[IC] Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

[Dark Jack]

Industrial Ward, Southeastern Yharnam

“Can't say that I have,” Moira responded to Farren's question, walking off to examine some of the gashes carved into the ground. She laid her Impaler on the ground next to her while reaching her hands into the crevice – for the clawmark was wide and deep enough that both of her hands could comfortably fit in there – before picking up her weapon again and walking over to the enormous feather. “I agree, though: the one who did this was not human. Whether it is beast or something else...”
She crouched by the feather to examine a small puddle of blood. Again she set down her oversized spear, only to this time take off one of her gloves as well to dip the tip of her index-finger in the blood. She spent a moment rubbing her index-finger against her thumb, feeling the texture of the blood between them, before raising it to her face and sniffing deeply... only to raise her visor and lick her bloodstained fingertip.
“Definitely a beast,” she finally asserted, lowering her visor and retrieving her weapon before standing back up. “Big. Bigger than this one.” She gestured to the dead cleric beast. “Probably the biggest beast I've encountered. Too big. Too many unknowns.”
She turned to her Black Church Hunters. “We're aborting the hunt. We need more information. Probably more Hunters, too. Maybe ask Dietrich for help.”

While all of that was going on, a pair of Messengers appeared in front of Ophelia and held up a scroll for her:

Hi Ophelia!
That's amazing! Of course I'll definitely want to meet you as soon as possible! I'll finish up what I'm doing and head straight for the Hunter's Dream! This is so exciting!
With love,
Gerlinde

Message to Ophelia

[Tuujaimaa]

Ophelia

Ophelia swallowed at the revelations Farren and Moira provided, sinking deep into thought for a moment. Beasts were savage things, whose entire world had been swallowed to a pinprick of feral instinct--something smart enough to do this, to have this level of sapience... Did such a thing even deserve to be called a beast? Was it capable of choosing reason over violence? If it was, and it still chose violence... was it still a beast, even then? The questions gnawed at her, but were batted away by a vast and deep well of... hatred? Fear? Something dark and foreboding, some relic of her past that she just could not quite connect to any solid memory... something that she'd buried herself, or that the ministration had taken from her? Whatever it was, it lashed out with that same malice as had been directed at Victor earlier and the cognitive realisation of it finally hitting her over the emotional understanding broke her brief reverie.

"Would you like me to pass the message on to Dietrich, dear? It's a simple matter for us to hop through the Dream, after all, and it could save you some time. Whatever it was, it being unknown is the worst option. If we know, we can plan--and if we can plan, we can kill it." She offered, smiling sweetly though with a hint of melancholy in her slightly wavering voice and a subtle sigh that could be mistaken for a sudden exhalation.

Then the Messengers returned with a scroll, and Ophelia read it eagerly. The tone and contents intrigued her, the first look into the character of this Gerlinde--she seemed... almost childlike, Ophelia thought, and clearly lonely. She'd met many such souls in Central Yharnam after the Night of the Blood Moon--what few Yharnamites remained had lost most of their connections and their livelihoods, most of the people they'd ever known were simply gone. The foreigners who'd come in, the people like Farren and Moira, had been so new to it all then and making sense of a landscape that had just suffered a cataclysmic change... It was a beacon for those with nothing more to lose, and everything to build. If they could find succour in one another, a life less lonely and with some purpose to strive for... That would be something, wouldn't it?

"I don't suppose you can see the little ones anymore, Moira? A reliable way to communicate would be nice... Is there maybe an intermediary at the Black Workshop that we could use, if you're not there? I remember that name being on one of the big headstones--or if there's another location you know of that would work? If you're inclined at all, of course, love."

[Dark Jack]

Industrial Ward, Southeastern Yharnam

Moira looked to Ophelia. “No reason to call on Dietrich yet. Still don't know what we're dealing with. Might be overkill. Might not be enough.” She turned back to her Hunters. “You head back. Go hunt something else. I'll stay a while and survey the area. See if I can learn more.”
All three Black Church Hunters looked at each other for a moment before Liam took a step forward. “We can help, Mother Moira.”
But Moira shook her head. “I'm not hunting, I'm scouting. Not going to fight. One person can hide better than several.”
She turned back to Ophelia. “I don't see the little ones anymore, no. I see other things, but not them. If you need me, your best bet is at our workshop. But I'm not like Dietrich. I'm not a logistics officer, and I'm definitely not a politician. I'm a Hunter. Also technically a priest, but that's not worth much around here. I'm most useful when I'm out hunting. I'll resupply at the workshop.”

[yoshua171]

_Farren

found himself not liking the prospect of retreat, despite the risks involved with staying, but he said nothing. Not at first. For a time he simply listened, though after taking in Moira’s initial steps to investigate–including her tasting the beast’s blood–Farren turned his attention elsewhere. He slowly scanned around them, though he couldn’t see far past their huddle due to the fog. After a moment–as Ophelia and the others spoke–Farren closed his eyes and focused on the sounds he could hear, and just as relevantly…what he didn’t.

Sadly, not much stood out to him, only the drone of machinery, voltaic or otherwise, the sound of muffled voices, grunts, and bodies moving beyond the safe walls of nearby buildings. The faint shifting of avian forms–feathers and claws both–which certainly originated from the crows they’d seen on almost every nearby structure.

Farren took a deep breath, but smelled only the blood and viscera of the courtyard intermingled with the acrid aromas of the industrial ward. Farren relaxed slightly, but not because he felt safer, rather to save energy. Maintaining too much tension was a tiring thing, so he endeavored not to, difficult as it was with all the strangeness that surrounded them.

Opening his eyes as Moira finished dismissing the concerns of the other new hunters, Farren glanced at Ophelia, then Torquil, before looking back to Moira.

“There was a warehouse back where we started, seemed…particularly odd, similar feathers nearby, though smaller,” he offered, perhaps giving her somewhere to look, a place to start her investigation since she seemed done with the courtyard already. “I’ll be headed there as well,” he added, half turning, his eyes seeming to pierce through the fog to stare back in the direction they had come. In his mind’s eye, he pulled upon the turns of their trek to the courtyard–or plaza perhaps. It was hard to say precisely what purpose this area held given how much context the fog obscured.

“After that…not sure, but the hunt beckons, and I’d rather like more echoes before we’re forced to face whatever manner of monstrosity did this.”