Dark Jack

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Hidden alcove, outside the walls south of Yahar'gul, northwest of Yharnam

Torquil immediately fell to his hands and knees as soon as electric currents were no longer forcing his muscles to spasm, with white smoke pouring from every joint in his armor. He could feel his skin sizzling and his internals failing, thoroughly cooked as they were, and felt panic grip him at the familiar sensation of his regeneration slowing down, bringing back memories of when he died... only this time would not be as merciful as then. The first time the Mad One had smashed his head into the ground until he passed, beating him swiftly into unconsciousness in such a way that the pain only lasted for a few seconds. This, though? He could tell that he would not die from this immediately. He was stuck here with the pain.
He fumbled with the pouch on his right hip, struggling to find anything with his muscles and nerves still buzzing from being electrocuted, but eventually managed to retrieve one of the blood vials Ophelia had given him. He took it, popped off the outer cap and prepared to inject himself... and realized that he had no idea where to do so. He was covered in metal armor; there were no obvious gaps to jab the syringe through, and the needle obviously was not tough enough to punch through a plate of silver. Where could he...
There was a pause as he froze. He swallowed. And then he turned the blood vial so that the needle faced his thumb, and slammed the vial into the visor of his helmet, stabbing the needle – and injecting the blood – into his forehead.

Over by the two beasts, a new horror emerged as soon as the curtain of blue lightning passed: once more billowing a column of white smoke, her hair in flames and holes burnt through her clothes, Gerlinde continued to run at her prey. Her body was covered in horrible burns, including open, bleeding wounds and downright charred flesh, and her lips had curled back – mostly burned away – to reveal a demonic grin with about a third of her teeth missing and blood pouring from it. Even her eyes were wide and especially insane-looking, the eyelids gone and the eyeballs partially shriveled and blind. She was no longer laughing.
Rather than continue to lash toward the darkbeast, Gerlinde instead dashed rapidly toward the lightbeast's head, ultimately crashing straight into it and clutching it with her arms and legs. Then she leaned away and drew back her left arm, its fingers visibly elongating and sharpening into claws, before she plunged her left arm up to the elbow into the lightbeast's right eye-socket.
The lightbeast let out a piercing shriek, only for it to wail even louder as Gerlinde violently withdrew her hand, taking a large handful of the creature's brain and a whole torrent of blood with it. The soft glow began to surround the lightbeast anew.

Farren's attack, predictably, was nowhere near capable of cleaving through the darkbeast. Due to the lack of rigidity in the Beastflayer's whip-shape, it instead ended up mostly just slapping against the monster's side, only to drag across its surface over the side and across its face, sawing through it with each passing blade-segment.
It kept regenerating relentlessly, but did not seem to immediately counterattack this time. Instead it seemed to just sit there for a few seconds, glaring in Farren's direction, while the blue lightning crawling all over its body – which had somewhat diminished in the wake of the wave-attack – seemed grow in intensity, recovering to its past prominence. It hissed loudly and menacingly.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Hidden alcove, outside the walls south of Yahar'gul, northwest of Yharnam

Neither Torquil nor Gerlinde replied to Farren's orders, though Torquil did nod once in recognition of having received it. He glanced back over toward the Loch Shield on the ground for a second, contemplating going to retrieve it before facing the darkbeast head-on, but before he could reach a decision on that Gerlinde was already moving, letting out a mad cackle that would have made even the wickedest witch bow her head in reverence. Thus Torquil followed, though whereas Gerlinde set off in a mad sprint, he stuck to a jog; repeatedly hitting the beast with all of his strength was already pushing his stamina to its limit, and getting there faster would be worthless if he was defenseless once he got there.

The darkbeast, meanwhile, did not immediately seem to reengage the Hunters. Instead it turned to the lightbeast and quite simply climbed on and perched atop of its fellow undead. Only once it had gotten up there did it turn back to the Hunters, just in time to catch Gerlinde's burning whip across its face... to which it responded by raising both of its front legs before it, spread wide to the sides and claws turned inward, and channeled lightning into both.
A second later it swiped both claws inward and past each other in front of it, and each claw projected its own huge wave of blue lightning crawling across the arena and toward where all of its enemies had decided to bunch up.
Gerlinde, once again, took the wave point-blank and without so much as attempting to evade it. Torquil panicked, tried to quickstep to his right to get out of the way, but got hit anyway. And past them, the destructive energies continued toward Ophelia and Farren.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Hidden alcove, outside the walls south of Yahar'gul, northwest of Yharnam

While Farren moved to join Torquil and Gerlinde on the darkbeast's left flank, adding his Blade of Mercy to the onslaught of he transformed Hunter's axe and the flaming threaded cane, Ophelia finally had her chance to execute her plan. The soft glow from the lightbeast, both the part enveloping itself and extending to the darkbeast, lasted only a couple of seconds before it faded, after which the chain connecting the two seemed to become void of either beast's energies.
Seizing the opportunity she fed the Holy Moonlight Sword another quicksilver bullet and thrust it into the sturdy steel link once more, unleashing another arcane explosion. As the blinding light faded and the dust settled, she would find the chain even more bent and warped than before, with the link partially twisted open on one side – clearly on the verge of breaking apart entirely – but still just barely holding itself together.

The darkbeast's head veered momentarily to follow Farren, its empty eye-sockets glancing at him, Torquil and Gerlinde making a united front as they carved into its left side with wild abandon, yet despite their efforts best efforts could not seem to inflict lasting damage; if anything, it seemed to regenerate even faster after the pulse of light that had just washed over it, as if its vitality had been restored and reinforced. Then its head veered to the right, to where Ophelia stood over its chain all alone, and had just caused a rather loud and flashy explosion to attract its attention.
With an abruptness that nearly knocked Torquil off his feet, as he only barely managed to dislodge is axe in time, the darkbeast leaped into the air. It moved with a speed, agility and precision one would not expect from such a massive creature, sending rotation in mid-air while soaring as much as ten meters over everyone's heads; a movement that, predictably, jostled the chain connecting to it significantly and jerked the weak link Ophelia had been targeting away from her some eight meters or so.
And then it plummeted back to the ground right on top of Ophelia, bringing down both of its front leg claws on top of her, both of them burning with bluish energy and erupting into a powerful electric explosion on impact.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Hidden alcove, outside the walls south of Yahar'gul, northwest of Yharnam

Farren unleashed his series of brutal attacks on the darkbeast's exposed and defenseless face, spraying viscous, foul-smelling blood as he buried his blades into its undead flesh, though even now it appeared that its immense vitality allowed it to keep regenerating. An attempt was made to perhaps halt its flesh from mending itself by leaving one half of each of his Blades of Mercy in its empty eye-sockets. As he did so, however, Farren would find that the half of the Effigal Blade of Mercy he had abandoned suddenly gave off a soft bluish light and vanished without a trace.

Torquil took a second to shake off the effects of the lightning blast he had just weathered, only for his gaze to wander to Gerlinde right next to him, who kept laughing and attacking frenziedly. He blinked his eyes behind the visor of his helmet, his brain struggling to fully comprehend what he was looking at. To recognize that the figure before him covered in burns, with blood flowing from her eyes, ears and various rupturing blisters, who was giving off smoke that filled the air with the stench of burnt flesh. To understand that this was really Gerlinde, the beautiful woman from the Dream. The harlot. Attacking with no heed for her own safety, grievously wounded in her effort to slaughter their prey, while he cowered behind his shield.
A hissing breath escaped through Torquil's teeth as he felt that familiar sense of rage fill him, that horrible desire to dominate, hurt and kill. That feeling that had filled him with disgust and self-hatred before... but now he had something to receive his fury.
He threw aside the Loch Shield – it only engendered passivity, anyway – and grabbed the bottom of the handle of his Hunter's axe with his left hand to extend it, turning it into a giant Dane axe. And while Farren was carving away at the darkbeast's face, Torquil took two steps forward while shifting the grip of his right hand lower on the handle, feeling his fatigue building as he summoned all the strength of the Old Blood into his muscles once again, and delivered an enormous horizontal chop from right to left, slamming the axe-head into the base of the darkbeast's skull with enough force to make the creature lean into Farren's assault further.

But the darkbeast did not remain dazed for long, and as Farren went in to deliver his second round of attacks, it opened its jaws and abruptly exhaled what was effectively a cloud of electricity that filled the area around its head. It would force Farren to back away or be subject to another electrocution.

Simultaneously to using this bizarre lightning-breath, the darkbeast also reached its right foreleg out toward the chain hanging off it, planted its claw on top of it and – just as Ophelia was about to reach it and deliver another explosion to the weakened link – sent an especially intense surge of voltaic energy pulsing through it.
At the other end of the chain the lightbeast let out what could only be described as a scream, trashing in pain as fingers of lightning crawled all over its body, scorching its flesh and singing its white fur black. But as it screamed, the docile creature was also surrounded by a strange, soft light... like the gentle glow of a comforting fireplace, only without the flames. The light enveloped the lightbeast, and as it did its burns regenerated rapidly, even for a beast. And as the light pulsed around it, it also flowed back along the chain and into the darkbeast, washing across its body as well.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Hidden alcove, outside the walls south of Yahar'gul, northwest of Yharnam

Even as Ophelia carved another gash in the creature's leg and Farren did what damage he could with his Blades of Mercy between its vertebrae, the beast continued accumulating its ominous energy. And while Ophelia quickly retreated and Farren made to leap to safety, Torquil and Gerlinde continued their assault undaunted by the threat.
Torquil moved in to deliver another mighty chop to the darkbeast's right shoulder, dislodged his axe and raised his shield. He was not one to think about things too much, but even he could tell that their prey was getting ready for something big. He could also tell that its physical body was coiled up and in a position ill-suited for attacking with claws and teeth, and while his faith in the Loch Shield's ability to halt physical attacks had been shaken, he remained confident that it would protect him from the monster's fell lightning.
Gerlinde simply ignored what was happening; she kept laughing while lashing her flaming whip back and forth, left to right, right to left, over and over in rapid succession, carving bloody, charred gashes into the darkbeast's body, though these, too, continued to heal rapidly.

Then, finally, the darkbeast unleashed a huge surge of lightning all around it, arcing through the air in all directions. It hit Torquil and was mostly deflected by his shield, though the sheer enormity of the energy being released this time was still enough to rattle him. Though his shield offered considerable protection from bolts such as these, he discovered, his silver armor was an excellent conductor for electricity, and he emerged from the blast rather singed.
Gerlinde continued to ignore what was happening, and took the brunt of the voltaic explosion point-blank and without making any effort to alleviate the damage it would do. Her flesh seared, her hair began smoldering, several of her teeth exploded, her eyes went blind as the fluid inside them started to boil... yet as the boom of thunder died down the sound of her laughter returned, unabated, as she continued attacking the darkbeast relentlessly while her body regenerated.
Ophelia found that she was fortunately far enough away to avoid the blast, but Farren made a severe tactical blunder in starting his retreat with a leap. Though it might not be something you would normally be aware of, jumping was actually a rather slow way of moving, especially compared to something like a Hunter's quickstep; even just waiting for gravity to cancel your upward momentum and bring you back to the ground took forever on the timescale of a battle. Thus he failed to escape the blast radius entirely, though he did get far enough away to escape the worst of it, so he was only struck with comparatively weak bolts of lightning.

The explosion appeared to take a toll on the darkbeast, though; the combination of the exertion to unleash that attack and the damage it had taken from everyone's attacks – and was still taking from Gerlinde's mad assault – seemed to leave it momentarily dazed and vulnerable.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Hidden alcove, outside the walls south of Yahar'gul, northwest of Yharnam

As much as things might seem to slow down for each participant of the battle at times, things were still happening all at once and in rapid succession. In the couple of moments it took the darkbeast to slam Farren into the ground and detonate the thunderous force accumulated in it, Torquil had covered the last short distance between himself and their enemy. His bulky frame strained against his armor, its silver plates creaking audibly in their effort to contain his expanding muscles as he raised the heavy axe over his head.
The darkbeast let out a furious snarl as Torquil buried the head of his weapon in the left side of its rib cage, carving through bone and rotten flesh and sinew alike. The pain prompted the monster to turn its attention to him, aiming a swift slash of its left claw at him, only for Torquil to catch the blow with the Loch Shield... and instantly learn an important lesson: though the lightning crawling all over the darkbeast and leaping toward him as it struck was mostly repelled by his shield, the force of the claw was not. Thus Torquil was sent staggering backward, his left arm bending in unnatural ways while its bones were trying to regenerate.

Since this constituted someone getting the beast's attention, Ophelia executed her plan, rushing in and slicing at its right hind leg with the Holy Moonlight Sword. She would find that the arcane blade cut the creature with surprising ease, leaving a deep gash where she struck it, though the wound predictably mended itself almost as fast as she inflicted it.

Beside her, Gerlinde danced her way closer as well, still giggling happily. She activated the transformation of her trick weapon with a flourish, making the threaded cane abruptly go from a short, rigid blade to a long, flexible whip of what was effectively many serrated blades... all of which remained wreathed in the red fire applied by her horn.
She danced sideways in a clockwise rotation around the darkbeast, toward where Torquil was still recovering and – letting out a joyful squeal – swung the whip, striking across a large area across their prey's left hind leg and back, sawing through flesh and bone and setting fur aflame.

The darkbeast roared and half-collapsed, its lower body momentarily disabled by the combined efforts of Ophelia and Gerlinde. Its claws dug deep into the dusty ground, and the bluish glow surrounding its entire body seemed to increase in intensity.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Hidden alcove, outside the walls south of Yahar'gul, northwest of Yharnam

As was typically the case with combat, everything suddenly started happening all at once, with Hunters and beast alike exploding into a flurry of motion. The darkbeast raised its left forelimb and angled its claws for a slash toward Farren, despite it being nowhere near in range... but Farren, having both fought Skinner when he inherited the power of a similar beast through the Hunger Rune and having witnessed Skinner's fight against the original darkbeast in the Memory of Irreverence, knew that this creature did not need to be in range. Fingers of electricity crawled down its left arm and accumulated in its left claw, building a crackling, bluish glow; there could be little doubt that it intended to project lightning.
Farren first fired his blunderbuss, the efficiency of which was somewhat diminished by the distance, but due to the sheer size of the target most of the quicksilver pellets hit anyway. Had it been a lesser beast or even a Hunter something like this might have staggered them, but the darkbeast was not only immense in size, but also possessed remarkable vitality. The pellets impacted and pierced into its bone and flesh, but the creature barely even seemed to notice.
Then he moved, quickstepping forward twice to cover the distance between himself and the beast, intending to deliver a powerful blow with Fulmen to its forelimb while it was mid-swing. He quickstepped forward four meters, which took half a second, took an instant to recover from that, and quickstepped again to cover the rest of the distance. Not only did quickstepping in rapid succession like this take a considerable amount of stamina – which Farren luckily had even more of than normal after having it improved by the doll – but over a full second elapsed from the beginning of the maneuver to the end. Quickstepping, while indeed quick, was not instant, and the darkbeast was only swiping a claw at him; it had by no means locked itself into a maneuver of its own that would be difficult to stop or alter in reaction to changing circumstances. It was, after all, not obliged to complete an attack just because it had started it.
Thus rather than the horizontal swipe it had originally intended, it reevaluated upon seeing Farren's first quickstep toward it and raised its left claw higher into the air, angling it for a diagonal smash instead.

Back in her corner, Ophelia seized this moment of their enemy being distracted by Farren to instead target the chain connecting it to the lightbeast, which seemed to be in pain from the bluish current being channeled into it, but otherwise remarkably disinterested in what was happening around it. She rushed in and, feeding a quicksilver bullet to the Holy Moonlight Sword to unleash its true power, thrust the blade into a link of the chain before unleashing the same kind of arcane explosion that had obliterated the barricade to the clinic at Rebirth's Rise. A blast of light and force emerged, booming and echoing between the tall walls surrounding them... only for the her to realize that the chain, while looking slightly warped compared to before, was still mostly intact.

Gerlinde let out a loud, maniacal laugh as she popped a quicksilver bullet from her little tube of them and, with a practiced motion, deposited it directly into the base of the strange horn she was holding in her left hand. Instantly the arcane object seemed to begin emanating an ominous red glow from within itself, as if it had come to house a flame, only to be promptly extinguished as she – with an excessive flourish – struck the horn against the flat of the blade of her threaded cane. It produced a muffled crack that would be barely audible between the explosion of the Holy Moonlight Sword and the rampaging of the darkbeast, and intense, reddish flame abruptly blossomed to envelop the entire cane except the hilt.

Though Torquil was initially shocked and intimidated by the appearance of the darkbeast and considered running away, there were two thoughts that made him hold his ground. One was that familiar sense of thrill and hunger as the Old Blood in him smoldered eagerly at the prospect of fighting strong prey. He felt his muscles swell with inhuman power and the comforting heft of his Hunter's axe in his hand, but most of all he felt conscious of the Loch Shield he was cowering behind. He remembered quite well their fight against Skinner and how unexpectedly effective the shield had been at protecting him from his lightning. Seeing the darkbeast wreathed in voltaic sparks as well filled him with confidence; with this shield, a monster like this would barely be able to hurt him.
So after Farren's first quickstep Torquil followed suit, quickstepping five meters closer as well... only to be shocked at just how much fatigue that one move cost him, leading to him opting to cover the rest of the last few meters in a more measured pace, shield raised his axe at the ready.

The darkbeast's scintillating claw descended upon Farren, and he – having pulled the lever to expose the core of Fulmen – swung the experimental thunder hammer to intercept the blow. It struck the darkbeast's forearm as intended, and while he felt the subtle give of bone being damaged by blunt force, he could also quite clearly hear a metallic creak and rattle at the impact. Being versed in maintenance of Hunter equipment, Farren would almost certainly realize that the core of the hammer was not made to withstand direct blows, and that using it like that would cause substantial damage to the mechanism. And though he did not have time to make the observation at this time, he might later realize that Fulmen did not appear to have gained any charge at all. Recalling the instructions for using it, he might also recall that exposing the core of the hammer was how he released the charge, which probably meant that it was specifically made to not hold a charge while in that form.
Regardless of the hammer striking it, though, the darkbeast's claw continued its journey down on Farren. He felt the impact on top of his right shoulder, forcing him face-down into the ground with tremendous force... only for him to hear the crackling of lightning in the claw rapidly growing in intensity for another half a second before culminating in a clap of thunder and a massive jolt of electricity that threw him backwards and away.

Simultaneously to this, Ophelia behind the darkbeast – the Holy Moonlight Sword still lodged in one of the links of the chain – would witness the same building of electric charge in the chain itself as Farren did in the darkbeast's claw. As the thunderous explosion sent Farren flying at the front of the beast, the entire chain glowed bright blue as a bolt of lightning sprang from it, into the adjacent blade of the Holy Moonlight Sword, and into Ophelia. It was not quite as intense as the blast that hit Farren, but she would find herself thoroughly shocked, burned and likely quite discombobulated.

The lightbeast wailed in agony, hit by the same force that had just struck Ophelia.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Hidden alcove, outside the walls south of Yahar'gul, northwest of Yharnam

With that they all fell silent and took up positions for an ambush against whatever was causing the chain to move. Ophelia prepared the Holy Moonlight Sword and moved to the left side of the alcove, right up against the gatehouse at the side of the fog wall.
On the opposite side of the alcove Gerlinde took up position on the other side of the fog wall, where she leaned casually against the wall while idly twirling her threaded cane. Anyone paying attention might notice that for as relaxed and unworried as she seemed, her left hand crept up to her blood vial pouch, opened it and retrieved... something that was quite clearly not a blood vial. Instead it looked like a small curved and ribbed horn of some kind, small enough that it only barely extended past the edges of her palm. Looking at it, Ophelia would immediately realize that this was the second source of arcane power she had felt on Gerlinde when they first met.
Farren took up his position about twenty meters back along the left wall, with Fulmen at the ready for what could possibly be its first use in real combat, and Torquil mirrored his position at the right wall, Loch Shield raised and axe at the ready.

As everyone found their places and began the silent wait, the chain stopped moving. Ten seconds passed, then twenty. The white-furred beast let out a low groan of discomfort, and anyone looking at it might notice the hair on its body gradually standing up. Then small, blue electric sparks started jumping between the links of the great chain. A low, hoarse growl emerged from the roof of the gatehouse, and suddenly the chain moved very quickly.
Ophelia would hear a very brief sound of something hard and sharp against stone along with a loud and violent rattle of the chain. Farren would be able to see it first from his vantage point, though, as a great, dark shape abruptly leaped into the air – huge, even bigger than the white-furred one – only for it to land right in the middle of the alcove, maybe ten meters from Farren and Torquil and with the white-furred one between it and Ophelia and Gerlinde.
All four of them would recognize the creature that had just made itself known and was now snarling angrily at Farren, as they had all seen one just like it in the Memory of Irreverence. A terrible creature of exposed bone, rotting flesh and patchy fur, with its entire body wreathed in blue lightning: an undead darkbeast... except this one had a large stake through its chest, tied to a chain that was wrapped around its torso and connected to the stake going through the white-furred beast's chest.
Ophelia would be able to see the Guidance sprites flowing from the white-furred one, through the chain, and into the darkbeast. The darkbeast let out a horrid wail, and the lightbeast whimpered in pain as lightning passed through the chain and shocked it.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Outside the walls south of Yahar'gul, northwest of Yharnam

When Ophelia asked the beast if it wanted her to put it out of its suffering, it simply exhaled deeply, producing a sound that had an uncanny resemblance to a human sigh. It did not raise its head, nor did it seem to track Farren as he moved around the alcove or Torquil as he entered; it appeared that it simply lied there, breathing slowly and mostly silently, ignoring their presence.

“Nope!” Gerlinde giggled in response to Farren's question, bouncing up from where she had been examining the stake in the beast's feet and running over to the fog wall, where she promptly attempted to whack the fog with her threaded cane. The cane stopped as if impacting something, but the sound it made was more akin to impacting a soft mattress than a stone wall. “Never seen anything like this!”

Again there was a subtle noise of a chain shifting, but since Ophelia was making the effort to track the sound and identify its source, she would look and realize that the thickest of the chains – the one leading to the roof of the gatehouse – was moving slowly, gradually going more slack, as if the chain was getting longer... or whatever it was connected to in the other end was getting closer.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Outside the walls south of Yahar'gul, northwest of Yharnam

A weak, pathetic sound emerged from the beast's throat, resembling something like a mix between a whimper and a moan. It hung its head, seemingly recognizing that Ophelia had no violent intent, but also seemingly unaware of the nearness of her radiant sword.
One of the chains rattled a bit as if jostled subtly, but otherwise nothing seemed to happen.

“How weird,” Gerlinde chirped happily as she walked up to the beast's hind body to examine where its feet had been staked to the ground. “I've never seen anything like this before.”
Again a chain rattled slightly.