Lykaia’s Saturday evening exorcism
Date: 2025-07-26 17:47
(Lykaia’s Saturday evening exorcism)
[Sat Jul 26 2025]
In empty brownstone
It is about 65F(18C) degrees. The mist is heaviest At Mayflower and Oakwood/span>/spanThe afternoon light slants through the brownstone’s tall windows, casting those familiar geometric shadows across the polished concrete floor. Jenny and Lykaia stand in what should be the main living area, but something feels subtly wrong with the proportions. The doorway they just walked through seems narrower than it was a moment ago, and the ceiling appears to have gained an extra foot of height.
On the sleek built-in shelving against the far wall sits an open mahogany case, its faded green felt lining visible even from across the room. Inside rests a brass compass, roughly six inches across, its surface gleaming with unusual purple and gold swirls that seem to shift when not looked at directly. Scattered around the case are yellowed surveyor’s maps dated 1953, their edges curling with age.
The compass needle, made of some dark metal with an oily rainbow sheen, spins slowly in a lazy circle rather than pointing north. Where the cardinal directions should be marked, strange geometric symbols replace the familiar letters – tiny architectural shapes that make the eyes water when focused on directly.
The air circulation system hums quietly, but there’s an odd echo to the sound, as if the room has developed acoustic properties it didn’t possess minutes earlier. The scent of cedar from the shelving mingles with something else – the faint smell of old paper and brass polish.
Jenny rubs her ears as she looks over at the compass “Think thats the thing?”
“… You know, Jen. Sometimes there’s moments where I am walking into something…” Lykaia starts to say, her eyes watering under her sunglasses as they try to focus on the architectural shapes. “And just want to throw over a neutralizer, smash it with a baton and call it a day. Today is such a day. It most likely is the damn compass.”
“Sacred intersection – 127.3 degrees” and “Resonance point confirmed – foundation depth critical.” One map corner bears a signature: “T. Meridian, Chief Surveyor.“
The room’s proportions continue to shift subtly. The window frames now cast shadows that don’t quite match their actual positions, and the doorway behind them appears to have narrowed by another inch. The polished concrete floor reflects the afternoon light at angles that shouldn’t be geometrically possible.
A faint vibration runs through the building’s steel beams, creating a barely audible harmonic that seems to emanate from the compass itself.
Jenny grimaces a the mention of a neutralizer “I mean, that might work?” she looks over at the compass trying to figure out the markings.
“It would be almost certain to work.” Lykaia admits to Jenny, taking in a deep breathe through slightly parted lips. “At least it’s not a weird ‘resonance’ thing where we’re about to be shot at.” She glances around, tries to look at the detail and recall what she can with her knowledge.
surveyor’s compasses from the 1950s shouldn’t behave this way. The needle should point to magnetic north, not spin in lazy circles. More concerning, the brass patina is all wrong – that purple and gold swirling pattern suggests exposure to unusual electromagnetic fields or exotic materials.
The maps scattered around the case show a street layout that matches Northview Park’s current configuration, but with additional notations in the margins. Phrases like “ley convergence” and “harmonic anchor points” are scrawled in faded ink beside specific building locations. One notation reads: “Stone circle removed – compensation required in foundation geometry.“
The room’s ceiling now appears definitively higher than when they entered, and the built-in shelving seems to stretch further along the wall than it should given the brownstone’s exterior dimensions.
Jenny takes a look over at the documents trying to make sense of it with her basic ritual knowledge intermediate occult knowledge “Stone circle removed…?”
“Fuck this shit. This makes no sense.” Lykaia decides, reaching down to her thigh holster to detach the silver grenade that is a neutralizer from it. She pills its pin and tosses it over at the compass to neutralize the entire room from anything supernatural or magical. “I don’t know. This looks weird for a curse. Probably is weird for a curse. So I try and smash it before we get cursed.”
“Indigenous sacred site – Nipmuc ceremonial stones relocated to…” The rest burns away before she can read it.
The compass needle spins once, twice, then snaps completely off its pivot, clattering against the brass rim. The geometric symbols around the edge begin to glow with that same purple-gold light, and the neutralizer’s hum becomes a high-pitched whine.
Jenny moves over to the compass and starts to repeatedly smash her booted foot into into. Just sheer brute force solution
Lykaia draws the baton from its holster over her sternum, then makjes her way over to try and smash the damn compass and symbols., trying to shred it all apart into tiny little pieces that might not function anymore. And this helps by Jenny’s joined work. “What could possibly be better than brute strength here, right?” She laughs.
The mahogany case splinters under Jenny’s boot, sending fragments of wood and green felt flying. Lykaia’s baton connects with the brass compass itself, and the metal rings like a bell struck with a hammer. Cracks spider across the compass face, and the glowing symbols flicker erratically.
But instead of simply breaking, the compass begins to emit a low, thrumming sound that vibrates through the steel beams of the building. The purple-gold swirls in the brass intensify, and suddenly the room lurches. The far wall slides three feet to the left with a grinding sound of concrete on concrete. The ceiling drops two feet, then snaps back up.
The scattered surveyor’s maps begin to smoke and curl, their edges blackening as if touched by invisible flames. Through the tall windows, the geometric shadows cast by the frames start moving independently of the sun’s position, stretching and contracting like living things.
The neutralizer’s whine becomes almost unbearable, but the supernatural effects are clearly escalating rather than diminishing.
Jenny puts a couple of hammers into a room and everything looks like a nail. Seems like today the solution was not a nail “Uh… shit! I think its gettin’ worse!” she yells out taking a few steps back
“A neutralizer not neutralizing is unheard off. Like. Completely unheard of. It literally can’t enhance the effect of something supernatural.” Lykaia points out, wrinkling her nose for a moment in what turns out to definitely be a bit of confusion, but this then also means she continues beating on the small pieces with her baton, trying to turn them into kaputt and eroded little brass-work. “They contradict it. Other materials could enhance it, but neutralizer cannot. It’s fooling you, Jen. Probably does some weird shit with the fabric of reality and reality tries to place itself back. Storm will pass soon, I’m thinking.”
The brass fragments scatter under Lykaia’s continued assault, but each piece that breaks off begins to glow more intensely. The thrumming sound deepens, and now the polished concrete floor starts to ripple like water. Jenny’s boots sink slightly into what should be solid stone.
The neutralizer’s effect seems to be creating a feedback loop – as it suppresses the supernatural energy, the compass fragments pulse brighter, as if drawing power from the very act of being neutralized. The room’s geometry continues to shift more violently. The doorway they entered through now appears to be eight feet tall and barely two feet wide.
Through the windows, the view outside has changed. Instead of the familiar Northview Park streetscape, they can see what looks like an ancient forest with massive oak trees and weathered stone circles partially visible through the mist.
One of the larger brass fragments, still bearing a geometric symbol, begins to hover six inches above the destroyed mahogany case. The symbol pulses in rhythm with the building’s steel beams, which are now vibrating visibly.
Jenny looks over at the floating symbol trying to decipher it. As she pulls her foot out of the stone “I swear a compass better not be how I fuckin’ die.”
“I think it’s pretending that there would be a feedback loop. We probably ate some hallucinogenic stuff, or maybe the entrance had a weird thing, Jen.” Lykaia says, grabbing the piece that’s hovering in the air to grab it and then break it, too. “Neutralizer can’t be used for that. That’s the point of neutralizer and you’re not going to die, Jen. Might be some illusionist from far away fucking with us.” She shrugs, and tries to crush that little piece that was hovering in her palm.
a faint voice, as if coming from very far away, speaking words that sound like surveying measurements. “Bearing 127.3 degrees… foundation depth insufficient… the stones must be returned…“
The voice seems to be coming from the crushed fragment in Lykaia’s hand.
“Shut up ghost and just go home.” Lykaia rolls her eyes under her sunglasses. “Don’t need to fuck around pretending to be a curse or work around how a neutralizer supposedly does not neutralize. I brought salt. I can put this right into a bag of salt and you’ll get the fuck out of it and stop fucking around without a choice.”
Jenny nods in agreement with Lykaia as she visibly grimaces at the sound the neutralizer is making “Fuckin’ don’t understand what its wantin’.”
The voice from the brass fragment becomes clearer as Lykaia threatens it with salt. “Wait… please… I’m not trying to harm anyone. The stones… the Nipmuc stones were moved in 1953. I tried to compensate with the street layout, but I made it worse. The geometry is all wrong now.“
The neutralizer’s whine begins to fade slightly, and the room’s violent shifting slows to a gentle swaying. Through the windows, the ancient forest view flickers, occasionally showing glimpses of the normal Northview Park street beyond.
“My name is Theodore Meridian. I was the surveyor… I got trapped when I tried to fix what I’d broken. The compass was supposed to help me map the spiritual currents, but instead it…” The voice trails off as the brass fragment grows warm in Lykaia’s palm.
The floating geometric symbol wavers, its glow dimming. The concrete floor begins to solidify again under Jenny’s feet, though the room’s proportions still seem subtly off.
“The stones need to go back where they belong. That’s the only way to stop this.“
“What does it matter if the geometry is wrong?” Jenny asks in a very confused tone finding relief as the whining dies down abit
“Finally, you stopped fucking around.” Lykaia says, looking at the fragment and then to Jenny with a look that’s not translated with sunglasses over her eyes. “Mister Meridian. There’s no stones here. Maybe it’s time to let go. Been seventy-two years since that. New Haven hasn’t excisted up until a few months ago. Those stones probably never existed or are long gone down below where we can’t go outside of at length prepared assignments.”
The voice from the fragment grows more agitated. “You don’t understand – the geometry creates pathways. When I moved the ceremonial stones to build the development, I broke something that had been maintaining balance for centuries. The compass was my attempt to map the damage, but it only made me part of the problem.“
The room gives another subtle lurch, and through the windows, the forest view becomes more solid while the modern street fades. “Every building in Northview Park is positioned wrong now. The spiritual currents are backing up, creating… overlaps. People get lost in their own homes. Rooms that shouldn’t exist. I’ve been trying to fix it for seventy years, but I’m trapped in the resonance.“
The neutralizer’s effect continues to weaken the supernatural distortions, but the brass fragment grows warmer in Lykaia’s hand. “The stones weren’t destroyed – they were moved to the park’s foundation when they built the memorial garden. If someone could realign them with the original pattern…“
The geometric symbol floating above the destroyed case flickers more rapidly, as if running out of power.
“The city… has been around for longer surely..” Jenny asks Lykaia “A whole city cant just.. pop up overnight.”
“Okay, you know what.” Lykaia says, shaking her head, and she makes another shake of her head to Jenny, and instead answers her first “Negative. The collective memory remembers it to have existed for longer, but it hasn’t at all until a few months ago.” She looks back at the fragment in her hand, opens her palm, slowly, to look at it. “Where’s these foundations? How much effort will it be to correct this and would it not be more effective to plant some C-4 against it and just remove it all-together?”
The voice from the fragment becomes urgent. “No explosives! The resonance is already unstable – a violent disruption could tear holes in local reality permanently. You’d create spatial anomalies across the entire borough.“
The room’s proportions shift again, more gently now, as if responding to the conversation. The forest view through the windows grows clearer, showing weathered stone circles among ancient oaks.
“The memorial garden in Arcadia Park – that’s where they placed the foundation stones. Three large granite pieces arranged in a triangle, with a bronze plaque about ‘honoring indigenous heritage.’ But they’re positioned all wrong. The original circle was aligned with the seasonal sunrise points and the natural water flow.“
The floating geometric symbol pulses weakly. “If you could move just those three stones back to their proper positions – even approximately – it would break the feedback loop. The compass would lose its power source, and I could finally…” The voice fades momentarily.
“I just want to rest. Seventy years of being scattered across overlapping spaces… please.“
The neutralizer’s whine drops to barely audible levels, and the concrete floor feels completely solid again.
“I… okay.” Jenny says over to Lykaia still confused as she starts to head out the door “Memorial gardens… got it.”
“Okay, yeah. Let’s just handle that quick. Should be possible between the two of us.” Lykaia says, exhaling slowly as she follows out after Jenny to finds the memorial stones.
“Yes, this is it. The center stone should align with that large oak to the east – it marks where the sun rises on the summer solstice. The other two need to follow the curve of that natural depression where water once flowed.“
Around them, the mist swirls in unnatural patterns, and the shadows cast by the ancient trees seem to point toward different arrangements of the stones.
Jenny moves to the stones and easily lefts up the stones getting to work aligning them as directed by the compass
“Good news. We know roughly the direction we came from. Bad news. We probably needed the compass to know where the fuck that is exactly. Bad news two. There’s mist.” Lykaia counts up the good and bad, reaching for the HK416 from the large backpouch of her belt to sling it around her upper body, and then moves to try and assist Jenny “Let’s try to turn it from the direction we came from. Should have been west.”
As Jenny lifts the heavy granite stones with supernatural ease and Lykaia helps guide their positioning, the voice from the compass fragment grows stronger. “Yes, that’s right – the center stone toward the oak. Now the northern stone needs to be three paces closer to the water depression.“
The mist begins to thin as they work, and the ancient forest view becomes more translucent. Through the shifting fog, glimpses of the modern memorial garden start to appear – bronze plaques, manicured pathways, and contemporary landscaping flickering in and out of existence.
“The southern stone – move it to complete the triangle. You can feel it when it’s right, the ground will resonate.“
As Jenny positions the final stone, a deep harmonic vibration runs through the earth beneath their feet. The compass fragment in Lykaia’s hand grows warm, then suddenly cool. The geometric symbols carved into the stones begin to glow faintly, then fade to their natural granite color.
The mist clears completely, revealing they’re standing in the familiar Arcadia Park memorial garden. The bronze plaque reads exactly as Meridian described, but now the stones feel properly positioned.