Dark Jack

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Does anyone want to post, or do you want me to progress a little further?

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Eastern Yharnam, Hunter's clinic

Torquil's eyelids had been closing slowly as he stared at the now-lit lantern, his breathing getting slower and deeper as his posture relaxed. Marcus' exclamation disturbed and distracted him, however, and Torquil's eyes went wide as he gripped his axe, looking around confusedly for the supposed danger he was in.

Victor had had just enough time to let out a frustrated groan as he unearthed a pile of particularly fine shards of glass, marinaded in crimson liquid, before he, too, looked up at Marcus' warning. He looked from Torquil to Arcturus – not actually knowing who Marcus was talking to since no one but him and Draco had introduced themselves yet – before figuring that neither of those two appeared to be doing anything even remotely dangerous.
“What are you yammering about?” he grumbled, glaring at Marcus with displeasure. “Ever heard the story about the boy who cried wolf? Don't go around crying bloody murder when nothing's happening.”

The Prophecy

Remdal estate, Zerul City

Approximately six seconds after Angora's scream had been unleashed into the stillness of night, just about long enough for her to scramble for and get most of the way to the tub she had picked as the receptacle of her distress, a door was slammed open forcefully to one of the nearby rooms. It was opened hard and fast enough that the sound traveled well even through the dense construction of the Remdal estate and a slight tremor could be felt even in Angora's room. Just several seconds after that – long enough for Angora to be preoccupied by her own business – rapid, naked footfalls could be faintly heard just outside her door.
The door handle was swiftly, almost violently yanked downward, and the door was immediately swung inward with great urgency... only to stop in place when it was about halfway open, held in place, allowing the sound of Angora's ails to fill the air. If she were to look over, all she would be able to see through the halfway open door was half a pale hand, the tip of a silver-colored sword and maybe the edge of a very pale, fairly muscular shoulder. Then the door slowly and, if it was even possible for a door to express such a thing, awkwardly closed most of the way again, until only a crack about an inch wide remained.

“Angora?” Jaelnec's voice called out from the other side of the door, a hint of panicked uncertainty and urgency in his voice. The door trembled slightly, betraying that he was still holding its handle, ready to throw it open if he detected the need to do so.
More footfalls approached outside, more audible now that the door was partway open, though Angora was still mid-vomiting. These feet also sounded naked.
“You!” the voice of another young male exclaimed, which Angora might or might not, given their relatively brief acquaintance with one another, recognize as the voice of Thomas Remdal. “What in the planes did you do?”
“Me? I heard the scream and came running! I'm not –”
“You're naked and armed outside a girl's bedroom!”
“I thought she was in danger! I wasn't going to... wait, what in Stupor are you wearing?”
“Never mind that! The girl...”
“Yes!” The door opened another half an inch as Jaelnec seemingly refocused his attention on what he had been doing. “Angora? What happened?”

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Is that so? Are you here and would like to rejoin us, @Ashgan?

Also, since I realize I forgot to mention it in the IC post: the second pouch Marcus found did indeed contain gunpowder.

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Eastern Yharnam, Hunter's clinic

Draco's words seemed to cause Victor to freeze in place, his previously rapidly shifting eyes instantly homing in and locking on the huntsman's form. His expression was strained but unchanging, though a quite visible reaction still managed to occur when it turned out that Draco's alteration of Victor's plan was a thinly veiled admonition against him speaking so casually of Adelicia being a Blood Saint. For just a second after this his eyes adapted an inhuman quality, only for Victor to tear his gaze from Draco and turn away, walking over to near where the Pthumerian had fallen.
“Like it matters,” he scoffed, moving to an overturned and mostly destroyed glass cabinet on the floor. “Anyone tempted to get near her would have to go through me first. Besides...” He looked back over the others assembled in the room. “It's a Night of the Hunt. Anyone still in the streets is assuredly already an enemy or an ally; the presence of a saint isn't going to change that. But whatever makes you feel better, I guess.”
With that Victor crouched down and started rummaging through the debris, shoving aside broken wood and glass in search of anything that might still be intact.

Torquil simply stood in place through most of this, even more reluctant to speak up now that there were new people around – one of which was a young, attractive girl – and demonstrate his broken speech. He clearly listened to what was being said, looking at each person as they spoke, but even then his attention still seemed to be continuously drawn back to the strange lantern that held the pride in place of the room. Once things seemed to calm down a little and the dangerous new character, Victor, seemed otherwise occupied, Torquil quickly approached the lantern to take a closer look.
Immediately upon approaching the Messengers crowded below the lantern seemed to react, bursting into a flurry of activity as they all seemed to reach up toward the lantern, waving their arms wildly in its direction. It took Torquil a moment to realize that the little ones were not just waving, but were doing something with their hands as they did so... like snapping their fingers?
Hesitantly the newly transformed Hunter reached his left hand toward the lantern and, copying the gesture made by the Messengers, snapped his fingers. Upon doing this the lantern was instantly filled with pale blue light.
Torquil chuckled, strangely amused by this, and now seemed completely transfixed by the lantern.

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

@DrabberRogue seems to have slightly dropped off the face of the planet again, so I guess I'll work on a short post to progress Victor and Torquil. And just to reiterate, if the steps I take during my posts are too short (as in, you don't feel that I have provided anything worthwhile for your characters to react to), just say so and I will progress things further.

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

So, eh... what's up? Does anyone have a post burning a hole in their pocket?

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Eastern Yharnam, Hunter's clinic

Victor mostly seemed as if he was barely even listening to what Draco and Marcus were saying, apparently concentrating on retrieving his weapon off the ground. Interestingly the Messengers near him, visible only to Marcus, Arcturus and Torquil, started making rude gestures and just generally taunting the Hunter as he crouched to pick up his sword, without Victor in any way indicating that he registered their behavior or presence.
With his weapon in hand he stood back up, swinging the giant sword over his right shoulder and onto his back, where he took just a moment to find the right place for it. Once it was in place the mechanism inside the blade produced a faint click, and the much smaller silver sword within the greater Holy Blade was released through the edge of its blade-scabbard, leaving the giant blade stuck to Victor's back. The stark contrast between the relatively clean, pristine silver blade of the small sword compared to the rest of the bloody and beaten man's appearance was quite remarkable.

The only times Victor had any kind of perceivable reaction to the others' words was when Draco mentioned that the offending Hunter had had “beast like claws,” and when Marcus finished his own contribution to the conversation with an utterance of “for now.”
Even someone barely paying attention to his expression would likely notice Victor's frown at the mention of the beast-clawed Hunter, showing intense displeasure at hearing about it, but someone paying closer intention might also register that an actual physical change overcame the Hunter's eyes as he frowned, with his irises starting to shift and churn once more, and for just a second the animal glow returned to his pupils. Then he seemed to calm back down, his expression relaxed into its resting look of general annoyance and disinterest, and his eyes resumed a more human appearance.
At Marcus' utterance a similar look of displeasure came over Victor's face, only this time without the unnatural change in his eyes. “You're one of those...” he muttered under his breath, his disgust evident from the hushed words, but likely too quiet for Marcus to hear himself.

“Here's what I'm gonna do,” Victor finally spoke out loud, glancing around the room, still showing no signs of awareness of the Messengers at all. “First I light the censer outside of here to keep other beasts from getting in here. Then you –” he indicated Draco with a nod, “– take me to where these other people are holed up, and I kill the madmen before they can make an even bigger mess of things. Once that's taken care of I'll take the saint back down to the shelter and stash her – and anyone else that comes with and wants to – in there. Now, I only have one...”
He padded the bag on his left hip as he said this, only to suddenly stop mid-sentence as he apparently was not feeling what he was expecting upon handling the pouch. Looking down, it seemed that Victor only now noticed the empty blood vial that was still sticking out of his left thigh, which he simply stared at with disbelief for a couple of seconds before he reached down with his left hand and quickly pulled it out, only to pocket the empty vial.
“I have no blood vials left,” he corrected himself, a hint of distress in his voice as his eyes started shifting nervously around the room, his confidence visibly shaken, “so next I'll head back to the Cathedral Ward to resupply before joining the hunt. You can follow as far as you want. I don't care. But if you come with me, you can properly arm yourselves at the Cathedral Ward, get some blood vials of your own and maybe find some other Hunters to band together with. You know, so you're slightly less likely to die tonight.”

Marcus, meanwhile, would know that the currently unloaded rifle he had taken from the huntsman was still in the back room of the clinic, with the cots with comatose Hunters-to-be. Going back to retrieve it would be a simple matter. Turning back towards the door, however, he might notice a second rifle, similar to the one he had seized, on the floor in this room, seemingly one of the weapons dropped by the fleeing huntsmen. Next to it, among some other rubble, lay two small pouches: one shapeless against the floor, its opening closed with a piece of string, and another that had fallen with its string untied, spilling a handful of small dark-gray pellets among the debris.

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Who wants to go next? Or do you want me to assume that no one does anything and progress things a little?

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Eastern Yharnam, Hunter's clinic

Both Torquil and the thoroughly bloodied, freshly revived Victor focused their attention at Draco upon his arrival, though with quite different demeanor and reactions to the words being shared. Torquil seemed a little dazed and distracted at first, his eyes still shifting to the Messengers and the lantern-wielding arm – neither of which were in any way perceivable to Victor, Draco or Adelicia – but grew more focused as Draco spoke, he seemed to grow increasingly concerned, especially once he started speaking of endangered civilians.
Victor, meanwhile, was panicked, confused and defensive at first, entirely at the mercy of his fight-or-flight instinct, but gradually seemed to return to his senses and calm down as words were shared among the others. As he calmed he also seemed to grow less and less interested in what Draco was saying, his expression turning indifferent and his gaze starting to scan the room they found themselves in. By the time Draco had finished speaking Victor seemed fully back to his senses and thoroughly unimpressed with the supposed severity of their current circumstance.

Victor looked at Draco once he fell silent, idly scraping the side of his left hand against his face to wipe off as much blood as he could.
“You talk too much,” he told him with a sigh. He looked down at himself in disgust, fully realizing that his clothes had been completely ruined by his recent trials. Then he looked back at Draco.
He held up his left fist, extending his index finger. “Firstly: I guess the state of your snoot means you don't smell a lot, but Hunters stink. Anyone can smell a Hunter. You don't need to be a beast for that.” True enough, the air in room they were currently in, occupied at the moment by no less than four Hunters, was thick with the unique, but not unpleasant, scent of Hunters, if somewhat intermingled with the smell of blood and viscera.
He extended his middle finger. “Secondly: yes, they're mad. I fought them, and they were helping jerkyman over there.” He nodded at the bisected corpse of the Pthumerian. “But they seem to have left their weapons here. We should be okay for the moment.”
Finally he stretched his thumb. “And thirdly: I have a job to do. I protect her.” He nodded at Adelicia across the room. “I'm getting her to safety. Your group can follow. I don't care.”

Victor moved to retrieve his Holy Blade from the ground. “I'm Victor. Of the white church.” He glanced back at Torquil, Marcus and Arcturus. “And you're the new Hunters.”