Neil opens his mouth, then closes it again and holds up a finger.
He turns to his desk, grumbling and rummaging through his somewhat disorganized personal effects. "I bought this from Calloway a while back, when Jon told me that it had been found... Oh, for heaven's sake, where is it? It's got to be in---- Aha!" Triumphant, he at last produces something from the drawer. An ornate dagger, encrusted with gemstones and what appears to be anodized metal detailing all in blue. Pulling it out of its sheath, a word can be seen carved into the blade. DEVORAMUS.
"When I had gotten my doctorate, I could have easily started my practice back home in Providence. Or anywhere, really. But then I heard about an island that had simply appeared one day in a blank patch of sea where strange things were happening, founded by a man named Japhet Leeds. I was younger then. Insatiable. I had to know what the connection was, how it all came to be. So I came to Pumpkin Hollow to traverse the dreams of denizens of an accursed island that shouldn't exist."
"Now, Dahlia's galas weren't the first occasion in which the Leeds family invited the general populace into their home, so I'd seen it before. I'd always wondered what the significance of that blue was to them. I'd been studying demonology for a while before that, but it wasn't until much later that I'd put the pieces together. In the mind of Jasper Leeds I saw that he'd been having a recurring dream about his family, including the ones who had died, seated around a table that Jasper was laying on. They were chanting in Infernal, and when the prayer ended, Japhet carved into Jasper with a ceremonial blade. This ceremonial blade. That same blue. One of the colors of the Dark Feast, emblazoned with the word of invocation belonging to Aster. Devoramus. 'We devour, we consume.' He had the nightmare thirteen times. And then, the next day, he died."
Neil hands the blade to Annabel to inspect.
"I started to sniff around. Tried to investigate the dreams of the rest of the Leeds family, and poke around their estate looking for proof of what I was seeing. They noticed. I don't know how they did it, but overnight my clientele disappeared, and I was forced to close my original clinic."
"That was when my marriage with Elias began to fall apart. I was--- stressed. Insufferable. And when I confided in him that I believe the Leeds family to be a cult of Aster's devotees, he didn't believe me. But now--- now I have proof. The blade is real, and somehow all of these things circle back to them. I know it! I have a physical object now--- and I have support!"
For a moment he's emphatic, but he quickly deflates. "I knew that this--- wouldn't be easy to believe, and I know how much you love River. And that River is close to Dahlia, as is her other partner, apparently. But I have reason to believe that Japhet Leeds sold his soul to Aster for wealth and power and a place where he could be the king of his own castle, and that they silenced me by isolating and disenfranchising me, and that Dahlia is still connected to it somehow."
no subject
He turns to his desk, grumbling and rummaging through his somewhat disorganized personal effects. "I bought this from Calloway a while back, when Jon told me that it had been found... Oh, for heaven's sake, where is it? It's got to be in---- Aha!" Triumphant, he at last produces something from the drawer. An ornate dagger, encrusted with gemstones and what appears to be anodized metal detailing all in blue. Pulling it out of its sheath, a word can be seen carved into the blade. DEVORAMUS.
"When I had gotten my doctorate, I could have easily started my practice back home in Providence. Or anywhere, really. But then I heard about an island that had simply appeared one day in a blank patch of sea where strange things were happening, founded by a man named Japhet Leeds. I was younger then. Insatiable. I had to know what the connection was, how it all came to be. So I came to Pumpkin Hollow to traverse the dreams of denizens of an accursed island that shouldn't exist."
"Now, Dahlia's galas weren't the first occasion in which the Leeds family invited the general populace into their home, so I'd seen it before. I'd always wondered what the significance of that blue was to them. I'd been studying demonology for a while before that, but it wasn't until much later that I'd put the pieces together. In the mind of Jasper Leeds I saw that he'd been having a recurring dream about his family, including the ones who had died, seated around a table that Jasper was laying on. They were chanting in Infernal, and when the prayer ended, Japhet carved into Jasper with a ceremonial blade. This ceremonial blade. That same blue. One of the colors of the Dark Feast, emblazoned with the word of invocation belonging to Aster. Devoramus. 'We devour, we consume.' He had the nightmare thirteen times. And then, the next day, he died."
Neil hands the blade to Annabel to inspect.
"I started to sniff around. Tried to investigate the dreams of the rest of the Leeds family, and poke around their estate looking for proof of what I was seeing. They noticed. I don't know how they did it, but overnight my clientele disappeared, and I was forced to close my original clinic."
"That was when my marriage with Elias began to fall apart. I was--- stressed. Insufferable. And when I confided in him that I believe the Leeds family to be a cult of Aster's devotees, he didn't believe me. But now--- now I have proof. The blade is real, and somehow all of these things circle back to them. I know it! I have a physical object now--- and I have support!"
For a moment he's emphatic, but he quickly deflates. "I knew that this--- wouldn't be easy to believe, and I know how much you love River. And that River is close to Dahlia, as is her other partner, apparently. But I have reason to believe that Japhet Leeds sold his soul to Aster for wealth and power and a place where he could be the king of his own castle, and that they silenced me by isolating and disenfranchising me, and that Dahlia is still connected to it somehow."