Dark Jack

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Clinic, in the outskirts of Yharnam

Ophelia quickstepped to get away, slipping away from the grasping claws of the beast-man that attempted to close around her, past the Mad One that was now looking confusedly at its empty hand, and inside. She darted through quickly, but not quickly enough that beast-man could not follow her with his eyes, prompting him to follow her with loud, heavy strides, eager to not only seize his vengeance, but also sate his hunger. He stomped forth, blazing eyes focused on her through the doorway...
Only for a large, black-skinned hand to reach up from beside him, grasp him by the right shoulder in an iron-grip, its claws digging into his flesh. He looked down and growled in frustrated anger, to find his own glare answered by the insanity shining out of the Mad One's twisted grimace. He clawed the Mad One across the face with his left hand, and the Mad One struck him on the side of his head with its cane. They both healed nigh-instantly, and attacked again, and again, each unable to kill the other, but determined to keep trying to do so regardless.

Inside, Victor remained a bulwark between Ophelia and Farren, and the three huntsmen that were still standing. Rather than keep fighting with the giant form of his weapon, Victor detached the small sword from its blade-scabbard and left the huge, bloodstained blade partially embedded in the floor while he used the small sword to slash at and drive back the huntsmen.
Of the three, one was wielding a pitchfork, one a hatchet and one, standing behind the others somewhat, a rifle, raised and aimed at the Hunter. Another gunshot filled the room as another bullet pierced Victor's flesh; the pitchfork-wielder used his reach-advantage to keep stabbing Victor while staying out of range of his sword; and the hatchet-wielder stayed in close, simply bearing Victor's counterattacks while keeping him in place.
Victor's once-white and pristine garb was now thoroughly torn and soaked in blood, but somehow the man stayed on his feet and kept fighting. There was nothing elegant or honorable about the way he fought; he swung his sword wildly with no thought for technique nor grace, simply lashing out against his enemies, chopping and slashing them, while getting shot, stabbed and cut himself.

And while the beast-man and the Mad One became entangled in each other's blind rage, and Victor bore the assault of the huntsmen, Farren moved on the one he called Pallid. Moved to cut, to slay... and to silence the bell. He rushed forward
– ding –
and found that with each step closer, not only did the terrible visions and feelings of paranoia grow stronger, but the sound of the bell also seemed to grow unnaturally louder. Each chime sent ripples through his body, making every fiber of his being vibrate softly, charged with an energy he did not understand. Another step
– ding –
and the vibration felt even stronger, faster, and the sound grew almost deafeningly loud in his ears, though its actual volume was unchanged. The itch grew worse, all over, as he moved another stride
– ding –
and felt something moving under his skin. The visions consumed him, the touch of that golden relic echoing through his mind and threatening to blind him to the world around him. He felt this forgotten madness spread through not only his mind, but his body as well, like an electric current that was both painful and pleasurable, a sense of strength and vulnerability.
He prepared to swing his blade, putting all his strength into this single attack. The hoarse man kept ringing his bell more and more desperately, fear plainly written upon his face, yet he made no move to dodge nor block; he simply kept ringing his bell. Farren took his final step
– ding –
when a toll of the bell hit him, and he felt everything inside of him clench – muscles, tendons, bones, even his teeth – and then, all at once, shift to a hundred different forms than the one they were meant to have, changing so quickly that it would probably not even be perceivable to the naked eye. With a feeling that was a mix of torment and euphoria, his body seemingly spontaneously self-destructed, his skin cracking and splitting in countless wounds in a cascade in what seemed like an entirely excessive amount of blood.

But even so his blade still swung and struck true, carving into the thin, feeble body of the hoarse man, and the bell fell silent. The bell-ringer fell backward into the wall behind him, clutching the deep, bleeding gash carved into his chest with both hands while his bell and cane alike clattered noisily to the floor.
Before Ophelia's eyes, the red glow in the huntsmen's eyes abruptly extinguished, and vapor-like clouds billowed from their bodies as they all hobbled backward, their expressions turning to confusion and pain, and the weapons fell from fingers too weak to hold them. Behind her, outside, the beast-man's eyes likewise lost their glow and his body produced a similiar column of smoke as it stumbled and fell forward, through the Mad One, whose black form seemed to give way to the pressure, disintegrate and fade back into whatever nightmare it had hailed from.

The price, of course, was Farren's to pay. The damage he had just sustained from the dark magic of the bell plainly pushed him beyond the capacity of his regenerative potential. It was not enough to instantly kill him, but it left him badly injured.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Clinic, in the outskirts of Yharnam

The Mad One abundantly demonstrated that while it was fragile and had not seemed to regenerate before, it possessed incredible powers of healing now that it was continuously wrapped in that ominous light from whence it had come. First it grew an entire new lower body, and now replaced its lost head so fast that it seemed less like regeneration and more like an already fully-formed head simply emerged from within. And each time it had been hit – first when Torquil severed its leg, then several times in Farren's initial assault and now when he beheaded it – the pulsating purple glow within its body, though somewhat obscured by the red shroud surrounding it, grew even stronger.
Looking at the facts before them, it certainly seemed that Farren made the right choice in disengaging from the monster, and even more so that he quickstepped as soon as possible, as it helped him barely escape the swift, grasping hand that shot out to grab him. The once-slow and lethargic creature now seemed to be absolutely brimming with energy, to the point where new glowing cracks were constantly opening up in its skin and closing again.
As Torquil lay on the ground, his vision still blurry and his body heavy from the concussion his newly acquired Hunter-regeneration was doubtlessly working on remedying, he saw and, rather uncharacteristically for him, understood. While this inhuman black figure had seemed an unsettling but harmless puppet of the hoarse man, it was now clear that it was a fearsome opponent indeed; one that seemed indestructible, and seemed to be empowered by the damage it took.
So indeed, Torquil completely understood Farren running off, especially since he went back inside the clinic, where the bell-ringing bastard was. He even smiled a crooked smile of relief, happy that Farren was able to get away from this hopeless fight.

Torquil still smiled when the Mad One turned its blazing red eyes back to him, lying almost helpless right next to it, and the black hand that had failed to seize Farren instead palmed Torquil's face. Its long, clawed fingers closed around his skull with a strength that felt like it would have crushed the head of a normal human, and lifted him off the ground somewhat, raising his head what felt like a meter or so over the ground.
Then it slammed him back down again, lifted him, and slammed him down again. Over and over again, insanely fast and with impossible strength, painting the cobblestone of the road with Torquil's blood. Bits of hair and chunks of scalp were left behind, and Torquil's body just flopped around limply as the creature took out its anger on him. Only... after a few seconds of this, Torquil's body – and all the blood and bits of him that had been scattered on the ground – seemed to rapidly lose opacity, only to vanish completely in another couple of seconds.

Farren, however, did not witness any of this; he had rushed back inside the clinic and joined Victor in facing down the huntsmen. The situation did not seem to have improved since Farren's first glance through the doorway; though all but one huntsman – one of the riflemen – had bloodstained clothes marked with cuts or bullet-holes, they all bizarrely seemed to be unharmed. Farren would likely realize that regular Yharnamites were not supposed to demonstrate such immense powers of regeneration, though he would likely also realize that just like the Mad One and the beast-man outside, the huntsmen's eyes now burned with a supernatural fiery light. The once meek and fearful men fought fervently, even smiled and laughed in the face of battle, as the wounds Victor had cut into them – and the ones Farren cut to try to get past – healed almost as fast as they were inflicted.
Behind them, huddled in the far-left corner of the reception, the hoarse man kept ringing his bell. The cane in his right hand was wrapped in a crimson aura, and faintly visible ripples seemed to distort space around the bell itself.
– ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding –
Going inside also meant getting closer to the bell, of course, which made the visions haunting Farren even stronger. He started itching all over, and it felt like there was someone behind him that was not actually there.

Beside him, Victor produced an inarticulate grunt as he slashed widely one last time in a vain effort to force back the huntsmen a little, only to then swiftly – continuing the arc of the slash – maneuver his hand around his back. There was an audible, familiar metallic click as the small sword locked into the blade-scabbard, which in turn detached itself from the mechanism holding it in place on his back. Victor grit his teeth and, leaving his blunderbuss hanging from his hip, grasped the hilt of his weapon with both hands before levering it over and off his right shoulder, bringing it down in a huge, diagonal swing, carving straight through two of the huntsmen... and clearing the path in front of Farren, leaving him free to approach the one he called Pallid.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Outside the Hunter's Clinic, in the outskirts of Yharnam

The beast-man attacked, and this time Ophelia, feeling the burn of quickstepping, relied on comparatively human movements to evade. Fortunately the intense, feral rage guiding the creature's actions made it clumsy and predictable, but even so it still moved faster than most humans would be able to. Even so it saved her from being torn to ribbons as it had intended, reducing the damage to merely being raked across the back by one clawed hand as she rolled past, ripping through her clothes and marking her flesh with their sharp, painful touch.
When both of them came to a stop again, now having moved past each other, Ophelia would feel the pain of her superficial injury swiftly receding as it regenerated. The beast-man spun around to face her again, hands raised and poised to pounce on her again... when his eyes inexorably drifted from Ophelia to his freshly bloodied claws. He stared at his hand with wide, manic eyes, and started trembling. Licked his lips with an unhumanly long and wide tongue. His breath quickened, and when the beast-man turned his attention back to Ophelia after a couple of seconds, the hatred and fury from before had been replaced with something even more primitive: hunger.

Farren rushed through, and got a brief glance through the door to the reception of the clinic, where he would see Victor less than a meter past the threshold, boxed in and obstructed by a wall of three huntsmen. The Hunter seemed to have willingly impaled himself on the middle huntsman's waiting pitchfork, with the farming implement embedded into his abdomen, while the huntsmen to each side chopped at him with a hatchet and a saber, respectively... except that the hatchet-wielder to the right was halted mid-motion by a swift rising slash of Victor's sword, carving a wound from the huntsman's groin to his neck.
Then Farren was past the door, and though he could still hear the now-familar sound of two rifle-shots in quick succession, he did not see it. Instead he focused on attacking the Mad One, setting into a series of complex, rapid slashes with his two sabers.
Just as Torquil before him, Farren would find that carving into this creature did not at all feel how he expected. It felt less like cutting meat and bone and more like hitting a husk of charcoal and ash. The wounds he dealt did not bleed, nor did he feel any trace of what one would expect to be inside a creature. No muscles or tendons, not even any bones... just that uniform bizarre imitation of flesh, breaking, cracking and crumbling where he struck it. The first attack tore away a large chunk of its chest and abdomen, and the second attack completely bisected it at the waist, leaving it collapsing onto the ground.
For anyone paying attention, it would be quite evident that the Mad One – especially compared to the rapid healing demonstrated by everyone else currently fighting in the area – was not regenerating. But the purplish glow that filled the interior of its body grew brighter, as did the dual blazes pouring from its eyes.

In-between yells of anger, cries of pain and the telltale sounds of metal rending flesh from inside the clinic, the symphony of battle was punctuated by another gunshot, though one that sounded different than the rifle-shots. A louder, more powerful boom from what was not unreasonable to presume to be Victor's blunderbuss.
But then...
Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding –
It was the easily recognizable sound of the hoarse man's bell, only now it was not graceful short, controlled chime, but a hectic, continuous ringing, as if it was just being rung as quickly and strongly as possible.

The sound was loudest to Farren, who was right next to the door to the clinic. Flashes of gold flitted across his mind's eye at the sound, and he suddenly felt as though he was being watched.
It was not as intense for Ophelia, but it was no less distracting as her thoughts were filled even more with eyes than usual – eyes on the outside, eyes on the inside, eyes inside herself, Caryll runes, ghostly, slug-like phantasms writhing in her head...

And while Farren and Ophelia tried to deal with the effect the bell had on them, they were not the only ones. On the ground where the Mad One had fallen, its ruined form was bathed in ominous red light, and it just regrew its body. The enormous gash across its torso mended in but a fraction of a second, and from its severed abdomen, new legs burst out of its body.
Over by Ophelia, a similar red glow enveloped the beast-man's form. His already sizable frame grew even taller and wider, his fur and claws longer and his entire frame bulged with obscenely large muscles. His eyes – just like the Mad One's, and just as when the bell had last chimed – glowed red.

The Mad One did not even try to stand back up, but swung its cane at Farren from the ground, moving even faster now than when it had attacked Torquil.
The beast-man stepped toward Ophelia again, moving in low this time and with both arms outstretched to the sides, as if to encircle and grapple her.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

A familiar character in a familiar situation, but unfamiliar surroundings... another world and another time

1

Excruciating pain pierced his body as flesh was rent apart and stitched back together by threads of magic. He felt his body being remade even as his spirit arrived to inhabit it, its physical traits being altered from what it had been to what suited his nature. The process was short but harrowing; none of his senses worked except to experience the agony of being reborn, he could not move nor breathe, and he did not know where he was or why he was there.
Then air rushed in to fill his freshly formed lungs and he felt his weight come to rest on a pair of strong legs. As if waking up abruptly from a deep slumber, the world came crashing down on his senses all at once, momentarily overwhelming him: the smell of fresh blood; the sound of frantic, shouting voices; the warmth of a late summer evening.
His vision came last as the complex organs that were his eyes settled into their new shape. He found himself in what appeared to be a small room of the kind that were typically found in Rodorian inns, adequate yet sparsely furnished. At his feet lay a piece of parchment with the telltale scorch-marks of a cheaply written incantation, still smoking from its contents being destroyed by the magic channeled through it. And ahead of him, perhaps two meters from where he stood, was a broken door hanging off its top hinge, swung open to reveal two armor-clad men.
The men stared at him with eyes wide in fear and uncertainty. One held an arming sword in his hand while the other wielded a short spear, both of which were stained with blood.
But even more telling was the crest on the tabards they wore over their armor: the full-body profile of a drake, wings outstretched, tail coiled and talons primed to strike.
A cold, sharp sense of dread came over him. Crusaders...
His attention shifted to the floor at the feet of these men, where he saw a trail of familiar red liquid leading toward where he stood, and he belatedly realized that he was standing in a small puddle of blood. There was no one else in the room with him besides these crusaders; the one who had summoned him was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is she?” he asked, panic making his voice high-pitched and desperate. To be summoned to the Corerealm was already rare for most divines, but to be summoned to Rodoria specifically and without feeling any magical compulsion to obey his summoner? It had to be her. It had to. So why was she not here?
The armed men looked at each other nervously, then one of them turned his head and shouted over his shoulder: “We need help up here! The damned creature summoned an angel!”
Creature? He heard and felt his heartbeat in his ears and it felt as though the ground was tipping under his feet. He unnecessarily looked down at his hands, visually confirming that they were indeed his hands, complete with dark maroon skin and pale, hooked claws at the tip of each finger. This was a full summoning; he was not inhabiting some inanimate material, a corpse nor possessing the living body of another. A life had been sacrificed to bring him here and create a suitable body for him. Someone had died, and their body had supplied the raw materials to shape his vessel.
Again he looked at the blood on the ground. Looked at his hands. Looked at the crusaders, at their bloodied weapons. And with an intense feeling of revulsion, he knew.
He clutched his chest with both hands and let out a long, heartrendingly despondent wail as he felt his mind reeling with the conclusion he had tried so hard to not reach. The two crusaders took a step back, understandably cautious and fearful in the face of a literally otherworldly immortal, yet stayed in the doorway, blocking his only means of escape.
They called her a “creature”, he thought, his gaze drawn once more to their freshly used weapons. Members of the Crusader's Guild. Minions of Kevalorn the Holy. Humans who blame the Withering on the other sapients. Who hate them.
The chill of fear turned to white-hot rage in an instant, and the hate he felt for himself paled before what he felt for these people. To these disgusting mundane beings, who tormented and killed each other for such stupid reasons.
He drew in a deep breath before roaring at them, his voice now deep and booming with the blazing intensity of his wrath: “What did you do?!”
The spear-wielder lunged at him, aiming to plunge his weapon into the chest of his quarry. The angel flung his left arm out to meet the attack, his fury so intense that he did not even feel it piercing his forearm and getting stuck in his flesh, while his right hand thrust forward and seized the crusader's head by the face.
The attacker let go of his spear and instead clutched the fingers palming his skull, trying desperately to escape while crying out for help.
Hearing this only fanned the flames of the angel's ire. No one helped her.
He had only been in Reniam for a few seconds and had not had time to channel much divine energy from his native realm yet, but at this point he directed every shred of power at his disposal into his hand, into the crusader's head. He poured all his hatred into him, letting it fuel his desire to destroy.
The crusader's calls for aid turned to screams of agony as black smoke began pouring from between the angel's fingers. Skin sizzled, hair burned and blood boiled until the screams ceased and the man's body went limp in his grasp.
As his fingers uncurled, the released crusader collapsed nervelessly onto the floor, his still-smoking face a bloody mess.
He turned his attention to the other crusader, and any courage that might have survived seeing his comrade brutally executed left the man as he felt the angel's loathing focus on him. The human turned on his heel and fled, though his footfalls were soon joined by what sounded like numerous others.
It was likely the right course of action to retreat and regroup before facing someone who had demonstrated the ability to kill with magic like that, of course. It was what any sane person would do after witnessing an ally murdered with such brutal efficiency.
At least that is what anyone unfamiliar with Angels of Deceit would think.
The angel grasped the spear that was still embedded in his arm with his right hand and pulled it out in a quick motion. Immediately he felt his flesh begin to knit itself back together to undo the damage it had sustained, just as he felt the energy he had just expended being replenished and exceeded. Though his divine power had been depleted, it now flowed through him and into the area around him, waiting to be given purpose through his wrath. Little sparks of electricity wove paths of light between his fingers; streaks of swirling flame crawled up his arms; the very air vibrated against his skin.
They had given the angel the one thing they could not afford to give it: time. Expending what little power he had had left him practically defenseless, but each passing second made him more powerful, more dangerous.
His stomach churned with revulsion at the thought that his flesh was her flesh, that his life had been bought with her life. These people, this world, had driven her to sacrifice herself to bring him here. After everything she had been through, despite all her beautiful hopes and dreams, she was gone. And he was here instead.
An ominous, vicious growl rumbled in his chest. He would make sure that this world remembered her, no matter what. He would use the body she gifted him to leave a scar upon this realm that would be felt for centuries to come.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Outside the Hunter's Clinic, in the outskirts of Yharnam

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.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Outside the Hunter's Clinic, in the outskirts of Yharnam

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.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Outside the Hunter's Clinic, in the outskirts of Yharnam

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.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Freagon, Irah, Lhirin, Yanin, Jaelnec, Nabi, Jordan and Madara – Fadewatcher station, Borstown

Quintin, Vela and Jaelnec all looked somewhat taken aback by the sheer intensity of Irah's reaction to Tedwyn's claim, whereas Tedwyn himself simply stood petrified and shifty eyed as his pretentious smile slowly faded.
Then the penin woman let out a small chuckle. “Tell you what, Tedwyn: go back to Bor Manor and help the others clean up the place. Tell them why you're there. If I come back and my people tell me you did a good job, then I'll reward you. I don't think we need you here.”
Though he was clearly trying his very hardest not to break character and continue to present himself as a jovial and confident adventurer, Tedwyn did looked a little deflated as he opened his mouth to speak, only to fail to produce any words. Instead he just croaked slightly, cleared his throat, nodded his head, turned on his heel and left without a word.
“As for the rest of you,” the baroness continued once the civilian in their midst had been dismissed. “You may not need a reward, but you're helpin' me so I'm gonna offer one regardless. I'll give you another four hundred rodlin for defeatin' the bandits, and another six hundred for getting' Bren back safe.”

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Freagon, Irah, Lhirin, Yanin, Jaelnec, Nabi, Jordan and Madara – Fadewatcher station, Borstown

“I'd like to say one thing 'fore we leave,” Vela announced, raising a diminutive hand – which only brought it up to the stomach of most of them – to halt them from leaving just yet. “Thing've been movin' real fast, and I want you all to know that I really appreciate how willin' y'all are to rush into danger to save someone you've never even met. Y'all haven't even gotten your reward for helpin' with your first job, yet you're offerin' your resources and riskin' your lives for a second one. Believe me, I haven't forgotten 'bout it.”
In the back of the crowd, furthest removed from the table and mostly forgotten during the proceedings, Tedwyn perked up and started paying close attention at the word “reward”.
She sighed. “'Course, I don't have...” Her eyes quickly scanned across the room, counting the people present. “...four hundred rodlin on me, but you'll get it when we return. Even if somethin' happens to me, ask Kylie or Wade – my housekeepers – and they'll handle it.”
“I helped, too!” Tedwyn suddenly interjected, moving to join them as if he had been part of their group all along. “I fought the vile creatures at the manor!”
Shooting the man an extremely critical look, the baroness turned back to the group with an overbearing expression. “Well? Did he?”

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Freagon, Irah, Lhirin, Yanin, Jaelnec, Nabi, Jordan and Madara – Fadewatcher station, Borstown – Collab

Irah nodded her assent to the plan alongside Freagon, before looking up at Lhirin to confirm his too.
“This all seems good to me. Normally I host my angels within myself--is that something you can do, Caleb? I am perfectly comfortable hosting either - the question is whether we want Weriz to be in a body that can be attacked, or within me... and the same with Kinder. Having an angel within myself offers substantial defensive benefits, and my resistance to the taint is such that I can call upon their power to ward myself somewhat against arrows and bolts. I also have a... divine healing potion. I will entrust this to someone in the group going to the Barn, so we both have methods of healing using divine magic... Would Jaelnec be suited, Freagon, or should it be someone like Jordan?”

Caleb nodded his head affirmatively. “I can summon divines as wraiths, ghouls, into a host... or I can do a full summoning, if we had something to sacrifice to do it. If you wish to act as host, I could do that.”
Caleb, Vela and Freagon all shot Irah a serious, questioning glance when she mentioned her “divine healing potion”, but none of them said anything.
In the end, Freagon just shrugged. “I'm sure the boy can handle a bottle.”

Nabi's lip curled as Freagon once again called Jaelnec “boy” rather than use his actual name, but she elected to keep quiet about it.
“I have no objections. I just hope Mister Bren really is still breathing by the time we get there...”

“... I suppose I have shared most of my other secrets: it is the blood of a fully summoned divine, given to me for emergencies. I also have a small quantity of fire dust that we can use if that helps. Consider this, Nabi: why go to the trouble of taking him alive only to kill him? I fancy our chances.” Irah offered, raising her palms in a show of innocence at the looks she got from the more experienced members of their little party.