The stunned silence gives way to infuriated, renewed anger as the soldiers fall upon Ox, Mina, and Malia-- the guards encroaching upon Cris seeming to hold back and warily watch her with their blades still held aloft, flicking their gazes back and forth at the alcolyte's warning, disbelief apparent in their stances despite the apparent 'proof' she holds aloft.<br/><br/>A definite 'crunch' of steel and bone from the alcolyte's left draws her attention, and she starts, her twitching hand tightening on the scroll and twisting the bone-white paper in her hand-- Ox's leaping knee caves in the breastplate, throat cuff, and chinguard of a stupified guard.  The man's sword falls flat on the stage where his hand was, clanging to silence a moment before his body, emitting the choking gurgle of a man fed a sponge made from what was once his tongue and teeth, follows suit and goes flat to its back, head landing first and arms lifted stiff, wavering, settling slowly and uselessly in spasms of unconsciousness.<br/><br/>Malia moves in at Ox's side as Mina's focuses her attention at his back, while Chis tightens her fist around the grip of her dagger and sidles closer to them.  The first guard that steps forth toward the tightening knot of fighters lifts his blade to strike, but meeting Mina's eyes-- and as she deftly gestures muttering the words of a spell that echoes, from corners unseen, in a voice not quite her own-- he hesitates, drawing back his blade, and grips at his chest in sudden horror.   From Ox's left, just beside the roaring light of the growing fire, a bat-like shape unfolds and spreads with a whipping of air and clacking of weight-- and spreads, this time better placed-- to envelop him.  (Reflex save: DC 17 or be grappled)<br/><br/>Four other blade-bearers move in, emboldened by their numbers, and stab fiercely at the position Ox, Malia, and Mina hold at the right of the stage.  The claw-bearing Torturer seems to have abandoned his quarry as well, and moves in on them as well... it seems he's still a bit 'miffed' over having been denied his earlier prize... and takes a defensive stance a few feet out of Malia's reach, jagged iron at the ready.   Mina is slashed by an ill-placed blade that grazes off Ox's shoulder as he tries to twist away, sending a ribbon of white heat from her shoulder across the top of one breast like the cut of a whip. [3 damage]  Ox, even trying to dislodge the net, manages to turn away one blade, but a second gouges his thigh as a third glances along his ribs, leaving twinned cuts between his arm and his chest as the blade recedes. [5 damage]<br/><br/>Malia escapes attack, for the moment, from her angle, but bears witness to another disturbing sight-- past the sagging-bodied, malnourished form of the alcolyte who strides forth, flailing like a berzerk moth in front of the rising flames, a small shape rises in the growing orange and red tongues of heat.... a shape of black, roughly the size of a helmet... precisely that size, in fact, for it is a skull.  The skull of Cris' father, hollow and charred now, floating of its own accord, levitating in that growing pillar of heat and hovering in the air as cinders and currents flow across and through it like the rising chimney of a furnace.<br/><br/>The torch-bearers, silent and dumb through all the mayhem, fall utterly prone in submission.  They begin to thrash their heads against the boards of the stage, the two of them, as rapidly as a man in an asylum cell in the midst of a fever-fit.  THUNKA THUNKA THUNKA THUNKA-- then slowing, finding a rhythm, and being joined by others.  Half the audience falls to its bellies... not in any pattern, but sporadically, then are joined by others, then more, until everyone in the audience-- even the Ravens, the torturer, those watching puppet-masters above, the dying guards still holding their bleeding wounds-- all of them roll to their bellies and begin to thud their foreheads in unison against the floor in a temple-rhythm of unison.  Blood is drawn by many.  One guard, blood trickling from the visor of his helmet, rises and falls like a hammer wielded by an invisible hand as his freshly-cracked skull shatters and pulps further.<br/><br/>The only ones unaffected are Mina, Malia, Ox, Cris, and the Alcolyte.<br/><br/>The skull pivots to behold them, flames gouting from the eyes in their only escape route, and the thudding stops.<br/><br/>Those already dead, or rendered so by the thudding, fall into heaps of their filthy remnants.  The others' eyes remain downcast though blood drips into their vision.  The fire crackles silently, and those wounded on the stage can feel their heartbeats, hear their nerves screaming in pain, smell their own sweat and blood, see the glistening on each others' skin.<br/><br/>Silence.  [Will save difficulty 20 optional.  If success, you can speak but not move.  If fail, you begin to weep silently and lose 1 wisdom for 2d4 days as a result of the visions of Hell you suffer]