Dark Jack

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Pthumeru Yharnam layer, the Old Labyrinth

Arrayah, the Profane

His experience told Farren that Hunters could sometimes render their prey momentarily helpless by shooting them in a moment of high exertion, such as in the execution of an attack. This information was accurate as long as the target had the Old Blood and one used quicksilver bullets... which he did, and Arrayah most certainly was a product of the Old Blood. What Farren did not know was that particularly powerful creatures of the Old Blood were not as easily disrupted as their lesser brethren and could not so easily be “parried” as lowly beasts or Hunters. An ancient abomination such as the one they were up against now, who was clearly host to untold masses of blood echoes, would not be stopped by a mere well-timed quicksilver bullet.

But Farren did not just fire a quicksilver bullet, and he did not just hit her a little. Farren bode his time until the moment Arrayah was about to execute the swing of her sword, when every pellet of his firearm would hit her... and he fired not one, but two blunderbusses at her at point-blank range.
A horrible, inhuman screech emerged from the creature as she did indeed stagger, though with her sheer mass and momentum that did not involve her ceasing her advance. Arrayah veered off to Farren's right but kept barreling forward, half-dashing and half-tumbling forward until she slammed face-first into the outer wall of the chamber. The sheer force of the impact was enough to send palpable tremors through the floor, and the sound of the crash echoed loudly through the space.
And there she remained for a second, seemingly relatively inert.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

"Arrayah will assume that her rune will still work, I think, so we have a rare opportunity. If we pretend not to notice her when she comes for me, we can try and knock the wind out of her and get some good damage in--but, I have to warn you about the smell. Mother Moon above, even remembering it makes my nostrils sting." Ophelia commented as they gathered around the chalice, wrinkling her nose at her last statement.

"I know what you mean," Gerlinde nodded her head in agreement. "I caught a whiff for a moment between being hit and losing consciousness. I'm up for trying, obviously, but... do you really think we'll all be able to pretend we don't notice that thing?" She shot a meaningful glance at Torquil in particular.

"I think in her frenzy to reclaim my half of the sword there's a chance she doesn't notice... but we don't need to be too convincing--just enough to get her close and to be able to strike first. I think it's a bit of a long shot, you're right, but... we won't get the opportunity again! Do you think you'll be okay, Torquil, dear?"

Torquil winced. "I'm not good at pretending, but I'll try if you want."

"Hmm... Give it your best shot. It's alright if you don't manage, dear, maybe just stand with me and by the time she's focused on me she won't notice the trap closing around her. If she does... well, we're still at an advantage compared to last time, aren't we?" Ophelia smiled, giving Torquil's shoulder what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze.

Torquil nodded his head, trying his best to express grim determination with his new inhuman features. "I'll try. You say go and I'll wallop her."

Farren nodded, “Vile thing. Smelled it, but little else.” He rolled his jaw briefly then spoke again, after Torquil had confirmed his intent this time. “Should be able to mostly mask my reaction while we close the net.”

Pthumeru Yharnam layer, the Old Labyrinth

Arrayah, the Profane

And so the four Hunters returned to the Old Labyrinth with renewed powers, steeled determination and, perhaps most importantly of all, a plan. Once again they all had to endure the descent through what they could only surmise might be levels of the Nightmare or the Interstice before arriving back into the hallway they had arrived in on their first visit to this hallowed place. Nothing appeared to have changed there, and as soon as they had all gathered once again they proceeded toward the end of the hallway that opened up into Arrayah's chamber.
Even before reaching the opening itself all four of them would be able to tell a very obvious difference from their last visit, even though things seemed the same. As they got closer to the chamber ahead they started hearing – faintly at first, but more clearly with each step – the echoes of the mindless, frantic chanting that Ophelia in particular had had the chance to hear.
“Pthumerian,” the whispers – weak, distant and drowsy now that Ophelia was no longer wearing the Guidance Rune – volunteered to her. “She is chanting... 'A Hunter must hunt'... over and over... over and over... it consumes her... 'A Hunter must hunt'... a Hunter must hunt... a Hunter must hunt...”

Reaching the entrance to the chamber – as gargantuan as the first time they had seen it – they once again would find confirm that things were quite different than last time they had been here. This time all of them would very easily spot the huge and hideous visage of Arrayah about seventy meters away ahead of them and to their right, up against the outer wall. As she chanted her foreign words she just stood there, her hind body stretching out behind her with its multitude of limbs obscenely, while she fervently scratched at the wall with the tip of her sword. Over and over she stabbed the blade into the stone and dragged it downwards, carving a crude, mostly straight line that they could only guess from the other defacement of the wall was the beginning of yet another Hunter Rune.

The Hunters entered and, according to plan, started somewhat spreading out while doing their best to pretend not to notice their abominable opponent. As they did so Arrayah stopped trying to carve the wall and turned to face them... though for the moment she seemed weirdly dazed. Most of her many eyes were too small for them to see properly at this distance, particularly with the poor lighting, but the one big eye she had – currently dark – was obviously rolling wildly, looking everywhere and at nothing in particular in an apparent frenzy, while she just stood there, letting her arms hang down her sides as she chanted.
But then the eye abruptly froze and focused on Farren, and the once-dark iris lit up with what to Ophelia – and perhaps Farren as well, but in a different context – was a familiar azure glow, its vertical pupil contracting into a thin slit. Her chanting grew louder and more frenetic as her two unoccupied front-hands clenched into fists, her entire body appeared to tremble...
And with a horrible cacophony of clicking, thudding and slapping sounds, Arrayah rushed forward, carried by the lower appendages on her hind body. Despite her size and obvious deformity she moved shockingly fast, and she would arrive at Farren within just a handful of seconds, her sword raised high over her head and poised to strike.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

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

With Irah, Freagon and Lhirin approaching the farm and maneuvering specifically so that Weriz's aura covered the farmhouse, anticipating breaching the entrance to retrieve Bren from his captors and the pair of patrolling bandits already dispatched, things were now moving very quickly. All of them knew that it was only a matter of several minutes at most, but more likely only seconds, before the alarm was raised and the enemy would come out to face them in force.
Caleb was in place, accumulating divine energy and using a portion of it to block the side-entrance to the barn, which would limit the initial wave of bandit defenders to those currently in the courtyard, at least. As soon as the patrol had been removed Quintin fell back, sheathed his sword and dagger and switched to his war bow instead, swiftly nocking an arrow, but seemingly intent on advancing with the other frontliners.

Soon enough a man in gambeson came around the corner of the farmhouse from the courtyard and spotted them with the dead patrol, only for a crossbow bolt to immediately emerge from the canopy above, punch straight through the armor and embed itself almost in the center of the bandit's clavicle. He staggered backward a couple of steps clutching his wound, then collapsed. A second later someone in the courtyard was shouting, and the battle was underway.

Feeling his heart racing, his throat constricting and mind racing, Jaelnec joined the charge to meet the bandits in his very first battle. He realized somewhat distressingly that several of the bandits emerging into his field of view wielded bows and crossbows, which he currently had no way of countering, and had to simply trust that his own ranged support would keep him safe. He had to concentrate on the melee he was about to enter, and thus he started instinctively compartmentalizing everything he was perceiving just the way he had been taught: see and hear everything, let nothing surprise you, but ignore that which is not of immediate concern. Prioritize the information you spend mental energy on.
He was, quite unsurprisingly, terrified, but did not allow himself to be swayed by his fear. Even though he had been training as a warrior for one and a half decade, spending hours and sometimes whole days sparring, he had never managed to so much as get close to winning. Had even one of those sparring matches been real fights, he would already be dead. So what chance did he really have of making it out of this battle alive?
But those doubts, too, were not worth the mental energy. Jaelnec narrowed his focus to the bandit nearest to himself and immediately winced when he realized that this opponent was wielding a spear. Spears were called the kings of the battlefield for a reason, Freagon had been sure to teach him, and in the hands of a skilled warrior they were one of the hardest things to counter with a sword. Though the sword had been his primary focus, Jaelnec had been trained in various weapons over his fifteen years with his master, including spears; he understood their advantages and disadvantages, the most disastrous of which was their reach. He had to get past the spear to even have a chance at getting to the spearman... only for Jaelnec to notice that said spearman was jogging at a somewhat slower pace, and subsequently realize that a second bandit was moving to join the first, with a third not far behind, one of whom was holding a shield and an axe and the other an arming sword.
Clenching his jaw, Jaelnec quickened his pace to a dash and headed straight for the spearman. Just fighting against someone using a spear was bad enough, but being against three opponents at once, one of whom was using a spear, would be incomprehensibly worse. He had to get there before they joined up, and he had to defeat the first before the second and third got there.

Just as the spearman was coming into range he thrust his weapon forward; a simple maneuver as old as time itself, yet undeniably lethal and hard to deal with. Jaelnec saw what was happening and felt his body move as if on its own, turning his torso so he presented his right shoulder and leaned away from the trajectory of the jab. The spearman obviously saw this and adjusted hims aim even mid-thrust, tracing Jaelnec's body as it moved. But Jaelnec had already raised his sword, and its blade met the spear and attempted to force it aside.
Feeling his opponent resisting, Jaelnec stepped in and slid his sword up so that the spear got caught in the nook between the blade and the crossguard, trying to force a proper bind between their weapons.
The nightwalker's boot hit the ground, and he realized that all of that had happened in the space between two of his running steps. He continued his advance and felt the spearman trying to shift his leverage, and pivoted his sword accordingly, maintaining the bind and forcing the spear to miss as he ran past its deadly tip. Without looking, Jaelnec let go of the hilt of his weapon with his left hand, reached over and promptly closed his fingers around the end of the shaft of the spear, which freed up his sword enough that he could loosen the bind and let it travel up the length of the spear, until he eventually reached his opponent's hands and struck the knuckles of the bandit's armored gauntlets.
It was not enough to sever any fingers through the protection, but it was enough to at least force the bandit to let go of his spear. The possibility of taking the disarmed man prisoner occurred to him, only for his brain to finally process some information he had obtained but so far ignored: the spearman had an arming sword and a dagger on his hip. He would only be disarmed momentarily; he was still a threat. So even as his sword was on its way over the bandit's head and away, Jaelnec immediately shifted his momentum; still holding the spear in his left hand, he raised his right elbow to twist his right hand and sword, delivering a lightning-quick reverse-edge cut with the bastard sword, right below the chin – avoiding the bandit's helmet – and cutting his throat. Without even thinking about it, he made sure to cut deep enough to sever the windpipe and ensure that the bandit would almost certainly be too panicked about his state to take advantage of the fact that he could technically still move and fight for a few seconds.

Spinning counter-clockwise as he slipped past the defeated spearman, the squire retained his grip on the spear and took it with him as he kept running. He shifted his attention instantly to the next bandit, just a handful of meters away, nearly upon him. This was the one with the shield and the axe, and Jaelnec could already tell from the way he was holding it that the bandit was getting ready to strike with the beak on the back of the axehead. There was no way that Jaelnec's old hauberk could stand up to an anti-armor weapon feature like that... and the bandit was wearing hauberk and a helmet as well. Armor and shields were also difficult to deal with.
Yet Jaelnec kept moving, barely even conscious of the many decisions and precision-maneuvers his body was performing as he charged. His right hand raised his word high to his right, deliberately telegraphing a blow aimed at the left side of the bandit's head. Meanwhile his left hand twirled around, beginning to spin the spear he had just acquired and was currently holding in a reverse-grip just below the tip, only to let go halfway through and let the rotational momentum carry it another 180 degrees while he shifted and turned his hand and nimbly caught it a little over halfway down the shaft, with the tip pointing toward his thumb as it was supposed to.
The bandit raised his shield to block the sword-strike, just as Jaelnec had intended. With the shield occupied and out of the way, he thrust low with the spear and – fearing that he might not be able to generate enough force to pierce the chainmail with a left-handed thrust – plunged it deep into the man's unprotected right thigh. The bandit's leg began to buckle under him as the start of a cry of pain emerged, only for Jaelnec to slip his sword down and below the shield of his distracted opponent to turn his cry into a noisy gurgle as his trachea was severed as well.

At this point Jaelnec managed to halt his advance and actually retreated several steps, using his own movement to dislodge the spear from the second defeated bandit's thigh. The third – and for this instant the last relevant – bandit was advancing with his arming sword, and Jaelnec noted that this man was also wearing chainmail, but was only wearing a cervelliere like the one hidden inside the nightwalker's own hat, which left the lower part of his head – like his face – unprotected.
Jaelnec traded which hand was doing what – taking the sword in his left hand and the spear in his right – as well as once again switching to a reverse-grip on the polearm. He raised his right arm for just a second before throwing the spear at the center of mass on the bandit, lodging it right in the man's sternum. The chainmail saved his life, preventing the spear from penetrating more than one or two centimeters, by the looks of it, but it was enough to hurt, distress and distract.
Dashing forward again to cover the scant few steps separating them at this point, Jaelnec moved his now-free right hand to the hilt of his sword to wield it in a two-handed grip. The bandit had enough presence of mind to thrust his sword at Jaelnec, but Jaelnec answered with his own thrust, taking advantage of his longer blade. He felt the bandit's edge grinding against the crossguard of his sword as the weapons crossed paths, but that was immediately followed by the sensation of the tip of his sword piercing the bandit's right cheekbone and deep into his head.

Before his third defeated opponent could stumble to the ground, Jaelnec had already dislodged his sword and retrieved the spear. What is going on? he finally had a moment to wonder. They are so... slow? Clumsy? Weak? Is this... is this what it's like to fight someone who's not Freagon?
But there was no time to dwell on that; there were plenty of bandits left, after all.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

“I have eleven bullets left, which should be plenty,” Gerlinde shrugged. “And yeah, I still have that bit from the lightbeast. I should probably get around to using it; if Arrayah does start throwing around arcane attacks...” But then Gerlinde stopped herself and her eyes suddenly widened as a fiendish grin spread across her face. “I could catch and store them... or I could do the same with one of your attacks, Ophelia. Ah, but that's for another time; Snakey can only hold one thing at a time, and it'd be a shame to waste such powerful healing.
As for vials...” Gerlinde checked her pouch. “I have three left.”
Torquil also checked his bag. “I have four, and this weird potion I don't know what does.” He pulled out a blue elixir and showed them. “It just showed up, like the paper.”

To Ophelia's last question, the Shopkeeper somewhat lowered their head and turned away. But the doll answered nevertheless: “The Shopkeeper wants to say that they cannot help with that, but I am at your service, good Hunter. As is my purpose, you may use me as you wish. I am but a doll, after all.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

“If you call the Shopkeeper somewhere, they will hunt anything they deem viable prey, good Hunter,” the doll cautioned Ophelia with an apologetic bow of her head. “They can't help themselves; it's their nature as the Great Hunter. Your instructions will mean nothing to them once they are before Arrayah, they will simply hunt to the best of their ability until they win or is defeated.”
“That fits with what I've seen of them,” Gerlinde nodded her head with a smirk. “They're nice and cooperative as long as things are calm, but as soon as there's an enemy nearby they lose their mind.”
“Though perhaps oversimplified that may be an apt description,” the doll admitted. “Though you can at least take solace in that the Shopkeeper you summon is only the Moonborn Hunter, who you have already seen vanquished once. If the enemy is powerful enough, even the Moonborn Hunter may need more than one attempt to figure them out and slay them.”

Listening to it all, Torquil shrugged, uncharacteristically calm and indifferent about it all. “I'll do as I'm told, you know that. Just tell me what to do and when to do it.”
“There is a lot we could do,” Gerlinde admitted, idly examining the condition of her threaded cane. “If we went all out like you said – spent the hourglass, the darkbeast vial, the bolt paper, all that stuff – we could probably do some serious damage. But I felt how big the pull was when I looked at them in the birdbath; we'd probably have to kill a lot of things to get new ones if we fail, and Arrayah would just go munch on the other creatures of the Old Labyrinth to replenish her strength. We could also go do something else and come back later, that's completely fine with me, but we didn't actually even get to try to fight her yet. Who knows, she may turn out to be a pushover now that we can actually fight back.”
She let out a small giggle. “I say we go back one more time and see what damage we can do without spending everything we have on it. And I'd say stick with Fulmen, Torquil; that thing can go electric anytime, but we only have one strip of bolt paper. That way we also don't tip off Arrayah about everything we can do; she learns from fighting us, too, after all.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

“Paper... like this?” Torquil mused, reaching into the pouch on his hip and retrieving a thin strip of bluish paper, with one side covered in a curious ferrous-looking dust. “This fell out earlier when I took off the other set of armor.”
Gerlinde glanced at it and nodded her head. “What luck! That's bolt paper! Just rub it on a weapon and it'll be sparkling with electricity for a while.” She turned to Ophelia. “And sure, I'll try my Horn of the Old Lords. Handy little thing, works as well as fire paper and only costs a quicksilver bullet to power it.”

The doll and the Shopkeeper appeared to listen intently to Ophelia's recollection of the foe they had discovered awaiting them in the Old Labyrinth. As usual the Shopkeeper merely stood there, seemingly silent, while the doll started conveying their message: “The hind body sounds to be more trouble than it is worth, good Hunter; too dangerous to get near and not particularly vulnerable. The more humanoid front sounds like a much better target, though that is likely also where her attention will be focused and where her hands, sword and maw are. By your description, Arrayah seems to maintain a surprising amount of humanity despite her twisted form... and considering that she may be the counterpart to the one the Shopkeeper took the Holy Moonlight Sword from – Ludwig – you should expect this to be an extremely tough battle.”
Pausing to glance hesitantly at the Shopkeeper, the doll finally added: “The Shopkeeper also remarks that you should not assume to understand Arrayah's sword. If it is truly the counterpart to the Holy Moonlight Sword, it is likely that it, too, will only reveal its true power after transforming.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

“I'd think so,” Gerlinde replied to Ophelia's question, specifically as to whether the Dream would recreate the creature bits she had eaten and carried in her bag. “If it didn't, we'd all show up naked and unarmed any time we came back here... which, as fun as that sounds, hasn't happened.” She shrugged. “But I can't taste them, no. I suppose it's not that much worse than making their blood spray into my open wounds... or downright drinking their blood, even. Eh, who cares.”

When the turn came to Torquil, he turned to her and blinked... but otherwise it would probably be challenging for Ophelia, or any of them, to read any kind of emotion out of his altered, three-eyed face. A lot of thoughts went through his head while Ophelia spoke, including How do you know that?, How long have you known that? and Why didn't you mention that before? But perhaps luckily she changed the subject before those stray thoughts had time to crystallize into questions he felt comfortable speaking aloud.
“I got a look at, uh, her before I died,” Torquil told her, his altered voice only somewhat easier to read emotion from than his face, but his tone only betrayed a trace of annoyance. “The hammer isn't really long enough to get to her, uh... weird, long butt without getting hurt from all the flailing things. So I'll have to go for her front. Unless... should I switch back to the axe? That might be long enough.”

Both Gerlinde and Torquil got branded with the Mask Rune anew, and it seemed that they were just about ready to get back to it.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

“Bloody thing,” Gerlinde sighed, rolling her eyes with a wry grin. “Sure, I'll switch to the Mask Rune. I guess I'll just dump all these bits of creature somewhere, and maybe go make myself vomit before I actually digest the bits I swallowed...”
Torquil just stood there with Fulmen in his hands, looking somewhat dejected. He was caught between his annoyance at having died again, his relief that the others had not only died as well this time, but they had even died before him, and almost a sense of boredom and impatience with how he had died. Compared to the three times he had died earlier this night – having his head repeatedly smashed into a stone floor, exploding from frenzy and exploding from frenzy while being gnawed on my dozens of horrid, nightmarish mouths – being beheaded seemed almost boring and uninteresting. Not only had the pain been much less, but he also had to just lie there as a disembodied head, waiting to die...

“My Guidance sprites would tell you where Arrayah is... if she had not been in the Interstice... where the Nightmare looms close everywhere,” the whispers hesitantly replied to Ophelia's question. “She wears the Deception Rune... which does more than you think. It does not make her invisible... you can see her... hear her... smell her... she is fully perceivable... but the rune bends your mind. Makes you ignore her. Under its influence... you cannot even touch her by accident... because subconsciously you will avoid her. Without meaning to... you will be trying to miss.”
There was a brief thoughtful pause. “But as you experienced... it has limits. Once Arrayah interacts with you... Deception will become ineffective. If she speaks to you... touches you... or attacks you, you will see her... and be able to touch her.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

A short ways off the Shopkeeper and the doll emerged from the workshop and started descending the stairs to greet her, as they usually did, though what was likely a much more welcome relief to Ophelia would be to feel the influence of the Holy Moonlight Sword return. It took several seconds for it to calm down, but when the whispers were eventually heard again, they had returned to their normal self.
“Apologies, Wielder,” it told her regretfully. “It was near enough to its other half that it began to overlap... and though this half considers you its worthy Wielder... its other half has chosen Arrayah. In the moment, you were both worthy... and it would have accepted either of you. And just as this half wants you to retrieve the Profane Abyssal Blade... its other half wants Arrayah to retrieve the Holy Moonlight Sword.”