Dark Jack

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam

“Thanks,” Torquil said awkwardly as he accepted the offered blood vials and transferred them to his own satchel, though he was rather distracted by watching the Shopkeeper dominating the Hunter that he and Farren had only barely managed to fend off with their combined efforts. Despite having been hit by Skinner's lightning-waves twice now, Torquil was surprisingly fine; lightly singed, that was all. Any actual damage he had taken had obviously regenerated immediately after taking it, but even his clothes only had faint traces of something that would suggest that he had been subjected to anything dangerous. Blocking with the Loch Shield had absorbed most of the damage he would have taken, which was a pleasant surprise.
This was also the first time Ophelia saw Torquil and Farren outside the Hunter's Dream since obtaining and memorizing the Guidance Rune, and so the first time she had a chance to notice that, even here in the Waking World, each of them had one or two little guidance sprites hovering around them. Much more noticeably, however, the Shopkeeper was surrounded by an entire swarm of them; what looked to be dozens, if not hundreds of little motes of moonlight swirling around their form.

A bit down the street Farren took up his position on top of Skinner, holding him down, threatening him and glared at him wordlessly. Skinner met his gaze with one filled with desperation, but made no attempt at breaking free or attacking.
“Why?!” he whined pathetically. “I've told – NO!”
But before Skinner or Farren could say or do anything else, the Shopkeeper stepped around and past Farren, only to raise their arms over their head. A blue flash announced the summoning of another weapon: a Kirkhammer. And with tremendous force, the massive stone-head of the hammer fell directly onto Skinner's head with a horrible wet noise.
Skinner's body tensed up for a second, a series of random spasms going through his muscles, before going limp. His left arm shrank back down to a normal size and lost its claws, and he shed not only the fur that had grown on him, but surprisingly a lot of his bulk, until his huge, muscular frame came to look thin and emaciated instead. And as the Shopkeeper dismissed their Kirkhammer with another flash of light, Farren could confirm that Skinner's head was now a messy smear on the cobblestone.

Farren has obtained the Hunger Caryll Rune. While branded onto a Hunter's mind, devouring the flesh of a living or recently deceased creature restores regenerative potential, similar to how a blood vial would have. Additionally, after devouring part of a creature you gain a small measure of its power as long as you are near it or its remains. If used in conjunction with a living weapon, this rune allows that weapon to have a second awakening that lasts for 60 seconds, at the cost of permanently erasing the last currently active benefit from an eaten creature.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam

If the Shopkeeper heard Farren's words they did not show it, but appeared to be completely focused on Skinner, who in turn kept backing up and trying to maintain distance between himself and his opponents. Rather than allow themselves to be inconvenienced by this, however, the Shopkeeper reacted by raising both arms in front of them, only for another blue flash to mark the appearance of a Bowblade, from which they immediately loosed an arrow.
Not expecting this at all, Skinner caught the arrow center-mass, right in the middle of his chest, which prompted him to let out another roar of frustration. Noting that Farren was still a few meters away, Skinner took this opportunity to quickstep closer and attack the Shopkeeper, who was seemingly using primarily mid-ranged weapons. Claws raised and bared for mauling, Skinner failed to realize that – in the brief instant it had taken him to get close to the Shopkeeper – the Bowblade had vanished and been replaced with a Stake Driver, which the Shopkeeper immediately shoved into Skinner's abdomen and released the spring-loaded mechanism, ripping another large hole in the man and sending him stumbling backward and away.
The Stake Driver disappeared as the Shopkeeper swung their right arm out behind them, only for them to grasp the handle of a Boomhammer that spawned out of another flash, which immediately came down at Skinner in another huge overhead swing. Skinner only barely had time to skitter back a regular step to get out of the way of the physical hammerhead, only for the ensuing fiery explosion to once again send him reeling.

All of this happened in a matter of just a handful of seconds, in the time it would take Farren to catch up. And by the time he even got close, he might notice that Skinner's fur had lost its electric gleam... and that the burns were healing much slower than before.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam

Growling in his throat, slowly backing away while trying to look at everything at once while keeping his guard up, Skinner did not respond to Farren's words... not least because by the time he had finished speaking, the elevator had reached the bottom and its folding doors opened. Immediately – literally within a fraction of a second of the doors had opening enough for there to be room – the Shopkeeper stepped out of there, turned ninety degrees to his left and unfailingly faced directly in Skinner's direction. They cocked their head. And sprinted straight at him.

“Leave me alone!” Skinner roared, throwing his right arm wide for a second, accumulating a major surge of electricity and then performing a reaping slash at the air in front of him, unleashing another wave of lightning that spread out across the street in front of him, straight toward Farren, Torquil and the Shopkeeper.
The Shopkeeper did not so much as slow down and simply took the lightning head-on. A second later they moved past Farren and, as they did so, threw up both arms over their head to seemingly grasp the air... only for a transformed Beast Cutter to spontaneously manifest in their hands with a flash of blue light. They swung forward and downward in a violent arc, causing the large blade-segments connected by wire to get flung ahead at blinding speeds.
Skinner only barely managed to quickstep out of the way before the blade-segment at the tip of the whip – reaching nearly five meters from the Shopkeeper – slammed into the street with enough force to shatter stone and embed itself deep into the ground. But rather than try to recover their weapon, the Shopkeeper merely let go, upon which the Beast Cutter vanished in another flash.
“Wait! Stop!” Skinner pleaded.
But the Shopkeeper was already running again.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam

Skinner's eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched with suppressed anger as Farren mocked and goaded him, flaunting his immortality in this ferocious Hunter. But though his irritation was obvious, he did not act upon it; the bestial hand holding Farren's wrist maintained a firm yet careful grip, immobilizing him without causing unnecessary pain or injury, and the bone blade at his throat remained still and stable.
“I can teach you my Caryll –,” Skinner began, only for his sentence to be cut off by the very audible, supernaturally loud and piercing sound of a resonant bell, soon followed by the noise of the elevator starting to move again. Skinner's eyes instantly went wide with undisguised fear; all the rage and confidence from before vanished and gave way to an expression of pure terror.
“The Pthumerian is alive?” he breathed, his eyes flicking rapidly from the elevator to Farren, to Torquil and back to the elevator, and back to Farren again. Swallowing, Skinner begged: “Please... don't.”
Without waiting for acknowledgment of the request, let alone agreement to it, the giant half-beast Hunter relinquished his hold on Farren and withdrew the blade from his throat, only to instantly quickstep backward – leaving the air he darted through crackling with shed hairs still containing traces of electric energy – and raised and crossed his arms in front of him, drawing an X with his hands up and elbows down in an effort to shield himself.

In the elevator, the Moonborn Bell in Ophelia's hand produced a sound that was reminisce of the one they had heard from Pallid's bell, and weirdly visible waves of distorting reality spreading from the elegant little silver bell. She did not have to wait long... or at all, it turned out. As soon as the tiny clapper made its first contact with the lip and produced the first “ding”, a glowing circle appeared on the floor of the elevator in front of Ophelia. It was just like when Pallid had summoned his Mad One, except now the hole ripped through reality shone with pale white radiance rather than ominous red. On the second “ding”, the familiar form of the Shopkeeper appeared to simply rise out of the hole as if standing on an elevator of their own.
They stood, facing Ophelia, and cocked their head. They were, quite noticeably, unarmed.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam – Farren and Torquil

“There's a good lad,” Skinner growled sarcastically, shooting another ominous glare at Torquil as he hesitantly followed Farren's orders and stopped his charge. “You'll have to excuse me for not letting you go right away, but I have this strange feeling that you'd still try to kill me if I did. I've already had one Hunter coming back each time I killed her, hounding me endlessly; I'd rather not do that again. So let's talk. See if we can't work something out here that'll let us go our separate ways.”

Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam – Ophelia

It was about at this time that Ophelia, having quickened her pace to a sprint when she heard Farren shoot his blunderbuss, arrived at the top of the elevator. By this time the folding doors were already open and the elevator itself was waiting to accept her, and if she were to glance past it and the metal handrail at the edge of the plateau, she would be able to spot the standoff below. Torquil standing just five meters or so from the others, shield raised and axe at the ready, while Farren was held in the grip of a man even bigger than him, clad in strange tatters and with a body that looked to be half-human, half-beast.
The creature below was gripping Farren's sword-arm with a large, bestial left hand, while its right hand was held up, a bladed fist-weapon of some kind pressed threateningly to Farren's throat. She could not hear what they were saying from this distance.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam – Farren and Torquil

The large, clawed fingers closed around Farren's right wrist, but though Farren made preemptive efforts to avoid having the sword wrested from his grip, no attempt was made at removing it. Skinner's hold on the wrist was tight and powerful enough to prevent Farren from moving his hand significantly, but quite notably – as Farren himself could attest to, having felt that very same hand practically crushing his shoulder – far from as strong as it could have been. It was an arresting grab with a hand that could easily have broken bones or even ripped the arm clean off. A faint tingle of electric currents could also be felt passing from those fingers and into Farren, but their intensity were so low that they barely even registered as uncomfortable, especially compared to the powerful surge he had just been exposed to.
Skinner's right arm raised quickly to hold the topmost bone blade of the fist weapon against Farren's throat, but once again it stopped there, simply holding in place threateningly rather than slicing through his jugulars and air-pipe, if not downright beheading him.

Being this close to Skinner and looking him straight in the eye, Farren might notice that Skinner's own skin was lightly sizzling, being continuously burned and regenerated by the lightning he was infused with. His hair and fur, alight with energy, also released slivers of smoke that filled the air with a terrible stench of burnt hair.
For a second Skinner's eyes met Farren's, mirroring his fury and pain alike, before the murderer's focus shifted from Farren to Torquil, who was running to join the fight.
“I told you to bloody stop!” Skinner growled, tightening his grip on Farren's wrist enough to make it painful and increasing the pressure of the bone blade enough that its somewhat dull edge bit into his skin slightly. “Last chance, or I'll tear your damn arm off and shove it down your throat!”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam – Farren and Torquil (Collab)

Despite the Hunter clearly being consumed by rage and desire to murder him, Skinner did not move, but merely awaited Farren's assault. Only once Farren was about two meters from him did Skinner raise both his arms slightly... and Farren felt the Lake Rune warning him that he was about to be hit everywhere at once.

As that strange almost sensation washed over his entire body, Farren realized there wouldn’t be enough time for him to react–and even if there had been, he had no idea how to avoid whatever was coming. So, rather than attempt to quickstep, block, or act, he let go of the Piercing rifle, his hand already roughly at his belt, extracted a blood vial, and began to stab and depress it into his thigh in the same moment that whatever was about to happen suddenly struck.

As one might have expected given that the Lake Rune only offered half a second's warning, what happened next was extremely fast. Skinner swung his right hand in a horizontal slash, drawing a reaping arc through the air in front of him with the fist weapon. During the motion, the electricity wreathing his body seemed intensify on his right arm and on the bone blades of the beast claw in particular, shrouding the entire arm in blue, scintillating light while emitting a crackling noise as bigger and bigger sparks sprang from it. As he slashed, the crackling built to a crescendo roar of thunder as a veritable wave of destruction sprang forth, crawling across the ground with lightning reaching upward into the air like fingers trying to grasp at everything in their path.
The attack hit Farren point-blank, sending electricity coursing powerfully through his entire body, which would most likely not be a pleasant experience and was liable to wreck havoc on his brain, muscles and nerves on top of burning and melting whatever it touched.
But on top of that, the crawling lightning did not stop at Farren, but kept moving past him and spreading to envelop the street behind him. Torquil, who was just moving to join Farren's assault, saw danger approaching before he felt the warning from the Lake Rune himself, and reflexively raised the Loch Shield, since he could not see any way for him to evade the coming wave. The electric blast hit... and surprisingly did not hurt as much as Torquil was expecting. Most of the lightning that would have fried his body seemed to instead be drawn to and absorbed into the glass front of his shield, momentarily trapping its bluish light within it.

Less than a second later, having barely finished the broad slash that had summoned the lightning, Skinner rushed toward Farren with eyes filled with blue light. His bestial left hand, already in a ready position, moving toward Farren's right arm. Strangely, Farren would not feel a warning from the Lake Rune.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam – Farren and Torquil

By the time Skinner had gotten a couple of mouthfuls of bloody flesh from the giant and straightened back up, he revealed himself to be completely restored... with the exception of the Blade of Mercy that was still embedded in his chest, which he finally pulled out with an impatient grunt. Despite all the damage he had taken, and despite the fact that Torquil and Farren both seemed mostly at full strength as well, Skinner did not seem discouraged in the least. In fact he seemed thrilled, eager and filled with restless energy, his bulky body bulging obscenely as he flexed his Hunter-muscles and licked his lips...

Right up until he saw Farren seemingly conjure a sword out of thin air. Seeing that, Skinner's face immediately fell, his shoulders slumped, and all the energy that had filled him a second earlier seemed to vanish.
“Shit.” The man's voice was unusually deep and bassy, and betrayed a degree of annoyance. “You're like that immortal rat. There's no point if you're just going to disappear when I kill you.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam – Farren and Torquil

Half-excited that he had actually done something helpful for once and half-terrified over how horrendously Farren had gotten wounded, Torquil forced himself to concentrate on the urgent matter at hand. Skinner, despite having gotten cut, stabbed, chopped and now had a blade thrust into his forehead – not all the way to the hilt, but deep enough that it probably tasted brain – was still standing. His large left hand jerkily rose to the improvised horn in his forehead, grasped it and roughly dislodged it from his skull.
Torquil took half a step back and started winding up for another blow with his axe while trying to figure out where to aim it. Nothing seemed to really affect this monster all that much; even now, the wound in Skinner's forehead was closing before his very eyes, and all the damage Farren had desperately managed to do while being grappled had already healed. This man's regenerative potential had to be truly immense. Torquil wished he knew how to most effectively deplete that potential, but given that he did not know, all he could really do was to try to inflict wounds that would hinder his opponent for a moment before they mended themselves.

Angling his strike lower this time, Torquil swung his axe horizontally from right to left and lodged its blade deep in the right side of Skinner's abdomen. Then Torquil blinked confusedly, as he felt something hit him in the head even though nothing hit him... only for that feeling to be followed up half a second later by Skinner's enormous bestial left hand raking through the air behind him blindly. Mercifully Torquil happened to be too close to be in the path of the claws, but even catching the palm of that swing had enough blunt force behind it to sweep Torquil off his feet and throw him to the ground. Aside from that, though, it did not hurt that much; he got lucky.

While Farren was working on saving his life and Torquil was still reeling from the blow to his head, Skinner stumbled away from both of them and over to the dead church giant that lay just a few meters away. Without even an instant's hesitation he thrust both hands into the side of the giant's abdomen only to spread his hands to the side and tear a big hole right into the creature's steaming, bloody guts.
And again without hesitation, Skinner buried his face into the giant's intestines, seemingly content to ignore Farren and Torquil for the moment.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam – Farren and Torquil (Collab)

Bizarrely, Farren would feel the thrown body hit him even when he was still quickstepping to intercept it, only to feel it again half a second later when the body actually hit. The first sensation only gave a vague impression of a floaty something hitting him, but the second, real impact had the actual force of the body behind it. But between the dual impacts of the body, Farren also felt another two more focused floaty impacts; one against the left side of his abdomen, right about where he knew his kidney was, and on top of his right shoulder.
His awkward slash with his the left half of the Blades of Mercy, guided by this half-second warning of the impending hit, somehow managed to catch and ward off the fist weapon coming to embed its bone blades into his body. Skinner's left hand, however, went unimpeded as it slapped down on top of Farren's right shoulder, surprisingly hitting him even harder than the dead body he had just caught, and immediately sank its bestial claws deep into his flesh.

Caught in the moment, only a distant part of his mind managed to associate those preemptive sensations with the Rune engraved upon his mind. Then the sharp heat of Skinner's claws slammed downwards into his shoulder with incredible force and weight. Farren gritted his teeth, grunting, his breath exploding out in a pained hiss, but he kept moving, his blade already inside the man's guard. From that position he shifted the angle of its edge and essentially 'punched' upwards, allowing the edge to slam into Skinner's arm even as Farren used his right arm to thrust the other half of the Blade of Mercy towards Skinner's heart.

Skinner's face, now only inches from Farren's, twisted into a broad, manic grin showing off yellowed teeth with sharp, elongated canines, though his equally wide and frenzied eyes lacked any of the raggedness that came with the scourge of beasts. Pressing down heavily on Farren's right shoulder with all of his strength and weight, Skinner pulled himself forward - at once incidentally displacing himself enough that Farren's thrust at his chest would miss the heart, while at the same time just allowing Farren to do so - , leaned in and opened his mouth. Farren would feel the floaty hit of something on the side of his neck warning him that he was about to get hurt.
Simultaneously, Skinner did nothing to stop Farren from chopping at his right arm; he seemed to be ignoring the Blades of Mercy and focusing entirely on the kill. Farren would feel a floaty impact of something hitting the left side of his ribcage, just below his armpit.
While all of this was happening, Torquil started circling around the other two counterclockwise, trying to get into a position where he could hit Skinner without hitting Farren.

Half a breath pulled in, filling his lungs, even as the sensations of impending attacks came into his awareness. As his right blade pierced Skinner's chest he acted upon them. Unable to move away with his shoulder locked in place by the bestial claws grinding against his bones, Farren instead let go of both his weapons and kicked his left foot, pushing his left side backwards as his right remained largely in place. Reorienting his body this way put his head and neck in a different position relative to where Skinner had been intent upon closing his teeth. Of course, it did mean he left one blade behind, impaled into the man's chest. Farren did manage to shift his right hand onto the grip of the other Blade of Mercy at which point he tried to begin a swing, attempting to slice the blade against bone and through the flesh of Skinner's arm. He kept that motion up until the blade would come down in a chop towards the side of the man's head and neck.

Skinner let out a dissatisfied grunt when Farren, in a burst of primitive survival instinct, decided to sacrifice his right shoulder to get his throat away from his opponent's teeth. Twisting like that in the grip of the bestial hand would undoubtedly be excruciatingly painful as skin, tendon and muscle cut and ripped and bone bent and cracked, sending rivulets of blood down the front and back of Farren's body. Even so he did manage to get away from Skinner's teeth, at least.
Reorienting his body like that naturally also changed the angle of his torso relative to the incoming attack from Skinner's right hand. Rather than hitting where Farren's premonition had told him it would, the long bladed fist weapon now instead hit and pierced into the front of his chest, where it plunged in and found its way to one of Farren's lungs.
Rather than do anything about Farren's attempts to continue to attack him directly, Farren would instead now become very aware that Skinner had anchored himself with both hands - his bestial hand in Farren's shoulder and his fist weapon in Farren's chest - as he felt both of those anchor points abruptly pulling upward, and Skinner quite simply just picked Farren high off the ground, holding him up over his head. Farren's entire orientation abruptly changing would likely change his intended course of action.
Torquil watched this with eyes wide in disbelief, but kept circling and raised his axe to strike.

A primal growl left his throat, half the pained grunt of a man and the sound of an injured beast as he tore apart his own shoulder to partially evade Skinner's assault. Then his feet left the ground and Farren's eyes widened slightly, but with nothing in his left hand, that hand already near his waist, he acted. In an instant, Farren pulled the blunderbuss from its hook at his hip, levered it up and unloaded its shot directly into Skinner's face in a rapid motion only a Hunter could manage.

In an instant marked by a muzzle flash and another loud gunshot, Skinner's face was turned into a bloody mess... though even torn to shreds, even with both eyeballs destroyed, his grin returned as his flesh regenerated. Because even blinded, he could still do what he wanted to do next.
Skinner's bestial hand tightened its grip on Farren even further, holding him in place, while he felt the right hand start dragging the blades to Farren's left, cutting through more of his organs and prying open his ribcage.

With little recourse left to him--and with his body screaming from the agony of having his chest violently pried open, shoulder destroyed, and various bones shattered or pulled asunder--Farren did the last thing he could think of. He pulled his right arm in practically against his collarbone, his closed fist still clutching the Blade of mercy as it came up over his left shoulder, the tip pointed forwards. This put his arm above Skinner's where he was clutching Farren's ribcage.
Farren realized he was practically howling and wasn't sure if it was more from pain, defiance, or rage. His voice was ragged and hoarse from his deflated, ravaged lung, but he did what little he could acting off almost pure adrenaline by that point. Short as the blade was, Skinner was close and it proved a boon as Farren aimed at the center of where the man's forehead had been before he'd blown it apart and then he slammed the tip of the blade forth. It cut through the tiny space between them almost soundlessly, its tip aimed to penetrate Skinner's skull and skewer his brain.

The Blade of Mercy stabbed into Skinner's forehead, and finally his grin faltered. Farren would feel the force trying to rip him apart slacken somewhat and, just half a second after, Skinner's entire body abruptly jolted forward as Torquil lodged his Hunter's Axe in his back.
With a low groan, Skinner clumsily chucked Farren forward and toward the elevator, relinquishing the grip of his left hand and retracting his fist weapon.

Farren experienced very little of what happened, just felt the pain slightly slacken, then the whistle of air, before a violent jerk as he struck something. That jerk--in a way--was a godsend, even though it had him hissing and groaning from the intense pain. Adrenaline continued to pump through him, even as blood poured from his wounds. Gritting his teeth hard, Farren dug the fingers of his right hand into his thigh and swallowed hard as he moved his left hand to his belt and clumsily fished in his pouch for a blood vial.
After a few tries, Farren got ahold of a vial and moved just his eyes rather than his head so he could see one of his legs. He positioned the needle-end of the vial above his thigh and then stabbed it down through his clothes and into his flesh. With how much pain he was in elsewhere, he didn't even feel it.