Dark Jack

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam

Torquil mostly just passively listened to Ophelia and Farren talking, as he was wont to do, while devoting as little of his energy as possible to actually understand what was being discussed. The Shopkeeper being able to apparently just spontaneously manifest weapons out of thin air was something he at this point was ready to accept as a matter of fact. His thoughts on it were simply Oh... I guess he can do that.
Unsurprisingly he had no input on their next course of action either. He briefly wondered who “Greta” was and why Farren brought her up out of nowhere, but immediately dismissed the thought and assumed he had just missed or forgotten something they had discussed earlier. It did not even occur to him in the slightest that Greta could be a misnaming of Gerlinde, and thus he never even arrived to have the option to wonder why he did that... which he probably would not have anyway.
The whole business with Vicar Harold was also way over his head. He did feel quite happy when Farren complimented his shield and felt affirmed and much more confident in his choice to have it. He puffed up his chest and smiled broadly in the confines of his helmet.

The only one present that seemed less attentive than Torquil was the Shopkeeper, who spent most of the time the others were talking... well, saying that they were “looking around” felt accurate, though Torquil obviously could not be sure what was happening inside those bandages they had wrapped around their head. The Shopkeeper was turning their head this way and that, tapping their foot and just generally coming off as bored and impatient, only to eventually – just as Torquil had when he had died, or any of them had when interacting with lanterns or the headstone markers – lose opacity and fade away.

Once Farren and Ophelia were done conferring with each other and sharing what they had learned in their brief time apart, their little trio started heading down the street, away from Skinner's disgraced remains now lying not far from his last victims, and headed south. The road they walked down seemed fairly straight and almost like a parallel street to the one they had traversed atop Rebirth's Rise to get to the elevator, only without the view. To their right they had the cliff-face that rose up toward the plateau the blood ministration clinic was on; a wall of naked rock that looked like it had been carved into shape on account of how unnaturally straight and vertical it was. Scaling that wall would have been extremely difficult, and falling from the top would most likely have been very unhealthy, even for a Hunter or a beast.
Having just been to the Upper Cathedral Ward, Ophelia might be able to spot the parallels between it and Rebirth's Rise: both places that had been built high up and deliberately difficult to reach, each with very few points of entry or egress. Yet the Upper Cathedral Ward held the fully staffed command center of the most powerful faction of Yharnam, the workshop for its Hunters and the official head of the new Healing Church... and Rebirth's Rise was an empty street with nothing but sleeping nascent Hunters.
To their left the row of houses continued, each one identical to the last, and most of them still with dark and shuttered windows. As they moved southward, however, they might notice more and more doors and windows with lit censers outside, and more and more windows with light past them. There was no doubt that though Ophelia and Farren both knew that Central Yharnam and most of Yharnam proper was to their west, moving south was already bringing them into more populated areas... and, they might realize, more dangerous areas. The sun had set completely now so that not even the faintest remnant of its light could be seen on the black, starlit sky, but the moon had yet to rise. Night falling was only the first stage of escalation on a Night of the Hunt, marking the time when prey sought refuge and predators began taking to the street. Once the city was bathed in the light of the full moon was when it truly began; when beasts were gripped by lunacy and Hunters would be needed to hold them at bay.

About one kilometer south of the elevator, the cliff-face to their right came to an end, and a road branched off from the one they had been following and headed west, toward Central Yharnam. But before they followed it, Ophelia might notice something remarkable; that up on the stone wall, about fifteen meters over their heads or so, hung a huge swarm of guidance sprites, more than she had seen anywhere else except at the Lumenflower Garden. There did not appear to be anything else there, but nevertheless that particular area seemed to have hundreds of motes of moonlight dancing around like fireflies.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam

The Shopkeeper cocked their head at Farren's request, then held out their right hand and, with yet another flash of blue light, was suddenly holding the Blades of Mercy. Interestingly, while the blades had been separated into two individual knives when Farren had last used them and when Skinner threw them away, they manifested now in their combined form. They were also completely pristine, without the smallest trace of blood nor the faintest sign of wear on them despite the fierce bout of combat they had just been through.
Walking up slowly and joining everyone else, staring perturbed at the headless, still-smoking corpse that used to be Skinner, Torquil abruptly had a thought. “Oh hey, since he died we get those echo-things, right?”
But quite interestingly, though especially Farren had been extremely close to Skinner when he had been killed, neither he nor Ophelia had felt the sensation they had back at the clinic when Pallid and his minions had been killed. The notion of something invisible and weightless gathering around them from then was conspicuously absent.
Again the Shopkeeper cocked their head, then shook it in... disagreement? Simply to tell them no?

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam

“Thanks,” Torquil said awkwardly as he accepted the offered blood vials and transferred them to his own satchel, though he was rather distracted by watching the Shopkeeper dominating the Hunter that he and Farren had only barely managed to fend off with their combined efforts. Despite having been hit by Skinner's lightning-waves twice now, Torquil was surprisingly fine; lightly singed, that was all. Any actual damage he had taken had obviously regenerated immediately after taking it, but even his clothes only had faint traces of something that would suggest that he had been subjected to anything dangerous. Blocking with the Loch Shield had absorbed most of the damage he would have taken, which was a pleasant surprise.
This was also the first time Ophelia saw Torquil and Farren outside the Hunter's Dream since obtaining and memorizing the Guidance Rune, and so the first time she had a chance to notice that, even here in the Waking World, each of them had one or two little guidance sprites hovering around them. Much more noticeably, however, the Shopkeeper was surrounded by an entire swarm of them; what looked to be dozens, if not hundreds of little motes of moonlight swirling around their form.

A bit down the street Farren took up his position on top of Skinner, holding him down, threatening him and glared at him wordlessly. Skinner met his gaze with one filled with desperation, but made no attempt at breaking free or attacking.
“Why?!” he whined pathetically. “I've told – NO!”
But before Skinner or Farren could say or do anything else, the Shopkeeper stepped around and past Farren, only to raise their arms over their head. A blue flash announced the summoning of another weapon: a Kirkhammer. And with tremendous force, the massive stone-head of the hammer fell directly onto Skinner's head with a horrible wet noise.
Skinner's body tensed up for a second, a series of random spasms going through his muscles, before going limp. His left arm shrank back down to a normal size and lost its claws, and he shed not only the fur that had grown on him, but surprisingly a lot of his bulk, until his huge, muscular frame came to look thin and emaciated instead. And as the Shopkeeper dismissed their Kirkhammer with another flash of light, Farren could confirm that Skinner's head was now a messy smear on the cobblestone.

Farren has obtained the Hunger Caryll Rune. While branded onto a Hunter's mind, devouring the flesh of a living or recently deceased creature restores regenerative potential, similar to how a blood vial would have. Additionally, after devouring part of a creature you gain a small measure of its power as long as you are near it or its remains. If used in conjunction with a living weapon, this rune allows that weapon to have a second awakening that lasts for 60 seconds, at the cost of permanently erasing the last currently active benefit from an eaten creature.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam

If the Shopkeeper heard Farren's words they did not show it, but appeared to be completely focused on Skinner, who in turn kept backing up and trying to maintain distance between himself and his opponents. Rather than allow themselves to be inconvenienced by this, however, the Shopkeeper reacted by raising both arms in front of them, only for another blue flash to mark the appearance of a Bowblade, from which they immediately loosed an arrow.
Not expecting this at all, Skinner caught the arrow center-mass, right in the middle of his chest, which prompted him to let out another roar of frustration. Noting that Farren was still a few meters away, Skinner took this opportunity to quickstep closer and attack the Shopkeeper, who was seemingly using primarily mid-ranged weapons. Claws raised and bared for mauling, Skinner failed to realize that – in the brief instant it had taken him to get close to the Shopkeeper – the Bowblade had vanished and been replaced with a Stake Driver, which the Shopkeeper immediately shoved into Skinner's abdomen and released the spring-loaded mechanism, ripping another large hole in the man and sending him stumbling backward and away.
The Stake Driver disappeared as the Shopkeeper swung their right arm out behind them, only for them to grasp the handle of a Boomhammer that spawned out of another flash, which immediately came down at Skinner in another huge overhead swing. Skinner only barely had time to skitter back a regular step to get out of the way of the physical hammerhead, only for the ensuing fiery explosion to once again send him reeling.

All of this happened in a matter of just a handful of seconds, in the time it would take Farren to catch up. And by the time he even got close, he might notice that Skinner's fur had lost its electric gleam... and that the burns were healing much slower than before.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam

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.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam

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.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam – Farren and Torquil

“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.”

Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam – Ophelia

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.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam – Farren and Torquil

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!”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam – Farren and Torquil (Collab)

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.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam – Farren and Torquil

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.”