Chapter 3: The First Hunt
The time finally came for Ludwig's first Hunt. On that crucial night, Gehrman summoned all of the Hunters from the Workshop and told them of the situation: Western Yharnam was in danger. When the beastly Hunt was first established, the Church provided the populace with warning bell towers in specific locations they could ring to ask for help without needing to send messengers. The bells were ringing and columns of uncommonly black smoke were already rising from the direction of the toiling chimes, either a sign of disaster or another plea for help.
The mission was to move in undetected and look for the bell ringers, ascertain the situation and kill whatever unknown number of beasts were the likely cause before they could harm the population. Ludwig had faced beasts before in the Pthumerian dungeons, so it was with full confidence that he embarked on his first Hunt. However, the city of Yharnam was built on years after years of continuous construction, which meant many of its streets were maze-like and could make unfamiliarized Hunters get lost easily. This, along with the fact that it was a search mission, meant the Hunters had to be divided in small search groups that would act independently from each other.
Ludwig was paired up with two older and experienced Hunters that were to serve as guides for him in the maze-like streets. Ludwig had met them around the Workshop before so they weren't complete strangers, even if it was their first time working together. The first was Father Gascoigne, who would lead the group. Gascoigne was a devoted family man who was once a priest in a foreign land but now is an aging veteran Hunter. Gascoigne speaks with an accent foreign to Yharnam but has seemingly lived there for a good amount of time, knowing the city like the back of his hand. The second was Old Hunter Henryk, hunting partner of Father Gascoigne and father to his wife. The two of them made an effective duo, working together on many Hunts, which led Henryk to live what he describes as a "tragically long life". Henryk was an agreeable fellow, loyal to a fault and dressed in a more colourful garb than most Hunters. Alongside these three was newcomer Lucca, a young brown-haired Hunter who had just received her last lesson from Gehrman, but was becoming well known among the Workshop Hunters for her unparalleled crossbow skills. Lucca fancied herself the top markswoman of Yharnam and as a native of the city, had grown up wanting to meet Gehrman and be a Hunter herself.
The party of four dispatched on their own as soon as they heard their orders about where to deploy from Gehrman, who still had enough time to impart a few encouraging words to Ludwig and Lucca, fully aware of their beginner status. The group ran as a tight unit, with Gascoigne leading the pack and Lucca bringing up the rear. Ludwig had met Gascoigne and Henryk before, with the latter even going so far as to share some hunting stories with Ludwig when he was still in training. Of Lucca, Ludwig knew nothing but her marksmanship reputation as they had never interacted. When they reached a point close to their deployment location, the group stopped running and started exploring every nook and cranny carefully, trying to listen for whatever was the cause of the bells. Eventually, they made their way to a bell tower close by which had been ringing for a while but had stopped in the meantime.
Next to where a person would likely stand to ring the bell were the disfigured remains of a person, no visible features identifiable anymore. An unlit torch was on the ground next to the guts and blood, walls sprayed with such violence that the splatter created an almost captivating pattern. "Beasts all over. It seems we must track them down", said Gascoigne. As the group started stalking the streets, the nightly silence generated an atmosphere of oppression. Lucca tried breaking the quietness by asking Gascoigne and Henryk how many Hunts they had been a part of. Gascoigne, however, stared daggers at her, with Henryk ignoring her question and shushing her by placing a finger in front of his mouth. She looked at Ludwig who merely shrugged in silence, and then gestured to his ear, trying to signify that they needed to listen out for signs of incoming beasts.
For a while the group moved carefully together encountering nothing, which eventually helped ease the tension a little. However, that was short-lived, as they heard a glass break and a woman scream nearby. Ludwig could swear he was hearing a baby cry in the distance. The group followed the sound arriving at a house with a massive broken wooden door. Next to it was an incense burner with no incense left. From the completely dark house, growling and tearing, fleshy sounds could be heard. Henryk repeated his shushing gesture and Gascoigne whispered "If it moves, you can be sure it's a beast… and even if it doesn't, well, don't take any chances" as he quickly stepped inside.
Using his coat to slightly cover the light source of his hand lantern, the man moved with certainty, even though he still needed the dim light to navigate the house. The group followed him into some sort of open-y, dining room-type chamber, but they soon realized they were stepping on a pool of blood and looking ahead, they could see a big Scourge Beast with his fur bathed by the moonlight coming through a nearby window. It was clearly biting into something fleshy which they couldn't make out in the dark of the room, but there was no mistaking that it was once a human being.
Gascoigne, who wielded a Hunter Axe capable of being extended, walks in the direction of the beast and gestures to attack, but at that moment, he his jumped from the side by another Scourge Beast, being able to guard with his axe at the very last second and being pushed into a wall with a loud bang. Gascoigne's lantern falls to the floor and breaks into a small fire who wouldn't last more than a minute. Although everyone else had lanterns too, only Gascoigne's was lit, so they could better maintain stealth and it was too late to light them now that they already had their weapons drawn. Although the group quickly rushed in to try to help Gascoigne, the three hesitated in attacking due to how very low visibility there was, fearing they might hit their comrade.
Henryk took the lead with attacking, since his Saw Cleaver weapon was the shortest and fastest, dealing damage without worrying about possible collateral. He viciously sliced at the beast pinning down Gascoigne, making it fall back and giving his Son-in-Law some breathing room. Ludwig lunged his sword at the other Scourge Beast, but unlike the dull ones from the catacomb dungeons, this one jumped back to avoid the attack, also getting off the beam of moonlight coming in from the window that allowed them to locate it. Ludwig tried to swing the sword back at where he thinks the monster disappeared to but hit some sort of bookcase, making books fall off. He definitely wasn't used to fighting in such a closed environment.
At that point, the fire of Gascoigne's broken lantern was no more, but Henryk had certainly wounded the beast before darkness enveloped the room completely. With a savage howl, the beast again gave away his position, which made him chase the sound and slash at it again. Lucca shouted in frustration: "I can't hit anything in this darkness! We need to leave or we're going to hit each other!" Ludwig knew she was right, if they kept chasing sounds soon one of them would make a mistake. That's when more breaking window sounds were heard and the beams of moonlight were interrupted twice by gigantic dark shadows. The Hunters knew the beasts could see them in the dark and they knew that two more had just entered the room, hope wasn't on their side.
It was at this moment that Ludwig tried to calm back down and call to the Holy Moonlight Sword. He was too riled up and had never done it in the heat of battle before, but he knew the Moonlight hue was their only chance to see their enemy. As he held the blade in front of him, he closed his eyes and whispered "Please, guide us", as a response he felt a warm glow in front of him, like an already warm blanket in a cold night. He opened his eyes to the green shade he had come to love and felt like everything was going to be completely alright. At the same time he heard something move towards him and felt an extremely heavy force ram him from the right; the wind slicing at him, and the feeling of warm blood dripping down his right arm. He had been wounded before he could even realize where the attack came from, as the green hue could only illuminate around a metre around the blade, and he had lost his alertness while looking at it. Strength was fading from his sword arm, but he knew he couldn't let go of the weapon. With a swift move he plunged the sword on the wooden floor with his left arm, hopefully blocking attacks in front of him, and called out to the others "Come to me everyone, use the sword light to regroup and make a circle! We watch each other's backs!"
There was movement in the dark and Lucca's back bumped into Ludwig's: "I still can't see where to shoot, we need to leave!" said the markswoman. Then a loud thud happened and a beast came tumbling to her feet, almost knocking her down, it was dead and an axe had cleaved its head almost in two, spraying blood everywhere. Gascoigne came out of the shadows to join them, as he removed his axe from the creature's skull. "Henryk, where are you?" called out the man as his back faced the other Hunters'.
"On your left!" said Henryk's voice from the shadows, "I don't think I can make it across the room to you guys!" At that point, Gascoigne reached for his satchel and pulled out a Molotov cocktail he lit in the blink of an eye and threw it in the opposite direction of Henryk's voice.
The fire spread quickly, a bookcase was on fire and it was spreading fast to a nearby curtain, the flicker of the growing flames finally illuminated the entire room, showing a bunch of dead bodies on the floor, already half-eaten and Henryk backed up against a corner, with no weapon on his hand, and two wolves facing him. Another third wolf was in front of Gascoigne, who immediately shot it with his Hunter Blunderbuss, not really doing much, but staggering the beast who flinched back. "Take care of that one!" said Lucca, jumping over Ludwig, running up his body to propel herself and gain a height advantage. She then shot four straight arrows with her massive crossbow, straight at the two beasts who were about to tear Henryk apart. Unlike the small pellets of the blunderbuss, the powerful arrows penetrated the beasts' hides and they were pinned to the floor howling loudly in agony. Henryk took the opportunity to move back in the groups' direction, limping from his left leg. As Gascoigne savagely swung his extended axe at the beast he had shot, tearing it apart, Ludwig held up his sword with his left hand and hurled a beam of light at one of the pinned down wolves, immediately splitting it in half. Lucca had already gotten close to the other one and driven a small knife into its skull.
"Time to leave!" she said as the flames engulfed the room. A last look at the dead bodies showed there was never anyone that they could have saved, it had been too late before they even showed up.
Lucca was the first to jump out of the window that was broken into before, followed by Ludwig, and then the limping Henryk, helped by Gascoigne who was the last to leave the house. Flames were already seen from the outside and a new column of smoke was rising to the night sky.
However, the group wasn't safe, outside a number of beasts were crawling around and moving in their direction, slowly surrounding the group as all four were standing back to back in a small plaza. Ludwig counted eight and immediately tried the lightwave swing again, but the creature he swung at was still a few metres away and had time to sidestep the attack, countering with a swift run in his direction and an attack he barely managed to block. Lucca fired three more arrows who all hit their marks before yelling "Cover me! I have to reload!" her targets weren't dead though. A beast swung at Henryk, who rolled on the ground to dodge and punched it in the face, doing no real damage but stunning it enough for Ludwig to attack and chop off its left claw. Gascoigne attacked the beast that had previously swung at Ludwig, but as the beast drew back to avoid getting hit, his back was left exposed to an attack from another beast.
As the attack connected, the sharp nails of the Scourge Wolf cut through Gascoigne's back and he dropped to the floor, clutching his axe. Yet another beast attacked Lucca while reloading, but she jumped in the air again, shooting the two arrows she had managed to prepare in that short amount of time. One of them pierced the beast's head, killing it, the other merely grazing a second creature. One down, seven to go; things weren't looking great for the group as Ludwig used his sword to block yet another attack and defend Henryk still. He knew there was no way they could win by staying on the defensive, but he could just go attacking with an injured sword arm and two wounded companions he needed to protect.
At that moment, a loud explosion was heard, and one of the beasts was reduced to bits of flesh and blood. An explosion had completely obliterated it. From the shadows and smoke another Hunter group of four showed up, led by a man holding a giant cannon and a unique anchor-like weapon attached to his arm. The group split up and attacked the creatures in the plaza killing them, one after another. One of the Hunters held another giant firearm that sprayed bullets at tremendous speed, tearing the beasts apart in a cloud of blood spray; another had some kind of a spear that could also shoot bullets from the handle while he wasn't stabbing anything with it; the third had a tall double-handed hammer that burned with flames as he destroyed the enemies surrounding Ludwig's group. In the blink of an eye, all the beasts were dead.
"Djura! Good to see you!" exclaimed Gascoigne in a weakened voice as he rose himself back to one knee, visibly wounded, his blood dripping on the floor. The leader of the new Hunter pack stepped forward and helped Gascoigne up by supporting him; apparently that was Djura, an older Hunter wearing a more tattered Hunter garb.
"Move out everyone, I'll help them get to safety!" As those words left Djura's lips, the other Hunters from his group started trying to put out the fire in the house from before. "Let's go, seems like you four have seen enough action for today!" said Djura in a commanding but caring voice. Ludwig put his sword away in a sheath he had fashioned on his back while Lucca helped Henryk walk, just like Djura was helping Gascoigne. The five headed back towards the Cathedral Ward with some banter Ludwig though was meant to above all keep Gascoigne talking and avoid him passing out. Djura seemed like a great guy and Ludwig hesitated to think what could have happened, had he and his explosive group not shown up when they did.
Many more Hunts would come to pass, but Ludwig would never forget the sights and sounds of his first Hunt and the torn bodies of the people he didn't manage to save on that fateful day.