Zoom in on the faces of the troops and cognitive dissonance is definitely setting in, as their brains are slowly piecing together the meaning of what they’ve just been listening to. A new form of musical expression is one thing, but coupled with a new form of political analysis, expression and critique, and it's making some spark, others uncomfortable, and for others, stirring feelings of righteous indignation both for and against what is being said. A ripple of uncertainty that moves though the ranks is evident from the vantage point of the belfry. A ripple that Hy-Jinx cannot see but can definitely sense.

So you see

the barbarians,

who on the outside

Are just

reflections

Of them on the inside

Doesn’t matter who wins

It won’t change a damn thing

The only way to overcome

Is overthrow the system.

That - that’s the real oppressor

Overthrow the king? - he just gets a successor

But the system is the way of thinking

Mind forged manacles - numb to their clinking

We need to rise up

Tear off our chains

Say we’ve had enough

Of this historical pain

Seek a new beginning not in the ashes of the old

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Sweep the hearth clean and don’t do as we’re told.

But whatever revolution comes you gotta make damn sure

Your leaders,

Your representatives

They don’t smell of fox fur.

For the smell of fox

That ain’t been cured

There ain’t no cure!

Everybody!

For the smell of fox

That ain’t been cured

There ain’t no cure!

Everybody!

A roar goes up from the troops as those for whom the lyrics have resonated join in with the chorus, whilst others, who, listening to the words and believing them to be deeply offensive and moreover treasonous, start booing and shouting out: “No! No!”

Sensing that Hy-Jinx is nearing the end, as verbal chaos breaks out in the Oval Court below, and the troop’s attention turns to themselves, Hood steps up to the rail and, painful as it is for his hand, launches himself from the belfry, making sure that he has churned the aether sufficiently for the amplification spell to last for another half minute or so. Hurtling down the line, drifting out, unseen by the troops below, too busy as they are in their altercations with each other, Hood glides effortlessly above them, across the Oval Court and then across the library courtyard, over the blindly stumbling mechanical body of Helmet which is still trying to locate its helmet-head, and into the shadows of the open balcony, the form of Madeleine crouched anxiously in the shadows by a small wooden doorway. Landing with relative ease Hood hears Hy-Jinx’s last remaining utterance before the feed is cut…

Word - bitches!

…and the line too as, drawing a knife from a small sleeve in the base of his satchel, Hood bends over the ballustrade and hacks off the end of the rope, currently fixed to the ring of the grapple hook. As he slices it through, the rope’s tension releases and it fires off with a soft but satisfying twang, arcing backwards through the air.

Hy-Jinx’s perfectly timed ending coincides with the last slice of Bembry’s knife causing the ‘Great Clanger’ to break free of its mounting, and drop down between the walkway surround, crashing into and through the wooden deck below with a reverberating CLANG! Into the upper hallway, pulling with it all the piles of twisted ropes, it continues in its descent, bouncing off the southern wall with a prodigious BONG!, tearing through the wall-bound casement of a set of stairs. Plummeting faster, it turns end over end, catching the partially remaining ceiling of the lower hall, causing it to emit another reverberating BONG!, as it flips violently over itself, to land with a soggy squelch that possibly only those within the tower can hear, as a forty foot giant is reduced almost instantaneously to the height of about five foot.

“And that,” says Hy-Jinx, unaware of the dreadful pun she is making, “is called killing it!” She leans over the railing, feeling perhaps the winds of change upon her face and listens intently to the sounds rising from below. “Just like Beer-Pots,” she’s says, smiling to herself, “but on a much grander scale! I like it.”

Bembry, still astride the bell mounting, gazes down at the two hundred foot vertical drop beneath him. “That’s great Hy-Jinx, great…and great plan, yeah glad I did it…now how exactly are we getting down from here?”