As the spell went inside him, a powerful feeling of pain wracked his insides, before he felt his leg bones twist and crack in two, followed by more in his arms and chest as he landed in a rain-sodden heap on the ground. His earlier misgivings about underestimating wizened old men with magic flittered irritatingly in the back of his mind; a fitting companion for the horrendous pain he felt all over, and the awareness that the spell was still active.

He tried to breathe. It was met with difficulty and blinding pain. He tried to cry out, but the magic seized him again, and stole his voice, and forced him to move-- a struggling crawl toward the wind-beaten rose hedge, gritting and grinding bits of bone on bone moving 'wrongly' inside him as he was forced to reach out and grab the nearest specimen.

"A wicked trick sends bones askew, but nature's pawn mends flesh anew. Verdant green for crimson hue; With life's blessing, mage-curse eschew!'

Ragged coughing and a whole new category of pain blazed through every part of his body just beneath the skin, as though he were on fire on the inside. His battered and shaking paw bit down cruelly on the lovely hedge he had grown earlier. Magic flowed 'the wrong way' from the ensnared plantlife, causing it to shrivel, wither, blacken and become quite dead, as did all the others in the circle about the keep. His vision momentarily became blue light, bones moved, muscles tightened. He instinctively sucked a breath, easier now, but still burning with unbearable pain. The spell seized him again before he could cry out for it to stop.

"No more in sodden heap lie! With lightened steps, his plans belie! For one to live, the other die-- Ends the dance of Earth and Sky!"

His skin was .. 'floppy', and 'sagged'. he felt like it was 2 sizes too big for him. He looked at his arm, and was aghast to see himself so emaciated and skeletal; he would never survive the winter in this state. He was forced to his feet.

Once more, the forced cadence of the spell gripped him, and the double edged nature of the incantation that had come out of him frightened him. He knew there was 'nothing left' to take, should another round hit him, as the spell would devour him whole, then run wild as it burned itself out, wild and undirected, carving a path of ruin across the countryside.  The dance resumed with more than just his robe billowing in the gale, as his sagging skin was caught in the whirling, adding the appearance of a layered garment.  He felt light as a feather... practically dancing on the wind itself now. A ghastly and graceful form of bones beneath sagging skin, a living revenant of pure suffering.

Breathing was hard. Labored. 

"PLEASE!"

he gasped in a hoarse rattle.


"PLEASE... SOMEBUDDY KILL 'AT SUM'BITCH!"