Night 49: Meeting Up Before The Hunt

--- Jon ---

While his meeting with Noctis hadn’t resulted in the ace he’d been hoping for, he couldn’t bring himself to regret meeting the odd Nightmarian, if only because from what little they’d been able to talk they’d clicked fairly well with each other.

Unfortunately this meant that he was likely where he’d begun the evening, if with notably less magical power in his amulet than what he’d started the night with.

(Well hopefully the girls will have something to deal with the Flying Creeps.) They were the ones he was hoping to track down next given how their flight and fire could prove a dangerous combination during the Halloween Haunt.

Admittedly he did have his bow in a pinch, but if had to deal with a nest of flying enemies he likely didn’t have the firepower to wipe them out. A hole developed by the fact that the flying corrupted he was more used to were usually few in number with few groups having more than two or three of the usually fragile creatures, meaning accuracy was more important than actual firepower or damage.

(Might want to do something about that at some point…) He admitted to himself before shaking his head as he neared the place Audrey told him to meet the rest of their little ‘magic club’.

“I don’t get why we’re waiting on this cabrón.” A voice commented.

“Because the more Creeps we kill the more money we make, and we’re close enough to Halloween that we could make a lot of money.” Audrey’s voice pointed out.

“I get that, I just don’t get why we need him.” Valentina elaborated. “It’s not like bringing him along is going to up our numbers all that much.”

“He’ll up them enough to be worth it.” Audrey argued, as he came close enough to notice her smoking something in the moonlight. “After all, he did give you and the Scarecrow a run for your money at the meeting.”

“Fuck off.” Valentina spat at that reminder before eventually saying that, “He can fight, I'll give him that, but if I hadn’t started running low on magic he wouldn’t have had anything to actually put us down.”

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“Oh, so you’re saying he has more stamina than you?” Artemis asked, speaking up from the stoop she’d taken a seat on. “That’s disappointing.”

“You wish you could see my ‘stamina’ in person, duende.” Val scoffed, stalking towards the golden eyed girl.

“As if I’d ever be that desperate, Alejo.”

Figuring he might as well make himself known before they could devolve into wherever they were going with this, he moved a little closer while purposely making his steps audible.

“Ah, there you are. Was wondering how long you were going to be.” Audrey called out when she spotted him.

“Sorry about that, I had something I had to take care of.” He apologized before glancing over towards Artemis and Valentina who were still glaring at each other. “So, uh, should I be concerned with that?”

“Nah, I told you this is their flirting.” Audrey assured him.

“Fuck you Meadows.” Val cursed at the Arcane as she and Artemis broke their staring contest.

“Sorry, don’t want to make anyone jealous.” Audrey shot back, before turning back to him. “Anyway, you’ve got everything you need to help out with this?”

“Um, I guess so?” He shrugged, still needing to replace his jacket but having a decent enough number of molotovs and knives to make up for that.

“Great, then in that case we’ll split up to try and cover more ground.” Audrey told him, clapping her hands together. “It’s close enough to Halloween that the Creeps are starting to really come out of the woodwork, so if we all go out right now then we can each probably knock off a couple of them before calling it a night.”

“Okay, then, uh, where should I go?” He frowned, wondering if it would have been better for him to go out on his own rather than asking Audrey about teaming up like this. (Would’ve saved me a couple hours hunting at least.)

“Mm, there’s a few places you can check out but I’ll leave that to you and your partner to figure out, but before that…” Audrey answered before tucking her hands into the pocket of her jacket and tossing him a red vial. “Take this.”

“A healing potion?” He asked, snatching the vial out of the air and recognizing it from Ms. Edna’s store.

“Yeah, want to make sure everyone has one in case something happens.” Audrey nodded before glancing towards the two girls eyeing her warily. “I also wanted to make sure you’ve got someone with you in case something happens, given how while you can fight you aren’t really a ‘Hunter’.”

“Pfft.”

“What was that?” Audrey frowned.

“Nothing, nothing.” He coughed, waving her off as the Beast in his head laughed its head off.

“Alright, just uh, don’t get cocky.” Audrey warned him before shaking her head. “Anyway, given how things are I figured it’d be best for you to team up with- [Scene Choice]