Nigel turned slightly to look to where the Hunter had nodded, picking up on his desire to keep things on the down-low. The woman outside seemed harmless enough but that context he now looked at her in made him doubt his own perception. To keep things from looking too suspicious and wanting to find out a little more about the man in front of him, Nigel turned back to inquire, a bit louder in case whoever Torquil wished to keep out of the loop was listening in.

"I'd like to apologize in advance for my lack of tact with this question but is your-" Nigel motioned a hand around his own mouth before returning it to his side "...alright?" Nigel asked. He hadn't noticed the odd movement of the man's jaw until the second word 'Saint' was muttered to him. The mountain of a man was unwilling to believe for the moment that it was a permanent affliction though this was more so just to save face in his own mind. If that was true, the marquis would feel like the fool for his previous comment. Manners make the man but Nigel knew deep down somewhere that it was unfair and hurtful to be made the fool of for one's physical differences, his eyes briefly glancing down to his own large frame before regaining eye contact.

Torquil closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath to control his emotions, though his reason for doing so surprised him. It was not that he was embarrassed by the distress or humiliation of not being able to communicate properly, even though he could form sentences just fine in his mind, but rather that he felt an unexpected and – he thought, as far as his limited retained memories allowed him to surmise – foreign sense of smoldering murderous rage building within him. Something inside him was not how it used to be; though Torquil was fairly certain that the beast-man in the back room had been the first human, or human-adjacent, thing he had ever killed, this nebulous something in him wanted him to attack and kill this man, too.
Luckily Torquil was (and assumed he had always been) a very patient person who was well-versed in showing restraint, so doing so was not all that difficult. It was still concerning, but at least it was controllable. Probably a consequence of becoming a Hunter.

“Don't remember,*” Torquil slurred, sighing to himself as he tried to carefully formulate himself in a way that could actually be expressed despite hims limited ability to speak. “Jaw... wrong. Long ago. Don't speak well.**”
Glancing over at Victor, who was apparently still rummaging through the rubble over there, albeit more hurriedly than before, Torquil decided that it was probably a good idea to change the topic to something potentially more productive. He halfway extended his right arm, using the hatchet in his right hand to point at the other message from the little men, over by the strange blue lantern.
“Read.”

(What Torquil actually sounded like:
*“Dohn 'member.”
**“Hiaw... ruhg. Lohg ahgo. Dohn speech well.”)

Nigel gave a simple nod before moving away from the loose-jawed man and towards the tiny creatures holding yet another message. Nigel could almost feel the tension coming from the other hunter and figured he should take any excuse to remove himself from the interaction. Tonight was not one marked by good first impressions but he hoped things would take a turn for the better; someway, somehow. On his way over, Nigel's gaze was drawn to the other hunter's rummaging and the chest they had exhumed. Perhaps they would be more open to chatting though with the amount of blood covering them Nigel wasn't sure he had the stomach for it at the moment. Vials were one thing but blood drenched garb was another.

Crouching down, Nigel read over the message and once more did not understand what exactly it meant. He briefly considered asking his new friend about this message but decided against it. Instead Nigel decided to follow the advice of the message and look at the odd looking lantern that was held aloft from the ground in front of him. Tonight was a strange night for sure but Nigel was counting his blessings that it had at least been a safe one thus far though a part of him itched for a bit of action.

When Nigel turned his attention towards the lantern after reading the message, Torquil grew restless over by the door, weighing the warning he had received from Marcus when Torquil had looked into the lantern himself against his curiosity as to what this mysterious device could be, as well as an explanation for the messages being delivered to them by the Messengers. He did not say anything, however, and Victor – his back still turned – did not seem to notice.

Looking directly into the lantern from up close, the blue light flowing from the lantern seemed to gradually expand from it, filling more and more of his field of vision as if it was rapidly erasing the world around him. At the same time Nigel would feel an unusual calm settling over him, all of his pain and worries fading into the background. He also felt drowsy.
Nigel would likely have little doubt from these feelings that looking into the lantern for even just a couple of seconds would almost certainly make him fall asleep. He could probably tear his gaze from the lantern if he wanted, but it had to be now; another second, and the hypnotic glow would envelop him completely.

Morgaine awoke with a gasp, a deep breath of air reminding her now-stirring form that it was not yet dead. Her eyes still closed to the world, she spent the next few moments re-learning to breathe, slowly, steadily. She had not died there, at least she didn't think she did. However, she had fallen into a void of sleep so deep she may as well have been. With an arm that almost creaked with the strain, she pulled her hand up to grasp her head. Yes, her tangled hair was still there, its bun having come loose somehow. It did not matter how, that can always be fixed later, when her strength returns. Behind her hair . . . the reassuring feel of cloth. Without looking, she could tell its colour, and the familiar weight upon her back. How fortunate that she hadn't lost her greatest protection. Well, nothing left to do but open her eyes.

When at last she did, Morgaine wished she had kept them closed. A nightmare, that was the most succinct word for it. Blood and guts lay scattered about the floor, staining the wood reddish brown. Worse still were the creatures, scuttling about her like maggots on a corpse. She was not a corpse! With a half-asleep swipe, she slapped a few off of her body, and they dropped with a low chortle into the ground, passing through it like air. Was the ground itself but an illusion? Feeling was coming back now, as she stretched her fingers on the other hand. Grasping the sides of the bed firmly, she arose into a sitting position, to take stock of her surroundings.

The room was large, and sparsely adorned. It reminded her more of a wartime field hospital. People in rows, columns, some clearly dead, some who appear undamaged. Some she doubted severely were human at all, with their strange veiny appearance and pallid complexion. One most disturbingly not human at all, or at least not completely. A vaguely mannish body with otherwise-comical dimensions, long wide palms that ended in claws, attached to spindly arms covered in an animal's hair. A portruding jaw that housed rows of jagged round teeth. A demon, straight from a fairy tale.

"Well go'on then, ye," she half-whispered, to herself. "Can't be sitting around forever." She then pushed herself off of her cot, her legs hanging off hitting the ground with a clean tap. So, this is how a hunter's life begins.

Though the Messengers did indeed retreat upon Morgraine attempting to remove them, she found that her hand met none of the expected resistance upon supposedly colliding with the little creatures, but rather passed through them as if they were but air. Similarly she might have realized that though some of the Messengers appeared to be awkwardly groping or even trying to climb on top of her, she felt no weight or touch from their presence.
One of the Messengers clapped its hands excitedly rather than vanish into the floor, though its applause was bizarrely silent. All around her more Messengers, most of which had been crowding around the other sleeping people in the room prior to her awakening, turned their inhuman and strangely unique-looking faces – no two Messengers seemed entirely alike – towards her, as if staring at her with great interest. Several of them from around the room delved into the floor, like the ones she had just chased away, only for Messengers that looked exactly like them to emerge next to her. They held up their hands toward her or clutched them to their chests, their demeanor strangely affectionate and submissive, almost worshipful.

But a moment later another two Messengers appeared in a clear spot on the floor, but a few feet in front of Morgraine, holding a rolled-up scroll between them as they faced her, clearly trying to get her attention.

"What's this then?" Morgaine asks the strange little creatures, they're crawling toward her in a mass, each doing their part to lift a portion of what must be an incredibly heavy sheet of paper for them. She was tempted to simply grab it and read it, but stopped. Remember, must always remember. She reached up to her hood and pulled it over her head, a movement reported by the clinking of charms. The hood focuses the mind and blocks out lies. Then, at last, she leaned over, grabbing at the paper at first, but finding it as similarly incorporeal as the creatures themselves. Groaning, she finally decides to crouch and read the paper as it is presented mere finger-lengths above the ground.

"Companionship," Morgaine mutters. She had borne a habit of whispering along the words as she read. Reading for her, as for most in her home, was not a near-instinctual skill, as it seemed to be for many in the more urban Yharnam. To be able to read letters and divine their meaning in a single glance was a marvel to her, as if they were hearing the words said to them as they read. "Companionship," she said again, looking incredulously around her. Standing back up to her full height, she could survey the chamber again with more clarity. It was as she had first seen; everyone here seems to be either dead, near dead, or passed out. "Well, this best be worth the time." Stumbling a bit, she manages with the help of leaning on the other patients' beds to manoeuvre herself to the far end of the room, near to the door leading out.

Finally, her motor skills were returning to her. She began practicing for a few minutes, taking slow, jittery steps without assistance by her hands. Those transitioned in a few moments to confident walking steps. Her arms came next, a few stretching exercises and wiggling her fingers until they felt somewhat responsive. Then, the moment of truth, as she laid a hand on the door and pushed. It didn't respond, until she realized with a little embarrassment that it opened inwards via use of the doorknob. Strange, where had she come to the idea of pushing on it? "Well, one mustn't allow companionship to wait. So long, creatures," she said, mostly to herself, before finally opening the door and stepping through.

Upon traversing the doorway, left empty after the shattering of the door, between the back room and reception of the clinic, Morgraine was once again greeted by a destroyed room. Furniture knocked over and smashed in rage left pieces of wood and glass all over, while to her left she would see the corpse of a normal-seeming man, his torso cleaved halfway through diagonally. Past the corpse was another, lying in a disproportionately large puddle of blood; a humanoid that appeared dried up, almost mummified, and distorted in a way that was entirely different from how signs of the scourge of beasts manifested themselves.

Immediately in front of her and to her right stood a man with his back halfway to her, a hatchet held low and loosely in his right hand; a bit on the short side but fairly stout, Torquil was staring towards the center of the room. Next to Torquil was another pair of Messengers with another piece of parchment, though the man did not appear interested in them for now.
On the opposite side of the room, to the right of the only door that seemed to lead to the outside, stood a young woman in the garb of the Healing Church; Adelicia, and a little ways to the left of that door and towards the center of the room (E2) sat an utterly and thoroughly blood-soaked man in what was faintly recognizable as another church garb, though this one armed with a much more remarkable weapon; though the small sword resting on the floor beside him might have seemed somewhat ordinary, the absurdly huge blade-scabbard he wore on his back marked it as almost certainly being the weapon of a Hunter, as no ordinary man would have been able to wield such a massive hunk of metal. Victor had his back fully turned and seemed occupied by an ornate box he handling.
In the center of the room, finally, she would be met by a quite strange sight. Sticking bizarrely out of the floor was an unusually long, seemingly rigid skeletal arm, the hand of which held a lantern that bathed the surrounding area in a soft, blue light. A third man, this one unusually large man in dirty, but well-made clothes; Nigel seemed to be staring into the lantern. A little to the left of the lantern from Morgraine's perspective was yet another pair of Messengers with another scroll.

Another instant passed, and as Nigel felt the calming light enshroud his consciousness entirely, he felt himself fall asleep... and as he did, Torquil let out a surprised yelp and Nigel's slowly slumping form seemed to suddenly lose opacity before fading from sight entirely, leaving not even a shadow in his place.

---

Nigel senses a power inside him stir, as if pushing the world around him.


Strangely Nigel, rather than experiencing a state of sleep, immediately transitioned from falling asleep to waking up... only when he awoke, he found himself slouching in an entirely new and different place than before. He found himself on an old, rough-looking cobbled path flanked by shrubs and weeds, among which stood scattered, disorderly and mismatched gravestones all over, intermingled with a few mostly leafless trees.
To his right, past a tall, wrought-iron fence was a single, massive tree, the leafless branches of which spanned the area around it imposingly beside a lone house sitting atop the sloped landscape on Nigel's side of the fence, where the path seemed to lead, transitioning to a set of stone stairs to reach its front door, with unusually large, flat and relatively similar-looking gravestones arranged to the right of the stair, each on its own small alter-like platform without raising it beyond reach.
At the foot of the stairs and to the right of the path was a birdbath, which appeared to be overflowing not with water, but with Messengers.
Trying to look to the distance somewhat broke the seeming normalcy of this place, however, as beyond the limits of this cozy little cemetery the ground seemed to simply fall away, instead opening up into a vast span of nothing but mist or clouds that stretched as far as the horizon and beyond. The only indication that there was something below this cover of clouds was strange pillars in the distance, rising far into the sky, and much smaller, jutting wooden poles below and among them, like the masts of sunken ships in shallow waters.

Just ahead of him were two figures right on the path he found himself on, both facing him as if expecting his arrival. One might have appeared to be a tall, beautiful woman in fine, almost noble-looking clothes, with perfect white skin like porcelain... except another glance might reveal that her seeming perfection owed to the fact that she was, in fact, a doll, though an animate, seemingly living one such. She had a submissive stance, her hands folded over her stomach and the gaze under her cute little hat downcast.
Beside her sat the second figure in an old, worn wheelchair, apparently reading a book, though whether this was truly what they were doing would be hard to determine. The figure was clad in a full set of the traditional Hunter's garb, only with the addition of a blindfold that naturally covered their eyes.

Then the atmosphere seemed to change, the air literally coming to rapidly feel thicker and heavier, and the soft white moonlight that bathed the cemetery grew rapidly darker, prompting both the doll and the person in the wheelchair to look up at the sky, their demeanor surprised.
And indeed, the beautiful star-strewn sky above with the remarkably pristine full moon was being subjected to a quite unusual phenomenon. From a spot up there – a spot directly above Nigel – there seemed to rapidly spread huge, swirling masses of black clouds that swiftly grew to encompass the entire visible sky, casting the area in darkness.
Next came the familiar sound of sudden rainfall, along with the sensation of Nigel himself being rained upon with large, heavy droplets... only, it would probably not take long to realize the strong red coloration of this “rain”, or to recognize the smell, and realize that it was actually raining blood.

“Good Hunter,” the doll said softly, breathlessly, as she stared incredulously at this sudden change in weather, “I have never sensed something like this before. We welcome you to the Hunter's Dream, but... pardon my confusion. This is new.”

Nigel sat in awe of where he now found himself. One minute he was in the clinic and the next he woke up in a much more foreboding land. Just as he was beginning to get accustomed to his current surroundings in the clinic, he wakes up just to start the process of relearning once more. If not for the smell of the substance raining down on him Nigel may have continued his shocked silence. It hadn't really clicked in the clinic, his senses having been dulled from his deep sleep, but he could now take in the smell of the 'rain' much better and, to Nigel's internal disgust, in a more positive light.

Nigel turned his attention more sharply to the duo in front of him. With the spectacle of a setting he now found himself in Nigel had more or less made the two figures blend into the background of the normal-ish looking house.

"Quite alright. This is all new to me as well." the Goliath said, finally getting to his feet "I hate to intrude but would you mind if we continued this conversation inside? Blood is terribly hard to get out of clothing."

Truth be told Nigel more so wanted to get out of the 'rain' to avoid the draw he felt to it. Like a siren's song to a sailor, Nigel felt the call of the blood and for the moment he wanted to keep it at arms length.

Was Morgaine supposed to feel fear? There was a time, perhaps, wherein that would be the case. Watching a man simply disappear from in front of her, transmuting into nothing but air. However, her instincts have strangely . . . changed, since she woke up mere moments ago on that hospital bed. All she could feel was a mild curiosity as to where that man disappeared off to. In fact, the lantern itself was to her mind almost a familiar thing, like she knew how it functioned, vaguely, on an instinctual level. It gave off a bluish glow, which strangely seemed more a warm colour than cold. Almost as if to beckon wanderers and strange souls to its side, where they may rest easy.

Surrounding the lantern was a second room similar to the one she woke up in, but livelier by far. Unlike the first room, some people were awake, albeit huddled silently in their own respective corners, small and mute and closed off. Some bore the distinct signature of hunters, that being weapons. Well, in that case, she was in good enough company. Morgaine, after all, was now a hunter herself. There is a contract somewhere that says as much, though when she tries to envision herself signing it with that church man, her memory fogs over and details become difficult to pluck out. Was he a blind man, wrapped in bandages from the nose up? Was she a handsome woman with an oblong face, grim and wrinkled as a nun ought be? Was it a red-furred beast, enveloped in flame and sorrow? Everything is mere figments and shapes before her awakening.

"Oi. Top the morning," she says, breaking the silence in the room. They were hunters, these supposed companions, but didn't seem like they'd simply up and slaughter her where she stood. It was good to get the greetings out of the way now. The men of her village never hunted alone, and if she had any wits about her, neither would she. If she was going to leave her life in the hands of these strangers, she ought know their names at the very least.

There was a pause after Nigel had spoken, with the living doll lowering her gaze from the sky to look at the figure in the wheelchair, who kept their face turned skyward for another couple of seconds. Only when the character lowered their head once more and closed the book in their lap – revealing a cover with big, gilded lettering across the front announcing its title as “How to pick up fair maidens” – did the doll look back to Nigel.
“Of course, good Hunter,” she remarked, moving just her right hand from its place on her stomach to gesture for him to approach the house while simultaneously bowing her head to him in reverence. “We expect more to arrive shortly, but finding their way to the workshop should be simple for them. We can tour the Dream later.”
Beside her, the figure nonchalantly stood up from the wheelchair, their posture neutral and confident rather than submissive as the doll, and simply nodded at Nigel before ascending the stairs toward the building atop the slope with remarkably silent footfalls, completely undetectable past the sound of the rain.

---

When Morgraine spoke up, Torquil – standing just a few feet from her and already shocked by the sight of Nigel seemingly vanishing from existence – actually jumped in surprise, stumbling away from her and nearly falling over bits of the smashed remains of a chair, his hatchet held up defensively. He spluttered something unintelligible, made even more so by his inability to properly move his jaw, while looking frantically from Morgraine to the lantern.

At the same time, Victor turned his head from his crouched position – having witnessed none of what the others had just seen, since his back had been turned – and briefly glanced at Morgraine before letting his eyes start rapidly shifting around the room once more, obsessively trying to take in every single detail of the environment while at the same time avoiding eye-contact with anyone.
“Oh, another one,” he grumbled, looking momentarily from Morgraine to Torquil, then scanned the room one more time before narrowing his eyes. “Where did the big guy go?”

"Don't go standing up on my account," Morgaine said dryly, reaching out with a hand towards the fallen Torquil. "I'm no abbess. A noble lady neither. You?" Her other hand went to the brim of her hood, pulling it ever so slightly further down on her face, similar almost to the tipping of a cap. "Let me help you up." The other man said something she didn't quite catch, but she did hear the question that followed. She glanced back at him, then into the lantern, for a few moments longer than she would have if it didn't give off that intoxicatingly welcome glow.

"He jumped into the lantern, looks just about like," she said. "Fell asleep right there and disappeared right in front of me. I couldn't tell you how." Her eye was pulled back to the weapons that hung off these two men. A hatchet on the downed fellow, not much to say about that. Fit neatly in the hand, and likely wouldn't be much trouble to swing. The other man had something more dangerous on him; a big sword, something that looked like it could cut a straight line through beasts without stopping. "Well, don't be looking at me. I don't suppose the either of you have seen a man just vanish like that?"

Great, another chatty one, Victor thought sarcastically, standing up with the ornate box still held in his left hand and turning toward the newcomer fully. She was a strange one. She had clearly come to Yharnam anticipating becoming a Hunter, given her choice of garb, yet she also seemed to have decorated herself with all sorts of curios that were quite out of place on a Hunter. She was brash, blunt and prone to sarcasm, yet strangely polite and cooperative. There were a lot of contradictions in her, which both annoyed and intrigued Victor.
Watching the female Hunter help Torquil – who mumbled something that sounded vaguely grateful in return – back into a more proper stance, Victor took his time to examine her form closely, noting how small she was and how she had emerged from the back room without arming herself. Hardly seemed like the stuff good Hunters were made of; small fighters might be harder to hit and better able to get to vulnerable spots on their opponents, which could be dangerous out in the world, but here? In Yharnam, where nearly everyone had received blood-treatment and could regenerate almost any wound, all that mattered was doing as much damage as possible and making your enemy bleed. Sure, he had seen Hunters with flimsy weapons, like threaded canes, take down beasts, but only through continuously putting themselves in harm's way to inflict one small cut after another until the creature finally succumbed.
Well, it undeniably worked, but it just did not make sense to him. Why take the risk of having to attack over and over again when you could pick up the biggest, most devastating weapon around and hopefully finish the fight in one hit?

Only once the woman spoke to him again did Victor's attention refocus on her, his prior musings forgotten as he immediately realized two things: this Hunter was special, too, since she could see the damned lantern the others had talked about earlier; and he had failed. One of these new Hunters, these temporarily ignorant special Hunters, had somehow managed to find a way to untraceably evade him by, presumably, teleportation. He had heard that special Hunters could do that, but he had no idea that it was so easy that even freshly turned ones could manage to do it.
Fell asleep, she said? Victor had heard that these immortal Hunters vanished when “killed,” only to inevitably show up again somewhere else. Maybe this vanishing also applied to other states of unconsciousness, like sleep? If that was the case, he needed to get these remaining Hunters to the Cathedral Ward as quickly as possible, before they had time to learn the extent of the true power they possessed.

“I have, actually,” Victor replied to her final question, making a considerable effort to stop himself from smirking over the fact that he could make that claim truthfully. “I came here with another Hunter who was taken by some huge and invisible monster, just outside this building. It picked him off the ground and he disappeared without a trace.”
He was pretty sure that the two instances of Hunters vanishing were not comparable, as such, but these people did not need to know that. What had happened to Raine was undeniably terrifying, and it was better if the remaining Hunters were discouraged from trying to follow the missing one's example.
“This lantern you speak of,” he added after another moment, “is also invisible. To most, at least. It seems all of you are rare, special Hunters and can see things the rest of us can't. Stay away from it; we've wasted enough time already. We should get moving.”

"Right. Moving, eh?" Morgaine said, glancing between the two men. They both cut quite distinct figures, those two. Both looked to be in their middle ages, and covered in battle scars to boot. They must have seen quite a few hunts, then, judging by that. Elsewise, the two were like night and day. One was short, indeed barely taller than she was, with a face covered in a mess of black hair. A common man, by the way he was dressed and armed. He seemed kind enough, though she couldn't make heads or tails of what he was saying. The other was a tower of a man, looking straight down at her from his perch perhaps miles above. His facial hair was certainly well kept, brown rather than black and arranged into neat patterns like highborn girls would do with their hair. The rest was hidden behind a big stark white hood, and indeed his entire outfit reflected that blinding-silk aesthetic, not unlike those giant lumbering creatures that trot about these Yharnam streets, dragging axes easily twice her own length. Mayhaps this man here was almost one of them, but something went awry.

The lantern called to her silently, with its twisting rays of light that envelop. It granted her visions of a restful garden, swathed in peaceful white dreams and a grey overcast above. Mere moments, shards of images, but they implanted themselves deep within her. She almost shuddered at the sudden fear she had for the thing. It'll suck her right in before long, that thing. Like the other man. He'll be dead, most like, trapped within the lantern's little world. Her off hand fondled one of the charms hanging by her half-cape, one that warded against restraints. This'll not be her trap as well. The quicker they're out on the streets, the safer she'll be.

"Well, I'm ready if you two are. What do you say?" Morgaine finally said, giving the shorter man a look. "And them? Err . . . her?" she continued, finally taking notice of the woman minding her own business. A churchwoman, there's no doubt about it, the way she was dressed almost identical to the tall man. Wrapped up in her own reality, she was, not even taking notice of Morgaine as she had entered. "She a hunter too? Lead us all on if you please, churchman."

Glancing sullenly at Adelicia, seeming rather dissatisfied with her presence, Victor shook his blood-soaked head.
“Her name is Adelicia. She's...” He looked around in a decidedly aggressive manner for a moment, as if daring anyone to interrupt him. “She's a blood saint. I'm Victor, and I am a Hunter. I escorted her here so she could give you 'her blessing', but that was before they called a Night of the Hunt. If you want some of her blood, just ask. First stop is going to be getting her to the nearest shelter, then I'm going straight to the Cathedral Ward.”
He paused for a moment before nodding at Torquil, who seemed to have gotten distracted from the conversation and was now staring at the lantern with fascination. “The mumbling imbecile over there said his name was Torquil. He's freshly turned, like you.”

Having said that, Victor turned around and, tugging the box he was holding under his left arm, moved to exit the reception and head outside. Adelicia hesitantly followed.

"Out we go. Following?" Morgaine called out to Torquil. He stared worshipfully upon the lantern, reduced to little more than a stupor. "Hey," Morgaine said, trotting up behind him and laying a hand on his shoulder. "The old lamp'll be here come the day." That was as much as she can do for the poor fellow, if he can't snap out of that lamp's mesmerizing influence. If he stays much longer, he'll disappear too before too long, she reckoned. Like that other man, whose features she could barely get a glimpse of before he was gone. She turned and followed the church servants outside, but not before laying a hand on her heart and the other on the door. Touch the door before emerging into open air. Some gates are an illusion, and some doors are made of air, after all. A door must be solid to protect those housed within. Satisfied with her little ritual, she shrugged and walked out.

Yharnam was chilly, oddly so for a city so filled with fire. The cold feels almost malevolent, sapping at the heat and making the dots of flame in the distance flicker and weaken. A faint mist obscures the upper limits of the skyline, making the spires look as if they're somehow disconnected from the ground. Indeed, the dimensions of the entire city feel off somehow. Too gaunt, too lanky, if those words could even apply to building edifices. Grey bricks line the streets in big, uniform blocks, and Morgaine's country boots clop merrily over them with the sound of horse's hooves. Mayhaps on a sunny midday this place might even look beautiful, but everything about it screamed intimidation. What better place for the powerful Healing Church to seat its authority?

Morgaine continued to practice her motor skills. Walking she had almost gotten down, back to before the awakening. Jogging was a little awkward, catching up to the two church folk, but seemed natural enough on these uneven brick roads. Her arms were also just about ready to cooperate, though her fingers still felt a little stiff. She wouldn't be doing much in the way of needlework in this state.

"Lovely night we're having," Morgaine said, approaching Adelicia from behind and hoping she doesn't jump. "Brisk is the word. Better than rain at the very least."

“Following? Hey, the lamp'll be there come the day.”
Torquil looked slowly from the woman's face to the hand on his shoulder, to the door leading to the outside, past which Victor would lead them to the Cathedral Ward. But even when the most recently awakened Hunter turned to follow their church-ordained guide, Torquil remained rooted in place, struggling with an internal conflict that felt as though it was on the verge of tearing him apart.

“The lantern'll be there come the day,” the female Hunter had said, as though it was purely curiosity driving him, which could not be further from the truth. Torquil was, at his core, a fairly unimaginative person and was mostly unburdened by things like inquisitiveness and the desire to explore. It was probably a big part of why he so readily accepted the loss of his memories and his new role in life: he did not have the ability nor the desire to imagine what his life might have been like before, nor to conjure up alternatives for what his new life was to be used for. His past was gone? Fine, it was not as though he was using it for anything. He was a Hunter employed by the Healing Church now? Sure. Then that was what he was. He did not second-guess or deliberate over things he had no ability or reason to change. In that respect Victor might have been right: Torquil might actually be considered a simple person. He was content with what he knew and how things were. Simple.
But he was not stupid, nor incapable of making basic logical deductions. Victor could not see the lantern nor the little men, which meant that both of these entities were probably unrelated to him entirely, making them separate actors. Victor wanted them to follow him to the headquarters of the Healing Church to be briefed, armed and resupplied; this was logical. Strategically sound. Conductive of survival on a “Night of the Hunt” such as this.
But Victor was also not there for their sake; he was just here as an escort for the blood saint and had stressed, right from the start, how indifferent he was concerning the rest of them. Rats, just a moment ago he had called Torquil a “mumbling imbecile”! They had found him laying in a pool of blood, on the verge of death, and had saved him by using a blood vial on him... a blood vial that they had only found in time because of the little men.
And the little men... they were an enigma, which had initially caused Torquil to treat them as a potential threat, but since then he had had time to observe them. Though inhuman and scary-looking, they seemed to treat the sleeping Hunters with equal parts curiosity and affection, and though occasionally rude they had always seemed to try to show the Hunters things that were useful. Trapped in the back room, the little men had had insisted that they try to break out, before the clinic had come under attack. Later, when they had decided they needed to find the key for the front door, the little men had immediately endeavored to show them where the key was hidden, along with the location of even more blood vials.
They were the ones that had insisted on the Hunters to examine the lantern, and they had been the ones that had shown him how to light it. They had warned against the blood saint, the blood of which Victor kept trying to offer them, and they had promised that the lantern would offer “safe haven in the Hunter's Dream.” Following Victor towards a safety he knew existed was the logical, obvious choice, and thus the one Torquil would have normally picked without a second thought... but the little men had done nothing but proving themselves helpful and trustworthy. The lantern was an uncertain safety, an unknown; picking it was not logical. It was a decision made on a basis of faith.

Torquil turned fully towards the lantern. Uncertainty. The lantern appeared to actually take them somewhere; the disappearance of the large man was evidence of that much, but they had only the word – which, though it was a word they had no reason not to believe, was still only a word – of the little men that it lead to safety. The other side could be anything. It could be dangerous. A trap.
The big man had gone through it.
He could be in danger.
If Torquil went with Victor, they would travel to the Cathedral Ward. Known. But the big man would be left alone, possibly in danger, possibly unable to return. Possibly safe. Unknown. If Torquil went, he would either rejoin the big man and be there to save him, or he would rejoin him and be safe in the haven promised by the little men.

Stepping forward with determined strides, Torquil approached the lantern, his eyes locked on its glowing form. He clutched the hatchet in his right hand, licked his lips. The little men at the base of the lantern-wielding skeletal arm beckoned him closer, eagerly invited him to traverse its light. He continued closer.
Only once he had gotten so close that he could reach out and touch the lantern if he so desired did Torquil feel had he had felt earlier, the first time he had stared at the lantern; the embrace of the light, the assailing drowsiness. It was quick, yet felt gentle.
And then Torquil, too, vanished from the Hunter's clinic.

---

Torquil senses a power inside him stir, shrouding his being before dispersing.


Torquil immediately reawakened in a new, strange place, where he immediately registered several things:
The world seemed to be covered in blood, despite it raining.
There were two figures ahead of him, a woman and a Hunter of indeterminate sex, moving towards a house atop a stairway before him.
The big man was right next to him.
And Torquil's hatchet was gone.

Arcturus remained rather quiet through the continued interactions between the other hunters. He was pensive, dwelling in his own thoughts and electing to listen rather than speak. There was indeed a lot to think about. Such as Victor's suggestion that whoever ran the clinic had wanted to study them, that their special transformation had been expected even. What about those patients who had black veins? Was that expected too? The result of some experiment? Then there were the notes on the floor, eagerly rolled out and presented with a sense of urgency by the ephemeral little men. He had yet to read the second message, but the short exchange between the other two new hunters did not escape his attention. "Saint," the one with the unhinged jaw had said. That poor girl in the doorway, Adelica. Whatever had been written was apparently in reference to her.

Without the immediate means to address such matters, however, Arcturus soon turned his focus back to searching the clinic for his contract. Perhaps there might be some drawer hidden away amidst the blood spattered mess, within which he might find what he was looking for. Something that would remind him what exactly he'd agreed to in exchange for a future. With a methodical focus he made his way around the reception, inspecting the contents of shelves and sifting through debris. If the contracts of the newly transfused hunters were indeed kept there, he hoped said records hadn't been torn or stained during the attack...

Occupied as he was with the reception's furniture, the tall young man was rather out of the way when yet another hunter emerged from the ruined doorway behind them. He heard her before he saw her, the chime of clinking trinkets announcing the diminutive woman's presence. Arcturus stood up straight as she announced herself, turning to look over his shoulder with an appraising gaze. Not much could be seen of the huntress from the angle he had. Her cloak saw to that. However that same cloak, and the attire which it accompanied, was quite curious in its own right. The many charms upon her clothing gave him the impression of a superstitious disposition, while her cloak itself looked better suited to life beyond city walls. Perhaps she was some sort of woodsman? Judging by her accent, she seemed foreign to Yharnam as well. Although unlike the imposing gentleman who had awoken not long ago, this huntress seemed already well adjusted to the situation she found herself in.

While he looked on, Arcturus idly set his sword down against a nearby piece of furniture, finally retrieving his gloves from his coat pocket. He began to pull them on, the fine burgundy leather fitting neatly over his slender fingers. The second glove was halfway onto his left hand by the time he noticed-

Where was that imposing gentleman?

It was Victor who called his attention to it. Someone that large couldn't just up and disappear. Only that's exactly what happened. The words of the ethereal message echoed in his head as the newly awakened huntress described it, how the large man had fallen asleep and vanished. Arcturus hadn't seen it himself, but an uncanny shiver ran down his spine as he imagined the scene.

“Glance calmly upon the lanterns pale gleam,
and find safe haven within the Hunter's Dream.”

His piercing blue eyes flicked between Victor, the woman, and the lantern as he listened. His hands were momentarily halted in the act of pulling a glove on. Finally he slipped his hand in the rest of the way, flexing his fingers in the tight leather while the church hunter recounted having witnessed an invisible horror outside the clinic. Another invisible thing able to make people just disappear. The thought was terrifying, and prompted Arcturus to cast a worried glance towards the exit. Towards where Lady Adelica sat, exposed to the open air behind her. It had become surprisingly easy to believe that such a monster could exist just beyond the walls of the relatively safe clinic.

Yet still Arcturus felt no danger from the lamp. At first thought it made sense to connect Victor's encounter with the disappearance of one of their comrades, but one look at the pale blue gleam made him doubt that logic. It seemed comfortable. A beacon heralding the supposed safe haven of a dream.

The room seemed to grow darker in the edges of his vision as Arcturus silently regarded the lantern. Where had that gentleman vanished to exactly? How could someone travel to a dream? Was he truly safe, or was Victor right? Was it simply a trap set by the mysterious predator supposedly outside? Like a silvery blue candle alight in the darkness it tugged at his curiosity, that pale flame inviting him to chase after it. Like the fond nostalgia of a long forgotten fantasy.

'Blessing.' The young man's surroundings came back into focus as mention of Adelica shocked him back to reality. How casually Victor spoke of offering her blood, even the green cloaked woman seeming unperturbed by the proposition. That was one concept he still hadn't acclimated to. One concept he didn't want to acclimate to. For all his talk of sainthood and blessings, the church hunter seemed to speak of his charge as if she were a resource. A glorified convoy for healing blood.

Was that where all the blood came from? Young women groomed into 'sainthood?'

Arcturus flashed a sympathetic glance in the girl's direction as he turned to retrieve his sword. It seemed the others were about to get moving, which meant he had to decide what he was going to do. Originally he had been set on following Victor to Cathedral Ward. It had seemed the obvious choice before the burly gentleman disappeared into the lantern. Now, however, he wasn't so sure. Torquil (so that's how his name is pronounced) was already staring into the lantern, even after the others had already begun to leave. Not to mention Arcturus still hadn't finished searching the clinic reception.

The young man mulled over his decision while he followed after the other three, heading for the door, before stopping right as he reached the exit. He took in a deep breath of the chilly outside air, his piercing blue eyes flitting down the empty cobblestone street beyond. It was then that an idea occurred to him.

"I'm going to stay behind." Arcturus decided out loud, finally speaking up again to announce his intent. His voice was clear, confident, displaying his foreign accent to the one hunter who hadn't heard it yet. "I'll fortify the clinic from the inside, then reinforce the others through the lantern in case they're in danger." He primarily addressed Victor as he spoke, an authoritative energy behind his voice now that he'd made up his mind. With a nod and a firm "I wish you luck!" he then backed away from the door so it could be closed and locked.

By the time he turned back around to regard the lamp and the gruesome sight it illuminated, Torquil had already disappeared. He was left alone in the ravaged clinic. Nothing but the sleeping, the dead, and the little to keep him company. What a night he had awoken to...

The churchfolk, in the end, seemed to Morgaine to be an incredibly antisocial bunch. Several times, Morgaine tried to make some light conversation with either, but all that speaking simply returned to silence. Did the good hunters of the Church not have weather, or engage in any pastimes? As they continued to walk in silence, the chill grew and grew, biting ever deeper into her garments. The hood and half-cloak, though a powerful ward against evil misfortune, was alas not so against the environment. The metal and stone trinkets within were of little help either, as they absorbed the merciless cold. If only she had thought to wear something more substantial than this thin white shirt and brown vest . . .

The awkward trio then stumbled upon row of homes etched into the Yharnam backdrop, many abandoned. Only one on the entire street had a lit censer, its deep red glow accentuated by the pungent smell of spice. Morgaine was glad to see it, the group having crossed over a lookout hanging over the infamous Old Yharnam. Its reputation followed it out of the city proper, bleeding into the countryside beyond. Everyone knew of this story, of how an entire urban quarter of people were consigned to flames in a desperate attempt to contain the beasthood curse. Little it did them, with the howling that followed the group as they passed. There were beasts down there, no doubt about it, roaming out in the open in packs, obviously fearing nothing from the activity of men. The burgundy light of the incense was almost merry in contrast with the sight. With a curt bark of orders, Victor had drawn his sword and stepped into the incensed building, leaving Morgaine to watch Adelicia.

"I don't suppose there'll be much to welcome us with in there," Morgaine began, to the near-mute Adelicia. "You think they'll host us, the people in this home? We are on Church business. Well, you are. At least a soup . . ." she trailed off, upon hearing the muffled sound of screams coming from within. Was it one beast, or two in there? Did beasts even make such a sound? The noises from within were almost human, how indistinguishable it was from the other side of the thick door. Yharnamites certainly knew something about structural building. They'd have to, with the curse that has fallen upon this wretched land. What hit her next was not the sight of anything, but the smell of something. Blood, thick and aromatic, struck her like the blast of a blunderbuss. That smell . . . so sweet and cloying, so desirable and mesmerizing. Morgaine couldn't believe it. She could almost taste the blood on her tongue, like a slice of fine fruit pie. It was invigorating and soothing all at once, and she needed the smell to keep coming ever more. Then, just as the sensation came, it passed, her head clearing again. What a strange thought. It was the smell of blood, is all. Tangy and sickening, as blood tended to be. Was it because the blood within was of a beast? Or was it that of man, that takes control of the mind and calls to spill more? Eventually, the man emerged, his white garb stained deep red.

"Now wait just a-" Morgaine began, but Victor immediately began trotting away, calling the two to follow. Adelicia fell in behind him without a word, and Morgaine could do nothing but the same, with a sigh. Onwards they went, pushing into the dimly lit evening streets, until they reached one of Yharnam's magnificent curiosities; the elevator. A large room suspended by a chain, centred around a large round button in the middle. Victor and Adelicia entered it without so much as a second thought, evidence of their Yharnam upbringing. Morgaine was not so inclined. It took a bit of hesitant prodding to goad her to follow, and at last, when the elevator began to ascend, she could do nothing but grip the bars surrounding them as they descended at a frightening pace.

At the bottom was quite the horrific sight. There was some sort of street battle here, involving a few agents of the Church and some beasts they had been unfortunate enough to encounter. Those mysterious white-skinned folk have an eerie look to them, hidden under their hoods and thick robes. Slumped over dead, they didn't look so different to how they were alive. One of them was a veritable giant, one of those agents that would shake the ground as they stamped. What horrific beast had the power to kill such a creature? The last of them was not an agent at all, but a human, garbed in the off-white of Adelicia and Victor. His weapon lays smashed a few steps away, unusable, and his torch has long been snuffed. Morgaine looked at the body, approaching it slowly, before finally mustering up the courage to grab him and flip him over. The spirit ascends upwards, and escapes through the eyes. Thus, the eyes must be faced up towards the open sky, lest they be trapped. She didn't need to see the judgemental glances she was being given by the other two members of the group. These Churchfolk, can't even treat a corpse right.

Morgaine and Victor left Adelicia at the next shelter. Probably more patients within, just waiting for their Saint's Blood treatment. Without Adelicia, Victor felt more comfortable going forward at a brisker pace, and Morgaine found herself well able to follow. Morgaine was not weak by any means; on the contrary, she was of abnormal strength in her village. However, even at a full near-run, she found she did not even become slightly winded. Is this the saint's blessing, this strength that fills her? The grand gates to Cathedral Ward loomed ahead within mere minutes, what would once have taken them perhaps half an hour to traverse. What awaited her beyond those gates, she couldn't even begin to guess.

Morgraine's attempts at conversation earned little more than impatient, sideways glances from Victor aside from the occasional noncommittal grunt when it felt appropriate, mostly ambiguous enough that it could be interpreted as whatever she had wanted to interpret it as. It was not that Hunters, or servants of the Healing Church in general, did not exist as people, spoke with each other or occupied themselves with other things than working, as Morgraine worried, but rather that Victor was on a mission... and it was a Night of the Hunt...
...and it was difficult to focus his attention on her, for some reason, and even more so for him to interact with, or even be in the presence of, Adelicia. He had not really been close to the blood saint since he had rushed into the Hunter's clinic, but now that they were traveling the streets of their fair city once more, he found her presence far more distracting than when they had traveled to the clinic. He had no idea why, but for some reason he could smell her, and she smelled delicious. It made his mouth water, just catching her scent on the wind, and he felt his heartbeat quicken whenever his ever-shifting eyes caught sight of her.
He wanted to think that he was feeling towards her, and to some extent Morgraine as well, was just the attraction of a soldier in the field near someone of female persuasion, and did so, willfully and intently ignoring the ever-growing gnawing sensation in his stomach and the burning desire for red meat that had become a primary driving force for him to return to the Cathedral Ward: to eat. He was hungry... so incredibly hungry...

Having locked the door to the clinic with the key discovered inside, Victor lit the censer beside the door, hoping it would dissuade further attacks on the clinic, and cursed inwardly at what he perceived as a failure on his part to convince more of these Hunters to come with him. Granted, his stated mission was simply to escort Adelicia to the clinic and back, but the fact that he had recognized the true nature of this batch of Hunters as being all of the rare, immortal variety, as well as the unspoken objective of using Adelicia's blood to get these immortals addicted and thus ensuring the church's power over them, meant that the true, secret purpose of his mission – one not even Victor himself had been informed about – had mostly failed. Even Morgraine, who was coming along, at least, had not accepted Adelicia's blood and thus eluded the control of the church.
But there would be a time and a place for that. He would have to try to talk to Dietrich when they got back, as surely the First Hunter would know what to do.

The first stop on their journey was the house Draco had mentioned, easily recognizable from its lit censer. These houses were not abandoned, as Morgraine assumed, but rather freshly erected structures to support the explosive expansion of Yharnam and simply not yet inhabited by any of the crowds of people migrating to the city of blood healing. This one house, Victor knew, was where the refugees Draco had been traveling with had gone to hide when they had approached the clinic... and, he had said, where those Yharnamites that had attacked the clinic, and who had tried to kill Victor, had fled.
Victor ignored most of the terrified people in there, at most gracing them with a shove to move them aside so he could continue his search for the culprits from earlier. It was a small house, so the search was brief, and he found the four assailants from before, still bearing the marks he had left on them during their fight, hiding in a closet. They screamed, tried warding him off with their arms, and pleaded for mercy with tear- and blood-streaked faces.
Victor, grumbling about how his clothes were already ruined, was perhaps more brutal in dispatching them than was strictly necessary. Just a bit, though. A smirk had crept its way onto his lips when he left the house again, his bloodlust somewhat sated. He did not envy the poor clods that were eventually moving in here; they would never get the blood off.


The sight of the bloodstains at the top of the elevator – quite a few of which were Victor's own blood – reminded the grizzled Hunter of how near death he had managed to come here, too, when the Mad One had ambushed him, Adelicia and Raine. He even recognized the lamppost he had punched in a fit of rage, and momentarily recalled the sensation of his bones breaking on impact and reassembling after.
They rode the elevator down to the bottom, only to find the giant he had left there earlier slain, along with several beasts and a Hunter of the white church. Once again Victor recalled what Draco had said, about how they had come under attack by an “insane Hunter,” and how their escort, Stefan, had been slain in the battle. The marks on the giants and beasts all looked to have been rent by claws, which meshed well with Draco's report that said hostile Hunter had had claws like a beast. Looking around now at all of this death and violence, Victor was in awe; this Hunter, whoever it was, had to be remarkably powerful. He has glad that they were no longer around, but also concerned as to what this Hunter, who had no qualms about slaying Hunters of the Healing Church, and who even seemed to be actively hunting them, would do next.

Victor's attention was drawn to the corpse of Stefan when Morgraine turned him over, glancing curiously at his slain colleague. His front was even worse than his back, it turned out; his face was beaten and bloody, his jaw clearly shattered and loose teeth swimming in half-coagulated blood in the back of his throat. The killing blow, most likely, had been the very conspicuous huge, gaping hole in Stefan's gut, with shredded intestines flopping out as he was turned. This was enough for Victor to raise an eyebrow, but little more, as even without Draco's testimony that a Hunter had been responsible for this carnage, that wound would have been enough to convince Victor: the result of a visceral attack, a Hunter-technique.
Rather than spare any glances at Morgraine, judgmental or not, Victor's attention remained on the corpse as he scurried over and quickly rifled through his pouches and pockets. As he had hoped, the church Hunter had a few supplies left for the taking, and he gleefully looted three blood vials and a couple of quicksilver bullets from the body.
“Sorry, meat,” he muttered under his breath as he pocketed his new acquisitions, “but I need it for the hunt. You'd do the same in my place.”


It was an incredible relief when they finally, after having to move at a mere brisk walk for what felt like forever, until the last hints of sunlight vanished and the crescent moon had begun its rise upon a starry sky, they got to deposit Adelicia at the shelter. The shelter itself was just a particularly sturdy and large building with a sizable store of incense, of course, where citizens could go to weather the Night of the Hunt. Literally the only reason to leave Adelicia there was to be rid of her... though Victor did hesitate when he sent her inside.
Would these Yharnamites respect her, even without a bodyguard? Would they realize who and what she was? Would they, addicted to blood like every Yharnamite, be tempted to attack the defenseless girl, inexorably drawn to her by the impossible potency of her blood?
But then, just when he was about to change his mind and call her back, a thought stopped him:
Will I do the same thing?
The thought disturbed him deeply and silenced his protest before he could speak it. It made him appreciate being able to run, like a Hunter should, all the more; let him vent a little of his nervous energy and served to put more distance between himself and temptation all at once.

The streets were mostly deserted, as was to be expected on not only a night but a Night of the Hunt, but they did encounter a few parties of huntsmen patrolling and Hunters darting in the opposite direction, heading out in search of prey. As they traveled, structures gradually grew denser, bigger, taller and more extravagant, as they delved into the heart of Yharnam where the elite lived, as close to the center of power as possible. Everywhere they looked were lit censers, their pungent smell discouraging any beasts from coming too near yet, though you never knew just how mad these beasts would get when the bells had tolled. All of these people, many of which still had light spilling out of their windows and laughter echoing in the streets, would be defenseless if the beasts grew frenzied enough to push through the incense.
But they had nothing to fear, of course; Vicar Harold had seen to that. The Healing Church had never been stronger, all due to how aggressively they had been creating more Hunters in the five years since the Night of the Blood Moon. With hundreds of Hunters in the streets, there was no way mere beasts would stand a chance.


Indeed, it was not long before they arrived at the outer gates of the lower Cathedral Ward, where most business – and all official business – was conducted, the great portcullis flanked by yet more church servants, several huntsmen and even another a church giant; a force that even a cleric beast would be mindful about facing. The portcullis opened at their approach, allowing them passage further into the ward, where the city was the densest and most decadent, and where the streets were patrolled by crowds of giants, dogs and huntsmen... where any enemy of the church would meet nothing but a quick end. The safest place in all of Yharnam...
And yet Victor felt uneasy, and kept averting his gaze from these mighty allies of his. Felt that they were a threat to him. He could not wait to finish his business here so he could head out and resume the hunt.

They were not actually going to the namesake Grand Cathedral, of course, as such was no place for Hunters. Instead they went to a different part of the Cathedral Ward, where manors, gardens and extravagance gave way to more spartan, military architecture. In the center of this place, where Hunters roamed in packs, they found a sizable barracks designed almost more as a small fortress, complete with watchtowers and giant cauldrons fit for pouring boiling oil. At the back of this building, furthest away from Victor and Morgraine, the stone pillar of another elevator could be seen stretching from the building towards the city above, the so-called upper Cathedral Ward.
“This is the White Church Hunter's Workshop,” Victor informed Morgraine as they approached, still feeling strangely apprehensive about coming here. “Inside you will find weapons, clothes, supplies... whatever you might need to hunt. Dietrich of the Shining Wing, the First Hunter of the White Healing Church, might also want to talk to you, since you're 'special'.”

---

One thing Morgraine might notice which Victor did not, interestingly, was that while she had seen Messengers absolutely everywhere – hiding in nooks and crannies, sitting on rooftops and windowsills, playing among grass and flowers and warming their little hands over smoldering censers – there was not a single Messenger in sight here.