Dark Jack

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

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

With the united efforts of Ophelia, Farren, Torquil and the lightbeast itself – which proved quite capable of handling its own restraints now that its hands were free – the remaining chains were quickly unraveled and both the stake through its feet and its chest were removed. As each great, sharp amalgamation of stone and steel was removed, the wounds they kept from closing seemed to regenerate instantly, and the flow of Guidance sprites ceased instantly. It also seemed quite clear that the beast grew more energetic and enthusiastic for each stake removed from it, moving faster and more eagerly.
Finally the last stake and chain fell away, and the lightbeast – for the first time in gods knew how long – stood up and stretched its impressive frame like a cat, first its forelimbs, then its hind legs. It occasionally made a delighted noise, almost like a trill.

As the stake and chain on the lightbeast's feet were removed, the fog wall quickly dissipated and left only an open gateway that appeared to lead directly into Yahar'gul proper. Gerlinde, who had spent the time leaning against the side of the gatehouse and twirling her threaded cane silently while attentively watching the lightbeast, seemed to perk up and leaned over to peek through it.

Within several seconds of Ophelia sending her message to the Shopkeeper, the Messengers returned with a reply in impeccable calligraphy:

Well done. Our apologies for what happened, but we have never seen a darkbeast fight like that.

The Shopkeeper's first message

A few seconds later another pair of Messengers arrived with another scroll:

Only Paleblood Hunters can enter the Hunter's Dream. While there are shelters for humans and Yharnamites, we fear that there is nowhere safe for a beast on a Night of the Hunt that we know of. Our best suggestion might be Old Yharnam.

The Shopkeeper's second message

In addition to all of that going on, Ophelia would also hear the whispers of the Holy Moonlight Sword while she was working: “The Huntress has defeated powerful prey. It senses her strength, and that of her allies. Her glory. It once more offers her guidance, and wishes to send her on a holy mission. To find its other half. Will the wielder aid it in this pursuit?”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

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

“Do whatever you want,” Gerlinde told Ophelia with a shrug, her eyes beginning to wander as the situation and conversation lost her interest. It was at this moment that the red blaze that had enveloped her threaded cane throughout the entire fight finally dispersed, leaving behind the weapon only slightly singed.
She turned to Farren and transformed her weapon into its whip-form. “I'm always ready.”

With Gerlinde standing by ready to attack at the first sign of hostility, Farren and – at Farren's request and instruction – Torquil set about trying to free the lightbeast's hands. It took a couple of minutes with how securely its wrists had been bound with the chain, but with combined efforts they eventually managed to loosen its bonds and to retrieve the stake. Through it all, the lightbeast simply remained still and watched in silence.
The holes through the creature's hands that had been kept open by the stake closed in an instant, and it slowly turned its hands so they were palm-up and brought them up to its face. It seemed to take a couple of seconds to just stare at its own disfigured hands, awkwardly clenching and unfurling its red, twisted fingers.

As the stake was pulled from the lightbeast's flesh, Ophelia would immediately see that the flow of Guidance sprites along the chain ceased, leaving the chain inert and eventually ending the curtain of them covering the entrance to the alcove. The illusion that had hidden this place for however long it had been in place, it seemed, had been dispelled.

The lightbeast sat up as best it could while still being impaled on the tombstone stake and having its feet pinned to the ground. It lowered its head, brought its hands together in front of its chest and folded its fingers in a strikingly familiar gesture, clearly resembling the traditional pose taken during prayer. Every movement made its joints creak and groan audibly, and thick layers of silt and dust that had caked on its hide during its long time being inert drizzled from its moving form.
It remained like this for about ten seconds, but while to most of them it appeared that it was simply offering up a silent prayer, Ophelia would once again see something else. As the creature prayed, first one, then two, then several motes of moonlight seemed to manifest out of thin air near it and be drawn toward its hands, where they started orbiting them, until dozens of them were swarming around its folded hands like moths around a flame.
Only then did the lightbeast unfold its hands and, very slowly and carefully, reached its right hand toward Ophelia. It extended its long, blood-red index-finger toward her, and all the Guidance sprites seemed to siphon into its fingertip, and all of them – not just Ophelia – would see it giving off a faint pale glow that was quite different from the warm one signifying its healing power.
It carefully tapped Ophelia on her forehead with the fingertip, and the light transferred into her, resulting in a very bizarre sensation for Ophelia as alien insight suddenly flowed into her. Knowledge of things beyond this world, of words and concepts beyond mortal comprehension... things she could barely wrap her head around, let alone reach any kind of sufficient understanding of. Yet all of it ultimately crystallized into its simplest form: a Caryll Rune.

Ophelia has obtained the Mask Rune, which allows one to see through all arcane illusions. Also makes you immune to eldritch influence.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

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

The lightbeast fixed its eyeless stare at Ophelia, leaning gently into her hand, and slowly nodded its head up and down. She could faintly see a shimmer of warm light momentarily in the creature's empty sockets and felt something like a warm caress crawling up her right arm, rejuvenating her and – she could tell – replenishing her regenerative potential.
A soft croon emerged from deep in the lightbeast's throat, and in tried in vain to move from the spot. It turned its head to the stake pinning its hands to the ground and whined.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

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

While Torquil tried to find a way to simultaneously puff out his chest in pride and awkwardly look away in embarrassment, Farren spent some time examining the remains of the darkbeast. The first and most notable thing he would find was that though the monster itself was dead, its remains appeared to still contain some faint remnant of life. Muscle-tissue remaining on the bones continued to twitch randomly and ineffectually, its heart and lungs kept spasmodically trying to preserve life in its undead body and, as he looked very closely, he would even find that the burns and cuts it had received in its last moments were still regenerating... just very, very slowly, at least by the standards of someone with the Old Blood.
As an undead beast, it appeared that even beheading the creature was not enough to completely extinguish the spark of life from it. But even if it still possessed some weak semblance of vitality, the fact that they had received blood echoes seemed to suggest that its mortal will had been vanquished, at least... and even with the incredible regenerative powers of undeath, it seemed incredibly unlikely that the darkbeast would be able to grow a new head on its body, or a new body from its head.
Aside from the still-living flesh and bones of the creature itself, the only potentially useful thing Farren would be able to retrieve from the corpse was the massive stake embedded in its chest. That particular stake looked like it would be rather large and cumbersome for something human-sized to handle, but it also looked like it – being a giant stone stake – could feasibly be used as a weapon somehow. Notably, the significantly smaller stakes in the lightbeast's hands and feet looked like they would be a much more manageable size.

Gerlinde, meanwhile, seemed fairly unmoved by everything that had just happened, but merely turned to the lightbeast while idly brushing off the ash of her own burned-up skin off her right shoulder and arm. The lightbeast kept its head raised, much more attentive now than previously, and seemed to turn to look at whoever was speaking at any given moment.
“What about this one?” Gerlinde asked, pointing her threaded cane at the beast. “Do you want to kill it, too? That might be faster than breaking the chain, and I bet it has some pretty powerful blood echoes too. Or are we just leaving it here?” Her tone suggested that she was personally more interested in killing the creature.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

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

“Never tried,” Gerlinde replied to Farren's inquiry. She started reaching for the tube of quicksilver bullets on her hip, but stopped when she heard Ophelia's battlecry and realized that others were already moving against the darkbeast.
Ophelia arrived and started carving into the darkbeast's face with her arcane blade, gushing blood from the creature as its charred bones crumbled under her strikes. Perhaps half a second after her – arriving after Ophelia only because he had opted not to quickstep to get there – Torquil ran to the right and back of the monster's head, and immediately chopped at its neck with his axe, the only way he knew how: with every ounce of strength he could draw from his bulging muscles.
Both the Holy Moonlight Sword and the Hunter's axe cut deep, and the darkbeast trembled under their assault. Anyone paying attention might notice a faint pulse of electricity through the chain connected to the stake through the darkbeast's chest, but they ended up just sparking uselessly at where the chain had been severed, never reaching their intended target.
The darkbeast hissed and gargled, its entire body trembling. Nearly all of its fur had been burned away by the red lightning, and it was clearly struggling to produce even the faintest voltaic charge at the moment. Each swing of the blade of the cosmos left gashes in its flesh and bone that still healed, but did so discernibly slower with each passing second.
Its hind legs kicked uselessly in the silt and its shaky front claws tried in vain to drag it toward where the lightbeast remained staked to the ground. The lightbeast, in turn, raised its head for only the second time since they had arrived at the alcove, turning its empty sockets toward its dark and menacing companion.
Ophelia slashed, Torquil chopped again, and the darkbeast collapsed once more. Its wounds, which had once regenerated as fast or faster than they could inflict them, were no longer healing. It convulsed weakly on the ground, with no strength left to resist.
Then Torquil chopped a third time, and its head tumbled off its shoulders and landed at Ophelia's feet.

Ophelia, Farren, Torquil and Gerlinde all suddenly felt an overwhelming sensation of something weightless and invisible coming to envelop them, and all of them except Torquil would likely recognize the sensation as that of the blood echoes of the fallen clinging to them. Except feeling, even for those familiar, was far more intense than they had experienced before.

Ophelia and Gerlinde has received 600 blood echoes.
Farren and Torquil, under the influence of the Heir Rune, have received 1200 blood echoes.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

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

While Gerlinde casually leaned on the staked-down lightbeast and twirled her fiery cane, and Torquil collapsed his axe back into its shorter form and successfully retrieved the Loch Shield, the darkbeast remained focused entirely on the Shopkeeper.

The darkbeast swiped again, but the Shopkeeper took a swift and carefully measured back so that its claw missed them by a hair's breadth, only for the Shopkeeper to immediately step back in while spinning the Burial Blade over their head. The great scythe came down vertically on top of the darkbeast's skull, piercing deep into it. It was a wound that one would assume to be lethal to any ordinary creature... but Farren especially had already witnessed a Hunter survive something similar when he had plunged his Blade of Mercy into Skinner's forehead.
Indeed, the darkbeast wasted no time retaliating with another red-glowing explosive slam of its claw. This time the Shopkeeper did not have time to conjure an Effigial Loch Shield to protect themselves, so even as the silt was blown into the air in another dust cloud, they were thrown backward and out of the obscured area by the force, where they ended up rolling an extra meter or so, now unarmed. The darkbeast followed with a fierce snarl, pouncing on the caretaker of the Dream with both claws extended, but again the Shopkeeper managed to roll out of the way in the last moment and get back on their feet.
Raising both hands over their head, the Shopkeeper summoned another weapon with a blue flash: something that looked like a pair of simple, a large wooden wheels connected by an axle, only with the rims of emanating an ominous dark-red arcane aura in the form of what appeared to be human skulls. They slammed the Logarius' Wheel down into the darkbeast's head as it advanced once again, and the wheels appeared to spin violently on their own, carving into the monster while radiating dark, baleful spirits.
Instead of trying to evade or defend itself in any way, the darkbeast repeated the maneuver it had just failed at and brought both of its hands up behind the Shopkeeper, dug its claws into their back, and pulled them in close to its face. The Shopkeeper allowed their wheel to vanish, only to immediately summon a beast claw and use its power to partially transform into a beast themselves, after which they started viciously clawing at both sides of the darkbeast's head at the same time.
Meanwhile the darkbeast seemed to just stand still, just allowing itself to be shredded... except that while its body held still, its lightning was moving. The red glow wreathing its form migrated toward its front, leaving first its hind body dark, then the rest of its torso, until all of its light seemed to focus into its hands and head, each of which now gave off a blindingly bright glare.

There was a powerful sound so deep that none of them could hear it, but everyone felt it rattle their very bones, just as they could plainly see the shockwave sending an obvious ripple through the silt across the entire alcove. Though the light was concentrated entirely on the Shopkeeper, anyone within twenty meters of them would easily be able to feel the heat wafting past them, as if someone had just opened a pressurized furnace.
Then the darkbeast collapsed limply where it was, black smoke rising from its claws and head, and all its electricity gone. The Shopkeeper was also gone, however, and in the place they had stood but a moment ago the ground had turned to glass.

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.