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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 3772557" data-attributes="member: 11760">Skeeter's snarling turns into a confused whine as he scratches at the floor where the abbess sunk into the ground."What?" Emus explodes with frustration. "Dang it! We can't hit her if she ain't here!Throwing himself at the trapdoor, the dwarf sticks his head down into the cellar. He spots the bottom of the abbess' form dangling through the roof by a few inches. What he presumed to be a tattered dress looks more like tentacles from this angle.He's about to say something when the abbess' face, hand and arm emerges from the floor, and she reaches out for Bufer once more. The gnome cleric stifles a scream as a wave of suicidal despair rips through him."You will not claim him!" Emmerson roars, swinging his sword at her arm.Bufer bursts into tears, his body wracked with heaving, gasping sobs, as his mind begins to buckle under the crushing weight of the utter hopelessness of his meager existence. Nothing he's ever done has mattered, nor will ever matter. He sees that now, beyond any shadow of doubt. Garl Glittergold has utterly abandoned him. His family and his people have shunned him. And Heda Littlelark will never, ever know the truth about how he really felt about her ...He is alone. A failure. A joke, that not even the Sparkling Wit could find amusing. An empty box.But just as he is about to drop his aspergillum, and collapse on the floor next to it to await the sweet release of death, he hears Emmerson's voice, as though from far away.And then, from the very depths of his soul, the last little bit of defiance left within him bubbles up through the nauseating waves of despair and loneliness, and bursts to the surface. Despite the chocking sobs, he somehow breaks out into a manic grin. Gripping his aspergillum with a white-knuckled fist, he shakes it at the abbess one last time with all his might."YOU HEAR THAT, YOU MEALY-MOUTHED WHORE? YOU WILL. NOT. HAVE ME. I AM BEJIK-CAESIN, PEACEMAKER OF MIDWOOD, SERVANT OF THE WATCHFUL PROTECTOR AND CARETAKER TO THE HEROES OF MAIDENSBRIDGE. IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY, I CAST THEE OUT! GO BACK TO THE GLUTTON AND WEEP, YOU FEEBLE, PATHETIC WRETCH, AND NEVER, EVER RETURN!"Emmerson slashes at the ghostly arm reaching towards Bufer. With so little of her exposed, though, it's hard for the paladin to get a clear shot at her in the crowded room, and the sword strikes only stone.Bufer, Emus and Skeeter encounter the same problem, with the dog scrabbling at a wet floor where the abbess was a moment ago, before she pulled back further into the floor for another attack on the gnome cleric.Flower tries one last splash of holy water before moving back in Oktav's direction. Unfortunately, Flower is no more successful than his compatriots.Sensing Bufer may be fading fast, Vonmora begins chanting a dwarven exorcism ritual loudly.Emmerson pulls Bufer away from the abbess and Emus and his dog leap at the shade, but she is still ensconced in the floor, and their blows meet stone and rotted rushes.Bufer slips deeper into madness and barely notices he has moved aside, or that his aspergillum has run dry, as he continues shaking it furiously at the distant abbess."Skin full of pus pushing out climbing onto skin tearing it away the king is dead the moon is back we're all dying now," he intones passionately, seemingly without any awareness of what he is saying. "Skin full of pus pushing out climbing onto skin tearing it away the king is dead the moon is back we're all dying now ... Skin full of pus pushing out climbing onto skin tearing it away ..."Moving Bufer does not keep the abbess from lashing out at him again, but it does force her further out of the floor when she lashes at him, her fingers clawing at his face. They don't leave a mark on his body, but they do have an effect: The gnome collapses to the floor, eyes staring in terror, tears running silently down his face.The abbess turns and screams at Emmerson."BUFER!" Emmerson screams, whirling Judgment at the abbess.Both Emmerson and Emus miss the abbess, but Skeeter somehow finds something in the wisps of darkness, biting down and shaking. The dog whines afterwards, its tongue covered in black dust. It will take him days to fully remove the taste from his mouth.Flower's latest attempt with the holy water goes no better than the previous attempts. Later, others would question whether the kobold actually understood they were trying to hit the abbess with the holy water and not, as in this case, Bufer.Emmerson climbs atop the large desk, hoping to lure the abbess out of cover."In the name of Lothian and St. Yessid, I cast thee out!"On the other side of the room, Tucker blinks for the first time in he doesn't know how long. He remembers clearly everything that has happened.The abbess appeared. Or her shadow did, at least. The party's lights seemed to throw a shadow cast by no body on the ceiling of the room. The room grew darker, and the abbess' body seemed to melt into existence from nowhere. Her head was bent to the side at a sickening angle, but she lifted it to look at him ...... and then everything jumped. A second before, the ghostly nun was suspended in the air, descending slowly toward the group. In an instant, she was buried chest-deep in the floor. Bufer, who had been kneeling next to his portable altar, suddenly transformed into Vonmora. Or, maybe not: Vonmora popped into the spot Bufer had occupied, and he seemed to fall a few feet backwards toward Emmerson, who had somehow managed to teleport himself onto a rickety-looking desk. Skeeter had lunged forward, and Flower looked like he'd wet himself. And all this had happened in the time it took Tucker to blink once.Tuck's not much of a thinker, but sometimes that can be a good thing: He attacks without thinking, deciding to be distracted by all the changes later. He swings his new sword low, aiming for the half-exposed abbess. The tip scrapes against the wet stones, sparking slightly as it zips toward the apparition.Tucker connects with the abbess with his sword, slicing away at something before feeling the blade slip through her misty form once more.Hazel's quarterstaff slides through the empty air where the abbess, it seemed, threatened just a moment before."Can anybody see where-" Hazel turns, confused, unsure why Flower is flailing about with an aspergillum while Emmerson shouts from a desktop. "What the-"It takes another second for the silence to register. A hearty feminine voice calls out in Dwarvish, but the laughing gnome's chants are conspicuously absent. Grim certainty falls over Hazel.Her staff clatters to the stones."Bu-!" She slides to her knees beside him, frantically searching for a wound. "Where's the blood? What hit him?"The gnome seems oblivious to her prodding. Spying the worktable, Hazel lifts Bufer and slides him atop it, sending books and tools tumbling. She stifles a sneeze as dust drifts to the floor."Oktav, lantern, now!"Dinky takes a break from the pair of the rotten old slippers he'd been enjoying and finally sees something worth attacking: The part of the abbess peeking out just above the floor. He leaps at her with a manic glee.Emmerson clangs the sword against the side of the desk, trying to call the abbess' attention."Come and get me, pathetic wretch!"He slashes at the abbess once more and she shrieks in horror as her form rips like a curtain, tatters dangling from Judgment. The paladin raises the blade in confusion, only to see the black remains of her garments fade away like smoke.The room is silent and it's a silence that goes all the way to the bone: For the first time in 111 years, the abbey is truly at peace.</blockquote>

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