The Gentleman From Hell |S1| Ep. 46

Rusty Quill presents

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.

If you're enjoying your descent into the infernal depths of our world and want to dive even deeper, consider supporting us on Patreon.

There, you'll unlock exclusive content, including original art from Mark Angelon, housed in the legendary Gallery of the Damned, deep lore and world-building treasures within the memorabilia of the House of Sparrows, and coming soon, the Testimonies of the Damned, a Patreon-exclusive audio series that expands the twisted mythology of the gentleman from hell.

Plus, fans of the wider Meltopia universe will uncover a trove of exclusive lore, audio dramas, artwork, behind-the-scenes videos, and much more.

Ready to explore the deeper circles of horror?

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

Did you know adults 60 plus lose more than $60 billion each year to financial exploitation?

Greenlight's new Family Shield plan empowers you to monitor your accounts for suspicious activity, protect yourself with up to $1 million identity theft coverage, and reassure loved ones that you're safe with location sharing and place alerts.

Get peace of mind today at greenlight.com slash protect.

That's greenlight.com slash protect.

Incredible.

Just incredible.

According to some of these documents, the church, church, or some incarnation of it, has been aware of the damned for hundreds of years.

Are you sure they didn't just hand you a file filled with horseshit so they could get you to hand over those pages?

I don't think so.

Just from a cursory examination of the materials, I'm seeing quite a bit of familiar material.

From what I can tell, quite a bit of what they've deducted stems from a single event that goes back centuries.

All the identifying names as to where this information originated has been removed, So it's hard to tell or be certain of any specific attribution.

I think they're counting on my knowledge of Nephitica to allow me to navigate this.

You really believe there was a second codex?

And no one's ever so much as heard of it?

As far as some of the stuff being familiar, I'm sure I don't have to tell you that lacing lies with a bit of truth is the most effective way to deceive someone.

I understand your skepticism, and I'm certainly not taking any of this without the requisite grain of salt, but it's all we have to go on for now.

Yes, I believe this is it, or at least a fragment of the foundational narrative.

Prisoner of the House of Silence.

It seems that an early Christian order somehow managed to capture one of the damned, imprisoning her within their monastery, the House of the Holy silence.

Yes, listen to this.

Brother Dunstan, well versed in the ways and wiles of the damned, fashioned a trap that proved capable of snaring a serpent freshly sprung from the pit.

Metal cooled in the blessed cistern was used to forge the cage that held her.

She was placed at the center of the great room, where she sat agreeably within her prison, her honeyed fragrance lingering in the air, her trailing skirts dancing in a wind without source, and her gaze staring without looking into the soul of every man.

Have you ever heard of this brother Dunstan and his monastery?

No.

But I am a bit concerned by the mention of blessed water.

Why is that?

Blessed objects have never proven particularly useful against the damned.

I've read several accounts of persons attempting to use crosses and holy water and such, but to no avail.

So, you think this could all be a put-on?

It's hard to say without further study.

This blessed cistern may not be a general reference to a container holding holy water, but

to a relic of some kind, like the Belle of Antioch.

This seems interesting.

The testament of Brother Osric.

It seems to be one of the clerics who attended the damned they'd imprisoned.

I and three others kept watch over

the damned who gave her name only as Poison Eve.

Every night in the unbroken silence of our vows we would keep our vigil

and every night she would speak to us of pleasures and knowledge we were sworn never to know.

Though we understood well enough her her powers could not move beyond the iron of her prison, her words were a power unto their own.

While no man in attendance looked upon her eyes as we were instructed,

our ears were hers to do with as she pleased.

On one horrific night she spoke of our dreams,

and when at last length she came to mine she smiled with all the venom of a pit of serpents

why Azriek

you dream of perfumed flesh

my flesh

I would gladly give it to you for only the favour of my freedom

or

If it should please you as much as it would please me,

you may reach out your your cold, lonely hand and touch me now.

Do you think all that silence conceals you from me, Usrik?

I can hear your last.

It's as loud to me as the thunder is to you.

You would slay every fool in this rotting hut for the pleasure.

Save that you fear the consequence.

but what if i told you only a precious few are bound for hell

that their fates are written on the skin of their spirits

and you dear usric

have not suffered the touch of such sin

You could butcher these fools to your left and right,

Seize me in your lusty grip

and still see heaven on the eve of your death.

You see,

your God has no want for your piety,

your

purity.

He means only to preserve what he gave you.

And I,

dear child of dust and breath,

cannot steal it.

Her words were like knives against my faith,

cutting it away in bloody sheets, unwrapping me from vow after vow.

I could only try to block her out with prayers,

but it proved useless.

Prayer,

if you doubt my words and truly fear your God's judgment,

I would think now a poor time to court his attention.

He likely sees you plainer than even I.

Will he not see what you want to do with me?

To

me?

Perhaps it's too late to be redeemed, your desire having already damned you?

And if so,

should you not at least suffer a sin worth the price of hell?

And you too,

silent and shaking, will you stay so still,

even as Brother Osric contemplates your demise?

I can feel him breaking,

a lusty goat pulling at his tether.

How long will it hold?

You may only have seconds to act.

I'll tell you what.

I shall make a pact with you all.

He who wears the cooling blood of his fallen brothers can have me till sun's first light.

I shall weave such pleasures that will make that man glad for them,

even while he burns in deepest hell.

When a silence followed upon her words, I could feel her eyes moving across me once again,

raising goose flesh wherever they passed.

Oh,

perhaps it wasn't my flesh you were dreaming of after all.

Was it...

perhaps

the young woman who bade you save her mother from the plague?

Her dying mother, only inches away.

And all you could conjure in your heart was desire.

Was it even your heart at all?

That was doing the conjuring.

Oh, dear, sweet Osrick, I hoped so much that you would help my mother into her grave, so that you and I could be

alone.

Even as you lusted after me, I dreamed of such passions passing between us, naked and warm beneath our blankets, night after night after night.

How easily she summoned forth my weakness,

as easily as rain calls up worms from the earth.

There was no secret, no thought,

no fear or desire she could not have of me.

But still the three of us held our silence unbroken.

It was then that her gaze turned hot, burning across us.

The three of us.

My patience can outlast Mansions.

But what of you three?

That simpleton Dunstan.

he'll set you before me again and again

night after night

and for what i wonder

i cannot leave this prison and no one comes to ray me

shall i tell you why

i believe i will

regardless

He sets you here to study me, to witness the ways I might unravel you.

After each long night you will record my words, my ways.

Also he might decipher me from afar,

locked away in his towering sanctuary, beyond the reach of my voice.

Through your suffering you will come to know me bit by bit at the cost of your withering lives, perhaps

even your songs.

Do you think

you would deny yourselves not only your words and your freedom, but your deepest desires?

The three of us could leave tonight, together.

I could give myself to you.

I could give anyone to you.

but no

you would choose to sit in this filthy lodge of crumbling worm-eaten wood

forcing me to find a way to destroy you

and find a way i shall

it's only a matter of time

We are playthings.

Our faith and our vows merely toys to her.

And yet we know now

that there is but one way to be free of her,

to deny her our everlasting souls.

For these will be our last words, written only in ink,

as we go into the longest night with our vows of silence unbroken.

As Judas paid for his own betrayals,

so too shall we for the lust and doubt and weakness.

We give ourselves to you, O Lord.

Please save us from the devil, for her jaws are around our throats.

It's signed: Brothers Osric, Arlus, and Joffrey.

It's 3 a.m.

on the hills.

The fog's so thick.

There's no seeing past it.

Given what Ben saw, I'm not sure I want to.

Everything feels so different.

Terrible.

It's like we're no longer in the mansion at all.

I'm no psychic, but I can feel something too.

Like everything's unstable.

Whatever's happened, it's made the resonators useless.

They come on, but then go rush back off.

Without those, we're about screwed.

What should we do?

All we can do is find a place to hold them.

Put our backs on the wall and hope all this shit passes.

We know it passed with them.

I just don't know what the effect the main unit might have had on whatever that chanting on the tape was intended to accomplish.

Well, we know the portables seem to ramp things up in the hospital, so.

It was also equipped with the chain,

which makes it about an even split as to whether it helped us or hurt us.

What about

someone's inside?

I'm not certain that it's a someone at all.

What should we do?

We stay calm and stay together.

Anything happens, just get behind Leon and me.

I think it's a safe bet to assume whatever might come at us likely won't mind a few bullets.

All the same, bullets are better than nothing.

I can't argue with that.

Look!

Someone's standing next to the driveway.

I see him.

It's just a silhouette.

I can't see them clearly.

Should we move away from the windows so they can't see us?

It's no use.

They know exactly where we are.

They're walking up to the front door.

Fucking fog's thickening up.

Where'd they go?

Quiet.

Listen.

Be ready for anything.

What the hell are they doing?

No idea, but let's move away from the front door.

What about trying to make a break for it in one of the trucks?

Ben never seemed to escape the fog when he was driving about town.

I don't think we'd fare much better.

That and the electrical systems tend to bail pretty easily around here.

Better to be trapped in the mansion than getting caught squeezed inside a car.

The study has the big oaken double doors and only the one window, which has that large wooden shutter.

We can at least close ourselves off from the rest of the mansion.

And if Bush comes to shove, we can take off out the window.

All right, let's move there quietly.

I'm not sure I feel any safer in here than I do out there.

There's nowhere better to go.

We'll just have to wait this out.

And if it doesn't end, and if Hog only gets sicker?

Then we deal with it.

But for now.

What the hell is happening?

Anyone is a thing.

I can feel something closing on us.

Moving through the ether.

What is it?

I don't know, but it's

Jesus Christ, it's gonna shake the mansion to pieces.

I think

it's over.

Everyone okay?

What

the fuck

is that?

Holy shit.

It's a massive hallway.

That sure as heard wasn't there just a few seconds ago.

It was that.

Whatever just happened.

It was the sound of reality changing to accommodate

that.

A goddamn army could pass through that thing.

Who knows?

Maybe one will.

Does something expect us to go in there?

Because if it does,

fuck that.

Where does it go, I wonder?

We're never gonna find out, cuz we're getting the fuck out of here.

Come on, let's go.

Fuck you won't budge

Come on, give me some room.

We'll both try on three one

two

three

It's no use, it's not opening

What about the window?

I doubt that we'll open either.

Whatever's in here wants us to go through the hallway.

No fucking way, you hear me?

What about the resonators?

Is there any way to get them to work, even just for a few seconds while we push the doors open?

I don't know.

Let me see what I can do.

Theoretically, we don't actually need the sound of parasonic field.

It primarily helps us extract hidden information from the local environment.

But we really need it for us to boost the chime of Antioch.

Huh.

I wonder if I changed the field strength, made it variable, less concentrated.

I suppose a loss in parasonic girding could be made up by the sonics of the chime itself,

allowing it to structure the field.

But before we can do that, we need power.

The battery readings are all over the place, so I've got no idea if they've got use or not.

Something,

something's coming from that hallway.

Whatever you need to do to get that thing working,

do it quick.

I'm on it.

It's a man,

and he's on fire.

Wait a minute.

Oh

my god,

it can't be.

It's Abel Sider.

Well, howdy, boys,

ladies,

been quite a while,

ain't it?

We're way past that, fellas.

Death can't touch me.

Never could.

You worthless peace.

Talk shit.

You deserve worse than death.

You're right about that, Bright Boy.

I do deserve worse.

I burned in the labyrinth as I seek them out.

Endless fire,

endless pain.

But then again,

I was made to burn,

weren't I?

Started up there,

continued down here.

You cloaked us all in flame,

set us to wandering,

and now we've been brought together,

joined

in hell.

Bullshit, this isn't hell.

We didn't die.

Didn't you?

All them little ones you lit up took the life right out of your eyes.

You'd know if you ever looked in the mirror,

but you don't, do you?

Not anymore.

You can't.

And now you're dead

and damned.

Just

like

me.

No, no, you're lying.

You're a liar.

Maybe you should ask them

truth right from the mouth of

babes

for the love of Christ, turn the resonator on.

I'm almost finished.

Now it's y'all's turn to burn.

Trisha, please.

I got it.

Where am I?

Leon?

Mason?

Where is everyone?

I'm over here.

On the floor.

We're back.

Thank Christ.

We're back.

So, what happened?

We all collapsed to the floor once the resonator turned on.

All I know is that whatever happened isn't happening anymore.

You and that machine are miracle workers, Patricia.

Pat,

where are you going?

To try and rig away to get the main unit running.

It's 9 a.m.

That means we've got about 18 hours before the fog comes back,

and we go back to hell.

The Gentleman from Hell is a Meltopia production.

Today's episode was written by Mark Anselone and voiced by Stephen Zivik, Sam Stark, Aubrey Akers, Jesse Van Hove, Kelly Baer, and Matt Van Hove.

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

Be sure to rate and review us on iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.

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.

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.