[url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5022268][img]https://i.imgur.com/yW2VDaL.png[/img][/url]
[h3]Eastern Yharnam, Hunter's clinic[/h3]
Though the incessant chiming of the Pthumerian's bell did somewhat annoy Victor, he was too far given to his rage – and too preoccupied with fighting a battle that, to his knowledge, was at least seven against one – to ponder or care whether there was any deeper significance to the sound. He whipped the now-unloaded blunderbuss down with his left hand, smashing the huntsman he was lying on top of across the face with the barrel of the gun... only to be shocked out of his blind fury by the sight of the cracked skin and broken cheekbones mending themselves at a speed that would put the regenerative powers of any Hunter to shame.
“The bell! You have to stop the bell! It beckons monstrous things!” Adelicia cried as Victor blinked the sweat out of his eyes, trying to understand what was going on.
[I]The bell...[/I] he thought he remembered hearing about bells being used for strange things, something to do with the arcane. He knew that the Vicar had some kind of fancy bell that could heal people, but the Pthumerian was not using a “fancy” bell, but a completely normal one; they had stolen it off the corpse of a random church servant, for Kos' sake! How could it be used for arcane purposes?

Gritting his teeth against the pain that suddenly caught up to him, reminding him that he was still in the midst of combat, Victor threw himself into a forward tumble. He tucked his chin against his chest to land on his shoulders, rolling onto his back and finally all the way onto his feet, using the weight and forward motion of his body to pull his sword with him out of the huntsman's chest. Once back on his feet he retreated several steps, habitually reloading his blunderbuss with his left hand while preparing to face his enemy with his sword in his right.
Victor was more familiar with wounds and their severity than Adelicia, not to mention aware of the fact that he had intentionally fought without activating his enhanced strength thus far to conserve his stamina, so it was not surprising to him to find that both the rifleman and the pitchfork-wielder he had slashed to still be standing, and even less so that the hatchet-wielder he had blasted with the blunderbuss was still able to fight. What [I]did[/I] surprise him was that all three of them seemed to have already healed their wounds and, looking at the huntsman he had just rolled off and had previously impaled was standing back up, his stab-wound already closed. He had expected the ones he slashed and shot to at least be briefly incapacitated, and the one he had impaled to be dying.
In contrast to that, he realized, the pain in his right shoulder and abdomen did not seem to be dissipating, meaning that he had already reached the limits of his own regenerative powers.
[i]Well, that hardly seems fair.[/I]
Hanging the blunderbuss from his belt again he quickly used his left hand to pull out a blood vial to inject himself with, nervously reminding himself that he only had one vial left now and had to be extra careful.

As five of the six Yharnamite huntsmen assembled before him, creating a line of defense between himself and the bell-ringing Pthumerian, Victor – once again driven by paranoia to constantly examine others' eyes – spotted that these people's eyes had all changed. Every color in their eyes seemed to have taken on a red tint, as if a colored veil had been hung over their eyeballs.
He scowled at them, waiting a couple of seconds for his wounds to heal. [I]The bell beckons monsters, is it? Not this time, it seems; it's just turning these guys [/I]into[I] monsters.[/I]
Off to the side, still by wall bordering the room with the supposedly transforming Hunters but having moved further back towards the same corner the Pthumerian was hiding in, the rifleman had retrieved his firearm and was once again working on reloading it.
[I]Adelicia is right, the Pthumerian has to be stopped,[/I] Victor thought, glaring at his assembled adversaries. [I]But fighting these guys normally won't work. I have no idea how much that bell enhances their regeneration, and simply wearing them down would let them surround or shoot me, or let them target Adelicia while I'm occupied. I can't afford to fight conservatively... I have to give it all I've got, and pray that'll be enough to push through and get to the Pthumerian.[/I]

“Look away, Adelicia,” he called without looking, taking a step forward as he reached his right over his right shoulder, aligning the sword in his hand so that its blade was parallel with but to the side of the scabbard on his back with practiced ease. Once there he inserted first the tip of the sword through the edge of the scabbard, finding a nook inside it that fit the tip of the sword and locked it into place. Once the tip was in place, all it took was to align the rest of the sword with the scabbard, sliding the entire blade through the open edge of it and into the core, where the two – blade and scabbard – locked with each other with a faint “click”, while the same mechanism simultaneously released the clasps attaching it to his back.
“This next part...” He reached over with his empty left hand, gripping the hilt with both hands and activating his Hunter's strength to enable himself to properly wield the now 30 kg (66 lb) weapon. “...won't be pretty.”

~~~

The Mad One did not seem to comprehend nor care about what was happening around it, much less about voices coming from the other room; its attention was by now entirely focused on Marcus. Caught in the bell-empowered grasp of the creature, Marcus yet again accidentally discovered one of the results of the metamorphosis he had undergone as he placed his feet against the so-called echo's chest. His muscles would feel suddenly rock-hard and expand until it felt like his taut skin might burst; his veins would stand out clearly, bulging on his skin with increased blood-pressure; his heart would pump so hard that his chest expanded visibly with each mighty beat.
With the Hunter's strength and the utilization of his entire body in the endeavor, Marcus successfully tore the monster's hand from his bloody shoulder while simultaneously launching himself several meters away.

Stumbling backward a step from the force of Marcus' pushing himself away, the Mad One let out a cry of frustration before recovering its balance, after which it allowed itself to fall forward onto its hands and knees and – moving in an almost beast-like manner on all fours – [i]skittered[/I] more than crawled toward him, its limbs moving in a disconcertingly jerky but rapid manner. Once it got in range it would start lashing out at the Hunter with its hands alternatingly, first its right hand, then left, then right again and so forth, keeping up a relentless assault, trying to claw and – if possible – grab him again.