but oh what a year

[patrols]

Comments

[telegraphs]

What happened to Dorian, that related?

( Give him a little more information, and then, fine. )

[geminated]

Tangentially?

[Liv isn't sure how much drama to spill but she can spare the Cade relevant parts.]

Cade took control of two of the more powerful vampires in town, brothers. Had them flip their humanity switches and have been terrorizing the town for a while. One of them, Stefan, killed the wrong person, got himself vervained, and we had him locked up in the Armory for a while. But Dorian, for personal reasons, decided to break him out so he could kill Stefan himself and ... as you can see, that didn't really go well for him.

[telegraphs]

No, it did not. Well. I see everyone runs hot-headed in this town. Almost reminds me of home. Alaric is Dorian's emergency contact if you're good to get packing.

( Let's find a solution! )

[geminated]

Let's go.

[And they'll head out to the library. Liv has a lot of more general questions, but she can be kept on task when the problem calls for it. So once they hit the books, she'll fill in some more information that might help.]

So what we know about Cade is that he was a powerful psychic when he was alive, but his community turned on him and burned him at the stake, and in his moment of death he created his own pocket Hell.

[telegraphs]

( He pulls what hopefully is relevant, but because he's unfamiliar with all things Arcadius and hell is a broad topic, he does his best (13) )

Sizzling. ( He peruses one book, line by line, but listens. ) And he enslaved Stefan and Damon Salvatore, yeah?

( He can connect dots, too. )

[geminated]

Before that he had sirens. Also sisters. The Armory had been keeping them in a special vault but they got let out. They're dead now though. The Salvatores were Cade's new favorite toys.

[Until they managed to get through to Damon and theoretically Stefan is himself again but who knows what that means.]

His whole goal is to get more souls for his hell dimension, whatever that takes.

[telegraphs]

There's always something else. Sirens. Greek in origin, but there are traces of them across several cultures. Wonder how a "Devil" comes to target two vampires in Mystic Falls. Perhaps, the Armory? It was the sirens' choice?

( He tilts his head. )

Who did Stefan take off the table?

[geminated]

I think the sirens were the ones doing the choosing. They were looking for someone to take their place so they could be free of Cade. I don't know what the deal was that the Salvatores made, but it's been pretty brutal.

[She pauses at the question though.]

I mean, he's killed a lot of people recently, so you may have to narrow that thought down.

[telegraphs]

You said he offed some poor sap before he was vervained. Proves the poor sap is probably significant to the story? Helps to have all the facts.

( His last kill before being jailed. )

[geminated]

He didn't get to her. He got to one of the people protecting her.

[She exhales slowly as she tries to figure out how best to explain it.]

This friend of ours, Elena, she's under a Sleeping Beauty curse. She's human, but she also has the cure for vampirism in her system. My partner and I have been protecting her, but our friend asked us for access to her, because she wanted access to the cure. Around the same time, Cade offered both Stefan and Damon a deal - kill a hundred people or kill Elena. Stefan took option B.

[She swallows hard.]

Elena's okay, and so is our friend, but their boyfriend is not. He was a vampire and he wasn't invited in.

[And it sucks. Both for Bonnie and for Liv. It was nice having another outsider to commiserate with when the Mystic Falls clique got to be a little too much.]

[telegraphs]

Those are nasty. ( But, right. Listening. ) Significant, then. And another soul for Cade. Doesn't sound evil, either, so, much as the lore is saying 'worst of the worst,' it sounds like Cade is getting less discerning. Hard to find a hundred criminals in a short amount of time.

[geminated]

I don't think it was ever about people being evil. I think it was always about revenge.

[And Liv understands that, really.]

Spend your whole life caring for a community, only to have them turn on you in an instant? I would assume that everyone deserves Hell too.

[telegraphs]

Then where's the end.

( A sigh as he sets his book aside and grabs another, sitting back. )

Hold on, there's a passage here about hellfire. Apt, considering he created it. That it.

[geminated]

[Liv's eyebrows go up as she makes her way closer, aiming to read over his shoulder if she can.]

What about it? Other than it sucks and is intended for suffering.

[telegraphs]

Something that could be loosely translated to 'fight hellfire with hellfire,' but it's incomplete, like, it's only one of two components.

( He grabs a magnifying glass, then sits back, rubbing his lips. )

That doesn't make any sense. A king of Hell, which, fits, can be bested in fusion. In fusion of what. What and what. Is there anything in that one in English?

[geminated]

Maybe.

[She heads back to her stack, before her head tips up curiously.]

Stefan said something about a knife or a journal. Possibly related to the Maxwell Bell.

[She pulls out her phone and calls Tyler, putting him on speaker in the middle of the table. But while she's waiting for him to answer, she goes back to the stack of books she was digging into.]

Usually for a ghost, don't you need the remains of it? I know he's like ... a super ghost but technically still a ghost.

[telegraphs]

Yeah. For some. For certain kinds, burning the remains. But, what if burning his remains - created something.

( He pulls another book onto the pile and flips across a few pages.

Tyler answers.

"Hey, Liv," he says, knee deep in the Maxwell journal he'd found. )

[geminated]

Maybe. Or maybe we need to combine the two?

[But she'll distract from that question when Tyler answers the phone.]

Hey. I've got Beck here. He found something about hellfire in one of his books. Did you find that Maxwell journal?

[telegraphs]

( "Only that the bell was meant to protect from the supernatural, but the right influence could corrupt it. Maybe that's his interest in it?" Tyler asks, switching to speaker and setting it down on the desk. )

What if the two were already combined. There are creatures in every pantheon whose own parts are the only weapon that can pierce them. Arcadius is powerful enough for nature to balance out.

[geminated]

If only we had a Maxwell to ...

[ ... Oh. Liv grimace briefly, before addressing the question to Tyler.]

Do you think he'd talk to us?

[Peter Maxwell had fallen off their radar after Matt's death, but if they needed to dig into the history of the Maxwell Bell, he'd probably be the one to ask.]

[telegraphs]

( "He's not mad at us, long as we keep Damon out of it, I think he'd want to save... We're saving more than just the Salvatore's, right?" )

And, every soul Cade wants for himself, which, sounds like at one time was a hundred and that was in a day, so. Sounds like.

[geminated]

This doesn't feel like it's going to stop with just the Salvatores, or Mystic Falls even.

[Liv slumps slightly in her seat.]

I'm not really a signs girl, but I don't think a Slayer shows up for nothing. Not according to anything I've read.

[telegraphs]

Believe it or not, there wasn't some big cosmic reason. We don't have any midatlantic presence and this was a good central dot on a map.

( But, maybe there's more to it. Tyler pulls a file that's handed to him.

"Peter Maxwell had an old storage unit. It's in Matt's family's name. I can probably get us into it with the right credentials." Tyler says. "Or, yeah, we reach out to Maxwell. Explain things." )

[geminated]

We're at the library so we're not far. I can go talk to him.

[He doesn't think he'll really listen to her, but she'll try.]

Want to meet us there, or do you want to keep digging?

[telegraphs]

Was that to me or him?

( "She's talking to me. You're the librarian, right?" )

Beck.

( "Yeah, let me see if digging gets us anything else, and if I find it, I'll meet you there." )