[center][h2]John[/h2][/center]
[color=gray]With Characters borrowed from [@Whoami] and [@Legion02]
Time: Prior to meeting the Bone Demon[/color]

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[color=silver]Having listened to the two men’s exchange, John was inclined to rethink his evaluation of the Princess’ entourage. Personality aside, their work so far were not quite as bad as it appeared during their first encounter. Following the airflow, huh? Maybe they’re not THAT incompetent after all.

Sound as it may be, however, the task was simply a boring one. To listen for faint whistling of air in complete darkness in an uncharted area was not a job any sane person would be elated to do. No matter how aloof he may act, John was but a human, and human are not designed to be OK to stay silent in the dark for as long as whatever this expedition has forced them to. There are so many questions that was bothering him anyway, and the steady wind had been steady and strong enough for them to follow without focusing too much on it for a while now. Perhaps it is time to break the silence? John thought to himself.

“So, what is a royalty doing in Goldencrest anyway?” He asked. An ice breaker question, if you may.

“Princess, it would be better not to reveal anything to this man,” an icy tone replied, in complement with the sound of a bow string being pulled. “Acting nonchalant but suddenly asking questions while we’re isolated? I don’t trust him.”

Apparently the ice won’t be thawing anytime soon for John.

“Big word from Mr. ‘Oh this guy looks suspicious but OK I will let the princess approach him. Did you grow a second set of brain in the dark? Or is that your instinct to win favour kicking in yet again?” John replied in kind.

The reaction he received was pretty much a given. “Let’s see if you can still talk big with an arrow stuck through your mouth,” Dale mouthed as he brought his bow to full spring.

Breaking the tension was Father Wyn, who demanded the two men not to spill blood in front of the young Princess. The suggestion fell to deaf ears at first, yet like the seasoned clergymen that he is, Father Wyn seemed to have ways to subtly coerce people into listening to him. A simple mention of the Princess’ willingness to put her trust in the mystery man was the final push it took to stay Dale’s hand.

“Now that the problems’ been sorted out, this is a good chance for us to know each other better, don’t you think?” Father Wyn declared with a clap and a slightly higher voice than what he’s been using previously. Then, having placed his right palm in front of his chest, he declared their identity. “I am Father Wyn. This fine gentleman with a bow here is Dale. We are a part of Princess Tera Valenci’s retinue.”

Then, silence. At least on the surface, that is, for beneath the superficial lack of sound, for whatever reason, John could feel the two nagging him to reveal something in return.

“What?” John finally buckled to the pressure.

“Your name, you idiot. Or do you want us to refer to you as Hunter A?” Dale answered in kind.

“Eh, Hunter A is fine,” replied said Mr. Hunter A. “I don’t want to get too attached.”

Mixed result, that last remark had. The only other face without a name, for example, produced a less-than-subtle ‘fuck you’ smile upon hearing that blunt honesty from John.

“But young man,” Father Wyn to the rescue once again. “Surely giving us a name will help us coordinate better?” he reasoned.

And a good reasoning, that was. But this is John we were talking about. Being obstinate and disagreeable was like breathing to him.

“You know,” he answered deviantly. “That argument would work better if, A: you refer to your Princess by name and not her title; and B: everybody else has given their name”. Having made his argument, John turned to the silver-haired lady and asked the deciding question. “So what’s it going to be? Help the Father out and drop a name?”

To which the lady replied with a true-to-character, “I might if you’re not dead by dawn.”

“There you have it,” John stated rather triumphantly, satisfied to have made his point. “John. Nick. Ted. Bob. Gunner. Rookie,” he then listed a few names and title he could think of. “Any name that’s not obviously female and does not rhyme with Dale or Wyn will do. Choose one to your liking.”

[center]-------=====>>>+<<<=====-------[/center]
Before they realized it, the party arrived on an antechamber of some sort. The place was rather peculiar, and felt out of place in a small village as Goldencrest, but none of those piqued John’s interest more than the faint whimpering in the distance. One that, as the party drew closer to, began talking with them in deranged and cryptic sentences. One sentence in particular, had set off an alarm in John’s mind.

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[i]"One two three four- four! Four centuries! The light! Ohhh it's so... B- b- beautiful!"[/i]
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Four centuries? He’s either a warlock or is cursed by some.. Thing..

[i]Pat. Tick. Klok. Pat. Klok. Tick.[/i]

An ominous sound crept from the distance.

Then the mysterious man started to sniffle again. "It's coming back... Oh- oh no... Oh it's coming back! You all need to run! It'll capture you too! It'll... It'll feed you and keep you alive forever until you're nothing! R- run away from here! Far away!"

Call it cowardice if you want, but something tells John that something very wrong is coming. Wordlessly, he urged the party to take a step back. A gesture that he wished he had done sooner.

Lit by the torch Dale tossed, was the visage of a man - nay - a leather suit that vaguely resembles a man, suspended helplessly by four boney protrusions that resemble spikes they often use to crucify caught witches and warlocks with.

“Looks like I’m not sleeping tonight,” John mouthed to noone in particular. “Or the night after, for that matter. Who needs sleep after all, yeah?”

Then the real horror decided to say hello. You know, the everyday four-armed, four-stilt-legged skeletal monstrosity bigger than your average bear. The usual stuff of nightmare, see? The ones that would casually pull out your bones from your body. Not scary or disgusting in any way. Besides, it did not seem to have eyes or ears. Perhaps if they can juuuust inch away slowly and discreetly, they can leave this wretched place unharmed.

"D- demon! It's a demon! Kill it!" Dale cried out in horror and disgust.

Well, there it is.

“Scatter!” John cried to the group, just before the creature started to contort into incomprehensibly more terrible form and let out a piercing shriek.

Then all hell seemed to break loose. Dale shot the creature in his panic, and prompted it into attacking the party if it hadn’t had that in mind beforehand. The party themselves, heeding to John’s word for the first time, scattered in an attempt to avoid getting wiped out in one go, and to contain and examine the bone demon’s movement.

One thing led to another, and somehow John found himself carrying Tera on his left shoulder and moving rather erratically across the room, dodging the occasional swipe or two from the demonic being. Then, having somehow reached the ante chamber’s entrance, quite a distance away from the battle, he set the Princess down. He would have told the Princess to stay hidden, but his guts told him that she would not listen anyway.. Which by the way had nothing to do with the Princess gripping her sword strongly that her hands had turned white, nor the shine in her eyes that screams to be on the battlefield with her vassals. Not at all.

So instead, John knelt to lower his eye level to hers, and began his ‘gentle’ persuasion.

“Listen. I will be blunt with you: we don’t need inexperienced child on the battlefield,” he carefully picked his word as not to hurt the girl’s feeling [i][b]too[/b][/i]  much. “So here, take this. This is how you will help us,” he continued as he took off one of his belt, and hand it to the Princess. The belt carried with it two pouches of different color; one brown, and the other jet black. Then, without giving the Princess a chance to talk back, he produced his flintlock.

“This here is what you call a gun. You point it at a target, cock the hammer, and pull the trigger. When you do so..” his voice trailed off as he took aim at his target: the helpless man, still sobbing and mouthing unintelligible prayers while squirming in futility to keep his head held upright as he watched the fight unravel in his tearful eyes.

[i]Click.[/i]

A thunderous roar, followed by a small fireball escaped the trinket’s muzzle.
Like some kind of magic, an invisible lance erupted from within it.
Too fast for their eyes to follow, the lance punched a gaping hole in the crying man’s skull, ending his misery in twisted, morbid kindness.

“.. Ideally, you would be using this weapon against that abomination,” John gestured towards the demon, which now seemed to have directed its full attention towards the pair. “However, if we fall prey to it.. I trust you know what to do.”

Then, as the skeletal being charged at them, John tossed the gun towards the girl behind him, reached for his sword, scabbard and all, and bashed at the flailing limbs in an attempt to stay the beast’s rampage.

“Clean the chamber, put a bead from the black pouch, then a silver bead from the brown one, and push it in until you hear a crack!” he instructed Tera on how to reload as concisely as possible.

What was left for him to do, then, was to direct the beast’s attention away from the girl.
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[hider=OOC]
The beads John had inside the black pouch are ‘fireseeds’, basically gunpowder that John packed into individual firing portion by hand, wrapped in oil paper.
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