Dark Jack

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Eastern Central Yharnam

Ophelia had barely sent off her pair of Messengers before another pair arrived with a scroll of their own. They unrolled it and displayed its contents to her, and she would immediately be struck by the fact that it was not only a different handwriting than usual, it was also written with distinct golden ink.

Such insight you have obtained already, Ophelia. The Witches of Hemwick would be proud. As am I, of you and Farren both. You have both come so far in very little time. If you want to meet face to face, come to the Grand Cathedral. I will show you my Dream.

Golden Message

Several seconds later a third Messenger duo arrived with yet another scroll:

Dangerous. His influence has grown. I will think of a way to kill him.

Message from the Shopkeeper

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Eastern Central Yharnam

“A trip to the Old Labyrinth is always fun,” Gerlinde agreed, “but I think we have much more likely ways to discover the secrets of ascension. We don't need the wisdom of a Great One that has always been and probably will always be, we need one that used to be human, and one that has the faculties to tell us how they did it. If Ego really is the –”
But at this point Gerlinde's sentence abruptly trailed off, her eyes straying from the moon above to look at something lower to the ground right next to them. Farren and Torquil would be unable to see anything there at all and would only get an abstract sense of being watched, but for the first time Ophelia would see what had once been described to her: a long, smooth, slender tentacle with a pure golden hide that gleamed in the moonlight with a metallic sheen. The eldritch appendage appeared to just burst straight out of the ground – not unlike how the Messengers traversed the world – and towered a good three meters tall, looming over them. Its tip was a weird bulbous growth of some manner that seemed oddly... drippy, almost, as if its golden exterior was melting, and from within that semi-liquid bulb shone a bright light that swept over the group like a searchlight.
The entire thing lasted barely two seconds; the thing emerged from the ground, illuminated them with its radiant beam, and then retracted back into the ground as unceremoniously as it had arrived, leaving no trace of its passage.

“Right,” Gerlinde sighed. “So maybe not him.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Eastern Central Yharnam

Farren pursed lips, his expression briefly a frown before becoming something more neutral. Briefly, he glanced to Gerlinde and then Torquil as he spoke. Regarding the man for a moment as he considered the question, Farren eventually nodded and unslung the hammer from his back, taking it into both hands as he stepped forward, coming alongside the man to hand it off.

At Gerlinde's reaction Ophelia finally had the first normal reaction she'd had since coming to the Waking World - she balked.
“They say that those who fail to learn the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat it for a good reason. We don't want to become responsible for another Blood Moon, or worse...”

Oddly, while Farren agreed, he said nothing. Instead, he remained silent as he thought on what both the women had said as he watched Torquil with a measure of interest, wondering if he'd wanted Fulmen for a reason beyond simply trying it for himself.

“Responsible?” Gerlinde repeated incredulously. “I don't see how we could manage that. Unless you're thinking about trying to call a Great One to the Waking World yourself? No, the people of Yharnam seem quite eager to cause another Blood Moon with or without our help.” She giggled. “And so what if another one did happen? Moira was a Paleblood Hunter without a Blood Moon, and now she's just a regular Hunter. The Shopkeeper was one with a Blood Moon, and now they are an eternal sort of-Great One who can do whatever they want. The way I see it, it seems like another Blood Moon could benefit us. I don't know about you, but I think I'd make a pretty good god, myself.”

Torquil received Fulmen from Farren and mumbled his thanks, awkwardly managing to grasp the hammer with both hands without discarding the Loch Shield. He shifted his grip up and down the handle for a moment, getting a feel for the balance of the weapon, and found that he rather enjoyed its heft. It was not unlike his axe besides being heavier, which he could only imagine would mean that it could strike with even greater force.
Curious about how it functioned – as he had not received the instructions Farren had, and the one time Farren had wielded the hammer he had almost immediately damaged the weapon for very limited benefit – Torquil experimentally pulled the little lever on the side, triggering its transformation. The eight segments of the hammer head split open and separated, exposing its inert core, and Torquil cocked his head and examined this strange piece of technology. It was far beyond anything he had even the faintest understanding of, of course... but that was exactly why it interested him. He let go of the lever, and the weapon returned to its original form. He pulled the lever again and let it go again, and one more time, watching the mechanism attentively each time.
Still confused as to the “trick” of this trick weapon, Torquil frowned for a moment before giving the weapon a test-swing, sweeping the heavy weapon through the air at nothing in particular. His frown deepened, still not understanding. It seemed like a nice hammer, but it seemed pointlessly over-engineered for being just a hammer.
“I don't get it,” he announced, and moved to hand the weapon back to Farren.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Eastern Central Yharnam

Hearing Ophelia's words, Gerlinde abruptly burst into laugher. “You guys take everything way to seriously. Who cares about the past and future? What importance is what came before or comes after? Salvation, light, ash, mentors, parents, children... why does any of that matter? We explore, we see, we learn, we kill and we grow stronger. What else do we need?” She giggled, closed her eyes and shook her head. “You wonder if there is an after? How could there not be? You haven't seen it yet, Philly, but I have been to the Nightmare outside the Dream... and neither you nor Farren has felt it the way Quilly and I have, but we can't die. And even if we did die, I can't imagine any other fate for us than being reborn as natives of the Nightmare. The world is so unimaginably far beyond what we can comprehend. Nothing ever ends.”

Torquil just jogged on in silence, his gaze still fixed on the ground in front of him. He found himself wanting to agree with Gerlinde, yet unable to do so. He did not remember his past and desperately wanted it not to matter, for him not to care, but even so it continued to haunt him. And the idea of waking up with all of this behind him... to return to an existence like what he had left behind, to being weak, alone and forgotten... the idea did not sit well with him at all.
“Farren,” he said after a moment, looking up at the only other male Hunter in their group from below the brim of his new hat, “can I try that hammer of yours?”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Eastern Central Yharnam

“Once upon a time, maybe, but not anymore,” Gerlinde mused without taking her eyes off the moon. “We all used to not matter, we were all worthless once, and perhaps we were even once poppets... but not now. Now we're immortal superhumans that can travel across time, space and levels of reality, with access to resources beyond what even Byrgenwerth or the Choir ever imagined. I mean, our host back in the Dream is a literal god... sort of. We're already incredibly important just by virtue of what we are, and now that we have the Mask Rune we're hardly poppets anymore either.”

Torquil just kept up with the rest of them in silence, his eyes lowered to the ground just a meter or two in front of his feet. For once his right hand was free; he had taken some inspiration from his companions' attire to improvise a way to store his axe, and though he lacked the skills in crafting that particularly Farren seemed to have, he had been capable of turning a simple leather strap into a loop to hang the weapon from. He listened, absorbing what was being said wordlessly, all while still trying to process the strange visions he had had when he had been overwhelmed with Frenzy.
And the fact that he was so preoccupied alone was even further cause for him to ponder. He disliked thinking and trying to figure things out to the point where he had just assumed and accepted that he was just stupid... but there was something about this that he just could not let go. Something about the feelings stirring in his heart when he recalled those eyes staring into his.
At this point, Torquil genuinely just hoped they would get attacked by some kind of monster soon so he would be distracted from his own thoughts, even just for a little while.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Eastern Central Yharnam

“Ah, but you're mistaken,” Gerlinde told him with a happy sigh, looking up at the bright full moon that was slowly rising ever higher toward its zenith with an exaggerated grin. “It's not that nothing matters, but that there many things that don't. I didn't matter, but the things they must have learned from my body must have mattered immensely. They must have been of unimaginable value... and realizing that I was the one they were studying because I happened to be born with Paleblood... why, I must have been an amazingly precious research subject!” She giggled.
“But as for realizing that... I don't think it was some kind of sudden epiphany or anything like that, it was just something I discovered gradually. This awareness that people only matter as much as others decide they do and the ways others decide they do. Of course I know why I see this now, too: that I went completely, utterly mad. That there isn't the faintest shred of sanity left in me. But you know what? Madness isn't all that bad. It's quite... liberating, really.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

With that Ophelia received Farren's message, and she, Gerlinde and Torquil went to join him at the Black Church Workshop through the Yharnam Headstone marker. Reunited, they started walking south toward the Industrial Ward.

Things had been quiet as they walked and had it not been a night of the Hunt, it could have been a rather pleasant stroll through the city. Sadly, such a thing was not to be, a fact which was occasionally punctuated by the far off call of a beast or the faint scream of some poor citizen or Hunter. Aside from that there was only the sound of their steady footsteps and the faint breath of the wind. The quiet however, was not entirely a comfortable sort of silence, it felt heavy, and while it certainly could have been from the many burdens set upon their shoulders that night, but to Farren it felt distinctly like something else.
Distance and tension.
Lingering consequences of his argument with Ophelia, consequences he couldn’t address. The fact that she’d not replied to his original message and that they hadn’t spoken since all of them had reunited spoke volumes. Farren sighed and altered his gait slightly until he came in line with Gerlinde.
He’d not break the peace, but perhaps ridding them of this weighty silence would begin to do some good. “Gerlinde…” he started, looking thoughtful, his eyes on the road at his feet as they walked, “...you were held for quite some time. What…what did they do to you?”
He raised his eyes, turning to meet her gaze, or at least to look at her, taking in any subtle tells he could.

“Hm? Oh, you mean the Byrgenwerth scholars?” Gerlinde said with her usual ceaseless smile, only to then start speaking very quickly and eagerly: “At first they didn't do much, actually, they mostly just came in every few days and examined me and my baby in extreme detail. Did you know that I was pregnant at the time? Anyway, for the first few months they just kept examining me over and over again until I gave birth. Then they examined me really carefully. They gave me an injection of some kind, and suddenly I was pregnant again! From an injection in my arm! It was really weird and scary, especially because this pregnancy progressed way faster than it should. Like, I started showing after just three days! And a couple of weeks later I gave birth to something that wasn't really a baby, but rather... some kind of weird blue, sort of baby-like slug-thing?” She giggled. “And then they did that over and over again, so many times I lost count. They kept examining me and giving me injections, and making me give birth to those strange creatures, right up until they stopped visiting. It was only later that I learned they had left me alone because everyone disappeared during the Night of the Blood Moon, and in the meantime I was just in there, with my only company being the last slug-thing I gave birth to.”

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Jaelnec, Freagon, Irah, Lhirin, Nabi, Yanin, Jordan and Madara – Forest north of Borstown, south of Bandit Farm

“Unless the angels Deo'irah is associated with are atypical then no, iriai and swaigh cannot communicate telepathically,” Caleb corrected Yanin's observations. “But if that is a concern I can maintain connection once I am in place, which will allow you to send thoughts to me just as you receive mine, and I can act as an intermediary.”
“Won't that cause divine taint?” Vela asked.
“Not much, but some taint is inevitable,” Caleb conceded. “Even you being close to me right now is causing a small amount of taint; though I have learned to condense divine energy around me better than most thalks, my control is not perfect. But if taint is a concern, I can create and maintain telepathic communication with Deo'irah's angels instead.”
“That is probably fine for the iriao, but not the swaigh,” Freagon pointed out. “A wraith can speak out loud and tell the rest of us immediately, but during passive possession the swaigh would have to first tell Deo'irah, and then she could tell the rest of us. That's too much delay. Deo'irah says she's resistant, so target her directly.”

It took another several minutes for Caleb to accumulate enough energy to do what they had planned, and he started with summoning Kinder into Irah and Lhirin's improvised construct. Irah would note that this process was quite different from how she usually summoned the angels, as Caleb did not appear to invoke any incantations; he merely gestured toward the scarecrow-like frame they had built, produced a faint whitish flash at Caleb's hand and the vessel, and suddenly the newly created wraith started moving on its own.
“What is this?” it said, speaking in the voice Irah knew to be Kinder's. She seemed momentarily agitated until she spotted Irah. “Deo'irah? This is quite different, but as always I am happy to help.”
Finally they had to split into their two groupings, with only Irah, Freagon and Lhirin staying while everyone else – along with Kinder – moved to be outside the range of the aura of fear native to swaigh. Again Caleb merely made a gesture without an incantation, this time producing a faint purplish flash, and Irah would feel the familiar experience of Weriz coming to co-inhabit her body.
“Oh! Deo'irah?” the small, perpetually nervous and weirdly childish voice of the Angel of Fear said in her mind. “Uh... Why do I get the feeling that you are doing something scary? I hate this... but if you insist, you know I will help. Just... please be careful?”

With that, Caleb waved his hand one last time and spent what energy he had left to turn himself temporarily invisible, and the fallen angel went to assume the position he had been told. After about another five minutes, Irah would suddenly hear Caleb's voice in her head: “I am in position. I sense a total of sixty-four mundanes in the area, of which thirty-three are sapients and only one feels like a mage. It seems likely that the mage is the healer we are here for. They are in the farmstead with six others.”
Similarly, Kinder reported to the other group: “The thalk reports that they are in position and there are thirty-three sapients, and the healer seems to be in the farmstead with six others. None of the others feel like mages.”

And with that, the time had come for them to attack.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream – Ophelia, Torquil and Gerlinde

Torquil exited during Ophelia's last barrage of words against Farren and in time to hear the entirety of Farren's response, but stopped in the door to the workshop next to Gerlinde. Whereas Gerlinde was just leaning against the wall next to the door casually, idly fiddling with her threaded cane and smiling her usual gleeful smile while staring at their quarreling companions with wide, fascinated eyes, Torquil felt immediately uncomfortable. Obviously he did not even understand what they had been arguing about that had managed to escalate to this point, but both their tone, Farren leaving and Ophelia's breaking into tears made it quite clear that it was quite serious.

Only with a great deal of hesitation did he start to slowly make his way down the stairs toward Ophelia, awkwardly straightening his new outfit that was styled after the classical garb of the old Hunters. It felt a lot easier to move in than the old armor had been, and while it was still quite thick cloth, he knew he could get a syringe through this unlike his old armor. Wanting to look anywhere but at Ophelia, more because it made him feel bad than to afford her any privacy, he idly located his Hunter's axe and Loch Shield where he had left them, though he did not retrieve either item yet.
When Ophelia turned around, she would find both Torquil and Gerlinde having come down to where the doll and the Shopkeeper already were. Torquil would look rather awkward and hesitant, as one would expect, seemingly half-leaning toward her and half-trying to turn away; though it could be hard to recognize him in his new garb, at least his demeanor would be familiar to her.
Gerlinde just stood there with wide eyes and a wider smile, apparently utterly unconcerned about what had just happened. “So what's the plan, then? Do we wait for Farren to come back? Are we going with him? Or are we heading directly to the Industrial Ward?”

The Black Church Workshop, northeastern Central Yharnam – Farren

Farren arrived to find the Black Church Workshop pretty much exactly as it had been last time he had seen it. Nothing interesting seemed to be happening at the moment.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

“I fear not, good Hunter,” the doll conveyed the regrets of her and the Shopkeeper. “In truth we know very little about Caryll Runes and the runebrands that allow you to apply them, and in all their countless lives the Shopkeeper only ever found the one. Since they discovered this runebrand with the Witches of Hemwick...” She stopped herself to shoot a glance at Ophelia and offer an apologetic bow. “Since this was the witches' runebrand, perhaps the allies of the witches might know more.”