Hunt: Showdown 1896 - Commedia Della Morte

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Scaramuccia’s trinity mask intimidates any audience, but the many faces behind the mask are quick to perform the fool, the friend, or the villain. Whichever he senses will put a room at ease, or compel it to serve his will. The three-faced mask always conceals which way he looks, confusing predator and prey alike until his next move. It’s a mask that has only been seen once before: worn by a gifted harlequin, who was the leading act of a renowned three-man troupe. The troupe’s director kept the harlequin caged between shows, spreading rumors of grotesque disfigurement and urging people to join the audience for a glimpse beneath the mask. The third of the troupe was the bard, who drew people in with songs of sorrow and sympathy for the harlequin’s disfigurement, before entrancing that same crowd with accompaniments to the troupe’s one-man shows. Many who came to see the plays clamored for a chance to peek at the harlequin’s face, trying to confirm the irresistibly horrifying descriptions the rumors spoke of. But no such chance came, and none could ever find what lair the troupe held the harlequin in between shows. With the show’s success, the director’s clothing grew more lavish and the bard’s guitar more ornate, yet the harlequin’s single costume tore new holes every day. Poverty only added to both the spectacle and pity for the alleged freak, and a freak show proved to draw a greater paying audience than theatre. Then at the peak of the show’s success, the director, bard, and harlequin all vanished without trace. Some weeks later, two bodies were found in the canal stripped of their clothes and with faces too grotesque to identify. Now, amongst the torment of the Bayou, the troupe’s sole survivor christens himself “Scaramuccia”. On the hunt, his finely crafted demeanor shifts and relaxes: relishing not the hunt, but the accursed swamps themselves. Perhaps peeling away the mask would reveal a face less akin to his fellow hunters, and more like what he hunts.