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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 4237002" data-attributes="member: 11760">Bufer twists around from underneath Heath. Then Bufer's head falls forward, and it takes a moment before it registers that the gnome is unconscious.Constable Bridger lifts Bufer off Heath with one hand, slipping his blackjack back onto his belt with the other.At the door to the cell, Hazel and Swifty look on with concern."No," Swifty says as he watches the constable manacle Bufer's hands behind his back and lay him gently face down on a table before checking Heath for injuries. "I've never seen anything like that before."Without another word, Swifty steps outside into the dark night, replaced a moment later by Mother Bridger, who quickly takes command of the constable's small office and cell.The constable kicks everyone out but Bufer, Heath (whom he relocks inside the cage) and Mother Bridger, who fusses over the gnome while keeping her distance.Hazel waits outside, concerned, and growing more concerned when Mother Bridger comes out, badly shaken and at her wit's end. The midwife returns to her earlier patient of the night, where she is on firmer ground."Well," the constable says, locking Heath and Bufer in his tower, albeit separately from one another this time, "I will ask Bahamut and Lothian for guidance while we await word from Wit's End. I advise going home, Hazel: Your family has been worried ever since you went to the abbey."With that, and the weight of the world almost visible on his shoulders, the constable limps off to the chapel.Bufer's companions, other than Emmerson and Oktav, are standing outside the constable's still-locked tower when the gnomes arrive in a wagon.High Priest Boddynok Barennackle says a quiet word to the cloaked and hooded gnome driver of the pony cart before hopping down, and a pair of twin gnomes -- each with shocking orange-red hair -- clamber out of the back and hammer on the constable's door."He's not there," Tucker says, gently grabbing the senior cleric's wrist. "He's in the chapel.""Well, get him!" snaps Barennackle. "We're taking him home for a rest. Honestly, Lothianism makes a woman mad and a gnome pays the price for it! Clerics don't grow on trees, you know! Under trees, certainly, but not on them. Go fetch the constable!"Soon enough, Constable Bridger is opening the building amid a torrent of complaints, insults and, somewhat surprisingly, a stream of knock-knock jokes. The twins place the unconscious Bufer on a stretcher and bundle him onto the cart, covering him in blankets. Not a word is spoken to the shaggy ponies at the front of the cart, but they seem to know what to do, and immediately set out in the dark for Wit's End.As they disappear from sight, the adventurers hear Barennackle's final admonition: "I mean, HONESTLY."The constable scratches at his whiskers, contemplating. Without taking his eyes from the dark road the gnomes have just vanished down, he clears his throat."Heath Leach seems to have killed the Kems a while back.""Oh, you want me to fetch him a beer?" Tuck responds, glibly, trying to hide his genuine shock."I'm going to trust you to take him to Middleborough tomorrow, Tucker. See that he doesn't escape," Bridger says. He winks at Tucker to soften his words. "The rest of you, go home. I'll want to know what happened in the abbey come morning. As for now, I think we all need the rest."And since you have made it back from the abbey, I'm guessing that congratulations are in order. Heda's going to add you all to the song, like as not. You're famous now."</blockquote>

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