.

Speaker 11 Some of the heaviest we've ever seen.

Speaker 3 And that's why he's involved.

Speaker 3 The gentleman.

Speaker 11 That's the other reason we were able to move so quickly with Loctrum. Once we saw this was all connected, we didn't spare the horses.

Speaker 3 So, what has the High Mark to say about all this?

Speaker 3 Surely he's going to act.

Speaker 11 He's like you.

Speaker 11 Superstitious.

Speaker 3 What does that mean?

Speaker 11 He also thinks this is too coincidental to have happened naturally. He wants to let the parties involved handle it, as it was intended.

Speaker 3 Ambrose, I have as much faith as is required to do my job. Beyond that, it's a matter of practicality and necessity.

Speaker 3 No one even knows who or what is up there, let alone when it might intend anything.

Speaker 11 Not according to the reincarnates.

Speaker 11 And whatever it is, it flooded the world to destroy the damned.

Speaker 3 The fact that it failed to do so should temper your expectations of what it's capable of.

Speaker 11 I stand corrected. You're not superstitious at all.

Speaker 10 Or a heretic.

Speaker 3 I consider myself a paranoid optimist.

Speaker 3 So, my request for additional intervention will likely be denied.

Speaker 11 I was told to give Loctrum everything he needed. And after you have your people drop the good doctor a line concerning the whereabouts of the other group, we have to stand back and take notes.

Speaker 11 And if you don't mind me being honest,

Speaker 3 we're all friends here.

Speaker 11 Well then, I should tell you, there's not much else we can do but stand round.

Speaker 3 And why is that?

Speaker 11 I'm sure you heard about the attacks on the high houses, both here and in Europe?

Speaker 11 Of course.

Speaker 11 They were a lot worse than we've been allowed to disclose.

Speaker 11 There's not many of us left, Robert.

Speaker 11 We need time to rebuild.

Speaker 11 What?

Speaker 11 What happened?

Speaker 11 I was in the house of Metatron when they emerged from Sheol.

Speaker 11 Ancient towering things.

Speaker 11 They sang grotesque hymns, mocking our weakness and our half-faith.

Speaker 11 While tearing our crosses from the walls, devouring anyone in their path, their lips curled in smiles slick with blood and pile.

Speaker 11 When they reached the crypts, they

Speaker 11 giggled as they hurled corpses into the cisterns

Speaker 11 just before they pissed into them.

Speaker 11 We lost the entire entire cache.

Speaker 10 How is that possible? We have defenses.

Speaker 3 The time. The.

Speaker 11 It was someone on the inside. They've been compromised.

Speaker 11 Turns out they've been working for weeks on disarming the place.

Speaker 11 Similar story for all the other highhouses.

Speaker 11 I understand.

Speaker 3 But if you're right...

Speaker 3 And the Sodars are as dangerous as you say,

Speaker 3 now is not the time to let faith faith cloud reason. We need to.

Speaker 11 I'm sorry, old friend.

Speaker 11 It's out of my hands.

Speaker 3 And I guess all I can do is

Speaker 3 jump on the bandwagon.

Speaker 11 Bandwagon?

Speaker 3 That all this was intended.

Speaker 13 Sounds like they've given up trying to drive us all out of our minds.

Speaker 14 For the moment.

Speaker 3 It's almost four o'clock. Maybe we're coming out of it.

Speaker 15 Until the next time Black Moon rolls around.

Speaker 7 I barely survived this.

Speaker 7 I thought of this happening every single night.

Speaker 15 I can see why Alex Harmon ended up in the psych ward. How the hell can we take this? It'll be like having a permanent day pass while serving out a sentence in hell.

Speaker 3 Better no pass at all, I guess.

Speaker 15 When the hell did you become such a glass half-full sort of guy?

Speaker 3 Since I saw what was at the bottom of the glass.

Speaker 13 We know the resonator can hold off whatever that tape did to us. Which means we're dealing with something that's tractable to science.
We just have to...

Speaker 7 Do you really think we have that much time? Close part.

Speaker 7 It has gotten worse every goddamn day. We're not in a some holding pattern where we can work from.
We're in a fecking downward spiral.

Speaker 13 Then you and I need to work all the faster.

Speaker 14 I might not know how or even why, but I know what that godforsaken tape did. And I'd say downward spiral is as good a way to describe it as any.

Speaker 14 The tape, the ritual that was on it, somehow changed our spiritual orbit, I guess you could say.

Speaker 3 I'm not following you.

Speaker 14 It's like how there's specific times when the Earth's orbit pulls it closer to the moon. For us, it's like our orbits change to move closer to hell.

Speaker 14 But unfortunately for us, with each pass, we're getting pulled closer and closer to it until finally.

Speaker 7 So it will just keep getting worse as it goes on.

Speaker 3 I.

Speaker 14 I think so.

Speaker 15 Well, just like in your metaphor, these are physical forces that can be overcome by man-made technology. We can resist gravity if we can just get ourselves a big enough rocket engine.

Speaker 13 My point exactly.

Speaker 3 Welcome to the Glass Half-Look.

Speaker 15 Doesn't sound like this is over yet.

Speaker 14 It's just on the other side of the door, and it's not like the others.

Speaker 3 It's

Speaker 15 Christina,

Speaker 7 one of the sparrows

Speaker 3 Since the first moment you arrived,

Speaker 3 I have imagined the taste of your flesh.

Speaker 3 Yet,

Speaker 3 flesh is but the rind that wraps around the soul.

Speaker 3 The sweetest feet by far.

Speaker 3 The saccharine taste of sacred spoilage,

Speaker 3 when sins burrow deep like fat, white worms.

Speaker 10 And I shall suck them out

Speaker 3 like marrow.

Speaker 3 Savor them before devouring you entirely.

Speaker 3 and remember

Speaker 3 even as the dawn comes and you rise to meet it

Speaker 3 the dark chases the sun forever nipping at its heels

Speaker 3 and someday when the world can no longer bear the awful burden of this twisted game

Speaker 3 The dark shall catch it

Speaker 3 so it shall go with

Speaker 3 of you.

Speaker 3 It's morning. Oh,

Speaker 3 oh, thank God.

Speaker 15 Those two are in there, working on the only thing that might get us out of this, and here we are making sure the generators ship shape.

Speaker 3 I got news for you. Without the Jenny, that device of theirs ain't worth the metal it's made of.
We got all our parts to play, don't you worry.

Speaker 15 I meant the difference between trying to outsmart the paranormal and making sure the tank's topped off. They're doing some awful heavy lifting.

Speaker 14 I think that the Resonator is capable of far more than they're even aware of.

Speaker 3 You mean the mind-reading stuff you did back in Portafoy?

Speaker 14 It's more than just that. I can reach out so much farther than before, feel so much more.
I just wish I knew if this is a positive development. There's such a thing as feeling too much, after all.

Speaker 15 What you said last night... About everything being pulled closer to hell, it really stuck with me.
Your readings have always been spot on, and usually you've had to consult,

Speaker 15 well, you know, spirits. So, how are you getting insights like this if you're not talking to anything? Is that part of what you mean about being able to detect more?

Speaker 14 That's exactly what I mean. I reach out for answers, and they just come to me.
Well, sometimes they come to me.

Speaker 14 In this case, it's like I can feel the world fading away, and the other world, hell, getting closer. And I can feel them waiting.

Speaker 3 You mean the Sadas?

Speaker 14 Yes, they're down there, wandering a burning maze of their own construction. Trying to find their way to us.

Speaker 13 I think you could work better over here.

Speaker 3 And you, my dear little screw, need to be tightened. Hmm.

Speaker 13 I wonder if I could condense all these into a smaller frame.

Speaker 13 Ah, you're just in time, Margaret. Could you hand me that wiring harness I left near the table?

Speaker 7 I think you should take a break for a bit.

Speaker 3 I

Speaker 7 found something.

Speaker 13 You okay?

Speaker 13 What's in the envelope?

Speaker 7 It was

Speaker 7 tucked into the pocket of my jumper.

Speaker 7 Whoever broke in and set the trap, the tape,

Speaker 7 likely found it draped over the chair and slipped it there.

Speaker 13 What's inside?

Speaker 7 A letter from H.R. Hughes.

Speaker 7 Here,

Speaker 7 Read it yourself.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 13 To Patricia and Margaret Ingersoll.

Speaker 13 I hope this letter finds you in fair health.

Speaker 3 Or at the very least, as healthy as can be expected under the circumstances.

Speaker 3 By now, I trust you've come to understand that the world you once believed in is not the one you now inhabit. Since we last spoke, no doubt you've uncovered truths best left buried.
Perhaps too many.

Speaker 3 The veil has lifted, if only slightly. And in that glimpse, you've seen the dark machinery grinding beneath the skin of reality.
Forces ancient, unseen, and merciless.

Speaker 3 It's natural that you feel powerless in the face of such revelations.

Speaker 3 I imagine you, even now, huddled in some dim corner, dreading the slow drag of nightfall, only to fear its coming all the more, knowing that the darkness never truly ends.

Speaker 3 It merely circles back again and again, until one day it takes you with it, down beneath the skin of the world, past the bones of the earth, into something colder and crueler than death itself.

Speaker 3 But that fate is not yet yours.

Speaker 3 Understand this.

Speaker 3 You were never meant to share in the others' ruin, but their suffering should serve as a message for you. A demonstration.
We wanted you to clearly see what awaits those who choose defiance.

Speaker 3 You were chosen not for punishment, but for possibility. And surely, by now, you know why.

Speaker 3 The Parasonic Resonator. We could, of course, take it from you, but we would much prefer the brilliant minds that conceived it, the capable hands that shaped it.

Speaker 3 All we ask is that you do what you were already born to do. Perfect the science.
Expand its potential. The door stands open, unlocked by your genius.

Speaker 3 Now the time has come to cross the threshold. In return, you'll have everything you could ever want.
Funding without limit, complete autonomy, and freedom from our presence.

Speaker 3 You need never see us again.

Speaker 3 In this modern age, partnerships can thrive without so much as a word spoken aloud. Think of it.
Endless resources for your work. Wealth for your private comforts.
And peace.

Speaker 3 True peace in the knowledge that you've chosen wisely.

Speaker 3 The alternative, I assure you, is not something either of you is prepared to endure.

Speaker 3 Choose carefully. Choose soon.

Speaker 3 H.R. Hughes.

Speaker 7 What do you make of it?

Speaker 13 Well, what's to make? It's just another bullshit attempt to fuck with us.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 13 You look like you want me to say something else.

Speaker 7 Like what?

Speaker 13 Did you show this to the others?

Speaker 3 No, I...

Speaker 13 So you brought it straight to me? To what? See if I go along with it?

Speaker 7 Jesus, Pat, no.

Speaker 7 I didn't show it to him because I didn't want him second-guessing us. Thinking we might take the deal.

Speaker 7 Frankly, I wasn't sure what to do with it, which is why I brought it to you. Feck's sake, I'm sorry I ever told you how I feel about all this.
How I really felt.

Speaker 7 Just because it scares the living daylights out of me doesn't make me a goddamn traitor.

Speaker 13 I'm sorry.

Speaker 7 It's just been a lot.

Speaker 7 No, shit, it's been a lot.

Speaker 7 Here, give that to me.

Speaker 13 Where are you going?

Speaker 7 I'm giving it to Phyllis. I don't think they know the Resonators boosted her clairvoyance.
She might be able to read more from this letter than Hughes would like.

Speaker 7 Damn it.

Speaker 12 How can they so easily interfere with this cell reception?

Speaker 7 Who were you trying to call?

Speaker 3 Sam Childs.

Speaker 12 He's studied the weather diaries for decades. I was hoping to ask him if he'd run across any references to the Great Flood or the Mists of Sheol or even Ungruel Kerr.

Speaker 7 I was under the impression that Withers only had access to the first Mephitican codex.

Speaker 7 Since the existence of the second codex is known only to you and apparently the church,

Speaker 7 why would you assume Withers knows anything about it?

Speaker 12 Wither was said to have obtained a book known as the Corpus Mephitican, which many assumed to be a reference to the Codex Mephitica, the first of the two codices.

Speaker 12 However, in the notes I received from our enigmatic contact Edward, several excerpts are drawn from something repeatedly referred to as the Corpus Mephitica.

Speaker 12 I believe this may be the name given to the book created by combining both codices.

Speaker 12 If that is the case, then it's possible Wither possessed a complete copy and may have even unraveled some of its mysteries.

Speaker 3 Well, I just unraveled a huge mystery, and I didn't have either codex.

Speaker 3 What are you talking about, Martin?

Speaker 2 Someone must have slipped this envelope under the door earlier.

Speaker 3 It's full of photographs.

Speaker 2 I'm willing to bet these are the FBI agents we've been trying to track down. And this one here? With the signpost?

Speaker 15 I'd say that's our clue to where they've been keeping themselves.

Speaker 3 Cold Sparrow.

Speaker 2 The Gentleman from Hell is a Maltopia production. Today's episode was written by Mark Ansalome.

Speaker 2 and voiced by Stephen Zivik, Sam Stark, Aubrey Akers, Jesse Van Hove, Kelly Baer, Trenton Butt, and Lou Sutcliffe.

Speaker 2 Sound editing was completed by Stephen Anslone, and script editing was conducted by Walker Kornfeld. Be sure to rate and review us on iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.

Speaker 2 And follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Meltopia. If you want unique art and animations of Meltopia's stories, visit our YouTube page or click on the link in the show notes.

Speaker 2 And for more exclusive content, such as additional lore, stories, and art, be sure to check out our Patreon at www.patreon.com forward slash Meltopia.

Speaker 5 Hi, folks, it's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

Speaker 5 You know, whether you are doing traditional Thanksgiving, a friend's giving, or something in between, Whole Foods Market has great everyday prices on all the things you need for Thanksgiving.

Speaker 5 No way antibiotics ever birds bring quality to your table at a great price. You can enjoy so many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market.

Speaker 5 And remember, Prime gives you shop online and delivery or pickup as you like.

Speaker 6 If you're a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility and your machinery isn't working right, Granger knows you need to understand what's wrong as soon as possible.

Speaker 6 So when a conveyor motor falters, Grainger offers diagnostic tools like calibration kits and multimeters to help you identify and fix the problem.

Speaker 6 With Granger, you can be confident you have everything you need to keep your facility running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.

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