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Moby bounded from the roof of a building and sliced through the air with flapping gums and a waggling tongue. He bit his tongue in determination and swooped under the jewel, grasping and cradling it against his stomach. Plummeting instantly, he struck a roof, cracking and cratering it as a meteor would a lonely tract of tundra. By another physical parody, it deftly avoided collapse. A whistling sigh escaped his pursed lips as he sprang to his feet. The diamond, still clutched to his chest like a wounded palm, glinted through the cracks in his fingers. He beamed at Aurora as she rocketed toward him.

His bells jingled with puerile mischief.

The Jester, his fingers still wrapped about the diamond, sealed his lips with a frigid breath and took an air of satirical seriousness. Grave stones flashed in his pupils as he said,

"My dear, you needn't worry. There is nary a necromancer who is capable of spurning a violent public of zealots!"

The Jester's eyes narrowed and darted to the church, into which a faithful mob was raging. Their piety pressed a livid point as the warped bronze statues were discovered.
He continued:

"Now, I surmise that you're wondering my motivations for playing this city as a fool with a goose of a claim. I've quite a narrative drafted in my head, from which I have been forced to deviate drastically. In adapting to developments, I must throw discretion to the wayside. This could have ended with subtlety in the forest. I lament that it shall not."

The Jester slowly released the diamond from his bosom to reveal a pile of dust in his hands. He tilted his cupped hands toward the skies and blew it into obscurity.

"Yes, I have fooled you. However, I insist that it was a noble lie. Would you like to see another trick?"

Moby beamed at her once again.

"I can divine by your curious scowl that you'd rather I not dally in my detestable demonstration! This makes me happy!"

The Jester unfastened a simple buckle on the small of his back which secured his stick to his person. He grasped it around its handle and held it before Aurora. He looked at it with pride and questioned.

"Have you ever seen something so glorious in all your life? I scarcely get to use this delectable device of destruction!"

He bopped Aurora on the nose with pumpkin stud of the stick and swiveled toward the chapel.

"There's no. . .personal affront to be experienced when religion is insulted, is there? Were I to denigrate someone's faith, has any harm come to them for which justice should be enacted? Is there objectivity in the crime? I think not! These vindictive souls are near the dissenter of which I spoke, and they are soon to strike! THE NECROMANCER AND HOMUNCULUS ARE THEIR OBJECTS OF VENGEANCE! MY MOMENT IS NOW!"

The Jester screamed and slung the stick toward the chapel with the fluidity of a poet. It rotated in the air as a stone thrown to skip on a pond, and arced with perfect trajectory toward the steeple of the chapel.

A brilliant explosion swelled from the stick's point of impact and reached fiery fingers toward lofty goals in the sky. The chapel burned and crumbled like a hearth that had hosted one fire too many. Instead of producing columns of smoke, a silky black gas began to radiate from the remnants of the chapel. The Jester spread his arms in long-awaited embrace, and the gas began to condense and channel toward him.

Focused into a colubrine wisp, the gas pierced the jester's chest and became one with his body.

After this gleeful process, the jester turned to Aurora and said his parting words with finality.

"Don't believe me."

He disappeared, his bells still echoing long after his departure.

Jynx sensed the spark of the blast and dove acrobatically behind the blessed brazen beasts and threw up her hands. A protective shield surrounded her as the blast of fire rushed forward and engulfed her safety bubble, Jynx musing within. The blast subsided, leaving only the stand-still flames that ate at the remnants of the walls. She stood up, the shield gone and inspected the library downstairs which was still in tact. Aurora had placed a shield around the books, saving them from any act of destruction.

"What a mess... Aurora's going to be pissed. " Jynx muttered looking up at the moons which had darkened in anger. Still, the diamond was safe. That was good enough reason for the goddesses to stay in the sky. Jynx left the area, heading for her wagon, which was her mode for travel. Inside, there was a startled looking bangle tiger sprawled out on the wood floor, his amber eyes glowing in the feeble light.

"What baby, you miss me?" She said laughing as the beast of a kitten rubbed against her happily. She let the curtain fall behind her as she sat down inside, opening a few books and reading up on the Diamonds properties.

Jynx relaxed, seeing that her pet did not mind the intruder. She closed the book in her hand and met the eyes of this whimsically sinister guest. She laughed lightly to herself before speaking.

" You'd better be able to fix the chapel. Aurora's rather finicky about that place. " She said, her tone lighthearted. She knew that her best friend would complain about it constantly until it had been repaired. And, seeing that most of the towns population was now dead, that would be a very, very long time to hear the drone of Aurora's moaping.

Moby's hand, still maintaining a semblance of volition, tempted the tiger with overhead snaps as he spoke with ostentation:

"Pray excuse me, for I forgot to forgo an introduction: I am Moby the Jester, King of Dance and Lord of Loquacity!"

Moby the Jester tapped each foot in a respective rhythm and continued.

"The very tragedy of which you speak, my flower, is why I have arrived in your humble cart. Her anger, assumed as impending, forced me to flee, and I could only manage to muster, with a cough, a cryptic clue as to the crushed condition of the city chapel."

Moby coughed, briefly exposing the formerly forked tongue which was now a mercury silver. He picked up again, this time adding to his voice the tone of a technical manual:

"Tell her in tacit that I tricked her a third time."

Moby proceeded to cough once more, but couldn't quell what was quickly becoming a fit. He slouched in his seat, covering his mouth with a curled hand and clubbing his chest with his forearm, almost as if to bludgeon his lungs into submission. He continued to hack with vigor, at once in odds and unison with his cough. Mutterings of dismissal and pleas for aid came past his lips, but were quickly slew at the gates by the relentless rhythm of his cough.
The fit continued as he began to slam his fist against his seat.

Moby the Jester suddenly ceased, his raging cough now a shadowy silence. Muscles in his neck twitched through his collar, and with a final hack a large mass slithered from his esophagus. He reached past his lips with pinching fingers and pulled out a brightly colored handkerchief embroidered on its edges with cheap rhinestones. He clutched it tightly in his fist and hacked once more as he gave the cloth a swift tug, only to pull from his maw another kerchief of the same variety, tied end on end with the one in his hand.
Moby continued this method, each time pulling in swifter motions, until a serpentine mass of knotted cloths lay coiled on the floor. Upon pulling the final one past his teeth, he turned an awkward gaze toward Jynx and began a litany from the back of his hand.

"A gift. I trust you'll like to cherish it forever?"