CreepCast - The Delaurier Invitation | CreepCast

Episode Date: March 15, 2026

A famous architect, long believed to be dead, invites a reporter to his mansion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to Creepcast. Today we're going to be reading one of our all-time favorite authors, Strange Accounts, on his little story called the Deloy High Invitation, part one of two. It's a two-parter folks, and it's in the 1930s. If this doesn't skew into some kind of Lovecraftian thing,

then I don't know. Then what are we even doing here? If you put me in the 30s, you better make it Lovecraft. You had all the highlights for yourself, Lovecraftian, mispronouncing a French name, all that. So good, good. That was a great opening from you. The Deloree invitation is by Strange Accounts or his real name, Travis Weaver. Not only an author that we love, we've covered his story before. I forget the name of it right now, but it was the one about the band of headhunters who came across the owl woman in the frontier. And during the live show, we covered his story about the coal miner's daughter, Diary of a Coal Miner's daughter. Both of the stories we read from him have been incredible. I love his. writing style. I love how he does like these historical fiction things. And now I am very proud to announce,

which I should make it clear. This is not sponsored. I'm saying this because I like him. Travis has a book out. He has a book out called Strange Accounts from the American Frontier. That is an anthology book. That's a collection of different stories, as the title says from the American frontier. One of them is the story we covered at the live show, the diary of a coal miner's daughter. But there's also stories in there like the Journal of a Louisiana Planter or the Journal of a Lumberjack. So, If you like, you know, his stories, you can get a whole slew of them. We'll have it linked in the description. Again, strange accounts from the American frontier, well worth your time.

And you can get it on, I was looking at the link, you can get it on Amazon as a paperback or on Kindle as an ebook. So be sure to support him. This story that we're reading today is not in the book. I don't know. No, the story's not in the book. But again, everything we've read from him so far is great. So I'm excited to get into it.

no comment on that no oh no I was just I was actually just patiently listening I was looking up his book online and adding it to my cart so sorry dude yeah well you should be because this is a show where we're supposed to I'm fucking I'm fucking sorry

I'm sorry I'm sorry that you've been you know globe trotting around the world traveling doing your big time stuff for those that don't know Hunter's been on vacation lately he was I think if I recall right he was in he was in Kentucky trying to get some charges reversed, which did that go well? You said you were going to meet someone.

Well, yeah, this is a live show. We'll talk about it. My bad. I forgot where live we'll talk about afterwards. But yeah, he's been very busy. But, you know, the show must go on, right? You know what, man? Fuck you.

Okay? Because you know good and goddamn well. I would never step foot in Kentucky ever. Again, that if I recall, right, that's the phrase you said. that led to a lot of the problems you have now. No, no, no, no. I don't know. I say, that's all I'm going to say.

No, no, no. That's all I'm going to say. Yeah, well, hopefully, hopefully the show could keep going on. And if it doesn't, well, guess what? One of you lucky patrons gets to be the new co-host. What does the Delelier mean?

Like, what does Delolier mean? It's a name. Okay. So it's just a last name? Yeah, it's like a French fancy last name. Deloree. It's all for pronounced. Deloye.

Deloree. Yeah. So I imagine if I had to guess, 1930s French, this is going to be a New Orleans story. Nowlands. It's going to be a nowling's now. Might be back down on to Bayou.

Might be down with the old Mr. Wells, honey. You like that? Me. Yeah. Very good. This is a one of two-parter. Pretty excited.

Always nice dipping into strange accounts. I feel like we've had a lot of, I don't know, weird stories lately. I feel like this is going to ground us back down in reality. I'm pretty excited. Have we had a lot of weird? Ronald McDonald's. The sitcom.

Okay. Yeah. Happy. Happy. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? After Happy Happy.

Within a month of this, this is going to be Shakespearean. The, uh, the, the seismic shift that still is happening. The, uh, the, the, the, the third tower that was hit, quote unquote, uh, being happy happy. Happy has been catastrophic for this fandom. never has a story been quite so I mean like I mean divisive I guess

I don't know people it's it's I don't know the number of like comments I read that were like you know what today maybe I work in silence or you know what this taught me to appreciate not listening to a podcast yeah the amount of people that were just like actually I figured out that I don't like podcast through that episode was

was very hard to hear. It was, yeah. Someone hit us with the Justin Bieber copy pasta. And it was like, I want to thank you. My sister's been in a coma for two years. And today while listening to Happy Appy Appie, she woke up to turn it off.

That's a Justin Bieber creepy pasta? No, copy copy pasta. Oh, copy pasta. Yeah, the joke is like, I want to thank Justin Bieber because my sister got up to turn his music off. So that's the levels we've got to now. Oh, that's good. there was somewhere, I can't remember where it was on Twitter or I saw it in a comment section or something where someone was like, it was in reply to us reading it. And they're like, happy, Appie didn't cause 9-11. They just witnessed it. And it's like, all right. You know, man, this is the, this is the, this is the dance. We're dancing. You know, we, we're, we're, we're, we're, it takes two to tango and we are tangoing. I guess is it was how it's supposed to be. Um, you are in fact, tango.

in. You all like that little slide. That was cute, wasn't it? I saw that. I saw that. It was something. A thousand vulture shirt, though. That's hot.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Our boy, Dathan Auerbach, the pen pal man himself. You know, again, after Happy Appie, you got a refresh. I got my 1,000 vultures shirt on. I've got my, I'm reading strange accounts.

You know, we're set up for success here. And what, no matter what, Hunter, you can't take this away for me. And that's what matters. Even though the entire chat in the Patreon is saying the word sniff in all caps right now, doesn't bother me. It's not going to change things. So I,

when the one who said I appreciated it, I don't know why you're coming at me as if I'm one of them, uh, spamming stuff. Because I'm looking, I'm looking at the chat right now and it's just sniff and it's just like lips and other things that you have said about me that are going to follow me to the gray. Sniff lips and assholes.

That's what that's what you. That's what you're, that's the meat you're made out of. That's the bologna that makes you all together. That's awful. Sniffs lips and asshole. This is awful. Okay.

All right. Sniffs lips and assholes. Also, I like that you're, I'm having a good time. I like that you're malformed, uh, fucking hand is all healed up now too.

I'm glad to see that was. Uh, this one's just kind of scarred a little bit. Yeah. This one's still like the scab is so deep. It just itches. I think it's going to be like that forever now. So that's cool.

You've been able to hop back on that dirt bike and really give her hell since then. or no. Shut up. My buddy texted me. He saw a clip of you making

fun of me because he's been making fun of me religiously. And he called me just to be like, I saw that guy you do a podcast

with making fun of you too. And I just hung up. So I'm getting it everywhere from every angle. Oh, I was getting it from everywhere

and every angle. Okay. Sniff's lips and assholes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. We're going to have a good time.

We're going to have a good episode. All right. Are you ready, Hunter? Are you ready to get into it? The weed. Let's do it. The Deloree A Invitation, 1930. Monday, October 20th, 1930, the invitation.

The post came in the afternoon. A bundle of political, circulars, and subscription flyers, and one curious envelope, the color of bone. No return address. A gold seal pressed in the wax showed two wings spread inside a triangle. It had the sort of symmetry, one final. in the blueprints of the new modernist, neither abstract nor realistic, simply exact. Inside was a letter written in a precise, meticulous hand.

Paper was heavier than common stock, faintly perfumed with something metallic, like freshly minted coins or struck brass. To the recipient Rowan McCalley, you are hereby invited to document, as journalist and witness, the opening of my private estate in the northern forest of the Adradac Mountains of New York. Your stay shall begin Friday morning and conclude Sunday evening. All provisions have been prepared. You'll be housed in comfort and permitted full access to the grounds,

provided you observe the itinerary and closed within the main hall. Yours are not an order. A.D. The A.D. can only be one man. August DeLore. He was once the sovereign king of the Art Deco world. His facades rose like temples across New York and Chicago. He had designed the grand atrium of the Pittsburgh Stock Exchange, the ecliptic theater in Chicago,

and half the civic buildings between Albany and Montreal. Then he vanished in 1920, leaving behind no statement, no scandal, and no grave. For a decade, he has been a myth, half genius, half lunatic. And now, ten years to the month since his disappearance, a letter arrives inviting me, of all men, to document his resurrection. I read the letters thrice before folding it again, torn on its authenticity. I had half of mine to toss it into the stove and be done with it, but this is the kind of story that wins a man an entire column. Or better yet, the kind that writes his whole career for him.

That evening, I took dinner with Mercer and Denton at the press club. They made short work of their whiskey before I told them what I'd received. Mercer leaned back and tapped his empty glass. You serious? The old ghost himself is calling you up into the pines. That's what he says. He's dead. Denton said flatly.

Everybody knows that. It's just a debate on how. Some say suicide. Some say he drowned in Paris, but they all agree he's gone and buried. Why the hell would you go and waste your time to see this fraud? Because I was invited. And because as far as I'm aware, there's no grave bearing the name of Augustus Dolly Wing.

Are you okay there, then? It sounds like you just had a stroke. No, no, no. I just, I'm just saying I had never seen that thing Augustus Dollylo. Why?

I've never heard of August Dollywood in my life. Mercer grinned across the table. You think he's still, you think he's alive and well, waiting up there in a marble palace just for you? You know what? Maybe you're right. Maybe the man just wants some company from post-moat, from post-most austere conglumness.

Or he just wants, or he just wants someone to tell, fuck! Or he just wants someone to tell the world he's still worth remembering. Men like that don't vanish forever. The only real retreat for a time until the applause grows quiet enough to miss hearing. He has a legacy to maintain. Fuck! He has a legacy to maintain.

After, oh my God, fuck's it. He has a legacy to maintain after all. You just, it's not that big of a deal. You can just ride over it. It doesn't have to be. It's so frustrating. I don't like you. You come apart every time.

It's annoying. I fucking hate it. I mess up reading too and I just like, I just keep, I just go back. Do it again. You don't have to beat yourself up. It's okay.

It's okay, sweetie. We'll get through this. Didn't wipe the corner of his mouth with a napkin and frowned. But honestly, Rowan, If he's gone ten years, what makes you think the letter's legitimate? Could have been posted by anyone. Hell, could have been written by a loon from Pennhurst. I shrugged.

Then I'll find out. Three days won't kill me. He muttered. I'll remember that for the headline when you go missing. Mercer raised his glass. Did a fool with a death wish? To the fool with a story. That earned a laugh.

We parted near midnight. I walked home through the cold, thinking how the... the city's newest towers gleam like steel fingertips under the moonlight, bright, proud, and lifeless. Dallier truly built his own world in the woods, I mean to see it with my own eyes. So even stuff like that, Travis does, where he'll take, we establish this guy to be some huge art deco, like Roaring 20s designer, and now he's gone. And then even he looks at the city and describes it as bright, proud, and lifeless, as if it's like, its pride is meaningless because of the greats, like Dahlia. So it further mythologizes this figure we've only heard spoken of in like a phrase.

My, uh, my dick is getting hard over a like a horror great Gatsby kind of thing. That's where I think this is going. I think so too. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's like jigsaw, but he's wearing like a 20 swing outfit. Right. Are you talking about a, it's the just the puppet? Yeah. Yeah. It's just a belly the puppet. Yeah. He's on the little tricycle. He's got like a swing dress on. there's like music like the mask music that Friday, October 24th, 1930. En route to the estate.

The train pulled from the Albany Depot near noon. The whistle bleeding through fog that hung over the river like smoke from a dine fire. I carried one suitcase, a field coat, a leather notebook, and a brass fountain pin. Everything else stayed behind. A story travels best when a story travels best when, the load is small. The journey north carried me through towns that grew smaller and stranger with each stop. Plaster gave way to timber, timber to sheet metal roofs. Near the end of the line, we stopped at Montclair. I stepped down for coffee while the conductor worked the freight. The diner, crouched by

the tracks, windows filmed with both the steam and grease of the griddle. The man behind the counter was old and narrow, with the face weathered to match the road outside. Cold one for travel. said is I eased my coat over the back of the stool. Supposed it is. Heading up toward Labrero near Saranak. Deloria Manor. You know the road? I'm gonna lose my fucking mind. Why can't

it just be like, Jacob's Manor? Why the fuck do we have to do this French bullshit the whole goddamn time? DeLorea Manor. You know the road? Again, any time you do that, I imagine the character doing that. He walks up to him, says the name wrong,

It is in this diner. He's a video like, every time we've got to do it with the French, why can't it be Jacob? Honestly, a very real sentence that has probably been said before. He stopped wiping the counter. You mean the stone house up there near the Black Fork trails? I'd imagine that's the one. Got to look at the window.

No, there's nothing to see but missed trees. Ain't much up there. Nothing worth seeing anyway. I wouldn't go over you. Is there's something wrong with it? That house hasn't had a guest in years. I figured that's for a good reason. I took them near seven years and seven dozen crew...

Oh, seven years and a dozen crews to build that place. And not one of those crew members came back the same. It's quite the declaration. Do you have any sources for that claim? Hmm? I suppose they're just stories. Lumbermen and Mason see strange things when they sit on a project too long.

A few of them happened to pass by And share a tale or two August has a proclivity for Flair For a man like him Encourging a few tales to frighten some workmen Seems more plausible You nodded once Then muttered

Maybe But I've yet to see a servant of a laborer Come down that path in the last three years Doesn't give me a good feeling to think on why Even a centric man needs a few groceries From time to time Bro I am so hype right now.

Just like this dude in the woods and the people that built the house aren't the same anymore. It reminds me of it's giving me house of the worm vibes right now. That SCP I really like so much. It's just the idea of like this guy building this fortress out there. Like super at Lovecraftian, as you said, machinations. I'm excited. A waitress set down my coffee. She looked no older than 20 and had a ring hung from a string at her throat.

Are you planning on staying up there, mister? just for three days. Her eyes moved towards the black surface of the mug that lay in front of me. I keep the lamps lit with oil if I were you. Electricity around here tends to. Bell over the door rang. The logger came in and beat mud from his boots. The thought died.

Talk turned to weather and wages and I finished my cup. See, just sentences like that. Sentences. It reminds me of old like crime serials I would read and stuff like that. The talk turned to weather and wages and I finish my cup. It's like an old detective novella. I love it. I thank the old man and stepped back into the autumn air.

By noon I had transferred to a hired motor car. The driver was a thin fellow with grease on his cuffs and a pipe clamp clamped between his teeth. We rode in silence for miles. The forest deepening around us until the road itself became rough patches of limestone and dirt. Gap his hands tied on the wheel. Strange place for an estate.

He held the pipe stem aside and said, Yes, sir. Strange is still for a man to live in alone. Besides for his staff, of course. You've been up there? Close enough to see the gate. A few years back, didn't like the way it looked. The whole force leans towards it.

It's a strange thing. We felt quiet again. The sky turned the color of lead. Rain flirted with a windshield. Sweat, sweet, and earthy in the air. I jotted a few quick notes in my lap. Landscape austere. Atmosphere anticipatory.

Something ahead. As the miles lengthened, I felt a change. Not in the car or the weather, but in the depth between the trees. The woods seemed to draw inward. The branch is closing like a caged thing. When the driver finally broke, I saw the start of a private lane vanishing into black spruce ahead. Hmm. This is where I'll leave you.

The lane goes on for maybe another mile. You see the gate when you reach the manor. I stepped out, the frost biting through my gloves. You're not coming up? I'd rather not. I paid him. He had the car turned before I'd finished gathering my things from the forest floor, the wheels hissing away on the wet leaves.

I watched the taillights fade into the mist until they look like two dying lanterns. Then I faced the path ahead. Elaine was sparse and tight, choked with needles and half swallowed by soil. The air had the crisp taste of iron and lightning. I felt an energy carrying the wind I could not pinpoint. Set my collar, opened my notebook, and wrote the first true words of my record. The road to Deloree Manor begins where the world decides it does not wish to be followed. I walked on.

Friday, October 24th, 1930. arrival. The lane narrowed until it felt like a shoot hewned from leaves and stone. Black spruces stood with arms locked. Their top swayed as if they spoke to one another in a tongue made of a bitter breeze. It almost feels like this is like, does this not have like an inkling to like Dracula or something? Like I was thinking it gets you first,

but now it just feels like straight up Dracula. Yes. Yeah, it feels like a Dracula like some ancient manner. It feels it feels not like the original Frank Frankenstein story, but like the Frankenstein movie, you know, like Castle Frankenstein kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah, the idea of like this anticipation for some great, no, like the way you said, like a horror great Gatsby. Yeah. Kind of thing. I'm vibing with it. I'm excited. I walked counting my steps and keeping the time by marking the small pains of my feet. When I

broke from the trees, I met a wall of masonry that rose like a frozen cliff, set into it, stood a gate. At its forefront stood a simple crest, two wings inside a triangle. Same symbol that had sealed my invitation. I thought to myself, So you do exist, Mr. Deloree. The stature of the gateway was a ladder for the eye. Its scale was far more than just imposing. It ventured into domineering. Along the ironworks in her band, a faint text had been chiseled under the metal,

the letter so shallow they hid until the overhead light struck them. Hush, draw the curtain, set the lights, let moths attend. A mask begins where midnight prays, and actors bow and bend. Curious. I thought, I think that's a bit of a downplay of what this thing says. Set the light, let moths attend, because we're midnight praise actors bowed. And it's like, huh, interesting. that's kind of a bit odd.

Yeah, he like walks up to it and the gate says something like if it's like at midnight, you're going to get hit with a comedically large hammer. We are going to kill you. This is not a joke. We're going to kill you. And he's like, hmm, curious.

Interesting me, thanks. I'll have to post this one to the weddit. See if they can put anything together. Sunburst reliefs crown. So I imagine from that, draw the currents of the light. So it's like come nighttime, a mass begins,

an actor's bound bend. So there's probably going to be like some masquerade cult thing happening. Yeah. Provide a guess. Sunburst reliefs crowned the top of the arch. Their ray is struck into metal as if the very sunlight had been casted and hammered there.

I peered through the bars. Beyond lay a four quart of pale gravel. The banner held the far side of the clearing in a single great face, clean and severe. The term sprawling felt diminutive to its true nature. And yet, as I watched, I observed no smoke from any chimney nor birds on the parapets. I stood with my suitcase and said aloud,

All right, grand architect, I have arrived. The gate did not answer. It did, however, stand unlocked, as if to say that trespass was only ever a matter of effort and will. I pushed the latch open and said, because the silence made me theatrical. Of course. Only at your beckoning, sir.

The gates hinges screeched their welcome behind me as the gate closed. Across the courtyard it took stock. The exterior of the estate bore stacked levels and sharp recesses where a traditional house would have offered bays and porches. Corners of every side cut inward and upward, then flared out with a rigid grace. Windows ran and disciplined bands across the entirety of its face while repeating engravings of triangles ran the length of the roofline.

There were statues in the courtyard, not of saints or kings, but figures abstracted into clean effigies. They had no faces, only curved and polished mass. One lifted a disc, another held a spear. It seems you forgotten to give them mouths, my dear friend. There's no one to sing with me. But that wasn't true. The grounds did sing along in its own way. The gravel sounded a hymn underfoot And my own pulse kept percussion with it

If the earth has a throne It is not cushioned You must certainly be like this Made up entirely of right angles Ooh Ooh I like the way that one felt Ooh What are you doing to me?

Ooh It must be made of a That goes hard I like that So maybe the statues are the things That come alive at night that what? Maybe I don't know.

What? You said that come alive at night. It was just interesting after you got done like beating your soft pod there for a bit. You have been dry rubbing it this whole time though. You keep being like, oh my God. Oh, I want to take a moment to thank today's sponsor Cash App. Some of us on this podcast have been scammed, not pointing any fingers or you know, really saying who's to blame could be either one of us.

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That's 10% off your first bidet day. order at hello tushy.com with promo code creepcast. Thanks, Tushy for sponsoring the episode. Now back to the fucking episode. At the foot of the main steps, a single sheet of paper had been fixed to the door. The edges curled and feathered. Rain and kissed it off and though the ink remained legible.

The head and read, Itinerary and house rules for Mr. McCallie. Let us see your law. I read the whole of it with care. The directives were set in numbered lines with no ornament. Number one, enter alone. Number two, remain within marked paths. Number three, keep to scheduled events.

Number four, do not attempt to meet staff. Number five, do not deviate from times. Enter alone. I suppose we have begun well at least. I continue down to the itinerary. The schedule was written below the rules in hour blocks Friday through Sunday. First event was a gramophone lecture marked for this early evening. meanwhile the final item for sunday bore only one word

stay very well I'll keep to your demands August if only to see where it leads I press the iron latch door yielded it's interesting that he's like just so willingly to just be like all right cool man I'm down I'm done to play ball I'll give a fuck

well it's like I told the guy earlier like if there's anyone who is going to like if this guy's out here fake or not he's like a journalist so he wants to see so whatever this grand encounter is he gets to be the one to write about it he gets to be the witness of it imagine the stay at the end because he's going to die or be trapped there in a very hotel california ask fashion um also the the mentions of the symbols being a triangle with wings

a triangle is super common and a lot of like you know occult imagery and stuff like that and the upright triangle represents fire, I think, if I remember right. And fire has to do with like passion and purpose and drive and justice and things like that. So, or it could just be a triangle in the sense of like the Trinity, you know, the three. So the triangle imagery can mean a lot. With wings, it could be explicitly religious like Trinity of angels, Trinity, whatever it could mean. where there's clues as to what may be happening here.

The idea of an itinerary is fun. Like as he stays the weekend, there's going to be a series of things he's forced to see. It's getting closer to a saw scenario as we go on, just saying. Friday, October 24th, 1930. The entryway. Across the threshold and stood in the vestibule hall. The air held a mineral scent,

the kind that lingers over a quarry after rain. Floor tiles formed a radiating script that steered my attention to the far wall. where a colossal bronze sunburst presided over the inner door. At the base of the nearest ray, a bronze plate lay etched with another stanza. From cratered courts, the rebel hosts up rear their glittering plan, a city hewn from smoking dreams to crown disbelief of man. I let the words settle and took stock of the room again.

There were no rugs, no umbrella stand, no scatter of boots. The place held the undisturbed neatness of a stage set before the curtain call. I raised my side above and witnessed grand statues from the rooftop peering down at me through the atrium's glass ceiling. They appeared to stand in judgment of the guest who arrived at the threshold. Off to my left, the clock made itself known. I broke my attention away from the faceless giants overhead and fixed on the dial. I listened past that steady metronome and hunted for any other life in the marble ruins.

After some time, it became clear that there would be no clatter of servants. no drift of talk. My company, it would seem, would remain to be only the machinery of the manner. I must admit, the hush went to work at the base of my skull in the same way worms were a wet patch of sod. It moved with an appetite.

Oh, tough. I'm not good. You know what? Actually, I have to stop because you made fun of me for being into the story before. No, I'm just, I mean, you can jack the soft put all you want.

I'm just saying. No, see, there you go. There you go. But the way it's fray. raised the, it worked in the base of my skull like worms in a patch of sod, moving with an appetite. It's great. It's great alliteration. I like that. I faced a sunburst once more. A pedestal waited near the door. A waist-high granite block with a copper plate in front. Upon it rested a gramophone of black finish and muscular lines. Its horn flared like a night blooming flower. The

crank clay at the side. A single record rested on the plate. Beside that, a leaflet lay pinned beneath a small silver weight shaped as a wing. I laid my suitcase by the wall and read the notice, a simple neat line. Orientation to commence at 5 o'clock. Stand under the eyes of this at atrium and play this record, attend the welcoming. My watch read 4.56. This was to be theater. I would not miss my cue. I worked warmth back into my fingers and paced the vestibule to test the echo of my bootfalls, of which there were many. Yet each returned with the lag as if the room's corners ate a fraction of each step. Then my companion ring. Its echo outdid my boots. Five had arrived. I stepped onto the bronze crescent before the gramophone. The horn waited,

flower open, black mouth turned to the room. I wound the handle and lowered the needle. The gramophone answered with a deep belt-driven purr. A hair. line hiss rose from the record, then a man's measured tenor filled the atrium, clipped and punctual, as if each word had been drawn to the gold ruler. Welcome, Mr. Rowan. I trust your trip, sir. You stand in the vestibule of the deloyal estate. My home, the threshold where function governs form. Now, before we began, know this, the estate is prepared for your comfort. Your chamber has said, Your supper arranged your route marked.

You will not need to summon anyone. Those who serve will move where they belong and will not intrude. In kind, you not intrude upon them. I mean to give you a story fit for print, so others may bear witness to my creation. In order for that to happen, I must ask you to attend to what is before you and not what is behind you. Who wish to look over your shoulder at times? I ask that you resist that temptation. A house who prefers your attention forward, as do I.

In the meantime, take a moment to look around and enjoy the artistry of my work. I will walk you through this palace starting here. You will see that this Vistibor's laid in bands of Traveteen and Belgian black, alternating to train the eye forward. Stand upon the inner crescent. Feel the stone to settle in your stance. I walked to the inner circle and allowed the room's presence to close in. there was a strange weight to the air, like a charge and a shock.

Note the brown sunburst of their vectors. They tell you where to walk, how to hold your frame, how to breathe. If you lose your balance at any point, you'll stay. Return to a sunburst and take instruction from its lines. Should that fail you, look upon the baseboards. You will find narrow inlayers of dark stone. These are also guide marks. Let the room command you.

Resist nothing from it. The horn trimmed a little with the deeper vowels I could feel it through my shoes Now lift your hair To consider the dimensions

Sealing steps upward In three separate planes Each step is a Oh fuck sex Each step is pretty cool Dement Dement Dement

D Each step is pretty Each step is pretty Each step is Dementinindo of order Dement Dement

Each step is Nintendo. Demento. Demento. Each step is a Dementor. Is what it is. Each step is taken. I fucking do declare. Each step is taken from an entry in the Harry Potter series.

Yeah, this is the deadly hollows, my friend. He's like, what? Yeah. Huh? Domenindo of order. Domen, dmenuendo, demenendo, demenio. It's all right. We see the word.

We get it. Dement. Dement. Dementia. I raised my focus. There were indeed three tears that met me. The echoes of the recording climbed into triplicate and gathered at the feet of the figures on the roof. I studied their empty visages while the record gave off its warm crackle.

It almost felt wrong when the architect's voice returned. You have no doubt marked those statues above you, but you must understand that they are not mere men. The ideas given the limit crown. Do not describe them faces. A face weakens an idea. Oh. Okay.

Fired up. Lord help you. I felt this. Lord help your fucking your fingers and your thumbs, man. Roll that put around in your hand. Must be exhausting. You can you can alliterate You can talk about me enjoying a story

Without it being some masterpatory You didn't Then change the sound you make Because literally every time I'll be like I'll say a face gives like What was the line that says A face weakens an idea And I literally just hear

It's not the noise I made It's on recording people can hear That's not the noise I made Okay Oh my God It's not I did It sounds like that at all, actually.

Can I not, this is a, this is a horror story podcast. Can a man enjoy a horror story? Okay. This is what I mean. You put me through Happy Appie, your idea. You put me through, uh, just even during good stories like the, the sitcom one, where you are just hammering me about the lips and the dirt bike. And then, and then in this one, it's a perfect story.

I'm wearing my thousand vulture shirt. Everything's going well. And you just have to find a, a way to bully me and to wedge yourself in. For some reason, everyone I surround myself with in life bullies me. And I don't know why I do that to myself. Everyone I keep close is rude to me. Why do I do that?

I will say, I mean, like, you know, I feel yeah. It is very good writing. I will say you are, hey, you got two different colors of Plato and you're rolling around your hand. You can at least say that. Gross. I felt as though more faces to join the congregate. above the glass, since a vertigo set over me at the mere scale.

Your first hour will be simple. You may now proceed to the dining hall. Do not hurry. Your place has been set to your measure. There's a plate prepared for you. You will be hot and fresh. You will find the arrangement corrected to your liking. And afterwards, you will visit the bathhouse to the east and clean yourself. I don't know. Afterwards, you will visit the bathhouse to the east and clean yourself. fresh towers are waiting you on the bench your rope hangs within the chamber which you will reach by following the eastwood the eastward guide marks when you return

I feel like in a fucking like video game does this feel like a video game or something yeah it feels very uh expositioning in a way that like it's telling you the world and the map yeah like your objective like where to go and stuff like that that when i'm thinking to the house reminds me of uh in black ops four zombies there was a map called dead of night that was about like zombies in this giant old grand like great Gatsby estate. It sounds like this curse come upon it. So everything's like demented and changed. So I'm kind of thinking of that.

Some of the seems very clean. It's almost like a museum, but you're the only one in it. There's something I was trying to think. There's a story I remember. I can remember if it was a video game or what. But there was some story I remember about a guy being in a large house. and it was similar to this where he was getting directions of what to do.

And then at the end it turned out it was some abandoned run-down building. But the illusion of it made him see it as a new house. I can't remember which story that was, but... I don't think that'll be the twist here, but it's just giving me reminiscence of it. You're just making you think about it. Yeah. I took up my suitcase and put a foot on the first tile beyond the Crescent. Mind yourself.

The record said, curiously, in time with my steps. You will feel alone. That's acceptable. The house approves with that feeling. Hot draught moved across my ankles. A final ripple. Almost like a chuckle laid beneath the static and a release. The machine fell still.

I went on as directed. Sixty feet from the atrium's heart brought me to the stair. The bronze rail bit the palm with the friction as I climbed. Somewhere at my back, a footfall followed me from the bottom of the staircase. I did not turn to see what had made it. Oh, that's so cool. It's like there's butlers and like things taking care of him every step of the way, but he's not supposed to see him.

It's like he's in a giant, what do you call those clocks where like there's the little wooden statues that come out on tracks and do stuff, you know? A cuckoo clock? The hour comes out. A what? A cuckoo clock? Yeah, kind of like a cuckoo clock. There's like little wooden guys. It's like the whole mansion is one of those.

Like as things need to be done, they come out, do their steps and then go back into hiding and he's not supposed to look for them. Friday, October 24th, 1930. The dining room and bathhouse. The corridor to the dining room ran close and spare. At the end of its run, it opened all at once into a broad chamber. A lacquer table stood there. Linen bare of crumbs. Place set for one.

I checked my watch. On the dot of six. Service door eased inward somewhere out of sight. I turned toward the sound and waited. No figure came. When I face the table again, Steam braided up from a covered dish that had not been there an instant earlier. I raised the lid.

Inside lay trout, lost with butter and salt. Besided, a heel of fresh bread and a cup of coffee that carried the same fragrance of the freight station brew. I raised my chin and let the mystery server have their praise. This looks exceptional. Thank you, my friend. No reply came. Only the chandelier gave a faint sway if something had skimmed across it on its way out. I don't like that.

Excuse me. What do you mean the chandelier suede? He's like 80 foot tall giant people serving him trout behind the scenes. He is remarkably cool with all this. Like food appears at the table in like impossibly fast time. And he's like, thank you, my friend. My extra dimensional representation in the darkness. That's awesome.

and then it's just like, bird, it just like runs off. He looks out the window. There's like an 80 foot tall giant, like tearing down trees. He's like, your trout is exceptional.

Also, also I got a, I got a drawing for you. Sorry, that's why I've been a little preoccupied. You don't have to, see, here's the problem with streaming to the Patreon.

You feel like you need to entertain them by, um, showing out by doing these little drawings. It's going to be a drawing of me, and it's going to be something, it's going to be something absurd. Well, this is just going to be for us.

We don't get to, we don't even, we don't even get to show this to them, but I felt inclined. This is how, this is me. Are you ready to send it? Almost. Like two seconds. It's going to be, it's going to be you.

It's going to pause the story. It's going to be, it's going to be you reading the story. so here we go that's probably okay enough it doesn't make a lot of sense but you might appreciate it for what it is you get it

every time you stop I hope you realize that this is what I see it doesn't help too that there's the nicicado picture like two posts about that I'm speechless I thought that you I thought you'd like it I don't know you thought that I'd like this

I mean I guess I guess not I don't know can you crop it can you crop that bottom half out so I can show the audience part of what you've

done he named the file putting around I was going to see if you saw that he named the file pudding around putt around putt around

I'm not I'm not even playing with you the guys watch this right now I can't show this to you it is exactly what you think it's me bent over a table it's it's me bent over a table it's it's me bent over a table oh you're not bugger you're kind of bent you know I'm like

I've got one hand on the table my other hand you know earlier day I was on TikTok and I saw a TikTok start and it was just a pair of lips with a little bit of hair on top of them and I knew it was about me. And sure enough, if I listened to it was about me. That's the level of damage you've done to my reputation, to my character. Every time I draw you more, though, now, I feel like you become more, more caveman.

Like, if I'm being honest, I'm kind of out of my giant lip era and I'm becoming more caveman. I feel like. Okay, here's a censored version for you guys. you have no idea how bad I don't want to animate the original drawing and just do oh my god I look that is the alliteration all that is so good about being serious don't just don't I can't this isn't funny anymore you know because the way the way the meat canyon cartoons work is they're like vaguely based around some controversy of characters had or like

something they've done in real life that's getting joked about. So everyone's going to see that to be like, is Wintagoon like some like pervert? Like what? Yeah, I'm like, hold on. Kayla, can you entertain chat for like three minutes? Well, Kayla needs help with the baby, I think, for a second. Sure. Okay, one second. Talk to them.

That was my kid. I'd fucking punt it like a Nerf football. If my woman tried to interrupting my work, oh my God, don't get me started. I would freak the fuck out. I'd say, hey! I put in bright on the table. That's what I'd say. All right, I'm back. I ate.

Each bite tasted as if it had been made a minute ago and no earlier. Its taste was immaculate. Seasoning knew its place. The chair furthest from me creaked once as if a knee set against it in anticipation. I kept to my place and finished. I folded the napkin. The plate set bare. I turned toward the service corners.

Only a closed door met me. I weighed whether to wash the dish myself When I faced the table again The plate had vanished You're clever whoever you are I said let out a curt laugh I waited for a retreating tread There was none

Only the sound of wood settling in a pipe Cartaing its contents off through the walls I told my notebook that only an exceptional staff Could perform to the minute like this Then I told my mind they must use a trick of doors and serving apertures to keep from being seen. Most of all, I told my thoughts to keep close to center and not to let fear take me.

I'd been provided an exact itinerary for a reason. I was in an orchestral play requiring precise timing. The actors clearly did not want to be seen and spoil the production. I would not rob them of that. The next cue sent me to the bathhouse. It's even creepier. I stood and left the dining room. Even creepier, just being like,

you've come to terms with being like, oh, this is going to be a weird performance art thing, you know, that it's basically happening here. And I don't, I'm not going to be, you know, I'm not going to spoil the, but just even the idea of going to the bathhouse and people are definitely going to be watching you. At what point do you say that this is just a bit invasive or you know what I mean? Like at what point it does the illusion of like this being curious break and you're like, actually this is very fucking weird. Because I feel like that would have happened to me already. I would have been long gone.

The guy said the chandelier moved as if something had touched it. and he was just like, huh, that's kind of weird. I just kept up going with it. So I think it takes a lot to break this guy. I mean, it's also like, he may assume that this is some famous guy with sensibility, so he wouldn't like prey on him while he's naked, but there are people around the corner.

I do agree he's not taking it for as creepy as he should. The next cue sent me to the bathhouse. I stood and left the dining room. I followed the marked path that led to the eastern wing. What opened ahead earned its own line in my future article. A covered way took me in. Glass panes formed a long throat of light,

a kaleidoscope of late sun moving over the floor. Somewhere in the machinery of the place, a fan turned on. I could feel the warm air draw across my skin as if the house blew a sweet breath upon me. At the end of the walkway stood the baths. The room presented itself as a gallery of chrome. Towels lay rolled in pairs with their edges aligned. soap scored with the letters A and D lay on a dish by the trap.

The tub ran the length of the room like a trough in a temple. Heat bulged from the water's surface with a white thread of vapor. I touched the surface with a finger and pulled back at once. Another man judged the heat for me, and his scale ran high. The water was near scorching to my skin. All right, old man. You mean for me to be comfortable and I must say food was quite remarkable, but you severely misjudged the heat a man's body can take.

This water is near boiling. The room echoed my remark two beats late, as if a second bather had repeated them from the far end of the tub. I surveyed the shining run of the tub and set my coat on the bench. It took me some time, but I cleaned myself proper. I dried myself with the towel that had been set for me. The mirror above the counters showed a man's face resembling my own through the steam. So that man looked further aged and tired than I had last seen.

I tested my reflection and raised a brow. The image matched, which settled the matter. It confirmed the tired-looking man was indeed me. At the edge of the silver backing of the glass-land inscription. A conqueror that eats all pageants had paid the house a courteous visit. Friday, October 24th, 1930. The Bed Chambers When I stepped back into the covered one,

the light had shifted toward late evening. The house grew larger in the half-dark, its reach extended by the black of visible ends. A trace of machine oil came through the vents from the generator below. The itinerary called for an early retirement. I cannot argue with that. fatigue had settled on me like a commanding hand to the back of the neck. A door marked quarters stood at the far end of the passageway. Beyond it, ran a wing of rooms.

My name was printed on a small card near the frame of one. of the doors. When I pressed my hand to the knob, the mechanism clicked once with a dry, satisfied sound. The hinges swung inward without complaint. I found the bed shamer, prepared with the same meticulous precision that marked every room before it.

The coverlet drawn flat as a sheet of paper. Two glasses on the nightstand filled to identical measure, one of water, one of milk. I smiled at the childish, I smiled at the childish touch and spoke aloud. You have a keen sense of for hospitality, old builder. A wardrobe door stood open, within hung a robe that was of exquisite quality,

heavy weave, red with a faint gray and black gleam along the lapels. I ran a hand along the sleeve, warm and velvet. I left the bedroom door open behind me. I was not keen to seal myself into any room in this place, yet the latch drew itself shut with a clean, polite click. I tried the handle. no give well so much for free will all right well now now i'm on board with you he's way too chill with this i mean don't wrong i'm sure there's something where it's just like you know i mean like

how many warning signs has he had since then i mean he is completely driven by curiosity but at what point i mean i'm just saying like in terms of me like fight or flight whatever i would i feel like i would have freaked out a long time ago yeah well i mean now you're at the point where it's like i am I'm in someone's house and there's like ghost people in the walls and I'm now trapped in a bedroom and his response is, well, so much for free will. It's like, yeah, dude.

I guess so. I set an ear to the panel. Nothing. I tried the knob again with more force. Still nothing. I wanted a better look at my captor. I struck a match and lit the bedside lamp. Flames sparked. It was enough to show that the lock on the door

was a simple contraption. Nothing more than a little. bolt worked from the outside. A trick of the staff, I reasoned. They mean to keep me from wandering the halls at night and discovering their little machinations. I decided to get comfortable for the night. I poured the water into the washbowl, stripped down into the dressing gown, and set to making my notes. The power source below sent a steady hum through the floorboards, deep, rolling, draw, and

release like a beast at rest. At precisely nine, the hum changed pitch. I lifted my head and listened. The sound grew taut as if the power were being choked away. The corridor lied outside the chambers went dark. I crossed to the window and raised the blind.

More lights died. Each going in perfect order across the estate. From my window, I could trace the progress in rows, moving east to west, each room blacking out as if some unseen crew move wing to wing extinguishing lamps by a rule of measure. Who wind you down, house?

said to the glass. Not a single shadow crossed any window pane. When the last glow faded from the clarestery over the service wing, the generator gave one last groan and east. The gravel cord below turned to a blank field. No moon, no star. The manor held like a husk of a colossal shell. I set my palm to the glass.

For a moment, I thought I saw a flicker along the far wing, a movement behind one of the blacken pains, but when I leaned closer, it proved only my reflection. Checked my watch, 9.30. In my last minutes awake, I wrote, lights extinguished in perfect sequence. No staff seen. Possible mechanical control.

This house sleeps with its guess. Man, this is so cool. I thought I saw a flicker. He sees his flicker on the far wing. similar to where earlier he saw his reflection in the mirror and thought it was an older man, but it proved to be himself. Maybe like once you're stuck in the house, it's like a time thing, right? Like that is him at a different point later on, you know, aged, older, forever trapped in the house. Yeah.

I made a Hotel California joke earlier, but it may actually be the Hotel California. You can check in any time you like. or again, we bring it up nearly every story, but I am getting a little bit with the lines of the motor underneath sounding like a beast. A little bit of final prayer vibes, just a touch, you know? Maybe there is, maybe this is some lovecraft entity. Maybe the house is alive. Maybe it's just Monster House, you know?

Yeah. I'm happy down for a Monster House. I'm down for Monster House. I love Monster House. Movies awesome. Saturday, October 25th, 9. The North Lodgea. Dawn came with the click of the latch.

Door stood free. I dressed, packed the notebook, and set my mind to the day's work. I stepped into the corridor. Gramophone waited on a rolling cart. A typed card set under a silver clip. Please play upon waking. All right. Let's hear it. I wound the handle and lowered the needle.

The belt took hold in the same measured tenor from orientation carried down the hall. Good morning, Mr. McCauley. Follow that. Follow the diagonal marker set in the baseboards to your next stop. Do not stray. With the lines meet, you will be where I need you to be. I lowered my focus. Dark inlays ran the length of the skirting,

converging like rivers towards a single point. I set the card in motion along their guidance, nodded to no one, and walked with my eyes set on the stones. Lift your head. The record carried. You are capable of dividing your attention. let your direction be instructed by the man

the line under your feet is forgiven to anyone who is capable of listening I suppose I could use that forgiveness you and the rest of our species the record answered as if he had heard me through the horn huh huh that's kind of weird let's see what the subreddit has to say about this one okay hold on a second

Did you just hear me talk? Guys, this is kind of weird. Anytime one of the secret Butler peoples behind him, he's like, it's right behind me, isn't it? Corridor widened into the North Lachia, a long gallery of columns and windows that set the grounds in a frame. The cart cannot go farther.

The second gramophone waited on a marble plinth by the first column in the gallery. I crossed to it and set its needle down. The record asked me. to the seam where the floor pattern meets. From there, turn toward the panel with a small brass latch. I found the seam. Floor showed two mosaics pressed edge to edge,

each pulling the eye in contrary directions until they resolved to a single band. Brass latch weighted in the wall at a chest height. I flipped the mechanism. A concealed panel slid back to show a shallow bay filled with bakelight levers. Warm air fluttered the fine dust within. A switchboard

A record intoned A house is a machine A machine must be spoken to Each level is a word Said the right word And the house moves as you commanded I leaned closer The so-called board

Was not merely wires and screws Copper paths ran a narrow Vains that bent and looped with a purpose I could not parse Curve cables underlaced with tiny crossings Then sudden angles that met And parted like fish at a wear Between the traces, tiny marks repeated and grew, grammar of hooks and circles, stokes crossed at angles not used in any alphabet I knew.

Past nodded at black studs, then unwound to a comb of steel teeth that vanished into the wall. The intricacy of this system of circuits superseded any article I had ever read on the matter. The schematics very nearly came across as drawings rather than advanced engineering. I narrowed my focus and tried to follow a single strand from stud to tooth. It led me into a wire figure that was neither star nor wheel, some union of both. The longer I looked, more it felt as if something looked back at me through the copper. Do you employ a man to speak for you? Or do you personally skulked this house flipping its switches, Mr. Deloyer?

I asked the room. Gallery answered with a single click somewhere above. Soft thrum heaved and strained from the walls. Glass beads on the switchboard winked at me with a red light. Gramophone continued. Leave the circuses you found them and proceed to the northern stairs to make your descent. Do not take the lift. The next venture will be outside.

The shadow shifted at the end of the Lager and a lift door parted of its own accord. The cart waited with its gate open, empty as a mouth and expected food. Its cage lights flickered in a rhythm that matched the lights of the board. I sit the stairs. The Laurier's recorded tenor repeated. The lift is for the others. Hmm. The gate slid shut again without a hand.

The car sank. I found the stairs and began to descend. At the first landing, I paused. A handrail ran along the wall. When I set my skin upon it, the metal had a trace of heat as if a palm had just left it. So I'm working up here with me. I would like if you showed yourself.

Somewhere within the wall, wall long muscle of piping gave a satisfied groan. Oof. Is it, man? Um, gosh, I love. So that description of the wires being bent into shapes that he, not in the alphabet he knows of,

that almost reminds me of that whole, again, going to the triangles outside and like possibly demonic or like, you know, spiritual imagery. Um, that almost sounds to me like ruins or like the coppers arranged in like, you remember, I think. I think I've talked on this podcast before. The idea that, like, technology and wires and stuff is basically sigils and, like, electricity and things like that come from us calling upon. Yeah, like, circuit boards are basically, like, runic marks to call upon, like, extra-dimensional demons or entities and stuff like that.

So the description of the walls and, like, the house speaking to him almost implies that that's how this place is ran. It's, like, tapped into the other side of the veil. The whole house itself is, like, an altar almost. Saturday, October 25th, 1930. The grounds. I left by the Northern Gallery and stepped into the grounds. A gramophone waited in a weathered hood, a birdhouse with the black tulip for a beak.

I wound the crank, belt steadied. The even tenor came bright and sure. It in the skin of my creation. Paws, ducks, gutters, valves. Observe the reflecting pool in the channel that feeds it. You will find no waste here. Only chance it. I took the flag to walk along the basin.

The pool carried the manor on its face and broke only when a gust passed against it like a patient knife. Beneath the rim, small slots drank the overflow at each pass of a wave. The hooded horn addressed me again from its post. After all, hydrology is discipline. Old Rome did not conquer with sword alone. I was to as much as spears. The voice cracked and died.

At the far end, a second hooded gramophone stood beside a square pump house of poured walls and a steel door. The record resumed when I wound the next handle. You are the pump. Beneath you, the veins take rain, melt and ground water, and moving across the estate. What you were here is perfectly balanced throughput. What you bathe in, or you drink, all purified through the bowels of this house. I opened the pump house doors and surveyed the room. The interior contained multitudes of gauges blinking with endless needles.

Pipes ran their way down into the ground. I stepped out to look beneath the foundation where a stone culvert ought to spill. The streamboat was dry. The streambed was dry. White pebbles lined the channel like a rinsed throat left without water. Yet the path gutters at my feet clicked with a scatter of drops. Tick, tick, tick. Where do you steal this water from? I asked the soil.

The gravel offered no answer beyond a small complaint under my foot. The next mark of stone. The sculpture court awaits. I stepped forward. The path carried beyond the eastern wing, down a flagstone staircase, and across a shallow terrace where warmth rose again from unseen vents. The woods wring the property at a respectful distance. I followed the markers set into the paving until I reached a brass plaque that read simply a court of figures. Another gramophone waited beneath an overhang.

Here the house of... Each shade was drawn from the image that kept me awake the longest. I walked the court while he spoke. And the sinner stood 12 statues, each caught between poise and torment. Their bodies were built of brass, onyx, and some darker alloy that refused to gleam even under the noon line. Each one caught in an attitude of movement, yet none appeared to move in the same direction nor toward the same end.

Some reached skyward with strife. stretched limbs, others bent as if burdened by an invisible weight. Their faces were featureless mass drawn in long, perfect plains. The light touched their edges like a wound cauterized in gold. They rose at least twice the height of any man known in the world. The Laurier's voice continued, When I first saw them in my mind, not burning but bright with knowledge. I've tried to shape that light here in hopes they may share some grand insights with those who view them.

Wind swept through the cord and gave the statues a faint groan. Metal shifting on its base. Took a step nearer to one and saw the beneath the polish of its chest, the seams seemed to ripple, as if something moved under the skin of the metal, trying to make room for air. I've stood here many evenings. The longer one looks, the more certain one becomes that they have not seized their work. It is amusing, you know, that we call them sculptures because they do not move. but I counter that thought.

Perhaps they only wait for a proper invitation. And what invitation's that? Sound answered. Not from the horn, but from the court itself. A faint creak of settling bronze. A brush of grit where nothing had stepped. When I turned, one of the figures had shifted. Only a fraction.

His chin tipped a lower toward the paving, and the light bit differently across its cheek. told myself it was heat with the play of shadow even so when I left I kept my back to the court of statues and did not look again

until I reached the safety of the terrace he has put together these like these statues based on something he said he'd seen so you know creature spirits or whatever

and now he's given them life and they're probably what's given him the power to create this place and I guarantee the reason that he's only speaking through the gramophone is because he's become a part of them. Like he's effectively been dragged down to the creatures he created. I was going to say,

it seems like a man talking from the beyond or whatever. It's kind of interesting because it sounds like almost like a ghost, like having like a new groundskeeper or something. It's like that intimate and like, I don't know. It's very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Man, the idea of the statues,

he's like when I saw them, they're beautiful and I've tried to recreate them. And probably by recreating them is what did the like, the ritual quote unquote. that gave these things life. They're probably what led to this place being abandoned and all the captive workers. It's why at the end it says stay, I imagine.

He's never going to leave. Saturday, October 25th, 1930. I just noticed, by the way, it took me this long, but he posted this in R slash creepcast, which is pretty cool. That's pretty sick. The second night's rest. The afternoon's rounds ended at the gallery door

where a fresh card waited in the same tidy hand as the others. Supper at seven. Took the corridor that kept the day's last light and reached the dining room. The lacquer table waited. Chandeliers cut their bulbs and white bowls of glass. The tablecloth lay stretched tight enough that it would

sing if a coin ran across it. Vapor rose from a covered plate at the head of the table. I raised the lid. Prime rib, sliced thick and red, a spoon of potatoes, dark gravy with a harbor sheen, a cup of tea stood steady beside. it. I tried once more to catch the staff at work.

Friend? I said, pitching my voice to the corners. Let me thank you in person. You prepared another outstanding meal. Timber eased under a draft and offered nothing else back. I ate at an easy pace. The dish held the same impossible freshness, as if the stove lived inside the table.

When I lifted the napkin, a printed slip slid free. Retire a date. I checked the wall. watch. My bedchambers were already calling. I heeded the note and returned to the quarters that bore my name. The chamber admitted me. This time the door did not wait before closing behind my back. The latch drew shut almost at once after I crossed the threshold. I tried the knob, knowing I would not like the result as expected, no purchase. Very well. We ought to repeat the same experiment for a second night.

I lit the lamp and set my notebook on the desk. I began writing about the day. I was I had just experienced. The generator's lament once more spoke through the floorboards as the lights around the manor began fading. The machine gave the steady animal murmur of a draft horse in harness. Then the pattern changed.

A soft roll came along the hall, the faint scrape of a cart. It paused outside my door and came to a perfect rest. A heartbeat later, a gramophone woke with the belt's small bite and the horn spoke. It was not with words,

but with a noise that had no business in a human corridor. What rose was a rehearsal of noises that a man does not care to name, yet I must. Voices gathered huddled together, not speaking any tongue I knew. Children at a school yard heard through a long pipe, a woman laughing until the sound broke, a man counting, but the numbers arrived out of order and then ran backward. Each noise overlapping yet distinct, a mass of individuals clawing for their own attention, I set my forearm to the panel as if to brace the door.

Enough! I said, meant it. You have made your point. The horn replied by pulling everything down at once. Pulse sank as if the floor dropped away. Into the fall came a choir without words, mouths open, throats desert dry. The chorus of mouth sounds rose to the wet clack of lips

trying on words that did not fit. A scrape across the door, frantic and searching, as though the horn had grown a probe tip and a nail that sought an audience with me. Enough! By all that is holy, I said enough! Static swelled, chair creaked on the other side, needle skated, and silence cut clean. The hall returned to the old stone. After some minutes, I steadied my thinking. I set notes in order, trimmed the lamp, and lay atop the cover lay with my boots on.

I kept the lock in sight. The earth outside pressed its face to the pain. Somewhere a pipe clicked as it cooled. I heard only the soft grind of the earth under the foundations. The house had settled. I did not. Sleep eventually came for me despite my protest. Gosh, man.

So sick. There's so many different elements. Like, it kind of sounds like, uh, it sounds like, uh, the part of, you know, uh, it's like when fucking Dracula asked the, uh, the guy to come in and like now he's being seduced by vampires and stuff, but it also has like remnants of like Po of like House of Usher or something like that. There's so many different kinds of, uh, so many different flavors that I'm, you know, getting with this story. It's very interesting. Do you say, so that almost sounds like punishment. Like he did something wrong. So now it's threatening him with like the voices of all those

who have trapped or letting him hear hell or something like that. And he's like enough, you've made your point clear. Did he do anything wrong or anything to warrant that? I think he's just staying, but also to be fair, he's done, he's bending the rules a bit. He keeps like, he keeps talking to the staff. He's done other things like he has to look back. But I do think also just by staying there longer and longer, he's going to be more subjected to whatever's looking inside. Yeah, I think maybe it's kind of like he's, he's getting close. So now it's coming to him and it's letting him hear sounds of people, maybe all the people it owns or spirits it possesses.

And then it said, I love that description. A course of mouth sounds rose to a wet clack of lips trying on words that did not fit. It sounds almost like a skin walker-esque, like, you know, things trying to sound human. So it's like they're, like, if the sound before is the spirits of people that are, are in tomb there, then that's the sound of the statues, right?

The greater, the demons or the things that play. It makes us come to me. I don't know if it's necessarily skin walkers as much as I'm reading as like almost speaking in tongues or like, not, well, by skin walker, I meant the tone people typically attribute to skin walkers. Right. Okay.

Like the, like that kind of. speak. Yeah, not literally Skim Walkers, just the sound. Yeah. That kind of thing. Like, like it's things trying to speak without really understanding what speaking is. Yeah. Like a husk of a man exactly. God help me. Exactly. Kind of like someone imitating. Oh, but yeah, exactly. A husk of a man of like, I think that they keep reading as like dead entities. It seems like, I mean, like, I don't know if you feel the same way, but it seems like he's going to be added to the staff at the end. He's being and doctor to all of their practices to where when the time comes he's going to be like

a groundskeeper as well or just like a helper. Yeah. Yeah. He's going to be consumed by this thing, this place. Yeah, for sure. Gosh, man, the story's so good. All right. Part two. Part two. Sunday, October 26th, 1930. The Living Manor.

Oh, let's go, baby. Let's go, baby. All right. I woke to a sound I had not heard since Friday. The common music of a lived-in home. Water ran in the pipes. A cartwheel murmured down a corridor. Somewhere a kettle sang.

I lay still and listened. The hush of careful staging had lifted, and with it the dream of a museum kept by ghost finally parted. I readied for the day and stepped through the threshold. The estate did indeed bear life within it. Outside a window showed two gardeners crossing the far terrace with rakes slung along their backs, boots printing the gravels,

still wet from night air. Inside, a porter passed through the hall with folded linen. Good morning, sir. Said a steward at my elbow. His coat was dark and well brushed. Breakfast is being prepared for you. I fought a laugh. Well, aren't you a welcome sight? He gave the smallest bow. I'm pleased to hear that, sir. Please come this way.

As we walked, he kept pace beside me. He steps a half step out of rhythm, as if learning a gate long rehearsed in theory. and never performed. Oh, how? See, stuff like that. Little things like that give the implication, like maybe these aren't people. Maybe they're things just trying to be people.

But is, like, the way he says it, long rehearsed but never performed. It tells everything. It's been an empty house. They've been expecting company, but they've never had a walk before. But now they do. Uh, man.

For given and pertinent question. Where were you all yesterday? Preparing, sir. For what? For today, sir? Hmm. I was beginning to think the house was empty. I said after your time.

I regret to say your inkling was wrong, sir. We were here listening to you. Listening? He cast a look toward the stairwell. Of course, sir. You spoke to us. What do you mean? When one speaks, one is heard.

You were never alone. We valued your kind remarks that cannot wait for you to join. us this evening. And here I thought I was just speaking to empty halls. Why, if I may ask, appear now, but not before. Paused at the landing. It was desired.

By whom? By those who serve? We have not been seen for a long time. We expressed our desire to attend you in person. We found great enjoyment in hearing the sounds of a guest. And the master approved of this deviation? Trace of light reached his eyes like the flame of a fever. He was persuaded, sir.

Grant works are often amended by necessity and passions. You would hope that you sought us out first. Oh, man. Okay, so because he called out. What a little fucking creepy bastard. A little creepy fuck walking around with that. Well, yeah, he's like a demon or like some spirit or something like a little fucking gnome.

I keep just mentioning like a gnome with a full fucking like tent pitch right there. He's just like, maybe you called to us and win. We answered. It's like you look like a little tripod. Thank you, sir. Why are you a foot and a half tall? It's like I'm actually the tallest of my species, sir. Yeah.

So because he called out, like with the compliments about the food and stuff like that, the house answered. But he wasn't supposed to do that. And with the record playing the night before, I feel like it's a bad thing that he sees everyone now, right? has to be. It's like, okay, you want to see what's behind the veil? Here you go.

And now he can never leave. Yeah. This is, this is, again, last time I'll say it. This is the plot of the song by the Eagles Hotel California. And that's okay. It's a good song, like the idea of a mysterious manner you check into with spirits that you are trapped there. I like that. But this is Hotel California, which is good.

I like both those things. So, check your score. I really, this is. is, do what? Check your discord really good. He's sending the image of me been over the table like at least two dozen times. As a friend,

as a friend and a business partner, I'm asking that this picture does not see the light of that. It's not going to see the light today. It's not. It's not. Because if anyone sees a meat canyon drawing of me doing that, it'll immediately become, what did he do?

and the answer is nothing besides this podcast, which might have been a mistake, but here we are. Just in the middle of me, like just going on about how beautiful this is and the writing and style and stuff, you're just sending me a drawing. You realize how weird of a relationship this is.

You can just draw me doing that. And then so that no one else has that interaction with people. You can do that to me if you want. That's such, what? You can do it to me if you want. I can't do that. Sure, you can't. I can't do that.

I can't. Actually, I was going to do something as a bit. but I don't have a pin around me, so never mind. No, I can't. I have no ability to draw. I let the mystery go. Coffee floated up the stairs and with it the light, salt, broiled fish and the sweet tank of fresh fruit. He guided me to the dining room.

The vases along the sideboard held fresh plants and stems. Their leaves still wet. Please, Stewart said, drawing a chair. And if you'd like, your morning paper. You set a folded broad sheet by my cup. The mast had, was from Albany and bore yesterday's date. I saw an article from Denton advertised on the front page.

A woman in Gray set down a dish in front of me. If you required another egg, she said. Ring wants. Her vowels were neat and her attention was fixed on the rim of the plate. I thanked her. She bowed and went. I ate like a man found exonerated on all charges. This man a mix for some strange bedfellows.

I said, with a mouthful of sugared fruit. Sir? That wasn't meant to be an insult. You keep good order. That is the intention. Will the master join us at any point today? If yet to meet the man who invited me. You opened a shirt pocket and reached inside.

An embossed creaming card lay within. The letters raised in sober black. He offered it to me. Your invitation, sir. It read. This evening in the great salon at 8 o'clock. The torridial procession will be presented. your attendance is no longer requested as a mere journalist

but as a proper tenant of this estate. A.D. I touch the car. I like, I turn the car. I just like, you're no longer work for anyone. You live here now. It's pretty much what that reads like.

You're stuck here forever. So good luck. See, maybe it's like, maybe it's dimensional, right? Because he slept there that night. He heard the things. And now he's in the other plane where the workers are. So this is what it always looks like here.

But to the new guest, those who arrive from our world, they're invisible. It's just happening around them. Also, his initials being AD is like, you know, Anno Domini, year of our Lord. After death,

that kind of thing, do. After death. Yeah, so it kind of goes back to that idea that maybe he is in a, not really, not to say that,

um, Deloree is time or mortal or something like that, but it gives the idea, that he is all-encompassing, right? Yeah. I turned the cart and felt the bite of the letters against my skin. At last. A point toward which all this has marched.

As you say, sir. Will there be many in attendance? All who serve? He answered, which I took to me in the entire staff. And the house I'll tend, too. I said, half ingest. Ghost of a smile touched his mouth. The house is home.

was present. I bet it is. He stepped back and let two porters pass with a folded carpet between them, both sharing its weight. Behind them came a boy with a box of bulbs wrapped in paper and tied with string. Took the sides in and felt ease moved through me. To a sense of safety in the company of others. Sunday, October 26, 1930.

The library and workroom. When I finished eating, my plate was taken without flourish. Another cup of coffee was prepared for me at my right hand. hand. The steward waited until I had emptied my second glass before asking, Would you care to walk the room, sir? All of our staff are loud entry. I suppose I would. I stirred for my seat. That sounds like a wonderful gift. We set out on our tour. The library opened like a great chamber carved from ember. Green glass lamps cast their calm over the reading tables, shelves rose from floor to ceiling, each tier numbered and gilded characters that caught the light.

The latter waited among them. wheels chalked in place. Between the shelves hung frame blueprints of bridges, arches, and grid cities drawn in heavy ink. Even though every shelf stood full, nothing felt random. Upporteers held architecture, city planning, hydraulics, the middle rinks turned stranger with titles such as treaties on natural order, structures of elision design, magnetism, and manifestation. On the lowest shelf, a set of volumes in tarnished leather bore single and bobby. title. Mechanics of Deform Adaptation. Their spines carry diagrams of orbits and cogs.

The master read from those the most often imported from Munich, I believe. Deform adaptation. So like the forms of deity is like how to change them. He reads that one all the time. He likes to read that one and float in the garden. And what? Anyway, this is the coffee machine. I said, a finger to the edge of one of their covers. The binding held warmth, though the lamp above gave a little heat, drew back uneasy at the sensation. Good Lord, he has cataloged creation itself. The Seward gave no reply, but his attention lingered on the books as if to confirm my exaggeration. Beside a writing desk resided a small lectern. Upon it rested a chain tome of heavier

make than the others. Its title read, Merrick tables of the ninth configuration. I turned a page and met with the same drawings I'd seen behind the wall panel. Laddist diagrams of motion and spiraling currents rendered in metallic prose. Each depiction label was symbols from no language I knew. Between the lines ran fate, notations of ideal temperatures and prime decibel rates. The mastercraft of that text himself. He called it his great magnum opus.

He said it showed the same order that guides per se. both Adam and Empire. I'm just going to say, what's it about? It's kind of funny. It's just like, it guides Adam and Empire. Oh, yeah, really?

What is it about? What's, what's it? That sounds cool. He saw earlier, I mean, along with all the supernatural things he's seen,

but he saw earlier this configuration of wires that was a language he couldn't perceive. And now he sees in like the ghost book room that he has nine tables of these, which nine tries,

nine goes back to like, Trinity symbolism like threes and triangles and stuff like that. So he has like this occult book that is these unspeakable shapes and designs that control everything from Adams to empires. And he's like, oh, really? So like is there like pictures and stuff? Is it like a story? I followed the ink line by line.

What is it about? The stewards studied the text without a change of face. The study of language, I believe. The master held that small. He had that small and that vast share of single alphabet. He called the Law of Resimplance. It's not the same grammar could guide living engines. Oh.

Living engines? The difference between faith and voltage is small than most care to see. Oh. Oh. You know what? Draw the picture of me. I don't care. That line.

Okay. I've talked about this concept like a dozen times on this show before, like how cool it is to think the like electricity of random. by like spiritual stuff, perfectly encapsulated in the sentence. The difference between faith and voltage is smaller the most care to see. That's so good. That's so good. That hits so hard.

Oh my gosh. I'm fired up. I'm excited. This is the most removed from happy happy we can possibly be. I got to say, I got to say, to be honest with you. So far, this is like just just the tone. the setting, the riding and all that. This is one of my favorite stories we've read on the show.

Wow. I think. Really? Mother horse eyes is still my favorite, I think. And that's going to be a hard one to beat. But this is getting me, it's got my goat pretty good right now. So, and the idea of, like,

he figured out the reason he's so powerful is because he figured out, like, this secret hidden thing that these spirits gave to him long ago. and he's tried to recreate it. And he's almost like a prophet writing down the symbols that control everything. And it's allowed him to create

this living house, this extra-dimensional space. And the statues that he builds is him trying to build like effigies of them to try to give them life again, but they can't have a face. Like, ugh.

I trace the outline of one sigil with the... Oh, I said sigil earlier too. Man, I just bear trapped this whole thing so hard. I am awesome. I trace the outline of one sigil with the barrel of my pen. It resembled a circuit spine that its pattern held the balance of a cathedral plan.

There was beauty in it, along with something that repelled my eye. I looked toward the shelves again. Certain books bore no titles. May I see one of the unnamed writings? He considered for a moment, I drew a single volume free and set it on the table. You may read what is written, but you may not speak the words aloud.

The words are meant only for the master's mouth. The pages held mechanical sketches that seemed to shift under the lamp. Some represented tools while others proposed devices of unclear purpose. Among them stood human figures composed of gears and valves, limbs rendered in cross-sections with their hearts replaced by spoils of copper wire. Let's go, baby, mex, necro-mex. People, like he figured out how to use wires to control, so all the stuff behind the scenes is like mechanized people. That's literally House of the Worm.

The thing I said earlier that the SCP I like so much, that's the idea that people were... like converted into machinery. Necro-avagallian meme. Yes. Gosh, that goes so hard. He figured out how to get the, like, how to use these mechanics

and these shapes to bring life into copper, like how to use voltage to create a living house, and he put it inside of people to make these puppeteered, like, steampunk zombies. That is so cool. This story is so cool. Oh my gosh. I...

Oh. I closed the cover and step back. The Stewart returned it to the shelf. The masorette here at night. He preferred the quiet hours of the evenings. He read more than he slept. I must say, this is a different house than the one I walked last night.

It is the same house. Only seen in different light. Man, Bear Trap again. I am... Okay, yes. So it's like, it's the same house. always there, but he was just in a different dimension or a different plane and couldn't see what was happening around him. But now he's within. He's in the space. He's a part of it.

And I don't think he can leave. He stepped aside and let me through. We passed the court windows and I looked out upon the 12 statues in the garden. No statue had shifted. The brass giants kept their places. For the first time since Friday, it truly came to me that the last two days might indeed have been a careful spectacle. A simple long curtain raised. designed to sharpen the appreciation of a very private pageant. Stewart halted at a plain door at the end of a corridor. Its brass knob was unadorned, faintly tarnished where use had marked it. Would you like to see the workroom, sir?

It is not often shown even to servants, though the master has granted us permission. Very much so. He unlocked the narrow door with a small toothed key. The air within carried a scent of graphite, sweat. The room stood vast and high. eye, lit by a single glass skylight veined with steel. Drafting tables stood against the walls. Pinsils lay where they had fallen. Campuses set open across sheaves of linen paper. Some patterns

around the room repeated the same sigils I had seen in the limerate tables, only here they were drawn with a deeper intention. Across the room, a set of glass tubes ran from floorboard to ceiling, filled with the liquid metal that moved at the base. Small pistons pulsed along their links, keeping the substance in slow circulation. The light that passed through them carried the same color as the manner circuits. He used mercury as a conductor. He keeps the thoughts of the house connected to will of his hand.

The thoughts? The master believed that if a structure could be made precise enough, thought would follow. A perfect ratio invites a perfect mind. Thus he made this manner his... Oh my God. Thus he made this manner of vessel. bro he is going at the end the master killed himself or whatever and now he is the house he's got

it's the monster house it's the monster house it's the monster house with flesh puppet people and like forbidden sigils and like to do things that speak without speaking and see what i see is i walked to the central platform there a great table stood ringed by iron lamps with shades blackened by dust upon its surface rested a full scale model of the man the detail struck me dumb for a beat. Every corner in recess, every window and parapet have been rendered with the jeweler's care. Even the courtyard figures stood where they should, fixed in their miniature devotions. But what surrounded the manor silenced me further.

The forest was gone. In its place rose a vast city of angles and towers. Bridges arched in strict repetition. Roads formed concentric rings. that drew toward the center. I leaned closer. Thin wires wound through the model's base, twisting in strange loops. The manor stood at the heart of the circuitry.

The steward folded his hands at his waist. He called this his rehearsal of the world to come. He believed this house would be the newest creation of a grand design. A gateway to cities thought unimaginable. The longer I studied the city, the more its impossibility showed. folded into one another, becoming corridors without entry or end. Where would a man walk in such a place? He would not walk, sir.

He would circulate. He would be provided only what he needs to function. Beneath the table, the machinery stirred. A pulse of light moved through the copper and up into the city. One tower flickered, then another, till the low glow spread outward like a dawn through fog. The illumination reached the manor's model and held it in a halo. I stood astonished at the glowing city. You've done well.

I told the steward and it meant it. The show has been spectacular. We endeavor to please, sir. Just remember, eight o'clock you are expected. Until then, the estate is at your disposal. We left the room as we found it. The key turned. The breath of graphite and cason stayed behind the door.

All afternoon, the house wore its best manners. I like to think that the house is like almost breathing. Like almost like through the house, instead of they're just being absolute sounds, you can kind of hear like a, or you know, I mean, like just some kind of like almost like the, not that the walls are moving, but just the faintest sound of like a breath or something.

Yeah, it's like the house itself. He's in the house, but it's like in this panorama. He's almost in the city. Like it's this, he's creating a body for himself, this giant. structure that goes on and on and on. Gosh, it's so cool. Man, this is so cool. I'm fired up. Okay. All right, well, here we are with the pageant. Here we go. Are you ready, Hunter? Let's do it. Sunday, October 26th, 1930, the pageant. I spent the early hours before ate

eight an ordinary pleasure. In a small sitting room, I found a tray of little cakes, sugared just enough to catch the light. I ate one and let a laugh slip out. another life I might have stayed and written a polite column about a fine estate. And that's so weird. Like where, because at the beginning of this, he was just coming to write about the house, right about the guy seeing and now it's so much more. Now it's immortality through machines, turning yourself into the house, turn yourself into circuits, made of faith.

A maid passed with a tray of small glasses. Cider, sir. Gladly. He said and took one. Tasted like an entire orchard held within a sense. single glass. At a quarter before eight, the steward met me outside the great salon. If you would, he said, smoothed in his coat.

Several seams had darkened and appeared singed and rewoven. Made it no mind and I chose not to break the spell. I bet underneath the coat he's one of the automaton's. Yeah, a million percent. He's definitely like a scorched piece of like machinery. Yeah, this kind of reminds me of the ending of church in the woods, or spire in the woods, remember? Oh yeah, with the like, with the like,

ballerina automaton. Yeah, yeah, the people that got turned into the clockwork machines and stuff like that, yeah. Ahead the salon had been set as a theater. Chairs stood in rinks, each aligned to face a stage. Chrome lamps climbed in tears. Their reflective shades raised a white shimmer that settled like stars across the ceiling. Workers and servants filled and wearing pressed uniforms buttoned with small moons. A curtain at the far end of the stage held my sight. The fall of dark, glassy cloth, not velvet, but some soft skin that drank in the light but kept its sheen. Above it, a familiar crest showed two wings nested in a triangle, worked in gold thread.

Stewart led me to his seat at the center. The master will attend shortly. Will the master be speaking? Courteous curve touched his expression. The corners of his lips parted like cracked paper. Raised a four fingers if to test for rain, then lowered it with the satisfied nod. He is here. The lamp stemmed.

From the wings of the room a hush moved in like a tide. Then he came. The architect walked out from the wing like a depiction from a drawing. He stood tall and exact, coat cut to a blade, hair wide as ground salt. He did not hurry. Nothing in him hurried. When he halted at the center of the stage, the room seemed to lean forward an inch. My friends.

He said. His voice as clear as a bed. You have labored with me through seasons of frost and mud. You have kept the shine where it belonged and taken the dust from where it did not. I promised you a complete work. Three years ago I delivered it. Tonight, I would deliver it again. Raised a hand towards a great window above him.

It's glass blackened to keep out the sky. This is all night. Many years ago we opened our site for the first time. You sat where you sit now. of you faithful to my word. That night our world was opened up to the world of dreams. It lasted for only a mere instant. And in that moment, we had been viewed with approval. A ripple moved the crowd. His hands opened as if presenting a blueprint before the sun. For seven years before that night I walked in the city of dreams only in my sleep. Its streets

ran beneath my eyelids. Its towers rose and the pulses behind my eyes. I wandered there where my body lay still in this world. I saw patterns that no ruler could measure, lines that knew where they must go before any hand could guide them. From that city I learned proportion beyond reason, and from its grid I drew the lifeblood that gave this place its existence. Every wall you touch, every stair you climb,

speaks in the language of dreams. He paused. The lamp surged. a glow deepening to a vivid gold. I did not work alone. As you know, a hand guided me. Not a hand of flesh, a hand of sovereignty. An emperor that knows how to rule a city without speaking,

it placed its hand upon me and move my tools until they obeyed its rhythm. It taught me to build as the heart builds, to thread the house with nerves of copper and iron, until it could remember the dream from which it came. This is not sorcery. This is order. The law of pattern brought to completion. I call this manna the aperture, which touches the land of my dreams.

I once more bestow this manor with the same name. I see written on the walls behind my eyelids. Attend. Oh my gosh. The curtain to his back rose without rope or pulley. behind it a pillar stood revealed taller than two men and wider than a carriageway span forged of brass and panes of dark glass with the depth of water the lintel carried tall letters that seemed to move while standing still i read the word inscribed upon it twice before my mind accepted it pandemonium oh oh god it's sick it's very it's really good. It's so good.

It's so good. Pandemonium, the name of the city of the devils from Paradise Lost. When the devil brought the demons to hell, he named it pandemonium. All chaos, chaos rules in Latin.

Oh, he was, in his dreams, he was a famous architect who had influence in power. So the devils or the spirits reached out to him and showed him visions of things he couldn't understand, but they were too beautiful to turn away from. In his sleep, he was shown curves and architecture and order, and because of that, he used all of his power to build a house that was a Ouija board, a giant summoning stone to bring these things in the world. And he tries to give them shape, and that shape

is these giant brass statues without faces. It's the effigy for these demons that brought him this place. And now he has performed their goal and used his house as a ritual, used his power to create circuitry that has life, forms that they can speak through, ways for them to interact with the world. He's effectively turned his house and this imaginary city around him into a poltergeist for these things. He has brought pandemonium from hell to earth. And he thinks it's in the name of power, in the name of greatness, thanks to rule empires, not realize. that maybe the things that rules empires and guides man's hand is evil. Oh!

Okay. So, so Mother Horse Eyes is like, still, it just did so much right and it took its time and weaved it together. Still think it's my favorite. But if this pulls this off at the end, this might be my second.

Oh. Oh, it's, the name is pandemonia. Oh, okay. Ah, all right. You know, it's funny because in the beginning, you were making the jokes about me with the drawing and stuff like that.

And it was like kind of he-he-ha-ha-ha then, but now it's not even a joke. No, no, I mean, I know you got, you have full ropes and spider webs in your pants, for sure. Motherfucker's got the whole entire novel of Charlotte's Web right there in his pants right now. I get it.

I fully understand. Okay. With that word, the heat rose at once. Cloth stuck at the small of my back. Air drew toward the pillar and took the air from my lungs. The lamps brightened until they sang. I turned to take in the room as a whole. The audience had changed while I had attended the speech.

Faces I once considered handsome now drew tight. Mouths had been pulled back. Teeth showed like exposed hardware. A footman near the aisle buckled backwards at the knees, yet kept standing. Meanwhile, a maid next to him had her skin begin blistering in bubbles across her cheeks. No one screamed, though several mouths opened and did not close. The sound that came out of them was from a parched choir, a gathering of throats without water. Fingernails blackened before me.

Vapor climbed from skin. The steward who had seated me went to both knees. He slithered on the ground with a grace that would have pleased a dancer. A seam along his collar had parted and exposed ribbon of copper laid against his throat. It flickered under the light like a small fit. beating against a net. He pressed the seam closed with his palm and kept to his stance. Do not be afraid. Step through and be made equal. Step through and be made equal to yourselves. His hand cut a narrow path in the air.

But you mistake for torment is only the shedding of variance. What you call death is only a species of waste. The city allows for nothing to be wasted. Three years ago you were showing you were showing the first light. Tonight, you will walk within it. Step through and be made equal to yourself. So it's like the human distinctions, differences between people

is condensed down to like code. Right? You all become one flesh. You return to the collective, right? You all become exactly the same as tools for this machine, a vehicle for consciousness. It's also the note of the guy

slithering away. At the end of Paradise Lost, all the demons and pandemon are turned into snakes. As punishment from God, they're all made to slither across the ground. So now this is almost like they're reckoning, right? They see it as a gift, but this is their torment, finally, the thing that they've asked for being made to be.

Glass in the high window gave way with a cough. Shards and soot fell over the ranks. The architect smiled. Along the line where gummet tooth were in a deep charred the color of coal. People of the work, the gate is open. People of the work. Oh, what a good word. What a cool word.

What a cool word for the people that have built hell on earth. Oh, that's so cool. A woman by the aisle turned her face. The skin at her neck parted like pain on a hot pipe. She did not falter. She moved for the pillar. Her joints were answering a lesson rehearsed for another stage and another body. am I am I is this not bro like just just like I need you to nerd out with me a little bit

I mean it's good I'm just it's very it's very hard it's like it's a coming competition you have an entire I mean caked pants I mean it's it's awesome I'm enjoying it in my own way I'm just not like I'm not I need you I need you to freak out a little bit just just like just like the way her body is moving thank you there you that's what I want That's what I want. Oh, you fucking God. Okay, so. Oh, fuck.

Yeah. Oh, fuck. It can't stop. Oh, fuck. Charlie horse. Charlie horse. Ah! Oh, fuck.

Ah! That what she's having. Well done. Thank you. Several others. and behind her, their open mouths bobbing with each step. Sir? I said to the steward at my side, those pupils clouded to ash.

We must leave. His mouth widened and held. At the base of his ears, said a wheel no wider than a coin, turned one notch and stopped with a click, and that tick I met with the truth that I had refused to name. They were not servants in the old sense. They were living machines. Kept, repaired, set to functions. set to functions.

The house had gifted them a form and taken its payment in their pain. Their autonomy had been bargained away a long ago. Sir, how long have you been like this? He parted his lips. No word came. Only a hiss of air through a crack that should have been flash. He raised his palm as if to calm me, yet his palm shook from a tremor that did not belong to fear,

but to strain without relief. Pillar drew air again. House answered it. Its circuit spoke and rapid code beneath the floor like fluid driven through jets. Each pulse matched the heat's ascent until all measured beats became one drum. I fled. The corridor that held the salon bent into a duplicate of itself. I saw a sunburst above the ladder of the two halls and followed under it. Paint blistered in fish-scale patches. Light-pooled rust red on the floor and turned tacky under my souls. I crossed the gallery and found one statue at stolen a half step it did not own yesterday.

Its brass knees split open, each crevice widening with a low-grown. Heat poured out of the fractures like breath from a furnace. Beneath the ribbon metal, something living turned, its surface slick as ink. A round, colorless eye opened under the plating and fixed through the shell, as if trapped there for centuries and now walking to its hatred. The other statues followed. race through the figures. Light bled from their openings, and through the brakes I saw glimpses of the same eye repeated again and again, each glancing in different direction. The figures moaned

in confinement. Brass screamed when they flexed. I spared them no more of my time. I ran into the nearest passage, stumbling across uneven stone. Beams overhead shook with a low vibration. The cart stood ahead of me in the service lane. A porter brought up. Braced upon it with both arms, tar melted from the wheel's rim. He turned toward me. Stress lines scored beneath his eyes. You should be seated, sir. Orders are orders.

What are you speaking of? The word. We must keep to the word. His cheeks cracked at the edges and did not bleed. A faint whirr came from the hinge of his elbow. Shivered. Bring once if you require anything. He repeated the phrase in broken repetition.

Ring once if you. Ring once if you. Are you in pain? He pressed his forearm to the cart. Metal knocked together. We remain in service. His foreword, his words fought against him as a vow he could not break. I pushed past him.

At the bend of the corridor, I looked toward the window to gain my bearings. What waited beyond the glass stopped me. The manner no longer sat in a window. in its clearing, stood upon a wall at the edge of an endless city. Towers rose without tops, tier upon tier, while smaller buildings slanted among themselves and folded like knives. Streets ran in every direction, perfect in their geometry, endless in their descent. Bronze arches spanned avenues choked in smoke, buildings glowed from within, with light the color of molten ore. The sky turned in slow spirals, clouds thick with embers that felt like snow.

In the far distance, beyond the outer spires, a shape moved. It was vast enough to make the tallest tower seem no higher than undriven nails. Its gargantuan body lay half buried in the ashy haze, but I saw its terrible heads through the clouds. All three of them. Each bending and lifting and turn, each mouth gnashing upon the others, teeth, met teeth and endless hunger. Bro, bro, bro. I knew you're going to shoot a fucking fat one after that.

I was like, I could smell it too. Did I smell fucking pumpkin seeds and fucking peanut butter? It is horrible. I'm telling me it. It is a gnarled, gnarled thick omer glue that is just dripping out of your screen. Bro. Bro. Dude.

He's, hell is a city of right angles and circuitry because that's what they, used to communicate. And now that he's in hell beyond it, he sees Lucifer from Dante's inferno, half buried under the earth, like he is in that story with the mouths gnashing on each other continuously.

Pandemonium is a city of angles built to be given to a prophet and antichrist to bring it forward to the earth. And this is his judgment day. This is his rapture. Oh, gosh. And it's done like a

a 1920s great Gatsby house, like Gatsby is the prophet of Lucifer to bring pandemonium to the earth. And the mention of the bronze statues, it says he saw countless eyes. It's like the depiction of the biblically accurate angels, right, the eyes, the open him, the wheels within wheels.

It's that, but it's the fallen angels. It's the ones that need a new form because they're not holy in divinity with God anymore. So the demons are forced inside of these rest things and are only now given the power to move, but they're trying to burst out of it. their infinite form and the shape. Oh.

Okay. I'm, I'm, dude, I'm, I'm, I'm about it. I'm fired up right now. I don't know what I'm going to do with this energy, but I got to do something. Ooh. The sounds of its motion reached through the window, a deep grinding that set the glasses to tremble.

The sight and sound alone pressed hard enough to nearly buckle my knees. I knew then would have. placed its hand upon the architect and it was nothing of God. You better keep your hands in fucking screen because you are, you are, you are, you're to hold your hands up for the rest of the fucking episode. Okay.

This is, bro. Is this not just like, you get it though, right? For me, for me, I'm having, I mean, it's fucking awesome. It's super sick. I mean, specifically with like everything I like. I mean, this is, this is literally right up your alley.

Okay. Yeah, all right, all right. I tore myself from the window. The walls sweated more thickly now. Plaster split in thin cracks that widened as I passed. The gramophones began speaking again in every hall. Each uttered a fragment of the architect's tenor all out of order. Stay.

Said one. Open. Said another. Return. Hist a third. Their vocal cords twitched like nerves along the floor. I set my palm to the wall to steady myself. and felt the house drawn release against the meat of my hand.

At the corner a maid came forward with a basin. The sloshy water wore skin of muck and dull colors. Steam rose from her wrists in little threads, heat alight beneath the skin. She set the basin down, lifted both arms as if for inspection, then spoke in the tone used at shop counters and street cars. Sir, the lamps to your liking, you're burning! We keep the shine. She answered. The words trembled. Her mouth tried to smile and forgot the motion.

A brass staple held her lips apart on one side. Please be seated when requested. She added as if reciting a rule from a handbook. Who did this to you? Was it the architect or this thing and there are those things outside? She turned, showing the back of her neck. There a gauge lay beneath the skin like a coin under parchment. It ticked, stopped, then ticked again. The house remembers. She lifted the basin and went toward the glow behind.

me, leaving prints that smoked on the stone. I lurched toward the vestibule. Ahead, the front door stood ajar. Beyond it waited another, set deeper into the wall, a door that had not existed before. Between the two doors lay a grate that pushed out hot air with the smell of iron, whale, animal pins, and charred me. It was from the lungs of something far larger than the house itself. Dude, there it is. There's the final prayer. There's a thing beneath the house that breathes, the living contraption. It's my favorite. It's I will, I have

a stiffy as well. Anytime a little final prayer, borderlands kind of thing happens. Oh boy. The beast beneath. Love it. The pagan God kind of thing. I fucking love it. Behind me came the sound of breaking metal. I turned. The entire staff stood attentive. Souls and uniforms that

no longer fit their bodies. Patient before a gate they attended to for years. Near them a statue stepped from its plinth and set one terrible foot on the marble. Brass cracked open along the chest and within the tear a heart of brilliant fire turned like a spindle. A room lit as a furnace. The room blazed. Curtains went to ash. A steward walked forward as if conjured by duty.

He steadied himself as the floor shook under our feet. Sir, this is the hour. We would prefer you among us. us. You are in pain. Why would I want this? Pain is a word for those who have not yet experienced suffering. He said, and he lowered his regard and let the smallest confessions sleep. Do not leave. Your words helped us remember who we were. The steward's mouth moved as if he tried to recall a name. You can leave with me. Answer to the word. Small gear turned under the skin at the base of his ear. fell to mesh, skipped, caught again.

Ring once if you require anything. Cray's returned, stripped to reflex. Ring once. Toward himself, as if hunting the piece that kept his mind from reaching mouth. Flesh and mechanism left him and found a heap on the floor. The statue turned to face him. I took that moment to kneel beside the pedestal where the first gramophone had stood. I set my notebook there.

Each page filled, every line of stake driven down with warning. If anyone finds this, you must retreat. This is not a spectacle. The conqueror that eats all pageants has paid this manner of visit and will not be satisfied with one appearance. I am going through the second door now because there is no other honest choice. My hope is simple, that it opens not upon that infernal city but back into the living world into whatever grace that still waits for men.

If the city takes me, let this record be the warning you need to depart. Peak. Peak, peak, peak, peak. End of story. Dare I say, I mean, one of the finest things we've read. Perfect pacing. It's interesting. It's like the whole story is literally, it's a three-day march.

How many stories we read where it's been like multiple days of a guy like basically uncovering a mystery, you know? But then it just, it feels like a. I mean, the thing about like deep woods, all the kind of like woods episodes is usually that or like camps, all these other kind of things. This being, Spire in the woods was kind of like that with them trying to figure out the legend and things. Yeah. I mean, I just think, yeah, I don't know. This is just so well-paced. Such a well, I mean, I don't know.

It just reveals itself in such a great way. It doesn't linger. It kind of gives you what you want to hear and then just like fucks right off. It's just a, also just a nice two-parter. Two-parter that had actually some meat on it, some meat on its bones. it wasn't just too short. It just, it felt really, really great. I mean, I really think it's one of the,

it's one of the best stories we've read, which granted, which granted we still are a bit, we're sobering up from happy, happy and, you know, all the other stuff that we've been reading lately, but still,

I think that this is, just really such a treat. I mean, strange accounts, Travis is just, it was just such a great job. Oh, my gosh, dude. I can't even. What's funny is I'm reading through the replies right now

because this is posted an R slash creepcast. And someone said, not to glaze you anymore than Windagoon already has. Edge Lord Dark Rape, you haven't seen anything yet. You don't know how much I can glaze this guy.

Bro, just, I mean, I said most of it during the episode, but not only hitting so many cool themes and the payoffs are cool in ways I don't expect them, and sure they're things I like, but they're also like so well woven together that by the end it makes sense to incorporate, you know,

demons and the devil and, like, circuitry being a form of possession and like multi-dimensional houses. Like you get the clues in an order that it makes sense. But also to do that like you said at such good pacing to where we figure out pieces of the mystery one at a time and it never lets off the gas. It just keeps like escalating one point at another. I just like until you get to that huge ending. I just loved how it tricked that was by just continuously unraveling this home. Like it really doesn't like. Yeah. It doesn't have all these giant visual frills, I guess. It's just, it's just slowly unraveling. And you know what? And I hate doing this, but like with the new Resident Evil game that's just all my mind is on.

But it does feel like just like a Resident Evil kind of like lurking through the house. Resident Evil too kind of lurking through the house. Yeah, the story almost has a, what's the word everyone says like the Castlevania style where it's like you have a, a building that's like continuously expounded upon and you learn more and more about the space. It's the space stays the same size, but it gets deeper as you learn more about it, right? Metrovania. No, all in all, this is a really, really good story. I think, I do think. And not to mention how well, like, certain sentences are written, how the great control of grammar and English he has. Travis kills every time with that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Even like little phrases that are there, like, the thing about worms, like moving with appetite, like, it's these cool little moments of poetry in the midst of such a well-paced story that, incorporate so many cool ideas and has a satisfying payoff. He is such a good rider, dude. I mean, he's one of the goats.

He is on the Mount Rushmore right now. I mean, he's continuously proved it. Also, too, I love that his stories just keep hitting, especially he's got to read his stuff in person and all the fans got to interact with it. It was just fucking awesome. I'd love that we keep uncovering new, more and more shit from him. And it's just, it's awesome. I love it.

Yeah. Yeah. Again, everyone. Again, this is not sponsored. You can just tell how big a fan I am. Travis just had a book come out that is a collection of these stories. I have to skip through all the pictures that Hunter has sent me to find it. But strange accounts from the American frontier.

We'll have it linked in the description and get it on Amazon or Kindle. I'm going to buy 12 of these and just give them to people at Home Depot. This really is. This would be the perfect book just to get a couple and just like shared to your friends. It's like an actual pass-round book. When they're done with it, they pass it to somebody else. You did that with me. with a, I have no mouth,

I must scream, whatever, and I passed it off. How did you like that, by the way? I loved it. I, I,

I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,

I have no idea if he's passed it off, but, you know, it's a really fun thing to do, though. Yeah. Yeah. I think,

I think this story's incredible. Travis, that there's a, I said this with Kane, with, with Kane pixels, and honestly Hunter, it applies to you,

uh, as well, seeing like, Kane make movies, and you make, like movie shorts, you know, creative process. It is so satisfying to see someone do something that they are so good and efficient at that you know they were born to do it, that there's simply no other place they could be.

And reading Travis's writing, I feel the exact same way. This guy simply has to write because what else would he be made for? He's this good at it. I'm glad that he's doing it. And I'm glad I get to live in a world where I know that Travis is a writer and I get to read his stuff. Um, I, he, he is supposed to be doing this and I'm glad he's here and I'm glad I get to read it for a living. That's awesome. This is awesome.

Life is cool. Never kill yourself. Strange accounts, man. Well, we should, uh, yeah, be sure to show the, uh, the book cover and stuff too. I feel like we need to start doing that more is whenever we say, go check it out. I actually have the book cover up because sometimes too, whenever you, like, look online. Some people have made several copies of their published book. So I don't know.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I got up here. Well, I mean, normally in the final edit, this is a great cover too. Normally in the final edit, we show this anyway. But, and some of these titles like Private Jonathan Hartwell, like this guy writing in a war story would be awesome. But yeah, I get this like a dozen times.

And of course, when the episode goes up, patrons will have it linked in the description and stuff as well. But you can just search strange accounts from the American frontier now. Thank you so much to all the audio listeners that are listening right now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and giving us a nice little rating there. I appreciate you. And thank you to all of our wonderful, beautiful patrons who helped support the show and even got to hear this story early, live. Definitely no crashouts or anything. Edit it all out. Definitely nothing happened there. And we will see you next time, guys. Take care. Thank you all so much for watching. Check out, Travis. I need to change my pants.