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[center][hider=Battle Map][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/c2fb0bcf-7b23-41a4-8d58-ad920719ff17.jpg[/img][/hider][/center]

	What little of Cavendish which can be glimpsed from above the flames takes on an arrogant posture, complete with smug, knowing expression on his face. He snorts out a derisive laugh, this being the only attention he paid to Kosara's taunts. His voice flares once more with authoritative glee as he otherwise ignores the Tiefling and addresses the bearer of his hammer, though not exclusively. The Constable's speech carries to all present. [color=darkgray][b]"You are sadly mistaken. I was very clear in my letter. Not only are refusing the conditions, you are acting like disrespectful children. And like children, you shall be punished."[/b][/color] 

	The bestial, reddish light reflected from the eyes of the guards with Cavendish made lateral movements toward each other, as if their owners shared a glance between themselves. Their already indistinct forms stepped back a foot or two into further obscurity, and while crossbows were raised, a touch of nervous uncertainty played about their collective movements. 

	[color=darkgray][b]"NOW,"[/b][/color] boomed the Constable, his voice unnaturally augmented to carry far and assault the ears of those in close proximity, [color=darkgray][b]"I shall show you what the MY Option B entails!"[/b][/color] A hollow, syrupy clatter sounded from behind the party as one of the flaming pitch barrels upended, spilling its contents in an arcing path across the thoroughfare the party had just crossed. Cavendish's features contorted and dissolved into the red eyes and coarse fur, teeth elongating into something rodentlike yet dire and monstrous, his face pushing itself out into a wire-whiskered snout. Wiry hands gripped a vicious looking shortsword, which he now pointed directly down the center of the square, not in a threatening manner at anyone, but oddly toward the murky and fire-reflective surface of the fountain. [color=darkgray][b]"The culmination of our work in this depressing hole of a worthless township! RISE! RISE AND [i]DISMEMBER THE PRISONERS ALIVE![/i] DESTROY ANYONE OR ANYTHING THAT TRIES TO STOP YOU!"[/b][/color]

	Screams erupt from the cages as voices once silenced by shock or fear break open in utter, discordant terror surpassing that which could have been inflicted by a mere lycanthropic transformation in their presence. From the cage opposite of the one holding Cecily and the fisherman, the familiar voices of Lea and Daisy from the public house (among a handful of others) join the horrific chorus. Some begin babbling incoherently, weeping and throwing themselves against their cages on the side opposite of the one facing the square. The fisherman himself continues, now frantically, to reach his pole just out of reach through the his cage, more fervently yelling, [color=darkgray][i]"G'mornin'!"[/i][/color]

	The reason for their hysteria is obvious:

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	Two great beasts rose from the now fetid water of the fountain; creatures of corded muscle and sinew built from close but mismatched pieces, stitched together with waxy strings. The components which comprise their physicality look to have come from the corpses of many massive anthropomorphized rodents; humanoid rat pieces fused together with magic and crude sutures to form a grisly, musclebound, grotesque creature with sharpened, rat-like teeth, dripping with water as they place gnarled, taloned feet upon the edge of the fountain en route to their intended targets. 

[center][h3][color=gold][i]Roll for initiative.[/i][/color][/h3][/center]