The thoroughly defeated Ravenhead Gang watched Grissom Black return, carrying the blood soaked form of their leader, Daniel Done. He put him down by them there on the floor, mutilated, electrocuted, held fast by the weight of the Marleychains that bound them, chains made of old strong magic and their own evil deeds. Grissom Black summoned his fractal pyramid and it glowed in his hands, scanning them. He walked off, and when he came back he was pushing a cart with stacks of a white, folded clay fabric and six glass jars.
He told them about his strange nephew, who, sleepwalking, had used sophisticated magic to first save their lives, and then bind them eternally, though when he is awake he knows nothing of the hidden arts.
He told them how the entities of the house, historically silent and subtle, came to his drastic aid, and turned Daniel Done’s own sadistic spell back upon him.
Then, exerting some serious sorcery, Grissom Black went around and took the Ravenheads masks from their heads without any trouble. There were two girls, one of whom had lost her hands in the wizard battle, and the rest boys, one of whom had lost his eyes. The girl with no hands was the youngest of the gang by far, and was quite traumatized.
He explained their circumstance to them, how the sorceress had been eating them alive their whole lives, stealing the heat and light of their inner fires to feed her own. There was hardly any true essence left of any of them, and they didn’t even notice, and now with the Marleychains they were well and truly doomed. Except Grissom Black offered them a geas contract, unbreakable, a way out, if they agreed.
He could separate out from each of them what true essence remained within. The separation would be total, their lives under the sorceress’ influence would be stripped away, their consciousnesses, devoid of all memory, would stay with whatever physical form remained, the bad all goes into the jars, followed by the Marleychains. They would be free with a second chance. But they’d would not be free. They would have to agree to be the companions and protectors of his nephew, Greene Vardim Black, the Sonambulic Sorcerer, until the time when he needs no protectors.
The Ravenheads who could all agreed and signed the geas contract. The girl with no hands was too snapped out to agree to anything, but the rest begged Grissom Black to give her the deal, as she was the only one of them any good. So he blazed up the fractal pyramid and did the deed. He even included Daniel Done, but there just wasn’t enough to save, and only five jars filled with amputated human horror, and Daniel Done dissipated away. The Marleychains removed themselves and wrapped about their prospective jars to better cling to their crimes, revealing the diminished and pathetic forms of the former Ravenheads. Grissom Black took the Gumskin from the cart and laid the blankets upon them, and they folded themselves up into the amazing stuff, and struggled to find their newborn forms. As they writhed about, Grissom Black noticed and found a tiny pulsing
pouch in the bloody folds of Daniel Done’s clothes. All that was left of him.
Grissom Black cut a snip of Gumskin from the last, unused piece and wrapped him up ravioli style. The white Gumskin quickly turned a deep blood red, and Grissom Black tucked him away.
When the Gumleys had all formed their new simple little bodies, Grissom Black sent them to the library to escort the sleeping Greene back to his bedroom, something he himself had no success with. The quiet little Gumleys, however, had no trouble about it, and got him to bed, where he slept a proper sleep.
