Chapter V - Brimstone

[TennyoCeres84]

Meris smiled fondly at them and nodded. "Of course, the both of you may look. You'll be able to gain some insight into the part of Nereus that was overjoyed at the possibility of creation without bloody sacrifices. You might gain some understanding into your Lexicon," she mused.

[IamLEAM1983]

Anton appeared peeved. "We might be an infinity ahead of whatever gaggle of Arbiters is pursuing us, but our bodies won't sit idly by forever. We're less than a day away from Ephesian's trials; either that anomalous new makeup for the man might show up, or the actual demon might traipse on in and roast us alive!"

Three looked like admitting Anton was right didn't please him. "I know, I know... Here - what I'll do is I'll copy Meris' created key and stash it in my own corner of the Darkhallow. We place the original where it's supposed to go, and Delmar and I get to nerd out when we won't be inconveniencing everyone else."

Still, he turned a few pages, his eyes dancing as the Black Speech's symbols followed Nereus' peculiar dance of quasi-logic and gleeful experimentation. A few moments later, he looked back at Meris with an inquisitive frown.

"I've just scanned a few pages, but - did you see that story about an old lady who defaced a fresco in a church by trying to repaint it? What I'm reading sort of feels like that, only in reverse. I'm seeing... chunks of verbal ugliness and sheer hatred artfully glossed over, destruction rephrased as reinvention or renovation..."

He raised a hand and scratched the back of his head. "I can feel Sam pulling double duties transliterating things that would tear my mind apart if he wasn't around - only he's leaning onto Nereus' provided keyphrases. He never could directly work with the White Brotherhood, so this doesn't feel like Jubal's White Speech. It feels like a close cousin, or an approximation of it. He never had a small cadre of Squid linguists to help him out, to draw on concepts from other languages."

Drake scoffed lightly. "It feels like I'm seeing a coder's work, like he's trying to recompile someone's failed project using the same codebase..."

[TennyoCeres84]

Meris nodded, her smile seemingly carrying a certain amount of sadness. "That makes sense. Nereus has always had a different perspective from the expected viewpoint an Augur was supposed to have. Even while he was training for his office, he told me that the Arbiters at the time squashed any means to divert from tradition. That's why he had the secret alcove he shared with me and Lucian; it was an outlet for these inclinations of his. What you see is evidence of that yearning, Aidan. I think part of the reason why I so rarely caught glimpses of him working on it was because he was concerned for my sanity. However, Sam is doing double duty for what Nereus couldn't easily make understandable to those without his level of skill and limited resources to approximate some less harmful version of the Black Speech and its tenets."

She allowed him time to peruse the book for a bit longer and for his mind to copy it to memory for later geeking out and research purposes. Once done, the Augur's wife placed it in the available slot, which fit snugly in the space as though it had been meant to be there all along.

[IamLEAM1983]

Details crept back into a section of the library, from the shading to the shelves' materials and finally to all the expected details. Say what you will, the Squids did know how to keep a tidy library, even if their using several different formats at once made for a bit of an artful shelving solution - half pigeonholes for scrolls and vellum roles and half shelves for tomes. Then, with an odd click, the fully-rendered chunk of shelving slid aside, revealing a strangely-lit corridor. The immediate edges were all in rough stone, a few steps in showing how the walls' texture changed every few feet. A timelapse etched in the masonry, then - moving into Baroque and Rococco wainscoting to the Victorian era's dour paisley patterns. The progression went all the way to the rounded geometrical shapes on pale backgrounds of the late fifties, and then to a basic horizontal rainbow stripe that split the wall in two. The top half was beige, the lower one a dark brown fake suede finish. The light fixtures had followed along, going from the burning braziers of Dalarath to some decidedly retro-looking light sconce. Carpeting worthy of the Overlook Hotel waited at the end of the corridor, along with what looked like a convenience store's door. 

Three hesitated for a moment and peered through the glass. Point Dume was twilit and made hazy with what looked like a fierce downpour. The building was round and advanced over the cliffside, the windows of its saucer-like design darkened. Either nobody was home, or the place had been abandoned.

Vernon paused to ready his umbrella. "Can you hear this?" he asked to the group. "There's a security gate out in front..."

The single source of light was the front checkpoint, the storm's haze making it difficult to see who or what was manning the gate. Between thunderclaps, however, they'd all have time to recognize a few bars of Player's Baby, Come Back. Predictably, Archie and Bucky looked a bit unimpressed. They'd obviously missed the seventies.

Three eyed Meris. "Early Reconstruction; right after Elysium hit us... Renewal hit its stride then. People were looking for comfort anywhere between drugs, therapy or religion. Nereus wouldn't manage to throw Scientology under the bus for another thirty years, but this is where things picked up.
- What did the West Coast look like?" asked Bucky. Three grimaced slightly.

"It was bad, from what Nigel used to tell me. From Los Angeles to Seattle, there were spots along the coast that'd been hammered so hard the cops never recovered. Fast-forward to the Reagan years and you've got everything from the Order of the White Lotus to drug cartels running California. Ironically, plenty of Japanese-American bigwigs felt obliged to give back to the communities that had never approved the use of internment camps in the fifties. People like Archie's own Eiji Katsumoto. While superheroes were turning gritty on the East Coast, ninjutsu turned out to be all the rage. Not that a lot of people know there's some overlapping with Japanese scribing techniques, but yeah. California briefly had more mages than Hope's tri-State neighbors combined.
- Dirty Harry is more of a Yankee concept, truth be told," piped Archie. "I'm not surprised to hear that California's Onmyogi took to the streets to defend their loved ones and friends."

Three then looked back to Nereus' shade. "I guess this is where you go portable?"

The portly Weaver sighed. "Yes. You might want to find the basement access to the fuse boxes; shut down the power grid. If this spot truly is Nereus' last sanctum, he'll have posted projections everywhere with orders to attack on sight."

[TennyoCeres84]

Having been familiar with the song, Meris groaned with a bit of frustration due to its highly depressive mood. Its remembered lyrics hinted at what sort of mindset the Augur was likely to be in, if he was there at all. The mostly dark sanctuary carried a despondence with it that didn't convey much remaining hope, and if there was any, it was hanging on by a delicate thread. Nereus's double was right in his assumptions that he would likely have the area guarded out of somewhat justified and also slightly addled paranoia. It made approaching her husband's domicile a risky endeavor.

She recalled what Nereus's recording had said about allowing Cailean sniff his way to where the access point would be. She told them to stay close, as spreading out separately would probably increase the chances of trouble. The roane opened the convenience store-styled door and let the dog proceed quietly out into the rain. Crystal and Neasa kept their respective weapons at the ready, just in case there were sentries between them and the compound.

[IamLEAM1983]

Either out of his nature as a construct or out of sheer instinct, Cailean seemed to know enough to avoid loud noises. He guided them easily through the front garden's pools of light and darkness, then predictably growing a tad confused when presented with the rear of the edifice and a solid, handle-less door. The pictograms on its surface left little to the imagination: high voltages could be found beyond this point.

Nereus' shade nodded and extended an arm towards Meris, as if to shake her hand. Instead of grasping hers, however, he seemed to turn into so much mist and fog, and coalesced into her open palm. When the shade's mist parted, the Archmage would be left with a single featureless key in hand. Considering the way the door lacked a handle, it was obvious that Nereus' projected and forgotten resolve was the literal key to penetrating his last defenses. Past that, they'd be confronted with the blown-up version of a bog-standard utilities closet, six heavy-duty fuseboxes lining the far end of the concrete-lined and sparsely-lit room.

Cuthbert and Vernon opened two of the boxes and positioned the sides of their hands so that a single determined flip would actuate most of the boards' switches. If they missed any, they'd have a few seconds to go over them by hand.

"On three," quietly informed the Knight, as Haskill nodded back. "One, two... Three!"

As expected, darkness engulfed the group, some automated siren blaring out in the far distance. Remote voices were heard shouting, the construction's defenses obviously springing into action. Anton, in the meantime, ducked in front of the room's single other door and pulled out a set of lockpicks, trusting his tentacles to maneuver the delicate tools. Aidan took to guarding the door they'd come through, several tense minutes unfolding until Azardad seethed "We're in!" through his teeth.

Finally inside, the group would be treated with what looked like the rear of a ground-level walk-in closet that seemed destined for frequent guests, as well as Nereus' outdoors items. Obviously, most of the overcoats in sight looked fit for a particularly corpulent man, with the occasional odd feminine item poking through. A dated mink coat here, a delicate felt jacket there - all past traces of the empty trysts of Renewal's founder.

"Right," sighed Three. "If I were mopey as Hell, where would I go? I guess we can't ask Key-Nereus if the place has a bar or a lounge, right?"

Cuthbert seemed indecisive. "Combing through the mansion would take too much time, we'd be spotted before long. Based on the Order's records, this place's original deed and blueprints included a tennis court, an aquarium, a solarium and a pool, along with more bedrooms than I'd honestly know what to do with. Renewal had more to do with the late Hippie era's communes, in the beginning, than with what you're familiar with today. People paid to come here and spend a week in Nereus and the Chamberlain's shadows."

Anton was a lot less indecisive - and seemingly, so was Cailean. The Lapphund let out a tiny, if determined yelp, and skittered forwards, taking a sharp right once out of the closet. The neurosurgeon followed in its wake. "The kitchen," he said. "He uses food to cope, he'd have waited for the servants to go home before pigging out. The projections don't have any reasons to fish around for utensils - that's where I'd leave the key."

[TennyoCeres84]

Anton's assessment of Nereus's behavior seemed accurate to Meris, and she quickly followed after him and Cailean. All the while, her thoughts swam with questions. Would her husband be there? What sort of mental state would he be in? How despondent had he become over the centuries? Where would she need to bury his resolve? What sort of obstacles would they face once they reached him?

Despite the enormity of the mansion, Cailean's nose directed them to what would likely be a gourmet kitchen at the time. The archmage held back from turning any lights on, in case some someone might notice the change. She opened the door after the Lapphund pawed at it and quietly entered the space, looking back and forth for any sign of the Augur.

[IamLEAM1983]

As per the era in which Nereus' memories of Miami's coastline seemed to be rooted, the kitchen managed to combine what you'd have expected out of a space largely frequented by hired help of that era. Seventies-tinged modernism gave way to a sort of utilitarian take on Neo-Colonial aesthetics, mired in the decade's love for burnt oranges and sickly avocado greens. Still, surfaces were clean and wide - perfect for a chef and a few assistants - which gave the space a bit of a forlorn bent. The real Dume Point's kitchen had probably bustled with activity at all hours of the day, but its projected twin looked like some unseen tragedy had forced the staff out of work for a few days.

Most of the lights were out, with only guide lights along the bottom of the islands' margins and overhead sconces shining down on the porcelain counter-tops to be seen. From in here, the front guard's radio couldn't be so much as heard, with the storm outside being relegated to forlorn tapping on the few windows that pierced the room's right-hand wall. A few steps in, and the ghostlike glow of the massive fridge's lightbulbs could be seen, the large steel door having been left ajar. Meris would hear Cailean sniff around at the base of the refrigerator, stopping to quickly and dexterously scarf down what looked to be a raisin. Seeing as he was as much a projection as the Curator had been, his mistress didn't exactly need to worry about digestive troubles or potential trips to a nonexistent veterinarian... Three only glanced at the fridge and padded towards the kitchen's double-hinged door that led to the dining room.

The room beyond would've looked wonderful in the daytime, with its massive baywindow looking out onto Malibu's view of the Pacific. Like Archie, Nereus seemed to have a thing for potted ferns and tropical plants. A few details were more indicative of his fundamental nature as a homesick Void Weaver, such as how his idea of a table centerpiece involved a clay pot lined with sphagnum and moss, speckled as it was with plump little bio-luminescent lumps. Only one of them looked about ready to bloom into one of Dalarath's light-producing mushrooms, adding its own faint and bluish werelight to the low mood lighting provided by a low-hanging Tiffany lamp, overhead.

Nereus was seated at the dining table, a large circular affair of mahogany that reminded Three of Gammell's conjured table for their last conference. He had his plate and a few utensils set out before him, having piled on a worrying assortment of cold cuts, sandwiches and fruits. Another plate held up a more-than-generous slice of New York-style cheesecake, and a few dead soldiers already littered the empty expanse in front of and on either side of his seat. He was apparently on his fourth wine bottle, which was something Three didn't know how to interpret. Could you even get so much as drunk, in the Darkhallow? In any case, his only companion was a tiny travel-sized black-and-white CRT monitor, an old news broadcast about California's efforts at reconstruction in the wake of Elysium's passage playing out with the sound turned down.

His projected resolve had mentioned he might look haggard. All things considered, he didn't look all that bad - unless you counted what looked like an added hundred pounds and the massive bags that waited below his eyes. He wore a period-appropriate version of what Meris might remember him wearing in their dreamed home, with slightly flaring lapels and a collar that dipped deeper. As per the era, he'd gone with a three-piece instead of his usual two, the faint slate gray of the vest making his rumpled tie stand out somewhat. He'd apparently loosened it and undone his shirt's first few buttons. It wasn't hard to see that he'd just come in from the waking world and had only just parted with his assumed ribald nature. Weariness clung to every curve, and he looked like he'd spent the entire day forcing himself to stand ramrod-straight. Now gratefully slumped over, he reminded Aidan of one of the less glorious facets of working for the HPD. Sometimes, for all the power he and his friends wielded, they weren't much more than glorified social workers. People tended to need emotional relief more than they did a telekinetic soldier with martial training from the Fae, on the whole.

Carefully, he lowered his weapon and eyed Meris, then one of the kitchen's drawers. They were better off stashing the key first and then seeing if they couldn't provoke a reaction out of the Augur.

[TennyoCeres84]

Meris silently nodded, padded over to one of the lower cupboards, and hid the key in one of the drawers for the time being. She surveyed the kitchen with some dismay and ventured back to where her husband was seated. Given that he hadn't seen her in so long, what was the best method of waking him?

Having been so long since she had seen him, the Consort opted to lightly kiss him on the forehead while cupping his cheek. "Nereus, dear, I need you to wake up. I'm finally here," she said with a mix of love and frustration directed at herself for how long it had taken to reach him.

[IamLEAM1983]

Meris would quickly realize that Nereus wasn't asleep, but that he instead seemed like he'd shut himself down. His eyes were opened, albeit barely, and he slowly turned them to glance in her direction. A fork-wielding hand slowly moving to spear a small roll of ham. He slipped it between two tentacles, looking at her the whole while, and simply sat there, chewing.

He might as well have shouted his denial of the situation, as deafening as his silence and lack of reaction was. It took close to fifty seconds for him to swallow.

"Go ahead," he said, his voice turned accusatory in its soft, yet unyielding tone, "blame me for everything. Spit at me. Curse at me. Do what he made you to do, so you'll fade away faster. I haven't dispelled you because I needed to at least look at her, at least once this month. His torture's good for that, at least."

Three was puzzled, but opted to stay out of sight for the moment. So did the others. Instead, he telepathically reached out to the Archmage a heartbeat or so later.

"He thinks you're a projection of yourself, one of Chambers' torture tools. I don't know how far he's been pushed, Meris."

Nereus then reached out and grabbed one of the remaining wine bottles, pulling a generous swig directly from it. He scoffed lightly, the sound carrying bitterness and resentment. "Go ahead - take a seat, my love. You'll tell me you're real, you'll hug me, kiss me, get me to reminisce on details sleep deprivation allowed him to pick out of my subconscious... Let's do the old Meris Song and Dance; right on time for Christmas!"

He paused, pecked at his food and looked back at her. "You know, I'm starting to think he's at least partly right. The Drake boy isn't exactly subtle when it comes to disclosing his group's activities to me, and demons aren't easy customers to deal with. If I caved in and let Them through in bigger numbers than the Banshee's pit would allow, back in Rhode Island, your poncy little Infernal pretender would soil his jammies right quick! Maybe I'd even work up the strength to stop Chambers from claiming that victory; channel enough of the Wrathful to cave his chest in with a few punches."

The Augur then parted with something that was half an addled chuckle and half a sob. "Of course, I'd only end up killing most of your friends in your process. Maybe even you. It could be this is exactly what I deserve - who am I to know, after all this? I know the Augur is supposed to have great insight," he said self-deprecatingly, rolling his eyes, "but right now, I have the insight of a blind mole rat with diabetic glaucoma. If my own damned PR nerd doesn't end the world using my power, then some self-obsessed billy from the wrong side of the Styx will!"

He canted his head to the side, his false cheer having turned accusatory. "I bet you don't even need to pretend like this doesn't concern you, Meris - I bet you're right in the thick of it, same as ever! In the meantime, I have to sit by the sidelines and suffer, all the while listening to parasites I'd sooner willingly enthrall than openly trust, while they're telling me I have it easy!"

The Augur stopped himself, as he sensed a wave of incoming emotions. He choked back a sob, turned it into mean, mocking laughter. "No. No, no, no - I'm not caving, tonight. I'm not giving you sobs or tears or caresses, I'm not giving you forgetfulness - although I'd call it oblivion. It's been almost a year, almost right on time - and I'm not giving Chambers an ounce of satisfaction."

He leaned back in his chair, the back creaking in response to his weight. "You're fake. The real Meris would've soared in on thunder and lightning and would've roasted my bodyguards with a single spell. The real Meris would've found a way to give me back what he took from me. The entire cliffside would've collapsed and she would've saved me from the reefs below. My woman is a doer; she doesn't wait for the stars to align or for some fortuitous turn of events - she makes it happen. Not only that, but I know you're fake because I'm dreaming of Malibu. I only ever dream of Point Dume when I've had one of my worst days on record, and this is exactly it."

Nereus pointed at her. "If you were real, we'd be in Napa, I wouldn't look like Ron Jeremy trying to channel John Travolta, and there'd be a lot more charred corpses around here."