Cael manages to catch the bearded brute betwen the thighs with a solidly planted kick that seems to infuriate and bewilder rather than cripple him, but the leopard-skin wearer chases him to the bar long enough to tackle the smaller man to the table.  He seems oblivious to the madness ensuing behind him.  Spun round, Oz finds himself staring up into the swarthy, thick-lined face with eyes so brazenly angry that white can be seen the whole way round.  The bald one left behind seems to have found himself distracted by something vefy powerful and unexpected: a familiar club has taken temporary residence at the base of his head's dome and brought him to the ground atop his legs in a slow-crumpling heap.<br/><br/>The pelt-wearing warrior bares what seem to be file-sharpened teeth down upon Oz as spit flies from his lips.  "I about to make you a woman, whelp--" and then, the cause of his bearded friend's awkward agony earlier is apparent: the bearded one is suddenly at his friend's neck, sinking fingers into the pelt-wearer's collarbones and ripping him to his feet with the ferocity of a piglet in the jaws of a wolf.  Blood mists Oz's face as the bearded mercenary proceeds to feast on his friend's throat-- his face a contorted mask, his eyes solid white and lolling about blindly, his tongue purple and swollen and his skin a bee's-waxy yellow where the blood doesn't obscure it.<br/><br/>*<br/><br/>Cael feels the stir of a warm breeze at the base of his neck as the large man steps closer.  What could, at first, have been supposed to be robes or some other garment are clearly none-- his body is thick-muscled like something carved from amber pine, and equally bare but for the winding garland of thin, curling green vines and leaves.<br/><br/>He looks down into Cael's eyes from what must be a height of easily seven feet, and his skin smells like rich earth.  "Your homeplace is besieged by that which will not return to the earth."  His hawkish eyes pinch in disgust at the thought.  "Even now, that which lives and dies finds its cycle interrupted, and we weaken.  We all weaken..."  He sighs, sympathy and sorrow in his eyes.  "Everything must die, but it must return to the earth.  You understand this..."  his hand rests upon Cael's shoulder, warm and heavy.  "You know how things must be, and your hands can heal that which is wounded."  He nods, backs away, the musk of him receding in the room.  "Heal now."<br/><br/>Heavy footsteps pass the door, cause it to rattle in its frame and the hinge to fall open-- in the lamplight from the hallway, the tree-man disappears, and a shadow passes the door--<br/><br/>*<br/><br/>-- as Krin clambours through the hallway, dragging his pack.  Down the stairs in a torrent of footfalls, he sees his dancing partner in the midst of the crowd.  For some reason, she's carrying a massive club, its gnarled round hammer dark with a tiny patch of fresh blood.  "Hmm?  Going?  Yes, I think, but not yet."  She tips her long-fingered hand in a brief indication of the mayhem that has started to ensue.  "I think it best we tend to this, yes?"<br/><br/>Before the two of them at the bar, a massive brute in a leather tabbard is ripping a man apart in a torrent of blood and bile.  The flailing, dying man goes limp and falls, and the brute seems to lose interest.  His intent now is on the young man before him-- a regular of the past few nights.  He stares with white eyes like fat larvae at the man, preparing to lunge.  Beyond him, a tavern wench topples backward at the flailing assault of a scrawny man whose face, for some reason, has sprouted black disks like insect eyes across his forehead and cheeks, and whose mouth is hanging in mockery of surprise.<br/><br/>*<br/><br/>Lucille's holy weapon seems to guide her, and the shadows-- as if giving purchase, assume the forms of dozens of sickly-thin humanoids springing back as she wades into the fray.  A horrid-faced ghoul of a man springs to his feet before her, his eyes white and his mouth black with some tar-like regurgitation.  Out of instinct, she smashes his face and a hiss of steam erupts where the holy weapon lays him back into the wall.  The shadows roil and circle like vultures afraid of a still-fighting Kill.<br/><br/>Across the floor, the crowd has thinned: all that remain are those who flee, those who fight, those who kill and those who die.  The wood floor is sodden with fresh blood and littered with rended flesh.<br/><br/>Katarzyna hears a shrill laugh, the wail of a disembodied voice that is more a chorus of twelve wailing children than a single speaking tongue.  "BUT THE DEAD LOOOOVE YOU... TIME TO PAY YOUR DEBT!"  A thick-necked woman with curls at her head screams into the paladin's face in the hoarse shriek of a stuck pig and rushes forward... her legs entwine with each other and suddenly she is scrambling through the open floor on four legs, then six-- blood trails behind her, as do pieces of flesh, and her dress shreds itself from her lower torso-- claws and pinchers of bulbous flesh protrude from where her abdomen should have been, and an open maw of some sort-- or, perhaps, a vagina with teeth-- barrell down upon Katarzyna.<br/><br/>Lucille sees this horrifying transformation and realizes that Katarzyna's not the only one challeneged; a massive man in leopard pelts has arisen to his feet from the direction of the bar, despite that his head seems to be held in place by only the remnant flap of half-eaten flesh that connects his skull to his shoulders.  With a lurching spasm, he flips his head back to where it should be rather than where it was dangling, and he breathes a deep, wet gurgle that seems to double his size.  The shadows that had pooled in the floor seem to be flowing into both him and the humonculous of a wench, and soon there are no shadows free in the room.  Some shambling beasts clatter about, some scuffle for their lives still, but somehow the forces are concentrated here...<br/><br/>*<br/><br/>Glais feels the evil that had taken hold of the girl seep away, and gradually what is left of her dead form relax and the anguish on her face settles to disquiet, then to peace.  It's actually quite peaceful, and after the rain crickets have started to sing.<br/><br/>Then a piercing scream from within the tavern fills the night.  Something inside Glais seems to sing to him, seems to beg for him to free it... he can hear the ocean, and he knows, somehow, that he is the keeper of what is right and natural.<br/><br/>From the tavern door, bodies crash in a scramble to flee some horror like rats from a burning ship.<br/><br/>Something falls from the girl's hand, and it's clear she was clutching it the whole time-- a tiny stone, like the petrified innards of a long-dissolved shell, in a tight spiral that, somehow, resembles a tooth.  Laying there on the grass, he can barely make it out-- it seems to be on a thin leather cord, as if she, or someone, has been wearing it.