Dark Jack

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Pthumeru Yharnam layer, the Old Labyrinth

Arrayah, the Black Blade

The manic grin on Gerlinde's face widened slightly as she watched Arrayah darting through the air like that, only for the sheer force of her own momentum to make even minor corrections difficult enough that Farren's desperate roll was enough for him to avoid her grasping left hand. It was odd... Gerlinde, like Ophelia and Farren, had noticed Arrayah's abrupt and stark change in demeanor when she awakened the Profane Abyssal Blade. She had felt a giggle in her throat when she saw the mutant's bestial, rabid fury give way to a more human, fanatical madness. And though the Profane Abyssal Blade likely required a catalyst to activate its power, like all arcane implements, and that Arrayah might eventually run out of that catalyst, it seemed likely that she could have wiped them all out if she had just stayed on the column and attacked from out of reach.
But then Farren had shot her, and somehow that singular event seemed to have blown away what little rationality she had and made her act in blind rage again. She had also screamed something that the voices in her head had not translated, which probably meant... it was a name? Or just something in Pthumerian that did not have an equivalent in English, like a specific cultural curse? Not that it mattered all that much, of course; it was just Gerlinde grasping at straws to figure out ways she could possibly torment this wonderfully insane creature, since cutting it seemed to barely do anything. Yet for as sudden as her shift into pure aggression had been, she also saw how Arrayah, landing and coming to a sudden halt on the floor right next to Farren, shifted her demeanor once again, with the fiery rage in her eyes giving way to cold, calculating bloodthirst.

Regardless of Gerlinde's pondering, events continued to progress rapidly where Farren and Arrayah clashed. The abomination came to a halt and immediately turned toward the Hunter, which prompted him to fire another shot, intending to inflict another headshot even as she moved against him. The miracle did not repeat, sadly; trying to aim accurately with a weapon meant for mid-range against a monster at point-blank range was no easy feat. But while missing her head was easy, missing the entirety of her enormous frame at distance would be monumentally difficult, so the quicksilver bullet did burrow into her right shoulder.
More importantly, though, was the fact that Arrayah's left hand once more darted out and grasped... not for him, as it turned out, but for the thing he had just used against her. Before he could recover from the recoil of the shot enough to retract the weapon, let alone get back on his feet, Arrayah's huge, clawed fingers closed around the barrel of Farren's piercing rifle, and clenched so hard that he could hear the metal creak.
Maintaining her iron-grip on his firearm, Arrayah then swung her black spear at him like a glaive with both of her right arms, aiming a huge, sweeping horizontal slash at his thigh-level.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Pthumeru Yharnam layer, the Old Labyrinth

Arrayah, the Black Blade

No one present in the cavern, not even Farren himself and certainly not Arrayah, would likely ever be able to understand exactly what happened when the azure-eyed Hunter turned his piercing rifle against his monstrous prey. Her head was only a little bigger than a typical human head, not only moving, but jerking around semi-erratically, peeking out from behind full cover, probably as much as twenty meters away, during an instant when he had no time to take aim; it should have been incredibly difficult to hit her at all, and almost impossible to fulfill his goal of hitting her largest eye. But whether it was through divine inspiration, the Cosmos itself bending itself into pretzels to ensure a certain outcome or just Farren discovering himself to be a secret marksman-savant, the quicksilver bullet left the barrel of his gun and zipped directly at the target. Bizarrely, someone with sufficiently superhuman reflexes to perceive bullets in flight – like Hunters – might swear that the trajectory of the bullet even seemed to curve as if to move around the column, and even seemed to an extent to home in on its target.
But no matter the circumstances, the little bead of blood-infused mercury somehow really did hit Arrayah directly in the eye, puncturing it. Not only that, but the special properties of the piercing rifle even bestowed the bullet with near-arcane powers of penetration, and so it continued through the eye and further into the head, through the brain and out the back of her skull. The singsong died on the abomination's lips as she recoiled, utterly discombobulated, and the translating voices in their heads fell silent.

Yet miraculous shot or not, it was still just a little piece of quicksilver whose potency came from Farren's bloodtinge; a bloodtinge that was only average for a Hunter and which had never been empowered. Its corrosive effects were weak, and within a second – long enough for Farren to reload and Ophelia to ring her Moonborn Bell – Arrayah had fully regenerated. And as soon as her eye had reinflated, it instantly became fixed on Farren.
She moved forward just several meters, coming back onto their side of the column, but her attention remained entirely on Farren. And then... saying that Arrayah “jumped” or “leapt” would be misleading, as those terms traditionally entail an initial upward-component to the movement. Rather than anything like that, the maneuver their adversary seemed to perform was more like shot; she launched herself off the side of the column like a missile, darting through the air incredibly fast, the Profane Abyssal Blade held in her two right hands and her clawed left hand extended toward Farren.

And so, while Gerlinde turned around and started running back toward where everyone else were; while Torquil reflexively raised his Loch Shield to protect himself and poised his axe to counterattack; while the Moonborn Hunter started emerging from the floor next to Ophelia... while all of this was happening, Arrayah let out a horrible, blood-curdling shrieked word that, though meaningless to the Hunters, did not appear to prompt the voices in their heads to translate.
“RICCAS!”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Pthumeru Yharnam layer, the Old Labyrinth

Arrayah, the Black Blade

Torquil groaned in the breaks between his coughs, trying his best to endure the bizarre mix of sensations – each agonizing in its own way – that was the severe damage he had just taken, the feeling of his sundered lungs filling with fluid, and of his flesh and organs rapidly knitting themselves back together. He could tell that repairing a wound this severe was draining his strength a great deal and was grateful to find that Ophelia had more initiative than himself and injected him with a blood vial to replenish it.
At this point Torquil had suffered quite a few different wounds during this single unbelievably traumatic night, up to and including being outright killed several times. While this was hardly made for what one might call a pleasant experience, he also found that the more he got hurt, the more he started recognizing the feeling of different kinds of damage. He had been cut and stabbed before, but the blade that had just impaled him felt different... in fact, thinking back, the last wound he had taken that felt anything like it was when he had been stabbed by the white apparition in the Hunter's Dream.
“The blade coming out of the floor...” he told Ophelia breathlessly while he struggled to rise from his knees and his wounds finished regenerating, “It's... not normal. Felt like the ghost's dagger, but stronger.” He had no idea what to make of that observation, but he hoped it would somehow be useful to Ophelia. Then he picked his axe back up and set off in a jog, following Farren's example and heading straight for the central column.

The Moonborn Hunter also charged straight at the column while Gerlinde ran straight to the left, moving clockwise around the circular cavern while remaining roughly equidistant to the middle. And throughout it all Arrayah just sat on her high perch, seemingly not doing anything while her glowing eyes shifted from one person to the next, watching the Hunters.
Only when the Moonborn Hunter and Farren had both made it nearly all the way to her column, now brightly lit by the torches mounted at its base and casting long, black shadows across the chamber, did the monster move again, though her movement was not to repeat her strange ranged attack. Rather she started skittering across the column again, quickly switching to a different furrow into its surface and using it to corkscrew her way clockwise back down toward the floor.
“Twinkle, twinkle,” the dual voices inside everyone's heads translated Arrayah's foreign language, but while the translation was delivered in deadpan, they would all be able to hear that the original words were in singsong. “Pretty, pretty moonlight. So clean, so sweet. Twinkly, twinkly twinkle.”

As Arrayah's movements along the helix-pattern took her to the opposite side of the column the Moonborn stopped, turned to their right and extended their left arm. There was a familiar bluish flash as their arm abruptly dropped several centimeters under the sheer weight of what had just materialized on it: a literal arm-mounted cannon. They turned to their right and aimed the massive firearm to approximately where Arrayah's trajectory would have her reappear, ready to fire...
Only, rather than moving at a continuous pace, Arrayah paused just as her head peeked around the curve of the column, and her eyes all instantly homed in on the Moonborn. And before they, nor anyone else, could do anything, another oversized three-meter black blade emerged from the Moonborn's right and, just as it had with Torquil before, impaled them so severely that they were lifted off the floor.
Thus impaled, the Moonborn Hunter seemed to spasm for just a second... and then fade away, the same as when any of the other Paleblood Hunters were killed, taking Farren's Bulwark with them.
The black blade retreated back into the floor, and Arrayah continued her spiraling descent toward the floor.
“Twinkle, twinkle... pretty, pretty moonlight.”

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

The beginning of another journey in another world, undertaken by familiar faces...

2

“I will save you!” Jaelnec declared loudly, raising his sword high into the air and striking his interpretation of a theatrically heroic pose. His announcement was met with enthusiastic cheers from his troops, all of whom raised their own weapons and tried to copy him the best they could, before charging fearlessly toward the enemy.
Jaelnec was the last to break his pose and start running by several seconds, but even so he still easily overtook his comrades and arrived into the fray as the first. He twirled his sword three times in an extravagant flourish before holding it high once again, making sure to very clearly telegraph that he was about to perform a vertical cleave, before releasing his strike.
The opponent blocked the attack with ease and Jaelnec recoiled with a yelp, only for the enemy force to surge toward him and start to rain blows upon him.
Any thoughts of presenting himself with unnecessary extravagance and showmanship vanished from his mind as he felt his senses and instincts sharpen, his body almost moving on its own now that he was faced with five attackers all at once. He maneuvered swiftly and precisely, taking a step back to move out of range of a weapon that barely missed his narrow, slender waist while at the same time flicking his sword to the right, parrying a blow at his flank. He moved his left leg out of the way as one targeted his knee, spun in place and quickly deflected another two swings from his right.
Even as attacks seemed to come from every direction at once, Jaelnec knew to sense them and react. The eyes on his youthful face – uniform black, with no visible iris or sclera – had even wider peripheral vision than those of the people he fought, and he had spent most of his life honing his awareness of not only that, but of all his senses. He saw blurred movement at the far edge of his field of vision, heard a foot hit the dirt and someone breathing in sharply, and he knew to dodge the wild lunge that came at him.
His left hand moved to brush a few strands of shoulder-length blond hair out of his face, ruffled as it had gotten from his rapid movements, only for it to habitually move to grasp and hold onto the wide brim of his hat. He pulled it down a little to better shade his light-sensitive eyes from the setting sun and felt the comforting weight of the steel helmet hidden inside it shift slightly on his head.
But even with his superior speed and skill compared to his adversaries, guarding against five different attackers was not something he could sustain indefinitely. He spun to parry an attack from behind while blocking another with the iron bracer on his forearm, only to feel himself get struck on his left hip. The pain was insignificant and there was no damage, fortunately, as the weapon merely bounced off while rattling the riveted chain links of his hauberk.
It also helped that his attacker was only half his own size, was wielding a wooden stick and did not actually intend to hurt him. At least Jaelnec hoped the children did not want to hurt him; he was certainly trying his best to keep them safe while they were having fun. That was why he was wielding a blunt wooden sword rather than the sharp one of steel currently sheathed on his hip.
Truth be told Jaelnec had completely lost track of the supposed premise of this little play-battle of theirs, partly because it was barely coherent and partly because it seemed to change at random intervals at the whims of the children. Luckily the why of it mattered little to the children and even less to him; as long as he managed to distract them for a few minutes and maybe even put smiles on their faces, the children could attack him with sticks as much as they wanted.
Several minutes of lighthearted clashing of weapons followed, during which the tides of battle turned constantly and unpredictably. It all culminated in the sudden yet inevitable betrayal of the children on Jaelnec's side, leading to the twenty-five-year-old being assailed by no less than nine adversaries between the ages of six and twelve. He endured for several seconds until his smaller opponents decided to overcome his armor by employing superior tactics, discarding their sticks and grappling him instead.
“Nooo!” he wailed melodramatically, allowing the children to restrain his arms and legs only to then struggle in vain to stay on his feet as their combined weight forced him to the ground.
They all laughed, and for a moment even Jaelnec forgot about the rest of the world. Right then and there, in the mud and dirt and with the painful, blinding sun in his sensitive eyes, everything was good.
Then a woman's voice called them to assemble for their evening meal, and the illusion was broken. The sound of children's laughter stilled quickly, their smiles faltered, and a grief much too heavy for such young people replaced the happiness in their eyes.
The children extricated themselves and demurely went to the middle-aged woman awaiting them by the open door to an old barn, beyond which was an improvised fireplace with a steaming cauldron hanging over the flames. Another five adults of varying ages sat around the fire, staring into the flames with distant expressions. A man raised a bottle with murky liquid to his mouth and swallowed several times.
Jaelnec stood and brushed off his clothes to the best of his ability, looking at the children sadly as they went past the oxen and wagons that had carried them here, into what would be the shelter for the night.
Rather than going inside, Jaelnec instead headed off to the side of the barn, toward a fallen tree that served as the seat of the man who watched him from there. A man clad in a long black coat, with a face ravaged by both battle and age, covered in scars and with a large patch over his right eye. It was difficult to discern what the remaining left eye was looking at, since it was the same uniform black as Jaelnec's own, marking him as a fellow nightwalker.
Though he looked old, grizzled and even somewhat ragged, as anyone would who wore such disfigurements rather than pay to have them restored with magic, his equipment was anything but. Bracers of wrought iron adorned his forearms, greaves of steel protected his legs, matched with a pair of steel gauntlets and a helmet sitting next to him on the trunk. But all of that paled next to the shimmer from within the open front of the coat that shifted from gold to purple as Jaelnec moved as the pale sunlight played in the scales of his cuirass. After all, who but someone extremely wealthy could possibly afford to don such a large piece of gear made from a supermetal?
“Disgraceful,” Freagon greeted him, his voice as worn and harsh as his looks. His expression remained neutral, in part because the old warrior's ruined face had lost its elasticity and restricted how expressive it could be, partly because Freagon was just a very stoic man. “It made no historical sense at all, and the fighting was pathetic.”
“It was just a game, sir,” the younger nightwalker said apologetically, coming to a stop in front of his older kinsman.
“A game loosely based in reality. King Roland the Ambitious was a real man, as is Delian Gilmah, but she was born decades after he died. The two of them never met, let alone fought each other.”
“I know, sir,” Jaelnec assured him, “but I doubt the children would've liked pausing their game for a history lesson.”
Freagon produced a noncommittal grunt that made it unclear whether he accepted this explanation. “And fighting isn't about fun, it's about survival. You should always be learning.”
“I know, sir.”
“Do you?” It was a rhetorical question; Jaelnec had had this conversation with his master many times dating back to when Jaelnec had been but ten years old, when he had joined the old knight fifteen years ago. “Prove it. What did you do wrong?”
Jaelnec only had to think for a second before answering: “I led a charge into the enemy rather than moving in orderly formation with my comrades. I allowed myself to be surrounded rather than maneuvering to keep all opponents to one side. I ignored every opening where I could have counterattacked and eliminated an opponent. When my allies turned against me and it became clear that I was outnumbered, I kept fighting in the open rather than retreating to a chokepoint.”
Freagon just stared at him. “And?”
This time he hesitated and could feel himself panic a little, trying desperately to spot what else he could possibly have done that would qualify as a mistake to his master.
The pause was enough for the old nightwalker's eye to narrow disapprovingly. “Why are we here?”
The boy blinked confusedly. “We're going to Borstown to meet the baroness –”
“Why are we here?” Freagon asked again, putting extra emphasis on the word “here” and pointing a finger at the ground at his feet.
Finally Jaelnec began to grasp what his master meant. “We were paid to escort these people safely to Borstown, since we were going there anyway.”
The one-eyed man simply stared at him. “What was happening around you while you played with the children?”
“Happening?” Jaelnec hesitated just a moment while he went through his mental map of the area. “You were sitting here, watching... One of the men was feeding the cattle and horses... and everyone else was in the barn, cooking or resting?”
Freagon produced another ambiguous grunt. “A deer peeked out of the trees to the south, then left again, two minutes ago.”
Jaelnec clenched his jaw and felt his heart sink. Obviously it did not actually matter whether he had seen some harmless deer showing up briefly; neither of them had enough of a fascination with random wildlife to feel passionately about that one way or another. But the fact that anything could have showed up at all without him noticing was the point Freagon was making. It was a deer this time, but what if it had been something dangerous instead? Someone armed with a bow or crossbow? Or worse, someone capable of wielding destructive magic?
A shudder went through him at the thought. A hostile mage could have wiped out him and all the civilians in his care... or worse. There was almost nothing more terrifying than an unobserved wielder of magic with harmful intent.
“I'm sorry, sir,” he immediately apologized with a deep bow. “I'll try to be more vigilant in the future.”
Freagon's head cocked slightly while his eye continued boring into his apprentice. “You'll try?”
“I will be more vigilant in the future, sir,” he corrected himself.
Freagon stood from his seat, his posture straight and firm, and started walking along the outskirts of the farm. He gestured for Jaelnec to accompany him.
They moved around the area in silence, simply watching and listening as they went. As pleasant as the sounds of birdsong and the enthusiastic voices of happy children were, Jaelnec pushed them aside to instead focus on trying to detect everything at once.
It had not always been like this, of course; just ten years ago Rodoria had been one of the safest nations on the continent, having enjoyed nearly two centuries of peace where their armies could focus on the security of the people. It had been a place where monsters mostly kept to the wilderness and were swiftly exterminated when discovered, and where outlaws barely dared stray too far from the shadows. Back then, the idea of being suddenly killed in a random act of violence would have been almost unthinkable.
The primary cause for the change was obvious even just during this short patrol, as it took them past the old burned-out pyre outside the farm, amidst the untended fields and trees heavy with ripe fruit. Pyres like this one could be found all over the kingdom, as well as in the lands of their southern neighbors, Wegam Fermos, and each evening the smoke of more could be seen rising into the sky. Though unrecognizable now, all of them knew that the bodies burned here had almost certainly been claimed by the Withering.
No one knew much about the Withering, despite vast efforts to research it. It was a plague that was supposedly magical in nature, but no one knew where it came from or how it spread. Random people would just get gray spots on their skin at random times, at which point it was time to make arrangements. All you had to look forward to was five or six days of escalating agony until you inevitably succumbed and died. Healing magic, even the divine kind, could only delay the end.
In just eleven years, the Withering had claimed two and a half million sapients just in Rodoria. It was the reason so many farms and villages that had once been prosperous were now abandoned and desolate as this one.
“Sir, I know you don't like me questioning your decisions,” Jaelnec asked as they passed the remains of the pyre, “but we've been traveling for nearly a week now just to get to Borstown, and –”
“You're right. I don't like you questioning my decisions, boy,” Freagon muttered, and the ominous edge in his voice silenced the apprentice instantly. They walked for another several seconds before the knight brought up the topic again himself: “You've seen the flyers, yes? Heard the rumors?”
“Of course, sir,” Jaelnec confirmed eagerly. How could he not have? For over a month, it seemed as though every town they visited was teeming with gossip about it, and every main road and gathering spot in them had one of the leaflets nailed to the message board. The story seemed to be that Baroness Vela Bor was getting old and lacked an heir to her considerable wealth, so she had put out summons for any and all fledgling adventurers of Rodoria to visit. She promised free food and lodgings at the very least, and to pledge her support to those she found to be fit to become the heroes of the next generation.
It was a quite popular story, as stories involving adventures and heroics usually were in Rodoria. Perhaps it was due to the kingdom being founded by Roland the Ambitious and his companions, all of whom were adventurers and heroes before they became rulers, but Rodoria had always had always been particularly fond of such stories and vocations.
“So why do you think we are going there?”
Jaelnec bit his lip nervously, but could not help but have his thoughts turn immediately to his own empty coin-purse and how little he knew his master had as well. “You are hardly a fledgling adventurer, sir, so... my best guess would be that you intend to use me to get money out of the baroness?”
The knight grunted ambiguously, making it unclear whether he was offended by the guess. “Adventurers from all over Rodoria are going to be flocking to Borstown, boy. We are going there to meet them.”
They walked another several seconds in silence before Jaelnec could no longer contain his curiosity: “Why?”
“To meet them.”
“No other reason?”
“Not currently, no,” Freagon said, a subtle, ominous note entering his voice that Jaelnec, as someone who knew his master very well, knew meant that his patience was running thin. “I will decide if I want to do anything with the acquaintance once I've made it, boy. I have no interest in naive sons of farmers taking up a hatchet or a pitchfork and calling themselves adventurers.”
Swallowing nervously, the apprentice figured it would likely be wise for him to allow the subject to be diverted. “I suppose lots of people would jump at the chance to meet a baroness, even if it turns out they don't get a single rodlin.”
“It's not just that she's a baroness,” Freagon grumbled. “Vela Bor is famous.”
Jaelnec's eyes widened. “She is?”
The knight nodded his head. “She is the last surviving member of the group of adventurers called the Melody of Freedom. They're from before your time, boy, but they were once known as great heroes in Rodoria. The barony of Borstown was a reward for one of their achievements.”
Slowly nodding his head, Jaelnec asked: “So she probably has more than just money, right, sir?”
“Definitely. Vela Bor has inherited all the resources of her companions, including their equipment.”
“I guess there might be serious adventurers showing up, then. Maybe real heroes, like you, sir!”
“Not just those. Don't dismiss your intuition, boy. You first guessed that we were going to swindle her; others will have had that idea. And some will have even less restraint.”

The two of them arrived back at their little camp at the outskirts of the farm, and Jaelnec went immediately to give his horse a few pats and kind words. It was a brown mare with white markings on the face, neck and flanks, and she had been with him for nearly twelve years now. She was good, strong and arguably his best friend, so he had no regrets that he had named her Sabicia after his mother.
Freagon did not so much as spare a glance to his mottled gray gelding, but went straight to where they had deposited their saddlebags for the night. The grizzled old nightwalker had never named his horse, even though it had been with him for longer than Jaelnec had, but Jaelnec called it Xilos.
The knight moved his own bag aside to get to Jaelnec's much bigger and heavier bag, and immediately retrieved a wooden practice sword that was almost identical to the one his apprentice had used earlier.
Knowing his master's intention, Jaelnec grit his teeth and gripped his own wooden sword more tightly.
“How is your will today, boy? Are you ready to prove that you aren't a complete waste of time?”
Jaelnec did not outwardly react to the taunt besides raising his weapon and assuming a defensive stance. Sparring with his master like this was something he had done every day since he became his apprentice, and he was used to the harsh words. Rather than getting stuck on those less important parts his mind started frantically analyzing his opponent, absorbing every last conceivable detail about his stance, movements, facial expression and breathing in an effort to anticipate and counter his moves.
Rather than assuming any specific and battle-ready stance, however, Freagon just crossed the several meters separating them in a burst of incredibly fast motion and transitioned instantly into a one-handed strike aimed at Jaelnec's left arm. It was all one continuous, coordinated maneuver that, while conceptually simple, was so swift and fluid that it immediately put Jaelnec on his back foot and struggling to respond.
Even so Jaelnec's instincts saved him where his conscious mind failed, and he managed to shift and rotate his body while angling his own sword to block. There was a loud crack of wood on wood and a twinge of pain as he absorbed the impact, but it was far from as bad as it could have been. Freagon was not attacking with all of his strength to crush through the defense, just as Jaelnec knew his master would not have done so in a real fight. You did not need immense strength to injure and kill with a sharp weapon, after all... at least not against a human-like opponent.
Freagon pressed forward slightly into a light bind, restricting Jaelnec from counterattacking, but also slid his blade toward the tip while pushing. Jaelnec repositioned his guard to counter the shift, only for Freagon to abruptly speed up, slide his blade entirely off Jaelnec's, move to a two-handed grip and thrusting at the center of Jaelnec's abdomen, right above the navel.
Jaelnec stepped side as quickly as possible, but still felt the blade lightly scrape against his hauberk. The young nightwalker winced even though he barely felt it; though it was too peripheral to have been likely to hurt him in a real fight, he also knew it was too close for comfort. Had he been any slower it could have been a fatal blow, depending on whether his armor saved him or not.
As Jaelnec expected Freagon instantly transitioned his missed thrust into a swing, aiming toward Jaelnec's armpit. He had to twist his body, take a step back and let go of his sword with his right hand to manage to catch the attack, only to continue his retreat, switch back to a two-handed grip and raise his sword just in time to block a lightning-fast swipe at the left side of his head. Freagon feigned pulling back and aiming low, but then pushed forward and performed a reverse-edge follow up against the right side of his head that Jaelnec once again only barely caught. All while Jaelnec continuously backed away but also gradually moved to his left, as he was instinctively aware of that he was being corralled toward the wooden log Freagon had been sitting on earlier and tried to avoid the tripping hazard.
It's impossible, the knight's apprentice reminded himself. Even if I'm almost able to match him in terms of physical strength and speed, he's completely controlling the battle. I can defend myself, but only barely...
But then Freagon stepped forward and simultaneously slashed with his sword and kicked at Jaelnec's shin, and he realized that this was the opening he had been waiting for. Rather than trying to evade Jaelnec put all his weight on his front-foot to resist the kick, blocked the swing and this time he forced a bind, catching Freagon's sword in the nook between Jaelnec's blade and crossguard and pushing forward to force Freagon to guard.
Rather than just kick at Jaelnec's leg, however, Freagon aimed it so that his foot hooked exactly behind Jaelnec's calf. Jaelnec was too distracted by trying to create an opening to realize his mistake and, while he was pushing forward with all his weight on his front-foot, had no time to react when Freagon pulled Jaelnec's foot forward and completely broke his stance. Trying to catch himself on his other foot and regain his balance was made impossible by Freagon pressing into the bind Jaelnec had just created.
Before Jaelnec knew it he was falling backward, but even as his perspective moved to looking into the sky and he felt gravity shift around him, he kept trying to think of a way to recover. How was Freagon going to finish him off? How was he going to defend himself? How could he get back on his feet?
He hit the ground hard but refused to let it daze him, instead going immediately to roll to the side, expecting a thrust as the coup de grâce since guarding against that from this position would be borderline impossible. He only heard Freagon's wooden blade hit the ground next to him, confirming his suspicion, but was also too slow to catch the follow-up as the blade instantly swung sideways. He tried to block, but during his roll he could not actually see the attack; he had to guess.
But regardless of whether he guessed correctly or not, the blow was too swift for Jaelnec to defend himself from. He felt a hard, painful whack on his left shoulder, and knew it was over even before feeling the edge of the wooden sword pressing into his throat.

Freagon withdrew his practice sword, turned and went back to their backs to put it away. “No improvement. As usual.”
“I'm sorry, sir,” the younger nightwalker groaned as he got back on his feet, rubbing his sore shoulder.
“Don't be sorry, be better. I do want us to make a good impression on the baroness and any adventurers she has with her, so I'd rather that you refrained from stumbling around like a blind foal. Stay back and let me do any talking and fighting as usual, but if you are called upon to actually do anything, be prepared to show some competence for once.”
Jaelnec gritted his teeth in frustration, but knew better than to talk back at his master. The curved scar across his face, going from below his right cheekbone, across his lips and down to his chin, was a constant reminder of never to do that.
“I'll take the first watch tonight, so you make sure to eat and get some rest. Stay close to me and keep your sword-hand free when we get there tomorrow, because saving the baroness is the best way for people to prove themselves, including us. We'll just have to wait for the inevitable disaster she invited to her doorstep.”

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

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

Vela initially seemed relieved when Yanin reported that Bren was alive, only for her worry to return when Irah specified that he had been wounded and proceeded to elaborate on his current condition. The penin stopped looking at Irah pretty soon after she had described his state as “stabilized” and in “no physical danger,” and instead turned to scan the area by the farmhouse where she knew Irah, Lhirin and Freagon had been. Soon enough she started taking a step in that direction, having spotted Bren – still bloody as he was – before stopping and forcing herself to turn her attention back to Irah.
“The Crusader's Guild know better than to raid villages willy-nilly; as much as I hate the g'vassin, being that reckless would get them declared proper outlaws and they would start to find it very hard to get around Rodoria,” she said grimly and, with a final glance around to confirm that things did indeed appear to have calmed down, lowered her crossbow and started working on unloading the bolt and slackening the string. “I don't know about anyone having the Withering, but it definitely seems like getting Bren was the whole point of attacking Borstown.”
She turned to Yanin and listened as he spoke as well. Though she had notably been quite energetic during this battle it was becoming clearer with every passing second how much the strain had taken out of her, and it was getting more and more difficult for her to present herself with strength and dignity.
“As far as I know Bren isn't anyone of note outside Borstown,” she shrugged, propping her crossbow against the ground and leaning on it for support. “He grew up here with his parents, went away and studied healing in Zerul for four years and then came back here. His parents run the winery and he's a decent healer and a good man, but I don't know anything about Bren or them that would be of interest to the Guild.”
She shook her head in resignation and looked away, back toward where Madara was handling Bren. Then she turned to Quintin, who was once again wiping the blade of his sword. She gestured toward the oak. “Get those bodies down from there, would you? Carefully and respectfully, if at all possible.”
The man offered a curt nod and promptly walked off in the direction of the tree.
Heaving a sigh, Vela looked from Irah to Lhirin, then back to Yanin again. “There's a lot of work left to do cleaning up here, but I don't think right now is the time to do it. You should all finish up any business we have here and then bring Bren and our prisoners back to Borstown. I'll arrange for people – people much better equipped for the task – to come and clean up when we get back. You can go with them if you want, but I don't think that'll be necessary.” She paused, then raised her voice slightly as she told them: “Of course you are all invited to stay at Bor Manor. I would be happy to have the chance to get to know you all better... and maybe discuss some other work for talented individuals like yourselves? Oh, and of course I also still need to pay you.”

Just a short distance from there, Jaelnec traced Irah's footfalls as she approached him, just as he could see her coming closer. Even though the danger seemed to have passed, he still felt hyper-aware of every movement around him, as if he could not quite manage to settle back into a more sensible state of ordinary caution. He could feel his heart quickening the closer she got, and when she reached out to grasp his shoulder he not only involuntarily and violently recoiled, but was shocked to find that he had to stop himself from slashing her with his sword.
“I'm sorry,” he said, staring at her with wide, fearful eyes for a moment before looking down at the sword in his hand – the blade still stained with blood – and promptly letting go of it and pulling back his hand as if burned by it. “Sorry, I... I'm just... I...”
He blinked and turned to Jordan, still full of nervous energy. “Yes... Do something... I should go... do something...”
Seemingly forgetting about his weapons on the ground, Jaelnec hurried off toward the oak to help Quintin get the hanged bodies down.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Pthumeru Yharnam layer, the Old Labyrinth

Arrayah, the Black Blade

Nodding his head grimly, Torquil quickly used his left hand to retrieve the Hunter's axe from his hip and then awkwardly tried to fit Fulmen's handle into the same loop, though it quickly became apparent that the longer and more elaborate handle of the hammer made it significantly more cumbersome to store like that. Luckily the situation afforded him time to change his mind, and he instead tried copying what he had seen Farren and Gerlinde do before and called the Messengers to give Fulmen for safekeeping instead.
Once the prototype weapon was out of the way he quickly transformed axe, extending its telescoping handle and grasping it with both hands. He did not understand what was happening at all, but even he knew enough to realize that the battle not only was not over, but that the hardest part was yet to come.

The Moonborn Hunter and Gerlinde spread out to the right and left of their formation, respectively; both of them were experienced enough to conclude that staying in a tight grouping while up against a powerful opponent like this was potentially a bad idea. Neither of them made any further moves for the time being, however; at this distance, neither of them had any good means of attacking their adversary.

Still clinging to the side of the column, high up enough to be partially cast in natural shadows, the only parts they could all see clearly were Arrayah's glowing eyes, out of which only the single obscenely oversized eye was large enough for them to interpret where she was looking. She sat there without moving for another couple of seconds as her gaze left Ophelia and shifted to Farren, then to the Moonborn Hunter, then to Torquil and finally to Gerlinde. Her eye returned to stare at Ophelia again... and then shifted back to Torquil.
Arrayah let go of the Profane Abyssal Blade with her left hand, only to move it to her own chest and rake her claws across her own skin, shedding her own blood from wounds that regenerated as quickly as they were inflicted. Then her left hand returned to the handle of her newly awakened arcane spear... and somehow the darkness around her seemed to deepen slightly.
Then, quick as a viper, she thrust the spear into the column she was sitting on. Only, it did not seem like she had actually plunged the weapon into something made of solid rock. There was no sound of impact and no sign of resistance; it almost seemed as though the blade and topmost third of the handle of the sword-staff pierced the stone effortlessly.

At precisely the same time as she did this, however, they all heard a cry of pain that immediately turned into a gurgle, accompanied by the sound of the carving of flesh. Looking toward the sound, Ophelia and Farren would find that Torquil was suddenly being held aloft with his feet dangling about half a meter over the floor, as a three meter long pure black blade seemed to have emerged from the floor immediately behind him, impaling him through the back and and chest.
Half a second later this giant blade withdrew back into the floor from whence it came, which coincided perfectly with Arrayah pulling her weapon from the column, which notably did not seem to leave any mark in the stone. Torquil collapsed onto the floor, coughing violently and bleeding profusely.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

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

A shadow began to descend over the face of the well-liked, generous and sympathetic Baroness Vela Bor as soon as the bandit started uttering his nonsense about the hanged handful of people having “killed the world.” The shadow only deepened when he a moment later clarified the means of killing the world as being through “your damned plague” and also redefined the group responsible as including at least Irah. She was intimately familiar with this rhetoric and was entirely unsurprised when Lhirin arrived to announce the bandits as actually belonging to the Crusader's Guild.
Squatting in place and setting aside her crossbow, Vela fixed her neon-green eyes on the wounded man's face. “Well? What do you think, g'vassi? Can this mage coax more useful things from you?”
The bandit, who appeared to also be a crusader, grimaced. Referring to Lhirin as a mage had been very intentional; there were very few non-mages who did not fear the esoteric and potentially invasive powers held by users of magic. “Y'all're gonna pay...”
“Do you think it'll end when you die?” the penin mused ominously, shifting closer to him as she spoke. “You know who I am; I am the law here, g'vassi. I will give him permission to trap your soul here even after you die. I will have your undead corpse dragged all the way back to Etlon so you can explain yourself to your boss. What do you think Kevalorn is going to do to one of his goons turned zombie?”
“You're bluffing,” he muttered, though he did not sound entirely convinced.
“You should probably hurry,” the baroness suggested grimly, “time is running out. You're bleeding, and he's already reading your mind. Tell us something good.”
“Tiny rock-brained freak!” The bandit spat viciously, and a glob of viscous saliva mixed with blood splattered over Vela's face-plates. “You will all bur –”
Barely had the spit landed on the baroness' face before Quintin started moving, moving a step forward and, quickly and efficiently, thrust the tip of his longsword into the crusader's open mouth, through the back of his throat and into the base of his spine. The insults and threats died on his lips as the light behind his eyes was instantly extinguished.

Vela stood back up with a sigh, casually retrieving a handkerchief from a pocket and wiping her face. “It was a long shot,” she said, sounding mildly annoyed. “We will try with any other prisoners we take, but the Guild is frustratingly good at compartmentalizing information. These common thugs probably don't know anything; the only one who had a realistic chance of knowing anything interesting was their commander. But by figuring out that they are crusaders we've already learned more than they wanted us to.”
She turned to look at Irah and Lhirin, and her tone and expression immediately shifted to worry. “What about Bren? Did you find him? Is he okay?”

About ten meters north from there, while all of this was going on, Jaelnec found himself leaning his back against the side of the barn while working on catching his breath. He was not quite exhausted yet, but he could tell quite clearly that he had exerted himself to a level where he would not have been able to keep up his performance for much longer. Stamina management was something he had only really learned in terms of physical exercise and theory, but he was beginning to realize that it was much harder to do in the midst of battle. He had pushed himself nearly to the utmost of his abilities in terms of skill and physical prowess when he could probably have won against opponents like these without straining himself anywhere near that much.
Even so it was still odd, since he was sure that will all his endurance training he should have been able to keep going
Pressure in his left hand. Resistance as it moved forward. The tip of a spear burrowing into the exposed flesh of a man's throat. Blood gushing from the wound. The sound as he choked on his own blood.
Jaelnec blinked and swallowed, and suddenly realized that his heartbeat was quickening rather than slowing, and it was getting harder to breathe.
Grass under his feet, just slightly slippery under his boots. He stepped forward as he parried. He could hear steel sliding against steel. The sword thrust at him was mere millimeters from his side.
Tremors shook the squire's body as his eyes widened. The warm air and sun abruptly felt cold enough to chill him to the bone.
He could feel and hear his sword scraping against bone. He could feel it pierce the brain. The resistance as he dislodged it from the man's skull.
He thrust while being stabbed at, and saw the deadly sword moving quickly tip-first directly toward him. Less than half a step forward, and it would have found his chest.
His sword slipped under the shield as the man tried desperately to protect himself, and he felt its blade slit his throat. Heard the gurgle.
His opponent was momentarily disarmed. He saw the fear in his eyes, but the man still had a sword and dagger on his hip. He slit his throat before he could do anything. He felt warm blood on soaking through his clothes. Realized this was his first kill. This was a sapient with thoughts, hopes and dreams. With parents. A family. A past. But no future. Because of him. These people died by his hand.

Jaelnec dropped the spear he had been clutching frantically and instead clasped his left hand over his mouth. He was not entirely sure why; it was either to stop himself from vomiting or from screaming, but he did not know which. He felt tears burning in the corners of his eyes... but slowly, gradually over several minutes, he managed to get his breathing under control and to slow his heartbeat. But full recovery was going to take a while.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

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

The wounded bandit simply glared at Yanin silently upon being asked who he and his commander were, clearly pushed past the point where he felt like being cooperative without some sort of additional encouragement. As the silence went on Vela moved all the way up beside the human knight and, crossbow still loaded and held in a grip to be ready to aim and fire, fixed the bandit with a cold stare of her own.
A mere several meters behind her came Quintin, resuming his role as bodyguard now that the greater battle was over. He had returned his bow to its holster for the time being and instead occupied his hands with his slender longsword, which he was currently idly wiping with a piece of cloth.

It was not until Yanin posed his second question and offered the bandit the incitement of potential healing, that the wounded man broke his silence to burst into a coarse laughter that quickly turned into a coughing fit. “You'd wanna heal me just so I'll make a prettier corpse after y'all hang me?” he spat at the ground and swore venomously under his breath. “The only way you're getting a damn thing outta me is after you've healed me and let me go. Do that, and I'll shout the answer back to y'all as I leave. I promise.” The word “promise” was spoken with as much sarcasm as a word could possibly contain.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

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

“Yeh, seems things are... mostly under control,” replied Vela's voice to Madara's suggestion to relocate, though her tone suggested that she was far from at ease just yet. Just as nimbly as she had bounded from the ground into the tree, the elderly penin simply dropped straight back down again, landing on her feet with an audible thud, bending her knees to absorb the impact.
A small grunt escaped her as she moved her crossbow – string still drawn and a bolt still loaded – to her left hand while her right one went down to rub the outside of her knee. A couple of seconds later she straightened back up, stretched and twisted her back and rolled her shoulders, before finally resuming a proper grip on her weapon and moving to follow Madara.

Over by the farmhouse itself Freagon stepped aside to allow Lhirin to enter, all while staring at Irah with his usual blank expression while listening to her explanation, all while internally bemoaning once again how much this woman talked. Once she finished speaking by calling the bandits “cowards,” the old knight simply shrugged and turned away, offering no opinion on what she had just said. Truly, the only way he could care less about what happened to these ruffians was if he had never met them at all; as long as they were rendered harmless somehow, be that through magical means, by binding them with rope, by disabling all their limbs or just by slitting their throats meant nothing to him. He also did not react at all to his own experience of being trapped by the power of a swaigh.

When Yanin asked about the falchion-wielding bandit from his wounded prisoner.
“Wha-... urgh...” The bandit groaned, squirming in place to turn and see who his captor was talking about. Upon laying eyes on the all but certainly dead bandage-clad brute, the man's eyes instantly widened in shock. “K-, f-, ugh, shit! You're damn right he's important, he's our commander!”

As she approached along with Madara, Vela heard Yanin's deliberations regarding what to do with the surviving bandits. “Restrain them if you think it's safe, kill them if you can't,” she instructed them, the coldness in her voice tinged with a hint of worry as her eyes scanned the battlefield, looking for – but not yet spotting – Bren. “I wanna know if these g'vassin have friends I need to worry about. Then I'll decide whether we'll hang them from the tree after we've gotten these poor people out of it.”
Sure enough, now that things had calmed down and there was time to take in their surroundings, any of them might notice the sizable oak in the middle of the farm, almost equidistant to the farmstead, the barn and the tool shed Caleb was still hiding in. It was quite noticeable on its own, standing nearly nine meters tall and boasting a broad and thick canopy, enough so that one might not even notice anything unusual about it at a glance. It took a closer look to notice the motionless bodies hanging in there, with the leaves mostly obscuring most of them.

Inside the farmstead, Lhirin would make the same observations as Freagon had previously while additionally confirming that there were no traces of magical wards. He took the time to move slowly, scanning the space meticulously as he did and making abundantly to identify any threats that might reveal themselves, but it seemed as though the danger had passed... at least until the catatonic bandits managed to escape the mental prisons the Angel of Fear had put them in.
The chest, likewise, seemed entirely mundane and quite safe to interact with. Even the most superficial examination would reveal that it not only did not have a keyhole for a built-in locking mechanism, but did not even have a hasp and staple to attach a padlock to. It seemed to serve simply as a container, and not theft-prevention. It also seemed rather old, worn and relatively cheap.
Opening the chest would reveal no mechanisms more nefarious than hinges that were in severe need of maintenance. As the interior was revealed, the immediately most obvious thing he would find, laying on top of everything and mostly obscuring the rest of its contents, was a large cuirass of plate armor that looked rather scratched and dented in a way that clearly suggested that it had seen battle before. With his keen eye and intimate knowledge of metallurgy, Lhirin would be able to tell that it was fairly well-cared for but far from the most impressive piece of craftsmanship he had seen. Its steel was not hardened nor tempered, and looked like it had fairly average carbon-content.
Past the cuirass he would notice it what appeared to be a bundle of scarlet cloth.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Pthumeru Yharnam layer, the Old Labyrinth

Arrayah, the Profane

Farren's strikes slashed and chopped into the outsides of Arrayah's clutching fingers, carving the flesh and tendons but barely marking the bones. But though tendons were damaged and perhaps even entirely severed, those were only the extensor tendons; the ones responsible for extending the fingers, whereas the tensor tendons – responsible for bending the finger to clench a fist or grasp something – were on the inside of the fingers. Though he inflicted some measure of harm on her and shed a small amount of blood, attacking her fingers like this was far from enough to force the Profane Abyssal Blade from from her hand. Even stunned, dazed and all but incapacitated as she was, the monster appeared to hold on to her sword with manic zeal, motivated by a desperate desire that went beyond her conscious mind to never let go of her weapon.

Beside Farren, Torquil awkwardly shuffled backward as he had been instructed, looking uncertainly from the superheated Fulmen to Arrayah's prone form. He did not understand why he was to withdraw; this seemed like the perfect opportunity to press their advantage, did it not? To attack her with everything they had while she was harmless and vulnerable.
The fact that Fulmen was running hot was not lost on Torquil, though his thoughts were not at all about how this would make it more fragile, but rather that the sheer heat of it would make it a more effective weapon. They had already witnessed and confirmed that fire affected this beast, so surely a hunk of red-hot metal was going to hurt her a lot. And even if Farren for some reason did not want Torquil to use Fulmen while it was like this, surely he could just swap it for the Hunter's axe hanging on his hip, could he not? But he had been instructed to withdraw, and so he withdrew; just as with Ophelia before, Torquil readily assumed that Farren knew better than himself and happily set aside his own lesser judgment to do as he was told by those more intelligent than himself.

A short distance in front of Farren and to his left, behind Arrayah's prone torso and lolling head, the Moonborn Hunter took the opportunity to quickstep up to the back of her head. There the masked warrior of the Dream lowered their weapon and, spreading their feet in a wide, firm stance, raised their free left hand. They had just a split-second to register that gloved hand subtly transforming, growing slightly larger, its fingers elongating and becoming tipped with what looked like bestial claws... and then it plunged its arm, all the way up to the elbow, into the back of Arrayah's head, right at the base of her skull. They withdrew their hand and elicited a deluge of blood from the wound they had just caused, along with a tremor going through Arrayah's entire body.

Further away, about three meters from where the creature's semi-humanoid torso transitioned into its alien hind body, another puddle of blood rapidly spread out. In the unlikely case that Farren took the time to listen carefully, he might even be able to catch the faint sound of someone sawing flesh.

But even with all of that, the burns on Arrayah's face still regenerated, and their window of opportunity closed. As the giant eye among the multitude seemed to inflate from within the socket, marking the completion of her recovery, every single one of her eyes seemed to abruptly stiffen, then swivel in unison to stare directly at Farren. The hand holding the Profane Abssyal Blade moved away from him as she clutched it possessively to her chest, and her two other arms both went to shield the sword as well.
All of her eyes – not just some of them as before, but every single one – lit up with an inner azure radiance, and the monster jolted upright with what sounded like a canine whine. Something was obviously different than before; the way she moved seemed much more... human, in the lack of a better term, than before. More deliberate and less bestial. Her eyes were no longer moving around erratically or each looking at a different target, but now seemed to move under the influence of a single will, focusing at one thing at a time. And as soon as she got herself upright again, Arrayah – still hugging her weapon to her chest protectively – her attention shifted to the central column of the cavern.

Ignoring the Hunters and any attacks they might aim at her, their adversary appeared to simply flee, rushing toward the distant center of this vast space they were in. They all would have a while to recover from their tribulations – among other things, Gerlinde emerged as Arrayah moved, drenched in blood but still smiling, and stood back up – while the monster moved.
It took around ten seconds for her to reach the base of the column, after which Arrayah, like a snake climbing a tree, started corkscrewing her way up the length of the stone structure, with her hind body bending to wrap around its curvature while she ascended. The attentive among them might even notice that the way her hind body did this seemed to coincide with, and take advantage of, the screw-like thread of the pillar.

While Arrayah climbed she also spoke, though it was still in that foreign language of hers... but as she spoke, the whispers translated. For the first time not only Ophelia, but all of the Hunters heard the whispers of the Holy Moonlight Sword in their heads; and for the first time for all of them, including Ophelia, it was accompanied by a second voice that overlapped with the whisper. A deeper, more assertive and more masculine voice to contrast the soothing, relatively feminine voice Ophelia was used to hearing.
“Please! No! The memories!” the voices seemed to translate Arrayah's rambling. “My mind is clearing! I do not want this! Please, let me forget! Take away these thoughts! Bring back the silence!”
Arrayah only stopped after corkscrewing upward for another fifteen seconds or so, upon which she seemed to simply sit on the side of the column some ten meters above floor-level. There she finally withdrew her arms from her chest and held out her sword in front of her again. She seemed almost as though she had entirely forgotten about the Hunters she had been locked in mortal combat with until just moments ago, her gaze now focused entirely on the weapon in her hand. Her clawed left hand went to the tip of the leaf-shaped blade, and slowly moved down its length in a reverent caress. And as she did, the darkness that dominated the chamber seemed to stir.

“Teacher... please return the veil over my eyes,” the voices translated. “Remind me of your beautiful lies.”

The shadows suddenly seemed to shift and congregate around Arrayah, momentarily obscuring her form. But the gloom was not meant for her; the inky blackness continued to condense, settling into the sword in her hand. Though the shape of the blade was maintained, its features now turned uniform pitch-black, like a silhouette that seemed to greedily devour all light that touched it; looking at it was like staring into the void itself. But not only did the blade seem to become infused with this abyssal darkness, it also seemed to travel down the hilt of it... and then keep going. The handle of the sword appeared to elongate, extending several times the length of the entire weapon, until it was over four meters long, turning what had once been a gladius into something that was more akin to a hewing spear... or, perhaps more fittingly, a sword-staff.

“Huntress...” This time only Ophelia heard the voice in her head, and she only heard the familiar whispers of the Holy Moonlight Sword. It was no longer a translation, but the words of the whispers themselves: “Both the Holy Moonlight Sword and the Profane Abyssal Blade are awakened... the time has come. Let the two halves touch... and incant the words 'Gestalt Truth'... and you shall wield it made whole. As the one true champion.”
Above, Arrayah's gaze grew distant for a moment, as if listening to something only she could hear... and then her eyes abruptly shifted to fix on Ophelia. On the Holy Moonlight Sword. And she grasped the transformed Profane Abyssal Blade with all three hands.