tushanshu_logs | [Midnight Hotel] June catch-all

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[Midnight Hotel] June catch-all

Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: Month of June, 2016.
Location: The Midnight Hotel.
Situation: Catch-all post! Feel free to use this post for anything that happens within the Midnight Hotel during the month, using the subject header to label specific rooms or for specific people. See also the OOC note at the bottom.
Warnings/Rating: Mark your threads if content warnings become applicable, please!

The Hotel’s numbers have dwindled slightly since last month, but there are some new additions of note – firstly, Jintou, an ex-Snake kedan brought there by Aqua and Akito’s Chihuelan mugger Marcil, the one with a noticeable scar on his cheek, who was recently bargained out of the Snakes’ imprisonment. Jintou, while still skittish, has relaxed enough to start getting bored by being limited to the Hotel, as he’s not allowed out unless escorted. Malcil, on the other hand, is lean and bruised like he came out the worst in a fight and has no desire to leave at all—he barely leaves his room, in fact. Any interrogation will make him clam up and back away.

For the most part both are given a decently wide berth by the other kedan in the Hotel, though the kedan are more likely to recognise Malcil as Chihuelan than Jintou as a Snake and he, therefore, bears the brunt of both dirty looks and intense curiosity.

Another notable newcomer is the unfairly gorgeous man who has been making himself known on the network recently. He can be seen around the Hotel, wearing a frilly maid’s apron and doing some cleaning, with varying degrees of skill but with a magical talent people may recognise as the same discipline as Skulduggery Pleasant – using air to lift furniture to vacuum underneath, conjuring water in his mopping bucket, and so on.

If anyone asks, Anton will just say he summoned a cleaning faerie.

It’s notable that this unfairly gorgeous man doesn’t have a room of his own – he can be seen coming in and out of Anton’s private bedroom. They obviously know each other well, since Erskine has a habit of stroking Anton’s hair given the opportunity. Several times throughout the month Anton will be slightly late for his shifts and emerge with his hair still damp and unbound, only for Erskine to come by a bit later and sheepishly plait it for him while he’s working at the desk.

While there isn’t much physically different about the Hotel this month, aside from the newly settled exit into Sky Sector, Anton himself is more protective. He’s more watchful, more inclined to look up even at minor signs of tension – though he’s no more likely to interfere than before. He will also regularly scout the Hotel's entrance for anyone who seems to be paying undue attention, thanks to Sokka's mugging right outside its door.

Anton's alert, and no wonder given the Hotel is now housing two essential fugitives.

[ooc: The Midnight Hotel’s status page is available here, with the rules at the top and ongoing status at the bottom. PLEASE POST TO THE STATUS PAGE IF YOUR CHARACTER WOULD LIKE A ROOM, JOB OR AREA IN THE GARAGE, OR ARE MOVING OUT. Anton will manufacture means of payment until Foreigners are able to properly offer recompense or choose to move out.

[Both Jintou and Malcil can be threaded with by request to the mod account, though Jintou will be more open; however, any new information will need to be bought with reward requests.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Anton had left the Hotel in a hurry, responding to an alert that his fellow Dead Men were being even more idiotic than usual. When he came back, it was with his arm around a bloodied and heavily limping Erskine; an Erskine whose bandaged thigh had been perforated by a bullet and whose arm was bound to his side with two knotted ties so as not to jostle the shards of glass in his shoulder.

And Skulduggery, slung over Anton's other shoulder, one heel dragging along the floor because the other leg was missing from the knee down. He was grumbling under his breath about the loss of his hat, which had been repurposed as the pressure bandage now preventing Erskine's blood from leaking out everywhere through the hole in his leg--kept there by the tie Anton had been wearing fifteen minutes ago.

They made a sight as they entered, and the kedan took advantage by looking; then, just as quickly, many of them looked away, if only to avoid the stony expression on 'Mr Shudder's' face. Many of the kedan who stayed at the Hotel were gang-members or families of gang-members. Many of them were among the few who had seen Shudder in a fight. They made sure they didn't get in the way.

Which Anton appreciated, because the first thing he did was look to Aqua and say, carefully measured: "Please oblige me by laying sheets over the chairs in my office."

The blood on the floor, he couldn't help, but there was no need to make too much of a mess. Good thing he kept a spare and complete first-aid kit in there, as well as under the lobby desk. He wouldn't have to leave these two idiots alone until Aqua came back.

He led them--or mostly-carried them, rather--toward the door of his office, and held Skulduggery up by the scruff of his spinal column, so his feet were an inch off the floor even tall as he was. "Please pick my pocket and unlock my door for us."

Please. Manners. Right now, they were paramount, not because Anton expected his orders--and they were orders--to be disobeyed, but because he had to remind himself that he, unlike the two idiots he was carrying, couldn't just go off throwing idiots through windows.

Skulduggery was grumbling about a lot more than just the loss of his hat. His hat, however, was the only thing he felt even halfway justified grumbling about, so they were the only audible and coherent grumbles - at least until Anton ordered him to unlock the office door, at which point he went silent with the pain from his spinal column.

He'd thought about pointing out he was perfectly capable of moving on his own, but the trouble was that Anton wouldn't care. He'd thought about asking for someone to go back to the store and bring him his missing leg, but eventually decided that also wouldn't go down well. Skulduggery could live without a leg. Legs were overrated. He could fly, for God's sake. He didn't need either leg.

Apart from the fact that he did. But he could always make something else work. A wooden peg, perhaps.

Skulduggery did as Anton asked, trying and failing to ignore the pain at the top of his spine, then pushed the door open and dropped the key back into Anton's pocket.

Edited (whoops Anton doesn't have hands) 2015-06-10 22:32 (UTC)

When Anton asked her to take charge of the Hotel for a bit as he hurriedly stepped out, Aqua had found herself concerned. No elaboration was given - Anton simply left without explaining why he was suddenly rushing out - and that alone was enough to warrant a level of worry. A degree of which was justified the moment Anton returned, carrying a very injured Erskine and a one-legged Skulduggery.

She only hesitated for a moment to stare in wide-eyed horror before wordlessly dashing off to bring the requested sheets. Something very wrong had occurred, that much was obvious, but precisely what she didn't know. A mugging, perhaps? Unlikely, she thought, as she raced back to the office with newly cleaned sheets (the first ones she could find). Not with the tone in Anton's voice and the expression on his face.

The office was open by the time Aqua returned, and she was quick to spread the soon-to-be dirty linens over the seats. Then she returned to Anton's side, right as her words finally found themselves and began pouring out in a frantic jumble.

"Anton, what happened? How did this- here, let me help-" she reached out, an offer to help support Erskine and relieve Anton of some weight.

The walk back to the Hotel hadn't been fast by any stretch of the imagination, with Erskine having to lean heavily on Anton just to keep upright and stumbling in a vaguely forward motion. Funny, if he stopped thinking about the fact that Skulduggery had been one unhappy thought away from assassinating him, he could almost believe that this was just another day in the war--Shudder the one still standing, the others alive but in various stages of injury, limping through St. Petersburg or Dresden or Lisbon. Except they were a few men short, weren't they?

He was pale by the time they made it into the Hotel. Not quite ashen, which would have signaled the onset of shock, but with the amount of blood soaking the back of his shirt and the leg of his trousers it couldn't be far away. He glanced down at the little patters of blood trailing behind them across the floor with a hazy sort of distress.

"I'm going to have to clean that, aren't I."

At the gesture of support from Aqua he eyed her warily. Not that he didn't trust her (if Anton trusted her that was good enough for Ravel) but was she really going to be able to support the weight of a full grown man barely able to stand on his own? As tentatively as he could manage, being not quite all there at the moment, he transferred some of his weight to her, ready with his good hand to push at the air to keep them upright should it become necessary.

"Fight got out of hand," Anton said, still measured. He made sure that Aqua would be able to handle Erskine's weight, then strode inside with Skulduggery dangling from his hand, and put him down on one of the chairs--not exactly gently, but at least he didn't drop him. He turned one of the covered chairs so Erskine could sit on it backward and leave his shoulder within easy access and without the risk of being jarred by a chair-back. "Quite possibly. Excuse me a moment."

He dug out his radio and left a message for Valdis, and then went to get the first-aid kit from the bureau, and brought it back.

"Erskine has glass in his back and shoulder," he said to Aqua in the midst of unpacking the kit. "I presume I'll need to remove it before any healing might happen. The wound on his leg is a through-and-through. If you can ensure he doesn't bleed to death I would appreciate it. However--" And here he glanced at Aqua, and his expression hadn't changed at all: stony measure. "Don't heal them completely. I'd rather Erskine didn't lose the use of his arm and leg, but don't heal them completely."

If Aqua's magic was like Raine's, and from Anton had seen it was similar, it was entirely possible that she could. Anton had no intention of letting either of them get out of this without something to remind them of their idiocy.

Glass in his shoulder. Huh. Well, that explained why Ravel was in danger of losing his arm. With the emotional fury of the battle mostly subsided, Skulduggery could even find it in himself to feel a twinge of regret. Only a twinge, though, gone the moment he remembered both the crystal and the fact that he'd lost his hat. He was glad for that. The world had tilted dangerously askew for a moment there.

"I'll reimburse the store," he murmured once Anton finished with the radio. "You don't need to worry about it." He hesitated. "Unless your assurance was on my behalf, in which case, thank you."

'On his behalf' implying that Anton had very likely been planning to force Skulduggery into paying the store for damages. Luckily, he didn't have to. Even in Dublin, Skulduggery made a point of giving the Sanctuary very little reason to be angry with him over public fights, and here in Keeliai with restricted resources it was even more important.

He nodded at Aqua, instinctively reaching up to tip a hat which wasn't on his head anymore, and his hand fell back into his lap halfway through the motion. "We'll be fine," he assured her. "We've been through much worse than this. I'm more worried about my leg than I am about me."

A fight. A fight that, from the looks of things, was far from merely 'out of hand', and with the addition of property damage and glass shards in the mix, one that took place in the middle of the city. "There isn't something out there still, a threat to the city, is there?" she asked, the Keyblade appearing at her side in a flash; unlikely it was that Anton would simply let such a thing run loose, but best to make sure regardless. The other possibility that came to mind was far more concerning. "Oh, and yes, if you can remove them, that will help."

Aqua knelt down next to Erskine and undid the tie that held in place the sad and sticky mess of a hat. She grimaced at the wound - it was ugly, and sluggishly insistent on bleeding. His was the more urgent care, as she wasn't sure if Skulduggery could even feel pain, and the skeleton seemed far less bothered by missing a leg than one would reasonably expect. Indeed, she wasn't sure if her magic would be of any effect at all on a dead man.

With one hand resting on Erskine's thigh to keep the fabric clear of the injury, she angled the Keyblade and murmured, "Heal," Curaga's telltale green petals swirling as the spell took effect. It would take a few moments - the damage was severe, and Erskine clearly had lost a lot of blood - but the bleeding would stop as the magic began to steadily reknit torn tissues.

"What happened?" she asked again, this time more calmly.

Don't heal them completely. Erskine didn't have the presence of mind to feel anything about this more than a sick twist in his stomach. Oh well. It would come up again, he was sure of it. Maybe when he wasn't about to go into shock and could actually consider the ramifications of the order Anton had given Aqua. He probably didn't want to think about it right now anyway.

For the time being he attempted to fold himself onto the chair that they had provided without collapsing. Easier said than done, with one leg useless and having to avoid sitting correctly in the chair. He settled for gathering his good left leg up underneath him facing backward in the chair, which left him huddled with his forehead against the back and his bad leg hanging off to one side. It was nice to curl into a ball though, short of the pain at each movement, and it made it possible to hide his face if he chose.

"It's true," he said, echoing Skulduggery without looking up. "We've had worse."

Reassuring.

The Keyblade was interesting enough to grab his attention, turning his face from the back of the chair to watch what Aqua was doing. The magic was different from Raine's but no less visually impressive--Ravel wondered what Grouse might've had to say about this fancy healing magic, if the Remnants hadn't torn him apart--and the relief that coursed through him caused him to sigh heavily.

What happened?

"We did."

"Skulduggery," said Anton, cutting off Erskine's shirt with the scissors in the kit, "in two day's time, if not sooner, you, and Erskine, are going to come with me to the street you both destroyed and help me repair everything you broke. Without magic." He tossed the shirt onto a strip of sheet draped on the floor, bundled to (vainly) keep the bloodied bits on the inside.

Next he dabbed the numbing gel thickly over the Erskine's shoulder, as lightly as he could to save the man some pain, and left it there to settle while he went about applying the gel to the other less severe cuts. It was going to be painful enough, getting the glass out.

That done, he left all of it to set in and pulled out antiseptic, sutures and one of the field bandages, and went around to check Erskine's leg. He could see where the clotting had begun, and minor shifts of accelerated deep-muscle healing under the skin, which was always fascinating--if a tad morbid. But it wasn't going to be enough to prevent permanent damage. Aqua's magic was less like Raine's than Anton had thought.

He put the antiseptic and bandages down within easy access and returned to Erskine's back, and got a petri dish and some tweezers to begin removing glass from the shallowest cuts, with a rag on hand to wipe away the blood and gel. He grunted. "The Dead Men, you will find, Aqua, frequently happen to various and sundry. Including each other. How many casts does Erskine's leg need before he gets to keep it, if in a slightly used condition?"

"No," Skulduggery assured Aqua before she started healing, in answer to her concern for the safety of the city. "There isn't. Not immediately threatening, at any rate." He still didn't trust Yunxu, and there was still the matter of Foreigners being mugged for their soul gems, but Aqua was aware of all that.

Of slightly more immediate concern to Skulduggery was Anton's promise, but any objection he could think of died before it took voice. How very like Anton to dole out punishment resulting in lasting benefits for the community. How very like him to be so adamant. Skulduggery let the objections go and settled for a short sigh instead, leaning back in his chair.

He really wanted his leg back.

"What Ravel means," Skulduggery tacked on to the two-word answer, "and what Anton is ever so helpfully hinting at, is that we had some differences to work through. No one else was hurt, and it won't happen again." Anton would make sure of that, Skulduggery could already tell. He tilted his head, ignoring the healing process in favour of keeping his eyeless gaze on the wall past Aqua's shoulder. "If Jintou saw us, would you make sure he's aware of that? He might be worried he's still in danger."

She nodded at his request, albeit while frowning. "Of course, I'll let him know. But what manner of differences end up with property destruction and severe injuries?" And now she was starting on a scolding of sorts. "And even if no one else was injured, you shouldn't have put innocent people at risk in the first place." Even if she hadn't seen the fight itself, the aftermath on these two was clear enough, and from what had been mentioned of the store, it likely hadn't escaped lightly, either.

Aqua would have continued (including asking what were the Dead Men aside from the obvious), but Anton's question about the leg wound took precedence. She looked again at the injury: while the bleeding had stopped and mending begun, the spell itself had run its course. "I think it'll take at least another round to be saved. But wouldn't it be better to make sure it's fully healed?" she added as she recast the spell. Not healing an injury fully, regardless of how it was incurred, didn't sit right with her.

Any relief there was to be had at the healing--however partial--of his leg was immediately and painfully negated by Anton digging the glass from the lesser cuts on his back. It was still nowhere near as bad as the bigger piece in his shoulder would be, he knew that. The numbing gel hadn't had time to do its work completely but he was sure, in his slightly addled way, that it was probably doing something. And he wasn't making any noise about it, other than perhaps a sharp intake of breath every now and again.

But goddamn if it wasn't unpleasant.

"Rather large differences," he said haltingly, in between wincing at one hurt or another. "But we didn't really plan on any of this. Or the shop. Or the street."

Anton could tell the gel hadn't quite set in by the twitch in Erskine's back, and he kept to the least severe cuts, working as gently as he could. By the time he was done with them the gel had had time for numb everything except for the glass in Erskine's shoulder, and Anton worked patiently from each to the next in order to severity.

"It will be," said Anton in response to Aqua, ignoring the others. He didn't mind explaining his reasoning after the fact--only expected that, in the moment, his orders were obeyed. "That's what those are for." He nodded toward the supplies he'd left by the chair's leg. "But not by magic. When you were learning to fight, what taught you best--success, or the memory of the bruises you incurred when you failed? Pain is a teacher. They were stupid, and there are things they need to learn. Dependence, for one."

On each other, specifically. Anton wasn't going to let this opportunity go to waste.

"I don't intend for them to suffer unduly. I do intend for them to learn from their scars and heed the consequences of their actions. Magical healing of the kind you practice won't leave them any from which to learn."

Besides which, they hadn't earned the right for the consequences to be so well erased, or to ask that Aqua expend her energy to make it so.

Stop being reasonable, Skulduggery wanted to say. It makes it hard to argue.

The part about dependance was worrying him the most, honestly; Anton seemed to be assuming that just because he could forgive and forget his own murderer, everyone else should be able to as well. A second chance, yes. Skulduggery had been willing to offer that much, so long as he and Ravel didn't cross paths again. But now that Ravel had found his memory-erasing crystal - and, worse, was trying to hide it - the playing field had changed.

Skulduggery didn't ask. He was pretty sure he wouldn't like the answer. He didn't move from his position, letting everyone else ask and answer the questions, waiting for someone to bring up the fact that he was still missing a leg.

"Master Eraqus didn't use pain as a teaching method, though injuries are inevitable in such training. I've always found success to be reward enough," Aqua replied, then added, "But my friends and I would be healed quickly - we weren't being taught a lesson in consequences."

Still, she didn't push it further; Ravel had other injuries to focus on, and as her healing spell finished up she rose to stand by Anton, already prepared to cast spells on those injuries cleared of glass.

Dependence. Ravel would laugh if the situation in any way permitted such a thing. If laughing at Anton wouldn't get him decked again, by anyone present. He wasn't even sure which of them would be the most likely at this point. He'd had enough of being pulverized for one day, even without the piece of glass that was going to have to come out of his shoulder somehow.

Where had dependence ever got him before? Where had dependence on him ever got anyone else? Disappointed. Dead.

But he stayed quiet, ducked his head against the back of the chair, and focused on breathing. The little cuts on his back weren't hurting so badly anymore. Anton's first aid gel was finally doing its thing. The bullet hole in his leg still hurt like hell, and his left arm still felt distressingly numb to match the surface cuts across his back, but for the moment the pain had plateaued.

"I did not say he didn't," said Anton. "Bruises happen regardless of the competence of your teacher. And when they happen, they deter you from making the same mistake." It wasn't a deliberate thing, what Anton was referring to--simply the fact that pain wasn't something to be avoided at all costs, because it had its merits. Perhaps he couldn't blame her for assuming he meant it deliberately, given that this very much was.

But Aqua didn't disobey, which would have been unfortunate, so Anton didn't specify any further, only continued patiently with removal of the glass. They plinked regularly into the jar until finally Anton moved to work on the glass in Erskine's shoulder.

He was gentle, even knowing that the pain would be numbed, working the shard free and finally dropping it in the jar. "It's out, but hold still," he said. There were still little pieces inside. Anton picked them out, flushed the wound to make sure they were all gone, and finally rose, satisfied, and said to Aqua, "All yours."

What, Skulduggery wondered, was taking Valdis so long? He was well aware the complaint wasn't a valid one, given that he felt nothing more than a dull ache from the missing kneecap and Ravel was the one with nerve endings and soft tissue. But it was also one of the few things Skulduggery could focus on which didn't send his anger soaring, and so he was perfectly happy to keep complaining about it.

He was missing a leg, and it barely fazed him. There was probably something telling about that.

She had received Anton's message and headed straight to the scene of the fight. Kedan were scattered around, still talking about what had happened and soon she was able to piece together the story. Skul and Erskine had gotten into quite the fight if Skulduggery had lost his leg. Thanks to the mess, it took some time to locate all the tiny bones of his foot, which had been scattered by the bustling locals, but she managed.

She collected all the bones into a bag and then found the merchant of the store that had been partially destroyed. After assuring him that his store would be repaired, the merchant handed her a little crystal unicorn. Or at least it was once a unicorn, the tip of the horn had broken off in the scuffle. Sighing heavily, she headed back to the hotel.

"I have a bone to pick with Skulduggery," she said as she finally entered the hotel and one of the Kedan pointed in the direction of where the Skeleton and the others were gathered. She purposefully walked over and dropped the bag of bones in Skulduggery's lap. "You owe me."

The glass was finally out of Erskine's shoulder, and after a couple of rounds of healing the wound was no longer gushing blood either. He'd been spared going into shock, at least, and a tentative twitch of the fingers on his left hand indicated that the nerve damage was no longer an issue. The wound would still need a good amount of time to heal, but at the end of it Erskine would supposedly have full use of his left arm again.

He was returning to an even enough keel that he even realized, albeit somewhat belatedly, that Valdis had arrived. Ah. Today was just a collection of his biggest fans, wasn't it? If it weren't for Anton's presence Erskine would have felt the overwhelming urge to bolt. As it was, he folded himself on his chair and continued to be supremely uncomfortable about the whole thing in silence.

"A bone to pick." Anton sighed at the pun, so very like Larrikin--so very like most of the Dead Men--as he reached for the supplies he'd left. Aqua had gone to keep an eye on the rest of the Hotel, but there was still some injuries to bandage. And other things. His first stop was Skulduggery to hold out an empty glass. "Water."

Once the glass was filled he went back to Erskine, dropping a couple of pills into it which made the water bloom red. He gave it to Erskine, making sure his grip was steady. "Drink. Emergency blood-replenisher."

They weren't heard of too often these days, were practically retrograde compared to modern healing, but Anton still kept them around. They had been useful in the war. Only when Anton was sure that Erskine was drinking did he sit at Erskine's back to use some cloth and blot the blood still weeping, though there was less than there was thanks to Aqua's magic. Then he moved on to the bandages, binding Erskine's wounds with bandages and tape, and making sure he kept his bad arm by his side.

If Skulduggery had eyes, he would have rolled them. Bone to pick. Yes. Because he'd never heard that one before.

"I do," he agreed when Valdis dropped the bag of bones in his lap. "I can also claim, however, that listening to your terrible pun just now has nullified any sort of favour I could possibly give you. Call it even?"

After he'd provided Anton with a glass of water drawn out of the moisture in the air, Skulduggery began work on putting his leg back together in his lap. He still remembered the very first time he had to do this - although back then it had been his arm, not his leg. It was the first time he'd realised he was capable of feeling physical pain, and the first time he noticed that even when the bones weren't specifically attached to his skeleton, they still clung together if he was near enough.

It used to be unsettlingly surreal, fixing a vital limb in his lap. Now, Skulduggery all but whistled.

"Nope," she told the skeleton, her eyes lighting up with mischief, "You just don't owe me as big a favor as I might normally ask for."

She watched him reassemble his limb, holding the little unicorn in her hand and trying to ignore the scent of blood coming from Erskine. It was hard to stay cheerful when blood and pain kept trying to creep to the forefront of your mind, so she set the unicorn down next to Anton.

"The Shopkeeper said to give this to you," she told him and then turned back to Skulduggery, "I think I got all the little bones," she said, smiling as she turned away and headed back toward the stairs.

The blood-red concoction tasted... about like one would expect an emergency blood-replenisher to taste. Ravel gagged it down as best he was able and then tried to hold as still as possible while Anton bandaged what was left of the wound in his shoulder. Keeping his left arm close wasn't much of a trial--despite Aqua's healing, or perhaps because of it, it hurt to move the limb more than an inch or two at a time. At least before the healing the arm had been numb.

The foul-tasting drink was fast acting, thankfully. Erskine felt some of the color return to his face, felt some of the nausea and the weakness bleed out of him as the blood-replenisher went to work. He hadn't realized how very close to shock he had been. While Anton finished up the bandages, Erskine found himself watching Skulduggery put his leg back together.

"A unicorn," Anton murmured, glancing down at the figurine. "Be careful, Ravel. I'm being courted." It was a vestige of ordinary deadpan humour, but just a tad more terse that it should rightly have been. Shudder was still not happy with these two idiots, but he didn't stop Skulduggery from putting together his leg.

"You're done," he said to Erskine, squeezing his uninjured shoulder and rising. "Drink some more water. Skulduggery, do you require a bone-healer?"

CLOSED; 8TH JUNE; MAJOR SP CANON SPOILERS

why did you have to use the hat Anton

Because you're not going to respond to standard methods of scolding

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excuse you the standard methods are standard for a REASON

exactly, to protect hats from this form of abuse

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RE-TAGGING BECAUSE CONFUSION WAS SUPER-EFFECTIVE

CRITICAL HIT THREAD IS IN DANGER

IT'S A ONE HIT K.O.!

/snorlax-sleeps through the whole thing...

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continues to ignore Skulduggery's missing leg

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