yoshua171

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

watched the battle with baited breath, recovering his stamina naturally as he did so. Each exchange of blows was tremendous and he marvelled at the fact that they’d even managed to fight the Darkbeast at all. However…at the same time, Farren found himself unsettled and uncertain. Before when Ophelia had summoned the Moonbound Hunter he had absolutely obliterated their opponent…but now, it was almost even, and Farren had the distinct sense that the Shopkeeper was struggling.

“This isn’t good…” Farren muttered, pushing to his feet after he’d briefly handed Bulwark to the Messengers who had waited for further direction. They’d taken it after that.

As Farren stood up, he glanced at the three others. Torquil was perhaps in the best shape…or at least looked it, but that was on account of his armor. Besides, the man had clearly taken at least one blood vial during their encounter with the Darkbeast. While Farren took in each of them–startled at how well off Gerlinde seemed despite the sheer quantity of damage she’d taken. Ophelia on the other hand, though in decent shape, appeared largely on her last legs—she was clearly exhausted.

Yet, before he could even begin to organize some plan of attack, his eyes were drawn back to the conflict as the Darkbeast wrested dominion of the battle by latching onto the Shopkeeper. Then it started to glow with a ferocity far exceeding anything it had done during their fight with it. “Shit…”

Farren cast his gaze down and away, shielding his eyes with an arm in the instant right before the explosion went off. It was so loud and powerful that it rattled his bones, sending a chilling vibration throughout his entire body that set his every nerve on edge. Some small part of him that retained a prey instinct told him desperately to run. Farren stifled that voice, squared his jaw and tried to steel himself, but when the dust cleared, his lips parted slightly in stunned horror.

“That…that’s a problem,” Farren said simply, his tone gruff and though there was a note of fear there, by and large he sounded no less determined than before. Brandishing the Beastflayer, Farren’s eyes snapped over to Gerlinde. “Any chance that horn of yours can work on more than one weapon at a time?” As he spoke, he kept the beast in his peripheral vision. He’d know precisely when it decided to shift its attention.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

healed much faster from that point, as Bulwark levered the chainlink open even further, though it hadn’t done quite the degree of damage he’d hoped it could. Nonetheless, as his senses came fully back into focus, he caught the trailing crimson bolts as the Darkbeast leapt into motion. Farren’s gaze shifted in the direction he’d seen the blur, his brow already furrowing before he watched in dumbfounded silence as the Darkbeast began its clash with the Moonborn Hunter.

Though he’d not know it, Farren had thought similarly to Ophelia…that they could have prevailed given a bit more time and space to maneuver, but seeing that single clash changed his mind.

“Bloody hell…” Farren muttered, but he didn’t gape for more than an instant. The silt blocked his view anyways, so instead he turned his azure eyes upon the chainlink, withdrew Bulwark’s expanded shield form from the space with a grating metal-against-metal racket, and then he tossed the weapon to his left rather carelessly. Far moreso than he normally would have. His hands swiftly caught on the chain link, and he used his strength and dexterity both to unhook it from its fellows, severing the link between Light and Darkbeasts.

That done, Farren glanced at Bulwark, noted the chipped outer edge with a frown, then mumbled to the Messengers, who took the weapon away the next moment. He’d have to get it repaired now…that’d been reckless, but necessary–he hoped.

Rising to his feet, Farren kicked the now separated portions of chain away from one another and pulled the Beastflayer from his back, watching for further movement.

Surely the beast couldn’t overpower even the Shopkeeper….

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Lhirinthyl

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Lhirin had much to think on as they walked following his involvement in conversations with Freagon and the fall–Caleb–he corrected himself mentally. Though he’d had a fair deal more experience than most with the divine on account of Deo’Irah, fallen angels were a different matter entirely. Personally, he found them fascinating and his experience thus far with Caleb only reinforced that notion. Oddly–though he understood the divine’s reticence to share it–Lhirin found himself truly wishing he had the being’s name. Not to summon it necessarily, but simply to converse with it.

It just seemed a terrible shame that one with so many experiences and the knowledge that came with divinity would be locked away in the Neverrealm once they were done. Had he the option, the deigan might have bound himself to his word with the divine, such that he could not bind Caleb even if he so desired, but alas Lhirin knew of no such magic nor other power that might allow such a thing.

Sighing lightly to himself–the sound small and quiet as the necessity for some measure of stealth had presented itself some time ago–Lhirin went about assisting Irah with her gathering. When they came to a stop to briefly confer, Lhirin made an effort to put some finishing touches on the makeshift facsimile of a body.

It was roughshod at best and though it would surely crumble at some point later when the Angel had once again departed, Lhirin found that it offended his sensibilities as a craftsman.

However, before he could ask for her flask, Lhirin felt Irah’s hand gently lay upon his shoulder. Lhirin frowned slightly, his silver eyes shifting to regard her. While others he could not read, Irah he had come to know very well over their time together and something in his manner hardened–his stance becoming more solid as he spaced his feet more evenly and stood just a bit taller, all as if to offer her something solid to rely on. Yet, even as that occurred, his gaze grew soft, filled with unspoken understanding. Lightly, he raised his own hand and laid it over hers, holding her gaze for a long few seconds, before he finally blinked once and spoke.

“May I have your flask?”

She acquiesced, handing it over and he gave her a small nod of thanks and a brief smile, before squeezing her hand lightly and then letting go. He moved to their makeshift construction and scanned the nearby earth, poking at it with the toe of his boot as he did so. Eventually he seemed to find what he was looking for, at which point he shifted over to it and crouched down, uncapping her flask.

Someone else might think the next thing he did was rude and thoughtless, for Lhirinthyl promptly poured the water onto the ground in an expanding circle until the flask was nearly emptied. Capping it he handed it up to Irah and then began to scrounge in the dirt like some small burrowing animal. He dug without the slightest hint of shame and with a single minded focus that few could match. After a minute or so he’d loosened a fairly decent portion of sodden dirt–mud really–and his hands were thoroughly sullied by the act. Yet, for some reason, the deigan mage seemed pleased at his work. He took in hand some of the mud, testing its consistency–and even compacting it to squeeze some of the moisture out into mostly dry earth–after which he pushed to his feet and turned to their creation. Carefully he began to pat clots of mud onto various areas of the construct in mostly fairly thin layers. He’d come back for more mud, gathering it in hand before repeating the process. When he had gotten most of the mud in place he put some more around where joints might be and molded gentle curves and angles into the piece. It took at least a solid 5 minutes while the others conferred and organized, but when he was done their roughshod thing appeared somewhat more recognizable as a facsimile of a person. He’d been careful not to put too much mud in a given place so that it could hold together with the loose plant matter, sticks, and other materials they’d used. It also, oddly, looked a bit more like something. Lhirin hadn’t been aiming for anything in particular, but it had about if one caught its silhouette they might be startled–even before they summoned a divine to inhabit it.

Brushing off his hands of dried mud, Lhirin then turned back to the others. He only grimaced when he realized that he might have to hold his Runeblade with his soil-covered hands. Sighing a bit he used his own flask to slightly rinse off a bit more dirt, then he absently wiped them off using his sleeves. They could clean his clothes later, it was more important that he could easily move his fingers and wield his blade.

Likely by the time he’d finished, Caleb would be ready for the first summoning and the others would be fully organized, at which point he’d join the group that they’d planned he would accompany.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

was blind, deaf, and functionally mute, his body charred, his clothes with holes burned in them. The pain was endless and this time he didn’t feel the immediate rush of vitality surge through his body. He tried to swallow, but the sensation was beyond painful. His hand fumbled numbly at his vial pouch for a second, found purchase, and then weakly stabbed the syringe into his thigh. He groaned and even that hurt, but the vial of the Old Blood began to suffuse him, an ecstatic heat that spread from where the vial had punctured his flesh down through his leg and up from his thigh at the same time. It combined with a prickling sensation, like pins and needles dialed up past reckoning with. The heat reached his head and the haze in his mind cleared almost immediately, followed swiftly by his vision returning. “Fucker…” Farren rasped out, then he managed to move, bringing Bulwark down into the gap of the damaged chain link. The blade easily punched through the silt, then the dirt, driven by his rapidly returning strength as heat and jagged needling nerve pain coursed throughout his body. With a pained grunt, Farren twisted his hand, activating the mechanism of the blade…and Bulwark expanded in a sudden burst of force, each ‘expanding edge’ aimed at a weak point of the chainlink. With any luck it would be enough.

Too dazed to notice, Farren barely even registered the sound of the bell, perhaps he’d missed it while he’d been deaf and recovering. Further, he hadn’t even glanced in Torquil’s direction and his peripheral vision felt hazy and inconsequential in that moment of narrow pain-ridden focus. Perhaps it was better that way.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

saw the shift in his peripheral vision, and his head turned slightly, noting that the glow of the beast had expanded to the core of its body. Farren deliberated only for an instant before continuing his path.

The longer this went, the less able all of them would be for whatever came after–not to mention the more likely a death would become. The chain had to be severed, even if he had to suffer for it. So, Farren drew Bulwark as he ran, reaching the chain link mere moments before the Darkbeast released its explosive charge. Rather than try to complete the action, Farren dropped to his knees beside the chain and gripped the blade’s handle with both hands as tight as he could.

Then the world went white.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

kept on going and despite not finding the result he’d desired, he did not despair. Besides, Gerlinde had dealt it considerable pain, and the noise of the Beastflayer’s blades grating through its rotten flesh and against its stubborn bone was oddly satisfying in its own way. Yet, the hunger did not abate and Farren’s right arm carried the motion backwards, flicking the weapon as its segments became near one another once more. His left hand found the tail end of the pole and twisted the mechanism.

He was still moving the entire time, inexorably devouring the remaining meters between himself and the beast, his azure eyes locked with the eyeless gaze of the monster as he ran. Distantly, some part of him noticed not his strength flagging, but a sense of heaviness beginning to slowly rise from deeper in his body, as if borne from his bones and unto his blood. Farren ignored it, his hunger, his rage, and the need to keep the beast thoroughly busy even as Ophelia called out, reminding them all of their true goal. The Beastflayer snapped back together into a glaive, its bladed end trailing behind him for a moment before he brought it to bear once more. By then he’d covered much of the distance already, no more than two meters between himself and his prey.

Eyes wide, Farren noted as the beast began to move, raising its right arm up–claws glowing with actinic light–likely to perform a downwards strike. Undeterred, Farren didn’t wait for it to finish, instead his gaze shifted northeast and then he pushed forward in a blur of motion, quickstepping as far as he could towards the broken chain, covering 5 of the 8 meters in a fraction of a second. As he exited the movement he felt his lungs burning and abandoned the notion of a second quickstep to cover the remaining 3 meters, instead keeping the pace he’d been maintaining moments prior. He was trying to reach the damaged chain link, with any luck he might get there before the monster’s attack hit ground.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

managed to fully equip himself with his choice of weapons, but his relative inaction had its consequences it seemed. As he looked up, Farren witnessed the Darkbeast clamber atop its victim and then begin to prepare another volley of voltaic violence to mete upon them. “Fuck,” he muttered, as his eyes and memory alike informed him that unlike Ophelia–who he heard immediately dash–he didn’t have time to cross the necessary distance to escape.

So he didn’t try to, instead, about a quarter of a second after he’d heard Ophelia’s feet push against the silt-covered earth–making a distinct sound that paired with seeing her in his periphery told him she’d dashed–Farren did the same. However, rather than retreat, the azure-eyed hunter advanced. As the current danced rapidly towards him through the air, Farren approached it as well, but unlike before he embraced the anger still half-furled in the furnace of his chest.

Two-thirds of the way through, his body met with the unnatural lightning of the Darkbeast’s attack, surging through his body, igniting his flesh, boiling his eyes, rupturing his eardrums, and drawing coruscating rootwork burns through his entire body, his veins and nerves appearing as faintly glowing viridian patterns through his almost-blackened flesh. His hair, similarly, ignited, standing on end, but pushed back by the speed of his movement and the direction of the current as it passed over and through him.

His eye sockets leaked an almost cream-like goo, forming tears that trailed sideways along his cheekbones, mixing with streaming tears from the pain. Farren howled, not like a wolf, but like an enraged, pained animal–the sound equal parts savagery and agony.

Not even waiting for the Old Blood to surge through his body and begin the process of healing, Farren swung, twisting his wrist on the Beastflayer as he did so. Each of its segments ‘clicked’ open in a distinct noise as the mechanisms that held them together unlocked. He finished his quickstep, but kept running towards the Bastard, teeth gritted against the agony searing through his mind, letting it center him in the moment.

His eyes and internals healed first, then his ears, the world snapping into sudden and sharp relief as the Beastflayer ratcheted out, extending almost in slow motion as he moved like a frenzied wraith in a beeline straight for the undead monstrosity.

The moment extended, then time seemed to snap back into its proper flow and the Beastflayer spooled out en full and cleaved in a left-to-right horizontal arc through the air, crossing the 2 additional meters before the weapon would begin to flay through the Darkbeast, aimed center of mass. Only as the arc was halfway through its motion did Farren’s flesh finish knitting together, putting on display a horrid rictus of a grin, his mind utterly devoid of true thought as he matched the Hunter impulse in his blood.

Certainly, the beast could heal, but how would it fair if the weapon cleaved horizontally through the center of its body one side to the other, skull included?

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

withdrew his blunderbuss as he detected something shift in the creature’s body. He backstepped—not using his hunter ability—and just in time too as the Darkbeast leapt high into the air with an athleticism and speed that briefly frightened even him. The feeling didn’t last long though, not before transitioning into a different sort of fear as it hurtled down through the air towards Ophelia.

However, she’d noticed in time and surged from its path just in time. Knowing there was no way he could have done anything about her predicament either way, Farren did his best to immediately take advantage of the beast’s distraction, bending down to one knee with his eyes still locked on the Darkbeast as it hurtled rapidly down to where Ophelia had been a moment ago. He murmured to the Messengers, hoping they’d respond here, even as he offered them Fulmen. He’d retrieve it once things calmed down again and he had a chance to look it over thoroughly.

From the little helpers, he requested Bulwark and the Beasflayer even as he sheathed the True Blade of Mercy as well.

“Torquil, Gerlinde, keep it distracted. I’ll help Ophelia with the chain,” Farren offered the others in the way of direction. Partway through the sentence, the Messengers received his call, took Fulmen, and gave him the two armaments he’d requested. While he’d waited the brief time he’d used one hand to deftly rearrange the harness on his back. Thus, when the weapons shifted up through the ground—maneuvered carefully by the withered little hands of the helpful creatures—Farren nodded to them thankfully and accepted each. Bulwark he slotted into its own loop of thick leather at his right hip, whereas the Beastflayer he took into both hands, pushing back to both feet as he did so. Perhaps the intense levering force of Bulwark in that Chain link could wrench it the rest of the way open and break the Darkbeast’s connection.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

had been about to step in for another strike when he saw movement in his periphery. Azure eyes turned and bore witness to the opening of the Darkbeast’s jaw. His eyes narrowed and a flush of warning surged in his blood as something like a haze of electrical energy gathered, and then began to be expelled from the creature’s maw. Farren pushed back, not making the same mistake he had before, and instead backpedaled a few steps even as he noticed it move its massive skeletal claws onto the chain. Recalling why it had collapsed to begin with, Farren shifted focus, running towards its right back leg. At the same time he sheathed the remaining Effigial Blade at his hip and promptly unhooked the blunderbuss, gripping it in his left hand as he kept his head turned towards the beast, noticing the interaction between the strange light of the withered beast and the Darkbeast’s sudden revitalization.

If nothing interrupted him, Farren would reach the Darkbeast’s nearest rear leg, at which point he’d have wound up a heavy slash with the True Blade of Mercy—the strike aimed to take it straight through the joint that attached its leg to its hip.

Further, if he was able to sever the leg, or even open up a blunderbuss barrel-sized wound, Farren would shove the firearm into the wounded area and unload the quicksilver round directly into its undead flesh—the barrel pressed into whichever wound was present.

Otherwise, Farren would likely take defensive actions if he threatened by the rotten beast.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

unfortunately found himself caught in the outer expanse of the electrical conflagration as it slashed through the air in every direction like violent actinic roots branching at strange and arcane angles. In the instant before he was struck, Farren had three thoughts, first that Gerlinde and Torquil hadn’t retreated, second being a simple set of expletives, and third being that the sight was a form of violent beauty that he knew he’d never bore witness to in his prior life.

A strange sense of appreciation thus washed through him in the instant right before roots of searing voltaic pain cascaded through his flesh. Farren’s muscles, eyelids included, twitched and spasmed, but he managed not to allow that to entirely throw him off, landing with more grace than one might expect given when he’d endured. Farren slid to a halt some 4 meters from the Darkbeast, jaw tight, pupils blown wide even as his eyes almost bulged from how wide he was holding them. A beat passed, and then he managed to extract a blood vial, stab it into his leg, and depress it with a pained hiss. “Agh…” he snarled out as his regeneration kicked back into action, going from a sluggish pace to a rapid reinvigoration of his earthly vessel.

The vial returned to his pouch as he pressed forwards, inhaling sharply before he began to pick up speed until he was fully running at the Darkbeast. “Ragged bastard,” Farren growled out just before reaching it, then he was next to its head. Without hesitation, his flesh renewed by then, Farren stabbed the twin unified Blades of Mercy into its eye sockets and then wrenched out the Blades. Yet, a jerk of his wrists during the motion allowed him to deliberately split his Blades, leaving one Effigial Blade and one True Blade of Mercy embedded in the creature’s head, while he withdrew their twins.

With a wrath that might have surprised even him if he’d had any mind to reflect in that moment, Farren then began to lay blow after blow upon the monster’s neck, slicing away flesh and fur as he repeatedly scoured and split away at its vertebrae once more. Finally…he’d found an outlet for the rage that had bubbled in his gut ever since the violation of the Garden.

Finally he had prey.