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Message: <blockquote data-quote="skotothalamos" data-source="post: 6416506" data-attributes="member: 83398">His Grace, the Duke of SlaughterThe Constables prepared for their ambush of Lorcan Kell. Dester Rathnine, a member of The Family who was undercover in Kell’s Guild, had set up a fictitious meeting between Kell and “Norm,” his Obscurati contact. The meeting would require Kell to cross a Stanfield Canal bridge around 3:00 AM, giving the constables the perfect place to strike. The Senior Constables headed to the bridge, leaving the Junior Constables at HQ to protect their star witness, former Kell lawyer Quentin Augst.The RHC brought four squads of Flint PD to help them at the bridge. two in boats to cut off an escape by water, and two to block escape at either end of the bridge once Kell’s mechanical carriage was on it. The constables treated the center of the bridge with oil, which Alienor would alight with a flaming bullet when the carriage entered it. Also, so tracking dust was put down to help track Kell in case he managed to escape.Right on schedule, Kell’s mechanical carriage (with eight mechanical horse legs instead of wheels) trotted onto the bridge. The windows and doors were shut tight and there were no external riders. When the carriage entered the oil, Alienor fired her flaming bullet, surrounding the carriage in a conflagration. James shot out one of the carriage’s legs, and it limped out of the fire. IronPeak jumped onto the bridge behind it, and the others waited for the situation to develop.Alienor teleported on top of the carriage and opened the roof hatch. Inside, she saw Dester Rathnine, bound and gagged and with an envelope marked “RHC” pinned to him. Underneath him was a bomb, which seemed ready to explode at any moment. Alienor jumped down, grabbed the envelope, and jumped back to the roof of the carriage, leaving Dester to his fate. Alienor opened the envelope, read the card inside, and jumped off the carriage and began sprinting southward. “Get to HQ!” she yelled, dropping the card to the ground.Summer’s familiar Snow was watching this unfold and informed Summer that there was a captive inside the carriage. Summer told IronPeak, and IronPeak rushed to the carriage, rescued Dester, and managed to push the carriage over the side of the bridge just before it exploded. She then read the note:“Constables,Thanks for the show! Keep dancing. I look forward to the Grand Finale!!!  -LKP.S. Sorry about the mess at headquarters.”The constables made for their new headquarters as fast as they could. Malkie was the quickest in bat form, but even she arrived too late to prevent the slaughter.At their new headquarters, Magnus Magnusson and Emmeline LeCrochet were watching the front gate. Lila Coldwater, Pablo Duende, and Garson “Bugtree” Wildflower were having a late-night meal. Oksana Kozlov was in the barracks keeping an eye on Augst while he slept, but she had dozed off herself. Magnus and Emmeline heard the lock on the gate turn, as if someone with a key were entering. Magnus called out, “Who’s there?” but got no response until the door opened. Lorcan Kell, flanked by three of his lieutenants, walked through. Two goons with pistols closed the gate behind them and guarded the entrance from the outside.“It’s me. I’ve got a message for your boss,” he said, walking up to Magnus with his machete out. “Where’s the guy?”Magnus told Kell that “the guy” had free reign of the place, so he could be anywhere. Also, Magnus told Kell he’d be happy to deliver a message. Kell thanked him, told him, “It’s not really that kind of message,” and then hacked at him repeatedly with his machete. The young cleric fell in a bloody heap. Emmeline rushed to his side to help, but as quickly as she tried to stanch the bleeding, Kell just hacked some more. Luckily for her, he didn’t have time to hack her up and search for the lawyer. He brushed past her to get to a door that led to an inner courtyard. In that courtyard, he found Oksana and Augst trying to make their escape to the basement (which had sewer access and also a ton of old cells in which to hide).The constables who were eating had full view of the base invasion. Lila and Pablo took the path of least resistance, going right out the cafeteria window and into the small courtyard where Magnus lay dying. The lieutenants fired their guns and the constables responded with magic and steel. Within moments, one of the lieutenants, Rufus Hammerton, lay dead. Kell Guild priestess Kate Glenn dashed past the fight to start searching a small barracks, but Pablo and Emmeline caught up with her and took her down. The last lieutenant, Nick Reder, was facing four constables when he heard Kell hollering from the inner courtyard: “Found him!”Kell raced toward Augst and hacked him savagely with his man-killing machete, even pulling a knife out of his coat with his left hand and sticking it in the man for good measure. He fell instantly. Oksana tried to escape by grabbing the lawyer, tossing him over her shoulder, and making for a side door, but Kell caught her before she could open the door. He hacked her into submission with his machete, and then picked up Augst by the hair and slit his throat as Oksana passed out. Kell saw Nick Reder running to join him and told him to keep searching the place and to kill anyone he found.As Nick moved into the main building, Lila grabbed a healing potion for Magnus, Emmeline made for the magical alarm under Delft’s desk, Bugtree moved back into the cafeteria to head off Nick, and Pablo dashed into the main courtyard to take on Kell himself. Kell chopped the big barbarian down in a matter of seconds, hacking and hacking until Pablo fell to one knee and Kell took off Pablo’s head with a final powerful stroke. Nick had managed to tackle Bugtree but Bugtree had transformed from his natural Wilden form into a swarm of wasps. As Nick was starting to think that this was perhaps the worst thing he’d ever held, Kell found them and stomped on all the wasps until they turned into an unconscious Wilden, which he killed.With two constables and their witness all dead, the remaining junior constables made their retreats. Lila got Magnus back on his feet and escaped out a side door. Magnus revived Oksana and the two of them went out the door Oksana had been trying to open. Emmeline set off the alarm and, as Nick closed on her position, she simply phased right through the outer wall.The junior constables scattered into the city and Kell’s people had the run of RHC Headquarters for a few minutes. Before long, though, they gathered their dead and left the RHC dead out for the returning senior constables to find…</blockquote>

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