It was then that Ophelia realised that the pallid man, the beastman, and their lackeys--they couldn't see the lantern at all. They couldn't see the messengers. She turned around to look at the lantern, conspicuously lit with a pale-blue flame that seemed deeply out of the ordinary--even to one learned in some measure of esoteric practices like Ophelia. Something about it seemed... soothing, though--a pale gleam, just like the scroll that she'd read said. The... Hunter's Dream? She'd never heard of such a thing, but in the back of her mind across the veil of mist her other-self pressed herself against the boundary that separated them and some of the fog began to dissipate. Ophelia's mind twisted and turned, the hot and red flashes of urgent passion from the blood beginning to cool before the pale lucidity offered by the strange lamp and its guardian messengers.

Ophelia's eyes snapped back to the room, her brief reverie broken, as Torquil shuffled alongside her and shot her a wondering look. She didn't have a plan with Farren, per se, but they'd come to an unspoken agreement that violence most certainly was the answer--and violence they would have. Ophelia just had to work out what Farren had done--and her eyes drifted towards the closed door. Farren must have left and closed it--it'd be hard to hide in this fairly open room... and he'd had that wicked glint in his eyes of someone resourceful who was going to make things work.

"Drop them just there, dear?" Ophelia smiled, pointing about halfway between the door and the rightmost corner on that wall. Out of the way enough for them to get some distance, and to imply they would be filling up that corner and that the others should pick different ones. She wondered if it'd work--but then the pallid one hissed at her, and she snapped to him with a hard stare that she quickly tried to pass off as curiosity. She shrugged her shoulders at his words and nodded before speaking:

"... If you insist, dear. Shall we, Torquil?" she said, her tone flat and even as she turned around to look at Torquil, giving him a wry smile before heading over towards the door. She'd usher him to stand on the other side of the door so he'd be ready to bolt through if necessary, and turned the handle. As it swung open she moved to go through it immediately, not waiting for the pallid one, his pet, or the beast to have a chance to react--if they followed them out, they could turn the fight much more easily with their more advantageous positioning and ability to utilise the open space--fighting a hulking thing like that beastman would have been unpleasant indoors. As she stepped through Ophelia looked for Farren and where he might have gotten to, hoping for some sort of signal to be made obvious.

_Farren

listened as closely as he could to what little he could hear on the other side of the door. He heard voices, likely Pallid by the timbre…then Ophelia perhaps—if the feminine tones were accurate. He’d also detected a pause in movement, causing him to swear internally. It seemed that, despite Pallid’s difficulties with the common tongue of Yharnam, the man was a canny sort.

Then he heard footsteps and his eyes narrowed even as he heard another pair of heavier steps approaching the door. Farren decided to trust his instincts…to trust the version of him that had come before…and the hunter he had become.

Thus, he looked to the other side of the doorframe to the White Church Hunter who stood—blunderbuss at the ready—and shook his head in the negative. He mouthed the words, ‘Not the first two,’ then—so quiet as to almost be silent he spoke one word aloud,
“Ally.” He followed that by raising one hand and indicating ‘two’ with two upraised fingers. Then he fell silent again, waiting in the tense torpor of inaction as they awaited the first two to open the door.

He hoped his very recent memory of the cadence of their footfalls—combined with the difference in distance from the door he’d detected between Pallid and Ophelia—were accurate….

The hoarse man and his mismatched entourage seemed content to simply stand by the door to the back room and wait as Torquil dutifully followed Ophelia's instructions to put down the sleeper and the corpse he was carrying. Glancing back at them as they approached the door, Torquil also noted that everyone back there had rearmed themselves now that they were relieved of their burdens, and the two huntsmen armed with rifles both took aim at the door as Ophelia went to open it.

Outside the door, the White Church Hunter responded to Farren's introductions by simply uttering the name “Victor,” before assuming position on what would be the left side relative to the outside – right side from the inside – and waited. There was an impatient and somewhat nervous energy about him, Farren might notice, and though he aimed his blunderbuss head-height at the door and held his silver small sword at the ready, he kept glancing up toward the lip of the roof above. He also stood with his knees slightly bent, leaning away from the wall of the clinic a little, as if prepared to dart away at a moment's notice.
Even so Victor seemed to steady himself as the sounds of people approaching the door reached him and Farren, and he adjusted the grip on his blunderbuss so that his index- and middle-fingers were not wrapped directly around the grip, but grasped the trigger. Only once Farren started silently mouthing that the ones approaching were not enemies did he take is fingers off the trigger again and relax his stance slightly, baring his teeth in a grimace of frustration.

Ophelia and Torquil found Farren and the White Church Hunter waiting on either side of the door as they exited the building, and would have their first view of the area outside the clinic, too. Victor impatiently waved them forward with his sword, away from the door, to hopefully give the impression to the people inside that the coast was clear.
Then, suddenly, Victor broke into a wide, evil grin as his gaze shifted from Ophelia to Farren. He nodded his head wordlessly as he lowered his blunderbuss and hang it from his belt, only to retrieve a small box of matches instead. Somewhat awkwardly and hurriedly, since he was still holding the sword his his right hand, Victor got out a match, struck it and made sure it burned with a relatively healthy, robust flame, and unceremoniously threw it into the censer next to him, where it landed in the beast-repelling incense within.

So just as the heavy footfalls now familiar to the Hunters as those of the beast-man could be heard approaching the doorway, Victor put away his matches again and grabbed his blunderbuss anew. And very, very slowly, a faint wisps of smoke started to leak from the censer.
And just a couple of second after, the beast-man started poking his inhuman head out to see what was going on...

_Farren

let only the smallest iotas of tension leave his frame as his message was successfully received by Victor, allowing Torquil and Ophelia to safely exit the clinic. Then he tilted his head as he saw Victor light a match and tossed it into the censer, renewing the incense therein, its smoke wafting up more strongly thereafter. Farren might have chuckled if the situation hadn’t required his silence.

Speaking of silence…the relative quiet found itself broken as the footsteps of the beastman echoed from the clinic’s open door. Farren forced himself not to tense, but he did shift his stance subtly, making sure not to make any additional noise. He peered through the crack in the door to help him ascertain the beastman’s position when he inevitably came into view.

Though he kept much of his attention trained therein, he did detect the footfalls of both Ophelia and Torquil as they passed into the area outside the clinic. A grin, almost like a snarl, began to spread over his features…and then the beastman peered out from the doorway and shifted his head towards Victor. Big mistake.

Farren raised one leg–his other already braced–and kicked the door with all his weight and considerable strength–amplified and native both. The door flew forward in a weighty blur, right in the beast’s blindspot as he turned his head towards Victor. As it moved, Farren prepared to act proper, getting both his feet back beneath him.

Ophelia opened the door and peeked her head out, looking ahead towards the view that awaited her--as well as being a clue as to where exactly they were--and then to her left and right. She saw Victor first, and caught a glimpse of someone on the other side of the door that she couldn't see. Farren, she supposed. She walked forward, beckoning Torquil behind her with a gentle motion of her outstretched hand. She got maybe six feet from the door before making a show of looking around and turning back towards the entrance to the clinic, shrugging her shoulders for any to see, as though indicating the coast was clear--and she waited patiently for the beastman to follow, only for Farren and his new ally to spring their trap upon it.

She brandished her spear ready to react to the first movement the beastman made, relatively safe at the furthest point back that she could be--Torquil would be directly between her and the entrance, and the other two were closer still. She'd have plenty of time and reach with a spear to make a decent first move as soon as she assessed how the beastman would react to the ambush. Her first thought was to drive her spear as far as she could into its eye: even if the thing regenerated, which she knew that beasts could do (and Hunters, she tried to keep in mind), temporarily blinding it and hopefully limiting its range of movement in combination with the narrow space it found itself in. Of course, this would depend entirely upon what her companions ended up doing... but she was braced for that manoeuvre in particular, and would adjust on the fly as the situation demanded it.

Torquil dutifully followed Ophelia as she went, taking a good, firm two-handed grip on his axe as he went, and was very surprised – and much less adept at deception than his companion – to see a strange, bloodstained and heavily armed man outside the door. He did his best to follow Ophelia's example and act nonchalant about it. Once Ophelia turned around to shrug back at the gang inside the clinic Torquil hesitantly turned as well, only to start to nervously look everywhere but at the stranger in a way that was far from subtle.
A moment later the beast-man reached the door, managing just barely to peek its head out before Farren kicked the door closed, resulting in the heavy wooden object being slung forcefully into the creature's face. While the force of the kick would likely have sent a human-sized opponent tumbling, the sheer mass of the beast-man was enough that it only caused it to stagger for a second; the door even failed to close fully and remained ajar, its considerable momentum completely absorbed and stopped by the beast's snout. As it were, the almost-closed door only served to obstruct vision for the moment, but the Hunters could still easily hear the beast-man whimper in pain.

“Shit-rats!” Victor swore viciously, clearly taken aback by the sight of what had just peeked out and almost looked at him. Immediately reevaluating his approach after having seen some of what they were up against, he quickly hung his blunderbuss from his belt again, then reached his right sword-wielding hand over his right shoulder. With practiced motion, he maneuvered his small sword so that its edge was parallel with the open edge of the blade-scabbard back there, only to swiftly move the small sword inside, eliciting an audible “click” as the two interlocked. His now-free left hand went to join the right, grasping the hilt with both hands, as he hoisted the now much larger and heavier weapon onto his shoulder.

From inside the clinic, slightly muffled by the door and partially drowned out by the whimpers of the beast-man, the Hunters would be able to pick out the hoarse man's voice: “Stupid. Very hurt.”
Realistically, kicking the door into its face bought the Hunters about five seconds during which the beast-man's whimpers first turned into a growl and then exploded into a furious roar. An impact hit the door from the inside – much heavier than when Farren had kicked it – and sent it swinging back the opposite way, toward Farren, with tremendous force.
Through the now reopened door, Torquil and Ophelia would be met by the sight of the beast-man with blood dripping from its chin and matting its beard-like fur from the nose down. Its teeth were bared, its mouth frothing with rage and its eyes – pupils frayed with the scourge of beasts – filled with hate.

It rushed out the door so fast that it did not even make the effort to turn sideways to fit through it, instead hitting both shoulders against the door frame... only for the frame to immediately splinter and break while barely even slowing the creature down. It stepped outside, but ignored Farren, Ophelia and Victor. Instead it instantly turned to its right and, before Victor could get his massive sword off his shoulder, swung its cleaver mightily at his head, hitting him just below the left cheekbone and, with a spray of blood, sent him sprawling onto his back.

_Farren

heard the noises, the whimper, the growl, the roar and in response–just before the beastman began its charge–he instinctively jumped back. He was surprised at his own speed, but even that speed was only sufficient to let him just barely evade as the door slammed into the wall where he would have been standing an instant before. It almost grazed the trailing edge of him, but he didn’t let that rattle him. Jaw clenched, Farren saw as the beast raised its weapon, and he jumped into action. He dashed, following his instincts, back towards the beast, moving into a sort of charge that ended with him slashing low with one blade, trying to cut across the tendons at the back of the beastman’s warped legs. At the same time, he heard more than saw, Victor falling to the ground after the dangerous blow from the creature.

“Watch door!” Farren called out, his words intended for Ophelia and Torquil, because he was not in a position to attack the beastman and watch the entrance that was somewhat behind and to his right.

The sheer brutality of witnessing the ferocious beast-man emerge from the clinic like that was immediately compounded by the shock of seeing its cleaver – a relatively plain and unassuming implement, more of a tool than a weapon – rammed right into the stranger's face. Torquil's eyes widened in horror, time almost seeming to come to a stop as his vision homed to the droplets of blood sprayed through the air from the wound, and then widened further as he realized that Victor had actually been knocked off his feet and flung through the air a couple of meters by the impact.
He's dead, Torquil thought. He had a horrid, sinking feeling in his stomach and felt the compulsion to turn and run. To find somewhere dark and secret to hide. Farren and Ophelia wanted to save the sleepers, so they would stay and fight; they would delay the monsters long enough for him to get away. He was good at running and hiding. He was good at surviving.
But then he blinked, watching the droplets of blood – which were still in the air, so little time had passed – splash on the ground, and he felt something clench inside him. Something hard, tough, strong. He did not care about the stranger, nor did he care about the sleepers, but in the few minutes they had known each other, Farren and Ophelia had been nice to him. If he ran, they would be even more alone. They would probably die, and he would never get to hear the voice of the girl past the trees again, or see the big man smile at him anymore.

Taking a step forward, toward the beast-man, Torquil swiftly raised his axe above his head and brought it back down again in a chopping motion. Though he did not understand the concepts of rotational forces or fulcrums or anything like that, he naturally adjusted his grip during the swing toward the bottom of the handle to maximize acceleration and power of the strike, like someone trying very hard to cleave a particularly resilient piece of firewood. He felt his muscles swell and burn, his skin practically spraying sweat with the unnatural levels of exertion he was putting forward, and anyone looking at him would be able to plainly see his flimsy linen shirt first tighten, strain and then rip entirely as the muscles in his arms, shoulders, back and chest swelled with inhuman strength.
Because Torquil was clumsy, slow, a bit of a coward and not too bright, but by Oedon, at least he was strong.
The desperate man barely even noticed Farren dart in with inhuman speed and cut the back of the beast-man's leg, but its effect was definitely felt as the axe slammed down with a loud noise, embedding the entire head of the axe into the creature's left clavicle. The force of the blow combined with the cutting of his leg caused it to drop to one knee, its left arm dropping and hanging nervelessly by its side, and letting out a pained snarl as it did.

Only then did Farren's words – “Watch door!” – register in Torquil's mind. With his axe still firmly lodged in the beast-man's flesh, he turned his attention from the danger right in front of him to the door behind it, and was once again met by the sight of several of the huntsmen lined up against the far wall in there, with two of them aiming down the barrels of their rifles.
Two loud bangs sounded in rapid succession as puffs of fire and smoke exploded out of the muzzles of the guns. Torquil felt an impact on the right side of his torso, on the lower part of his ribs. The other bullet was aimed at Farren, at about shoulder-level.

Everything had happened rather quickly from that point: Victor having gotten a cleaver directly into his face, Farren's burst of surprising--and inhuman--speed in getting a nick against the digitigrade legs of the beastman, and Torquil's absolutely immense swing down into the beastman's clavicle in return. Several thoughts rushed through her head at once: she should check to see if the good Hunter was okay (and if he needed blood to regenerate), she needed to get out of the way of the door given the gunfire she'd just heard from in there (and she needed to take a look to see where the summoned Mad One was; that thing ambushing them would be quite terribly bad. She'd seen just what they could do when the Witches had needed someone... taking care of), and she--most viscerally of all--needed to take advantage of the moment of weakness provided to them by the combination of attacks against the beastman. The other thoughts became distant and vague, and her right hand twitched as if on its own--and before she could really collate these rapid thoughts her almost-bestial instincts had kicked in and she had already taken two quick steps in succession towards the beastman. She ended up just in front of his kneeling form, with the open door to her left (well, what remained of the frame, at least).

A small fleck of spittle escaped the corner of her mouth as she found herself nearly drooling at the opportunity, and instinctively she plunged her free left hand into the midsection of the beastman just below the ribs. Plunging through the skin and fur was like punching through paper, even corded muscle yielding to the sheer inhuman burst of strength that filled her. Her eyes glittered with an inner fire, and she subconsciously licked her lips as she revelled in the sheer heat of the beastman's innards. She grasped whatever she could find and wrenched it free in a spray of gore, taking a half second to catch her breath before she dashed over to Victor's prone form and inspected him quickly. She knew he'd be able to regenerate, and if he was still alive she'd press her bloody hand to his lips to help the process along if he seemed like he needed it--otherwise, she'd attempt to cover him as best as possible, bracing the spear against the advance of the beastman if he came for them.

"Amazing! You're a natural!" she breathed out quickly to Torquil, hoping that her encouragement would serve as both direction and earnest praise.

By the time Ophelia had finished her grizzly attack against the beast-man and was moving to help Victor, she would find that the White Church Hunter was already in the process of getting back up. Though he had taken a blow that would likely have partially crushed a normal human's skull at best and partway carved through the head at worst, and though he was still bloody from the injury, the wound itself had already all but completely healed. He gulped the mouthful of his own blood that had spilled from his wounded cheek, spat out a scattering of fragmented teeth, and bared his teeth in a grimace of pain and frustration. Rather notably, despite him having just spat out some of his teeth, he did not appear to be missing any.

The beast-man did not fare as well as his victim did, however. Farren would witness the wound he had just inflicted on the creature's leg practically just vanish before his eyes, so quickly did it regenerate; Torquil would see the gouge he had inflicted mend itself as soon as the axe-head was dislodged, causing its limp left arm to twitch and come back to life. But both of them would also likely realize that though the hole left in the beast-man's abdomen from Ophelia's attack was regenerating rapidly at first, the healing soon slowed, gradually grinding to a halt as its regenerative potential had reached its limit.
“Help...” the beast whined weakly, its voice somewhere between human speech and the whimper of a beaten dog. The cleaver fell from its right hand and clattered noisily to the ground as it sat in place, too weak to stand back up, but still alive.

And meanwhile, long, clawed, inky-black fingers snaked their way around the inside of the broken doorframe, grasping it loosely, as the Mad One – its movements sluggish and lethargic, its eyes still dark and lifeless – awkwardly ducked its way through the doorway.

_Farren

had been ready to flare into movement for another strike, when Torquil’s heavy blow saw the beastman sag slightly beneath its weight. Yet…in that moment that strike was nothing compared to the swift blur that was Ophelia, which transitioned in a blinding instant into a spray of blood and viscera. Yet, Farren didn’t have more than another moment to observe the regeneration followed by their first adversary’s body sagging as their body began to fail them. AFter all, the sharp, loud BANG coupled with the distinctive odor of gunpowder, suddenly invaded his senses. Farren didn’t even turn his head, he just moved the instant the sound hit his awareness. He wasn’t fast enough though–hadn’t paid enough attention, even as a hunter–to avoid a bullet entirely. His body shifted though, at an angle instead of perpendicular to the doorway as he’d been. Still, the bullet struck him and he winced as it passed through the right side of his body below the joint of his shoulder, and directly through the meat near his armpit, before exiting out the back. Fortunately…though it stung something fierce–burned…jerking his arm back from the force of the projectile–Farren clenched his hand into a stronger grip around his saber and found that while there wasn’t quite so much strength in that arm when he moved it…that he’d at least still be able to use it.

Continuing his movement he took several long backward strides, his gaze peering past the ruined doorframe. His azure eyes widened as he caught his first glimpse of the Mad One, not that he knew what the cursed thing was called. A shiver went through him as something about it reeked of wrongness. His eyes shivered slightly…as if stung by the emptiness of the creature’s dead-eyed gaze. Farren hissed belatedly from the pain of the bullet wound, clenching his teeth as he shifted his right arm a bit to be in a slightly better position to act. He cursed under his breath, backing up until he was roughly beside Ophelia. This put him out of the sightline of the riflemen in the clinic, but allowed him to easily keep an eye on Ophelia, Victor, the weakening beastman, and the approaching creature, which he decided to think of as Deadeyes.

Farren’s gaze shifted subtly taking in the construction of the creature…the positioning of his allies, the fact that Victor seemed to have survived–he’d figured he would. Victor was a hunter, after all. He noted the opportunistic nature of the Yharnamites within the clinic…the tendency of Pallid to send beasts to fight them, rather than do so himself. Farren narrowed his eyes. “Pallid might still be able to call more a these things,” he commented in warning. It meant that unless the Yharnamites and Pallid exited the clinic…they had to go to him, flee–thus abandoning the sleeping would-be hunters, or find another avenue of attack that didn’t immediately have them play into Pallid’s hands. That third thought had him considering how thick the clinic’s walls were…and what they were made out of. That in mind, Farren’s gaze shifted to where the beastman’s shoulder had rammed through the door frame, revealing the innards of the clinic’s outer walls.

Panting in heaving breaths with the exertion and exhilaration of what she'd just done, Ophelia felt absolutely no need to let the momentum of her attack die down. The fire inside her was not nearly quenched, only stoked by her giving in to the sticky and visceral heat of that primal desire. The beastman's mewling cry for help elicited not even a single jot of pity from her, and she felt an uncanny urge to add the thing's eyes to her collection--she wanted to taunt it, to tell it that she'd warned them she'd have to kill them if they had the scourge and they still tried their luck... but the time for talking was over.

Braced as it was, it was simple enough for Ophelia to call upon the reserves of strength and vigour coursing through her fire-drenched veins and thrust the spear with as much force as she could muster towards the base of the beastman's throat, angled slightly upwards so as to have a shot at wounding the Mad One in the doorway if the beastman somehow managed to evade the attack sufficiently... but she truly was aiming to finish the beastman off, heedless of strategy, so fiercely did the fire inside her burn at that moment. The world narrowed to a pinprick of blood and vengeance, the entirety of her being absolutely dedicated to ending this thing's life that had had the unmitigated gall to come after their sleeping kin and demand they help. It was the pallid man that had really directed these things, of course, but Ophelia's mind was too wrapped up in the heat of the moment to worry about that. The beastman first, the pallid man next. She barely even spared a thought for Victor, Torquil, or Farren in the moment--but if they tried to get her attention, she would make an effort to respond.

The beast-man's whimper turned into a horrid, wet gurgle as Ophelia's spear – despite its target weakly trying to move out of the way – plunged into the side of the throat, eliciting a genuine spurt of blood from one could only assume was a severed jugular artery. The creature slid off the spear and fell onto its back, weakly and desperately clutching its bleeding throat with both hands, its entire body trembling and convulsing in from the shock of its wound.

In the meantime Torquil staggered backward clutching the spot on his chest where he had just been shot, panicking and trying to apply pressure to the wound to stop the bleeding. He could feel warm blood on his fingers and staining his now-ruined shirt and tried to remember what important organs were in the area the bullet had just hit.
I'm going to die, he thought, and was not sure whether that made him want to cry or laugh. I did the heroic thing and tried to help Ophelia and Farren, and now I'm going to die for my trouble. I really should know better than to try to get involved with other people.
But gradually as the immediate shock of what had happened abated, Torquil noticed something odd: even though he had just been shot, it did not hurt. Confused, he removed his hand, and though he could confirm that there was blood on it, his shirt and his skin, there was no wound.
Oh, right... I'm a Hunter now. Hunters heal.
He turned his attention back to the scene playing out at the front door of the clinic just in time to witness the beast-man sprawl onto the ground, which distracted him only for a second before he realized that there were more pressing concerns. While Ophelia finished off their first opponent, the Mad One emerged from the door and stood at its full imposing height, blocking the doorway.

“What in the world is that?!” Victor exclaimed, his hands once again on his giant sword, though he seemed somewhat hesitant to approach the creature. He looked at Farren. “What do you mean, call more?!”

The Mad One paused for just a second to stare at the trembling form of the beast-man before it, observing its dying ally with empty, lidless eyes, before turning its head to Ophelia as the one closest to it. It reached its left hand out to grab her, but its movements were so ponderously slow that it would almost take Ophelia doing nothing or getting grabbed on purpose for it to succeed.

_Farren

nodded briefly in response to Victor’s reaction, “There’s a pale wraith of a man inside…he summoned the thing somehow,” Farren said, not bothering to mention the bell toll they’d all heard when it was occurring. Didn’t seem important enough to waste time explaining at that moment. Out of the sightlines of those inside due to his prior maneuvering, the azure eyed hunter suddenly turned and jogged around to the side of the building, calling back the rough measurements of the entrance room that the front door led into. Based on the speed the bullet had traveled to strike him…what he’d seen earlier when he’d been inside, and what he’d seen when looking inwards through the door, he estimated roughly where the gunmen…civilians, and Pallid would be positioned. With one of his sabers he carved an X into the wood and then he jogged back to the corner and peered around it. The Deadeyed thing was slow…at least for now, so he wasn’t terribly worried about the others handling it. “Victor…Torquil, break us a path on the X,” Farren said, and then he stood beside Victor’s current position, facing Deadeyes with blades in hand. He was glad Ophelia had managed to kill the beastman…it was one of their more dangerous foes, so it improved their chances quite significantly, he figured. “I think Ophelia and I can hold Deadeyes, here. Even if we don’t enter through the path you two carve open…it’ll divide the attention of those inside,” he explained, not so loud that it would be easily heard by those inside, but loud enough for the enhanced senses of his fellow hunters to easily pick up, near to him as they were.

Ophelia relished in the gory finish of her first kill, letting out a trembling and ecstatic breath as she felt its life force slip away. I tried to warn you, she thought, that if you had the scourge I'd have to kill you.. Her mind turned toward the more pressing danger--the Mad One, reaching down with its awful clawed hands to crush her between its inhuman limbs. She ducked and wove past it, rolling at a 45 degree angle to get beneath it and cross over towards the line of sight of the doorway before she took another long step forward, maybe 2-3 feet, and turned on her heel to be facing the Mad One again, spear braced for whatever movement it might try to make.

"The Beastman is dead! If you kill the Pallid One, dears, you live. If you don't, you die." She shouted out into the clinic, voice triumphant and resonant with the urgings of their victory. She hoped beyond hope that they would see sense and listen to her, more scared of the hunters than the now-solitary gaoler keeping them under duress. Some of them might have followed him willingly, but at least a few looked like they'd been pressed into service. Their weakest link was their lack of trust; and her words the hammer of doubt that would liberate them... or so she hoped. It would be a shame to kill them, though... she could add their eyes to her collection if they did not listen. It was not all bad.

Victor and Torquil split their attention between Farren speaking to them, then running off to somewhere out of sight, and the scene playing out in front of the clinic where Ophelia dodged past the Mad One and then spoke to the people inside. Torquil was generally just overwhelmed with everything happening all at once, with the fight, people speaking and moving around, while Victor's attention seemed quite firmly focused on the Mad One. He gripped the hilt of his giant sword tightly with both hands and grit his teeth, clearly prepared to attack yet hesitating, driven to inaction by his unfamiliarity with the type of creature before him.

But while Farren was off to mark the place he deigned fit for a new entrance to the clinic, Ophelia finished her declaration of the beast-man's defeat and her demand that the huntsmen turn against their inhuman master. The Mad One, meanwhile, seemed completely stupefied by what had just happened, slowly turning its head from side to side, looking around confusedly as if trying to figure out how Ophelia had escaped it and where she had gone.
While none of the people outside had line of sight to see what was happening inside anymore, let alone try to read the expressions or body-language of the huntsmen, Ophelia in particular would be able to pick up some muttered utterances through the doorway.
“...really Hunters? Look so normal...”
“...killed the beast...”
“...should listen to her...”
But it only took several seconds for what might have been quiet mumbling of dissension to be silenced by the dry, cackling laughter of the hoarse man, which filtered through the doorway about at the time when Farren returned from his diversion. “Stupid Hunters.”
Ding-ding
Anyone paying attention to Victor would likely notice his eyes widening and his face growing pale at the ethereal sound of the bell, familiar to Ophelia, Farren and Torquil, echoing with otherworldly resonance and unnatural clarity through the area. Once again the Messengers scattered about the area fled at the sound, and several of the huntsmen inside gasped in audible fear.
Ding-ding
But unlike last time, no big, ominously glowing spot appeared on the ground. But someone who was, for whatever reason, paying attention to the beast-man on the ground might notice the wound in its throat and the gouge in its abdomen, which had been static since it fell, abruptly start closing at incredible speed, healing completely in the space of a heartbeat. And as the echo of the fourth ding faded, the beast-man's eyelids opened to reveal eyes shining with the same red, ominous glow that had summoned the Mad One, only for that glow to darken and leave only the eyes it had had before.

As the beast-man moved to stand back up, a hateful growl rumbling in its freshly mended throat, the Mad One finally thought to look behind it and notice Ophelia's new position. Still almost pathetically slow it swung its cane at her in a wide horizontal arc from right to left.

Ophelia's mind became focused and clear upon the first peal of that unnatural sound, something about it felt so... not familiar, but not unfamiliar either. She could not rightly describe the proverbial (and perhaps literal) chord that it struck with her, and she immediately looked around her surroundings to see if there was another pool of glowing light for a Mad One to crawl up out of. Based on her positioning she still had the beastman's corpse in her sights, and she had noted the strange glint of light coming from within it before the second ring sounded. She did not know what was happening, but based on that wheezy, raspy, and most importantly smarmy comment from the pallid man.

"Kill him!" Ophelia urged again, her voice now taking on a slightly more guttural aspect and a resonance that did not match her lithe and kindly features. She pointed her spear down at the beastman and his rapidly regenerating injuries, knowing that her cry would serve as instruction for both groups: for the Yharnamites in the clinic to turn upon the pallid man, and for Victor and Torquil to ready themselves to attack the beastman as it rose up. The healing process was beginning, and as Ophelia blinked in the heat of the moment it was already over--like they'd done nothing at all. Communion with the arcane was never simple, and never without risk--even her beloved mentors had been careful about how much and often they called upon the forces that lurked beyond the thin veneer of reality as most knew it... She made an educated guess to herself that the beastman could be brought back only a limited number of times, but she was even more certain that simply slaying the pallid one would end the whole fight.

Ophelia wanted to make another attack directly on the beastman, to strike at it as it was rising from the ground, but the wide sweep presented by the Mad One meant she would have to take evasive action rather than attack... though if she could do what Farren had, and what she'd sometimes seen Hunters do peeking behind her curtains on nights of the hunt prior, she might be able to do both... but she figured that she likely would not be able to do a great deal until it had been softened up again by more furious blows from Torquil and Victor. She noticed Victor's squeamishness and wondered why she didn't feel the same way--perhaps it was just the burning heat of the transformation, perhaps it was just adrenaline. It didn't really matter--directing this mismatched lot towards victory was what mattered, and so Ophelia called upon that surge of inhuman strength and speed laying within her to dash backwards four or five feet, solidly out of the way of the cane swipe, and inviting the Mad One to chase her down. That would free up the doorway so one of them could get in and butcher the pallid man if the Yharnamites inside didn't listen to her again. The surge of bestial strength was greater than she expected, however, and she ended up seven or eight feet back instead--and she couldn't keep the look of surprise off of her face at the sheer distance she now appeared to be capable of.

She beckoned to it with the spear in her hands, trying to get its attention, though she felt the sting of the heat in her lungs at her exertion and made a note to herself not to try and do that too much--she'd hardly been hale and healthy before the transfusion, unlike Torquil and Farren, and she was certain she could not exert herself as much as they... and it was already clear that her mind was the brightest among them by a significant margin--they were each good at quite different things, it seemed, which was really quite fortuitous. Perhaps oddly so.

Everything kept progressing so fast that Torquil could barely keep up with them in his mind, let alone actually act on what was happening. He did not understand what “Pallid” had done with the church servant bell, why it sometimes sounded so much different than normal or where this bizarre fairy tale magic was coming from. All he could really do was observe the plainly obvious and listen to his companions. He just had to trust that they knew what the best course of action would be.

The beast-man, who had been pacified and bleeding out on the ground – but not, as Ophelia had assumed, dead – was suddenly fully recovered and was quickly getting back on his feet. Torquil did not need to be told to kill him twice, though the expression did seem a bit ironic given that from a certain perspective this would be the second time they killed him, and sprang into action immediately.
He ran in with his axe raised over his left shoulder and poised to strike, just in time to witness Ophelia dart away from the Mad One's attack with superhuman speed, leaving the black creature to swipe at nothing. But Torquil's attention was focused on the beast-man, who not only seemed like a much more serious threat, but also had his back turned and was not paying attention to the Hunter at all. Instead the beast-man's attention seemed firmly locked on Ophelia – the one who had not only mortally wounded him twice, but had mercilessly executed him when he was rendered helpless – as it glared at her with scourge-infested eyes filled with murderous rage, teeth bared and body trembling with seething fury.
Before Torquil could even cover the scant few strides that separated him from his target, the beast-man started rushing away from him in pursuit of Ophelia, moving to strike at her with both hands, claws extended. It only took a second for Torquil to determine that the beast moved much faster than him and, regardless of what Torquil did, would reach Ophelia before he could do anything. Short of throwing his axe and thus disarming himself, there was nothing Torquil could do.

But the beast-man was not the only target in that vicinity; the Mad One was standing right next to where he had just been, looking momentarily confused yet again, but it had been targeting Ophelia a lot, too. Rather than ignore it to pursue the beast-man, Torquil decided to take a swing at the closest and most viable target instead to hopefully take the pressure off Ophelia a little, at least.
Recalling how Farren had immobilized the beast-man earlier, Torquil decided to emulate him and aim a powerful chop of his axe at the Mad One's right knee... and was surprised at just how much damage he ended up doing. Whereas hitting the beast-man had felt like sinking his axe into a mighty, healthy oak, its flesh and bone sturdy enough to absorb and resist a lot of the force he had put into it, the Mad One's leg felt more like impacting a long-dead, burned-out husk. The axe-head went into and through skin, flesh and bone with barely any resistance, not only severing the leg entirely, but sending disgusting chunks of its black, crumbling body scattering across the ground. Whatever this creature was, it was much, much more fragile than it seemed, and Torquil felt a surge of hope and elation that he might actually be able to kill it.
Time, at this point, seemed to slow to a crawl as Torquil watched uncomprehendingly, still recovering from the over-swing of his axe. Before his eyes, as the Mad One started dropping to rest on the stump that remained of its leg, bizarre fissures started snaking their way up its thigh and drew a spiderweb all across the monster's body. All over its black, oily skin, what appeared to be old cracks and scars filled with a dull purplish glow.
Though Torquil could not see it from his vantage point behind and to the right of the Mad One, Ophelia – if she looked past the beast pouncing at her – would see its previously dark, empty eyes eyes spontaneously burst into bright-crimson flares. The expression on its inhuman face that had been vacant so far twisted into a grimace of intense agony and hatred.

The leg-stump hit the ground – the transformation was that instant – and the Mad One that had been so very slow and almost harmless so far abruptly started moving with blinding speed. It twisted its torso to the right so fast and strongly that it would likely have snapped the spine of a human to copy it, all while extending its right arm. It hit Torquil directly on the side of his head with its fist, impacting on his right temple, with enough force to sweep him clean off his feet and propel him sideways into the wall of the clinic. Torquil hit the wall with no attempt to brace himself, and slumped to the ground.

Meanwhile, both Victor and the huntsmen were finally moving. Victor ignored the beast-man and the Mad One alike, and instead moved to go past the fight and through the entrance to the clinic. The huntsmen moved to the doorway as well, blocking it with their bodies and weapons to prevent entry.
Victor let his giant sword sink onto his back again, where the blade-scabbard found and locked itself to the fixture there, thus triggering the mechanism to release the small sword inside it. He ignored Torquil falling, ignored the now-frenzied Mad One, and instead committed to a frontal charge directly into the huntsmen's waiting weapons.

_Farren

returned to a scene that—as he spoke his plan—rapidly invalidated what he’d just briefly gone to do. His azure eyes darkened slightly as his eyelids lowered. It was as if things were happening in slow motion for an instant as he heard the chiming of the bell, the laughter of Pallid…and then saw the beastman rise.

Farren started moving before he’d even realized what he was doing, the blood burning in his veins all of the sudden. Then Ophelia dodged…and Torquil redirected his efforts, resulting in grievous harm, but not where any of them wanted it. “Damn,” Farren cursed under his breath, the quiet words lost in the din. Even fast as he was moving, events were playing out rapidly before him and it felt like his earlier actions had put them on the back foot.

He should have known better…or…should he have? Farren frowned slightly, but he didn’t have time to unpack that feeling, so he shoved it down as he came up on Deadeyes with his blades still drawn. Sprinting towards the exchange, Farren’s gaze flitted to the side, through the Clinic door where Victor had just passed the threshold. So much had happened so quickly, but he decided to prioritize Torquil, who barely seemed to be hanging on to consciousness after the strike from Deadeyes.

Farren’s azure eyes narrowed, he gripped his blades tightly, and then he called upon the instinct that he let him move so quickly earlier. He dashed forth, covering space more quickly than his sprint had allowed moment-to-moment. This put him right in front of Deadeyes, and as he exited the motion, he swung the first of his blades in a sweeping slash across the creature’s chest from below the armpit all the way diagonally down to near the hip. He carried his momentum forward, having slashed with his right arm from left-to-right. He kept moving forward, slipping past Deadeyes as he did so. His other blade was in a reversed grip…and as he passed the creature’s side he let it drag through the pre-established wound where it ended at the creature’s hip, attempting to gouge it open further as he shifted back into a sprint past the monstrosity. He kept the thing in his vision as much as possible throughout, ready to change tact and react if need be.

Ophelia very quickly found herself on the proverbial--and literal--back foot, as the Beastman lunged at her with a ferocity reserved only for things that you had already (basically) killed that had gotten the chance for revenge. It did not suit her particularly well; her years of handling death and the deceased were usually with more placid subjects. She much preferred that--maybe she should've taken its eyes while it was down, so it would have to regenerate more. Maybe she could drum up quite the collection in that manner, or hold a record of how many eyes she could pluck from a single beast. Would they fray at the irises in the same way?

But her thoughts of should-haves and could-have-beens was put to the side as her body demanded her attention, and she assessed the situation unfurling before her with as much clarity as she could in the very small amount of time she had. The thing had both claws poised to strike at her, and she could do with getting behind it as much as possible--so she took a low leap into a roll 45 degrees to her right (towards the buildings) just as the beastman was approaching the point of his swing where his momentum would keep him locked into that position. She didn't even try to set up an attack with her evasive manoeuvre, finding her chest beginning to protest with lightly raspy wheezes and sucking breaths. Apparently that quickstepping was energy intensive, and her new form had much more than her old one did, but was still limited--she could at least keep that in mind, now, though.

She intended to then duck and weave as best as possible, depending on how the beastman moved to follow up from his attack. She wondered if simply buying enough time for Victor to get inside the clinic and slay the pallid man, perhaps whatever magic it was might dissipate along with him? She wasn't sure - this was hardly a consistent or precise art, and her knowledge was far from all-encompassing. Still, until the situation developed and Farren--now returned from his little sojourn--got back in the action she was limited in her ability to form tactics--and against beasts, a lack of aggression was rarely helpful.