Dark Jack

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Do you want to post, @Habibi359?

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Eastern Yharnam, outside the Hunter's clinic

“Not in the clinic, no,” Victor confirmed grimly, staring distrustfully at the spot where he had just barely been able to sense the presence of the being that had taken Raine. The question he had asked himself, and which would probably also be on Adelicia's mind if she had not completely abandoned reason already, was whether the entity was still there. But no matter how invisible this thing was, Victor could not imagine that something that big would be able to move a lot without him noticing it. He would have heard it, or felt it, or smelled it... or something. A creature of that size had to make itself known when moving.
Or so he would have thought, had he not heard Raine's voice being silenced as he vanished into thin air. Who was to say that this thing did not have the ability to cancel sound as well as fade from sight? Or some manner of arcane movement that did not follow the rules of men and beasts?
He had to know...

Victor hung his blunderbuss from its place in his belt once again as he crouched down, before using his left hand to brush over the cobbled street, examining it with his fingers and prodding at the crevices between the stones.
“That's definitely a possibility,” he replied to Adelicia's realization that they were most likely in danger. “I can't fight this thing, whatever it is. Raine was completely helpless. We could try to run, but it could be anywhere. There could be more than one.” He clenched his jaw, taking a deep breath before looking over his shoulder at the woman. “But panicking doesn't help, it'll just get us killed.”

He straightened, his left hand loaded with more than a dozen loose pebbles picked from the road, and looked around with all the suspicion of a man who had been haunted by paranoia for years. Bending his knees slightly, readying himself to quickstep at the first sign of danger, he made a broad sweeping motion with his left hand in the direction of the door of the clinic, sending several pebbles flying in that direction... but much to his relief nothing strange happened; the pebbles just clattered against the wall and went through the open doorway.
“Whatever it was, it was huge,” he stated without looking at Adelicia, instead turning his attention back to the spot at the edge of the plateau where Raine had been snatched. “Much too big to fit inside this building. If we can get inside, we might be safe.” Presuming it doesn't just crush the building, of course... and that whoever is fighting inside isn't just as dangerous.
Holding his breath Victor swung his left hand again, this time toward the ledge, and threw the last of the pebbles he had collected. Just as he had suspected most of them just disappeared into the creeping gloom of the setting sun, but two pebbles toward the middle of the arc they had been thrown in seemed to simply stop mid-air, as if hitting a solid obstacle, before falling away.
“It hasn't moved,” he observed out loud, his voice as tense as his body as he remained prepared to dodge in case the entity decided to retaliate against him throwing things at it. Nothing seemed to happen, though, which probably made sense; a create that large probably would not even feel something as minor as a couple of pebbles being thrown at it. “I'll follow your lead and protect you, saint, but I suggest we go inside. I can fight beasts and men. We will have to get you to safety before we worry about Raine.”

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Eastern Yharnam, outside the Hunter's clinic

It was an immense relief that Adelicia regained consciousness quickly, allowing Victor to relax and breathe more easily as his bloodthirst receded and his right hand returned to its human form. Her normal human weakness was by far preferable to her being totally defenseless, presenting an irresistibly tempting target to the monster living in his heart.
Smiling grimly to himself, Victor privately wondered how Adelicia would react if she knew what had happened after she fainted; how he had nearly ripped her guts out with his bare hands, but stopped himself at the last second. Would she be grateful that he had managed to stop himself, or grow even more fearful of him knowing how close he had been to losing control? Probably the latter, he figured. Almost certainly the latter. Yeah, she would definitely be terrified. Best not to tell her.

But now this? Memory loss? He had both heard of and witnessed such things befalling people who had gone through traumatic experiences; some of the soldiers he had fought alongside before becoming a Hunter would later realize that they forgot certain parts of the battle they had participated in, often times when they had been injured or something particularly gruesome was happening. Even Victor had experienced something like that, as he to this day could still not clearly remember the fateful moment when the beast had maimed his back, inflicting the wound that later necessitated that he became a Hunter... which also made him worry all the more. He knew both from himself and watching others that trauma like that almost always came back to haunt a person, just like he ever since then had been obsessed with keeping his back safe and deeply uncomfortable with anyone being directly behind him, while others would panic or go berserk upon experiencing some kind of trigger, be that a sight, sound or smell.
He did not know how this experience might affect Adelicia... but the fact that she could not remember was deeply concerning.

For now, he figured as he straightened his stance, fixing his clothes a bit while going to retrieve his sword from where he had dropped it, what he really needed to concern himself over was what to tell her about Raine, though. The untarnished truth would just make her panic all the more and probably make her do something stupid, but would lying to her be any better? She already did not trust Victor, that much was obvious, and if she ended up doubting his words in the least she might take it to mean that he was hiding something, and possibly blame him for Raine's disappearance. She was already afraid of him; if she thought he had actually turned against an ally, that fear would probably become dominant enough for her to attempt to run away. She would fail, obviously – there was no way she could outrun him, or practically any Hunter that was not also a cripple – but once he lost her trust, she would never trust him again. Who knew what she might try? How desperate she could get?
“Something took him,” he told her, making sure to sound even more regretful of that fact than he actually was. If at all possible he wanted her to think that losing Raine was breaking his heart rather than it just being a failure and inconvenience. Picking up his sword, Victor then turned to where Raine had been grabbed, wondering to himself if the invisible fiend was still there, waiting for some other hapless victim to stumble into its grasp.
“Something invisible grabbed him over there,” he continued after a moment, pointing with his sword, “and then he... disappeared. I don't know where. I tried to save him, but...” He shrugged. “It's invisible. I couldn't hit it in time.”

A loud crash could be heard inside the clinic, causing Victor to bite his lip impatiently. The fighting was clearly still ongoing inside, but he could not risk Adelicia by going in there, with or without her. He had to stay by her side.

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

I'm very sorry to hear that, King Cosmos, but if that's how it is then that's how it is.

There seems to be a lot of that going around these days... I really don't like how many players this RP has lost, and it hasn't even properly gotten started yet. Don't get me wrong, the RP is going to continue, it's just a worrying trend.

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

About at the same time as Marcus retrieved the Mad One's staff loud, rapid footfalls could suddenly be heard growing louder quickly, consistent with the sound of a heavy entity running toward them at significant speed. A mere couple of seconds after the first audible footfall, as the sound seemed to come from just the other side of the door barring the Hunters from the rest of the world, the same heavy mass slammed into the door hard, causing the door actually break in two, the top third of the door swinging slowly inward while the lower two thirds, which seemed to barely be holding together, wobbled unsteadily. One last kick from the assailant outside dealt the final bit of damage, shattering the part of the door that was still closed and sending a hail of splinters and wood into the room.

The creature that entered through the doorway – sideways and in a light crouch to fit through it – was tall, broad and lanky, of a similar structure to the eldritch creature the Hunters had already fought but wider and visibly more muscular. It had features that suggested it had once been a man, walking on two legs and wearing the drab clothes of a Yharnam citizen, even though these clothes were all obviously much too small for it, wielding a meat cleaver in its right hand and the sword it had just taken from Marcus in its right. Even so this man was clearly thoroughly claimed by the scourge of beasts; aside from his size, the beast-man was also covered in coarse brown fur, his joints had started to restructure and become more bestial in nature, his fingers and bare feet – which now more closely resembled wolf-like paws – had grown murderous claws, just as his mouth was forced into a permanent scowl by the growth of over-sized fangs above and below.
He growled hungrily as he scanned the room with his beast-shrouded eyes.

“Hurt,” called the hoarse man from the outside, apparently content to wait outside for his fellows to do the fighting, “not kill. Take Hunters.”

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Anyone else want a post in at the clinic before I progress things a bit further?

Pretty interesting piece of music, Ashgan. It never really built as much or reached as high a crescendo as I expected, but thinking it over I suppose that is more in line with the atmosphere of Bloodborne. Also, "Night of the Hunt" is obviously a fairly obvious and generic (but impactful) title for something based on Bloodborne, so I'll ignore that the RP shares that name... but one of his songs from that album is called "Viktor and the Umbra Wolf"? I mean, yeah, it's Viktor with a K instead of a C, and wolflike traits are the most common with the scourge of beasts, but... heh.
(Needless to say I'm waiting for you on with Victor, Ashgan.)

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Mind you, if your post deals with more than the next three or four IC seconds, it might be prudent for me to make a post first. They are dealing with more than just the Mad One, after all.

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Just in case any of you think that the way Victor experiences being a Hunter is how your characters are supposed to experience it: don't worry, I expect a lot of these things to differ from person to person. Not every Hunter is as paranoid, bloodthirsty, sadistic or inconsistent as Victor, nor would other Hunters necessarily end up using their powers unintentionally, like starting to perform a visceral attack just because someone within arm's reach is in a vulnerable state. Others also might have an even more difficult time than Victor.

Who is next in the clinic scene?

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Eastern Yharnam, outside the Hunter's clinic

It was Hunter doctrine to be active rather than passive, to always act rather than react and take the initiative rather than wait, which was one of the main reasons that the old Hunters frowned upon the use of shields. Even now this philosophy remained so ingrained in Victor that he could feel his entire body vibrating, his limbs twitching nervously as his instincts called him to action... yet for all that his body wanted to move, his mind had no idea where or how to do so. The faint haze he had seen for a moment had faded almost immediately, leaving him nothing but assumptions as to where this entity was. He could catch his breath and then move in again, attacking everywhere at random in the hopes that he happened to eventually cut the thing that had taken Raine... but then what? With how big, powerful, and quite frankly alien this being seemed, the thought of killing it by just swinging his sword randomly was nothing short of absurd. The most likely outcome would be that he was taken as well, leaving Adelicia all alone.
What had happened to Raine? What was the thing that had grabbed him? What had it done to him? Was he still alive? Had it eaten him? Was he right there in front of them, only now as imperceptible as the one that had taken him? Had it sent him somewhere else? What was this thing? A beast?
No, that last thought was pointless; even Victor knew enough to recognize that this specific act was not the work of beasts. This was arcane. Otherworldly.
Something from another world, he thought, gritting his teeth as he held himself in place, trying desperately to think of somewhere to aim the aggression building inside of him. You hear about things like this, but... to actually witness it...

Victor had been aware of the saint swaying next to him, his paranoia prompting him to visually confirm that the movement he was sensing was indeed her about once a second, but it still came as a surprise when he abruptly registered a bigger movement as she started to actually fall. His body fully primed for action the Hunter reacted instantly, dropping his sword and quickstepping to cover the distance between them in a heartbeat as he slipped his left arm behind her from her right, gripping her left shoulder, all to stop her from falling...
and then he immediately recoiled, letting her fall the rest of the way to the ground as he staggered away from her, desperately grabbing his right wrist with his left hand, hunched over and grimacing in fear, rage and hunger all at once. That had been way too close! He had only realized that his right hand had grown bigger, each finger had sprouted a claw, and was moving to plunge into the woman's deliciously soft, warm insides at the very last moment before it would have been too late. Even now he had to struggle to stop himself from rushing over to maim her; her state of total vulnerability was just too inviting.
She's not even conscious! She wouldn't resist at all! he thought, disgusted with himself for feeling such things in the presence of a person he was responsible for, and who arguably did not deserve his hostility. The so-called visceral attack was a dangerous power indeed, especially given how hard it could be to resist doing it.
Hunters were supposed to hunt, after all, not protect; they were killers, not babysitters. He could not imagine how Hunters with children of their own managed to avoid killing their own spawn, defenseless little bundles of meat that they were.

Only by keeping his distance, breathing deeply and forcing himself to calm down did Victor succeed at returning his right hand to its human appearance, though this accomplishment did earn a sigh of relief. Not that the situation was resolved, only salvaged for the time being; he was still faced with the conundrum of having to ensure Adelicia's well-being without brutally murdering her by accident.
“Saint?” he called nervously, staying a couple of meters away. “Adelicia?”

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Is Adelicia falling forwards or backwards?