It's Corps, not Corpse Or The Stumbling Undead

[BetaFlame]

He ignores the sword and the men and those eyes stay locked on Glenn. Its almost like his brain clicks into higher functions for a moment, as he asks "Did you? Or did you stay here and pretend to just to make yourself feel better? You are a sham, Glenn Burnie. You pretend to care, but you don't have the capacity.. I see you. I see what you are. You are nothing. A shell. You are everything you hate. You are nothing more than they left you with." His eyes flutter, and his hand goes to his head for a moment, and he seems to stagger. Then he kneels slowly and watches them all. Confused again. A soft whimper escapes his mouth, and a tremble wracks his body.

What can he know? Secrets whispered in his ears, directly into his brain. He knows what they say, but not what they mean. Words. Words. They echo in his brain.

He backs away from the four men, but he remember their faces. Something spit in another language, Words to make ears and noses bleed. Curses on their line. Curses on their sleep. And he backs away, and if they don't stop him, he fades into the darkness between buildings.

[Caile]

Brandon wanted to leave. Not the house but the entirety of Myrken, she could see it on his face and she couldn't exactly blame him, not after everything he had done to keep their son safe after she had abandoned them. The idea had been that if she left the danger would be gone as well but it didn't turn out that way and Brandon was left on his own to not only raise Rhys but keep him from harm as well. The problem was Renea felt at home here as she'd never had elsewhere. It was still new and starchy as a new shirt certainly but something here called to her to stay, and she had made friends such as they were. Brandon had yet to say anything to her, had yet to ask her but if it came to that point it would be a decision that would tear her to pieces. How could she deny her husband anything after everything she had put him through? But, how could she leave? She was pleased that the question had not been forced yet.

There was a pounding on the door. She had tried to convince Connor to leave the door unblocked, it meant sound travelled and she had to bare the screams, the terror but she'd rather know what was coming. He argued, they all had but in time she had managed to convince them. The gathering of skill and power in this room should be able to hold a single door. Mary's voice called thinly through the thick wood and Renea nodded to Marcus, permission to allow the woman inside. He never got the chance to open it though, his hand only reaching for the latch before something akin to an explosion tore the door from the frame, splinters of wood spraying everywhere and poor Marcus got the brunt of it. A particularly solid piece of oak hit him in the forehead raising a large knot over his left eye and knocking him unconscious to the ground, a variety of smaller sized splinters had embedded in his skin but he was, at least, still breathing, his chest slowly raising.

Not that anyone had time to notice Marcus' quandry with the entrance of Catch, small boy clutched to his chest. He speaks of Jarod being hurt and while Renea loves them both dearly they are dangerous and unpredictable men and she cannot leave the house. Her first instinct was to ask the big man to leave Cherny and bring Jarod here but there were the triplets to consider (not twins, one had been hiding beneath a blanket when Mary and the constables were making their requests therefore went unnoticed) and there was Rhys (who admittedly she wanted to introduce to Catch at some point but a time of her choosing and control when he was calm. That time was not now) and while she was sure the parents could protect them...this was Catch after all.

He would see her ensconced on the couch with her bandaged leg stretched out before her, bandaged arm resting by her side and the shirt she wore bulky around her lower torso from the bandages there as well. Rhys was carefully on her lap with his head resting on her uninjured shoulder and Brandon was standing behind her. N'vek, the poor boy had not had many good run-ins with Catch that she had been aware of, was also standing nearby and the rest of the family was dotted about the room as furniture allowed.

"Catch." She began calmly after the initial shock and surprise of the door bursting, he seemed to respond to her best when her voice was even and gentle, she hoped he would do so now. "I cannot leave, but you're right we should help Jarod. Will you leave Cherny here where I can help him and take Jarod to his home? You're his big brother, he needs you to protect him when I can't." She didn't know if he would respond, hoped the rest of the family would follow her lead in this but worried they would attack at the first sign of danger. Catch needed to be handled delicately and Jarod even more so.

[Glenn]

There was no more door. The screaming boy was associated with Catch now, in his arms even. People were BLEEDING. Mary, more than anyone, knew what might happen if the stones started heading more and more at the unprotected madman. In so many ways this was the most public display of barbarism that Catch had perpetrated (such big words for the freckled girl's thoughts). If things escalated now, it wasn't just the undead Renea that would be a target. She had to do SOMETHING. Anything.

"Stop." To the crowd. It was a quiet tone at first. She had to tell them something. Anything. And the gears in her head, the muddy Myrken mind that had been honed and sharpened by the reading and research and THINKING at the Inquistory, began to put together a last, desperate attempt to stop all of this. To the great surprise of the constables, she jumped up upon the casket and shouted with all of her might. "STOP! It's a DROW PLOT!"

There are few words in Myrkentown that can stop a crowd quite like that, at least temporarily, at least until they are able to switch the stones for fire and flame. Now? Now she had their attention. The stones stopped flying but the grumbles only increased. "Jirai! The drow Jirai!" That was good. That bought her a few more seconds. She was starting to shake under the pressure of it all though. What could she say? What would make everyone stop! It also might bring her to the attention of the most dangerous woman in Myrken Wood. But what else could she do. "This.. this was all her plot to... to ressurect the... " Words started to come together in her mind. She had done research on the Drow. They all had. "The drow goddess Lloth! Here in Myrken! In the form of her." A point, a firm, strong point at the family in the room. The mumbling in the crowd became angrier.

This was just like the puppet show though! She could do this. Mary just wished she had some props! What DID She have? Ah! One thing! "She used an ancient magic, one that can only be used once! To kill the Marshall. No, no," That was no good. It still had problems. "To put her in a death like state where she wasn't really dead!" There, that would do it, right? "And then when she awoke again, brave folk realized what she had been possessed by and tried to wound her. She stumbled back to... to here! To where the Marshall had lived to fool her family." So far so good. "So the ... the .. the officials!" She was afraid to say the Governor or the Council or even the Inquisitory. "We prepared for this, with this MAGIC CASKET!" There was her prop and she stomped on it with a terribly loud bang. "That would draw out the goddess'.. uh, her essence! So we could trap her in here and and.. burn it to banish her back under ground! Thus freeing the Marshall!"

She was white now, but completely lost in her storytelling. She had the angry mob's attention. If she stopped now it'd be the end, the very end. "But you attacked before it was ready, before it was complete! And this sensitive, heroic soul, Catch!" Another point to the large man. "He realized there were innocent children inside! Being held hostage by the drow goddess and her evil shield! And ...and he realized that if you stopped the casket from doing its work. Then all would be lost! So he fought against you, against people he loves, to try to save everyone! And!" A mighty clap, though the crowd, some of whom had been maimed, did not seem wildly pleased with that last bit. "You felt it! You all felt it! The magic that knocked us over and made my nose and yours bleed! Right?!" She wiped at the blood that was still slowly trickling down her face. "That was the spell working! Marshall Sundance has been freed from the dark curse! Now we just have to get the casket to the square and make a fire pit to destroy it!

"And we all have this brave, brave soul," Who would please, please not turn into a energy monster and destroy them all! "to thank!" She jumped off the casket and rushed to Catch, quickly and without warning attempting to give him her biggest, best kiss upon the lips. There! It was done. The crowd would believe it. The day would be saved. Everything would be....

That, during the kiss, no matter how strange it might be, would be her last thought, for less than a moment later, the mob, confused, schismed, split, would still rouse. This particular rock had been aimed for her head and struck true.

Everything went black.

[catch]

Strangers. It was full of strangers, save for Renea, but he rallies, he is firm. His eyes slowly draw together, a reptile's blink, a creature not of warm-blood but no-blood at all. His arms tightened on Cherny - not too hard, he is gentle. It is only reluctance that draws the boy closer to him, before he takes a wary step forward, eyes twitching and flicking over the shield, over the men and women - the pretty, little children, which causes his sanity to waver like ocen waves across the sand. It does not disappear, however. Catch gently puts Cherny down in front of the shield, and then, he steps back. It is permission, it is trust. He gives them much, simply because Renea was there.

"I t-t-told them," he says, softly. "I told th-them you were j-j-just asleep." He does not entirely grasp what it was Jarod has done to Renea, save that, in the way He has Changed the other madman, so too has Jarod Changed Renea. He does not associate this with death. He cannot. This had nothing, so he thinks, to do with Jarod, and Renea had simply been sleeping so deeply to fool everyone.

"I c-c-can't. Glenn is there." He does not say Ser Glenn, and it is not an oversight, or an insult. His massive frame quivers in uncertainty, blood streaked with foaming sweat, and he is almost ready to break down, to plead with her. "I would - like, like th-this - I would hurt him -"

As he had hurt Cloud-hair. He would hurt Glenn badly. Mary's entire speech is a background, a buzz, a point of Noise that causes his ears to shift under his draggled, mangy curls. It is only thus that he hears her footsteps, in turns just in time to have arms about his neck, and Mary's lips against his - shock, and there would be rage save for that complete shock, that intimacy that was not so unpleasant. Not from Mary, farmer's daughter, though he knows her only in vague, cloudy terms.

Then he is holding her up, for she has gone limp. he holds her, uncertain, wondering, his massive paws propped under her arms, and jarod gone just-as-suddenly from his mind, so that he is looking again to Renea, with his too-sane eyes, questioning and confused and pleading for her to explain.

[Jirai]

The carriage rolling around town was not an unfamiliar sight these days. Rhaena liked her horse well enough but the gowns she tended to wear these days were not exactly condusive to horseback riding.

The sound of a gathered group of people was enough to draw the woman away from the notes she was scribbling long enough to peek outside. What's this? "A festival!" She exclaimed, delighted. "No one told me there was going to be a festival today! Oh, do stop!"

The driver had fixed an incredulous stare on his charge. Rhaena was Rhaena but even this was a bit much! Still, he, obediently brought the carriage to a halt. Rhaena was Rhaena after all, and who could refuse her? This allowed Rhaena to exit in a flurry of purple skirts and silk. She hurried to join the crowd.

"Excuse me, excuse me," She murmered politely as she moved into the crowd. It wasn't too difficult, for Rhaena, being what she was, tended to exude (on a rather literal level, given her skills), calm and happiness. In this case, that was layered over the underlying anger and fear of the threatening crowd, creating a net result of confusion, aided by the seeds Mary had sown. It started with those nearest to Rhaena and spread outward. "Oh, what a lovely fair! Do they have fried dough?" She queried a stranger excitedly. "I would really love some fried dough!"

The reaction from the crowd was mixed. Some turned to stare in confusion at the gowned woman. A few rocks dropped from hands. And then one man jumped up. "Fried dough! I can get you some!" He declared eagerly, turning and trotting away from the crowd with a purpose. Some others found this to be an excellent idea as well and followed his lead. Others had calmed down enough to think about Mary's speech and begun to gather around the casket (something needed to be burned, after all!), and yet another group began listening to Janessa and helping the injured. A few even began cheering for Catch. The wind had been taken from the mob's sails.

Rhaena was quite disappointed to find that this fair held no fried dough.

[channe]

It's taken a while for the news to get to Agnieszka, who was out of town at her parents' place. But here: here, she's coming up the road on a Calomel horse, fully kitted in Myrken green, high collar and a runic sword, riding up through the crowd towards the door. "Break it up, ladies and gentlemen! Break it up! Go home!"

[Dulcie]

The red-haired healer wasted no time in establishing triage, enlisting those townsfolk that she knew had level heads into helping her attend to the wounded. In a short degree of time those who were hurt had been moved to the outskirts of the crowds and were being attended to with various degrees of involvement from Janessa, with the doctor's assistant herself helping the most severe cases while directing her "volunteers" to help with the others. It was some state of orderliness at least.

[Caile]

She had tried to visit Jarod many times after her transformation, frightened though she was, but she hadn't been able to find the man. She had been traumatized by him though, that invasion of unexpected tentacles, the uninvited magical spell that reversed her aging and seemed to have residual healing effects and who knows what else he had done. Well, Aleksei and Burnie both seemed to but no one was telling her. In Myrken the flow of information went one way and that was towards the governor, gods help them all if they did get attacked and Glenn held the key piece of information in his tight little fist.

She really didn't blame Catch's desire to hurt the man and at this moment in time felt much the same way. She couldn't though, couldn't go in the addled man's stead nor could she urge him to go with these feelings he was having, the best she could do was to hope that Jarod would be able to survive the problem on his own. "Jarod will be okay. He's strong, like you. I would...likely get hurt again and not even Jarod would want that." Of course Jarod wouldn't care one way or the other because he knew, Renea didn't and neither did her family.

She had largely been ignoring the outside commotion but the sudden appearance of Mary giving Catch a big kiss and then promptly falling unconscious in the man's arms was a bit of a shock. Renea just blinked, confused as Catch and she looked around as she tried to think of what to do. Cherny, now Mary and...that was when she'd noticed poor Marcus as well. "Leave them here Catch, we'll take care of them." She looked to the members of the family scattered about, well between them all there was bound to be something they could do.

What else could she do? She wasn't at liberty to up and leave and play saviour, not anymore.

[Cherny]

It's not calm - for who could be calm in the middle of such a tumult? - but some small measure of stability that he finds from being carried so, somewhere solid and steadfast amid roiling chaos. Enough that he can risk loosening his hands enough to breathe; he gasps behind a cage of thin fingers, dragging in deep lungfuls of air as if seconds from drowning, and with each that feeling of panic retreats a little more. With eyes closed it's easier to disregard the shouting and wailing and roaring of the mob, to let it become meaningless noise.

Until, that is, he finds himself set down. Carefully, yes, gently, but cast adrift nonetheless. Dark eyes open at last to look fearfully about him, taking in his surroundings; the wreckage of the door, the sorcerous barrier shielding a mix of faces both recognisable and not, the raised voices from outside, all of it. Overwhelming.

He'd flee if it weren't for the fact that Catch blocks the door; for now he can only cower back against the wall between splintered doorframe and shimmering barrier, hunched and shivering.

[catch]

He has abandoned Cherny without realizing it, and so, too, does he abandon Mary, so relieved to be given instruction that he immediately lays the young woman down where the boy had been, just there against the barrier. And still, through this, he does not know that he has done anything wrong. That left only Cherny, then, and Miss Renea had said to leave him as well, yet...

Yet. He had Changed Cherny. He had. Catch turns to the cowering boy, and at the motion, he turns aside, the door free between Catch and wood, but he holds his hand out as well. Silently. He Feels Lady Rhaena, knows that everything will be alright, and he - he can help, by taking Cherny and Song far away.

[Cherny]

He'd flee; he should flee now that the way is open, now that there's a gap through which his slight figure could dart, to lose himself in Myrkentown's crowded streets and nameless alleys. To escape the house, the people, the town, to seek out somewhere quiet and calm and safe. But he hesitates, a span of mere heartbeats.

Catch looms tall in the doorway, pale-haired, blood-splashed, his odd-eyed gaze holding confusion, regret, awareness. He should be a frightening figure, fey and dreadful, but among these other faces he is familiar, trusted, even beneath the crusting gore that matts his hair and beard.

The boy should run, and not look back.

Thin fingers pry themselves free, leaving pale stripes where they'd pressed into his face; hastily, almost impulsively he reaches out for that offered hand with a grip of fierce desperation.

[catch]

Almost as soon as Cherny had accepted such an offer, they would be gone; not through any magical means, not disappearing, entire. There was Catch, very nearly a head or two over most, and he would keep a tight hold on Cherny as they, both, fled from things they could hardly understand. Where else to go? The Broken Dagger, perhaps, there, to separate, and go their own ways. If not, well. Catch could use the desperate company.

[Glenn]

The mob had mostly dissipated, and for good reason. Some, very few, perhaps, had been convinced by Mary's story and had decided to hunt down Drow, from a distance, or maybe just TALK about hunting down drow. No one wanted to hunt Jirai down very much. She was a nightmare. A few might have even celebrated Catch as he scrambled away (surely not the people who had been hacked up by him). He received some mild cheering, newfound folk hero that he was. Some of these people took the casket off to the closest town square to burn, a huge percentage of whom didn't believe the story at all; they just wanted to burn things. The lovely Myrken rabble.

Others had been affected in one way or another by the sheer presence of Rhaena Olwak in her gown and with her power flaring as it was. Leaking? Or had she meant to do it? Or ... had she just wanted a sweet treat that much?

The small throngs of remaining rioters had been rather easily broken up by the arrival of Agnieszka Kaczmarek, with her force of will, authority, sword, and the remaining constables who flocked to her side.

Renea's return was a sudden surprise, a momentary conflagration of fear and paranoia and horror. While Renea would be looked at by many with suspicion and distrust, if not worse, moving forward, it was likely not to repeat unless more kindling was tossed on.

[channe]

Kindling.

Once the rioters are over, Agnieszka dismounts from the horse, hands the reins to a constable, and stalks towards the house. She elbows through, noting Catch, noting Cherny's quick run, and oh, look, there's Rhaena -- but she has a goal, and she's walking into the house, noting Renea living and breathing, and disregarding, for the moment, anyone else there.

"Come on," she says, short and quick. "We've gotta get you away from the crowd. Because they will lynch you." And from her tone of voice... so might Agnie.

[Caile]

"Agnieszka, so nice to see you. I assure you they will not. Would you like to stay for tea?"

The door had been smashed but that was not much of an issue at all. Easy to replace, easier to just block but as no one had yet tried to enter that she meant to keep out she hadn't asked for it. Cherny was gone but Marcus and Mary still remained, both unconcious. Renea had asked her husband to check on Marcus and Brandon had carried him towards the hearth and set him down gently, assuring her he would be fine. Mary on the other hand she hadn't known what to do about, until Agnie showed up.

"Or, actually, maybe you'd be so kind as to return Burnie's mouthpiece." She gestured from the couch where she was ensconced to the crumpled form of the girl near the door where Catch had left her.

Renea was not about to leave the house. She had all the protection she needed and more right here.