“Oh,” she softly mouthed, casting her gentle gaze downward.  Of course she could not expect a hunter to have any interest in curing the scourge. If one defined oneself by the hammer they wield, every problem will, sooner or later, begin to look like a nail. She, however, refused to give up so easily. While a hunter might be born to hunt and to kill, she was a blood saint. She was born to heal and rejuvenate, and by the gods she would –

A piercing screech unlike anything she had ever heard before rolled over the city and made the young maiden’s knees buckle. Barely holding on to her staff, Adelicia shrank more and more as the scream continued, eventually shutting her eyes and pushing out cold, frightful tears. Her entire body was stiff and shivering even after the horrible noise had stopped. When she finally opened her eyes again, she figured that the terror she just felt would linger in her bones for the rest of her life. With big eyes, like those of a startled kitten, she looked from Victor to Provostus and back, seeking answers. She did not think to wipe the pair of tears from her pale cheeks.

Mercy, however, was in short supply it seemed. Victor’s idea for a cure and his cold, barbaric presentation of it made her feel physically sick. Grimacing with disgust, she averted her eyes from the hunters. Hammers and nails, indeed! The church was cultivating monsters to fight monsters, combating evil by creating a greater one. They had to be wrong. She wanted them to be wrong. The idea that there was no other choice for this city but to continue its endless cycle of beast outbreaks and subsequent purgation was outrageous to her. How anyone could accept such a state of perpetual violence was utterly beyond her, and Victor’s attitude towards the matter was enough to make her feel angry – a feeling she had not felt for many years. His last remark about the upcoming battle – if the term could be applied – turned her knuckles white underneath her gloves.

“I suppose you’ll get what you want, then,” she defiantly half-whispered to herself, still looking away from him and fixating the sleeping giant and descending elevator. Adelicia immediately felt pangs of regret, and she did not know what came over herself to step so out of line. The stress must be going to her head. Perhaps she was lucky that something more urgent than her little display of insolence caught the hunter’s attention and set him on edge as he spun toward the approaching elevator. Made uneasy by the hunter’s evident agitation, the three of them quickly established that there was nothing behind the elevator’s opening doors. Unrest turned to relief, if only for a moment, for as soon as the first step forward had been made another cry filled the air, this one less harrowing than the Cleric Beast’s, but still enough to make the blood saint visibly jolt. Slowly, the meaning of a ‘night of the hunt’ was beginning to dawn on her. It was not a mere sortie of hunters to find and slay the odd beast. Everywhere around her, things were turning into beasts or losing their minds. Was anywhere even safe anymore? Would anyone be spared? Would even she turn into a beast as the night went on? It was dizzying to think about.

Adelicia flinched when she heard Victor’s voice but she quickly regained her senses. By now she had a feeling that the hunter would not care about her feelings on the matter, but she wanted to speak up regardless, perhaps driven by what frustrations still bubbled in her mind.

“You can’t just kill him,” she pleaded with a furrowed brow, “he’s a church servant like you and me. But,” she added, casting a sidelong glance at the creature, “I also think he’ll slow us down. Just leave the giant alone. We need to reach this clinic as fast as we can.”