tea time

[bouchonne]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Byerly
RECIPIENT: Everyone
NOTES: By is actually trying to be helpful and is not just here for the drama. No comment on my own priorities.

It seems prudent, given the current situation, for us to publicly identify those who have been acting out of character. I can understand a desire for secrecy, to take any imposters by surprise, but the risk of one of our own being caught unawares seems much greater.

Who has been strange of late? And when did this change in behavior start?

Comments

[bouchonne]

No. I do not blame you.

[ His voice is flat when he says that. Numb. ]

Will there be any way to extract the demon from any others affected? Without having to kill them?

[luaithre]

[ A beat, then, ]

I don't believe it was Benedict, Rutyer, but a demon adopting his likeness. I don't know where the man has gotten to, but the creature we cornered and killed wasn't him.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly doesn't really understand the finer points of demonology. Or the coarser points, for that matter. ]

Then how was it able to impersonate him? It wasn't just his likeness; it knew enough of his thoughts and personality to mislead the people around him.

[dissolving]

Spirits are creatures of thought and emotion. Fear looks what you're afraid of. A good dream's full of your friends. Might be it could sense a little of him, innate.

[bouchonne]

This was a demon, though. Is it not a good spirit that brings dreams? Are demons not something else?

[dissolving]

If you're asking Orlais. Right now, Messere, it's semantics.

[bouchonne]

Don’t call me - messere isn’t needed.

[ He shakes his head, rubs his hands through his hair. ]

Would the demon require his mind intact and alive, then? So that it might continue to have a model to shape itself after?

[dissolving]

I don't know.

[ he's not optimistic. they're asking a lot of questions of the people around them. where would it even put him? ]

But if I were impersonating someone, I wouldn't want the real man to walk in.

[bouchonne]

Yes.

[ Flat, clinical. ]

I would kill them, to eliminate any such possibility.

[dissolving]

When we find another, we'll find out. Your serum, right?

[bouchonne]

Ah -

[ Right. Shit. ]

Yes, that's right. If they can be taken alive, we can get some measure of truth from them.

[luaithre]

[ Marcus does not reply, at first, as a Templar steps in to answer for him, and then a little time after, replies anyway; ]

Even an ordinary man can impersonate another. Then give that man the power to enter dreams, to draw specific emotional vulnerabilities from those dreams, to embody the deepest fears or anxieties of another to manipulate them.

[ You know, for the record. ]

[bouchonne]

But this is no man. It’s a demon, is it not? I thought demons were simpler than men.

[luaithre]

[ A sound, yes and no. ]

More singular. Not less intelligent or capable.

[bouchonne]

I thought they were mindless.

[ He’s only ever fought (read: run from) rage demons. ]

[luaithre]

[ The context isn't hard to guess at; he's fought enough demons on Riftwatch's... watch to know. ]

They can be, when they come through a rift. Maddened. But this one had its faculties, so I see no reason it wouldn't be as clever now as it would have been in the Fade.

[bouchonne]

Maker help us.

[ His voice is slightly muffled; his face is in his hands. ]

[luaithre]

[ Heh. ]

You know my stances on Circles, [ dry ] but mages don't succumb to Abominations at the whims of idiot brutes.

[ He isn't sharp, as he says so. Maybe Byerly won himself some points for mouthing off at Templars for being, correctly, useless. ]

[bouchonne]

No. I suppose they wouldn’t.

[ He’s quiet when he says that, and thoughtful. ]

Do you believe that you and the other mages are in any particular danger from this?