Ana smirks softly.

"Hate fire, or just know we can't see for shit?"

"Aww, maybe it's shy," Ozzy quips at Ana's last. "Don't be shy, mate. We weren't gonna really burn ya-"

Ozzy's face cracks into a grin as he can't keep it together for even that much subterfuge, and the wizard guffaws. "Nah, I'm leadin' yer on, ya tosser."

The group circles up, with Ozzy and Martin taking the facing side, flanked by Anata and Lucius, Anton and Red taking the rear echelon position and Q hovering over the whole group, ready to dive and slash any exposed necks wide open. Everyone braces for the big attack to come rushing through the doors - skittering along the ceiling, crashing through the walls, slithering across the floor, any or all of these things could be coming to end their lives right this moment -

Except nothing happens. The house goes silent, not even the rustling from outside can be heard anymore. All that's left is the hooting of an owl outside, and the yipping of a distant fox.

Ozzy laughs.

"All right, fuck it," he says. "Everyone outside, we're burning it."

"I find it hard to disagree," Martin adds. "It'll shed some light on whatever it is we're battling, too."

Anton grins. "A nice big powerful light. Let's do it."

Red just nods.

With such a simple and coherent plan, action is swift: the whole group de-asses the sitting room in a hurry, pounding through the foyer on your way outside. Ozzy snags the crystal decanter of whiskey on his way out, as the howls, yips, barks, snarls and hisses of what seems like every fucking animal in the swamp return. Outside, the brush and fields are swirling like an angry sea, filled with way too many things that no one can see.

Ozzy steels himself - anger at the mystic bullshit that's going on is holding back his fear for now, but the wisdom of his plan gnaws at him like a vulture on carrion. He grabs up an armful of the brush he and Anton cleared earlier and tosses it onto the porch, then soaks the mess with the booze.
"You brought this on yerself, fucker," Ozzy hisses as he lights the pile with some sparks from his fingers.
The response is instant - from inside the house. Howls and yips explode from inside, somehow sounding panicked and desperate. Apprehensive animal sounds reply from outside, but then the rustling waves stop circling the house - and half of them turn towards you!

"...maybe we should run away now," Martin opines.

Ozzy's head whips around at that. "And do what? Leave Placerville to Asenath? Go back to Rollins without the tablet? Get yerselves a brand, a burnin' log, a torch, anything. Can't you hear it, Martin? The thing is scared o' fire, and fire is what I do best."

Ozzy faces the treeline, his eyes gleaming with reflected flames. "You hear me!?" It's not clear if he's addressing the things in the woods or the group anymore. "We all heard ghost stories before! They're fer little kids! We're from fucking Ripperdan! Grab a torch and find yer balls, the lot o' yer!"

Anton doesn't need to be told once. By the time Ozzy's yelling at the things in the trees, Anton's already grabbing one of the long, burning branches out of the pile of brush Ozzy just lit. With the torch in one hand, and Kneecapper in the other, he faces the trees. "Come at us," he cries. "If you fucking dare!"

Red decides to add a little nightvision to his eyes while Ozzy rants and raves. Flaming arrows are a wonderful idea, but in practice, they just don't work, and the torchlight will likely now be moving around a lot.

"Well, come on," he whispers. "I'm waiting."

Ana frowns. This is...wrong. Animals, angry spirits - neither, when threatened, are known for their restraint when threatened. And yet they have not been attacked. Indeed, the only aggression has come from them. And she could recognize a scared animal when she heard it. Something was wrong, something was scratching at the back of her mind.

"Boys...as fun as setting things on fire is, when was the last time Asenath's minions skulked about in the dark and didn't attack? When was the last time they sounded scared?" She looked at Red, her expression somewhat apologetically. "We proceeded on a untested assumption - that our good host's information, and those in Placerville was accurate. Does this feel like an attack to you? Or two sides, equally scared, circling toward a bell that cannot be unrung?"

"Yeah!" Ozzy shouts. "You tell 'em - wot?" Ozzy looks at Ana, then back at the woods, then to the fire, then back to Ana. Ozzy's not dumb, he's just... enthusiastic, and it takes a while for Ana's logic to quell the fire in his eyes.

"There does seem to be a lack o' sludge, don't there? And deadites. But just because it ain't got the smell of Asenath to it don't mean it ain't due a kicking. Still, I reckon I can stop the burnin' if you can get it to come talk."

Before Anata has a chance to say much of anything, the...things running through the tall grass and the dead orchards break cover! For a brief moment, it's hard to tell what they are - giant swamp animals, some wriggling back and forth like a snake, some with the whiskers and hairless tails of a possum, others with the bushy tails and pointed ears of a lynx, and a half-dozen other swamp creatures and critters - but then you see the awkward gait of the ones running on all fours, the flattened muzzles and snouts, and the shape of their bodies, and it hits you: they're not just mutated swamp animals, they're humans mutated into swamp creatures! As they close, you can see their eyes - wild and terrified, focused on the fire as they sprint headlong towards it.

Muscles tense and weapons are readied in the moments before they slam into you - except that moment never comes. They run headlong through and around all of you, paying you all no heed. The howls and yelps from inside the house intensify as the ten or so terrified human-animal hybrids leap into the air...and fling themselves onto the fire. They scream and howl and cry, but in their panicked flailing as they cook to death on the hot coals, they put most of the fire out and spread the rest away from the house and the pillars.

The howls and calls from inside the house intensify, and at the water's edge, far away, dozens more cries answer.

Martin watches the whole scene in astonishment.

"Suddenly," he says, "I cannot remember the last time we had a good idea."

"Bad ideas are like left turns," Ozzy grimaces. "Make enough of 'em and yer come out in the right place." The big mage doesn't stop to consider that his adage made no sense, but rather calls out towards the house now.

"Descoteaux!? Are you lot the Descoteaux? Can you talk!?"

The house just howls back, but the yelps and cries from within eventually coalesce into an intelligible sentence:

"FUCK OFF OUTTA HERE"

And as that echoes and disperses across the swamp, you hear shouts and cries of a different kind - a human. "Hey! Fuck you, you crazy freaks!" Beau shouts from back on the road. "Die, you bastards!"

"Uh oh," Ozzy says, and crashes through the brush after Beau's voice.

Martin watches Ozzy run, then turns to the others. "It looks like Sir Oswald has come around to my position," he says. "Anyone else with a dissenting opinion?"