[Okay, the suggestion to hunt in Bavan is more than a little nervewracking, yes. Not just because they typically stick to more secluded locations, where they can pick someone off away from prying eyes as well as closer to home, but because Basil's first hunt was somewhere in Bavan alongside Komaeda. Admittedly, he remembers very little about a lot of that day. He'd been to the point of near-starvation before he finally caved and did something about it, disappearing to stay with him for several days to take care of it in a way that would keep his housemates safe. It mean Basil had to choose a target in the form of some sort of petty criminal on Bavan's inner streets in the dead of night, and...
It hadn't been pretty. What little details he does recall have stuck vividly in his mind. The way his chosen prey seemed to stand out like a cut-out comic panel against the broken-up, staggered lights dotted all along the city streets. Those lights lit up their bloodied skin in almost neon relief, leaving Basil himself half shrouded in darkness as he tore them limb from limb near effortlessly. It wasn't something he should have been able to do, but he could do it...without question, without thinking.
He'd feasted on some hapless stranger's charred flesh until he could handle no more, and to this day he wonders if it would have felt different had he chosen someone different. He's chosen to take that life, and that...wasn't something you could undo.
Back to the present, Basil tries to keep his focus on Max, who clearly isn't doing well. She's still shaking beside him as they very slowly make their way down the stairs one at a time, with Basil having to take extra care to make sure his feet don't slip out from underneath him.]
That...that could work.
[He doesn't know how they work, exactly, but if it's some kind of monster magic then it's going to be innate. Max may know how to already, and she just doesn't realize it because she hasn't actually tried yet.]
I can- [Ah. His throat is dry. But it's never not dry, like this, and it makes every plant on his body strain in frustration.] -I...I can find somebody to lure, if there's nobody already there.
cw: cannibalism/gore description
It hadn't been pretty. What little details he does recall have stuck vividly in his mind. The way his chosen prey seemed to stand out like a cut-out comic panel against the broken-up, staggered lights dotted all along the city streets. Those lights lit up their bloodied skin in almost neon relief, leaving Basil himself half shrouded in darkness as he tore them limb from limb near effortlessly. It wasn't something he should have been able to do, but he could do it...without question, without thinking.
He'd feasted on some hapless stranger's charred flesh until he could handle no more, and to this day he wonders if it would have felt different had he chosen someone different. He's chosen to take that life, and that...wasn't something you could undo.
Back to the present, Basil tries to keep his focus on Max, who clearly isn't doing well. She's still shaking beside him as they very slowly make their way down the stairs one at a time, with Basil having to take extra care to make sure his feet don't slip out from underneath him.]
That...that could work.
[He doesn't know how they work, exactly, but if it's some kind of monster magic then it's going to be innate. Max may know how to already, and she just doesn't realize it because she hasn't actually tried yet.]
I can- [Ah. His throat is dry. But it's never not dry, like this, and it makes every plant on his body strain in frustration.] -I...I can find somebody to lure, if there's nobody already there.
[So Max doesn't have to make that choice.]