NovelPantheon

Dunn Smith

Captain of the Tingen NighthawksSequence 7 Nightmare of the Sleepless pathway, strengthened by characteristics left by deceased teammatesTingen Nighthawks

Dunn Smith is the captain of the Tingen Nighthawks and Klein Moretti's first field commander in the supernatural world. A veteran Nightmare of the Church of Evernight, he investigates threats through dreams, directs a small team whose work remains invisible to the public, and measures success by whether ordinary people can continue their lives without knowing what nearly reached them. His reliability coexists with forgetfulness, accumulated grief, and the dangerous choice to carry the characteristics of fallen teammates within himself. Although the Antigonus conspiracy exploits those weaknesses, Dunn dies by deliberately giving his heart to Saint Selena's ashes so Klein and Leonard Mitchell can stop the divine spawn threatening Tingen.

Biography

Captain of the Tingen Nighthawks

Dunn enters Klein's life as the investigator of Welch and Naya's suicides. He uses Nightmare power to enter Klein's dream, guiding rather than completely rewriting it, because he trusts suppressed emotions and dream logic more than a conscious suspect's prepared account. Even after concluding that Klein has genuinely lost the relevant memories, Dunn asks Daly to make an independent examination and continues tracing the missing Antigonus notebook. His caution is not simple suspicion: he tells Klein that occult incidents can resurface after appearing resolved, and his proposal that Klein join the Blackthorn Security Company gives the sole survivor both surveillance and protection rather than leaving him exposed. (Chapters 12–15)

As captain, Dunn turns that guarded invitation into mentorship. He explains the danger of potions, loss of control, Sealed Artifacts, and church confidentiality before allowing Klein to choose whether to become a Beyonder; he approves the Seer potion when Klein accepts the risk and places Old Neil in charge of the practical instruction. He also treats the Nighthawks as people rather than expendable occult specialists. Mission plans assign roles by pathway and experience, unnecessary danger is rejected, ordinary bystanders are protected, and retreat is preferable to a clean victory purchased with a subordinate's life. Dunn's memory often fails him in routine administration, but in a crisis his first questions concern containment, backup, and the safety of the team. (Chapters 17–33, 45–53, and 76–81)

Klein's rapid digestion of the Seer potion challenges Dunn's slow, institutionally cautious progression. Dunn spent three years advancing from Sleepless to Midnight Poet and nine more reaching Nightmare; after another three years he still cannot safely attempt Sequence 6. Daly's advice to become a “true Nightmare” has not yet given him a working acting method, so he listens when Klein connects potion names, conduct, and digestion, endorses the discovery, and begins adjusting his own practice. The exchange deepens their relationship from captain and recruit into senior and junior Beyonders confronting the same internal danger. Dunn remains the authority who must examine Klein's choices, but he is willing to learn from the subordinate he trained. (Chapters 96, 133–136, and 147–155)

The Antigonus Conspiracy

Dunn leads the recovery of the Antigonus notebook through the case of Ray Bieber. The team uses Sealed Artifact 2-049, pathway specialties, firearms, and cooperation to defeat the transformed Bieber and a Secret Order attacker. Unknown to them, Dunn touches and reads the notebook during the operation, allowing it to corrupt him as part of the story being written through the Quill of Alzuhod. A later dream investigation of Hanass Vincent exposes Dunn to an image of the True Creator and severely injures him. That encounter does not itself corrupt him, but it aggravates the notebook's existing influence, making his absent-mindedness and memory problems worse while concealing their true source beneath a symptom Nightmares already experience. (Chapters 70–79, 88–92, and 210)

The loss of Old Neil shows how Dunn carries command when the enemy is a teammate's loss of control. When Klein identifies contradictory memories and divines that something is wrong, Dunn immediately takes the Peaceful Hair Strands and approaches Old Neil with Klein and Royale. He speaks gently, tries to draw out the source of the attempted resurrection, and uses Nightmare power only after Old Neil's monstrous body and service to the Hidden Sage are clear. When the dream fails and Old Neil attacks, Dunn deploys the Sealed Artifact to suppress every desire before he and Royale fire the fatal shots. His description of Nighthawks as guardians and miserable wretches is therefore not abstract doctrine: it follows the necessity of killing a friend they went there hoping to stabilize. (Chapters 163–165)

Dunn's private method of mourning adds another pressure. With the Church's permission, he performs a ritual that lets him consume the freshly formed same-pathway characteristics left by teammates who died without losing control. He does not do this chiefly to become stronger; Hitte, Dwayne, Adelaide, Kenley, and the others continue to appear in his dreams, and he wants them to keep guarding Tingen with him. The additional characteristics raise his dream abilities close to Sequence 6, but also make his potion harder to digest. After Kenley dies because Madam Sharon escapes Dunn's distant dream restraint and turns the Spirit Medium Mirror against him, Dunn consumes Kenley's characteristic while blaming himself. The interruption worsens his mental stability at exactly the point when the earlier corruption and Quill's arrangements are converging on Tingen. (Chapters 197–207 and 210)

Death and Klein's Continuing Debt

When Megose arrives at Blackthorn carrying the True Creator's spawn, Dunn initially attempts to delay the situation and summon help. His unstable condition contributes to a critical mistake: bringing Saint Selena's urn out of Chanis Gate lets the unborn creature sense the threat and accelerates its attempted descent. Once Leonard confirms that only minutes remain, Dunn does not hide behind that error. He orders Klein and Leonard to wait ten seconds while he confronts Megose first, tells them to strike regardless of his condition, and takes comfort in the teammates whose characteristics he carries. His final decision is framed as the ordinary duty of guarding Tingen, not a hope that he will survive the operation. (Chapters 205–208 and 210)

Saint Selena's ashes let Dunn produce black, cold threads that bind Megose, but the relic's power and his own Nightmare projections cannot indefinitely resist the spawn. When the creature's cries suppress the threads, Dunn impedes Megose with dream-born appendages until they rupture and feed more blood into the urn. He then tears out his own still-beating heart and places it inside, giving the ashes enough power to seal Megose and her child while Klein activates the final Flaring Sun Charm. The act is voluntary and immediately fatal once the borrowed interval ends: after confirming, “We saved Tingen,” Dunn's heart stops inside the urn, dissolves, and he falls with no luster remaining in his eyes. Ince Zangwill subsequently kills Klein and steals the weakened ashes, but that does not reverse Dunn's success in preventing the descent. (Chapters 208–210)

Dunn is buried in Raphael Cemetery as a true guardian and trusted partner. Klein's own resurrection transforms grief into a continuing obligation: he identifies Ince and the Quill as the authors behind the conspiracy, leaves Tingen to grow strong enough for revenge, and later dedicates one of the shots that kills Ince to his captain. Dunn also remains a standard by which Klein judges power and responsibility. The dream-city team's later account identifies Dunn and Klein's stand at Blackthorn as the decisive defense of Tingen, while Klein's memories and Evernight rituals continue to place Dunn among the dead whose ordinary human loyalties must not be erased by divinity. (Chapters 212–213, 756, 942–946, 1169, and 2443)

Appearance and personality

Dunn is a middle-aged man with deep, serene gray eyes and a high, receding hairline. He usually wears a black trench coat, white shirt, dark vest, black trousers, and a silk top hat, often carrying a cane, custom revolver, and an unlit tobacco pipe that he prefers to sniff. His deep, mellow voice can sound soothing even during interrogation, matching the tranquility of his pathway. His clothing and gray gaze frequently blend into darkness, while his brief smiles and occasional wink make the stern captain appear unexpectedly gentle. (Chapters 12–15, 96, 122, and 209)

His Nightmare state is usually subtle. Darkness becomes tranquil around him, sleeping minds become accessible, and shared dreams place his black-coated figure beneath the moon. Under extreme strain, thicker appendages or tentacle-like projections emerge from his back as he forces a target into the influence of a nightmare. These manifestations are pathway effects rather than his normal anatomy. The blood vessels, pallor, and injuries seen in the Megose battle come from divine pressure, the Saint's relic, and his self-sacrifice, not a permanent monstrous transformation or ordinary loss of control. (Chapters 12–13, 134, and 208–209)

Dunn is patient, protective, and modest about his own expertise except where dreams are concerned. He often forgets salaries, training arrangements, equipment, and information he meant to give the team, producing a running source of humor. Part of that forgetfulness is a Nightmare's difficulty separating dream events from reality; the notebook's corruption later aggravates it, so not every lapse is evidence that the conspiracy already controls him. When consequences are real, he accepts blame rather than shifting it downward. He calls consuming his teammates' remains selfish, admits that the Madam Sharon operation contained mistakes, and ultimately pays for his final error himself. (Chapters 15–17, 96, 119, 197–207, and 210)

His defining loyalty is collective. Dunn remembers fallen Nighthawks as distinct people with tastes, fears, music, and family, not as characteristics or useful powers. That attachment creates risk when he brings their remains into himself, but it also explains why his leadership inspires Klein and Leonard: guarding a city means carrying people whose names the city will never know. His courage is practical rather than theatrical. He plans, seeks reinforcement, and avoids reckless heroics until delay becomes impossible; then he steps in first and gives the others a workable opening. (Chapters 163–165 and 202–209)

Pathways and abilities

Dunn follows the Church of Evernight's complete Sleepless pathway through Sequence 9 Sleepless, Sequence 8 Midnight Poet, and Sequence 7 Nightmare. Each advancement retains and strengthens the earlier powers. He also accumulates same-pathway characteristics from deceased teammates through a Church-authorized ritual, bringing some dream capabilities close to Sequence 6 without actually advancing. This augmentation improves output but increases the burden of digestion and contributes to instability when Kenley's newly consumed characteristic interrupts his progress. (Chapters 22, 73, 96, 197–207)

Sleepless foundations

The Sleepless potion greatly reduces the need for sleep: an advanced member such as Dunn can function after roughly two hours of daytime rest. It grants sight in darkness and progressively strengthens physical ability, intuition, mental capability, danger sensing, and general performance as night deepens. These traits make Sleepless Beyonders natural night responders and improve shooting, close combat, climbing, pursuit, and guard duty. Dunn consequently operates comfortably without light, selects another Sleepless for a nighttime assault, and can remain alert across the irregular schedule of an urban Nighthawk team. (Chapters 22, 45, 73, 88, 109, 135, and 197)

Sleepless does not remove ordinary biological or tactical limits. Members still need some rest, must learn to control their changed speed and coordination, and rely on guns, demon-hunting bullets, charms, or Sealed Artifacts against enemies normal force cannot harm. Darkness is an enhancement, not immunity to injury, corruption, or divine pressure. The pathway's high spirituality theoretically supports Spirit Vision, divination, and ritual magic, but low- and mid-Sequence Sleepless practitioners are much less precise than Seers or Mystery Pryers. Dunn can see spirits and faint aura colors, yet cannot diagnose detailed bodily states through Spirit Vision and is limited to comparatively simple ritual work before Sequence 6. (Chapters 17, 22, 105, 134–135, and 172)

Midnight Poet influence and combat

Midnight Poet retains Sleepless endurance and martial enhancement while adding the ability to influence living beings through poetry, chanting, or song. The corpus associates this stage with inducing slumber, soothing or disturbing a target's spirit, and manipulating the emotional atmosphere of the night. Dunn can place people into sleep across an area, while the Slumber, Requiem, and Dream Charms used by less specialized teammates reproduce portions of Midnight Poet and Nightmare functions. Poetry is therefore an activation medium for spiritual influence, not proof that any verse can impose any result. (Chapters 73, 127, 197–201)

The effect can be resisted by sufficient spirituality, an opposing power, a prepared artifact, or a target capable of escaping the induced state. It may also affect allies if deployed without control. During the Madam Sharon operation, Dunn gradually coaxes her toward sleep from a distance, but the Primordial Demoness statue helps her evade the dream and turn the ambush into a trap. His choice to keep the servants asleep throughout the later battle shows better area control, while his need to check their state afterward confirms that sleep remains a maintained condition rather than irreversible incapacitation. (Chapters 197–201)

Nightmare entry, guidance, and shared dreams

At Nightmare, Dunn can enter the dream of an already sleeping person even while his own body remains elsewhere, inspect the dream's symbols and suppressed emotions, and provide guidance inside it. He uses this for Klein's initial examination and to extract investigative evidence from other witnesses. Dream testimony is revealing but not infallible: Klein retains unusual clarity and shows Dunn only what his dream identity supplies, while symbols still require interpretation. A dangerous object or higher influence encountered in a dream can injure the intruder, as happens when Dunn sees an image close to the True Creator in Hanass Vincent's dream. (Chapters 12–15, 64, 88, and 186)

He can also draw an awake target toward sleep and pull several nearby beings into one shared dream. At close combat range this can occur quickly enough to interrupt an enemy; at roughly one hundred meters, inducing the first sleeping state takes time and resembles coaxing a child to sleep. Dunn includes Klein and Kenley in the same dream to signal that Madam Sharon has apparently been restrained, and he brings Klein, Frye, and a wraith into a shared scenario at Lamud Castle. He does not try to overpower the wraith inside its own domain. Instead, the dream consumes more than a minute while the Mutated Sun Sacred Emblem purifies the real target, demonstrating that delay and coordination can be more reliable applications than dream damage. (Chapters 134 and 197)

Nightmare effects have counters and psychological costs. Exceptional dream awareness lets Klein remain rational, Old Neil's additional corrupted eyes see through Dunn's attempt, Madam Sharon escapes the distant restraint, and equal or higher powers can break or reverse the control. Repeatedly moving between reality and dreams also makes memories difficult to classify, producing forgetfulness even without external corruption. Dunn's later ability to project nightmare appendages against Megose can briefly stop a vastly stronger body, but the projections rupture under resistance and do not make him physically equal to the divine spawn. (Chapters 119, 134, 164, 197–199, and 209)

Accumulated teammate characteristics

The Law of Beyonder Characteristics Indestructibility means a normally deceased Beyonder leaves a characteristic equivalent to a potion without supplementary ingredients. The Church gives some captains a ritual for consuming such freshly produced characteristics from the same pathway at their own Sequence or below. Dunn chooses this option for teammates who died without losing control, allowing their powers and dream presences to accompany him. At the time of the Madam Sharon case, the accumulation makes his dream abilities close to Sequence 6 and supports feats beyond an ordinary Nightmare. (Chapter 207)

This is neither conventional advancement nor a cost-free memorial. Multiple same-pathway characteristics intensify his existing powers but make full digestion harder, and adding Kenley's characteristic while grieving interrupts his current progress. Characteristics from teammates who lost control are treated differently because their remains may be corrupted and must be sealed or handled away from the team. Dunn also acknowledges the ethical ambiguity: his dead partners did not explicitly choose this continued union. The practice helps him protect Tingen and later empowers the Saint's urn through his own heart, but it leaves him less stable when the final crisis arrives. (Chapters 165, 170, 201–210)

Leadership, firearms, and occult procedure

Dunn is an experienced investigator and field commander rather than only a dream specialist. He plans layered operations, selects personnel whose pathways counter the target, establishes time limits for backup, handles Sealed Artifact custody, uses custom revolvers and demon-hunting bullets, and can recognize when an apparently mundane case requires supernatural containment. His reports and explanations give Klein a practical education in how official Beyonders preserve evidence and secrecy while minimizing civilian exposure. These skills are learned professional competencies; the Nightmare potion enhances intuition and nighttime performance but does not automatically supply every protocol or tactical judgment. (Chapters 12–19, 70–81, 122–136, and 193–201)

His failures establish the limits of that experience. Ince's Quill can steer plausible circumstances without Dunn recognizing the author, information hidden by Church clearance leaves him unable to diagnose every risk, and grief or disrupted digestion can make a normally sound plan omit a decisive factor. The Megose crisis is the clearest example: taking Saint Selena's urn out is an error, but Dunn can still recognize the consequence, reorganize the defense, and give Klein and Leonard exact instructions under extreme pressure. His leadership does not prevent mistakes; it determines what he does after other lives depend on correcting them. (Chapters 202–210)

Relationships

  • Klein Moretti: Dunn investigates, recruits, protects, and trains Klein, giving him his first model of a supernatural guardian. Dunn's death converts Klein's membership in the Nighthawks into a lasting moral inheritance and a personal debt against Ince Zangwill.
  • Leonard Mitchell: A veteran subordinate whom Dunn trusts with dangerous field work and the final defense of Blackthorn. Leonard survives the destruction, carries guilt for being unable to save his captain, and later joins Klein in avenging him.
  • Old Neil: Dunn's colleague of roughly fifteen years. He goes to Neil's home hoping to stabilize him, but must kill him after the Hidden Sage's corruption has produced irreversible loss of control.
  • Daly Simone: A fellow Nighthawk and confidante with whom Dunn discusses pathways, digestion, and the handling of deceased Beyonders. Their unspoken affection is fulfilled only symbolically when Klein later gives the dying Daly Dunn's form for a final dance.
  • Rozanne: The daughter of Dunn's fallen teammate Adelaide and a civilian member of his Tingen office. Dunn's increasing resemblance to her father reflects the characteristics and memories he carries as well as his protective responsibility toward her.
  • Ince Zangwill: The former archbishop who uses the Quill to corrupt Dunn, worsen his mistakes, and arrange his death so Saint Selena's ashes can be stolen. Dunn never learns the full conspiracy before dying.
  • Amanises: Dunn serves her Church and draws Nightmare power, rituals, and sacred tools from the Evernight tradition. His faith gives him a framework for guardianship without protecting him from every corruption or guaranteeing rescue.

Items

  • Saint Selena's urn and ashes: A Church holy relic normally kept behind Tingen's Chanis Gate. Its darkness creates cold black threads capable of binding Megose, but the divine spawn can suppress them until Dunn places his own heart in the urn. Ince steals the weakened ashes after Dunn's death; Dunn never owns the relic personally. (Chapters 205–212)
  • Sealed Artifact 2-049: An Antigonus-family puppet used to locate and restrain descendants of its bloodline. Dunn has operational custody during the Ray Bieber mission, where its effects and limitations help the team recover the notebook; the artifact is not a source of his Nightmare abilities. (Chapters 70–79)
  • Spirit Medium Mirror, 3-0271: A dangerous mirror issued for the arrest of Madam Sharon. Dunn gives it to Kenley as part of a reasonable plan, but reflected self-contact activates its lethal effect and contributes to Kenley's death. (Chapters 196–201)
  • Peaceful Hair Strands, 3-0611: A Sealed Artifact that removes desire and emotion through direct contact. Dunn uses it to stop Old Neil's corrupted body after Nightmare control fails, allowing a fatal shot before the transformation can engulf the team. (Chapters 163–165)
  • Mutated Sun Sacred Emblem, 3-0782: Dunn requisitions and carries this Sun-domain artifact during the Lamud Castle mission. Its fifteen-meter purification field dissolves the wraith he traps in a dream, but exposure limits force the team to rotate custody and keep civilians away. (Chapters 133–139)
  • Custom revolver and demon-hunting ammunition: Dunn's standard physical weapons. They complement his darkness-enhanced combat and dream control but remain insufficient against incorporeal or divine targets without specialized charms, relics, or coordinated pathway powers. (Chapters 70–79 and 122–136)
  • Quill of Alzuhod: Never possessed by Dunn. Ince uses it to arrange plausible coincidences around the Antigonus notebook, Dunn's corruption, Kenley's death, Megose's arrival, and the theft of Saint Selena's ashes. (Chapters 210 and 942–946)