>All you need to do is give everybody a Richard! Duh!

And by "see how this goes," you of course meant that you're moving already— Gil seems unaffected, but he's close at hand, and the thought of Ramsey controlling him is too terrible to contemplate. He's first. "Sorry," you hiss, and flex outward: he flashes at once into beetles, and you lunge forward, clamp your fingers around the floating token, and pull. Ignore the strings snapping— as you've already discovered, Gil is full of redundancies— and ignore his pained yelping. You already apologized. Then stuff the token into your pocket, wet your finger, and point.

The beetles bunch up. Did that actually hurt? Is Gil scrambled-up? Resentful? No, he was just reading your mind. They're up and away, the beetles, spiraling towards Ramsey, who sees them coming and swipe-swipes with a claw. No luck. Gil, agile, zags where the claw zigs, reaches the edge of your Magyckal Aura, and makes one last push: unable to reach Ramsey's face, he pops into existence, one hand clutching at her cloak, one hand pointed upward, turning into... a... gun. Oh. He read your mind a little too hard. You think positive on his behalf, but when the bullet pierces harmlessly through Ramsey's cloak, you aren't surprised.

Ramsey, laughing, definitely wasn't surprised. "Hey! Nice try! But I think you meant to aim—"

You hold Gil's token up at her. She doesn't finish her sentence. Instead, a claw rips Gil off her hem ("oof!") and attempts to fling him full-speed at the temple's stone roof, which succeeds, except for the fact he's back in Aura range. Your beloved quick-thinking scared-to-die retainer poofs back into beetles. Three more claws extrude from Ramsey's cloak. "Very funny!" she says, less enthused. "But bugs can't kill people too well, huh? So I guess that's a forfeit! Hold still, now, and I'll get you nice and..."

You trust him to occupy her for a minute or two. You only need a minute or two. Enough time to sprint around the side of the temple, into its weak shade, and stare down Earl: EARL!!

He claps his hand to his forehead, flings his arm over Sgwd, who he's sort of been leaning on. Kid...?

YES! Yes. Hi! You hope he's been having a good Game. He's not dead, which must qualify as good. He still has his shoulder. You're sorry about Branwen. None of this is the point. The point is, as soon as Ramsey isn't distracted, she's going to use the dumb coin in his head to take over his body, and then his body is going to try and kill you. You don't want that. He doesn't want that. But you remember that— when you used the 50% solution on him— his head sort of melted. And reformed. Uhh.

Haw! That's what I hear! 50%?

Yes. Not the one where he gets sort of big and muscly. The one where he's an actual monster. You can fix him later. You're really sorry, but if Ramsey—

(1/TBC)