The beast-man attacked, and this time Ophelia, feeling the burn of quickstepping, relied on comparatively human movements to evade. Fortunately the intense, feral rage guiding the creature's actions made it clumsy and predictable, but even so it still moved faster than most humans would be able to. Even so it saved her from being torn to ribbons as it had intended, reducing the damage to merely being raked across the back by one clawed hand as she rolled past, ripping through her clothes and marking her flesh with their sharp, painful touch.
When both of them came to a stop again, now having moved past each other, Ophelia would feel the pain of her superficial injury swiftly receding as it regenerated. The beast-man spun around to face her again, hands raised and poised to pounce on her again... when his eyes inexorably drifted from Ophelia to his freshly bloodied claws. He stared at his hand with wide, manic eyes, and started trembling. Licked his lips with an unhumanly long and wide tongue. His breath quickened, and when the beast-man turned his attention back to Ophelia after a couple of seconds, the hatred and fury from before had been replaced with something even more primitive: hunger.

Farren rushed through, and got a brief glance through the door to the reception of the clinic, where he would see Victor less than a meter past the threshold, boxed in and obstructed by a wall of three huntsmen. The Hunter seemed to have willingly impaled himself on the middle huntsman's waiting pitchfork, with the farming implement embedded into his abdomen, while the huntsmen to each side chopped at him with a hatchet and a saber, respectively... except that the hatchet-wielder to the right was halted mid-motion by a swift rising slash of Victor's sword, carving a wound from the huntsman's groin to his neck.
Then Farren was past the door, and though he could still hear the now-familar sound of two rifle-shots in quick succession, he did not see it. Instead he focused on attacking the Mad One, setting into a series of complex, rapid slashes with his two sabers.
Just as Torquil before him, Farren would find that carving into this creature did not at all feel how he expected. It felt less like cutting meat and bone and more like hitting a husk of charcoal and ash. The wounds he dealt did not bleed, nor did he feel any trace of what one would expect to be inside a creature. No muscles or tendons, not even any bones... just that uniform bizarre imitation of flesh, breaking, cracking and crumbling where he struck it. The first attack tore away a large chunk of its chest and abdomen, and the second attack completely bisected it at the waist, leaving it collapsing onto the ground.
For anyone paying attention, it would be quite evident that the Mad One – especially compared to the rapid healing demonstrated by everyone else currently fighting in the area – was not regenerating. But the purplish glow that filled the interior of its body grew brighter, as did the dual blazes pouring from its eyes.

In-between yells of anger, cries of pain and the telltale sounds of metal rending flesh from inside the clinic, the symphony of battle was punctuated by another gunshot, though one that sounded different than the rifle-shots. A louder, more powerful boom from what was not unreasonable to presume to be Victor's blunderbuss.
But then...
Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding –
It was the easily recognizable sound of the hoarse man's bell, only now it was not graceful short, controlled chime, but a hectic, continuous ringing, as if it was just being rung as quickly and strongly as possible.

The sound was loudest to Farren, who was right next to the door to the clinic. Flashes of gold flitted across his mind's eye at the sound, and he suddenly felt as though he was being watched.
It was not as intense for Ophelia, but it was no less distracting as her thoughts were filled even more with eyes than usual – eyes on the outside, eyes on the inside, eyes inside herself, Caryll runes, ghostly, slug-like phantasms writhing in her head...

And while Farren and Ophelia tried to deal with the effect the bell had on them, they were not the only ones. On the ground where the Mad One had fallen, its ruined form was bathed in ominous red light, and it just regrew its body. The enormous gash across its torso mended in but a fraction of a second, and from its severed abdomen, new legs burst out of its body.
Over by Ophelia, a similar red glow enveloped the beast-man's form. His already sizable frame grew even taller and wider, his fur and claws longer and his entire frame bulged with obscenely large muscles. His eyes – just like the Mad One's, and just as when the bell had last chimed – glowed red.

The Mad One did not even try to stand back up, but swung its cane at Farren from the ground, moving even faster now than when it had attacked Torquil.
The beast-man stepped toward Ophelia again, moving in low this time and with both arms outstretched to the sides, as if to encircle and grapple her.

_Farren

felt the give of the creature’s body and a trickle of disgust, satisfaction, and shock shot through his veins. His lips parted slightly and then as Deadeyes fell onto its back and he began to turn back towards it–intent on delivering a more grievous blow–the frenetic ringing of Pallid’s bell reached him. Flits of gold, like streaks of liquid metallic lightning, rushed about the edges of his awareness and a deep…profound sense of paranoia and discomfort welled from some unobserved part of his psyche. That paranoia, it wasn’t like fear, it was far more consuming than that–blotting out almost everything except the bloodlust that had been trying to gain hold since he’d seen the beastman. Idly, a part of his mind decided that he’d call them Gris–but he didn’t even have time to really register that fact before the nearly all-consuming paranoia was shattered…much like his ankle as Deadeye’s cane slammed into it. The impact forced his other leg to rise…barely causing the cane to miss, but in an instant Farren was toppling towards the ground. A shot of intense, crackling, piercing, cutting pain, a wash of fear…and then an injection of unbelievably intense adrenaline–all coupled with a sudden rage–slammed through his entire body.

Time seemed to slow as his brain caught up with what it had been unable to properly process moments before, for part of him was registering that in that instant he needed every bit of his awareness focused on one singular goal. Survival. Murder. His hands had tightened into two white-knuckled vices around the handles of his curved blades, but as adrenaline, survival, rage, and the bloodlust of a Hunter surged in him, somehow that grip relaxed subtly. His blood rushed, surging just as his emotions had, he felt spurts in his broken ankle, then a searing hot heat–both pleasant and painful at once. As he was falling–body half canted at a slight diagonal–Farren’s left fist and right leg shot down and connected with the ground as the cane continued its sweep on the other side of Farren’s right ankle.

The edges of his vision went a fierce, blinding gold color where normally they might dim…fade, redden, or blacken. He didn’t notice how strange that was; wasn’t likely to remember it later. Then, his body braced with two limbs–only fractions of a second having passed–Farren’s ankle was nearly healed, but his foot wasn’t in the right position. Mindless with a primal violent need for retaliation, Farren slammed his still fractured ankle down on the ground, bending his foot in a way that broke it again. Breath hissed from his bared teeth…and then he thrust himself forward with the power of both legs, lifting the knuckles of his left hand from the ground as he did so.

A second finally passed, his perception started to ‘speed up’, back to something more normal, but the tunnel vision of his rage and bloodlust didn’t fade at all. In an instant–the distance between him and the ash-fleshed beast that was Deadeyes already small–Farren was atop the creature. Both blades slammed down into its neck and then parted in either direction, draggin furrows into the ground beneath and severing its head from its body at the same time. However, almost as soon as it was severed, the red light flared faintly and a new head sprouted from the mishappen stump of its neck. Farren snarled then and pushed off the creature’s face.

As it likely tried to react, Farren’s ankle healed and he used his other foot to pivot mid-stride, angling towards the door. Then he dashed and though he distantly felt the strain in his muscles, he pushed forward into a short sprint, the dash having taken him out of Deadeye’s reach and a bit past the doorframe. He shifted to the right, the blade in his left hand switching grips as he flipped it into a more standard hold. Even without dashing, Farren was faster than a normal man…and quickly would come upon the villagers as they pummeled and struck their weapons at Victor. As he passed by them, he’d lash out with his blade, aiming to sever tendons in their forearms as he continued forth. Though his mind felt…strange and his vision was still somewhat tunneled by the alien golden light at its edges, Farren kept the villagers on his left in view as well as the gunmen ahead and of course Pallid himself.

The Mad One abundantly demonstrated that while it was fragile and had not seemed to regenerate before, it possessed incredible powers of healing now that it was continuously wrapped in that ominous light from whence it had come. First it grew an entire new lower body, and now replaced its lost head so fast that it seemed less like regeneration and more like an already fully-formed head simply emerged from within. And each time it had been hit – first when Torquil severed its leg, then several times in Farren's initial assault and now when he beheaded it – the pulsating purple glow within its body, though somewhat obscured by the red shroud surrounding it, grew even stronger.
Looking at the facts before them, it certainly seemed that Farren made the right choice in disengaging from the monster, and even more so that he quickstepped as soon as possible, as it helped him barely escape the swift, grasping hand that shot out to grab him. The once-slow and lethargic creature now seemed to be absolutely brimming with energy, to the point where new glowing cracks were constantly opening up in its skin and closing again.
As Torquil lay on the ground, his vision still blurry and his body heavy from the concussion his newly acquired Hunter-regeneration was doubtlessly working on remedying, he saw and, rather uncharacteristically for him, understood. While this inhuman black figure had seemed an unsettling but harmless puppet of the hoarse man, it was now clear that it was a fearsome opponent indeed; one that seemed indestructible, and seemed to be empowered by the damage it took.
So indeed, Torquil completely understood Farren running off, especially since he went back inside the clinic, where the bell-ringing bastard was. He even smiled a crooked smile of relief, happy that Farren was able to get away from this hopeless fight.

Torquil still smiled when the Mad One turned its blazing red eyes back to him, lying almost helpless right next to it, and the black hand that had failed to seize Farren instead palmed Torquil's face. Its long, clawed fingers closed around his skull with a strength that felt like it would have crushed the head of a normal human, and lifted him off the ground somewhat, raising his head what felt like a meter or so over the ground.
Then it slammed him back down again, lifted him, and slammed him down again. Over and over again, insanely fast and with impossible strength, painting the cobblestone of the road with Torquil's blood. Bits of hair and chunks of scalp were left behind, and Torquil's body just flopped around limply as the creature took out its anger on him. Only... after a few seconds of this, Torquil's body – and all the blood and bits of him that had been scattered on the ground – seemed to rapidly lose opacity, only to vanish completely in another couple of seconds.

Farren, however, did not witness any of this; he had rushed back inside the clinic and joined Victor in facing down the huntsmen. The situation did not seem to have improved since Farren's first glance through the doorway; though all but one huntsman – one of the riflemen – had bloodstained clothes marked with cuts or bullet-holes, they all bizarrely seemed to be unharmed. Farren would likely realize that regular Yharnamites were not supposed to demonstrate such immense powers of regeneration, though he would likely also realize that just like the Mad One and the beast-man outside, the huntsmen's eyes now burned with a supernatural fiery light. The once meek and fearful men fought fervently, even smiled and laughed in the face of battle, as the wounds Victor had cut into them – and the ones Farren cut to try to get past – healed almost as fast as they were inflicted.
Behind them, huddled in the far-left corner of the reception, the hoarse man kept ringing his bell. The cane in his right hand was wrapped in a crimson aura, and faintly visible ripples seemed to distort space around the bell itself.
– ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding –
Going inside also meant getting closer to the bell, of course, which made the visions haunting Farren even stronger. He started itching all over, and it felt like there was someone behind him that was not actually there.

Beside him, Victor produced an inarticulate grunt as he slashed widely one last time in a vain effort to force back the huntsmen a little, only to then swiftly – continuing the arc of the slash – maneuver his hand around his back. There was an audible, familiar metallic click as the small sword locked into the blade-scabbard, which in turn detached itself from the mechanism holding it in place on his back. Victor grit his teeth and, leaving his blunderbuss hanging from his hip, grasped the hilt of his weapon with both hands before levering it over and off his right shoulder, bringing it down in a huge, diagonal swing, carving straight through two of the huntsmen... and clearing the path in front of Farren, leaving him free to approach the one he called Pallid.

Ophelia's mind began to race at the ringing of the bell, the swells and eddies of otherworldly ripples cascading through the air beyond sight--and something about it disturbed that thin veil of mist that had been separating her two distinct selves. All of the inquisitiveness and insight began to billow and swell within her, the crimson flames of blood and violence hissing and crackling and waning in intensity as her mind blossomed, but the insights did not simply stop there. They swelled within her, greater and greater, until she could feel the beginnings of shapes forming within her flesh - shapes, she realised, that were symbols. Transliterations, of the inhuman sounds of the cosmos, reduced down to a form that her mundane flesh could begin to comprehend--etched within the very surface of the seat of her consciousness... and within them, the eyes one needed to comprehend the mysteries. She could see the squiggles, the almost wormlike writhing, of something deeper within her if only she would focus and think.

But the fiery beast-blood within her was not simply done, and she snapped back to reality just in time to feel the searing heat of claws tearing through her flesh and her lifeblood spilling out. Like a gush of lava from within her it burned, but before she had the time to even wince with the pain of it the fire had seared her flesh back together and Ophelia finally got to experience this infamous regeneration she'd witnessed in the others. As she completed her motion she found herself face to face with the sight of Torquil and Farren's assault against the Mad One. Something inside her screamed out to say not to attack it, to go for the pallid man instead, but it was quickly silenced by the terrible reprisal dealt against both. She winced at Farren's injury but openly balked at Torquil's, only for the sounds of the slavering beast behind her to distract her and mandate that she react to it before she met a similar blood-soaked fate as he had... though despite the horror of the sickening crunch of mangled flesh, Ophelia felt oddly calm--it was nothing she'd not seen before, after all. She'd seen what she'd wager was worse than that, out there in the dark of the woods by firelight--but not to someone she'd felt like she'd known, nor someone she felt even a shred of kinship with or sympathy for.

Something within her hardened at the realisation that Torquil was gone, just like that--she felt her tender heart ossify in a moment, and a steely determination narrowed the features on her face. It was the pallid one's fault--they should've gone for him first, she should've told them what to do! Sorrow and anger waged war for control of her emotional state and ended up at a stalemate as survival instinct kicked in, and Ophelia called upon that hidden strength within her to surge forward into the now-open doorway and right up to the opening that Victor had apparently made for someone to capitalise on. Farren's job, it seemed--she did not take the initiative upon landing from her burst of enhanced speed, using it only to deftly manoeuvre around any obstalces in her way, but stayed crouched and poised and looking intently at Farren, as though waiting to follow up on his lead or make an opportunity for him. This much closer to the bell the visions and thoughts in her mind swam, whispers reverberating through the base of her skull and deep into her soul--and it twisted her features into a pale, intense grimace. Depending on Farren's fortitude and the depths of his paranoia, what he perceived her as doing might not be what she intended--but she found herself too stunned to speak, too consumed by the visions and sensations. She could only hope they struck the pallid man down before everything could catch up to them... and that together, the three of them could make it out together. For poor, sweet Torquil, if nothing else.

_Farren

gritted his teeth at the incessant, maddening ringing of the bell. Each jangling of the monstrous instrument made it feel as if hundreds of figures, each a silhouette clad in aureate hues, stood at the very periphery of his vision. If he twisted his head or shifted his eyes they would recede or vanish or flash in a streak across his vision. A low sound rumbled in his throat, half growl and half a pained moan, but Victor—despite the sound—acted. At least…he thought it was probably victor….

Really, all Farren perception was the twisted figure of what might once have been a man swing a misshapen hunk of crudely shaped metal—more a bludgeon than a greatsword or any proper weapon. Yet, the distinct thunderous SLAM and THUD of the implement against the ground…and the faint sparking where-longsword-joined-greatsword caught at his vision and tore at the torrid heat of his delusions.

The sparks seemed almost to ignite the golden light that had crept even further into his vision, the vibration of the massive blade’s crash against the ground sent ripples throughout and disrupted the sound of the bell. If only for a moment, his mind cleared and Farren recalled that he was moving.

His body—having acted entirely on hunter’s instinct—had continued its forward path and as the haze cleared ever-so-slightly the azure eyed hunter saw the opening…and dashed again. His muscles burning, teeth gritted so hard his jaw hurt with hot regeneration—teeth almost cracking—Farren nearly closed the entirety of the distance between himself and that Pallid whore.

Somehow, with the ringing of the bell, the black-eyed sallow pale-skinned skeleton of a man had become even more daunting to look upon. There was a white-gold-red sheen cast across his visage, refracting from his eyes. Part of Farren recoiled, but his fingers coiled instead, gripping the handles of his curved blades so tightly that he felt the material strain. He swung, and that first attempt at a strike was wild and unrestrained, his muscles twisting and bulging and nearly snapping as he unconsciously tried to replicate the sheer force of Torquil’s swing some time ago. Wild as it was, the slash could land anywhere between Pallid’s neck and mid-abdomen a foot or half above his right hip. That was, of course…if the man didn’t block.

Even so, there would always be his other blade.

Ophelia quickstepped to get away, slipping away from the grasping claws of the beast-man that attempted to close around her, past the Mad One that was now looking confusedly at its empty hand, and inside. She darted through quickly, but not quickly enough that beast-man could not follow her with his eyes, prompting him to follow her with loud, heavy strides, eager to not only seize his vengeance, but also sate his hunger. He stomped forth, blazing eyes focused on her through the doorway...
Only for a large, black-skinned hand to reach up from beside him, grasp him by the right shoulder in an iron-grip, its claws digging into his flesh. He looked down and growled in frustrated anger, to find his own glare answered by the insanity shining out of the Mad One's twisted grimace. He clawed the Mad One across the face with his left hand, and the Mad One struck him on the side of his head with its cane. They both healed nigh-instantly, and attacked again, and again, each unable to kill the other, but determined to keep trying to do so regardless.

Inside, Victor remained a bulwark between Ophelia and Farren, and the three huntsmen that were still standing. Rather than keep fighting with the giant form of his weapon, Victor detached the small sword from its blade-scabbard and left the huge, bloodstained blade partially embedded in the floor while he used the small sword to slash at and drive back the huntsmen.
Of the three, one was wielding a pitchfork, one a hatchet and one, standing behind the others somewhat, a rifle, raised and aimed at the Hunter. Another gunshot filled the room as another bullet pierced Victor's flesh; the pitchfork-wielder used his reach-advantage to keep stabbing Victor while staying out of range of his sword; and the hatchet-wielder stayed in close, simply bearing Victor's counterattacks while keeping him in place.
Victor's once-white and pristine garb was now thoroughly torn and soaked in blood, but somehow the man stayed on his feet and kept fighting. There was nothing elegant or honorable about the way he fought; he swung his sword wildly with no thought for technique nor grace, simply lashing out against his enemies, chopping and slashing them, while getting shot, stabbed and cut himself.

And while the beast-man and the Mad One became entangled in each other's blind rage, and Victor bore the assault of the huntsmen, Farren moved on the one he called Pallid. Moved to cut, to slay... and to silence the bell. He rushed forward
– ding –
and found that with each step closer, not only did the terrible visions and feelings of paranoia grow stronger, but the sound of the bell also seemed to grow unnaturally louder. Each chime sent ripples through his body, making every fiber of his being vibrate softly, charged with an energy he did not understand. Another step
– ding –
and the vibration felt even stronger, faster, and the sound grew almost deafeningly loud in his ears, though its actual volume was unchanged. The itch grew worse, all over, as he moved another stride
– ding –
and felt something moving under his skin. The visions consumed him, the touch of that golden relic echoing through his mind and threatening to blind him to the world around him. He felt this forgotten madness spread through not only his mind, but his body as well, like an electric current that was both painful and pleasurable, a sense of strength and vulnerability.
He prepared to swing his blade, putting all his strength into this single attack. The hoarse man kept ringing his bell more and more desperately, fear plainly written upon his face, yet he made no move to dodge nor block; he simply kept ringing his bell. Farren took his final step
– ding –
when a toll of the bell hit him, and he felt everything inside of him clench – muscles, tendons, bones, even his teeth – and then, all at once, shift to a hundred different forms than the one they were meant to have, changing so quickly that it would probably not even be perceivable to the naked eye. With a feeling that was a mix of torment and euphoria, his body seemingly spontaneously self-destructed, his skin cracking and splitting in countless wounds in a cascade in what seemed like an entirely excessive amount of blood.

But even so his blade still swung and struck true, carving into the thin, feeble body of the hoarse man, and the bell fell silent. The bell-ringer fell backward into the wall behind him, clutching the deep, bleeding gash carved into his chest with both hands while his bell and cane alike clattered noisily to the floor.
Before Ophelia's eyes, the red glow in the huntsmen's eyes abruptly extinguished, and vapor-like clouds billowed from their bodies as they all hobbled backward, their expressions turning to confusion and pain, and the weapons fell from fingers too weak to hold them. Behind her, outside, the beast-man's eyes likewise lost their glow and his body produced a similiar column of smoke as it stumbled and fell forward, through the Mad One, whose black form seemed to give way to the pressure, disintegrate and fade back into whatever nightmare it had hailed from.

The price, of course, was Farren's to pay. The damage he had just sustained from the dark magic of the bell plainly pushed him beyond the capacity of his regenerative potential. It was not enough to instantly kill him, but it left him badly injured.

Ophelia watched the carnage unfolding around Farren's being with equal parts curiosity and revulsion, keen eyes searching for information while also distracted by the rapturous writhing she could feel in her mind. It was difficult to focus, each train of thought immediately disjointed by another peal from the bell--but Victor held his position and Farren dashed forward to do what none of them could and slay the pallid man. It was almost artistic, the way that Farren collapsed in a stream of viscera and gore--his own, she assumed, and certainly a new and novel way for someone to die that she had not seen before--and it took her a moment to collect herself. The Mad One animated by the ringing of the bell crumbled into nothingness as the borrowed power of its once-benefactor dissipated, and the others lost their supernatural glow and seemed to diminish in presence before she rushed over to Farren. Her right hand was still slick with blood, and she scooped a little off of Farren's clothing and brought her hand up to his mouth for the blood to begin its work in regenerating her fallen comrade. Something within her seethed and burned with urgency--she'd lost Torquil, but she was not going to lose another if she could help it. The first thing she did was execute the pallid man with impunity, forcing her spear through his undefended chest right through his rotten heart.

Panting, rapid breaths fell from her chest in heaving and gasping gulps as her body tried to acclimatise once again to the strangely dull and cold sense of normalcy that had existed before the sounds of the bell had made their way into her mind--and with Farren and the pallid one taken care of, Ophelia immediately went to snatch the bell from pallid's corpse to examine it in more detail. Hells, if she could wring the same power from it they would be in a much better position than they were previously. Even if not... it would act as proof of the arcane, of what they'd endured and who knew about it. What were the chances that something so secretive and taboo was simply stumbled upon by these... creatures? There was some hidden thread of meaning behind it all, some agenda that she could not quite grasp, and she turned to Victor with a somewhat plaintive look after her little reverie. She shot a glance over to the door to see the beastman still standing there, and her right hand twitched as it instinctively reached for the haft of the spear stuck out from the pallid one's now-corpse. If it made a move she'd respond in kind, but she began to speak to Victor first. She'd let him chase it down if necessary, or initiate combat--she was more concerned with making sure Farren was okay too.

"... Thank you for the help. Did the Church send you, or..?" Ophelia began, clutching the bell in her hands until they turned white from the exertion. Her stare was... a little wild, though mostly focused, as she alternated between looking up at Victor and down at Farren, trying to piece together pieces of a narrative in her mind. She brought her free hand up idly to move a strand of grease and blood-matted silver hair away from her face, dropping the spear as she did, and tried to regulate her breathing as best as she could. A lot had happened, but they had the chance to uncover the mystery now... well, more of a chance than they did before.

Though the hoarse man had shown that either he or the items in his possession exhibited impressive arcane powers, Farren's attack had suggested – and Ophelia's now proven – that he was physically next to defenseless. Though he babbled incomprehensibly in his foreign language and tried both to ward against her thrust with his arms and to get away from her, there was nothing he could do to save himself. The spear sank into him with little resistance, prompting only one last, desperate, gurgling gasp as his feeble fingers wrapped around the handle of the spear in a vain effort to undo what had been done. Then he went limp and slumped in place... and unlike his minions, Pallid had no bell-ringer to revive him.
The bell, as she retrieved it, seemed quite mundane. Despite the awesome power it had displayed in the hands of Pallid, it now seemed a quite unremarkable, if bloodstained, specimen of the kind that were typically hung around the necks of church servants. It produced some muffled noises from being jostled as Ophelia moved it, but any eldritch properties seemed either dormant or absent.

Through the door to the outside, Ophelia would see the beast-man awkwardly struggle to get back on his feet, his entire body trembling as he rapidly shed its bulk, shrinking to the size of an ordinary human while retaining only the fur, claws and teeth. This much more pathetic creature stared at her for just a moment with an expression of utmost dread, then turned on his heel and hobbled weakly down the road, fleeing into the distance.
Just several meters away the huntsmen had suffered a similar loss of strength, though unlike their more powerful ally, they had the misfortune of being rendered vulnerable within easy reach of a Hunter still in the throes of his own bloodlust. The hatchet-wielder barely had time to reconcile what had happened before Victor was upon him, his left hand rapidly mutating into a clawed, bestial form before plunging into the Yharnamite's guts, which he proceeded to rip out and leave in a stinking pile on the floor while their owner collapsed. The pitchfork-wielder and the rifleman barely had enough time to gather their wits and understand what was happening, witnessing the violent execution of their comrade, before Victor was upon them, too. He swung his small silver sword twice, slit each of of their throats and left them to bleed out.

Only then did he turn to Ophelia and Farren, panting heavily, his clothes torn and bloody, but his eyes sharp and alert. His gaze instantly homed in and locked on Ophelia's eyes, returning her stare with one that was perhaps even wilder than her own, his eyes wide and paranoid, but – as Ophelia would likely notice – unmarked by the scourge of beasts.
“Yeah,” he grunted, and started to approach Ophelia and Farren while rummaging in a bulky, padded pouch on his right hip. He did not elaborate on the topic of who had sent him or why, but produced an item that he held forward in an open hand for Ophelia to take. Even at a glance, Ophelia, and anyone else that had spent any amount of time in Yharnam for that matter, would almost certainly recognize what she was being offered as a blood vial; a dose of the specially potent blood of the Healing Church.
“This works better. He needs help.”

_Farren

never felt his blade connect with flesh, never got the satisfaction of seeing the moment that pallid man’s arcane devilry failed him. He saw a glimmer of fear in the man’s eyes, but that glimmer became two golden pinpricks in his vision and Pallid’s visage warped into an aureate silhouette, a figure made of gleaming light, with white-gold eyes that were somehow even more intense, but not in luminescence. Instead, it was like those orbs were darker…like golden pits…abyssal depths of light that pulled at his awareness.

Then the light flashed, exploded, and it was like every iota of blood, bone and sinew had ignited with a fiery hue bereft of warmth and filled only with the searing white-gold-crimson of blood, flame and sunlight intertwined. Swept up in the tearing, searing torment of frenzy and caught off guard by the sudden betrayal of his own body and mind at once, Farren somehow experienced both a deepset dread and a yet more terrifying maddened rapturous ecstasy.

In reality…his body tore asunder, warping and twisting and vibrating with frenzied chaotic transformative power beyond its capacity to manage or restrain. Muscles snapped, skin shredded, blood fountained forth. His azure eyes remained too-wide, his eyelids shredded and gone throughout the explosion of uncontrolled metamorphosis. Yet, they were unseeing and any looking might see a frenzied gold flickering at the edges of his sclera, then he was falling.

For Farren it was a descent towards a crimson-black abyss dark with blood, but as he descended, falling through the ether of the beyond, sparking bolts of aurelian incandescence throbbed and pulsed within the expanse…his eyes widened and it was as if there were a thousand figures on every side of him all of the sudden. Yet, when he tried to wheel his head to look, he couldn’t as if he were paralyzed as he plummeted, unable to look at anything in his periphery. His eyes darted and shuddered, but whenever the cone of his vision might light upon any of the figures, they were gone. The hairs on the back of his neck sparked with a voltaic power, standing on end as a prickle traveled with a feverish violence down his spine. There was a sense of stunned shock as he struck the abyssal gilded depths, a shock of cold then heat, then cold that recalled to his mind a deep inescapable sickness. Then a sense of watching eyes, of movement beyond his sight, but not his mind’s awareness.

He clawed at the thick strangely viscous waters, but it wasn’t water…it was blood, congealing, hardening around him, breaking up as he tried to flail and swim to its surface. He was choking, someone was choking him from behind, from inside his own body. His nerves were on fire, his brain was a blaze of fulmination, and then—....

Farren, already crumpled upon the ground, suddenly took in a wild gasping breath only two-three-five heartbeats past when something had lanced into his leg. The vial and needle were pushed from his flesh as he suddenly healed, his blooddrenched clothes ragged and barely covering him properly after the violence the frenzy had wrought upon his body.

However, though its source was gone, its influence had not entirely faded. Farren lashed out, his body shifting instinctively into an almost bestial fourlegged crouch in an instant as his hand swiped through the air. First at nothing, then at the gold-lined silhouette just beside him who he’d not yet registered was Ophelia.

A half-beat after recognition entered his azure eyes and he fell sideways and backwards, landing on his backside. He pushed away from her, a surge of paranoia and unfamiliarity shivering through him. Then Farren clutched his arms about himself–his body felt wrong somehow and every nerve was alight with nervous frenetic energy. “Sorry…” he murmured, and his voice was uncharacteristically weak–quiet and thin even as he regained his wits, if not his composure.

Slowly, the paranoia began to calm and recede. Slowly, he set his jaw and his muscles started to relax with the thick languid movements of gravity-pulled molasses. Slowly, Farren came back to himself over the course of several minutes.

Ophelia reflexively pulled away from Farren's strike, his sudden bout of madness oddly unclear to the otherwise distracted Ophelia. She would normally go straight for the eyes, of course, but it hadn't even occurred to her to check Farren out until she caught the glimpse of movement in her periphery. With a Hunter's agility she stepped back from her crouching position as she'd administered the vial of blood offered to her by Victor into a standing and guarded one, though it was immediately clear to her from the expression now writ upon Farren's face and the trembling he could not hide in his limbs that he had seen something harrowing. She could feel the vibrations of the bell rattling in her skull still, diminishing but present, though they had not gotten the opportunity to reach a crescendo. She looked down at the little thing clasped in her hand, unfurling her fingers so as to examine it more closely and carefully. Her head snapped around to the sound of the Beastman's pathetic whimpering and scampering, and she quickly looked down for her spear and picked it up with her free hand, immediately leaving Farren and Victor alone to chase down her escaping quarry.

She cared not for the exertion, nor the burn in her lungs or the sting of sweat and blood in her eyes - she was going to hunt that raggedy beastman down and slaughter him like the cancerous hound that he was. He had been complicit in the events that had led to Torquil not making it, after all, and she would not leave him unrevenged. She sprinted after the beastman with a ferocity and determination that had begun to dim after its peak with Pallid, but was quickly reigniting again as the lingering scent and taste and feel of blood on her hands made her take leave of her more rational senses and give in to the thrill of truly concluding the hunt... but unlike the fires of madness, all-scorching, the fires of sorrow and regret and guilt and shame would likely die down once the beastman was dead. She could rest, process what had happened... maybe take a nap by the light of that queer lamp, and its comforting radiance.

But for now she had work to do: work she'd done so many times before, her eager and practiced hands ready to return to something they truly knew. She caught up to the beastman exceedingly quickly, and with as much precision as she could muster she lanced him right through the abdomen. She could feel through the vibrations of the spear, her wired and heightened senses, and the frailty of the withered beastman's form that several of his organs were punctured, though she had missed his heart so he did not die immediately. She grabbed him by the shoulders and wrenched him off his back onto the floor, pushing the haft and the rest of the spear through his wound, as she perched over his head.

"I warned you, dear. I told you that if you had any signs of the scourge, I'd have to kill you... but you insisted. I'll be taking your eyes now, sweetness--and your pallid friend's too. Torquil's gone because of you... so don't imagine for a moment that this will be quick. Every rabid howl, every peal of agony, will avenge him... so I want you to scream, you wretched thing. Let him hear you, wherever he is." Ophelia half-whispered and half-spat, before using one hand to keep the beastman's eyelids open as she plucked her prizes from his skull with her bare fingers. She made sure to make it as painful as she could without damaging the eyes, seething and trembling all the while. When her grisly work was done, she walked slowly back towards the clinic, stopping off at the little glass jar she'd discreetly deposited earlier and adding her new prizes to them.

The few minutes Farren needed to recover would likely have been over by the time she returned - she scanned the room for Victor and Farren both as she approached, bell stashed away in her garb, jar of eyes in one hand, and spear in the other.

"Torquil... he... vanished? Disappeared into thin air as the Mad One mashed him to paste..." she mumbled, looking a little more haggard than before now that the rush of anger and vitality had left her.

Victor watched the brief scene playing out between Farren and Ophelia – his eyes darting to Farren's as soon as they opened, searching manically for something – and then let his gaze follow Ophelia as she set off in pursuit of their last enemy. He retrieved another blood vial from the bag on his hip, unscrewed both caps and drank the contents greedily while the screams of pain and fear from the diminished beast-man filled the air.
“Sometimes I worry if I'm losing my mind,” he remarked casually to Farren, discarding the empty vial on the floor without taking his eyes off Ophelia mutilating her victim. “Stuff like this helps. It's nice to be reminded that there are people out there that are crazier than you are.”

Ophelia's second examination of the bell did not yield much more than the initial one, as it still appeared entirely mundane. Much more interesting would be the ghastly prize she claimed from her prey; though the eyes visually resembled those of most other afflicted with the scourge of beasts, her attunement to the arcane and sensitivity to the eldritch secrets of the world told her that something lingered on them that had not on any other eyes she had handled. Though faint, like an echo of an echo, it seemed that the agony the beast-man had endured prior to his death had left its mark.

When she returned, Victor reacted to her mumbling with a brow furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean, he vanished?”
Around them, now that relative peace had returned to the area, the Messengers from before returned and resumed what they had been doing before, tending the lantern and trying to beckon Farren and Ophelia to certain things. Among them, however, were two Messengers that emerged directly in front of Ophelia, less than a meter from her feet, that held another scroll.

_Farren

stared after Ophelia for a time, even as Victor spoke. He was glad she’d gotten out of the way in time, but as Victor continued speaking, the azure-eyed hunter finally started paying attention. Farren scowled and glanced towards the White Church Hunter in his ruined garments. “Do you remember before?” He asked, his voice weaker and more subdued than it had been when first they’d met.

"I do," Victor declared with a nod of his head. "I guess you don't?"

Farren's gaze shifted away, staring into space, his eyes seeming distant and searching, his scowl softening into a frown as if he were focusing. After a moment he shook his head, "...only incomplete flashes. Enough to know I was probably...running from something," Farren replied. He gritted his teeth a moment, feeling the grind and restoration in that moment. His muscles stared to relax a bit as he uncurled from himself, his arms unfurling from around him. He ran a hand through his dark thick hair.

Victor shrugged. "Plenty of things to run from in Yharnam."

"Mmn..." Farren murmured in reply, a brief shuddering shake overtaking him before he forced himself back onto his feet in several careful motions. He swayed for a moment, then seemed to grow steadier as he found his equilibrium. He glanced at Victor a moment, then away as he noticed Ophelia heading back from outside. "Be grateful you remember," he said, then bent down and retrieved his sabers... "...for at least you'll know what you're fleeing from."

Then Ophelia passed through the door, rejoining them. Farren gave her a small nod before she began talking. He winced at her choice of phrasing, then frowned as he registered everything she’d expressed. Victor reacted before him though, leaving Farren with little to say. So instead he simply raised an eyebrow in question, hoping she perhaps had more explanation than that–though he doubted it.

Either way, it was a shame…he’d rather liked Torquil and there’d be no body to bury.

“Just... faded out, into nothing. Look: no blood spatters, no corpse, no evidence at all...” Ophelia pointed out, gesticulating with her spear as she spoke to point at the various bits of evidence (or lack thereof).
“After what that bell did to us, well... Safe to say I have no idea what happened. Can you see them, Victor?” Ophelia followed up, pointing toward the messengers near her and crouching to read the scroll that they held before her.

Victor looked at where Ophelia was pointing, and seemed increasingly uncomfortable with what was going on. “I don't even... What... See what?” He shook his head. “What am I supposed to see?”

As Ophelia crouched, the Messengers unrolled the scroll to show its contents. It was the same nice, stylish handwriting as the first note they had received from the Messengers, though this one seemed a little messier, as though it had been written in haste, and it did not rhyme. It read:
“Your companion is alive, he has awakened in the Dream.”

'Faded out...' Farren repeated silently, the thought making him frown as he glanced at where Ophelia had gestured. There really was no evidence of Torquil, like he’d turned into some phantasm and vanished body and all.Then Ophelia mentioned seeing them and Farren looked up and over at where she was pointing even as she crouched. His eyes widened fractionally, then shifted into a more neutral expression, so he wasn’t the only one who could see them. Though…apparently Victor couldn’t, strange… “Ah…yeah, there are these…small shriveled up creatures scattered about in small groups,” Farren said, even as Victor started to display signs of discomfort. “I’d assumed it was a side effect of the transfusion, but…it hasn’t faded since I woke. Wasn’t sure if anyone else could see them,” Farren explained, his eyes shifting over to the center of the room, landing on the lamp.
“...not to mention that lamp…” he added, trailing off as he gestured with a slight nod of his head.

Victor blinked. “Lamp? Small shriveled up...” Then his eyes widened in realization. “Wait, are you saying that you're seeing little men?”

Ophelia gasped as she read what was on the scroll, and her eyes darted immediately over to Farren. “This says that Torquil is alive, and has... 'awakened in the Dream'? I think we're supposed to use the Lantern to join him? But... Victor, it seems, has no idea what we're talking about.” Ophelia opined, her voice almost musical in its wandering tone as she thought aloud.
“They... they didn't just make us normal Hunters, I don't think...” she sighed, exhaling through her nose as she looked expectantly at Victor. If he was from the Church, sent here to help... he should have instructions, or orders.

“Dream?” Victor looked around frantically for a moment, as if expecting a secret world to spontaneously apparate before him, but then simply burst out laughing. “Both of you? And the third one? Damn it, Dietrich, what is...”
He stopped himself and shook his head incredulously. “You definitely don't sound like normal Hunters. I think I need to take you to the White Workshop as soon as possible. The First Hunter is going to want to speak with you.”

Farren’s eyebrow cocked slightly at Victor’s description, but he supposed the man had never seen the things, they really weren’t all that man-like as far as he was concerned. Of course, the White Church Hunter’s words were far less strange than Ophelia’s as she finished reading the scroll that the creepy–but strangely helpful–creatures had offered up. Both eyebrows rose, then fell in concentration as he tried to remember if he’d heard tell of any hunters saying something like that before.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Farren let himself drift through the blank space of his mostly empty mind. Largely deprived of memories he could do little else but grasp about in the metaphorical dark. There were flashes of remembrance, fragments of conversations overheard and even one or two instances of sordid notes written covertly to pass along gossip. He'd not paid much attention at the time, but now...now it seemed that his proximity to Hunters and the others who served and equipped them did him some good.
Farren's brow furrowed slightly, his eyes opened and he shook his head slightly. “Perhaps it is best we speak with him, then...” Farren said, not elaborating on whether he'd managed to recall anything in particular. “...it's sure to be illuminating.” He paused briefly, frowned slightly, his eyes shifting to the lantern once more, “But what of Torquil and this...so-called Dream?”

Ophelia thought for a moment, her brow furrowing in concentration.
“There was a message in the room where we woke up, further down. It said this was all for the attention of the First Hunter, so it seems sensible that we meet with Dietrich... though something about this message was... urgent, I feel. I want to make sure it's telling the truth, that Torquil really is alright. Could you perhaps go and fetch Dietrich for us, dear? Or would you prefer to wait here while we sojourn to this 'so-called Dream'?” Ophelia asked, shifting the conversation towards Victor. She was suspicious of his timing, but not of him--still, it was best to be careful. Their advantage would decline the more who knew about them--that was true for the White Church too. They would all be inclined to keep this as direct as possible, she thought.

“Go fetch...” Victor started repeating her words, then blinked and balked at the thought. “You don't know where we are, do you? The White Workshop is in the Upper Cathedral Ward... pretty much on the other side of Yharnam! We made that trip once already, I'm down to my last blood vial, and I doubt it's going to get safer after the sun sets.”
He grimaced. “I'd prefer that you didn't go anywhere, but... I suppose if you have to go, I'll just wait here.”

Farren raised an eyebrow at Ophelia’s suggestion to ‘fetch’ the First Hunter, it was…patently ridiculous. He may not have had the bulk of his memories, but he had seen enough when he was outside to know that even to ask was more than a little foolish. If that weren’t enough…why would someone as important as that drag their way across the entirety of Yharnam just for them, no matter how ‘special’ they might be, as hunters went. He shook his head slightly, and couldn’t help but burst into a brief chuckle. The sound was low in his throat as he shook his head. Idly, Farren slipped his blades into their makeshift holders and then ran one hand through his hair again, as he massaged one of his temples with the other. “We should see what it has in store for us,” Farren said… “...if only to confirm that Torquil is there. Besides, it would be…safer to have four rather than three of us, if we’re going to make the trek across the city.”
As much as Farren didn’t much like going into this so-called Dream accessible only to certain hunters, a Hunter’s Dream he supposed, he figured it couldn’t hurt terribly to go. At least not more than it would to cross the surely Beast infested streets between here and the Cathedral Ward.
Though he could not hear it…some forgotten part of him raved and scratched at the metaphorical barrier between it and Farren’s present self, its existence an unseen, cautionary tale to what could happen when curiosity was allowed a place at the table.
It was a shame he couldn’t hear its wailing voice. A shame indeed.

“Five rather than four,” Victor corrected Farren resignedly, unhappy with where things seemed to be headed but accepting of the fact that he was powerless to change it. “I didn't come here alone. Another Hunter is guarding the elevator that's the only way up here; he'll join us once we get there.”

Ophelia blinked once, then again a half-second later, as though registering new information. She truly hadn't given any consideration to where they were, such was the lure of her curiosity.
“I'm sorry, dear--the ministration... You're right, it was a foolish suggestion. Well... if you want to collect yourself, rifle through the corpses for anything useful... I believe the huntsmen here found some blood in another room - if you look there, perhaps some yet remains? Might be useful for our journey back...” Ophelia offered before heading over towards the lantern. She looked at Farren expectantly, beckoning him over with a nod of her head, before she gazed into the lantern's pale gleam with the intent to arrive at this Dream.

“Might as well,” Victor sighed with a shrug. “I should probably also work on barricading the door so the next pack that comes by to steal the sleepers won't have quite as easy a time of it.”

As Ophelia went to look at the lantern, the blue light coming from it seemed as though it gradually expanded, filling more and more of her vision and erasing her perception of the world around her. She felt a peculiar calm settle over her, with all her pain and worries slipping from her mind, and she quickly started to feel drowsy. After looking at it for two seconds, she was probably quite aware that unless she looked away, she would fall asleep. After three seconds she actually nodded off, and in so doing just faded away.
“Gods help me,” Victor muttered, staring at the woman spontaneously dematerializing before his eyes.
A moment later Farren went and did the same, experienced the same process and faded away as well, leaving Victor with no one but the dead and sleeping for company.


Strangely first Ophelia and then Farren, rather than experiencing a state of sleep, immediately felt themselves transition from falling asleep to waking up... only when they awoke, they found themselves slouching in an entirely different place than before. They found themselves on an old, rough-looking cobbled path flanked by shrubs and weeds, among which stood scattered, disorderly and mismatched gravestones all over, intermingled with mostly leafless trees.
To their right, past a tall, wrought-iron fence was a single, massive tree, the leafless branches of which spanned the area around it imposingly, with several impressive statues erected in its shade. Beside the tree, a lone house sat atop the sloped landscape on their 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 them were three figures right on the path they found themselves on, two of which were facing them as if expecting their 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; her skin was not like porcelain, it was porcelain. 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.
Standing in front of these two strange figures was a more familiar one, however, as even with his back turned Ophelia and Farren would likely recognize Torquil's frame. Quite notably he appeared not only unhurt, but clean and almost presentable; even his clothes seemed to have been restored. Examining themselves would lead Ophelia and Farren to discover that they, too, had appeared in the Dream restored, cleaned and with their apparel mended.

Interestingly, Ophelia – arriving a moment before Farren – would initially see the sky of this place clad in scattered clouds that seemed bathed in the same oranges and reds of sunset as she had seen in the waking world. As Farren arrived however, not only would he feel a strange tremor in his very blood as he awakened, the sky would also seem to suddenly warp and change. Within seconds the clouds had raced off over the horizon, the sun and its light had fled entirely, and it their place an enormous full moon had ascended to over their heads, bathing them all in its pale light.
Both the figure in the wheelchair and the doll looked up at this, seemingly taken aback by the sudden change. Torquil seemed too distracted to notice, and was ponderously rubbing the side of his jaw.

“Good Hunters,” the doll called to them softly, finally prompting Torquil to first look up, then turn around and see the others, which immediately brought a big smile to his face. “We welcome you to the Hunter's Dream, but... pardon my confusion. I have never seen the sky change like that.”

_Farren

thought that he’d turned towards the lantern, he’d thought he had taken several steps towards it before his vision was consumed by a strange pale light. Then it was as if he was falling, there was a gap in his memory, and then he’d blinked into a state of total wakefulness. Quite literally in fact as he stood blinking, his eyes adjusting to the light of… “...what the hell?”]

Farren laid eyes on the strange place and though he’d expected to be surprised, it still struck him how unbelievable it was that he’d somehow been transported to what appeared to be another realm entirely. He started to observe and take in the three figures before him, but only had long enough to recognize Torquil’s broad frame before the sky shifted with a rapidity that made him crouch as if the heavens were set to fall upon them. As he stared up at the sky with narrowed eyes, Farren realized that someone had spoken to them. Yet, he didn’t dare take his eyes off the pale eye of the full moon’s luminescence. He registered the porcelain woman’s words and wet his lips nervously, still not truly looking at her as he spoke. “Can’t say…I’ve ever seen anything quite like that either,”] he commented, trying to sound slightly amused, but instead his words came out with the distinct sound of disquiet that he was feeling.

Farren’s eyes darted to Ophelia, then back at the moon above them and though he slowly straightened back to his full height after a few moments the unsettled expression on his face remained.

Ophelia's first reaction was unbridled joy--she returned Torquil's smile eagerly and ran to him, quickly embracing him in a hug for a few seconds before stepping back. Her smile was wide and bright, and her voice was almost singsong with the relief of seeing him hale and whole.

"I'm so glad you're alright, dear... I wanted to thank you. You didn't know you'd end up here and still you took the hit for us... You're a good soul, Torquil. If I can repay your kindness, please let me know." She spoke giddily, before turning her attention up towards the recently-shifted sky. Whereas before it was all vermillion and gold, the rich colours of sunset like at the clinic, all of a sudden there was a bright full moon out... and a moon unlike she'd seen before. It was almost ponderously large, unnaturally so, and something about its silver sheen transfixed Ophelia's gaze as she stared at it in wonder. It was beautiful--more beautiful than any moon she'd seen before--and... compelling, in a way she could not articulate even in thought. She'd done plenty of work by moonlight, danced beneath it in the dark of the woods, committed what some might call heinous or unnatural acts beneath its sombre glow... but never like this. She barely paid any attention to the doll at all, so transfixed by it she was, until maybe thirty seconds had passed since the doll spoke and Ophelia tore her eyes away and addressed the doll.

She started with a simple curtsey, like her parents had taught her, and introduced herself: "I'm Ophelia; a pleasure to make your acquaintance. If you've never seen the sky change like this, it is a sign of a great portent. If this is a Dream, whose Dream is it? The moon's? The sun's? Yours? Ours? I have so many questions..." she began, before exhaling a shuddering breath and trying to calm herself down with rhythmic breathing. She could feel her clothes, she realised, and not the oil and grime and viscera that had coated them before--and she moved to fumble about the pocket where she'd stashed the pallid man's bell, and would get it out if it remained there.

"What is this, for instance? It had the power to summon creatures, to... to induce visions, or something--it nearly killed Farren, brought a Mad One into being, mended the wounds of the near-slain and empowered them to fight anew." she spoke before she could even stop herself, face turning a little red with embarrassment as she realised how impolite it was to bombard her hosts with questions as a guest. She turned to look at the second figure in the wheelchair, taking in the details of their form--and waiting for them to speak in answer.

Torquil just stood there awkwardly initially, completely overwhelmed by Ophelia's intense show of joy and affection, but gradually – if still somewhat awkwardly – put his hands on her shoulders in the most careful way he could think of to return her embrace. He had no idea how to respond to any of what she was saying, it was all just too much all at once for him to even begin processing it... so he just said the first thing that came to mind.
“Wheelchair-guy fixed my jaw,” he said, the words clear and fully comprehensible. His jaw, they might notice, was no longer crooked, nor was the smile he beamed at them. “It really hurt, but it's better now.”

The doll responded immediately to Ophelia's curtsy with a submissive bow of her own, only for her to stare at the female Hunter with big, empty doll-eyes, her head slightly cocked, as Ophelia started talking. The Hunter in the wheelchair, meanwhile, closed their book, set it aside and turned their obscured face toward her with their hands in their lap.
“It is the Hunter's Dream,” the doll restated when Ophelia paused after her frantically throwing out her question of whose dream this place was. “It exists for your sake, good Hunter, and for the sake of all Hunters.”

Then Ophelia brought out the hoarse man's bell, which was indeed still there to retrieve, and half-asked and half-explained it to the doll. Again the doll simply cocked her head and stared at Ophelia, her expression attentive yet oddly mindless, much the way one might expect an animated doll without the facial articulation to make expressions to look at you.
Only when Ophelia fell silent did the doll blink, then turned to look at the Hunter in the wheelchair. This figure wordlessly raised their right hand and made a small beckoning gesture at no one in particular, which seemingly prompted a duo of Messengers to instantly emerge out of the ground right beside Ophelia.
Nodding her head, the doll turned back to Ophelia. “If you find anything you that you might want to know more about, good Hunter, just show it to the little ones. They traverse all manner of worlds, and can summarize what insights might echo from such items in the Nightmare.”

_Farren

watched closely, the silver-sheened moon ever-present in his periphery…looming above him like a great celestial eye, the light of its gaze enveloping everything. He swallowed slightly, his mien only lightening slightly as Torquil spoke in a voice that was clear and easily intelligible. He couldn’t help but smile at that. He wondered how the wheelchair bound man had done it of course and that thought had him opening his mouth—only for the explanation about items, Messengers…and a so-called ‘Nightmare’ to give him pause. Farren raised an eyebrow, “The Nightmare?” He asked, wondering what that was referring to, as it sounded like something specific.

That said, he was curious what the fountain overflowing with the little messenger men was about. Bizarre as they were, t hey did seem rather helpful at least.

Ophelia laughed musically at Torquil's clear and natural voice, her eyes sparkling with relief that he'd found solace from his problems. It was going to be easier for them all--and Torquil had felt bad about it, besides. She nodded at Farren's insightful question, giving him a knowing nod of her head, and turned to the figure in the wheelchair and offered them the same curtsy she'd given to the doll before she spoke again after hearing whatever reply was offered, if any.

"Thank you, for all you have done for us. I... will pose my questions to the little ones. I always knew I liked them, even though they've no eyes. They... just want to help. It seems a nice sentiment, so thank you as well, dearies." Ophelia mused, offering a third and final curtsy to the messengers with a giggle that had just a touch of mania to its timbre. She proceeded to show a number of items to the messengers, reading the scrolls in reply with a burning curiosity, and nodding thoughtfully or musing to herself aloud about the implications of what she'd learned--which was almost exclusively to do with eyes. Torquil and Farren would surely have noticed a theme at this point, though Ophelia seemed to pay no mind to it--as though it were completely normal and natural. There was a certain certainty and serenity to her movements, and her silvery hair glittered incandescently in the moonlight's bountiful rays--something altogether witchy, if one knew the signs of what to look for.

"... so we cannot die, then? We will simply return as though waking from a dream... ah, it's just like the stories of Moira, isn't it? She was said to fight as though she could not die--and she's the most Hunter a Hunter can be. She must have graced these halls in her day, hmm, to win the kinds of victories she had? How many people have travelled through here, I wonder, and to what end? To what end are we here? The Church..." Ophelia spoke, as though feverishly possessed by the thoughts spilling out of her. Whatever that bell had done to her mind had her swimming in visions, thoughts beyond thoughts cascading to her as though dancing on the rays of the moon... but she could feel it abating as she let her thoughts unspool, and the cool air of the dream caress her skin.

The doll nodded her head at slowly as she turned to look at Farren. “The Nightmare is the world above the Waking World you know. There are many layers of it, of which the Hunter's Dream, too, is one. They are the realms that the gods call their home.”

The figure in the wheelchair responded to Ophelia's curtsy only with a nod of their head, whereas the Messengers moaned excitedly and tried their hardest to mimic her movements. Each time she showed them an item – be it the bell, the eye she had harvested from the dead Hunter-to-be or the eyes she had ripped from the beast-man's still-living skull – the Messengers simply reached into the ground and immediately retrieved a new scroll from worlds unseen, as if these descriptions had been written in advance and lay ready at their feet.

Church servant's bell
An ordinary, mundane bell taken from the corpse of a church servant.
Unlike the old bells found in the labyrinth, this is merely a tool and does not resonate across worlds. Yet with the right conduit, even the ring of such as this can cause resonance in those who hear it.
Even inanimate objects may keep the final wills of those who passed near them. A bell knelled resolutely may even resonate with such echoes.

Scourge-marked eye
The eye of someone who has received the Old Blood. Its pupil is collapsed and turned to mush, indicating the onset of the scourge of beasts.
It looks twisted, but it is nothing to be concerned over. Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine.

Echo of Agony
The pain and fear of a tortured creature clings to these eyes like an echo of blood.
Memories of powerful trauma can sometimes outlive those who suffered it, leaving behind a mark of madness upon the world that can linger for some time.
Crushing these eyes will grant some blood echoes. Alternatively, they can be used as a conduit for sinister resonance.

The Hunter in the wheelchair leaned back in their seat and crossed their arms, the doll cocked her head yet again and Torquil merely stood there, awkwardly looking back and forth between Ophelia and the doll, overwhelmed by how quickly so much as being discussed. Torquil notably still seemed somewhat unsettled when Ophelia produced her collection of eyes to show the Messengers, but none of the denizens of the Dream so much as twitched or batted an eye.
“You are quite eager, good Hunter,” the doll remarked at the end of Ophelia's string of questions, letting out a short, melodious giggle. “I am glad, but if you would allow me a small impudence, I might recommend slowing down a little? We promise to answer every question we can, and we are not going anywhere.”
The doll paused and glanced up at the newly risen moon. “You are bound to the Hunter's Dream, which means that you indeed cannot die permanently; any time you lose consciousness, you will simply reawaken here safe and sound. And yes, good Hunter, a Hunter called Moira did once belong to the Dream. If you want to know more about those who preceded you, the Shopkeeper –” she gestured to the figure in the wheelchair, who nodded their head again, “– has erected memorials for those they know about. You are welcome to examine them at your convenience.”
She pointed past the wrought-iron fence beside them, toward a large, slanted flower-strewn field in the shade of the huge tree. Down the path behind Ophelia and Torquil and past Farren, there was a gap in the fence where the double gates to the area stood open, allowing access. On the far side of the field they could still see five vaguely human-shaped statues in different poses, and one empty base that still lacked a statue.

_Farren

listened to the doll’s explanation as Ophelia asked questions of the Messengers. He nodded idly as she finished, his brow slightly furrowed. Something about her words unsettled him…that the so-called ‘gods’ used the layers of this, ah, nightmare as their demesnes. That was a rather disturbing though and it had his azure gaze drifting back up to the looming pale eye of the moon. He stared for only a moment this time though, before directing his attention away, some part of him recoiling at the thought that this Dream too might house some Great Old Being, waiting in the wings…watching. Farren swallowed and as the doll spoke again his attention was piqued as she mentioned that the wheelchair bound man was a shopkeeper.

He didn’t care much for the history of this place, but what wares might be sold in a place such as this, what wares might one sell…to the benefit of hunters.

Farren stepped forward, closing a few feet’s distance between himself and the quiet, almost sullen man. “If I may…are you a merchant or a craftsman, sir?” Farren asked, his eyes slightly wide as he regarded the man with an eager, curious air.