You're not exactly sure if it's determination, petulance, or something else, but whatever's driving this guy is unbelievable. You've broken him physically and mentally; by all rights, he should be lying there in the fetal position and pissing himself.
From both an honorable and a pragmatic standpoint, he's earned a clean death.
You reach into your sleeves and pull out your sword as his one good arm searches for a grip among the shattered stones. His face is so swollen and burned that you can't tell his eyebrow from his nostril and his brain's probably so rattled it can't tell left from eggplant, but onward he scrapes. You plant your foot on the side of his head and raise your blade.
"Ye're fuckin' strong. 's jus' bad luck ye wound up fightin' me."
You bury the massive sword nearly to the hilt in the ground. The cut is so clean his head doesn't even roll.
"Jus' bad fuckin' luck."
PREY SLAUGHTERED
You take a deep breath of the quiet evening. The impassive moon blots out the stars and fills the plaza with ethereal silver, giving the absolute bloody mess you've made an air of artistic grace. For a moment, you sit and collect your thoughts in the shadow of the Grand Cathedral's broken corpse.
"Damn fine fight, Father Anderson."
You turn to see Djura walking towards you, gun on his shoulder and gore-soaked Stake Driver hanging loosely in his grip. You return to your feet and give him a wave.
"Back already?" you ask.
"Never left. Steffon took the Churchfolk back to the chapel and I waited on that roof," he replies with a jerk of his thumb. "I was planning to put a hole through his head if he managed to kill you."
"Sorry for wastin' yer time, then."
The two of you walk over to the fallen Arseface. Once Djura's kicked the body to his satisfaction, you go through his scattered supplies. You can see his eyebrows rise behind his blindfold at the sight of the half-femur.
"An Old Hunter's Bone," he breathes. "Valuable thing."
"What's it do?"
"If you break it, it grants you incredible speed for a short period of time, so I've heard."
You narrowly stop yourself from asking just how in the Protestant Hell that works. It's not any crazier than what you've already been through tonight. After he's finished pocketed the dead man's assorted goodies, the two of you survey the carnage for a short while, noting the pair of black beanbag-shaped objects waddling furiously towards it in the distance, before turning back towards the chapel.
You arrive to find a large number of your new recruits milling about outside, several sporting the telltale smoking hands of those who poke things when told not to. Todd walks over to meet you.
"Ah, hullo, Father Anderson. Glad you're not dead; some of us thought you'd be. Not me, of course. Had all the faith in the world you could take him. Told Johnathan as much. I said to him, 'he'll be back any minute now, I'm sure of it.'"
Johnathan nods in affirmation.
"Anyway, Mister Steffon and Vicar Rosemary went inside with the scary crow lady." He shuffles his feet. "I don't suppose you could, ah, let us in as well? Some of the lads are a bit jumpy after all that excitement."
"Gimme a minute," you reply. Todd smiles nervously and goes back to awkwardly shuffling his feet, which he does with the casual ease of an expert in the field, while you and Djura make your ways through the ward.
Eileen and Steffon raise their hands in greeting from either side of the bound Vicar Rosemary. The visibly-relieved Iosefka and her two assistants scurry up to meet you and you dispense hugs appropriately.
Maybe it ain't home quite yet, but it's something close.
[] Talk to
-[] Eileen
-[] Iosefka
[] Begin interrogation
-[] Questions?
[] Write in...