Cecil feels something crunch, hard, under his forehead; the youth releases him and staggers back. He looks at the churchman like a child perplexed, raising a hand to the viscous gush of greenblack ichor from his nose, then looks at his hand with equal incomprehension, and keels over.

The thud of the body hitting the floor is accompanied by a patter-scattering of leaves, bark, twigs and other woodland débris scattering about the kitchen as the youth essentially discorporates. Stepping forward with his forehead barely feeling the blow and blood hammering with holy wrath, Cecil can see peat-dark bits of bone amongst a pile of leaves, red strands clinging to the skull. The kitchen has that wet rot smell now, as well as blood.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 12:58, Mon 24 Apr 2023.

Cecil stands over what remains of Edmond or whatever had taken his form, the muscles of his neck and jaw clenching so tight they seem to bulge. He screams then, at the top of his lungs, a primal sound filled with rage and hate and pain. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" Another breath, deeper, and he screams again. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" Another breath, still deeper.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

He walks to where the Widow Sawyer's body lies, kneels. Grasping her shoulders, he rolls the dead woman into his lap, holding her there as if to subconsciously recreate Michelangelo's Madonna Della Pietà. "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen." Lowering his head, he begins to weep.

 ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietà_(Michelangelo)


[[GM edit: tense fix/paragraph add for flow, since this sequence is awesome.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:51, Sun 05 Mar 2023.

The Vicar tucks his housekeeper's face against his body as though comforting a frightened child, for too much of the flesh is gone to work out how to close her eyes without a disrespectful poking, flensed to the bone in some places. It must have happened fast, but he cannot bring himself to contemplate if she had time to think, to know she would never cross the little distance to her own home again, never see sunlight again, never taste what she meant to set up in the pot; never do any of the simple things the living did, forever.

He'd seen her in church that morning, smiling, alive: Cecil is pierced through with the grief of a voice gone into the void of never, along with little gestures, a gentle and always-respectful sense of fun, and yes, her cooking. He'd miss the care she put into making a pie pleasing to the eye, the way she 'just happened' to make enough cake 'extra' when baking for herself that he should have some at breakfast or afternoon tea, her criticism of her crusts and her pride in chicken soup. The thing he holds is just flesh, gone pale and colder than his skin.

He realises how much he loved her, in the way of good, familiar things; how much he loves all his flock, maybe even to the worst of them. The pain receeds a little, though his body sobs.

Memory clasps hands again with a little Irish boy dying of red measles - Michael, really Michael, though so many of them were Michael he had to force himself to remember it was true - quiet and wise in the particular way of children who have come to terms with their oldest age being less than ten. It's as though the lad's determined, lisping lilt has been running through his head for a while, and only with the calming of Cecil's breath does the repetition of Psalm 23 surface into audibility to his mind's ear:

...I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters...

    ...He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake...


[[Aye, I think it's time for a SAN check to see what's going on mechanically, now he's had some time to process.]]

Cecil kisses the top of the dead woman's head and strokes her hair. "You were a dear, dear friend, Elsie, and I shall miss you." He recalls then the flask of holy water in his jacket pocket. Retrieving it, he speaks a brief benediction and hopes the holy water would suffice as a substitute for the tears of saints and angels. "The terrors of your final moments cannot follow you to Heaven, dear Elsie. God gather thee to His bourn and grant thee life eternal. Amen."

[[19:09, Today: Reverend Palmer rolled 30 using 1d100.  SAN 56.]]
This message was last edited by the player at 18:11, Mon 06 Mar 2023.

Leaning close, some remnant of her scent is perceptible under the blood and the pond-smell, though the recognition does not cause her to stir, come alive. Cecil takes a swipe at his nose to avoid getting snot on the corpse, trying to forget the taste of her blood, the mouth that had done the damage pressed to his.

...for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. Michael's whispered repetition surfaces.

      ...Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil...

What light had entered from the windows has faded, leaving him with lamplight and embers and shadows that shiver at a draught. Night settles on the country, and all is changed, and all the same. Belike if he went outside he might find the same robin, last of the day birds to rest, still singing to wake the stars.


[[not robin-related, but give me a Listen, would you?]]

Cecil cocks his head as an odd sound impinged on his consciousness. He gently lays the Widow Sawyer on the floor once more, and rises to his feet to look around.

[[07:25, Today: Reverend Palmer rolled 35 using 1d100.  Listen 50.]]
This message was last edited by the player at 18:12, Mon 06 Mar 2023.

The soft whistling wingbeats upstairs are probably the pigeon trying to find a safe roosting-spot, but it sounds like there's something big in the back garden, something that doesn't quite move like an escaped cow. It steps carefully, out there in the dark, but there's some intermittent sound like sticks against bone when it approaches the apple tree nearer the house.

Cecil eyes the remains of whatever it was that had taken Edmond Fox's form, then eyes the rearward portion of the vicarage. "Please, Lord... let it be nothing more out of the ordinary than Trugred," he mutters to himself. "I have had my fill of supernatural shenanigans today." He retrieves the stove poker and the lantern he had carried earlier. Once lit, he proceeds quietly to the back door and listens further.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:13, Mon 06 Mar 2023.

The beast outside seems to be wandering with no great purpose but evident agitation, like a creature herded to a spot and penned. The clergyman steps carefully over the bodies in his kitchen - noting that the heap less deserving of that term seems to have seeped its dark contents in a curiously stable pattern, the way chips of iron scattered before a lodestone make bands and waves by will of God - and draws nigh the door beyond. There's what can only be described as a stealthy jingling out there now, and then a woman's voice, exceedingly muffled through the thick old wood but speaking in the tone of one who's encountered an unknown bull whilst carrying some burden through a field and has a child or dog along running loose at heel: soft, tense and wheedling.

The big thing turns about, bone - antler? - sliding against wood and doubtless sending petals snowing from his poor apple blooms, and Cecil hears the congested *hough* between cough and moan as something with no will to fight finds nonetheless it's doing so. As he reaches for the latch there's a sudden outbreak of jingling and a rush and scrabble at the door as some human hand grabs handle and thumb bar together and attempts to get in...

Cecil raises the lantern to better shed light on whoever or whatever is trying to enter the vicarage, trips the latch with the tip of the stove poker, and backs off to let the door swings open.

The Reverend steps back over his housekeeper's body and perhaps helps the woman outside open the door: she swings inside at the best of her speed and hauls it to. She's barely in time as a tine of antler flashes into sight, lit by the interior light, and then is simply scraping along the outside of the closed door.

*scoooooooooorrrrrcccccc~*

The sound cuts off abruptly amongst jingling and a thud like flesh to flesh. The beasts without circle in the garden and hold off, seemingly at an impasse. The newcomer, Widow Sexton, looks up and sees something that looks like the Vicar holding a lamp and armed with a poker, blood around his mouth and standing over her neighbour's mangled corpse.

Clearly she'd come to save someone, armed with her own poker for the iron and the heavy weight: Cecil has only once seen such wrath rising in a woman before, and it's no less terrifying now. The failure to get here on time brings bright tears to her eyes but she's not blinded, nor crippled with grief.

"You!"

Cecil warily eyes the Widow Sexton. "Yes, me! I've already been assaulted once tonight, thank you, and I've no wish to be set upon again! If I may fetch my coin to prove my identity? I suggest you do the same." Not taking his eyes from the old woman, he sets down his lantern and fishes in his jacket pocket to produce his leaden coin.

"An' you'd killed the Vicar, ye'd have it on ye just the same," the carpenter's mother says, not moving, nostrils flared to the scent of blood and green decay. Her body is one shape of held movement, a fury trapped in glass as a tear runs down her cheek.

"Quote on the morning's sermon, then I might believe you're our own Palmer," she says, tense.

"Those with whom we share Christ's fellowship are our brothers and sisters," Cecil responds, "in a manner deeper than earthly kinship. We are kindred souls beholden to Almighty God for our salvation."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:17, Wed 08 Mar 2023.

Temperance looks deep into his eyes and wedges the poker through the door handle and under the adjacent counter for maybe a moment's extra resistance or warning of a battering from without, getting herself together. "As for proving who I am, well, I dint write the sermon to give it, an' naught we've been at together after has been out of sight of what the hares might tell, if they were minded, so you'll just have to take faith that Trugred's doing its job an' brought me with hands to help."

Those hands are shaking now, the hot humours pulled up with nowhere to vent. Possibly her fearful tension around horses ever since her husband - a man Cecil had known but slightly, steady and pious - was caught and killed underhoof had not lent her much speed in trusting the most chaotic guardian.

She stoops to pull Widow Sawyer's apron up over the corpse's upper torso and face, since the eyes can't be closed. When she next speaks, her voice is gentle. "What happened?"
This message was last edited by the player at 09:33, Wed 08 Mar 2023.

Cecil exhales slowly. "I returned to feed and water the pigeon, in preparation for its release tomorrow," he began, the weight of things starting to settle upon him. "I knew something was terribly wrong the moment I entered." Retrieving a handkerchief from the sleeve of his jacket, he pauses to wipe his brow. "There was a smell of rank decay, mingled with copper, salt, and ash. I heard a chair shift in the kitchen, as if someone were rising from it. When Elsie didn't return my greeting, I went to see what was amiss." He gestures to the other remains. "It was that thing able to take others' forms. He was very much the image of our young Master Fox, though pale of skin and eye. He resembled an old portrait I once saw when first I came to Scorch Norton. Edmond." Though clearly still in shock, Cecil nonetheless keeps a stiff upper lip. "It sought to make a deal with me. In exchange for helping it dispose of the body and not mentioning its presence to our Master Fox, it would spare my life." His face took on the same indignant expression it had earlier. "I told it that I'd made my peace with the Lord, was unafraid of death, and that it should leave before I did something I might regret. Grabbing my shirt-front, it hauled me close thinking to frighten me, and I... well, I... I slammed my forehead into its face."

"That the young Fox that killed all those women?" Widow Sexton queries on the mention of Edmond, crouching near the pile of wet bones and leaf litter. She's quiet awhile, studying the patterns and the threatening shift when the warmth of her hand gets too close to that dark damp.

"Sounds like whatever its buisness was, it wasn't meant to do this," she concludes, straightening and looking at him. Her look softens at noticing the mirror of her grief in hs face, though her tone stays grim. "Sounds dark on our Master Fox, too: do they know each other, or did the old one seek to hide from gettin' the attention of the new?"

She considers the sounds outside. "Are ye hurt, Vicar?"

Cecil gingerly touches his forehead. "I must look quite the mess, but believe I am unharmed. Physically, at least. I shan't forget the horrors of this evening; indeed, I pray they renew and strengthen my faith." He looks down at the detritus of the thing that was Edmond. "I am tempted to find a shovel and make a bonfire of this foulness, but fear the smoke may cause people to take ill."

"The stag's guarding your garden besides - or that," Tempe nods at the pile. "Not the first time this Edmond's been dead, though...I don't know if he's the leaves or the black stuff, but we ought t'get him contained somehow. I'd pull out the teeth from his skull, the horrible thing, but I don't trust how that mazy blood moves when you get near it."

She moves off a way, eyeing the cupboards and pantry. "Do you have a store of salt?"

"...an' will ye want someone in the house tonight, or to sleep over with us withal? Providin' we get out to report the body without that great thing chasing us to impale us for headwear."

Cecil directs the Widow Sexton's gaze to the cupboard immediately to the right of the cooking-hearth. "Third shelf from the top is where Elsie kept the salt pig."

Widow Sexton fetches the coffer down from its spot. "Salt circle seems like the least we can do, though perhaps if you have a chest we could lock him in it."

Making to start on that task, she notes the Vicar still seeming dull and stunned, and looks him over. "Why don't you go change clothes whilst thinking on how we're to get out, an' I'll bring you hot water up and take those ones away for the wash?" she suggests with the practicality of a woman who's buried a husband, both parents and a couple of children. It's said gently for all that, perhaps more so.

[[edit: weird typo.]]
This message was last edited by the player at 23:59, Sun 12 Mar 2023.

Cecil nods silently and makes his way upstairs. Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the washbasin, he stops to stare at the horrific apparition therein. "Dear God in Heaven," he mutters to himself, "will I ever feel clean again?"

This too shall pass, God tells him, by still and collected thought if not by burning bush. He pours cold water to make an attempt at the blood on his chin - near-dry, it's surprisingly stubborn - and draws up a chair to strip off stockings blotted with human blood, then the rest.

There's a dull thud from downstairs as he does so, and almost a tremor through the house, but Widow Sexton calls up "It's all right, he's not got in," and something about making objections known and no acute terror follows. The hot water arrives with a gentle knock on his chamber door just as he's thrown on a new shirt as swiftly as possible and corralled the old clothes into a pile.

"Ye just set the laundry out when you're ready, Vicar, I'll look for the bird," Widow Sexton tells him from the other side of the panels. "It's sweet tea with the sugar in the pot against the shock, I didn't much want to have my back to...anything, seeking out the brandy. If y'need aught else of me, just let me know."

There is indeed a kettle sat on a teatowel outside, and a teapot, cup and strainer on a tray. His neighbour moves about with enough noise for him to be sure of who and where she is, and all is quiet in the house.

"Thank you, Widow Sexton," Cecil calls as he retrieves the items outside the door. He sets the tray on the flat-topped trunk at the foot of the bed, then fills the washbasin with hot water from the kettle. Whilst waiting for that to cool, he pours himself a cup of tea which he downs with scarcely a thought before pouring a second. This he nurses for a time, letting the pleasant-smelling steam sooth his nerves. Polishing off his second cup, he turns to the washbasin anew and soaks one of his towels thoroughly. Wringing it out, he applies it to his face much as he would do before shaving in the hopes of softening the dried blood and ichor prior to a thorough scrubbing. He keeps a small bar of soap at the ready, should he need it.

Blood loosens, dampens, and swirls slowly into the basin, though the soap proves needed for the stubborn orangish stain. The sweet tea spreads its warmth through him and takes away all taste of...well, the incident.

He turns his attention to his legs where his stockings had soaked through, spending a little anxious time in seeking out every fleck and drop-stain once the majority was dealt with. When he knows he's wearing no part of Elsie Sawyer, he puts his stockings on. Tempe's tread and admonitions to the pigeon form a background that almost lets him forget the beasts in his garden and the contents of his kitchen.

"All right, I've got your pigeon," Widow Sexton reports from the other side of the door at length. A slightly indignant cooing confirms her assertion. "Where d'you want 'er?"