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Message: <blockquote data-quote="InVinoVeritas" data-source="post: 3594449" data-attributes="member: 41485">"I know!" the monk babbles in a frothy state. "I know what you are! You're after me, all of you, but I won't let you take me!" He looks at the crowd, and the masked figures change in his sound-addled mind. Their heads start to shake. He watches as the crowd's masks fall, and their faces turn into mad blurs. They aren't gnomes, they're monsters. The sound--that infernal, ear-splitting sound--fills the town square. The clock tower starts chiming in tune with them, its own face a blot of insanity. Ru determines where one of them is. He picks it up, and it whines. The sounds become more intense, and Ru stands ready to bash this--this thing against the cobblestones.Then a voice comes through the crowd... words he can understand. It sings to him...Hush, little toy, it's time to wind downAfter a hard day of marching 'round town.Loosen your spring and go in your box,I'll hold your key and keep you under locks.Hush little toy, the day's soldiering is doneI'll wind you again with the coming of the sun.You'll march with the pride of any good boyYou'll be the best soldier, my favorite little toy.*     *     *Torhan, Calahan, and Darian circle around the stuck gnome. His head continues its maddening shake, while his body suddenly goes still. Only Darian's song holds back the tide of insanity in the gnome's wake. With the training of the police force, the three know what to do. Darian and Calahan back up for just an instant as Torhan swings his sword in a mighty arc. He connects cleanly at the gnome's neck, where the blur meets solidity. He ignores the spray (-2 hp) as his sword travels through and across the neck of the gnome, and he can hear and feel as the sword grates against metal, cuts into flesh, pushes against bone... and passes out the other side. Yellowish metallic flecks and boiling blood coat Torhan's greatsword. A clean beheading. The head launches into the air, leaving a blissful silence.Yet, orchestrating the completion of the maneuver, Darian and Calahan dive at the gnome from opposite sides. And then, the body acts. The two policemen's knives skitter across the metal of the gnome, unable to penetrate. The two arms of the gnome send two fingers each into Darian and Calahan, and they suddenly feel a hollow pain of having their blood sucked out of them through the fingers. Darian falls, overcome from blood loss (-15 hp) while Calahan fights enough to release himself from the gnome (-11 hp).[sblock=Darian]As the life flows from Darian into the headless gnome, he hears a voice. See what the truth can do for you? Seek it out, Darian. You can gain great power through seeking this. Seek his pain. [/sblock]*     *     *The voice soothes Ru, and the fire in his mind dies down. The heads stop shaking, and the world returns to the way it is. Part of the party has stopped, and a throng of masked gnomes stare in terror at Ru. In his hands, unhurt but crying badly, is a young gnome boy."Put the boy down, Ru. You don't want to hurt him." Alek emerges from the crowd, "pets" in tow. Ru sets the boy down and he goes running to his mother, and they quickly leave together. "You're no better than Lug, are you?" Kitten jumps onto Ru's back while he soaks in the situation. "No, you think you're better. You endanger the innocent, just like Lug, but you insist you aren't like him. Come, let's prove it. Let's go find Lug together. We can start where I last spurned him." Kitten gently rubs her claws against the skin of Ru's collarbone.*     *     *Torhan gapes as the gnome's hand moves extremely quickly to catch his own falling head. It stares limply in the distance, with a long nose, copper-red hair, and a smart goatee."Well, I think we have seen these markings before..."The image of Hieran displaying the sketch of Edditomas immediately comes to mind. "An interesting question. When does a body part cease to be a part of a person and become, instead, an object in its own right?""YOU DO NOT EXIST! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO EXIST! THE POWER OF EZRA COMPELS YOU!" Fr. Berman lunges forward, brandishing his stained glass butterfly. A combination of fear, revulsion, and rage fills his eyes at the sight of Edditomas' head.Edditomas simply places his head back on his body, and begins to ring anew. Darian lies silently beside him.Ru: 16/30Torhan: 11/40Calahan: 3/23Fr. Berman: 26/30Darian: -1/20</blockquote>

Verification