[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.

[whydoyoushine]

It's not like it'd be the first time I've died with a lot of light involved.

[willyousee]

Oh, I'll not kill you. That would do far more harm than good. The poor woman wishes her husband back. And she cannot have that if the body you inhabit is killed. Besides - Travelers do not kill other Travelers. I've not forgotten that, even if the rest of you have gone mad.

But I can and will entrap you for exorcisms to be performed if you do not escape, and it would not surprise me if many of those did not involve more Holy Sticks of Demon-Driving or whathaveyou, and ritual fasts and the like. Perhaps we shall read through each and every page of these religious texts, hm?

[whydoyoushine]

I've been exorcised before too.

That kind of sucked.

[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?

[dalectable]

You fully deserve it this time. I'm recommending being bathed in icy 'holy' water as well.

[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.]

[whydoyoushine]

They normally take cold baths here, I'm just saying.

Been there, done that.

[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.

[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.]

[willyousee]

You say that as though that makes any difference. We have to do something to show that we are taking care of this evil, Zed! And how else will we explain our vanishing - and you with us? You have left us no choice!

[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?

[whydoyoushine]

Well, consider that you were all going to have to vanish anyway when the Jaunt was over. It was inevitable!

And now I've just given you an excuse. You're welcome!

[willyousee]

[Frigid.]

That would have taken care of itself had you not done this, Zed. There would not have been an explanation needed.

[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.

[whydoyoushine]

They probably would have wondered why you showed up without doing all that much. Such a big deal, and not a whole lot of payoff.

[willyousee]

Given some of the changes others wished to enact, I sincerely doubt that. Take responsibility for your actions for five minutes, Zed!

[itsananimalthing]

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

[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.