Chapter 5: Chapter Five: To dance the gavotte.

Marl burst into the air straight from the pit all the way to the surface, at least seven meters, most of it through water, his new legs were the first thing he’d been truly happy about in weeks. His tail shot out and clasped a nearby tree, the strength of the limb was so intense he could move it like a snake with his entire body providing no resistance. He threw his entire body toward Castabury with his tail to begin his revenge, the night belonged to him after all the pain he’d endured! His first stop was simple, the Mayor’s safe. Shredding his entire fortune was a treat, but more pressing was information. Information was the king resource of all conflict after all. The Mayor’s vault was heavily guarded...against people who couldn’t jump more than seven meters in the air and climb on ceilings.
As for the safe Marl simply sheared it open with his tail, which created an enormous commotions. Thankfully though he’d barred the doors on his way in. Taking every ledger within the safe he could find, most of what remained was coined gold and bars which he placed within his hand mirror with the documents. Finally he filled the safe with a vomit of worms to devour the remaining paper money of bonds and promissory notes and left after giving them very specific instructions.
Safely landing on the roof of the local dry goods store Marl began to read through the files, laughing manically as he came across a local grain shipment made of overtaxing grains of the local farmers being given to a duke. A perfect opportunity with the School marm Tabitha Winters' schoolhouse in his path to the rendezvous site of the grain shipment between the Duke's and Mayor's men. Time to to try his hand at engineering a curse! His loud laugh had roused many from their sleep during this, the witching hour. He took and enormous breath inflating his throat pouch and bellowed out of the town. “Gnarled Marl visits with with his hordes of spectres, phantasms, ghosts and devils! I hope you enjoyed your sleep Castabury, it’s the last you’ll ever have! HOWA HA HAHA HA!” the lights of dozens of whale oil lamps began to ignite to look for the midnight howler, but it was Old Man Wethaford Jenkins who gave Marl what he was looking for by laying a curse of him.
“God damn you Gnarled Marl, show yourself so my blunderbuss and I can put you in the grave with your unholy hosts!” Marl watched as the purple-blue flame lit up around the scroll in his hand mirror and chuckled before trying another gambit.
“It’ll be a cold day in hell before an old bastard like you gets the better of me Jenkins, hows your wife, Eugine? Still fucking Terrance Pertwig?” He could practically hear the old man’s 5 remaining teeth grind. Marl had been the town’s doctor after all, so of course he would know how his patient got the clap from his wife after she had been unfaithful.

“Blast you to hell, that’s what I’m going to do when I find, I’ll show you cold, cold blooded is more like it when I put a bullet right betwixt your eyes bastard! Then you’ll see how cold hell is!” The old man seethed as the laughter of the towns folk erupted from the surrounding homes and in the ears of Marl that The Fey could be heard laughing.
Marl was about to try for another before heard the shot and felt the explosion of a musket ball rip through the right side of his chest, if not for the angle Leeroy Patterson would have blown his heart apart. Tragically for Leeroy it caused the creature known as Gnarled Marl’s body to lob a 5 pound lead spike right through his famed eagle eye. Still he’d done well in shattering Marl’s confidence and the beast departed for his goal and delayed no further. Leeroy’s limp corpse tumbling off his roof next to the dry goods store to land in a heap before his concerned wife and children who began wailing into the night. Marl found the sound brought him good cheer as he recalled the tomato Leeroy’s boy had thrown at him that had nails and broken glass in it with he was in the stockade waiting to be executed.

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He stopped at Manderson’s farm, scaring all of his cows so badly and with such a malicious aura of curse that the cows milk curdled in their udders. What Marl was becoming felt no revulsion of concern with scooping a mouth of the foulest cow dung up, he could think only of the torture it would bring that the school Marm, Marl could see the image of his daughter’s fractured wrist from two years ago still fresh in his mind despite his death. Farmer Manderson came out with a bouquet of kitchen knives in response to his cattle’s distressed screaming “I’ll make you a pin cushion you son of a whore! A butcher’s block! I’ll stab you full of holes!” It was too late and the figure already escaped over the horizon.
Upon reaching the school house Marl vomited mucus and worm filled cow feces all over the school, as the Marm Tabitha came out with a yard stick thinking she’d punish a ne'er-do-well child she clearly hadn’t expected a creature from beyond the grave. Marl immediately snatched away her ruler and shattered it over her wrist, which also shattered as she screamed out a curse. “You wretched child, I will find out who you are! Repent now or you’ll be cinders in the fire of hell!” Clearly the fool mistook him for a child in costume given his diminutive height, seeing no reason to dissuade her he threw her against the shit covered school house and used her face to scrape the message “SUFFER THE CHILDREN NO MORE” in the dung before she went unconscious and he threw her out of his way. He retrieving a stationary set from the school before he leapt on to his destination, giving his webbed hands a glance he noted this form was clearly affecting his mind. He had just carried and puked out a lot of cow feces after all. He also noted the inconvenience of having no pockets or bags as the stationary kit was too large for the hand mirror. Instead he stashed it under a tree and continued to hop along his way.
He arrived at the grain shipment and noted the guards had no firearms, likely as this was an illegal operation they would only draw unwanted attention. It was likely the same reason they used urine soaked torches which dimmed the light they produced. No crossbows either, low light conditions made them more hazard than boon anyway. Easy pickings for a being that shrugs of rifle wounds to the chest.
Or so he thought.
Marl stepped barely into the light of the torches and his presence conjured a horrified confusion as he spoke.
“Tell me, who would like to dance the gavotte with ol’ Gnarled Marl?”

It was hours later when Mayor Rhingold Cresswick finally arrived from the Hawthorne cottage to find the entire town in an uproar, already questioning his leadership. It was only when entering his office and seeing the state of his vault sheered open, most of it’s solid wealth pilfered and it’s paper money, mostly bonds and promisary notes reduced to worm shit, said worms and shit spilling themselves out across the floor to spell out “Such is your legacy. -Gnarled Marl” that the Mayor began to understand the gravity of his situation. His grinding teeth could be heard by the guards outside his office, however after some time he spoke in an even keel with no emotion present on his face. ‘Damnation to this ‘Marl,’he’ll find everything.” He sat down to think unaware of the boon he’d just given Marl.

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