The Honor Circle Returns! (IC)

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt snorted. "I see you're a chip off the old block. I'm usually called Witt - at least by those who aren't leaving. I twig, you pre fertilize on a rolling stone, but that might be going a bit far afield. You needle spruce your game up; otherwise I'll start pining, and we both know where that cones. After all, aren't we all, at trunk, much the same?" He swigged another mouthful of the obscurely bent green bottle, and scratched his expressive eyebrow thoughtfully. "Since we're growing so close, I should ask, I guess. Is this a root ball, or are you spreading? I mean, the tendril care you take is obvious, but everyone nodes that you'll vine your way out of things." He paused. "Acorn-y joke, perhaps, but wasn't that what we were growing towards anyway?"

He took another drink, and bowed, waving the almost empty bottle in Sylvia's direction, indicating, possibly, that it was her go.

[Angel]

Sylvie laughed. "And the plot thickets. You're blooming clever, I seed – quicker than a firing pistil. You've got more style than I thought. I need to be less ginger, orchid-ing around is the best I'll get out of this. Not that that doesn't make me cherry-er." There was a beat as she considered what he'd asked. "Since I can't shrub off your question, I don't know whether I'll take root here, but blossoming has been oak-ay for me so far. Of course, something might aspen to soil my opinions, but bonsai see something like that, I'll transplant myself."

She smiled and relaxed a little again. "What about you? Here just kudzu wanted to branch out?"

A few seats away, Dani was watching - completely confused, but entertained nonetheless.   

[Yugo]

Kaela looked on with interest, grimacing slightly as Andrace's vicious kick connected with Bart's chin, a loud crack accompanying the impact. She dodged a piece of stray wood that flew up from the now quite destroyed table, unsure of whether or not a three-way brawl was particularly fair. Then again, how many bar fights were there were it wasn't complete chaos? This thought was at the front of her mind as she watched Bart retort, lashing out with what was sure to be a particularly painful, and possibly crippling blow. Striking up a proper boxing stance, she took a few hops forward, leading with her left, tightening her abdominal muscles as she threw a vicious right straight aimed at Bart's jaw, and, given that Bart didn't put her in a grapple, turned and made to execute a body blow aimed at Andrace's midriff. This was looking to be a load of fun.

[Boog]

In the circle, blow after blow clashed with ferocity. Shadow verses light, technology verses the unknown, large unstable amounts of power verses the shielding of a rather hastily made ring...
Boog smelled the problem before he noticed it, a tang in the air wafting from outside like ozone with a hint of pepper. Then he heard it, like the buzz of an electron caught in bicycle spokes...
And then he thought Wait, did I finish all the runes before I opened that one up?
There was an inrushing of air, like something huge and alien taking a deep breath, and a sound like the staticky channel on a TV set exploding. The circle containing Stygian and Paladin erupted in smoke and sparks, light twisted in a way that looked painful, openings in the air displayed other places, beautiful and horrible...
One humanoid figure landed with an undignified "FWUMP!" On the roof of the circle, still trailing smoke. The other fell through one of the openings.
The bartender hurried outside, looked at the mess and groaned.
"Dammit, I knew I'd missed something." He glanced up at the smoking mess of a person on the roof. "A little self restraint next time, hm?" The thought-entity strode toward the jumble of fractured circle, grumbling arguments to see to repairs. It was always something.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witts' grin, if at all possible, grew wider. He put down his drink, rubbed his hands together, and put his spiked hat back on the bar, before running back hands backwards through his eyebrows, and up through his spines, straightening them all up. He then shook himself, almost like a dog, shaking all the spines on his back, before snapping back into place. He cricked his neck to the left, then the right, then rolled both shoulders, loosening them up.

After all that preparation, he placed one elbow on the bar stool, picked up his drink, and orated.

"Oh, I'm here fern-o good reason at all; perhaps acacia joint, perhaps just looking. You know how it is - eucalyptus, you clip that, sooner or later you hedge your bets. I thank you for the compliment, I've seldom herb a betel phrased one, but I'm chestnut such a fungi to drink with. Now, I don't want to alder the discussion at all, but almond-tion the duplicates... willow those for now, but poplar as they are, y'just can't win the laurel with teaks like that. It's not that I give a fig, you realise. One just has standards one has to grow to. You conifer go again, if y'like. As for me, by gum, I'm just plane willing to see if we can make people sycamore puns."

[Stygian]

Sizzling, the figure somewhat lodged overhead crackled for a short while, then seized the tiling with a creak, and raised itself from the roof with a crumbling sound. A couple of scrapes were heard, before a dark something landed hard on the ground next to the Boogeyman, and shot up, seizing him by the collar and lifting him, hissing into his face.
   'What. The. FFUUCK?!' Stygian growled, dust and charred stains on his face and his eyes wide open, beaming intimidatingly. The drug-fueled rage mixed crazily in his eyes with confusion and eerie amusement. The darkening aura of his usually still and unreadable mind twitched and crawled all about as well, less apparently but obvious to a thought-entity like Boog, a snarling tangle of invisible teeth and claws. He was on something alright.

[SpottedKitty]

Andrace recovered from her kick, landing lightly on her paws and fingertips, and scrambled to her feet. She just had time for a moment of smugness at the spectacular success of her attack on Bart. Her smirk evaporated, though, when he got up again and lunged at her, swinging a broken chair leg. She yowled, flattening her ears, and scrambled back from his attack, but not quite quickly enough. The jagged stump end of the wood hacked at her leg, ripping open her left trouser leg at mid-thigh. There was no blood, though: a piece of scuffed leather could be seen through the ragged hole in the silk, the sheath for one of the hidden daggers she'd appeared to produce out of thin air.

The impact was still enough to make the lioness stagger, her back thumping heavily against the bar. She grunted and glanced over her shoulder for a moment, took both daggers in her left hand, reached out and picked up a bottle from the bar, and tossed it in Bart's general direction. She had no time to aim properly, as Kaela picked that moment to launch her own attack. The wolf might be old enough to be her grandmother, but she still had the moves, as Andrace discovered when her block came a moment too late and an armoured fist hammered into her stomach. She doubled up with an agonised oof, her tail tuft fluffed like a powder puff, breath hissing between clenched fangs. She snapped right back, though, her body unfolding and her arm lashing out in a tremendous haymaker punch aimed right at the underside of Kaela's muzzle.

The lioness snarled and grinned exultantly as her hair flew about, obscuring her face for a moment. Her leg hurt, she felt as if she'd been kicked in the gut by every single hoofed Being living on the Mytilene estate, but this was a fight she could really get her teeth into!

[Tipod]

Bart reeled  from Yugo's fist and dropped his club, the upside of it being that he was just able to avoid getting a bottle thrown in his face by Andrace. In most circumstances, he would gladly step back and allow the two animals to beat each other senseless and without pause. Kaela's near re-dislocating of his jaw put that idea on the backburner. He rushed the old vet, wrapping both arms around her torso as he dug and pushed his feet against the floor. Armor or no, he was gonna topple her over.

"C'mon, c'mon! I'm gonna fold you up like an old wallet!" He attempted a quick punch to her side, but the dull crunching of his handbones on heavy metal demonstrated how futile an attempt it was.

[Boog]

So, Boog was being held up by a man in a blithering rage. The rage was a little understandable, but he most certainly wasn't going to let him know that. A delicate, spindly-fingered hand reached up and gently disengaged Stygian's hands from his collar.
"The fuck was that I was pumping out circles too fast to keep up with all the patrons, ended up doing a rush job on that one. Which works out, because you don't look like you're in any condition to keep going. You've been acting odd since whatever-the-hell you did to Piix and, while I try not to judge people's recreational delights," although I might start, given what's going on in that amorphous little skull of yours. What did you DO!?, "You're not in control of yourself right now. Go sit down before you do something you'll regret."

[Angel]

Sylvie's grin twisted a little as she watched Witt's display; she was doing her best not to crack up. Once he was done, she let the grin widen again, and answered. "Well, I think I'll take your ad-elweiss. If they haven't cactus out of the bar yet, they will if I re-peat myself anymore. By the way, in cashew haven't noticed, that's not something Iris-k too often. It's ama-zinnia haven't caused my impatiens to grow."

At that point, unfortunately, Sylvie noticed the power-feeling coming from outside. She had half-heard the thud on the roof, but she'd been distracted. Now she felt something going on outside. She looked over her shoulder and finally saw what was happening between Stygian and Boog. Her eyes widened a bit and her smile faded. She glanced back at Witt once more.

"I think we'll have to continue our barley sometime in the fuchsia..." she muttered. "I'm worried things will get violet out there." She started to walk over to the window to keep an eye on what happened. As soon as she did that, Dani got a strange-ish look and scooted closer to Witt.

"How did you get her to do that?" she said disbelievingly.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt shrugged at Dani. "I just started shovelling. Sooner or later something was gonna start growing."

He promptly collected his drink, drained the last few drops from the bottom, parked the empty back on the bar, and sighed at the lack of bar-thing to collect another full one from. Shrugging, he turned back, and trailed after Sylvie, watching out the window. He paused, glanced back at Dani. "You coming?"

[Stygian]

Twitching, shivering with the tension, Stygian let the Boogeyman down, but far more out of distractedness and less because of courtesy. Staring wildly, he breathed in, a long hissing sound that culminated in a distasteful grunt.
  'Don't get your hopes up, you daydream!' the man spat, one of his eyelids twitching and the tendons in his neck stretching taut, his fangs gleaming in something that almost looked like a grin but was far too distended and insane still to pass for it. 'You can't threaten meeeeeeeeeee...!' he hissed next, expelling all the air in his lungs with the last drawn-out syllable, before turning on his heel and snapping back to the door of the bar with a few steps, so quick that one might have wondered how he managed to get there so fast. The rage was gone, replaced with glee and twitchy excitement from the shock, and there was a slow buzz in the back of his head that told him that whatever he was feeling was winding down. But those black veins still throbbed in his temple, and he still couldn't shrug that grin off despite himself.
  Opening the door with a smack, the speed of the movement surely jolting the more attentive or edgy inside, which at the moment happened to be the very much close by Sylvie, Stygian snapped inside. 'COFFEE!' he announced, alerting whoever might have not noticed, and then approached the bar with a low, heavy tromp of heels that was quite unusual for him, nodding toward the elf and saying something that sounded like 'whyllotheresmilenice', before he sat down and froze completely still.

[Yugo]

"A lesson for you," Kaela growled as she fell on her back with a loud thump and a clang. "The last place you want an opponent is on their back in a brawl." She aimed a gauntleted fist at Bart's throat, making to throw him off, muscles bunching up like pistons. "They can still punch you in the face." She planted her feet on his stomach, placing all of her weight on her back, coiling her body up like a spring before releasing it and attempting to launch him onto a nearby table. Unless Bart planned on landing some blows to her head, Kaela had confidence that she could win an out and out fight against him. Boxing champion for a few years running. Not giving that up to this chump.

[SpottedKitty]

Andrace watched Kaela and Bart struggle for a moment, then a thoroughly evil grin crossed her face. She slipped her daggers back into their leg sheaths, turned to the nearest intact table and picked up two chairs by their backs. As she turned back to the struggling pair and Kaela pulled them to the floor, she yelled cheerfully, "Hey, y' lovebirds! Get a room!" then she raised the chairs above her head and swung one at each of them. She didn't use her full strength, of course, which might easily crush skulls or shatter bones: this was still a friendly brawl... so far.

[Tipod]

Bart had been in that kind of position before and quickly gripped Kaela's ankles with both hands, nearly knocked in the throat and bucking sharply as she attempted to launch him off. All those little family brawls were starting to come back to him. "My nephew Mal tried the same thing a couple weeks back," he rasped, quickly shifting to slide off Kaela's boots from the awkward position and get to both feet. Getting chair'd by Andrace, though mildly painful, still left him standing. Unfortunately for her, she'd hit the hardest part of his brutish body.

"And my cousin Rafa did that one last Wednesday," Bart spoke, gripping the front of her jerkin with a tight fist as he pulled her down to eye-level. "That was a mistake, 'cause then it left him open for this--" 'This' being a nice foreheadbutt right to the nose. You couldn't have a legitimate bar brawl without at least one headbutting.

[Angel]

Sylvie hadn't quite reached the door yet, but she could see what was going on well enough. Stygian had released Boog, but was still acting strangely. Before she could head back to the bar and attempt to look inconspicuous, the door slammed open and Sylvie found out firsthand that just because nothing violent had happened didn't mean that Stygian was normal again. He was still twitchy and smiling painfully. After shouting an order to the empty bar, he greeted her in an almost forcibly polite and quick manner, then sat down at the bar, motionless.

Blink. Blink.

Her face showing only unnerved surprise, the elf slowly headed outside. If she wanted to think clearly, she was going to need sunlight.

-----

Dani had, thankfully (in her eyes) gotten up and away from the bar before Stygian came in. She wasn't sure how long he was going to be acting like that, but until then, she didn't feel like being near him. She looked wordlessly at the human, then at the door Sylvie had just gone through, then at Witt, with a questioning pout. Then, finally, she asked, in a quiet voice, "So... follow her, or leave her be?"

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt glanced at Dani, and snorted. "Leave my drink? Are you nuts?" He took another swig, then went on. "Besides, I can see her from here." He waved a hand at the windows. "And so far, all she's doing is waltzing about and waffling. No need for anyone to help her with that, I'm sure she's got it all under control."

He shrugged. "Nothing to see here, move along."

[Stygian]

For a few seconds more, Stygian sat absolutely still. A half euphoric, half aching sensation just having surged through his head, he felt just a moment of clarity coming on. One that would probably not last too long. There was something burning in him, some feverish sensation as the toxin was being consumed, or possibly consuming him. Either way it was too still and too slow to be something that could threaten him. He had been poisoned before, and he knew. Or, at least he had every reason to believe so. But it was curious...
   'What? Are you worried?' he said loudly at Dani's question, his vacant eyes turned away making it clear that he wasn't actually with her in the response.
   The sudden spike of heat that rushed up the back of his neck made him blink, and cleared the concern tinging that curiosity away, bringing a half-grin to his face again. He angled his neck and turned his head the slightest bit with a resounding crack, and then grabbed the cup of coffee that had somehow appeared in a hand still tainted with black, slithering sub-dermal things. He kicked the black, hot liquid back in a single gulp, and set the cup down with a clatter.
   It was only when he had already reached into his pocket and fumbled around the package three times that Stygian realized that he were trying to get out a cigarette. Blinking, half of his brain still running chemistry in the background, he bugged his eyes in that typical overwhelmed way that people on a high do, rubbing his temple, and then got up. Fingers rolling, crackling, he headed for the lavatories, sticking a smoke in the corner of his mouth before shutting the door behind him.

[Angel]

Dani rolled her eyes and shook her head at Witt's summary of Sylvie's actions. When Stygian addressed her, she flinched and looked over at him, but before she could reply he had turned away. So, getting a little confused herself, she turned back to Witt.

"Well, elves get like that when they're confused. So overdramatic..." she sighed. "Whatever. I'm gonna go keep an eye on her. Nice talking to you." With that, she headed over to the windows to watch Sylvie. So far, it appeared all she was doing was enjoying some "dinner" and trying to relax. That was a good sign...if nothing else happened inside, that was.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt watched Dani wander off, then gazed out the window for a moment, meditatively.

Then he finished off the most recent drink, and flicked a coin along the bar to the bartender. "I'm off to drain the python. Do me a favour, and have a 307 ale up when I get back..."


And with that, he sauntered off, mostly steadily, in the direction of the lavatories. Mere moments after he entered, a clearly audible groan of relief echoed out again.

[Yugo]

Bart had the luck of being struck on the back. Kaela was not so fortunate, grimacing as the wooden chair splintered and shattered upon her forehead, opening up a long gash between her eyes. Her vision swam and her stomach churned as she collapsed in a heap, losing her sense of balance and place in the world. It appeared that Andrace was upping the ante. Kaela grinned viciously, tightening the straps on her gauntlets as she stood to her feet, glad for the brief respite. She stood, swaying briefly as she assumed her previous posture, and awaited Andrace's next move.

[SpottedKitty]

Andrace never would have let it happen if she'd been sober. But there was still so little blood sloshing around in her alcohol stream, her reactions tended to be fuzzy and sluggish. She just had time for a moment of satisfaction as she caught Kaela right in the face. She didn't really notice Bart grab her jerkin, she just felt the front lacing go tight across her chest, then suddenly his face was right in front of her snout, large as life and twice as ugly. There was only time for a brief protesting noise before —

WHAP

— it felt as if fireworks had gone off in her nose as her muzzle tried to concertina itself. The lioness yowled in shock, her head jerked back, blood spurting from her nostrils, and she staggered a few paces. She swiped a hand (with her claws out) at whatever was clutching the front of her jerkin, twisted her body back and forth to break the grip, and her other arm came up in a backhander aimed at what she hoped was head-height. She couldn't see anything for a moment; the smack on her nose had brought tears to her eyes. She could taste blood, though, where it dribbled down the sides of her muzzle and into her mouth. Andrace shook her head, sprinkling drops of blood from her battered snout, and blinked quickly to clear her vision. Even if Bart wasn't about to follow up on his attack, she realised she'd completely lost track of Kaela.

[Tipod]

Bart released Andrace shortly after the headbutt, just quickly enough for her claws to rake across the back of his hand like a bunch of knifetips. It wasn't deep enough of a wound to dampen the nerve endings; IE, it stung like a pain in the ass. He'd need to make a quick assessment before retaliating. ...Damn, old lady. We just got started and you can't even stand up right? I'm disappointed. Least you're givin' me some breathing room that way. He began to shuffle and bounce on his heels. "Whatsa matter? Can't take a little punch?"

His arm whirled in an exaggerated wind-up before-- *bop* Stiffly bonking Andrace right in the nose. Not a particularly powerful punch by any stretch, but most likely painful to someone whose nostrils had already been bloodied. He would have followed up with something equally Stoogey like a poke to the eyes or smack across the cheek, but that'd just be too unsporting.

[Stygian]

Standing next to the hedgehog, Stygian seemed to have frozen up a bit once again. He didn't so much as make a sound, save the steady trickling from before him, and the odd spark of his lighter, which he flicked erratically, trying to produce a flame with some difficulty as he held it under the tight stick of carcinogens in his mouth. His eyes were 'shivering', his gaze flickering erratically for a bit, until he suddenly seemed to notice Witt standing beside and below, and his eyes widened fully open once more. He stared at the hedgehog for a good bit, his evident surprise hard to miss. Finally, he opened his mouth, and uttered the first thing that came to him in a methodical, disoriented manner, trying to sound casual. Well, as casual as anyone can sound in that sort of situation, and with fumes and the smell of alcohol thick enough in the air that one might have thought it should start rolling around them.
   'How... do you do with that?' he asked. There was confusion for a moment, and he waved his hand a bit, toward Witt's spines. 'You know. Leaves. And things.' He smirked stupidly the very next second, shaking his head as if he could not believe what he just said. His gaze lost itself, as he put his cigarette to his lighter once more, and flicked it.
   The explosion shook the whole of the bathroom and cracked a few tiles, scorched a good bit of wall black and set the urinals on fire. As with all sorts of open, oxygen-rich fires with well-dispersed ingredients, the sound and the flame were the worst parts though. The windows shook, and there was a tension still in the air for quite a bit after that could only come from the hypersensitivity of abused eardrums and attentive hearing.
   Staggering out of the bathroom, spreading a cozy amber light through the dusky locale, with the stump of a cig still stuck in the corner of his mouth, tangled with his hair, Stygian came out laughing insanely. He hobbled over to the counter, holding his side, shivering and convulsing, tears rolling down his right cheek - the one that wasn't on fire.

[Angel]

Sylvie was in a state of near-meditation outside. She was photosynthesizing what she'd drank, tuning out the noise from the circles, and doing her best to keep Stygian's erratic behavior out of her head. She was doing pretty well at all of this so far. She just had to focus on the warmth of the sun, and keep "Mozart's Requiem" playing in her head. It seemed she was finally calming d-

BOOM!!!!

The noise would have made even a Zen Master jump. Not being nearly as controlled as a Zen master, the Green jumped straight to her feet with a loud gasp. Then the smell of smoke hit her nose. Her pupils dilated, every muscle tensed, and she slowly turned to see what had happened in the bar.

Stygian. Convered in flames. Laughing. The bathroom burning with rich...orange...fire.

Sylvie let out a blood-curdling shriek, but didn't sprint away just yet. Her legs seemed indecisive. Part of her wanted to run into the bar and help him. The rest of her wanted to run as far away from the blaze inside as possible. So, she was stuck in that position, looking in the windows nervously, and at the same time edging little by little away, glancing back over her shoulder and whimpering.

---

Dani had stopped watching her friend the moment the explosion occurred. Much like Sylvie, she jumped to her feet and hunted for the source of the noise. Thankfully, it wasn't too hard to find - Stygian staggered out of the bathroom, burning and not seeming to care. In Rustburg, this would have been hilarious. But Dani's time as a prison guard had conditioned her to find these sort of situations much more serious.

"SHIT!" she shouted, whipping her head around to find something to help - a fire extinguisher, alarms, anything. When she didn't see anything right away, she tried to see if there was a clear path to the ladies' room so she could at least have a water source.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt staggered out of the gents, between the stuttering flames, tripping over the shattered remains of the door, black from head to foot with soot - barring a single patch at about waist height, where his paw had been. All his spines were fully raised, and every single hair on his body had been blown backwards. He looked rather like he'd been shoved face-first into a cannon, then held there while it was set off.

He patted out the few smouldering hairs, ran a paw over his face - smudging the soot - and turned to glare at Stygian. As he turned, it became apparent that the soot covered every inch of his front - but nothing on his back. He stumped over to where the tall dark shadow was giggling freely, and gazed up at the broken visage for a moment. Then he reached up, grabbed the chin for a moment, tilting the face down, and slapped gently at the flames with his other paw, patting them out. As they died, he brought the arm back, then swung it forward in a mighty arc, connecting with a massive thump, and rocking Stygian's head back on his shoulders.

"Are you back with us, you crazy fucking lunatic? What the flying fuck do you think you were doing, striking a light with those gods-damned fumes around? Couldn't you bloody smell the blasted things? Hell, even the rats have better sense than that, for fuck's sake. At least they don't bloody go lighting fucking farts, you maniac!" He stared Stygian in the eyes for a moment, then snorted. "High as a fucking kite, no bloody wonder you're non compos mentat." He turned to the bar, and raised an eyebrow at the thing behind it. Or, rather, at the lack thereof. He looked around, spotted the barthing outside, cleaning up glass, and muttered. "Never one around when you need it. Fuck it." He looked back up at the still giggling dark man in front of him, and sighed, brushing soot from his arms. "What to do with you, until you sober up? Hmmm. And me without a bloody drink to think with..."

[Stygian]

A cracking sound emanating from the exchange between Stygian's head and the counter behind it. The man ceased giggling for just a few seconds, enough to turn his look back to Witt and to stare confusedly at the hedgehog for a bit, before involuntary shudders started rocking him again. His cheek, turned into a deep, blackened scar, sizzled painfully, his wounded skin cracking as he grinned. His yellowing teeth were stained with blood, as he opened his mouth, trying to utter words in between the salvos of laughter.
   'It hurts! Hehehaha! It hurts so fucking much! Ha! Burns! Hahaaa-haHA!' he barked, eyes widening. A trembling hand seized Witt's arm. 'Inside me! HAhahaa! Fucking crazy! HaaaHAha-haHAhAHAHAHAHAHAHA!'
   The man's grip was starting to cramp. It would have been less of a worry for Witt, were it not for the fact that Stygian seemed to possess claws for whatever reason. And so, when the sharp edges managed to poke his skin, his attention was immediately drawn to the man's hand. It was sizzling. The same black cracks that were diffusing out from the wound on his face were spiderwebbing out over his arm. And somehow, the ashy smell was taking on a sharper edge, the air around them warming. Stygian's laughter was turning into cramps, convulsions that grew stronger and stronger...

[Boog]

Right then, these rifts shouldn't be here. Better tidy up those runes too, lessee now... Boog was dusting away the lines he'd scratched in the dirt earlier, muttering something under his breath to slowly close up the holes torn in nothing at all by the failed circle, when he heard the laughter. He froze for a moment, then dropped the broom he'd been using and turned back toward the bar.
"Goddammit didn't I tell you to go sleep it off?" The thought entity strode through the doors without so much as bothering to throw them open with a dramatic 'bang!' and interposed himself between the hedgehog and the madly cackling man. He scrutinized the flames crawling across Stygian for a second before reaching an important conclusion.
"You're not this dumb, usually, which means either you're sick and thus gotten dumber or there's something I've missed, and I'm inclined to bank on the former." He slipped the Key to the Honor Circle out of his sleeve and held it up. "You've been to these places before, yes? I assume you've seen one of these used, like I promised to if you threatened any more patrons? You like these circles, I'm sure you've seen some of their other functions once." Again Boog was taking on that amorphous quality; across his sleeve calculations and symbols chased and attacked each other, one of his fingers detached and slithered across the back of his hand. "Go to the infirmary or go home before I send you to both at once."

[Stygian]

If Stygian heard any of the Boogeyman's tirade though, he didn't show it. His shaking and contractions seemed to grow longer, more steady, his body stiffening. There might have been some recognition and presence in his eyes earlier, though there really was no way of telling from the blackness of them. The way they had gone completely still though, suggested they had rolled back. And together with how he seemed to be seizing up...
   Then, all of a sudden, in a flash the previous warmth turned into a biting chill. The next second, Stygian shook, his back bending him into a curve with a lengthy crack that sounded as if his spine were spinning inside him. He managed an agonized groan, something grayish frothing at the corner of his mouth, spitting between shaking teeth, before his throat seemed to swell shut. Something green crackled. And then, his tongue exploded.
   There was a scream from within the infirmary. The wood in the counter started blackening and cracking, and patches of black and frost started to spread on the floor around the spasming man. The light bent, shadows distending all around, dark things squirming right at the edge of visibility everywhere. Black things that might have been tongues or tentacles were spewing out of Stygian's mouth, and through his cheeks. All over his body, his skin and clothing was shredding like tissue paper, ripped open from the inside and burning up into sooty little flakes that dissolved into nothing, and from within fanged, twisting, undescribable black... something was emerging. Lots of it. Limbs cracked and snapped, his arms contorting even as he reached out, and more than one of the lashing and rasping pieces of darkness slithered or scuttled away across the floor. Even before the next crackle appeared, frying a piece of lighting overhead, and poisonous green symbols started appearing in little spatters in the air, reaching for the streaming glyphs on his arm, the Boogeyman felt something that made him want to back off. Something was streaming right out of the writhing mass on the floor that had been Stygian, wrenching at the reality around, poisoning it. Whatever it was, likely the psychics around them would have felt it first. But, as venomous surges of flame started breaking out on the expanding horror, adding their hissing sound to the multitude of growls and grating screams coming from it, he realized it wasn't anywhere near limited to that.
   A hard, clattering sound cut through the cacophony, as Sahlena got up from her seat with a jolt. If a machine could look terrified...

[Boog]

Boog looked down at the squirming mass that had become of Stygian. It was giving off concepts that were terrible. Nigh-incomprehensible, alien and vile. He filtered a few out for later scrutiny. He noticed part of whatever it was reaching for his arm and swatted it away with a quick rebuke ("Words are meant to hold still, and you've no cause to move").
It was about when the thing started catching fire that Boog decided that this probably wasn't just Stygian doing the whole him thing.
"Right then, first thing's first," The Boogeyman knelt down next to the whatever-it-was, "Lets keep this from causing any trouble for anyone else." The thought-entity knocked the key against the counter once, producing a ringing noise like a tuning fork that began to amplify in volume rather than fade. He drew it along the floor, letting the vibration rattle slightly, before finally snapping out and nicking part of the churning mass with the key. There was a pause like a jet turbine stopping to gasp and the thing that was technically Stygian simply... Stopped.
"I've locked away his access to time in the establishment. He can't do anything." He glared at one of the skittering things that the Stygpile had spawned and skewered it with one claw deftly. "Someone get him to the infirmary, I gotta clean this up too before anything takes root or whatever the hell it does."