A Winter's Tale and Fan Art

Good morning, and happy holidays!

As with the Halloween update, I have prepared a spooky story to go with the current sale. This has been split across three different chapters, which will be released through the day. In addition, these announcements will feature artwork by three talented artists. A friend of mine who has played the game has commissioned them to produce images of her hunter, Liliana, and this seems like the perfect place to show them off.

The third is by Part Time Pixie (https://twitter.com/Part_Time_Pixie).

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season. Please enjoy the artwork and story!

A Winter Tale Part 3 – Dashing Through the Snow The hunter barrelled as fast as she could through the dark night, following the trail of footprints in the dirty snow. The few people on the streets who saw her grim figure dived aside as she ran. A hunter in a hurry was not something anyone wished to tangle with, especially one as bloody and ragged as she was at that moment.

Liliana cursed her inattention. While investigating a report of a missing servant, she had uncovered an External cult lurking behind the facade of a noble family. She had arrived just in time to stop the madmen from summoning their god, freeing what she assumed was an unwilling victim. Then, as she had chased down the last of the cultists, she had seen the portrait of the woman to be sacrificed hanging in a hallway. She was no dupe or kidnapped street-walker, but a member of the cursed bloodline!

She had tracked the woman through the snow, and seen her stumbling footprints joined by another set. When she had found a constable patrolling the area, and breathlessly asked after the cultist, he had told her about escorting a strange woman in the company of doctor Lewis to his home a few streets away. With no time to lose, she had told him to alert the authorities to a possible External incursion, and sprinted away.

As she approached the front door of the doctor's house, she heard a hideous scream, and the window of one of the ground floor rooms blew out in a shower of glass. Heat turned the snow for several paces to steam, and Liliana was forced to shield her face from the blast. A blazing figure, barely human in outline, was staggering around the room, setting everything it touched alight with multi-coloured flames.

With no other option, Liliana began to fire her pistol at the thing, driving it away from the ragged hole in the wall. Then she leapt through the ruined window and into the inferno. She had to place her trust in the stout, green leather overcoat she wore to keep the fire from catching her, if only for a few moments. Ignoring the pain of her previous injuries, she lashed out at the flaming monster.

It staggered and wailed, seeming to be getting stronger the more the room around it burned. Arms of whipping fire reached out at the hunter, singing her hair. All of a sudden, the door to the chamber opened, and a middle-aged man in a stained leather apron stumbled inside. Liliana assumed he must be the doctor, or possible a household servant. He was carrying a bucket of water, and gawped at the scene which greeted him.

Before she could shout a warning, the beast slid past her, and sank blazing claws into the man's belly. He had a moment before they ignited him from the inside, and in that precious second, he threw the contents of the bucket directly into the monster's face.

Even as the interloper's body crumbled into glowing cinders, the creature staggered, whining and barking out in what Liliana could only hope was pain. The flames on its upper body had been partially extinguished, leaving behind blackened iron plates and blades, twisted and welded together into a mockery of the human form. Even as they began to glow with heat once more, and the flames crept over them, Liliana struck.

Her blade bit deeply into a seam along the thing's 'skull', causing it to part with a crunch. When the fire reached this spot it spurted out like a fountain of sparks instead of catching fully like it had before. The beast wailed, clawing at the wound. The flames around it flickered again as it inadvertently stumbled into the chilling wind sweeping through the window. Liliana took a short run up, then kicked the beast hard enough to send it tumbling out of the shattered window into the freezing night.

The crowd which had gathered to investigate the disturbance screamed and fled as the External crunched into the cobbles. It writhed and howled, before pulling itself upright and blazing brightly once more. Pausing to slide a Hunter's Shot round into her smoking pistol, Liliana leapt back into the fray.