Chapter V - Brimstone

[IamLEAM1983]

Three tried not to pay too much attention as buildings sprung to life ahead of them, the dream's detail level unfurling like a video game's, square foot by square foot. Only the space they occupied looked definitive, things shrinking back to a haze behind. Somehow, Aidan understood this was transitory: details would be locked in once Meris' own dreamscape would have accommodated all adjoining spaces. As long as they were conjoined, the Darkhallow wouldn't save their alterations. It focused on rendering for now - baking things in was something that happened in the waking hours, the entirety of the Void Weavers always keeping a toe in the dream world - just enough to commit things to memory, to have them exist come the next night.

He smiled at Meris. "I know he loves you, Meris. It sounds obvious, but Archie doesn't love Crystal in the same way I loved Carrie or Vernon loves Eir."

The soldier briefly looked over his shoulder, smirking. "Look at them - Vernon's stuck somewhere in mute disbelief. He's letting Eir lead him along. Seeing her smile at street signs she's known for generations is bringing him comfort; it's keeping him grounded. All the same, something tells me he'll be the first to start building, between the two. Vernon's the idealistic one, she's practical-minded with an eye for beauty."

He looked back to Meris. "They love what they see in each other, but there aren't moment-to-moment projects put aside. They refine their goals in spurts, Vernon soundproofing his ideas with his Winter people after he has them. Eir's the type to hold town halls back at the Greenvale. Dig around and you see she never did fall in with the rest of the East Coast's Summer aristocrats. The Fae aren't big on movers and shakers, in general - but they both are, in their own way."

Drake then cast his eyes on both English gentlemen and the werewolf who walked next to them. "Archie will never admit to it, but he's a wild one. He's an adrenaline junkie, someone who's always gone looking for new experiences. Danger seems to enliven his experiences as a Clank, and I've seen him react to the Deputy Chief; to little tells she has when someone lands a good joke at the office or says something insightful. The part of her that's still feral likes cunning - she likes craftiness. She sees Arch as being purpose-built to hunt, to track - and not just in the wild. One of Archie's main stomping grounds was always high society, and I think Crystal knows she's paired up with a fellow predator. Not a sociopath, not like you'd expect out of us humans - but like an actual predator who contributes in the biosphere. Wolves are empathetic beings in the limits of their pack - and we're Archie's pack. That means we work together. It resonates both with her animal spirit and her sense of esprit de corps as a police officer."

Meris and Nereus' once-shared Modernist house came into view, along with the forested park they'd once willed into being together. Drake pursed his lips together.

"Carrie and me... She doesn't deserve an angsty projection and I don't want to handle the guilt anymore. Suffice it to say, we were scared and desperate kids stuck in a bad situation together, even before shit hit the fan. We bonded over seeing people die by our hands and regretting it every second of every day. The LT and I were the only ones who didn't treat our tour of duty like some sort of Call of Duty fan campaign, so we shouldered the brunt of it all. The speaking Farsi, bits of Dari and Pashtun; the fucked-up aftercare we offered to anyone whose town we rolled through, basically parroting at goat farmers to walk ten miles to the nearest checkpoint where they'd be able to voice complaints to some jaded PR dweeb with rifle training and a Linguistics diploma..."

He sighed. "We were the only ones who understood, the only ones who gave a shit... Quite naturally, we ended up breaking all fraternization rules. Pick a spot in Camp Performance, we fucked there, guaranteed. Our hours spent together were the only ones that felt right in the entire tour of duty. We didn't bond over a project, not like Nereus and you - we bonded over our not wanting a project. We vented at each other, spent evenings fantasizing on stow-away rides back to America that would end with us kidnapping the Secretary of Defense to put him through the tamer, more bloodless ends of our enhanced interrogation techniques, see how fair he'd consider them afterwards..."

Drake scoffed. "I remember taking a father of five on my commander's orders and taking him aside to an interrogation room. Nobody came and got him in all of thirteen hours, and we'd shut the power off twice. When the room had power, speakers would blast Cannibal Corpse albums at him on repeat. Hours of George Fisher yelling about screwdriver-assisted eviscerations over emergency strobe lights... It's not the Black Speech, but it's just as inhumane."

Then came a shrug. "We got out of it in each other's arms. Four and a half hours a night, with half an hour for my sneaking in and out of the women's barracks."

He walked up the path to the house's front door. "I could function without Carrie. Archie can handle Crystal working her hours at Central. Nereus? He never could handle being alone with the Chamberlain. He never did handle having to play a part for generations on end. I thought the Goat had shown me what a broken man looks like when he broke Archie. The fact is, he hadn't. I thought my own life was an example of it. Turns out I'm less broken than I thought - I've got everyone here to thank for it."

He paused and looked at Meris again. "Nereus, though? I used to think my reading Shakespeare for class in high school gave me a sense of what it meant to want to die for somebody, or to want to die because you're kept away from someone you love. Give him hope, and he's a raging fire. He makes Rendell look like a chump, like he's never needed us and could just as soon blow the doors off of his California compound and walk off into the sunset to find you.

Give him despair, show him suffering or torture, though - and he crumbles. I've seen Chambers get snippy at him over paperwork, for instance. Meaningless stuff, mostly - but your husband's out of an emotional filter. He smiled, the smile turned spastic, and he turned before he could either start bawling or otherwise physically lash out."

Drake turned the handle and stepped inside. The living room looked like an archaeological dig site, decades of dust and neglect having settled on everything.

"When things worked out fine, your love was a fueling fire for him. You were harsh teachers for each other, but he was desperately hungry for anything you'd have to teach. He would've tried everything for you. He's almost lost it all now, and that fire's consuming him. Peel past the ribald Mediterranean guru, and all you can find is that emptiness he senses he's left in both of you. Ironically, he would've lost all hope if nobody had managed to corner you or otherwise attempt to kill you. Every envoy of Chambers' or any hired gun who failed gave him more of a reason to keep hoping - to keep surviving."

[TennyoCeres84]

Meris proceeded into the shared home and surveyed the dust and disrepair within the living room with dismay and frustration. While the typical thing to do would be to grab a featherduster or cleaning cloth to clean the soiled surfaces, she opted for another method. Her creative will manifested in the the disappearance of the offending particles coating the furniture and the appliances. In a matter of seconds, the sofas, chairs, television, other electronic appliances, and tables now looked as though they had been maintained for years. The Augur's wife then felt a small bit of relief come over her, as though the action reaffirmed that issues could be resolved after such a long time of being neglected.

"Nereus, I'm home," she said quietly and resolutely, proceeding into the other parts of the house. The kitchen, bedroom, two bathrooms, and other areas were returned to a state of clean and kept-up orderliness as her mind focused on correcting the collective disarray.

The group of companions would see her head toward the rear entrance and open the door. "Cailean, come here!" she called out into the backyard. They would hear a joyful round of barks, followed by a medium-sized ball of fur bounding toward his mistress and plopping down in front of her with a wagging tail. The Finnish Lapphund was still mostly back with tan and white marking the face, belly, chest, and curled tail, just as puplike as the last time she had seen the dog.

"This is Cailean. He didn't exist in the real world, but he was an addition here I pulled from memories of the dogs I'd occasionally see in ports with Saami herdsmen," she informed them as she reached down to pet his head and neck. "He might help lead us to Nereus."

[IamLEAM1983]

Three nodded. "It's worth a shot. Before we proceed, I'd rather we figured out in which direction in which to sic your dream doggo," he said, briefly kneeling down to pet the dog. He spared Cailean a few minutes' worth of playful baby talk, Cailean looking glad for the attention he'd received from a newcomer, and then stood up and dusted his knees.

"I'm not looking to snoop into what's rightfully yours and Nereus'," he told Meris. "Like I told Jenkins a while back, I was interested in becoming an investigator for the Army, before Najeeban. I started reading into Criminology before Anton turned it into a compulsion and took me over. Psychology, aftercare for civilians caught in crossfires… I have a sense of who Nereus is thanks to the correspondence we've had, but this is a unique opportunity. The Darkhallow's home to millions of places like this one, and sending a dog out to find a single mind in a theoretically infinite space feels a bit ambitious. I want to narrow the area we'll need to canvas, first."

As the others also stepped inside, Archie corroborated Aidan's plan. "This should come in handy in the waking world, as well. You've seen the man's despairing Californian half more than his hopeful one. It could bring some choices of his as Renewal's guru under a new light, perhaps as attempts at communication or a form of sounding-off."

Cuthbert seemed to be coming into this from a similar approach. "I'm surprised the Augur didn't warn you off more vigorously, honestly. If I'd been in his position, I would have attacked you personally. I would've driven you away to keep you safe."

Three carefully walked around the coffee table, both taking stock of the starkly modern design of the house's first floor and of what it seemed to infer. "No," he said, with some hesitation, "that's what a confident man would've done. Nereus felt confident in here, but not out there - not back out in Dalarath. Clean, bold lines, more sightlines to the neighbouring buildings than I can count, no opaque drapes…"

He rounded the kitchen counter, hand thoughtfully gliding along the marble surface, and opted to open the fridge. Inside, the petrified remains of a bag of salad, fruits, vegetables and spoiled, nearly physically mouldy cartons of milk could be seen. This place being what it was, Three directed his attention at the fridge's contents. As Meris had done with the dust of the passing centuries, Aidan reversed petrification and decay, fruits that had turned into brittle patches of mold on the shelves rising out of their own decayed goop, said filth aging in reverse, returning to pulp and juice - the whole of it reintegrating now-healthy produce.

"Nereus is clinically obese. Stress keeps him from eating healthily in the waking world, but he can afford to be idealistic here. Dieting habits don't have to be hard to stick to, here."

Putting a knee down, he opened the freezer. Rock-hard lean meats ensconced in frost waited, their expiry dates illegible. "Chicken breasts, scallops, salmon filets, what I think is chopped octopus… He didn't trust our time's concept of frozen goods, so he stuck full broccoli and cauliflower buds in there, too. Almost no red meat - I think I see one filet mignon in the far back."

Standing up, he peered at the archway that connected the kitchen to the dining room, then at the stairs leading to the upstairs mezzanine. He carefully closed the freezer with a foot and walked into the dining room. "Nothing's oversized, and his Thanos persona is estimated to weigh at least three hundred and seventy-five pounds… That puts his more hopeful self-projection somewhere in the high two hundreds. If his family had a propensity to end up serving Harrogath, then it means he has a genetic predisposition to be in the healthier class of obese persons… He can probably pack muscles with some effort, but he won't ever lose the paunch."

Bucky clicked his tongue. "So, kinda like Taft, right?
- Taft before and after his presidency, yeah," amended Drake. "He got worse the more his term went on and was full-on morbid by the time he'd had his falling-out with Roosevelt. Food was a coping mechanism. Nereus is in the same vicious cycle - Harrogath doesn't have to push him too hard for him to gorge himself when the cameras aren't rolling. We won't be dealing with a spritely Squid like mister Whitney, when we do get him out of California. We'll have to come prepared."

The soldier then took a step back and opened the sliding door that stood to his left. Nereus' office waited, the central light in the center of his voxel-based draughtsman's table still gently pulsing. That made Three scoff. "Our boy's got expensive tastes… Then again, everything's free in here."

He grunted as he pushed a few buttons. "A Nikon-Zeiss holographic lens, low-power-consumption LEDs, Scaffold OS running AutoCAD VOX 3.5... This is a smart fifteen thou, back home. Generally not the kind of stuff you find in private households; it's architect cabinet fodder or ritzy nightclub glitter for drinking games or conference calls… The notion that this place's grasp on the future showed him this in the sixteenth century is just…"

Drake settled with shaking his head, and then parsed through the saved projects. He frowned as a familiar file name came up, and accessed it. "Holden Hall, Magnus Tower, Hardy & Jameson in Hong Kong… He'd seen them all in advance. I've got 3D renders for everything from Bagley's armature to the biological scaffold for the Lexicon…"

A few more clicks of the trackball allowed him to access an initially unknown collection of flat, ribbon-like swirls that seemed to have been rendered around a transparent tube-like form. A few seconds in, he rubbed his mouth in astonishment. "These are Aislinn's tattoos, extruded in 3D! He focused on details of what he'd seen in here and tried to render it! Did he believe we'd be here for him all along, or was he attempting to convince himself?"

He shook his head. "We need something to help us sort through the Darkhallow, to make it so we don't spend the next few eternities running after a nonexistent dog while our bodies wither away… Nereus must've left us a clue somewhere…"

[TennyoCeres84]

"We saw glimpses of you originally, and the insights we gathered became clearer with time. As the time would've gotten closer to the current year, the clearer information would have become as it developed. I imagine some of his hope rested your shoulders as well," Meris noted, appearing thoughtful as she tried to think over where or how they might find him.

"His favorite place in the real world was a small alcove that nobody knew of, so unless he duplicated it here somewhere on the shoreline, I doubt it's that. Though, I do have a simple spell that might help us find the clue," she stated.

The archmage pulled out a needle and some thread. Neasa raised a brow quizzically at the rather simple items. "Low-tech magic?" she asked.

"Dowsing's an oldie, but goodie," her great-grandmother replied back with a light chuckle. "If Nereus was able to see this much into the future, so hopefully he had an idea of how I would find his clue..."

She allowed the makeshift pendulum start to swing, softly singing, "Pendulum, lead me to my love, take me to where he left his message..."

[IamLEAM1983]

The group held their breath, Meris' pendulum barely swinging a bit to the right from the Archmage's position. It might as well have been swinging straight down - seemingly straight at the draftsman's table and the computer Three had just used.

"Well," noted Cuthbert, his tone slightly disappointed, "that's not exactly helpful... Not to worry, I'm confident we'll find something. We just need to think outside the box to a degree."

Three then spent a few minutes booting the computer back up and combing through its file system. Nothing out of the ordinary came up. Still, in attempting to open the table's previously opened files, he only managed to trigger an error message: 

Drive E: is missing or not responding. Could not open Meris.scd
Please reinsert medium and try again.

Three and Cuthbert spent a few minutes opening each of the physical desk's drawers and sorting through their contents. Light pens and light-point-based sculpting tools came up, along with a scattered collection of architecture-related magazines that spanned the last sixty years. Finally, it was Hiram who noticed how Meris' pendulum never stopped swinging in the same general direction, insistently pointing somewhere below and to the right of the Archmage.

"What if the dowsing crystal were pointing not at the table, but below our very feet?
- We haven't seen any doors that could lead to a basement," noted Three. "Then again, with this place being what it is... The safest bet would be the dining room - maybe he added some sort of pressure-activated panel or a switch of some kind..."

He then shouldered his way past the group and began inspecting the dining room. "It makes sense, though. This place is already claimed, he already had enough of an easy time creating it with you," he told Meris, "so I don't see why he would've set up puzzles inside Hope's broader simulation. Why bother creating, when you can edit what's already yours? I would've wanted to keep things subtle, in his situation - and that works fine."

He gave the room a once over, with its stark white walls, glass dining table and slightly Googie Raygun wooden dining chairs.

"Okay," he said, sighing, and looking back at the Archmage. "Let's say I'm Nereus, hypothetically. I'm one of the most skilled users of the Black Speech, and I can create virtually anything I want in here. I'm the best example of my kind to date, in that I have an eye for details most Prelates don't have. My creations are usually extremely stable and viable - I'd probably be able to give George Gammell some eyes if I had the right phonemes and phrasal constructions to work with... Most importantly, I know my wife knows me inside and out."

He ran a hand on the glass surface, tentatively putting some pressure on one of the four gently protruding chromed steel caps that hid the screw points for the table's metallic legs and support frame.

"Is anything off to you in this place, Meris? Think in terms of tiny details. Photo frames, light switches, vases - maybe even right down to Cailean's collar."

[TennyoCeres84]

The mention of Cailean's collar caught the selkie off guard, as it was very specific. She looked down at the dog and raised an eyebrow.

"Compared to the dust covering everything and the moldy food, he is the only part that didn't need to be physically reconstituted in a similar fashion..." Meris mused, then reaching down to unclasp the dog's collar. She then turned it about in her hands to look for anything out of the ordinary.

[IamLEAM1983]

Three was a bit surprised to see Meris take his statement partially to the letter, but a bit less so when an odd-looking medal revealed itself to have been affixed to the collar, carefully wedged between the basic nametag and address plates, so as not to be readily apparent. It was thicker than the others, at about the size of a microchip medal and had some sort of plastic-covered soft front cover - which Aidan pressed down on with a thumb.

Then, rather impossibly, the sounds of grinding stone were heard as a section of the bay-facing wall pushed forward and slid away. On the other side of the wall and right next to the house, there'd be no corresponding space that would have allowed for a stone-lined secret passage; especially not one whose stones looked like they oozed with humidity and long isolation. Three couldn't repress a smirk at this. "Bingo," he said. He then looked down at his right hand and willed a camp flashlight's big handle into being, the rest of the mechanism following suit with the pings and tiny sparks of unprotected electronics being given heat and power. Once he had a plastic housing in hand, he flicked the switch on and went to stand on the steps' landing.

"It's a spiral staircase," he said. "It's leading down, obviously. There's some kind of blue-green bioluminescent moss on the walls."

Drake paused. "It's weird - the air smells like an underwater cave or a cenote - like there's a lot of trapped humidity…
- It smells like Dalarath's best-kept secrets to me," intuited Delmar. "The alcove Meris, Lucian and Nereus discussed in. It wasn't this humid, but it was close to an underwater cove. So was Respite Point. The smell feels similar to me."

Hiram seemingly had reservations. "All these water vapors will wreck havoc on our linens! Is anyone here hardy enough of a bloke to venture down there? Just looking down is making my lungs seize!"

Archie rolled his eyes. "I forgot how gentle of a disposition you had, Father… Into the breach, lad?"

"You bet," replied Aidan, as he started down. "Either someone conjures a bit of heat, or dream or not, someone's breaking an ankle on these steps for sure! Nereus could've splurged on a handrail, honestly!"

[TennyoCeres84]

"You can stay up here if you wish, Sir Holden, but linens are one of the best fabrics for humid conditions," Meris addressed the elderly man.

"There's a reason American Southerners touted its use in their clothing. And as for your lungs, the weather in the Darkhallow truly is mind over matter. If you think it will mess with your lungs, then it will, and vice versa. Though, your son seems to be headed down, and moisture can wreak havoc on metal; take that for what you will."

Still, it was with a hopeful heart that she turned toward the staircase. Thankfully, her suspicions that Nereus had created a duplicate alcove had been correct, as it had been a truly important location to Nereus, Lucian, and her.

She created a small, glowing orb that would remove some of the humidity and heat from the air and provide some additional lighting. Simultaneously, a manifested handrail wound itself down the length of the spiral staircase. "He might've done that intentionally, to deter any Loyalists who might've figured out Cailean was the key to the alcove. The moss is a species that grows naturally in Dalarath and provides one of the main light sources, along with being a source of wine."

Even with the additions, Meris made her way down the steps carefully with the others, curious to see what they would find there.

[IamLEAM1983]

The way down was a long one, which gave Three time enough to ogle a few of the glowing, moistened lumps. "Void Weavers make wine out of this?!
- It's a moss strain that was engineered long before Amaxi corrupted us," noted Cuthbert. "We've lost the reasoning behind its existence to time, but my best guess is we created a source of alcohol for ourselves for the same reasons my Jesuit friends still like well-furnished tables and good wine. Cavern life doesn't bring much in the way of leisure, but we've always been in a unique position. We get to make our own fun from the ground up."

Three made a face, in full confidence that the group's single file wouldn't allow it to be seen. "Fermented moss juice," he said. "Ew. The stuff probably tastes like moldy Drano!"

Delmar, a few slots back in the file, was grinning. "Actually, we stole a fair bit of genetic information from your average raisins. There's clumps of fruit-like clusters in the moss. The end result isn't exactly chartreuse and our palates were never human, but a little surface-world refining should produce more of a mainstream vintage. Plus, since all it needs is a patch of humid ground, it's less of a costly operation to run than your own vintners. Nereus was probably shocked by the amount of work and luck combined that you need to produce viable raisins in large quantities. Our spirits almost never alter, never depreciate and never produce disappointing batches."

Cuthbert scoffed in amusement which then was altered into bitterness. "With all due respect, Delmar, speak for yourself. The last glasses I remember having before being guided out of Dalarath were some of the most vulgar stuff I've ever seen come out of our moss farmers! Without Nereus at the helm, they've tuned things for mass production over quality -for when those Prelates with an ear for Harrogath and His more wrathful Brother decide to get stone-drunk before tearing a few slaves apart..."

The bottom of the stairs led to the chamber's narrow archway, here altered to accommodate for its new underground disposition. The same starlike pinpricks of light in the dark stone overhead could be seen, along with the same crystal fingers pointing down at the central table like a crude chandelier. Things were largely as Meris would've remembered them - safe for one noteworthy difference.

The Nereus she'd remember from her earlier days in the Darkhallow was seated at the table, hands clasped around the sides of an ornate box. This was the Augur's old idealized self, with his closed double-breasted white suit belying the fact that his arms were moderately sturdy and his legs and hips, fairly well defined. As Three had expected, his excess weight still was apparent - with a generous belly and an obvious double chin behind the tentacles.

Notably, however, Nereus' head was resting against his chin, eyes closed and fluttering behind their lids. Snores escaped him - not exactly the tormented ones tacked on to the Augur's restless sleep as per Azorthagal's offered vision - but more in keeping with how his reasonably healthy self would have sounded, as per Meris' memories of their mornings in the Darkhallow. It felt like he'd simply sat down to wait for someone with his parcel in hand and had then dozed off.

Of course, this was new to Three. "Wow," he said. "He doesn't look half as good as this in our exchanges... Those shoulders - he definitely sees himself as a weightlifter. A potential one, at least..."

Archie ventured a little closer and snapped his fingers. Nereus' head kept gently lolling. "If this is some planted projection of your man," he suggested Meris, "it could be he is waiting for some sort of keyword or action to effectively start up."

Anton shouldered his way past the group. "This is a waste of time," he said, leaning into Nereus's face. Quietly, he formed the Black Speech phrase that would allow him to force the construct's simulated brain into wakefulness.

The result was less than ideal. Nereus' eyes opened with the blind stare of a sleepwalker, he slowly raised his head, and then snapped his right hand around Azardad's throat. Being the Augur, he had such a command of throat vocalizations that he effectively could both use the Black Speech and speak English at the same time! Alien sounds wrapped themselves around familiar ones, imparting superhuman strength to the Augur's arm. Still, the English words felt slurred and unconsciously vocalized - effectively those of a sleepwalker.

"You... are... unauthorized. You will be... destroyed."

The surgeon was then thrown back with a single forward motion from Nereus' right hand, not so much as a grunt of effort marking the gesture. Azardad impacted with the alcove's far wall hard enough for a loud crack to be heard, Nereus' snores rising to what almost felt like snarls or growls as he slowly got up from the table. More Black Speech poured out of him, bulges forming underneath his right arm's sleeve - and more tentacles pushing their way out of his shirt's sleeve as they grew and quested for Anton's throat.

"I will protect what matters. I will... assist Meris. I will not be... deterred."

Three sprung to Anton's defense, which only earned him the kind of side kick you wouldn't have expected someone of the Augur's girth to handle - a single, massively powerful pumping motion of his knee making the black sole of his shoe feel like an oncoming freight train. Somehow, Aidan was acutely aware, even as he was flung back, that the only thing he owed his continued existence to was his Lexicon. If Nereus had crushed his chest in here, he would have suffered a thoracic collapse in the real world.

Archie being a spy and thief, he opted to try and hold the box for ransom, in the hopes that forcing some logic into the proceedings would endeavor the Augur's projection to negotiation. He'd barely lifted the box from the table that Nereus' head snapped towards him with another loud snorting snarl, eyes squinted in sightless rage - and pointed imperiously right past Archie, at the wall behind. The Clank had maybe two seconds to look a bit confused before stone hands and arms seemed to flow out of the alcove's curved surface and gripped Archie wherever they could. He managed to hop and weave around the first few, but eventually lost his gibus and right shoe - which were both crushed. The hands and arms reformed no matter where the graceful Automaton hopped, until his right ankle was eventually caught - and ruthlessly twisted aside. Metal screamed - and so did the Lord - and he fell forward, too short to keep his chin from impacting with the stone table. The impact seemingly knocked him out cold as he now lay there, unmoving as more arms now dragged him into the wall and floor, nearby surfaces rippling like quicksand and grinding like stones rubbed against one another.

[TennyoCeres84]

The projection's onslaught of the automaton, human, and Void Weaver disturbed her, given her being accustomed to the Augur' normally gentle behavior. The three men's aggressive behavior had countered any agreeability it might've had.

Frightened at the sight of Archibald being hauled into the wall, the action her sent into a partial frantic, partial focused mode. Telling the others to stay back, she hurried to the duplicate and clung to it with her arms around its neck.

"No, please stop! You're hurtin' my friends! Release him! I'm Meris, an' I need you to assist me, please! Stop what you are doin' and help me!" Meris urged the creation, tinges of her Orcadian dialect creeping into her voice.