The Ballroom
A flurry of spells and magical effects fly at Dodds. The shadowy ogre leaps to avoid--just barely-- Eustace's conjured weapon. Dodds shrieks when Benn's ray burns a hole in his inky body, and again when one of Everline's darts strikes him.
Denys and Primeiro rush into the room from the hallway.
''You will all die in the dark, whimpering like frightened babies!"
Dodds wriggles up the east wall like a black snake, headed straight for the chandelier-- the only light source in the room. The shadow reaches out towards it with long fingers, the webs of black shadow-stuff spreading to strangle the light…
The door to the dining room flies open! Jürgen rushes in! He brandishes a red hot iron poker in one hand, waving it in the air. A bandana is wrapped around his face so he looks like a bandit. A little goblinoid cyclops is piggy backing his back, waving a red hot poker in the air as well.
"No deal, Dodds."
Jürgen hurls the hot poker at Dodds. The poker misses the monster, but Dodds flies from it screaming, sinking down to the floor.
Magic rips through the air of the ballroom, conjured bolts and waves of holy power falling on the shadow--yet the monster does not stop or flee!
The ogre-shadow makes straight for Primeiro.
“Vengeance! I will tear your mind apart--Child of the Betrayer!”
Dorgio rushes to aid Primeiro, reaching for the young noble's sword.
Dodds leaps onto Primeiro's face, ripping his ethereal claws through Primeiro's brain.
''Ahhhhhhh---nooooo!" Primeiro attacks Dodds with the sword, which now glows with aureate light.
Fighting with the desperation of the mad Primeiro drives his sword again and again through Dodds.
The shadow monster curls into a ball, and hangs there in mid-air. Slowly, it changes form to resemble a gentle-faced man with elegant, drooping mustachios and an artist’s long fingers. The man whimpers and shakes as his ghostly clothing is stripped away by unseen hands. Red welts appear on his bare skin.
‘’Please, no…mercy…I’m his man, I’m his man…not the box! Don’t shut me in…”
Primeiro falls to his knees, dripping with sweat.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)