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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 4681396" data-attributes="member: 3285">And Madness Followed: Part 2b – LamidOnce they entered the town commons, things took a turn for the worse.  Within, buildings were vandalized, signs and doors torn down, lanterns smashed on the cobblestones, and litter strewn throughout.  Worst was the bodies.  Dozens lay dead in various states of wholeness.  Body parts lay in gutters or hung from broken windows.  Corpses festered in tangled heaps, in many cases bearing signs of cannibalism.  Beldin peered into a ruined building.  The dark shadow of a tentacled thing was hunched over something red and wet.  The amphitheater itself was in ruins.  Seats were torn apart and bodies lay strewn everywhere.  The central stage was recessed into the ground and it was filled with brackish, bloody water in which more corpses floated.  Here and there, the Yellow Sign glared from buildings and walls, applied with yellow paint in some cases, blood in others, and still others crudely carved into wooden walls by knives or fingernails. Down in the amphitheater, standing in fouled water up to his knees, was the mayor.  He ranted and raved, pacing violently around the flooded center of the amphitheater, waving his arms and frothing at the mouth. “He chose some, they are his children now!” he shouted. “Get ready.”  Kham had his pistols out.As they stepped into the town square, a mob of screeching and wailing monstrosities surged out of the alleyways and shop fronts on the opposite side of the town square.“Incendiaries globus!”The mob was struck by a massive inferno, tossing transformed villagers in all directions.  The crowd was temporarily parted.  A lone figure was visible on the other side of the crowd, almost as if it were directing their motions.  It was short and stocky, its dwarven heritage mocked by the atrocious tentacles that writhed from its torso and mouth.  One rubbery hand gripped a wicked axe, its edge caked with gore.“No!” shouted Beldin.  “Not a dwarf!”  “Beldin, wait!” shouted Sebastian. But it was too late. Beldin charged forward and the crowd surged behind him, cutting him off.Beldin blocked the former dwarf’s axe as it struck viciously at his face.  Tentacles whipped from its mouth, snaking around Beldin.“You were a dwarf once,” said Beldin.  There was gunfire and explosion behind them as Kham and Sebastian kept the villagers busy. “Do not let the King in Yellow’s madness take you, my brother.”The thing’s tentacles twitched.  It hesitated. A tentacle snapped its soulstone from around the thing’s throat and tossed it at the feet of Beldin.  “Hheeeelllp mmeeeeee,” it rasped.Beldin knew what to do. “Be at peace, my brother.”He brought his axe down, shattering the soulstone into a thousand pieces.  When Kham and Sebastian finally cleared the remaining transformed villagers, Beldin was still there, mourning the loss of a Celestial Giant.“Beldin, we have to go,” said Sebastian.Beldin didn’t move.“The Constable asked around,” said Kham.  “The King’s Players left town last night with their gear and props.  And they were headed for Sweet Savona.”</blockquote>

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