Torquil flinched away at the flash of light and heat that accompanied the loud bang of Farren discharging his rifle, sending the quicksilver projectile across the street, where it found a new home as it buried itself into the man's chest. But it was strange. They both saw the bullet cut into the man, producing a small spurt of blood as it doubtlessly found its way into lungs or heart inside... but not only did the man who had just gotten shot not even flinch, the whistled lullaby continued uninterrupted.
While Farren discarded the piercing rifle and armed himself with the Blades of Mercy, the beast claw seemed to slip out of the man's hand and disappear behind him. A moment later the Yharnamite started moving forward out the door, though rather than walk, he seemed to simply glide, his legs hanging limply below him and his feet dragging over the ground.
The reason for this became clear but half a second later, as a second figure stepped out from just within and to the side of the doorway, his left arm outstretched and latched onto the shoulder of the first man. He continued to hold the nerveless Yharnamite in front of himself like a human shield, all while whistling his ominous tune.

No longer hiding, Farren and Torquil got their first good look at who they could only assume to be Skinner. A giant of a man, well over two meters tall, with immensely board shoulders and chest and every part of his body, from his neck to his arms to his legs, bulging with rippling muscle. They could tell because the man was mostly naked; his feet and pelvis were wrapped in some kind of leathery material, but otherwise the only thing he wore was some bizarre wreath of layered dangling appendages he wore like a poncho. The appendages were also weirdly mismatched... but it would likely not take long to realize that these were all the patches of skin he had stolen. Hairless human skin, the fur-clad hide of beasts, feathered skin from some manner of avian creatures... some old enough to have started decaying, some so fresh that they were still dripping with blood.
Skinner peeked over the shoulder of his meat-shield, a look of amusement in his dark gray eyes under a mess of tangled blond hair. His right hand now held the beast claw as he, still whistling, stepping into the street and approached Torquil and Farren.

_Farren

narrowed his eyes and swore under his breath, the man was even more wily than he’d assumed. Not only had he managed to either enter another building to emerge from or to use the building with the censer and the lit lantern as a misdirect, but now he’d managed to get Farren to waste resources and even further give away the advantages a first strike could allow.

Some part of him wanted to sheath the Blades of Mercy and instead draw out the Beastflayer and keep the man at a greater distance, but the reality was that doing that would leave him far more vulnerable. After all, if Skinner got past the lengthy weapon it would render it virtually useless and in the moments it would take Farren to shift to one of his other armaments, the beast of a man could strike. As the man eerily whistled, the sound warping as it echoed through the unsettling quiet of the three-way intersection.

“Say you killed us,” Farren called out, pushing into a better stance as he walked up beside Torquil, “...I figure you’d hunt the runner next?”

He kept his tone somewhat light, as if he were detached from the scenario. Internally he was bringing to mind all the details of their environs, including the Piercing Rifle he’d left behind them, laid on the ground. At the same time, the azure-eyed hunter regarded Skinner, taking in his garb and physique swiftly.

Rather than grow tense, Farren took a deep breath and relaxed even as his blood surged like molten violence through his veins, singing for carnage.

Skinner may have killed many–Hunters and beasts both–that did not at all mean that panicking would do them any good. So, unconsciously calling upon the calm that had let him survive so many other perilous situations, Farren kept his wits about him and let his breathing grow deep and even as he braced himself for whatever was next to come.

Finally the whistling stopped in response to Farren's question, though the only answer forthcoming was a brief sinister laugh. Rather than speak, Skinner started moving faster, approaching them in a jog. When he had covered about two thirds of the way toward them, he made a sudden movement with his left arm where he first drew the body he was shielding himself with closer to himself and lower to the ground, bending his left arm as he did so, before extending the arm again outward and upward. The body followed the movements of the arm like a rag doll, limbs flailing with the abrupt movements; by the way the Yhanamites head lolled around, it would not be hard to deduce that his neck had been broken. As Skinner's arm reached its apex he released his grip on the body, and its momentum carried it through the air and away from him... and straight at Torquil.

Torquil let out a surprised yelp and raised his shield as the body sailed the nearly ten meters through the air and crashed into him, but the impact was not enough to hurt or even significantly stagger him. What it did do, however, was block Torquil's line of vision so that he did not see – though Farren would – that Skinner immediately followed up the toss with a quickstep, a pause, and then another quickstep, crossing the distance separating him and Torquil in but a second.
As he did so, Farren would witness the horrid, forbidden power of the bones in Skinner's hand. He would see the bones wiggle as if with a life of their own before sending a pulse of... something up through its wielders arm. And he would observe as Skinner, within the space of the single second he spent charging, underwent a partial transformation that discarded some of his humanity and instead adopted the physique of a true beast. His upper body and arms spontaneously grew fur and his idle left arm in particular mutated into the appendage of some manner of bestial monstrosity, significantly larger than a human hand would be and with each large finger adorned with mighty claws.

Farren was close enough that he could potentially intervene, though he would likely have to quickstep himself to get there in time.

_Farren

was, for only a handful of instants, half-stunned into inaction. He’d expected the rush, expected the charge and even the sudden motion of the quicksteps. When Skinner didn’t discard the body immediately, Farren knew what was coming next. Yet, what he hadn’t expected was the massive figure’s sheer speed. Further, the transformation, the shifting of flesh and cloth into fur like some twisted sped-up beastly metamorphosis.

Farren’s eyes widened at the sight, but he didn’t falter, didn’t hesitate. Adrenaline hit him all at once as if just catching up with the rapidly procession of events. For a moment it was like everything had slowed to a crawl. He forced himself not to blink despite the urge to, and widened his eyes instead. ‘Not fucking this time,’ he thought and before he had more than an instant to consider, he was already moving. His muscles coiled, twisted, almost felt like they might snap or tear, and then with force that still surprised him, Farren quickstepped.

A surge of motion, a blur that carried him sideways even as he shifted his arms and braced his shoulder for an impact. It came what felt like less than a moment later, his shoulder slamming into the dead body even as he braced his left leg–having approached from Torquil’s right side–and used it to half shift and half arrest his movement. He shoved the body to the side with the force of his dash and followed up with a swing of his left blade, at the very least intent upon intercepting Skinner’s opening strike even as Farren positioned the tip of his other blade so it would aim towards the man’s chest. The blade was angled slightly up from where he held it at his waist level. He hadn’t thrust it forth yet, but it was clear that depending on the bastard’s reaction, another strike could be forthcoming.

Bizarrely, Farren would feel the thrown body hit him even when he was still quickstepping to intercept it, only to feel it again half a second later when the body actually hit. The first sensation only gave a vague impression of a floaty something hitting him, but the second, real impact had the actual force of the body behind it. But between the dual impacts of the body, Farren also felt another two more focused floaty impacts; one against the left side of his abdomen, right about where he knew his kidney was, and on top of his right shoulder.
His awkward slash with his the left half of the Blades of Mercy, guided by this half-second warning of the impending hit, somehow managed to catch and ward off the fist weapon coming to embed its bone blades into his body. Skinner's left hand, however, went unimpeded as it slapped down on top of Farren's right shoulder, surprisingly hitting him even harder than the dead body he had just caught, and immediately sank its bestial claws deep into his flesh.

Caught in the moment, only a distant part of his mind managed to associate those preemptive sensations with the Rune engraved upon his mind. Then the sharp heat of Skinner's claws slammed downwards into his shoulder with incredible force and weight. Farren gritted his teeth, grunting, his breath exploding out in a pained hiss, but he kept moving, his blade already inside the man's guard. From that position he shifted the angle of its edge and essentially 'punched' upwards, allowing the edge to slam into Skinner's arm even as Farren used his right arm to thrust the other half of the Blade of Mercy towards Skinner's heart.

Skinner's face, now only inches from Farren's, twisted into a broad, manic grin showing off yellowed teeth with sharp, elongated canines, though his equally wide and frenzied eyes lacked any of the raggedness that came with the scourge of beasts. Pressing down heavily on Farren's right shoulder with all of his strength and weight, Skinner pulled himself forward - at once incidentally displacing himself enough that Farren's thrust at his chest would miss the heart, while at the same time just allowing Farren to do so - , leaned in and opened his mouth. Farren would feel the floaty hit of something on the side of his neck warning him that he was about to get hurt.
Simultaneously, Skinner did nothing to stop Farren from chopping at his right arm; he seemed to be ignoring the Blades of Mercy and focusing entirely on the kill. Farren would feel a floaty impact of something hitting the left side of his ribcage, just below his armpit.
While all of this was happening, Torquil started circling around the other two counterclockwise, trying to get into a position where he could hit Skinner without hitting Farren.

Half a breath pulled in, filling his lungs, even as the sensations of impending attacks came into his awareness. As his right blade pierced Skinner's chest he acted upon them. Unable to move away with his shoulder locked in place by the bestial claws grinding against his bones, Farren instead let go of both his weapons and kicked his left foot, pushing his left side backwards as his right remained largely in place. Reorienting his body this way put his head and neck in a different position relative to where Skinner had been intent upon closing his teeth. Of course, it did mean he left one blade behind, impaled into the man's chest. Farren did manage to shift his right hand onto the grip of the other Blade of Mercy at which point he tried to begin a swing, attempting to slice the blade against bone and through the flesh of Skinner's arm. He kept that motion up until the blade would come down in a chop towards the side of the man's head and neck.

Skinner let out a dissatisfied grunt when Farren, in a burst of primitive survival instinct, decided to sacrifice his right shoulder to get his throat away from his opponent's teeth. Twisting like that in the grip of the bestial hand would undoubtedly be excruciatingly painful as skin, tendon and muscle cut and ripped and bone bent and cracked, sending rivulets of blood down the front and back of Farren's body. Even so he did manage to get away from Skinner's teeth, at least.
Reorienting his body like that naturally also changed the angle of his torso relative to the incoming attack from Skinner's right hand. Rather than hitting where Farren's premonition had told him it would, the long bladed fist weapon now instead hit and pierced into the front of his chest, where it plunged in and found its way to one of Farren's lungs.
Rather than do anything about Farren's attempts to continue to attack him directly, Farren would instead now become very aware that Skinner had anchored himself with both hands - his bestial hand in Farren's shoulder and his fist weapon in Farren's chest - as he felt both of those anchor points abruptly pulling upward, and Skinner quite simply just picked Farren high off the ground, holding him up over his head. Farren's entire orientation abruptly changing would likely change his intended course of action.
Torquil watched this with eyes wide in disbelief, but kept circling and raised his axe to strike.

A primal growl left his throat, half the pained grunt of a man and the sound of an injured beast as he tore apart his own shoulder to partially evade Skinner's assault. Then his feet left the ground and Farren's eyes widened slightly, but with nothing in his left hand, that hand already near his waist, he acted. In an instant, Farren pulled the blunderbuss from its hook at his hip, levered it up and unloaded its shot directly into Skinner's face in a rapid motion only a Hunter could manage.

In an instant marked by a muzzle flash and another loud gunshot, Skinner's face was turned into a bloody mess... though even torn to shreds, even with both eyeballs destroyed, his grin returned as his flesh regenerated. Because even blinded, he could still do what he wanted to do next.
Skinner's bestial hand tightened its grip on Farren even further, holding him in place, while he felt the right hand start dragging the blades to Farren's left, cutting through more of his organs and prying open his ribcage.

With little recourse left to him--and with his body screaming from the agony of having his chest violently pried open, shoulder destroyed, and various bones shattered or pulled asunder--Farren did the last thing he could think of. He pulled his right arm in practically against his collarbone, his closed fist still clutching the Blade of mercy as it came up over his left shoulder, the tip pointed forwards. This put his arm above Skinner's where he was clutching Farren's ribcage.
Farren realized he was practically howling and wasn't sure if it was more from pain, defiance, or rage. His voice was ragged and hoarse from his deflated, ravaged lung, but he did what little he could acting off almost pure adrenaline by that point. Short as the blade was, Skinner was close and it proved a boon as Farren aimed at the center of where the man's forehead had been before he'd blown it apart and then he slammed the tip of the blade forth. It cut through the tiny space between them almost soundlessly, its tip aimed to penetrate Skinner's skull and skewer his brain.

The Blade of Mercy stabbed into Skinner's forehead, and finally his grin faltered. Farren would feel the force trying to rip him apart slacken somewhat and, just half a second after, Skinner's entire body abruptly jolted forward as Torquil lodged his Hunter's Axe in his back.
With a low groan, Skinner clumsily chucked Farren forward and toward the elevator, relinquishing the grip of his left hand and retracting his fist weapon.

Farren experienced very little of what happened, just felt the pain slightly slacken, then the whistle of air, before a violent jerk as he struck something. That jerk--in a way--was a godsend, even though it had him hissing and groaning from the intense pain. Adrenaline continued to pump through him, even as blood poured from his wounds. Gritting his teeth hard, Farren dug the fingers of his right hand into his thigh and swallowed hard as he moved his left hand to his belt and clumsily fished in his pouch for a blood vial.
After a few tries, Farren got ahold of a vial and moved just his eyes rather than his head so he could see one of his legs. He positioned the needle-end of the vial above his thigh and then stabbed it down through his clothes and into his flesh. With how much pain he was in elsewhere, he didn't even feel it.

Half-excited that he had actually done something helpful for once and half-terrified over how horrendously Farren had gotten wounded, Torquil forced himself to concentrate on the urgent matter at hand. Skinner, despite having gotten cut, stabbed, chopped and now had a blade thrust into his forehead – not all the way to the hilt, but deep enough that it probably tasted brain – was still standing. His large left hand jerkily rose to the improvised horn in his forehead, grasped it and roughly dislodged it from his skull.
Torquil took half a step back and started winding up for another blow with his axe while trying to figure out where to aim it. Nothing seemed to really affect this monster all that much; even now, the wound in Skinner's forehead was closing before his very eyes, and all the damage Farren had desperately managed to do while being grappled had already healed. This man's regenerative potential had to be truly immense. Torquil wished he knew how to most effectively deplete that potential, but given that he did not know, all he could really do was to try to inflict wounds that would hinder his opponent for a moment before they mended themselves.

Angling his strike lower this time, Torquil swung his axe horizontally from right to left and lodged its blade deep in the right side of Skinner's abdomen. Then Torquil blinked confusedly, as he felt something hit him in the head even though nothing hit him... only for that feeling to be followed up half a second later by Skinner's enormous bestial left hand raking through the air behind him blindly. Mercifully Torquil happened to be too close to be in the path of the claws, but even catching the palm of that swing had enough blunt force behind it to sweep Torquil off his feet and throw him to the ground. Aside from that, though, it did not hurt that much; he got lucky.

While Farren was working on saving his life and Torquil was still reeling from the blow to his head, Skinner stumbled away from both of them and over to the dead church giant that lay just a few meters away. Without even an instant's hesitation he thrust both hands into the side of the giant's abdomen only to spread his hands to the side and tear a big hole right into the creature's steaming, bloody guts.
And again without hesitation, Skinner buried his face into the giant's intestines, seemingly content to ignore Farren and Torquil for the moment.

_Farren

coughed up more than a little blood, the rest swiftly being metabolized or otherwise reabsorbed as he felt a flush of heat roll through his blood. He gritted his teeth, groaning and exclaiming as bones began to snap back into place, knitting back together with a series of horridly sharp, itching, agonizing sensations. Farren snarled out a string of curses as he forced himself into motion only a half or so second after he’d begun healing, thrusting a hand into a pouch and extracting enough bullets for his blunderbuss and pistol. The first he brought in front of him swiftly, cocked it, reloaded in a series of swift motions, then dropped, hand blurring down to his pistol as he pushed to his feet, glanced behind him and then back stepped in a half-leap into the elevator. Farren knew intuitively that there would be no retreating from this, they’d either succeed or they’d die. Thus, as he landed on the elevator’s activation panel, he pushed back forward, ducking out of the cage before it slid shut–the lift already starting to ascend behind him. As his fingers nimbly finished reloading his pistol, Farren took a half step forward–moving swiftly–his body bending down so he could snatch up the blunderbuss as he broke into a dead sprint. He could see Skinner still feasting on the giant’s innards, but that couldn’t last, so he made every second count, transitioning into a slide and snatching up the Piercing Rifle as he did so, the bullet to reload it already in hand even as his mind reached out for the Messengers.

Skinner had both of his short range weapons and Farren had an idea, so as he reloaded the Piercing Rifle, he called upon the image of Bulwark as his slide let him easily transition into a position on one knee. Sliiiide. Clack, the bullet fell into place in the rifle and Farren braced the underside of its barrel on his upraised knee as he reached down with his other hand.

He felt nothing, which surprised him, having expected the sensation of clammy, wrinkled skin–then fingers–asf the Messengers touched him. Instead he only heard the strange telltale noises of their arrival as agonizing instants ticked forward while he stared ahead at Skinner, subtly lining up a shot with one arm. At the same time, as Farren kept his eyes fixed on the bestial madman, the gnarly, disgusting squelching racket of Skinner’s feasting made his bile rise even as his stomach growled. Farren spat to the side, the glob of saliva and mucus slightly pink from lingering blood.

“Not gonna die that easy,” he growled. Then the distinct sensation of leather and metal met his right hand, and he gripped Bulwark’s hilt, muttering his thanks to the Messengers. With any luck, the blood-mad bastard wouldn’t be familiar with the weapon.

By the time Skinner had gotten a couple of mouthfuls of bloody flesh from the giant and straightened back up, he revealed himself to be completely restored... with the exception of the Blade of Mercy that was still embedded in his chest, which he finally pulled out with an impatient grunt. Despite all the damage he had taken, and despite the fact that Torquil and Farren both seemed mostly at full strength as well, Skinner did not seem discouraged in the least. In fact he seemed thrilled, eager and filled with restless energy, his bulky body bulging obscenely as he flexed his Hunter-muscles and licked his lips...

Right up until he saw Farren seemingly conjure a sword out of thin air. Seeing that, Skinner's face immediately fell, his shoulders slumped, and all the energy that had filled him a second earlier seemed to vanish.
“Shit.” The man's voice was unusually deep and bassy, and betrayed a degree of annoyance. “You're like that immortal rat. There's no point if you're just going to disappear when I kill you.”

_Farren

narrowed his eyes, pushed to his feet and started to approach the man, finding himself surprisingly irritated by the man’s statement. “Never died before, so there’s no telling,” Farren replied, his voice gruff and filled with a dangerous edge as he stalked towards Skinner, Piercing Rifle in one hand, Bulwark in the other.

"Stop. I told you there's no point," Skinner growled, "but take another step and we'll find out if you can die."

Yet, even as the word ‘stop’ reached Farren, he finished his step–seeming as if he were actually going to listen, but the muzzle of the Piercing Rifle was already inconspicuously in position. Its muzzle flashed and the sharp report of gunfire issued as a lead bullet launched from the rifle’s barrel, aimed at Skinner's left knee (Skinner’s POV). This time, Farren didn’t drop the rifle as he launched forward in a dashing quickstep, snarling out two words, “Fuck you!”

Some unheard part of him screamed for him to stop, to avoid unnecessary risks, but his blood was up, surging like molten violence in his veins, and fuck if he wasn’t angrier than he’d ever been before.

Skinner observed Farren fire his rifle and the bullet hitting his leg sullenly. He sighed, and irritably swung his left hand and hurled the Blades of Mercy off in the distance, somewhere down the street. Skinner was no longer smiling; he was no longer having fun.

Farren’s eyes almost followed the Blades, but he snapped them back onto Skinner, noticing the man’s grim aspect–not that he cared if the man was enjoying himself or not. His jaw clenched tighter at the mishandling of the weapons and that additional insult added to his earlier injuries pushed another surge of fury through him. Yet, even as Farren approached he witnessed another, very different sort of shift as Skinner’s beast claw produced another of those strange pulses that spread up his arm and across his body, only this time without prompting any kind of physical transformation. Instead, sparks of lightning began arcing between the bone blades of the weapon, and the fur growing all over Skinner's body as well as the hair on his head stood up and started to exude a subtle bluish glow.

Farren narrowed his eyes at the sight, but he’d already set himself on a path and deviating too much would only disadvantage him further. That said, Farren tightened his grip on the Piercing Rifle and as he was almost in range he thrust it forward. Initially he appeared to be aiming at Skinner’s lower abdomen, but—if Skinner didn’t evade—as he was about to strike, Farren would tilt the weapon diagonally down and to the right so that it would enter just above Skinner’s hip and pierce down and forward as it continued.

Despite the Hunter clearly being consumed by rage and desire to murder him, Skinner did not move, but merely awaited Farren's assault. Only once Farren was about two meters from him did Skinner raise both his arms slightly... and Farren felt the Lake Rune warning him that he was about to be hit everywhere at once.

As that strange almost sensation washed over his entire body, Farren realized there wouldn’t be enough time for him to react–and even if there had been, he had no idea how to avoid whatever was coming. So, rather than attempt to quickstep, block, or act, he let go of the Piercing rifle, his hand already roughly at his belt, extracted a blood vial, and began to stab and depress it into his thigh in the same moment that whatever was about to happen suddenly struck.

As one might have expected given that the Lake Rune only offered half a second's warning, what happened next was extremely fast. Skinner swung his right hand in a horizontal slash, drawing a reaping arc through the air in front of him with the fist weapon. During the motion, the electricity wreathing his body seemed intensify on his right arm and on the bone blades of the beast claw in particular, shrouding the entire arm in blue, scintillating light while emitting a crackling noise as bigger and bigger sparks sprang from it. As he slashed, the crackling built to a crescendo roar of thunder as a veritable wave of destruction sprang forth, crawling across the ground with lightning reaching upward into the air like fingers trying to grasp at everything in their path.
The attack hit Farren point-blank, sending electricity coursing powerfully through his entire body, which would most likely not be a pleasant experience and was liable to wreck havoc on his brain, muscles and nerves on top of burning and melting whatever it touched.
But on top of that, the crawling lightning did not stop at Farren, but kept moving past him and spreading to envelop the street behind him. Torquil, who was just moving to join Farren's assault, saw danger approaching before he felt the warning from the Lake Rune himself, and reflexively raised the Loch Shield, since he could not see any way for him to evade the coming wave. The electric blast hit... and surprisingly did not hurt as much as Torquil was expecting. Most of the lightning that would have fried his body seemed to instead be drawn to and absorbed into the glass front of his shield, momentarily trapping its bluish light within it.

Less than a second later, having barely finished the broad slash that had summoned the lightning, Skinner rushed toward Farren with eyes filled with blue light. His bestial left hand, already in a ready position, moving toward Farren's right arm. Strangely, Farren would not feel a warning from the Lake Rune.

_Farren

felt his eyes widen, but before he could do anything further than complete the motion to depress the blood vial into his thigh, the voltaic current coursed through him. A twitchy surge of uncontrollable heat, pain, and disorientation washed through his body. For an instant his vision flashed and sparked and bubbled. The pain was far more intense than anyone could really stomach as the current caused his nervous system to fire in random intervals at a huge variety of intensities. That in tangent with the heat had Farren losing a sense of his body in a way he’d basically never experienced before, so much so that even had the Lake Rune triggered, he would not have detected the floaty–subtle–sensation that always seemed to preempt damage.

Discombobulated, disoriented, and on some level deeply displeased, Farren could do nothing as Skinner’s bestial left hand reached out for his right arm. In fact, only as Skinner began to make contact and apply some amount of pressure did Farren react, his vision slowly beginning to clear and his senses start to recover. Somehow, despite it all, Farren had managed to keep hold of the sword in his right hand–in fact his grip was painfully tight on the blade’s hilt and wrapped handle.

Features still twitching randomly, hair standing partially on end from the current that had surged through him, Farren’s azure eyes locked with Skinner’s.

The large, clawed fingers closed around Farren's right wrist, but though Farren made preemptive efforts to avoid having the sword wrested from his grip, no attempt was made at removing it. Skinner's hold on the wrist was tight and powerful enough to prevent Farren from moving his hand significantly, but quite notably – as Farren himself could attest to, having felt that very same hand practically crushing his shoulder – far from as strong as it could have been. It was an arresting grab with a hand that could easily have broken bones or even ripped the arm clean off. A faint tingle of electric currents could also be felt passing from those fingers and into Farren, but their intensity were so low that they barely even registered as uncomfortable, especially compared to the powerful surge he had just been exposed to.
Skinner's right arm raised quickly to hold the topmost bone blade of the fist weapon against Farren's throat, but once again it stopped there, simply holding in place threateningly rather than slicing through his jugulars and air-pipe, if not downright beheading him.

Being this close to Skinner and looking him straight in the eye, Farren might notice that Skinner's own skin was lightly sizzling, being continuously burned and regenerated by the lightning he was infused with. His hair and fur, alight with energy, also released slivers of smoke that filled the air with a terrible stench of burnt hair.
For a second Skinner's eyes met Farren's, mirroring his fury and pain alike, before the murderer's focus shifted from Farren to Torquil, who was running to join the fight.
“I told you to bloody stop!” Skinner growled, tightening his grip on Farren's wrist enough to make it painful and increasing the pressure of the bone blade enough that its somewhat dull edge bit into his skin slightly. “Last chance, or I'll tear your damn arm off and shove it down your throat!”

_Farren

felt his nose wrinkle as the scent of burning hair and flesh and leathers reached him, but for a moment that was all he could do, aside from tense instinctually. Yet, though the threat of violence remained, Skinner had stopped. Farren let out a slow, hissing breath and turned his head–keeping his eyes on the bastard–as he spat on the ground right beside the man.“You’re a real fucking bastard,” Farren gritted out, every cell in his body thrumming with a mixture of barely contained rage and bloodlust. Yet, as the pain of the electrical attack began to fade into almost pleasant tingles interspersed with static shocks that trailed over the surface of his skin, clothes and hair. Farren winced reactively–not so much in pain, but as a series of smaller muscles twitched in his face outside of his control. He yanked his right arm, but couldn’t pry free of Skinner.

While he hadn’t been rendered immobile and could ostensibly attack with any of the firearms at his waist, he’d effectively disarmed himself, which was made even more apparent as the Piercing Rifle finally clattered against the cobbles just beside his foot–he’d dropped it mere instants before to use the blood vial. Not able to do much without triggering what would surely be an exceptionally immediate and agonizing reprisal, Farren thought things through. If he tried to act, he’d only waste resources at this point…either in the form of time as the man likely killed him–which would surely be an enlightening, if exceptionally wasteful, existentially unpleasant, and certainly painful experience–or in the form of additional blood vials as he tried to heal himself either during further conflict…or after the man had maimed him beyond his capacity to keep fighting. Alternatively, he could do what Skinner had ordered–stop.

Though the blood he’d recently imbibed made it difficult, Farren muscled his way through the haze of fervent violence coursing through his veins, clouding his typically pragmatic mind, and made the latter choice. “Fine. Torquil…stand down.” The first word was–due to the sheer strain and vitriol in it–nearly an expletive, whereas the latter phrase was called out as he quarter turned his head, allowing his voice to travel more easily past his body. All the while he kept his nearly-glowing blue eyes locked on Skinner’s, clearly not trusting him–and for good reason.

“There's a good lad,” Skinner growled sarcastically, shooting another ominous glare at Torquil as he hesitantly followed Farren's orders and stopped his charge. “You'll have to excuse me for not letting you go right away, but I have this strange feeling that you'd still try to kill me if I did. I've already had one Hunter coming back each time I killed her, hounding me endlessly; I'd rather not do that again. So let's talk. See if we can't work something out here that'll let us go our separate ways.”


It was about at this time that Ophelia, having quickened her pace to a sprint when she heard Farren shoot his blunderbuss, arrived at the top of the elevator. By this time the folding doors were already open and the elevator itself was waiting to accept her, and if she were to glance past it and the metal handrail at the edge of the plateau, she would be able to spot the standoff below. Torquil standing just five meters or so from the others, shield raised and axe at the ready, while Farren was held in the grip of a man even bigger than him, clad in strange tatters and with a body that looked to be half-human, half-beast.
The creature below was gripping Farren's sword-arm with a large, bestial left hand, while its right hand was held up, a bladed fist-weapon of some kind pressed threateningly to Farren's throat. She could not hear what they were saying from this distance.

_Farren

stared at the half-transmogrified hunter–if you could call a deplorable murderer like him such a thing–his eyes half-narrowed with suspicion, anger, and disgust. Farren may have been thinking more rationally now, but he still was not the least bit pleased with his circumstances. Still, oddly, after a moment, a faint glimmer came into his eyes and he let out a solitary, clipped, laugh, throwing his head back a moment before meeting Skinner’s gaze again. “Bargaining for your life are we? Don’t want to be hounded by your own retinue of immortal hunters with a taste for your blood?”

Farren realized he was smiling, the absurdity of things having somewhat pushed him over from rage into a dark–cruel–bloody sort of humor. It felt familiar for some reason…like an old trusty coat he’d forgotten he liked so much, that he’d forgotten he had. Of course, the irony of his words weren’t lost on him, given that Skinner could quite literally skewer him at any moment. Thing was, both Skinner and him both knew how pointless it would be. Farren would just come back, madder than ever and equipped with more knowledge about Skinner’s particular brand of violence than he had been at the start of their encounter. “Fine. Aside from the strength in your blood, the hell do ya ‘ave to offer?”

Ophelia hadn't begun sprinting at the first gunshot--that could've been anything at all. Hearing random, errant gunshots on a Night of the Hunt was no more irregular than anything else... but the second was enough to make Ophelia begin to sprint as quickly as she could. The path they'd followed was obvious--not footprints, exactly, but markers of where they'd been and where Ophelia needed to go. She was frighteningly quick now, quicker than she'd ever thought would be possible, but this pace was going to tire even her suddenly extraordinary stamina. It'd be okay--there'd be time to stop and rest before she joined... well, what she presumed was the confrontation, but she really didn't have any idea. She'd heard of this 'Skinner' before, though--hushed and horrified whispers, hearkened to by harrowed and haunted hanger-ons... tales of sadistic violence, of corpses missing entire swathes of their skin. Ophelia knew well the kind of determination and precision that such macabre butchery required from her time in Hemwick taking bodies apart... and she knew that to enjoy it on such a primal level was a sure sign of a beast. Perhaps not by blood, or by disease, but by kinship--but spirit, and sympathy.

She reckoned that beings like that, like the Pallid man and his little runt, like this "Soulkeeper" or "Corval" or "Skinner"... they all needed to die. The heat did not return to her as it did before, her blood cooled as it was by the glorious light of Mother Moon. She felt only a cold and cresting radiance, searing yet frigid, like all the coolness and pitilessness of night but the incandescence of day--and it spurred her to action not in that rash and violent way, but conniving and concentrated. She took the little bell, the Moonborn Bell, and withdrew it from her person right as she stepped onto the elevator. She noticed that it had already returned up for her--and could spot the smudges from footwear having recently padded across it. She rang it soulfully and pleadingly, measured and focused, and she whispered a little prayer under her breath:

"Come, Moonborn Hunter, and let us grace them all with Her radiance. I call you to Hunt, dear, for the night will be long."

After the Moonborn Hunter materialised, Ophelia operated the lift to send it down once again--ready to continue looking for Farren, Torquil and Victor.

Skinner's eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched with suppressed anger as Farren mocked and goaded him, flaunting his immortality in this ferocious Hunter. But though his irritation was obvious, he did not act upon it; the bestial hand holding Farren's wrist maintained a firm yet careful grip, immobilizing him without causing unnecessary pain or injury, and the bone blade at his throat remained still and stable.
“I can teach you my Caryll –,” Skinner began, only for his sentence to be cut off by the very audible, supernaturally loud and piercing sound of a resonant bell, soon followed by the noise of the elevator starting to move again. Skinner's eyes instantly went wide with undisguised fear; all the rage and confidence from before vanished and gave way to an expression of pure terror.
“The Pthumerian is alive?” he breathed, his eyes flicking rapidly from the elevator to Farren, to Torquil and back to the elevator, and back to Farren again. Swallowing, Skinner begged: “Please... don't.”
Without waiting for acknowledgment of the request, let alone agreement to it, the giant half-beast Hunter relinquished his hold on Farren and withdrew the blade from his throat, only to instantly quickstep backward – leaving the air he darted through crackling with shed hairs still containing traces of electric energy – and raised and crossed his arms in front of him, drawing an X with his hands up and elbows down in an effort to shield himself.

In the elevator, the Moonborn Bell in Ophelia's hand produced a sound that was reminisce of the one they had heard from Pallid's bell, and weirdly visible waves of distorting reality spreading from the elegant little silver bell. She did not have to wait long... or at all, it turned out. As soon as the tiny clapper made its first contact with the lip and produced the first “ding”, a glowing circle appeared on the floor of the elevator in front of Ophelia. It was just like when Pallid had summoned his Mad One, except now the hole ripped through reality shone with pale white radiance rather than ominous red. On the second “ding”, the familiar form of the Shopkeeper appeared to simply rise out of the hole as if standing on an elevator of their own.
They stood, facing Ophelia, and cocked their head. They were, quite noticeably, unarmed.

_Farren

couldn’t help but grin at Skinner’s reaction as he allowed himself to openly enjoy the murderer’s frustration. However, it didn’t last long and was soon replaced by the clarion call of an unfamiliar bell–though one with a similar timbre to the one Pallid had once wielded. That single sound had Skinner freezing in place, but for Farren, it just made his amusement deepen. Ophelia had nearly arrived, and as if to accentuate that fact, he heard the mechanical shifting of gears followed immediately by the steady noise of the shifting chain and its many links. As Skinner’s confidence–and even irritation–vanished, Farren tilted his head slightly, his grin becoming a more lopsided smirk. This guy was afraid of the Pthumerian of all people? Certainly, Pallid had been able to conjure all sorts of nightmarish things, but he had ultimately fallen rather easily, all considered. Though, Farren supposed that had he been alone he could not have done it. Then again…Skinner seemed far stronger than him–for now at least.

At the same time, Farren found himself slightly galled, as realistically the conflict had more or less concluded…unless….


Farren’s eyelid twitched a second, then third time, and he finished taking a breath. The intrusive imagery, the sound, the grinding of the link, the flash of gunfire and black powder, and the sickening crunch of bone and flesh as the elevator struck ground–warping with a terrible screech–all fled his mind almost as soon as they had entered it. Only an instant had passed, but he found that Skinner had dashed back and away from him. Having taken on a defensive posture, clear terror in his aspect, Farren took a step towards him and, as his leading right foot planted on the ground, he used his heel to skillfully kick the Piercing Rifle upwards and in a forward curving arc behind him. Farren snatched the rifle by reaching back over his shoulder in a flash, then brought it back down by his hip as he spoke, taking another step closer–continuing his very slow approach.

“What, Pallid?” Farren chuckled easily, almost mockingly, “Yeah, decided to leave him alive, for a price,” he lied, the words leaving his lips with ease that surprised him–as if they were actually true. Huh.

No time to dig into that now.

“So, a Caryll Rune. That all? The strength of your blood still strikes me as more alluring,” he added, almost surprised that those words were actually honest. As he spoke, Farren gripped the the Piercing Rifle at his left side with his middle, ring, and little fingers while he used his thumb and pointer to retrieve a lead bullet from the pouch at his hip and then insert it into the rifle.

Growling in his throat, slowly backing away while trying to look at everything at once while keeping his guard up, Skinner did not respond to Farren's words... not least because by the time he had finished speaking, the elevator had reached the bottom and its folding doors opened. Immediately – literally within a fraction of a second of the doors had opening enough for there to be room – the Shopkeeper stepped out of there, turned ninety degrees to his left and unfailingly faced directly in Skinner's direction. They cocked their head. And sprinted straight at him.

“Leave me alone!” Skinner roared, throwing his right arm wide for a second, accumulating a major surge of electricity and then performing a reaping slash at the air in front of him, unleashing another wave of lightning that spread out across the street in front of him, straight toward Farren, Torquil and the Shopkeeper.
The Shopkeeper did not so much as slow down and simply took the lightning head-on. A second later they moved past Farren and, as they did so, threw up both arms over their head to seemingly grasp the air... only for a transformed Beast Cutter to spontaneously manifest in their hands with a flash of blue light. They swung forward and downward in a violent arc, causing the large blade-segments connected by wire to get flung ahead at blinding speeds.
Skinner only barely managed to quickstep out of the way before the blade-segment at the tip of the whip – reaching nearly five meters from the Shopkeeper – slammed into the street with enough force to shatter stone and embed itself deep into the ground. But rather than try to recover their weapon, the Shopkeeper merely let go, upon which the Beast Cutter vanished in another flash.
“Wait! Stop!” Skinner pleaded.
But the Shopkeeper was already running again.

_Farren

would have sighed, but again there was no time, so ended up sharply exhaling as he surged into motion the very moment that Skinner began his reaping arc. This time, wise to the nature of the attack–and not the central target of it, Farren erupted into a quickstep, his rifle already fully reloaded. Moving almost perpendicular to where he predicted the natural boundary of the attack would be–based on having experienced it once already–Farren managed to just barely escape the clutching, sparking, tendrils of voltaic energy as they cascaded forth from Skinner’s motion. At about the same time, Farren bore witness to the Shopkeeper’s devastating potency, the rapidly extending beast-cutter practically flaying the air in a viscous whipping motion before it rendered cobble back into its a baser state.

Though Farren’s eyes widened at the stunning sight, he didn’t stop moving, if negotiations were over, so be it. “Leave ‘im alive!” Farren barked as he broke into a dead sprint in a curving arc to circle around Skinner’s left side to come in behind and to the man’s left. As he ran, Farren flipped his rifle over his shoulder and into its harness in one smooth motion before he let that same left arm drop down and grasp his already lead-loaded blunderbuss, bringing it to bear before he began to fully close the distance between himself and Skinner.