NAME: Ian Hardgrove
DATE OF BIRTH: 07/08/1992
GENDER: Male
HUNTER CLASS: Strider
AFFINITY: Urere
APPEARANCE: With a straight nose, barely square jaw, hazel eyes, mop of unruly brown hair and a lanky build, Ian was truly a personification of unnoticeable. Even with a habit of scratching one eyebrow when either in thought or through nerves, he seemed unremarkable. He could blend into a crowd like light post and people barely took note of him. He generally wore simple t-shirts, jeans with frayed ends, a worn belt of questionable fashion and a faux-leather jacket. Hats never quite worked with him, even though his hair style never quite seemed to either.
[FONT="]Ian's Decay takes on the form of increasingly bloodshot eyes until they become simple orbs of red. His skin similarly grows more and more translucent, with the bones of his elbows breaking the skin and extending into spikes. Black spines erupt down his spine, culminating in a short black tail.[/FONT]
HISTORY: Middle class family in middle class suburbia. Ian has two sisters along with loving parents who supported him in whatever he chose, though his father did enjoy his drink more than most. He was neither popular nor unpopular, he just settled into the mediocre portion of the totem pole. He did excel in school for a time, winning awards and attending special classes, until he lost his interest in it. He had the ability, just not the motivation to use it.
So he turned to making a wage for himself, starting with the typical shit-kicking jobs like fast food and call centre work before he wound up as an assistant manager at a bar on the seedier part of town. It didn't sound like much but he enjoyed it, he got to meet people and didn't have to feed them a spiel. Alcohol sells itself after all.
One of his most generous customers was some sad asshole named Mick Valentore. He came in every night without fail and ordered the same lot of rotgut that would leave him stumbling out of the establishment. The man's liver had to be a monument to the idea of indestructibility with the sheer quantity he would drown himself in. Whatever Mick did for a living seemed to be a mystery and he kept it that way.
It never quite mattered however as Mick kept coming back, night after night with the money to do so. He would sit at the same stool, with the same glower on his face and order the same drink until it came to closing. Everything has an end however and one night, that end was delivered. Mick was sipping his straight Scotch as he always did, staring into the glass and with a faraway look on his face. His face suddenly snapped up and was flown across the room by an unseen gale. The bar was torn apart into a storm of splinters, which smashed Ian in the face and sent him reeling back into the bottles he tended.
He looked down to discover a thin gash running across his chest, spilling more blood than such a shallow wound should. The next thing he noticed when he raised his head was a nightmare. A tall horrendous figure, more night terror than anything real was grappling with Mick. At least the thing that looked like Mick.
Coughing up wads of dust filled phlegm, he started to crawl away only to have his fingers land on a weapon. An ornate shotgun that Mick always carried on a sling on his back – he was never concerned about the law, simply saying who was going to take it off him?
Fuelled by a panic filled desire to get the fuck out of there with his limbs intact, he grabbed it, cocked it like his father had shown him and rolled over to plant a surprisingly well aimed shot, given the circumstances, into the back of the walking nightmare.
The creature's back seemed to explode, painting the roof, floor and most of Mick in a hideous green like sludge. With a painful shrieking, it fell to the floor convulsing spasmodically as it died. The new visage of Mick's face dripping with sickly gore didn't quite help Ian's heaving panicked breaths.
Whilst Ian was holding the shotgun in trembling fingers, Mick strode over to the sad mess of a human being on the floor, lit a smoke and said 'Well it's time to make some calls, Hardo. You really fucked up this time didn't ya? Say goodbye to this shithole, we're off to teach you a thing or two'.
FIRST DEMON SLAYED: The first demon slain was a rare form of the Urere affinity, a Mortis Engine as it is called. It is a personification of death in its most indiscriminate form, the uncaring, unfair fate that every soul faces. Blood clots, heart attacks, strokes, aneurysms and the like are all favoured methods of delivery for such a demon. The quick, unexpected death which all it takes is a slight tweaking of a nervous or respiratory system. Like most demons however, it will still confront its victims in an overt manner from time to time. A tall, gaunt figure with gangrenous skin covers its repulsive body, having large fore-armed sized claws extending from its palsied hands. Its eyes are absent, merely sunken pits of stinking flesh in its repulsive face, presiding above an absence of a nose and lipless mouth. It is emotionless, uncaring and completely nonplussed by the circumstances of its victim; it merely cares that it reaps the living essence from those that possess it.
RP SAMPLE: Things had died down. All the laughter, shouting, cursing, glasses full of distraction and cash flow had come to an end. The LA Stop Bar wasn't a classy affair but it still managed to turn a profit. Something Ian Hardgrove was proud of, as it hadn't been until he took over as night manager. There's a trick to convincing anyone that another drink was a good idea, whether it be for a celebration, commiseration or simply something extra before they went home to their wife. It's just about figuring out the right angle to use and after a while it's easy to pick which to use on strangers.
"Another then, Mick?" said Ian, wondering why he didn't just leave the bottle on the bar. Mick would only steal one or two when he wasn't looking. His generous tips covered his indiscretions anyway.
"Does the Pope shit in the woods?" Mick grunted. Mick Valentore had the face of a bar brawler that suggested he barely won as much as he lost. With his short black hair, broken nose, cauliflower ears, box-like jaw and an assortment of scars, he was definitely the image of a Calvin Klein model. He was powerfully built however, having thick muscle corded arms and broad shoulders, even with most of it hidden under the worn looking coat he constantly wore, plus standing just over 6 feet tall.
"You know, I don't think he does. I think the real question is whether he ever wears the hat when he does," said Ian with a smirk.
"I'm going to stop ya right there before the holy shit joke appears"
"Hey, you said it, not me"
"Quit being a funny bugger and get on with it, would ya?" replied Mick. Ian poured another lot of cheap whisky into the glass. Slogging it back and hitting the bar with the glass, Mick tapped the side indicating another.
Grinning, Ian pulled a second glass out from under the bar and poured them both a measure. He chinked their glasses together and downed it, grimacing slightly as it burned down his throat.
"No fights, no one puking and no dropped glasses. I'd call that a good night. Finish that up though, it's time to get out of here so I can enjoy my two days off," toasted Ian.
"Another half hour won't kill you, Hardo," grumbled Mick as he downed his own glass.
"It might take you though, I'd end up having to carry…Mick?" questioned Ian, confused by the sudden sober look his face.
Mick twisted impossibly fast to throw the glass at a shadow hammering through the air, reaching into his coat. Impossibly fast wasn't fast enough.
A slab of the bar exploded. Splinters shooting like shrapnel from a grenade spun through the room, shattering glasses, impaling the roof and breaking windows. It was like a wrecking ball piloted by a madman had materialised in the room and hit the bar with the fury normally attributed to vengeful gods.
Ian was thrown off his feet, back into the shelves of spirits behind him only to rebound and hit the ground with a wet smack he never quite heard. One side of his body looked like a poor imitation of a voodoo doll, shards of the bar imbedded in his flesh. His first confused thought was that he tasted rust covered wood, until he realised his cheek had been pierced straight through; he could bite down on a splinter.
He wondered why there was a black outline to everything he was seeing; it was as if he was viewing the world through a blurry black halo. Blood was hammering in his ears, the sound dampening out everything else. Ian surprised himself though, survival instincts kicked in, he started to drag himself across the floor on his forearms. He vaguely heard the crunch of glass as he did so, but strangely didn't feel the bite of it. Something concussive and thundering did streak through the dulled sound, gunshots were ringing out and a high pitched screaming was ringing around the room, rage filled swearing underlined it but couldn't be made out.
He had made it from out the side of the bar, he could keep going, could make it out of whatever the hell was happening. Fight or flight is an instinct but when something like this happens, there's only one option.
His clenched fist suddenly bumped into something heavy and metallic, it took him a moment to realise what it was. It was the shotgun Mick could never be parted with, constantly draped over his back with a leather strap, intricately designed and decorated. A child could look on such a weapon and realise it was something special, no one put that much effort into creating something without it having a purpose. Who the fuck cared what that purpose was, thought Ian.
He pulled it close, got his shaking fingers inside the trigger guard and managed to find the strength to cock the weapon. His father had taken him hunting numerous times, teaching him the basic and advanced methods of how to use and take care of firearms. For all the decoration and ornamentation, it was still a shotgun after all.
For all of the fight or flight instincts that had him make a laughable dash for it, the rational mind kicked it and told him he was in no state for a flight from this. He rolled over and looked towards where the gunshots had rung through his ears. He regretted it instantly.
For Ian, there was a fucking nightmare given flesh in the room, struggling with what he could see of Mick. He could see its back, made of rotting, gangrenous flesh in a putrid green/black colour. It was taller than Mick, standing at over seven feet tall. The monstrous claws that were excuses for hands were imbedded in his forearms, tearing strips away and severing veins. Ian subconsciously chose not to focus on the blood spurting from them. It embodied the sort of thing envisioned should insanity and cancer combine to take form.
With shaking hands, Ian took aim at the forsaken creature that he still wasn't sure was real or not. His heaving breaths didn't help the matter, but he managed to hold them for a second while he pulled the trigger. The recoil was immense. He wasn't sure if his wrist was broken or not, but it hardly mattered. A keening shriek filled the room, scraping across his thoughts and inner monologue. It was like claws slowly digging into the meat of his brain, inch by inch.
The nightmare was disintegrating however, its entire back a monument to the capability of firearms, yet somehow beyond that. With a slightly blue tinge, it was claimed like a flame soaked page. The screaming from the creature suddenly ended as it disintegrated into a pool of horrendously bubbling bile.
Mick was swearing profusely as he walked over to the bar to find some towels to wrap his forearms with. Once finished, he poured two glasses of whisky from the remains of a broken bottle and started to walk over to Ian. It was then Ian realised his problems weren't over. What should had been the beaten and scarred face of Mick had been replaced by a red skinned, black eyed visage with bones protruding from his cheeks, haloed by a pair of horns curving around from the back of his head.
"You alright, kiddo? You look like you just shat your pants. I remember my firs-"
"Stay the fuck away! Don't come any closer!" yelled Ian, in panic filled breaths, raising the shotgun once more.
"Or what, you're going to whistle at me and bleed on the floor?" replied Mick as he stepped closer.
Ian pulled the trigger, prepared to have his wrists flare in pain as they did the first time. The dull click of an empty chamber was the only result.
"Did you seriously just try to shoot me? What the fuck is wrong with you, Hardo. It's Mick, you know me," said Mick before waving his hand over his face. "This is what happens when ya kill creatures like you just did. They call it the Decay, you become like them. I'm a demon hunter, not a demon, you damned idiot," Mick said angrily.
Ian looked up at him with incomprehension plastered all over his face, hyper ventilating as his mind tried to make sense of what just happened.
"Well it's time to make some calls, Hardo. You really fucked up this time didn't ya? Say goodbye to this shithole, we're off to teach you a thing or two," said Mick, turning as he reached into his coat for his phone.
MISCELLANEOUS: (anything extra worth mentioning)