Dark Jack

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

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

Gerlinde turned and leaned her back against the lightbeast's forehead, struck her still-burning threaded cane into the ground to force it back into is cane-form, and seemed content to simply watch the darkbeast assail their newly arrived ally. She smirked, seemingly unbothered by the fact that she – now fully healed, though her hair obviously did not heal and remained burnt – was even less decent than usual due to the holes burnt through her scant clothes.

Though touching the chain directly would result in him being electrocuted once or twice, it was a simple matter for Farren to separate one link for another now that it had been bent out of shape enough, rendering the chain finally severed. To everyone else, the effect of this was simply that the reddish fingers of lightning crawling along the chain in bursts timed with the darkbeast's attacks now stopped at the broken link and no longer reached the lightbeast, but the Guidance Rune revealed the other facet of its effect as well: that the Guidance sprites flowing along the chain from the lightbeast now simply reached the broken part of the chain and, rather than reach the darkbeast, scattered into the air and dispersed.

But even so the battle was far from over, it seemed. The hindmost part of the darkbeast protruded from the cloud of dust that had been kicked up by its first attack, but the frontmost part of it was obscured. Even so they would all be able to hear the thunder-like cracks, see the bright flashes of red light within the cloud and feel the tremors in the ground as it kept pummeling its target with a speed and fury unlike what it had demonstrated earlier. Three times in addition to the first did the red lightning strike before the Shopkeeper suddenly emerged, quickstepping backwards out of the cloud in the direction of the illusory wall.
The Shopkeeper's clothes looked significantly more tattered than when they had first arrived and smoldering in places, yet somehow still managed not to reveal even the smallest patch of skin. Their body also seemed to still be intact, though given the intense punishment they had just received that was probably due to them having regenerated rather than not taking damage.
Dismissing their version of the Loch Shield, the Shopkeeper instead reached both arms over their right shoulder and summoned a copy of the Holy Moonlight Sword, complete with its luminous giant blade, which instantly pulsed in the way Ophelia would recognize as the effect from it being empowered by a quicksilver bullet. They swung the blade in a mighty horizontal arc, and just as it had happened for Ludwig in the Memory of Irreverence it projected a wave of pale light outward and through the air. The projectile vanished into the dust cloud, though all of them saw a subtle flash and head a dull boom as it found its mark.
In the brief instant between the Shopkeeper swinging and the burst of moonlight hitting, however, the ominous red radiance intensified once more within the cloud, and the pale moonlight blade was met by a wave of crimson lightning. It washed over the Shopkeeper's unprotected form, but did not have a trajectory to threaten anyone else.
A second later the darkbeast rushed forward in pursuit of the Shopkeeper, seemingly content to ignore the rest of the Hunters in favor of focusing entirely on this new threat, and swiped at them viciously with its left claw, drawing a splash of weirdly pearlescent-looking blood from the Shopkeeper's chest. The Shopkeeper, in turn, dismissed their sword and instantly replaced it with an obscenely large scythe – a copy of the Burial Blade they had seen in the Dream – and carved deeply into the darkbeast's skull.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

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

As Farren's Bulwark transformed into its shield-form, it did indeed do some additional damage... not a lot, but some. Though the mechanism that allowed the sword to become a shield was fairly powerful, it was still a high ask for steel to cut steel, and if Farren examined the folding blades at some point he would find a sizable chip where they had met the chain. One side of the opening to the link, which had already been warped and weakened by the two arcane explosions it had been exposed to, bent outward and broadened the gap. It looked as though it would be possible to simply pass one of the other links through the opening now, and the chain would be severed.

In the meantime the darkbeast seemed to have recharged enough to stand back up properly and look around to check on the positions and activities of the intruders... only for its sweeping gaze to stop instantly as soon as it saw the Shopkeeper. As the Shopkeeper cocked their head, seemingly looking back at the monster, the darkbeast glared at them. It opened its jaws and let out a growl; a deep, hoarse and horrifying sound that sounded like bones grinding on bones, creaking and cracking. Its claws dug into the lightbeast beneath it, which whined pathetically.
Over the course of one second from spotting the Shopkeeper, the darkbeast's dull blue electric glow changed gradually first to violet, and finally to bright red, with sparks crawling everywhere on its body. Even its dark, empty eye-sockets and the shadow within its maw were filled with scarlet light.

Then, in a burst of insane, almost impossible-seeming motion, the darkbeast crossed the six meters that separated itself and the Shopkeeper at a speed and acceleration that seemed almost as fast as that of a quickstepping Hunter. Its right front paw – giving off an almost blinding red light – slammed down on the Shopkeeper, who just had time to raise their left arm over their head and, in a flash of blue light, conjure a perfect copy of the Loch Shield. Then the claw hit with such force that silt was thrown up from the ground in an obscuringly dense cloud of dust, filled with crackling red lightning.
Torquil, who as the summoner was standing right next to the Shopkeeper, was both thrown aside by the shockwave of the hit and shocked by the burst of electricity dispersing from the hit. He scrambled back to his feet and retreated, axe in hand, and began making his way over to the actual Loch Shield.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

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

Torquil slowly and dazedly raised his head – the now-empty vial still sticking out of the visor of his helmet, the syringe embedded in his skull – and felt his injuries regenerate, along with the entirely unexpected and intense high of his first time getting blood treatment. The intense rush of energy spreading throughout every cell in his body, the feeling of strength returning to his limbs, the delightful rightness he felt as the power of the Old Blood in his veins was replenished... he could understand how people might get addicted to it. Unfortunately it was hardly the time to stop and marvel at how amazing it felt, since they were still in the middle of a pitched battle.

Raising his left hand to shield his eyes from the bright flash of the darkbeast unleashing its huge burst of lightning, Torquil tried to track what everyone was doing at the moment.
He saw Ophelia retreat just in time to avoid the blast, only to jog on toward the piece of the chain she had damaged twice, clearly exhausted to the point where she would probably have to take a breath before she could continue fighting.
He saw Gerlinde hugging the lightbeast's face, standing immediately in front of and below the darkbeast, getting hit by the explosion point-blank for the third time... yet as the lightning receded, he was surprised to see her still standing, still alive. And not only that, her injuries – horrible though they were – were regenerating rapidly. The lightbeast was still giving off its soft aura of light, which was still enveloping the darkbeast as well, and though the lightbeast had obviously been caught in the explosion as well, it was also healing at an incredible rate.
He saw Farren draw a sword and run to the damaged part of the chain, take a knee and get hit yet again by the darkbeast's voltaic rage. Farren had seemed quite exhausted as well, and though it was hard to tell, Torquil could not imagine he had the regenerative potential to recover from another blast of electricity.

Having unleashed all of its stored energy, the darkbeast seemed to momentarily slouch on its perk, the electric crackle across its body gone... but returning rapidly.

Though it was one of his least favorite things in the world to do, this was another instance where Torquil felt it necessary to actually stop and think for a moment. Their goal at the moment was to destroy the chain connecting the light- and darkbeast, according to Ophelia. He had no idea why it was so imperative that they break that chain right now, or at all for that matter, but he assumed that Ophelia knew what she was talking about. She was clever, unlike him, always thinking lots of thoughts. So the chain was the target.
Looking around, though, none of them were in any condition to do much of anything to help their odds during this fight. Gerlinde had been fried by lightning so many times that he could not imagine she had much regenerative potential left – quite frankly he was amazed she was still alive, let alone still healing – and did not look like she had the strength to break the chain. Ophelia had proven quite effective with her big glowy sword, but she looked like she was hanging on by a thread, constantly pushed to the absolute limits of her stamina. And Farren was probably worst off of all of them, having been hit even more times than Gerlinde and running on fumes in terms of physical endurance.
And finally there was himself, of course. Having just taken a blood vial he was healing back to perfect health and felt like he probably had regenerative potential to spare, and he had had time to catch his breath a bit and could probably fight a bit again. If he went and retrieved the Loch Shield and could somehow make the monster focus its attention on him, he have been might be able to endure its attacks while the others caught their breath and broke the chain... if it had only used lightning, that was. With the shield he could weather the electric storm somewhat, but if he got hit by physical attacks he doubted he could withstand more than one or two hits.
He could run over and try to destroy the chain, but it looked like Ophelia and Farren were both already doing that, and if everyone did that the darkbeast would be free to brush aside Gerlinde and then wipe them all out.
What do we do? he asked himself, because the inevitable conclusion he reached was that they were going to lose. The darkbeast looked like it was still at pretty much full strength, while all of them were barely able to keep going. Quite simply, even with the four of them together, it looked like they were just not strong enough to deal with something of this caliber. If this fight went on, he figured, they would keep spending their finite resources – particularly their blood vials – just to prolong their struggle, only to then be killed and have to make do without those resources after returning to the Hunter's Dream. And what would happen in the time it would take them to get back here, especially if they had to resupply first? Had the darkbeast not learned from this fight? Would Gerlinde's Followers not logically want to come and be here to sabotage them in an eventual rematch? It was going to be bad. Very bad.
Torquil swallowed, and stood from where he had fallen. He wished they had time for him to ask the others what he should do. But there was no time. He had to think, then act. So he did.

Ding-ding

He shook the silver Moonborn Bell, and as they had for Ophelia earlier in the evening, the Shopkeeper emerged from the ground in front of Torquil, and immediately turned toward the two beasts.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

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

Rather than swivel in place to track Farren and try to land its intended attack, the darkbeast simply followed him with its head as he quickstepped away. The claw it had raised and begun focusing energy into lowered again, the bluish glow dispersing back into the rest of its body. Then its maw opened as it let out a long, terrible, hoarse screech, the fur on its body standing up and crackling with energy as its entire body started glowing more brightly.
They would all doubtlessly recognize the signs of it preparing another massive explosion of lightning as it had done earlier. Farren in particular would also probably realize that the weak chain link he was targeting was within the area of effect... and Ophelia in particular knew from experience that whenever the darkbeast channeled lightning, the chain also became electrified.

Meanwhile the warm glow from the lightbeast enveloped it, healing the horrible damage Gerlinde had just gouged out of its skull. Like before, the warm glow also spread up and enshrouded the darkbeast on top of it... though notably, the glow appeared to reach the darkbeast directly at the moment, spreading up to where it was perched on top of the lightbeast before it had a chance to fully spread along the chain to reach it.
Gerlinde, still hanging onto the lightbeast's face, regenerated, and her silence first turned into a cough, then a hoarse croak, and then back into her boisterous laughter as her throat and lungs resumed something approaching normal function. Though her hair was considerably shorter now and still smoldering, and her clothes had gotten somewhat less decent than they already were, she appeared to be ready to keep fighting. She looked up at the darkbeast preparing its attack while lowering her left hand to her hip and popping out another quicksilver bullet from the tube.

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.