> "Right. But if anyone needs any further details about Edmund, it might be easier to leave that to you."
> "Anyway, I'll start from the beginning, because there's varying degrees of backstory to all this and I've lost track of what I've told who at this point. I think we all know at this point that Rinnosuke took everyone's money and replaced it all with gems yesterday. He did this through some bizarre pseudofaith power; he's so out of his gourd on the subject of equality and economy that there are things he believes that normally aren't true but now are just because he believes them so hard. Consultation with Patchouli and a mountain goddess named Shizuha revealed that such a force can be counteracted with another faith, one that naturally cancels out the first one. Since Rinnosuke is obsessed with equality, I figured the natural counteracting faith would be a faith in inequality."
> Unsheath the sword and hold it in front of us in a non-threatening position.
> "Which leads me to this. I first discovered my two broken pieces of sword were not your average blade when they instilled a bizarre dream of megalomania in me last night. I was a rather harsh and demanding ruler of all the oni underground, even going so far as to make the Devas kneel. There were powers at work within this sword that guided me to a remote part of the forest here in Gensokyo, where I ended up accidentally ripping a hole in the side of reality or something and popping out on another continent entirely."
> Gesture toward Mamizou.
> "This strange place is the home of the sword. As sheer dumb luck would have it, it's also the home of my long-lost friend Mamizou here, which is why she's with us now. Anyway, this sword used to belong to a real shithead of a tyrant. Guy was named Edmund. He was known for his ruthlessness, his intimidation, his self-centeredness and his lust for greater power. The person that told the story of Edmund told me it was said that Edmund never prayed, for doing so would acknowledge a being higher than him. At this point, I realized that this was probably the faith I needed; I'd beat Rinnosuke and his equality over the head with my belief in my own inherent superiority. With the dream it had planted in my head and the other sensations I had been feeling from it, I figured it would have to be the medium for that belief to be bestowed upon me, so I had it fixed up there and came back here once that was done."
> "Now, I ran into Eirin before finally making my way back to the village, where Rinnosuke was out unconscious after I beat him down in the basement of his own shop earlier. Eirin pointed out that there was a distinct characteristic to the power inside this sword, one that wasn't necessarily malicious, but was definitely devoid of kindness. I ended up going back to the Temple with it and pulling it out there after waking Rinnosuke back up. Let me tell you, Eirin was right on the nose. The thing...planted ideas in my head, tried to skew my thought processes. I got more and more annoyed with Rinnosuke for his insolence and arrogance, for not knowing his place. I knew I had to let the sword keep going, because I needed its superiority faith to take Rinnosuke's equality faith down. I also noticed a presence in the room, that was distinctly not happy with him. He ended up trying to goad me into attacking him, bringing violence to the Temple, and the sword was all set to grant his request, but I did manage to calm it down, and ended up leaving the Temple, though not before thinking about hurting Mr. Kirisame first, just for being too familiar with me despite not being a follower of Myouren."
> "Rinnosuke more or less followed me out of the Temple and we headed south, with me having to suppress desires to attack Tenshi for asking dumb questions. Eventually we left the village entirely and had our faith battle after a good deal of talking and taunting. He was stubborn and threatened me to the end, but all this threats did was anger me and the presence, which just furthered my corrupted resolve. Eventually I felt his will...shatter, as if it were a fragile crystal dropped on a marble floor. It was a very interesting sensation, if horrifying in retrospect. He's been lying, seemingly braindead, on the road south of the village near the edge of the forest. I was all set leave him there, but then the sword demanded I kill him, and that's where we started having true issues and I really started fighting back. After a truly frightening internal back-and-forth, eventually I told it to bugger off and stabbed it into the ground to let go of it, but all that did was make it really mad with me instead."
> Point the sword in the direction of the beast.
> "And then the air was red and attacking me, and suddenly that thing showed up. I'm reasonably positive it was the force inside the sword, because the sword felt like a normal sword ever since that thing appeared, and it appeared with the desire and intent to kill me as messily as it could. The eyes practically burned fear into my head. I've never felt anything like it. That thing managed to stomp on me with one of its hooves, so I'm fairly sure I'm not still all in one piece, but at least I'm going, and it has yet to gore me on one of those horns despite repeated attempts."
> "The most curious thing is its current behavior. I was all set to have a heart attack from the terror, but I had remembered that, in the story of Edmund, he conquered many lands through a show of force, but when one particular army had their backs against the wall as a result of Edmund's brilliant tactical maneuvering, they just kept on pressing the offensive, and Edmund's army completely collapsed despite having a major advantage. Between that and the sword wanting me to kill a broken and practically lifeless man to set some bizarre example, I realized that the sword's power, or the beast's power, I guess, appeared to be little more than intimidation tactics. So I stood up to it like that army did Edmund. I fought back as best I could. Didn't quite stab it in the eye like I wanted to, but I came damn close, and it was shortly after that near miss that its attitude changed completely. Now, instead of wanting me dead with the burning passion of a thousand suns, it seems to want to actively avoid me. I try to get near it and it speeds up. I get in front of it, and it stops, turns around, and tries to go back the other way. I think it's unsure of itself now that someone has directly stood up to it, and may simply want to be left alone, or at least kept away from me."
> "The problem is that I'm not sure what to do from here. We need to be rid of this thing SOMEHOW, but I've no idea how. Which is why I came back to the village instead of dealing with the zonked-out sack of merchant lying on the road, or trying to stab it in the eye again. I'm hoping someone may have an idea I might have overlooked, or, at the very least, maybe we can use numbers to confuse it by surrounding it and giving it nowhere to go to get away."
