[Walkabout] The Zeddening

[willyousee]

Zed, what have you done?!

[Alcuin's not bothering to address him directly. Let the whole Network hear this idiocy.]

Blessed-Be is practically falling apart she is so frightened! A great evil tearing her husband into damnation? She thinks you may be after the children! What in the name of everything truly holy did you do to her?!

Mr. Sparkles! It is your sworn duty to harass him until he is "vanquished", is that understood?

[Alcuin doesn't do angry very often but he sure is now.]

Comments

[whydoyoushine]

Well, it worked okay when I did it with that kid! It's hard keeping up the whole religious pious thing! And she knows Evil-Begone too well!

[Still not admitting exactly what he did...]

I didn't think she'd go off the deep end and start beating me with the Holy Demon-Driving Stick or whatever the hell it was.

...and Mr. Sparkles, if you do, I'm gonna blast you out the sky.

[willyousee]

She is petrified! Of course she hit you! You are lucky that there are no guns in that house!

You've been here for generations? Are you serious?

[whydoyoushine]

I think we had a little miscommunication, I just said I'd been watching for generations, not possessing Evil-Begone for generations.

[willyousee]

A mis---

[Alcuin cuts himself short. You can almost hear him pinching the bridge of his nose.]

What did you tell her? I am on my way right now, so unless you wish to have scorching sunlight flung at you, I suggest you leave the house.

[whydoyoushine]

I might have told her I was the Emperor of Darkness.

[There's a pause.]

Okay, but the sunlight's pretty, right?

[willyousee]

It will happily burn beautiful holes in your sequined waistcoat and flesh alike.

[itsananimalthing]

[Riddick is just. Done. With this whole Jaunt.]

Look we ain't gonna be here that much longer. There's some shit we can still do. I might be able to... reset her opinions of Zed, if she's an infiltrator. If not, we can do some kind of exorcising shit on Zed. Might even be the thing we need to turn shit around here, blame it all on him.

Especially since Pod is goin' around telling people we knew about him.

[dalectable]

She's what?

[itsananimalthing]

Yeah, she let slip that she told us about him. Fun, huh?

[dalectable]

Dirthara-ma- what is she thinking?

[itsananimalthing]

She probably wasn't thinking. That's my guess, anyway.

[dalectable]

Clearly.

[So much head rubbing and exhaustion.]

Right. How do we fix this?

[willyousee]

I don't believe she is infiltrating, but it is possible. I think news of this is likely to spread too quickly - the children have already been sent to other homes to keep them safe.

I do have her gathering the holy texts for our perusal and editing as necessary, though. And I have told her that we will try to remove the spirit from her husband, but that it may leave him... hurt.

[he hates this.]

[itsananimalthing]

Good. See what changes you can make to those damn things to make life better for these people. I want a look at 'em, too.

And look, I can deal with Zed. Idiot needs to be vaniquished or smited or exorcised or whatever, I can handle that. I'm the big fighter Goodly One. After that I can do a couple things-- force him to infiltrate all the way so he forgets he's actually Zed, or keep him locked up in liminal space. I can do portal lockdowns now, so all I gotta do it keep him in the forge. Then when the Jaunt is over, his real self will reappear back down with them, and it'll be fine.

Got a preference?

[willyousee]

My plan was to see if it was possible to create bars of tangible light and cage him at the edge of the sea where the tide comes in just high enough to soak his ankles every few hours. Yours is likely kinder. Keeping him in liminal space gives us greater control over what has happened and what might come out while we are still present.

I shall at least make notes of where there are contradictions in the books, but I... I cannot make the changes. It may be stupid, and I hate what is happening here as much as anyone else, but I cannot do it, Riddick.

[itsananimalthing]

Then you fuck off and let me do it. I got no qualms about it, at this point, now that we got a good reason to.

[He might let Vilari or somebody with actual morals help, though. Since he's still not sure what exactly those are.]

My plan with Zed is easier, too. Think I'll just go with that. And if he gets too annoying in liminal space before the Jaunt's over, I'll infiltrate him.

[fearinahandfulof]

Why would she do something like that?

[itsananimalthing]

She's a kid. I think it just slipped out.

[fearinahandfulof]

Oh.

[Cassandra... can't really conceive of doing that, but then Cassandra doesn't remember having anyone to tell things like this even if she'd wanted to at that age.]

How are the others taking it?

[itsananimalthing]

Well, nobody's accused me of working with the devil yet, that I'm aware of, so it might not be that bad.

[dalectable]

Do we have enough Sirens available to attempt a Chorus to calm these people down? Because at this rate, this entire island will set itself on fire after this mishap. Otherwise, I vote drugging the main water source to make them all pass out and be convinced it was a bad illness brought on hallucination.

[she sounds so very, very tired of everything now.]

[willyousee]

You and I cannot affect everyone ourselves, however... Let me think. All other Sirens I know of are in Questing Country at present. We could teach others, but at this point that seems unlikely.

I believe most of their fresh water is via wells, which would be a poor choice for contamination.

I am having her gather all the holy texts so that we might look them over and make alterations as necessary, however. A show of containing and dealing with the threat ought to help content them. Particularly if we can reassure the rest of them that no other evil spirits reside among them.

[dalectable]

Just when I thought things couldn't get more difficult...

[willyousee]

Yes. You and I both. We were going to make it out without incident, but no.

[dalectable]

Come now, you know we never have it that 'easy'.