Dark Jack

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

The doll bowed her head apologetically to Farren. “I am very sorry, good Hunter, but as we have discussed previously we do not know how to slay a Great One. Until the death of Kos most assumed that the Great Ones were truly eternal, and until the Night of the Blood Moon most assumed that they could not be killed. Not even the Shopkeeper nor I know how they killed Mergo's Wetnurse; all we know is that it was an act so contrary to the laws of the universe that reality and time itself shattered for a while when it happened. This is what the Shopkeeper is studying currently, to aid you in vanquishing your adversary for good.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

The doll seemed to listen to Ophelia's part-recounting of events and part-random musings attentively, blinking her eyes several times in rapid succession at multiple points as she tried to keep up with all the information she was being asked to process all at once. While she was busy with that, the Shopkeeper – content for the time being to let the doll deal with Ophelia – began pulling out a series of items from the sack they had just received from themselves. First they poured in several bottles worth of what appeared to be blood, only to start throwing weird and macabre items into that blood. A strange, writhing bit of cord or string of some kind; a handful of flowers with pale, grayish petals surrounding a bright red center; a handful of pale, partially translucent slugs; and finally a lump of red flesh that looked anonymous from a distance, but to an attentive eye would resemble a stillborn fetus of some manner of creature. Once that was done the Shopkeeper simply stepped back, crossed their arms and seemed content to observe what everyone else were doing.

“Ah,” the doll vocalized once Ophelia finally stopped herself from speaking continuously, “it sounds as though this night continues to be very eventful, good Hunter. But I should point out that even the Great Ones are incapable of killing Great Ones; even if such was the Golden One's ambition, he would not be able to kill Flora. Also...” The doll lowered her eyes somewhat. “If Flora was dead, so would I be. She is what gives me life. So rest assured that wherever she may be, Flora is still alive.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

While Ophelia spoke, the doll daintily got her feet under her, stood up and started idly trying to smooth the wrinkles in her dress that had occurred from her lying on the floor. “Your fondness of me... I think it may gladden my heart, good Hunter,” she said with an uncertain smile. “But you mustn't so readily sacrifice yourselves or others for my sake. Remember that I am but a doll, after all, given motion and voice by the Dream. And when the time comes for you to leave behind the Dream, you shall leave behind me as well. Such is the nature of the Hunter's Dream and those tied to it.”
Turning to Farren to address his vague inquiry, the doll assumed her habitual submissive stance with her hands folded over her stomach and a soft smile on her face. “I am afraid I do not know, good Hunter. The last I remember was being here with the Shopkeeper, helping prepare chalice rituals, and then I was on the floor with good Ophelia by my side. I remember not what happened to put me on the floor, nor what reawakened me.”

At Ophelia's series of questions regarding the ritual she meant for them to undertake, the Shopkeeper reached out and took the chalice, only to then walk off unceremoniously through the southern door. “We do not know, good Hunter,” the doll told her apologetically. “The Shopkeeper has not visited the part of the Old Labyrinth sealed by this chalice, so we have no knowledge of what awaits there.” She paused, listening. “They say that while strength is beneficial, it is far from necessary for you to succeed. You are bound to the Dream, and as such you can explore without fear of death. As long as you are prepared for anything, there is nothing you cannot eventually vanquish, even if it may take you many deaths.”
Outside, the Shopkeeper had placed the Pthumeru Yharnam Chalice on a vacant altar beside the other ones, and they appeared to be studying it. Then they held up their right hand toward the workshop with three fingers extended. After a second they curled their middle-finger... another second their thumb, so only the index-finger was held up. And after a third second, rather than curl the last finger, they lowered their hand and used that finger to point toward the headstones, just the instant a figure materialized there.
A second Shopkeeper arrived in the Dream and went immediately to the first, carrying a sack bulging with... something. The first Shopkeeper received the sack, and the second Shopkeeper disappeared.
“They are ready for the ritual,” the doll explained. “It will only take a moment.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

Torquil raised his head with an expression of surprise, as if awakened from a daze by Ophelia addressing him. “Uh... I'm not sure, it's not like he told me anything. He just gestured for me to stay, touched one of those and disappeared.” He pointed out the southern door of the workshop toward the series of altars lined up next to the path, three of which were adorned with chalices of different designs.

“Another blood gem, like the one you gave me,” Gerlinde explained when Ophelia asked if she had found anything interesting. “Only this one is apparently 'cursed'. When socketed into a weapon it'll draw on its wielder's vitality to make its effect stronger... and its effect is apparently 'fire'. If any of you want it you're welcome to it.”

Finally, when Ophelia knelt by the doll and offered up her blood echoes to her, an ethereal something seemed to pass through the area that was hard to define. There was a subtle sound that almost seemed to blend in with the ambient sounds of the Dream, like a single gust of wind that none of them felt, and for a second the Dream seemed to grow just the slightest bit brighter, only for that additional light to seem to all collapse in on the doll, coalescing in a white flash on her chest.
It was a strange thing to observe given that the doll was, after all, a doll; her eyes had been open even in her dormant state, and regardless of whether she was animated or not she did not breathe. She did not blink her eyes and there was no sharp intake of breath; the doll simply and unceremoniously sat up straight and looked around curiously.
“Ah,” she said, finally blinking her eyes and following up with a gentle smile. “My apologies, good Hunters. It appears that I have inconvenienced you somehow... ah.”
But even before the doll could finish speaking there was another, much louder sound like that of a piece of sturdy fabric being violently torn apart. Right next to the doll the Shopkeeper seemed to just spontaneously fade into existence, only for them to immediately kneel by the doll as well.
“Do not worry, I am well now,” the doll assured them. “Thank you.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

“We can't,” Gerlinde immediately answered Farren musing about slumbering in the Hunter's Dream. “We can't sleep. At all. Anytime you fall asleep, you just wake back up in the Dream immediately. So we can't sleep, but also don't need to sleep; I haven't slept since becoming a Hunter, and I feel fine.”
She pulled something from the pile of dust – a stone about the size of a chicken egg, pulsating slowly with an inner scarlet glow – and called the Messengers to query them about the nature of her find. “They seem to come quickly now,” she evaluated, as a pair with a scroll did indeed appear immediately. “So it's getting better, at least.”
Having read the information she had ordered, Gerlinde stood, brushed off her skirt for a moment, and then produced her Moonborn Bell from her pouch. “We don't need to wait for them to come back, right? We could just call them.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

While Farren took a moment to sit and recover, Ophelia knelt and called upon the Messengers to learn more about the chalice they had received from the Vileblood Queen. She would likely be concerned when the little ones did not respond immediately, as they usually did, but waiting a couple of seconds would see their diminutive helpers emerge from the ground as they always had. On top of that the gloom that had gripped the Dream finally seemed to fade, and little by little light and color returned to the world as the final vestiges of the Winter Lantern's ominous presence faded.
Dutiful as ever, the Messengers responding to Ophelia's summons promptly produced and unrolled a scroll with what information they had been able to gather from the Nightmare:

Pthumeru Yharnam Chalice
A chalice that breaks a labyrinth seal.
Use it in a ritual at the tomb altar in the Hunter's Dream to break the seal of the old underground labyrinth.
As ancient great Pthumeru wallowed in the insight and power they had accrued, they abandoned their humble origins and sought ever-greater mastery of the Old Blood.
Their arrogance brought about a scourge of beasts... and the scourge of beasts brought about the creation of Hunters.
“Kill the beasts... all of them... they are all beasts... we will hunt... you and I, my abyssal mentor. Forever.”

Messenger scroll

Torquil tried to smile, but the expression came out twisted – both because of his inhuman features and his lack of sincerity – and did not reach his eyes. He lowered Fulmen, relieved that their enemy had been slain before he had to fight it again, and when Farren approached took his hand and smiled with an iota greater enthusiasm than before, but still clearly strained.
He opened his mouth as if to say something, but changed his mind before he could even form the sentence in his mind. “We've got to make you more hardy,” Farren had remarked, which seemed a fine suggestion on the surface, but then Torquil actually thought about how that would have helped him. He was already very strong, he was quite aware of that, yet he had been utterly helpless against the grabbing hands of that monster. And if he had been more durable, able to regenerate more... would all that accomplished not have been making him trapped there for longer? Just the brief time he had already spent there, with the creature... the feelings, the sounds... He had to suppress a shudder. At least when the Mad One had killed him it had done so by smashing in his head, which had left him dazed for the duration. This time the death had not only been much more gruesome, he had also been fully conscious and aware for the entire thing.

It only took a few seconds while everyone else was busy with other things before Gerlinde returned, too, though she did so through the other doorway. Unlike Torquil she seemed entirely indifferent about having just died, and though she seemed initially serious as she had before, it only took briefly scanning the interior of the workshop with her eyes for her demeanor to shift back to normal and her eyes to light up in a fiendish smile. Leaving the others to what they were doing, Gerlinde hopped merrily to the pile of dust that remained of their adversary and started sifting through it.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

The Winter Lantern stood surrounded by Paleblood Hunters, momentarily put off-balance by the sudden disappearance of Torquil and then utterly staggered by Ophelia unleashing another blast from the Holy Moonlight Sword directly into its head. Farren unloaded a shot from his blunderbuss point-blank into what would anatomically be presumed to be its neck, and he, Ophelia and Gerlinde all proceeded to unleash a barrage of blows upon it. The creature could not recover; the combined efforts of three superhuman entities hitting it over and over was too much for it to break free from being stunned and staggered over and over again, and without prey to feed on and replenish itself with, it did not take more than a couple of seconds before its regeneration began to fail.
Ophelia experienced full frenzy for the first time as her body tore itself apart in a cascade of blood, but thanks to her foresight in taking blood it was not quite enough to overcome her vitality, and her grievous wounds swiftly regenerated. Less than a second after Ophelia Gerlinde burst like a gore-filled balloon as well, only for her to fade away as Torquil had. But even without Gerlinde, Ophelia and Farren's efforts were enough to carve away the last remnants of resilience in their adversary.
Letting out a noise that was somewhere between the sound of its discordant song and its hideous screech, like a final exhalation, the Winter Lantern – utterly eviscerated – crumpled, until all that remained of it was a pile of fine silver dust.

Behind them, at the end of the workshop standing above the headstones connecting to the world outside the Dream, Torquil belatedly arrived, hammer at the ready and three eyes that were wide with fresh trauma.

Ophelia and Farren has received 200 blood echoes.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

Ophelia arrived to fire her pistol at their adversary, puncturing one of its eyes, only for that eye to immediately reconstitute itself without the creature it was a part of so much as flinching. Farren arrived and stabbed into its head with all of his strength, drawing blood and jostling it, but its wound regenerated. Ophelia stepped forth and detonated an empowered thrust of the Holy Moonlight Sword, blowing a hole in the bulbous brain only for it to regrow into a new whole. Gerlinde arrived behind it, slipping into the workshop from the other door, and stabbed it in the back with her threaded cane.
They all arrived and attacked it with all their strength, and the Winter Lantern merely kept holding on to Torquil, enveloping him, gnawing on him, consuming his flesh and blood... and in so doing replenishing itself. Whatever regenerative potential it spent to recover from their onslaught was restored as it consumed their captured ally; it was, for all intents and purposes, content to simply ignore them and let them attack it.
And through it all, despite all the damage it had taken, its glowing eyes remained on them. Ophelia, Farren and Gerlinde all felt frenzy building, and they all had black quills materializing and stabbing them at a steady pace, like the ticking of a nightmare clock. The quills were real; each one truly did skewer their flesh and spill their blood, and each one did diminish their regenerative potential.
Farren did indeed exceed his capacity of frenzy and exploded in a cascade of blood, only to find – in the brief instant before he injected himself with a blood vial – that he was on the verge of death. Between the continuous damage inflicted by simply being in the creature's sight and the frenzy, the damage had far exceeded his regenerative potential. Had his reaction not been prepared and prompt, he would have died... and even now the blood vial only bought him time, as he felt frenzy start building once more and the quills continue to pierce him.
Ophelia, despite not having been near the monster quite as long as Farren, would also feel that she was on the verge of erupting with frenzy, made more vulnerable to its influence by her greater insight.

A burst of blood spurted onto the ground from Torquil's lower half – the half not inside the Winter Lantern – as frenzy overcame him, too, and finally the abomination seemed to stumble and stagger for a moment. Not from any amount of damage they had done to it, but rather because the person it was leaning on – Torquil – faded away and disappeared.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

Desperately diving for cover, Farren's closest option were the smaller headstones in front of him, which predictably left him on the ground right next to where Gerlinde was still hiding. The woman watched him attentively, evidently still curious to observe the strange phenomenon that afflicted him even if she lacked her usual glee, but otherwise stayed put.
Farren would find that breaking the creature's line of vision on him seemed to immediately stop the black quills from materializing and skewering him, allowing him a moment to heal, though he would also feel quite clearly that his cells continued to vibrate with frenzy. The build-up of this maddening influence did not dissipate immediately, it seemed, but only slowly began to gradually recede.

Up in the workshop Torquil had been preparing himself mentally, trying his very best to bolster his will and hone his body to the point where he had a chance to do what Ophelia had asked of him. “Don't look at it,” she had said. “Hit with your eyes closed,” she had said. “We'll let the others engage and move in when it's focusing on them,” she had said... though that last part made it feel very weird to him when she suddenly darted out of the workshop on her own as soon as they heard someone discharging a firearm. He was very confused about her actions and could not help but question how this fit in with the plan she had just told him... but even so he pushed aside his doubts and steeled himself. Ophelia knew what she was talking about. We'll let the others engage and move in when it's focusing on them. Don't look at it. Hit with your eyes closed.
He tried to memorize the layout of the Dream, closed his eyes and worked on visualizing it, as well as listening for the monster and trying to determine a way to tell its exact location from sound. He imagined running in with his eyes closed, remembering the path he would need to run along, and how he would swing his hammer at it. They had a plan; all he had to do was follow the plan...

“You can look! Its gaze hurts you!” were Ophelia's words upon returning to the workshop a scant couple of seconds after she had departed, and then she kept running, leaving Torquil to stare at her as she left him once again. Leaving him to the sound of the living nightmare coming straight toward him, wailing like a banshee, at a highly disconcerting speed. Directly toward him. It was coming to him.
But... I was supposed to move in while it focused on them, he thought, his heartbeat quickening as he felt his heart sink. I... wait, no, just give me a moment, just a second, just let me think, just, please, just a second, please, please...
But Torquil did not have a second, let alone a moment; the Winter Lantern was on the doorstep, its hideous form right next to him. He could not think. He just had to act.
Acting on the instructions he had had a chance to prepare for rather than the ones he had only just heard in passing, Torquil closed his eyes, gripped Fulmen tightly with both hands, summoned every shred of superhuman strength he had, and swung in a big, horizontal arc. With a surge of elation he felt that he hit something, and knew he hit it very hard... though neither he nor anyone else – since no one else was around and his eyes were closed – knew that the thing he had hit was not the abomination, but the frame of the doorway.

Despite his eyes being closed, Torquil felt the familiar sense of building frenzy wash over him, and felt thin spikes punch into him, piercing deep into his flesh. Then he felt four “hands” grasp him, of which two – the ones seizing him by the waist – felt like somewhat human hands and two – grabbing him by his shoulders – felt horribly misshapen and weirdly amorphous. Looking on from outside, the others might have a chance to witness the tendril-like appendages hanging from the creature's head to spontaneously rise, combine and morph into a pair of huge, absurdly muscular arms.
The grapple carried Torquil and the Winter Lantern both into the workshop and away from the doorway, out of Ophelia's line of sight and, more importantly, the line of fire of the Holy Moonlight Sword. Letting out a whimper that had no chance of being heard over their opponent's screeching, Torquil finally opened his eyes just in time to see his captor lift up its head far enough to reveal its underside, which he found was the only part of the head not covered in eyes. Instead, the lower part of its head appeared to be occupied by numerous mouths. Gaping mouths with sharp teeth and snapping jaws.
The mouths descended upon Torquil's head, and he closed his eyes again.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

“Don't look?” Torquil repeated her instructions breathlessly and incredulously, feeling even more of his already diminished courage drain at those words. How in the world was he going to fight something without looking? And if he looked on accident... oh gods, he had three eyes! What if it was even more dangerous to him? But no matter how little he liked the instructions, he decided to trust that Ophelia knew what she was talking about and resolved that whatever disadvantages he had to fight under, he still had to fight. Ophelia said so. No matter how much he wanted to hide or flee, if her and Farren wanted to fight then Torquil would fight.

Outside Farren fired his pistol, letting the sharp bang of the gunshot cut through the ghastly song, and a quicksilver bullet zipped across the graveyard, and embedded itself in the Winter Lantern's bulbous head.
The song did indeed still, but the abomination barely even seemed to flinch at being shot. What it did do, however, was raise its head, train several of its multitude of eyes on Farren... and started letting out a horrendous, continuous and deafening, baleful screech. A dull, yellow glow emerged from its many eyes, and even at a distance, Farren would immediately feel the effect of having drawn its ire: not only could he feel the familiar sense of madness creeping into his mind and every cell in his body start vibrating with building frenzy, but the eyes of the monster also proved to have a much more immediate effect.
As soon as its attention hit him, Farren felt something sharp pierce into his lower abdomen from the side, and looking down he would find himself impaled on some sort of long, shadowy quill-like arrow or spear. A second later and the object, whatever it was, vanished as spontaneously as it had appeared, just as a second one seemed to manifest out of nothing and stab into his back, just below his left shoulder. Another second and that one disappeared, and a third one was suddenly in his right thigh.

The creature started moving toward Farren, but before it got very far it was struck by the blast loosed from Ophelia's Holy Moonlight Sword, which appeared to stagger it for a moment. But even staggered its horrid screech did not stop, completely drowning out Ophelia's warning, and Farren still felt the effects of its malevolent gaze. But as soon as it recovered, it turned around – with new eyes on the side and back of its head continuing to stare at Farren – and it began to rapidly skitter up toward the workshop instead, vengefully pursuing the origin of the much more damaging surge of arcane power rather than the lesser threat of Farren's humble gunshot.