The Servant's Tale, Part 4

The fellow from the Church came yesterday and took Sufjan away. Poor chap wasn't really in a position to resist, what with being drugged halfway to hell and only have one hand. I gave his collector enough antibiotics and painkillers to keep him going for a few weeks but if he doesn't renew the prescription, Sufjan's going to have a rough time of it.

I've burned down the little shack where Sufjan and I spent this last week and a bit. No evidence, no proof. Just ashes, as it should be. Everywhere I go, I intend on leaving ashes, where I've set hopes, dreams, minds and bodies on fire.

It's been a pleasure speaking to you all. I don't know if this blog is ever going to be updated again. I don't really care. If it is, I can assure you that the only person writing here will be the twisted, broken husk of what was once Sufjan McBride. If what I'm saying is getting you hot-headed, then good. That's exactly what I want. If it's not, that's fine too. It will give me the motivation I need to work harder.

So long, friends. I've got a world to burn.

The Servant's Tale, Part 3

Having had a few days to think about, I think I've arrived at a conclusion, as Gargoyle rightly guessed. It took some time to come around to a decision, but I believe I've found something as simple and elegant as it is poetic.

As its core, you might say that Sufjan's current predicament came about as a result of his simplistic worldview, the dogma in which he was raised. He used and abused his so-called beliefs to first make me a villain without consideration for the circumstances of my actions and then to justify his own attempt to off me as a divine duty handed on from high. Voice in a dream? Bullshit. He's been lying to you since he woke up in order to make himself look like a sympathetic victim.

More than anything, I think Sufjan's punishment should combine social recompense with rehabilitation. He needs to learn the error of his ways. He needs to be shown how dangerous the kind of blind moral system he adheres to really is.

Who here has heard of the Church of the Last? They're a rather interesting group, a religion worshipping an indifferent god, spreading the news of his existence by whatever means problem. Small town folk. They've had their hands in quite a few pies already, as I understand it. But they're always looking to expand and recruit and brainwash and torture, etc. etc. So, naturally, when I thought to make a lesson out of the perils of blind faith, they sprang to mind. A few phonecalls later and I was informed that they would be delighted to take young McBride off my hands for reeducation and all those other creepy mind-controlling communist dictator buzz words. They shall be arriving tomorrow and then Sufjan will be their problem and I can continue with my work.

What do you think? A good one, right? All that was Sufjan McBride will be obliterated and replaced with another wolf-worshipping sheep. So, y'know, even if Sufjan doesn't learn the lesson I'm trying to teach him, he'll learn something from somebody. Grazing, probably. And it's all your fault, readers. You could have made a better suggestion. You could have swayed me. But only two of you even tried to sway me towards a less horrifying path.

Kudos. You managed to be even more heartless than me.

The Servant's Tale, Part 2

So now I find myself in this shack in the woods, alone with a man who tried to kill me because he spent most of the terribly small quantity of energy in his minuscule brain jumping to conclusions, leaving him with none to stop and question his intended course of action. The dilemma hereafter becomes; what to do with the little fucker? I mean, beyond amputating his hand, obviously, but that wasn't so much a punishment as something for him to remember his failures by. Like a post-it, though I hope my memento will stick a bit longer.

I mean, it has to be a symbolic punishment, obviously. A lobotomy seems obvious, given that this whole story was caused by his stupid brain, but that procedure might be a bit too difficult. Castration is generally a good one and seems quite straightforward, but I think a bit overused? Or maybe I should blind him. Y'know, a pun on his shortsightedness?

But, hey, I'm magnanimous enough. You all obviously care about Sufjan a lot more than I do (I mean, seriously, he got a whole two comments on his last post, even if none of them were actually expressing concern for his circumstances), so I'll take your suggestions. Do any of you have any ideas on a suitable punishment for young McBride?

The Servant's Tale, Part 1

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a man named Sufjan McBride, who interfered with things he didn't understand and meddled in matters that were none of his concern. He saw a big, scary-looking creature and assumed that it, and everyone associated with it, must be evil. He didn't stop to think that sometimes innocent people need to die to serve a greater good. He just saw a regrettably necessary murder and, in his simple, selfish little mind, decided that it was an act of sin.

However, Sufjan wasn't just any kind of idiot. He was a special kind called a hypocrite. So he fell under the illusion that he had a divine mandate to murder the murderer who, we must remind ourselves, he assumed was evil just because he murdered someone, with no outside circumstances taken into account. Thus brings us to the point in the story when Sufjan pushed me off a balcony.

Unwilling to accept the consequences of his actions, Sufjan fled to the great nowhere of America, where any smart man can disappear quickly, which, of course, raises the question of how a moron like Sufjan thought he could get away with it. The answer being, of course, that he is a moron. Little did Sufjan know that way back in Ireland, I had survived my fall, thanks to the intervention of the drug dealers he had prudently ran away from, though my indifference pain thanks to a brain injury I received when I was very young helped by allowing me to remain lucid and guide my rescuers in their aid.

After spending a couple of weeks recovering, it didn't take me long to find this blog and start keeping track of what Sufjan was up to. I figured out his location with the same method that Caden did; he left too many goddamn clues. Once again, the word "idiot" springs to mind. So, I decided that Sufjan needed to be taught a lesson. Mainly, that he is an idiot, that he is, more specifically, a weak idiot and, more specifically still, that he is a weak and pathetic idiot. So I showed him just how far he was from escaping what he did to me, how vulnerable he really was and then, when I felt the time was right, I got him. When Sufjan showed up at the Oriental Theatre, I simply crept up behind him, hit him over the head with a brick and dragged him to my rented car. Nothing overly dramatic, like he was expecting. Which was, naturally, exactly the point.

Sufjan woke some hours later, tied to a cross (there was one in the shack where I took him and it was an opportunity too hilarious to resist), with me sitting across from him in a chair. To make sure he was awake, I blew his left hand into kebab meat with his own pistol. After watching him squirm for a few seconds, I kindly shoved a syringe full of anaesthetic in his arm and amputated the offending limb. I told him how stupid he was as I worked to keep his mind off what I was doing. It was done in just a few minutes, with no pain whatsoever.

See? I'm not such a bad guy.

The Lamb Lies Down On Randolph Street

I'm in a Starbucks on Randolph Street, Chicago, getting ready to meet the man behind the messages. I'm not sure how I feel. Scared? Anxious? Relieved? Ending this seems like a promising conclusion, even if I'm not sure what "this" is...or who will be ending it.

I gave Peter and Natalie back their shotgun, it being somewhat difficult to conceal. The only weapon that I'm bringing with me to the theatre is my brain. Not sure if it will be sharp enough to best the blade that has been raised against me, but it's all I have. It's all I've ever had.

In case this goes badly for me, I want to thank everyone who's been supporting me through this. Especially Elaine, Caden and Gargoyle, but everyone else as well. It was a comfort to know you guys had my back. Thanks.

I guess I'm going now. Hopefully, I'll talk to you all later. So long for now.

Freedom, For Now

The second that Amy posted the solution to the last message, the box opened. Oh yeah, it turned out we were in a shipping crate in the docks of Chicago. Full of canisters of gas rigged to a timer. Apparently, whoever the mysterious messenger is, he has resources. And a flair for the dramatic. Somehow, I don't think I'm going to be surprised when I go to the theatre on Saturday.

For anyone for whom that is a shocking revelation, yes, I am actually slapping on a pair of testicles and going to confront this person. I'm also doing it alone. Peter and Natalie have been getting caught in my crossfire. They have places to do, people to be and all that jazz. I'm sending them on their way. I'm gonna scout out the place where I'm meeting the mystery man, rest up, get some food and then...deal with this. Whatever this is.

Thanks again to Amy for getting us out of that bind. I'll update again before I go to the theatre. Hopefully it won't be my last update.

The Last Puzzle

We're in a dark place. We're locked in the jeep, we can't open it, we can't start it, we can't see anything outside. The only light is coming from glowing letters spraypainted across the windshield.

"THERE IS A DIVINITY THAT SHAPES OUR ENDS, ROUGH-HEW THEM HOW WE WILL

(Your initial problem is solving this puzzle. Good luck with that.)

Uei Xelvnun Fnplptrz hnp Zvblnflp Moemevx

24 & 32 D Rmyhhspt Dxklef,

Nlbjasz,

Mesizzml

Hpdtp 14mo af 16:16"

I don't know how long we can last in here. We can't tell if there's air coming in from outside. We don't know anything.

Help us. Please.

Another Answer, Another Riddle

So Caden figured out that last riddle. The answer was the word "Empty". We also got a new message earlier today. Our stalker delivered it in a suitably dramatic fashion; he nailed it to one of our tires with a knife.

"WHAT SEEST THOU ELSE, LIAR, IN THE DARK BACKWARD AND ABYSM OF TIME?

Zlam abte hm ksull ziizov xhx shesm?"

He wasn't subtle about the codeword though; the word "Death" was carved into the blade of the knife, even someone as utterly oblivious as me could have figured that out. The decoded message was this riddle;

"What type of house weighs the least?"

Again, even a dumbass like me didn't have to think too hard for that one; a lighthouse. Is it just me or have the riddles gotten easier as time goes by? What's the deal with that?

Anyway, the tire situation has delayed us a couple of days, but we'll be back on the road soon. Peace.

Still Breathing

An anonymous commenter figured out the cipher of the other guy's post, but it's just another riddle. You can read the translation > here <, any suggested answers to the riddle are welcome.

We had to stop for a couple of days because Peter was having an adverse reaction to at least one of his many medications. Past experience says that, whoever this messenger guy is, he doesn't need us to slow down like that to find us but I'm guessing it didn't hurt. Anyway, Peter's recovered so we're going to keep moving. Natalie says this is the final leg of the journey. It's going to be taking us pretty far, so I'm hopeful it'll be enough to shake off our stalker (my stalker?) but I'm not holding my breath either.

We haven't seen the monster in a few days and he's probably not been around, otherwise Peter and Natalie would have noticed, what with the whole spontaneous headaches thing. I get worried when it's away for too long, which sounds strange. I guess I just like knowing where it is? I dunno.

Sufjan out.

The Prince

Hello there, readers. I'm afraid I couldn't think of a suitably dramatic way to send Sufjan this message, so I've decided to just hand it to you lot on his very own blog. Why, you ask?

Just to let him know that I can. So he's fully aware that I can reach out and snap his scrawny neck at any time and that the only reason he's not already in my grasp is because I like to toy with my quarry before I go in for the kill.

As that GaGa creature would say, here's your next puzzle, little monsters;

"THE PRINCE OF ETERNAL DARKNESS IS A GENTLEMAN

Nstag azfv n ohvu, rwiw eikfsek ms dk bnex, vvyciw mlv rwekm eep znkm flf W ne mlv eozw, mebq chl fc durqdx eep ggaep Z dszsbr. Ntog ohvu ma V?"

By the way, Sufjan, when you wake up, may I say; nice night terrors you've got there. Really top quality.

Riddles for a Fool

Okay, so I think, with the help of an anonymous tip, possibly from whoever's writing these messages, I've figured out the code being used in the messages. Uh, well, I actually think it's a cipher though I'm not sure on the difference.

It's called a Vigenère cipher. I don't know how it works and I'm not too concerned about learning, what's important is that each coded message needs a keyword to unlock. I've figured out the keywords for the four messages I've received so far and they all decode to make riddles;

Message 1 - Keyword: Sufjan

"What has existed for a million years but is never more than a month old?"

Message 2 - Keyword: Juliet

"What goes up but never comes down?"

Message 3 - Keyword: Life

"It cannot be seen, it weighs nothing, but when put into a barrel, it makes it lighter. What is it?"

Message 4 - Keyword: Flesh

"Until I am measured, I am not known, yet how you miss me when I've flown."

Okay, I figured out the code, can I get a hand with the riddles? I've never been very good at them.