Dark Jack

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Back room, Hunter's Clinic, somewhere in Yharnam

The second Torquil saw the beast-man appear in the doorway past the sorry remnants of what had filled it previously, he had felt his heartbeat quicken, his vision crystallize and the sounds of the world fade into the background. All the white noise that he had always heard, but never been particularly conscious of – the faint sound of the wind, the breathing of the many bodies around him, even his own pulse in his ears – faded away, and left the sounds he focused on loud and distinct. The beast-man's heavy footfalls as he crossed the threshold into their room, his heavy breathing and angry snarls, the clicking of his claws... the rustle of the hoarse man's clothes, his much softer steps and the subtle jostling of the bell he carried... all these sounds stood out clear and sharp in Torquil's mind. Even from across the room, nearly twenty meters away, he could see them clearly enough to count the hairs on the beast-man's face.
His biceps, thighs and calves bulged – much more so than they would have for a human – and strained against his clothes, and he felt his ruined jaw creak and grind painfully as he chewed on the air. He clutched his axe tightly, started to take a step forward that would have quickly turned into a mad dash before planting his axe-blade in the beast-man's neck, had he not been halted by Farren's voice.
With wild, almost feral eyes Torquil looked to his fellow Hunter, frustrated, impatient and incredulous at the situation he found himself in. Then Ophelia spoke, too, and Torquil's gaze moved to her, his expression now bewildered and lost. He was a Hunter, was he not? And this was clearly a beast. He was supposed to hunt beasts, right? To find them, chase them down and slaughter his prey. His every instinct told him to fight, so why were the others talking?
But of course he stopped himself and let the others lead. Things were probably more complicated than he gave them credit for, and Ophelia and Farren were probably smarter than him. It was better to let them do the thinking... and absolutely better to let them do the talking.

The hoarse man looked from Farren to Ophelia, his smile faltering and a hint of annoyance coming over his face. Again he muttered something in a language none of them knew, but which he seemed much more fluent in than the common tongue, before heaving a sigh of frustration.
“Corval say go here, take Hunters. I go, bring help. Take Hunters.” He shrugged. “No good talk. Talk here strange. Take Hunters Corval. Corval talk.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Back room, Hunter's Clinic, somewhere in Yharnam

Though Torquil's attention had been transfixed on the sight of the sturdy door separating the three Hunters from the unknown characters outside, the movement of Ophelia turning toward him was enough to attract his gaze just long enough for him to catch her gesturing at him. He stared at her hand waving through the air, her spear pointing and her lips forming voiceless words, and blinked several times rapidly before turning to the blackboards behind him.
He stared at the boards even as he awkwardly stepped over the still-sleeping figure he had knocked to the floor just moments ago to get there, trying to read the words on there but giving up before he got very far. It turned out that he read very slowly; though the writing was in all capital letters and highly legible, for some reason his brain really struggled to make sense of it, with him having to sound out words in his head in some cases. He got the sense that he could technically read, and that given time he would understand the several words on the blackboard, but for some reason the letters kept getting jumbled in his head. Add to that the fact that he had no idea what “Paleblood” even referred to, and the writing might as well have been gibberish to him.
Thus he did not actually know why Ophelia wanted him to erase the text there, but he was not about to question her judgment. She seemed to understand something he did not, so he was just going to trust that she knew better. It was much easier to let others do the thinking and decision-making, after all. He did not even think to look for an implement near the blackboard for erasing, nor was he aware that such things were even used; to him it was just chalk on a large surface. Even as he heard the door behind him getting smashed and torn apart, he simply switched his axe to his left hand, pressed his right forearm to the blackboard and started rubbing left and right in big, sweeping motions, using his sleeve to rub away the writing. It did not get rid of all the chalk and mostly just smudged it, but after a few seconds like this the writing was rendered mostly illegible, at least.

Over at the door the large, clawed hand finished its work unimpeded, tearing a large hole through the wood and destroying a large portion of it. One more loud blow was all it took to shatter the sorry remains of it, leaving only bits of splintered wood dangling pointlessly from the hinges, allowing the creature on the other side to enter.
The creature that entered through the doorway – sideways and in a light crouch to fit through it – was tall, broad and lanky. It had features that suggested it had once been a man, walking on two legs and wearing the drab clothes of a Yharnam citizen, even though these clothes were all obviously much too small for it, wielding a meat cleaver in its right hand. Even so this man was clearly thoroughly claimed by the scourge of beasts; aside from his size, the beast-man was also covered in coarse brown fur, his joints had started to restructure and become more bestial in nature, his fingers and bare feet – which now more closely resembled wolf-like paws – had grown murderous claws, just as his mouth was forced into a permanent scowl by the growth of over-sized fangs above and below.
He growled hungrily as he scanned the room with his beast-shrouded eyes, but even as he did so, a second figure soon followed behind it.

Clad in a dusty brown hooded monk's robe and carrying a cane in his right hand and a bell in the other – both, Ophelia in particular would recognize, items that would normally be found in the possession of a church servant – this man, if one could call it that, had sickly gray, almost white skin and was unnaturally gaunt. He had bony limbs and a face so sunken that it seemed to stick directly to the skull, almost like an undead. He looked almost like a mummified corpse more than a man. His eyes, which Ophelia was so interested in, were somewhat reminiscent of those of church servants and church giants; black orbs without iris or sclera, though whereas the eyes of church servants were typically large and bulging, these were smaller and sat deep within their sockets.
Though he was obviously quite different, Ophelia had seen vaguely similar traits once before, in the witches she had once served.
“No fight, no hurt,” this man – confirming his identity as the hoarse man – reminded, showing blackened teeth in an unnerving smile. “Take Hunters.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Back room, Hunter's Clinic, somewhere in Yharnam

“Locked? No open door?” the hoarse man said, followed by several soft footsteps and a faint jostling of the bell moving away from the door. “We open door. Break door.”

Something next to the hoarse man, right on the other side of the door to their room full of cots, let out a furious, inhuman snarl just a second before something slammed into the door with tremendous force, shaking it visibly in its frame, but failing to break it.
A voice that sounded more canine than human let out a guttural roar as something struck the door a second time; far from as hard as the first blow, but accompanied by the sound of cracking wood and followed by a terrible sound of wood being continuously rent by something sharp, moving from top to bottom of the door. It repeated another time: a strike followed by something raking down the other side of the door, ripping the wooden obstacle apart. There was a faint sound of small pieces of wood hitting the floorboards on the other side. The canine voice growled.

The fourth blow striking the door proved more than it could handle, and suddenly a left hand – easily three times as large as a human hand should be, with long fingers each tipped by a black two-inch claw and the back of the hand clad in thick gray hair – penetrated the door all the way through, palm downturned. It curled up its fingers, preparing to sink its claws into the wood of the door immediately below the hand, clearly intending to rip a hole straight through it.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Back room, Hunter's Clinic, somewhere in Yharnam

Torquil did not know how to react or feel when he heard someone enter the room beyond the one they were currently in, when they started destroying things in there or when the hoarse man on the other side of the door spoke. And he certainly did not know how to react or feel when Ophelia slammed the butt of her spear into the floor, marched right up to the door and readily started antagonizing the one on the other side.
Part of him was horrified, of course; it sounded as though there were quite a few people out there – at least half a dozen by the sound of it, counting the normal speakers, the hoarse guy and the grunty-breathy one – , they sounded hostile toward the Healing Church, and at least one of them sounded big and heavy. Torquil, Ophelia and Farren were outnumbered two to one or more, and all they had to defend themselves were the meager arms stowed away for unknown purposes. And Ophelia just immediately started threatening these potentially dangerous entities, sounding almost eager at the prospect of fighting them; a fight he and Farren would get dragged into whether they wanted to or not.
But another part of him applauded Ophelia's actions and sympathized with her fervor. The tremors through his muscles, the rage in his chest and the hunger in his belly all came to the forefront of his consciousness, and a foreign lust for violence possessed him. Though it did not negate the dread that still gripped him, it felt like the fear almost sweet and alluring. The adrenaline he felt through his terror was intoxicating.
He nodded his head again at Farren, and gripped his axe tightly with both hands, ready to use it.

A pause followed Ophelia's words during which all that could be heard from the other side were the muffled sounds of angry voices and furniture being smashed, along with the constant presence of the deep, ragged, grunting – now almost growling – breath. The speaker muttered something in a language none of them could understand, but which felt oddly familiar to Ophelia.
“Brave Hunter. Good,” the hoarse man finally said, his words accompanied by a faint rustle of cloth and a jostling of the servant's bell. “Need Hunters. Need brave. Open door. Come. If no open door, we open door. No fight, no hurt. If Hunter fight... very hurt. Need brave, not stupid.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Back room, Hunter's Clinic, somewhere in Yharnam

Torquil smiled back at Farren awkwardly, still recovering more from having just vomited and less from hearing Ophelia talk about men becoming beasts, but while Torquil's smile seemed genuine and his posture relaxed, his eyes got just a little bit wider as Farren spoke and approached. He looked at Farren and saw his amusement. Heard his words and, though he knew the other was joking, read what was being said as condescending humor.
A flash of something went through Torquil's mind; just a rapid series of images, voices and emotions, scattered and without any discernible connection to each other or his past as a whole.
Torquil sitting alone in a small hut, staring into the fire. Torquil tripping over a root. Torquil guarding his face with his arms while being pelted with pebbles.
“Stupid Torquil.” “Clumsy Torquil.” “Slow Torquil.” “Weird Torquil who lives in the woods by himself.” “Ugly Torquil.” “Torquil, who can't even talk properly.”
Shame. Fear. Remorse. Hope. Joy. Disappointment. Despair. Vindictiveness. Acceptance. Loneliness... such overwhelming, soul-crushing loneliness.
But the thing that came last, rising from somewhere deep and unknown inside of him, so powerful that it burned away all the other scattered fragments of who he used to be, was rage. A blazing anger flared inside of him for reasons he did not fully understand. And once again, just like in his nightmare before finding himself here, Torquil heard the voice he thought might be his own:
“You are not puny, helpless little Torquil anymore. You are a Hunter now; you are powerful. They will have to respect you now. They will have to fear you. No one will dare to ridicule you anymore... and if they do...
Torquil nodded his head in appreciation just before Farren turned away, and once again became very conscious of the gnawing hunger that still haunted him, even stronger now that he had divested the old contents of his stomach. A strange, restless energy sent tremors through his muscles... and a moment later, when his gaze passed over the corpse Ophelia was harvesting again, Torquil no longer felt nauseous or repulsed at the sight. Instead he saw the blood leaking from the corpse, staining skin, clothes and the cot it was lying on, and felt strangely attracted to it. He imagined the metallic taste of it in his mouth, and shivered with delight.
And perhaps most weirdly at all, it did not seem strange to him at all. It felt natural, like it was just what he was supposed to feel.

Barely had Farren started assembling his makeshift holster for his axe before they all heard the muffled sound of a door slamming somewhere beyond the door blocking their path, followed by the voices of several men, their words mostly unintelligible but some sounding angry, and all of it bizarrely accompanied by the gentle, steady sound of a small bell being rhythmically jostled; a sound Ophelia would naturally associate with afflicted church servants.
The voices grew louder and closer – at least five different voices could be identified – and within seconds a loud noise of shattering glass could be heard, followed by the sound of something wooden being smashed and small pieces of metal, like cutlery, clattering on a wooden surface. Every sound in the next room seemed overtly violent and aggressive, and judging by the noise, someone was in the process of destroying anything breakable in there.
“...teach the damn church!” a man growled just before the sound of something particularly big and heavy crashed into the ground.
“...Harold, and his plague-ridden...”
“...some blood somewhere...”

The voices were getting closer to the door as the destruction continued unabated, but throughout it all the ringing of the solitary bell continued calmly, getting steadily closer to the door and the room with the Hunters. When it was almost there they could actually hear footfalls: two sets of them, one somewhat normal-sounding, the other unusually heavy and producing little clicking noises with each step as the feet hit the floor. There was also loud, grunting breathing. The bell fell silent.
The door handle rattled a little, wiggling up and down several times as if someone was trying to open the door.
“Open door,” someone demanded from right on the other side of the door, their voice hoarse and dry, and it sounded as though the speaker had difficulty speaking. The quick, grunting breath did not pause on the words. “Open door.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Back room, Hunter's Clinic, somewhere in Yharnam

Torquil did not react to the cry of the beast with more than a slightly raised eyebrow and a curious look around. He realized that something that made that sound was probably very dangerous, even more so than most of the scourge, but it sounded like it was a fair distance away. It was unlikely that this monster would come here and seek him out, and he was sure that he, as a fresh novice Hunter, would not be expected to contend with such things. He did send a sympathetic thought to whatever unfortunate Hunters would have to fight it, but for most part he was just happy that it was someone else and not him.

In sharp contrast to his restrained reaction to the wail, Torquil actually recoiled strongly enough to stumble into the cot behind him, knocking it over and sending the sleeping almost-Hunter sprawling on the floor when Ophelia announced her findings. He felt his heart sink, his face turned pale and he gripped the handle of his axe so tightly that the wood creaked under his fingers.
“Arh?!” he vocalized, trying to exclaim an incredulous “What?!” but failing due to the state of his jaw. He looked around with a haunted expression, eyes darting from sleeping form to sleeping form, as if expecting any of them to spontaneously wake up and assault him. “Eachth?!” was his miserable attempt at saying “Beast?!”
Ophelia's words were, of course, deeply shocking to him. The almost-Hunter was turning into a beast? What madness was that? Who had ever heard of a person turning into a beast? And a Hunter, of all things? And for Ophelia to conclude that was what had been happening... had she seen something like this before, a person turning into a beast? How frequent an occurrence was that? And the way she mentioned having to pay attention to “things like that now”? What did she mean?!
There were a lot of things that Torquil wanted to know about what Ophelia had just said – it was far from common knowledge that the scourge of beasts was a plague, after all, nor that many beasts used to be human – but not only could he not speak well enough to formulate the questions, he was also soon distracted by her harvesting an eye from the corpse.
This time there was no time for him to fight back the bile; as the eyeball wetly and noisily was dislodged from its socket, revealing the optical nerve dangling from behind it, Torquil turned away, doubled over and promptly vomited on the floor.

Outside, the sound of the voices continued to get louder as they approached.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Back room, Hunter's Clinic, somewhere in Yharnam

Though Torquil followed Ophelia with his eyes at first, he averted his gaze uncomfortably the moment she returned after putting on gloves and went to examine the corpse's eyes. He winced, trying to hold back the bile he felt rising up his throat... and was surprised to find that as the nausea passed, it left him feeling strangely hungry.

Puzzled by this but lacking the desire to try to explore this sensation, Torquil instead decided to distract himself by following the two others' example and getting a weapon from the barrels. Looking at them, his first inclination was to grab a longsword; those were the weapons of knights, after all, and knights were respected and admired. Knights rode in parades and participated in tournaments to the cheering adoration of the crowds. Torquil liked the idea of himself as a knight in shining armor, valiantly rushing to the rescue of the innocent, slaying evil beasts and being showered in praise and gifts. A sword was a nice symbol. He liked that symbol.
Even just picking up the sword felt weird, though. He tried holding it with one and two hands, trying switching the positions of his hands, adjusted his grip this way and that... but no matter how he tried, wielding a sword like this felt wrong. It felt much too light, fragile and tiny in his big, rough hands. Even giving it a couple of experimental swings sent shudders of bizarre wrongness up his spine, prompting him to quickly toss it back into the barrel it had come from.
He hesitated. The spear, maybe? That was also a sort of knightly weapon, right? But even as he started reaching out for a spear, he felt his eyes being drawn to the jutting wooden handle of one of the axes right next to it. He paused, staring at the axe-handle. At its curvature and heft. Even just looking at it, he instinctively knew exactly how it would feel in his hands; the comfortable weight and balance, the grain of the wood against his calloused skin. He knew how it would feel to swing it, what movements to make to generate the greatest possible amount of force and strike precisely.
Torquil took the axe, held it, and instantly felt as though he had come home. A knight's weapon or not, an axe was the weapon for him.

Somewhere in the far distance, in the direction of the back wall of the room they were currently in, a long, shrill, inhuman wail cut through the relative silence of the night. It was a sound that would be vaguely familiar to Ophelia in particular, who had lived in Yharnam for most of her life; a sound produced not by just any beast, but one of the most dangerous and terrible ones in existence. She would have never seen one herself, but stories of these frenzied behemoths were common, especially in the years after the Night of the Blood Moon. The sound seemed to agitate the Messengers in the room somewhat, but they calmed back down as soon as it ceased.

Listening at the door, Farren found the other side to be mostly silent... though as the echoes of the bestial shriek slowly faded, he could faintly hear the voices of several men. Agitated voices... that were coming closer.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Back room, Hunter's Clinic, somewhere in Yharnam

The Messengers watched Ophelia attentively as she examined the corpse – or so one would assume, though they had no eyes to watch her with – and moaned excitedly as she returned. When she started physically handling the dead man's head the Messengers immediately started copying her, grabbing each other's heads with their spindly little hands, rubbing around their misshapen skulls and even prodding their fingers into each other's empty eye-sockets.

As for the results of the examination itself, Ophelia would find it quite a bit more difficult to pry the corpse's eyelids open than she might have expected. The skin did not feel as one would expect it to; it felt wet and slippery on the outside and would stain her gloves with black, oily grease, while the insides of the eyelids felt weirdly sticky and almost adhered to the surfaces they touched.
But though it was more challenging than it would be to open the eyes of a corpse normally, it still was not too difficult to achieve. The eyelids soon slid back to reveal eyes with misshapen pupils where the surrounding irises almost seemed to have dissolved, whereas the scleras had turned a sickly shade of yellow. The eyeballs bulged abnormally as if they were a little too big for the sockets.
Ophelia was no stranger to handling and studying eyes, so she would be quite familiar with at least one of these symptoms: the deterioration of the pupil was commonly one of the first physical signs of the onset of the scourge of beasts and a sign of waning humanity. She had never known this to be accompanied by the other symptoms, however, nor had she known the scourge of beasts to outright kill the infected... though given that she and everyone else had been sleeping until now, it was probably better that this man had died than become a beast.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Back room, Hunter's Clinic, somewhere in Yharnam

The woman – Ophelia, she said her name was – seemed quite happy and friendly. She also said that she had never been able to do... something? Torquil was not entirely sure what she was referring to when she said “this”, but he assumed that she had had some kind of severe physical disability before receiving the blood treatment. That was the point of the blood, right? That was why it was called the Healing Church.
That thought made Torquil wonder what had made him become a Hunter. Had he been disabled somehow, too? No, that did not feel right; not aside from his jaw, anyway, and his gut feeling was that he had lived with that for a very long time. An injury, maybe. Or an illness. Or maybe he had just wanted to become a Hunter for the thrill of it, or because his old life had been nothing but misery? He could not remember... but did it matter? Not really.
Although Torquil thought Ophelia seemed nice he still hesitated to offer his own name in return, and decided to save it entirely for later when she turned her attention away from him. It was not that he did not want to tell her, he was just worried what she would think if she heard him speak.

A few beds over a second one – a man this time, much taller and more intimidating than Torquil – smiled at him, too, which made Torquil smile back. These two were so nice! He felt an elation rising within himself that was entirely disproportionate with how minor the gesture had been, energizing him. These two, these kind Hunters, would surely know what to do.

Torquil followed them toward the barrels that appeared stocked with weapons, visually checking the sleeping bodies on the way, the creepy little Messengers that were everywhere and their surroundings in general. Unlike the two others there was no natural grace in the way Torquil moved; he trudged across the room with complete disregard for whether he stepped on – or through, as the case might be – a few Messengers. He even bumped a cot with his hip in passing, which earned a distressed moan from the sleeper resting on it, and though his footfalls were not necessarily what one would consider loud, they were audible.
His gaze swept across the blackboards in the distance, seeing writing there of some kind but could not read it. He saw various apparatus he did not understand the purpose of on the table, but also what appeared to be empty syringes, scalpels, rolls of thread and bandages; all things you would expect to find in a medical clinic. Or so he assumed. The barrels with weapons felt weird next to the rest.
Since the three of them were in somewhat close proximity at this point, and Ophelia had just offered her name again, he finally decided to do the same:
“Torquil,” he said, surprising himself with how clearly the word came out, though in hindsight he realized it should not. His name was mercifully a word that could be spoken without moving his jaw, so happily it did not come out as a garbled mess. His voice was deep and a little hoarse, with noticeable vocal fry even in that single word.

Instead of getting a weapon from the barrels as had been the stated goal of going here, Torquil ended up following Ophelia with his eyes as she went toward one of the cots being swarmed by Messengers. Though the little creatures seemed desperate to be near the patient on that particular cot, they all pulled back somewhat when she approached. They did not scatter – they did not seem afraid of her or try to get away – but seemed to merely do her the courtesy of letting her see the object of their fascination: a man that was white as a ghost, black eyelids and -sockets and sunken cheeks. He was not breathing.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Torquil

Name: Torquil
Race: Paleblood Hunter?
Faction: Unaffiliated
Age: Around thirty
Appearance: Short but sturdy, Torquil's skin is tough, calloused and deeply tanned from hard physical outdoor work, with clearly defined musculature through his skin all across his brawny frame. He has plain brown eyes surrounded by early wrinkles, thick eyebrows and disheveled hair on head, cheeks and chin around five centimeters (two inches) long, all of which is entirely black. His jaw is perpetually crooked, possibly from having been broken once, and tends to waggle from side to side when he speaks from the right jaw hinge not working right. He bears various small scars that seem to have likely been earned through labor rather than combat, including a long, jagged scar across his right cheek.
Height: 1.68 m (5'6”)
Weight: 95 kg (210 lb)
Clothes: Wore plain gray canvas trousers, a white short-sleeved linen shirt, and a pair of cheap brown leather shoes.
Now wears the Cainhurst armor, only forgoing the matching helmet in favor for a Yahar'gul helmet. Rather than the ragged cape he had found with the set, he donned the coat of a tomb prospector.
Hunter gear: A Hunter's axe and the Loch Shield.
Biography: Torquil remembers very little of his past beyond flashes of dense forests, the interior of a small cluttered cottage, and a sense of measured indifference and loneliness. This also means that Torquil does not particularly care about his past, however, and is quite content to embrace his new role in life without complaint.
He remembers signing his contract with the Healing Church and receiving the blood treatment, however, and knew from his first waking moment that he had agreed to become a Hunter, though he does not recall why he made this decision. Shrugging off such concerns, Torquil is already well on his way to simply accept that he is now a Hunter and will adopted the task of slaughtering beasts as his new purpose in life.