[Lore Mingle] Singing Songs to the Secrets Behind My Eye, Oh My

[thethirteenthchild]

Who: Dahlia Leeds & the former members of the Ocularum
What: Q&A
When: Post-Kadath
Where: The Oak & Iron
Warning(s): None

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An Invitation from Dahlia

Those who aligned themselves with Neil West will find his house empty when next they go. All his furniture is gone, leaving a barren building, with the door to his basement locked. The meeting space, where all his esoterica and research were kept. Those who are stubborn enough to see what remains of his work can break down the door, but all that remains are cleared out shelves and a single table in the dark. A note sits on top of it, written in red ink.

However, a few days after all the dreamers have awakened, former Ocularum members will find that they've received a letter. Though it is anonymous on the outside, the contents will reveal the sender.

Hello,

I'm sure that you have questions. Now that Nyarlathotep has revealed himself, the magic preventing me from speaking on this is lifted. I am at liberty to give you answers now.

Meet me at the Oak and Iron at 2pm. A neutral space, during the day. I have rented out the private room in the bar so that we can speak.

For what it's worth, I am so, so sorry.

Regards,
D.A. Leeds

You'll find her sitting in the back of the bar, drinks and food already set out, her treat. She looks... stiff, and grim. But not afraid. Just sad.

Comments

[redlightgreenlight]

If one thing came from all this, it was that Valdis' fury overrode her great loss of Max, Erik and Crichton. It felt as if everyone left had been distant, even before her meltdown, and now even those she loves and trusts most shy away from her. She doesn't blame them, Neil had her completely fooled; no worthy leader falls prey to someone like that. It's a pattern than gives her nothing but pain, time and time again. She hasn't come as far from Meira's mistakes as she thought.

Once again, she resists the urge to destroy a dwelling, but she refuses to give him the satisfaction. In this, Dahlia's letter is a source of peace, that she hasn't screwed up so badly that the woman she had wronged by association wasn't going to abandon those who had been fooled.

"I appreciate the invitation," she says as she approaches. "I've lost so much, I feared I would have nothing left."

[thethirteenthchild]

The remark surprises Dahlia, admittedly. Valdis aligned with Neil quickly and never looked back, even helping to invade her home. After Dahlia's true nature was revealed, tensions simmered, but contact between the two remained quite limited. Valdis was Neil's friend. One of his closest, in fact. Dahlia had never expected to be anything to her.

She shifts a little, long fingers arching over the rim of her glass as if she's idly toying with the idea of picking it up. Mostly, though, she's just thinking. "Well, I... know he's not planning to answer any questions."

[redlightgreenlight]

"Even if he did, I wouldn't trust his answers."

Valdis takes a seat next to her, wondering just how badly she had ruined her own life again. Seeking friends always seemed to backfire in the most spectacular ways.

"I don't dare assume what you think of me, but I never really thought badly of you. In fact, I was confused by Neil's continued hostility, and he made it clear that I couldn't reach out to you without abandoning him, but I suppose that all makes sense now."

While she can't begin to assume what he was thinking either, she can make educated guesses. Collect people who might be useful, use their disillusions with the Mothers and religion to convince them to follow, eventually isolate them from the rest.

"I lost four people I love, but I suppose I never really loved one of them at all, because that person never existed."

None of these are questions, because she's not certain she has many.

"How did it feel, knowing what he was and watching us consider him our friend?"

[not_a_traitor]

Gaeta hasn't left the house since he woke up. Hasn't touched his sending stone. Has barely gotten out of bed, to be frank. The letter arrives, and he seriously considers throwing it straight into the fireplace. Why would Dahlia bother with any of them? After everything --

But what convinces him in the end is the same thing that drew him to the Ocularum in the first place: I will give you the answers you seek.

So he makes himself marginally presentable and heads to the Oak & Iron. Even by Gaeta's standards, he looks absolutely frakking exhausted; ragged around the edges to the point of pushing unkempt. He settles in at Dahlia's table and just kind of... stares bleakly for a moment.

Then, quietly: "You knew the whole time."

[thethirteenthchild]

Dahlia stares back, her face placid and empty.

"Yes," she answers plainly, hands folded on the table in front of her.

[not_a_traitor]

His gut churns. (It hasn't really stopped since he left Kadath.) Gaeta rubs a hand over his mouth, looking down at her clasped hands.

How did he hide for so long? A stupid question. He's a god. Why couldn't anyone say anything? Equally ridiculous; Dahlia herself said it was magic, and clearly Nyarlathotep's stronger than either the demons or goddesses if he could bind all of them to silence. So many of his questions are still just disbelieved railing at the -- at everything, not actually anything useful. Gods.

Maybe he shouldn't have come here after all.

"What's he getting out of this?" He swallows. "The, the demons -- I guess they needed his power to seal the barrier, right? But why did Ny... why did he bother with any of this in the first place?"

[thethirteenthchild]

"Fun." The way Dahlia utters this single word is so thick with grim disgust and ire that you could mistake the lone syllable for a twenty minute rant. "He is a child with a magnifying glass. And we are ants. All of us, even Aster. An afternoon diversion. Nothing more."

[not_the_last]

Cassandra gets her own invitation separately, by word of mouth: you might want to be here, I don't want to have to repeat it too many times.

So here she is, at about ten minutes to two, dressed-armored in a gray walking suit of simple and unexceptionable correctness, with no ornament but a very plain pin holding a blue neck ribbon. (Rather than the sky blue or slate blue she usually favors, it's a deep royal blue -- the Leeds hue and not the de Rolo, this once.)

"Well," she says to Dahlia, approaching the table, and for a moment that's all.

[takethatnature]

He fell for it. Again. Wilson thought he'd found a kindred spirit who sought knowledge through the scientific method and wasn't afraid of suppression from the authorities or rejection from polite society, but no, it was just another eldritch monstrosity. Or, no, not just another eldritch monstrosity; if it had been some vast otherworldly entity that didn't care one way or the other about humans or didn't really understand them, that'd be one thing. Instead he had to get the one cosmic horrorterror that was good enough at pretending to be a person to laugh at them all behind their backs.

Wilson makes his way to the Oak and Iron, more or less on time, and slips into a seat. Starts in on a plate of bar food.

"Now I know how he knew you were the Pine Devil before everyone else did," he says, sounding drained and downtrodden, after he's got a few bites in. "And why he was so against killing the demon royals. Have you got any more important secrets you can't tell us because of magic?"

[liesdontfindyou]

It's not easy, to draw CT back up from the pit that consumes her in the hours and days after the truth comes out. Paranoia and guilt and a distinct feeling of stupidity, complicated by the holes in her memory she probes around like a tongue at the gap where a tooth used to be. Like if she can turn her own Sight inwards, maybe she'll find evidence of more (how is she ever meant to be sure that there isn't more, when he can do something like that so effortlessly?). Trusting anyone, but the man who stood there with her as this revelation bore down and the woman that sleeps in bed beside her, is damn near impossible. Dahlia Leeds should be at the bottom rung.

And yet, the call of the letter is hard to resist.

So CT pulls herself together. Bundles in a winter coat with the hood up and comes to the Oak & Iron right on time, but then hovers. Lets other faces come through, ask questions, as she stands and Watches for a time, passively absorbing. Until, finally, she makes her own approach.

"...I'll know if you lie," she says, eyes gold beneath her hood, and it's not a threat, or posturing, or anything like that. It's a statement of fact and a statement of fear from someone who can't even trust her own damn brain, right now.