[h3]The Hunter's Dream[/h3]
As Ophelia's left hand caressed the blade and muttered her invitation to her Mother Moon, the sounds of Farren and Torquil moving around and rummaging through the equipment they had been offered stilled. The entire world seemed like it fell into total, unblemished silence, the candles that lit the interior of the workshop seemed to dim, and the sword in her hands seemed to grow progressively greater. Not bigger, but more significant, important and imposing, somehow... as though it commanded respect and authority, even though it appeared to be but a tool to be wielded.
Again the moonlit whispers filtered into her mind, touching her in a way that spoken words could not. [I]“Then it is done... A pact is forged... You will carry it into battle... and it will carry you to glory...”[/I]
The silver light that spilled in from the unnatural moon outside seemed to bend and twist, and the air touched by its radiance seemed to glitter as though filled with diamond dust. In the gloom that had descended upon the room, the moonlight seemed almost blindingly bright as it crept across the floor, the walls and the ceiling, gradually enveloping everything around Ophelia until the entire world seemed entirely bathed in it, so pervasive that it seemed to erase all shadows.
[I]“It has languished for too long... The other did not feel its whispers... But you do... You will help it...”[/I]
Slivers of magnificent moonlight slithered from the pommel and up the hilt of the sword, seeming to grow brighter with each passing moment. It wrapped around the blade like a fine mist of stars, a cloud ripped from the Cosmos itself. The room slowly grew darker again, but this brilliant nebula only grew thicker and brighter, as if devouring all the light in the world. It was hauntingly beautiful.
[I]“The Huntress will wield it... and it will wield the Huntress... It will guide you... and give you power...”[/I]
With a sudden, brief gale, all the remaining light in the world seemed to instantly collapse down on Ophelia, leaving everything pitch black. She could not even see herself in the total, abyssal darkness... but she saw the sword. The light had condensed and solidified, taking the shape of an almost ridiculously over-sized sword-blade; broad, thick, long, and made of the purest, lambent silver luminescence.
[I]“Hark, Huntress, for you hold now the light of the Cosmos... Hark, and take heart, wielder of the Holy Moonlight Sword...”[/I]
Light returned to the world, both the moonlight from outside and the candlelight from the inside, and the blanket of silence that had been wrapped around Ophelia relented. The world returned to normal, but the sword in her hands remained unchanged: its blade expanded into a giant form of ethereal radiance.

None of the others experienced any of this, of course; to Farren and Torquil, Ophelia merely stroked the blade and, as she did so, summoned its blade of light. They did not see any of the rest, nor did they feel the sword's whispers.

Torquil, meanwhile, was overwhelmed by much more mundane concerns. He looked at all the huge pile of weapons in one chest, a whole load of bundles of Hunter's garbs in another, and the broad selection of remarkable, unusual weapons mounted on the wall, and felt completely lost. He had no idea what most of it was, let alone how to use them, and being faced with having to choose any of this felt almost as stressful to him as his first bout of combat had earlier.
Sheer indecisiveness almost had him just opt to ignore all this fancy Hunter-gear and just stick with the clothes he had woken up in and the axe he had found in the clinic, when something in the chest of weapons caught his attention. His eyes widened and his grip loosened, ultimately allowing the ordinary axe that had followed him here from the Waking World to slip from his grasp and clatter heavily to the floor. He stepped over and past it, went straight to the chest and retrieved a Hunter's axe.
It felt nice and heavy in his hand; light enough for him to use in one hand, but heavy enough to pack a serious wallop. His only regret was that its handle was too short to use properly with two hands... until he remembered that Hunter weapons – or “trick weapons” – were supposed to be able to transform. He spent a moment examining it, trying to figure out what its “trick” was, until he accidentally discovered that the handle was somehow telescopic and extended to become much, much longer, turning the one-handed battle axe into a long axe.
He grinned broadly, and compressed it back into its smaller form. Anything he hit with this was going to get [I]hurt[/I].

Again he turned to the chest of garbs, only to actually walk over there to rummage through and find something more protective than his ordinary clothes. Though he was fine now, and in fact felt better than he had in as long as he could remember – which was admittedly not very long, but still – the memory of getting pummeled effectively to death was still fresh in his mind. The agony of how the Mad One had beaten him, the feeling of his brain rattling around and his skull fracturing, his teeth shattering, his eyeballs... the experience had been quite traumatic, after all. Even if what the doll had said was true and he would reawaken here if he was killed, he did not want to ever feel anything like that again.
He picked some gear, stood up and went outside to change. A few minutes later he returned clad in the light, thin yet sturdy suit of metal plates that was the Cainhurst armor, only forgoing the matching helmet in favor for a Yahar'gul helmet. Rather than the ragged cape he had found with the set, he donned the coat of a tomb prospector.
As he reentered the workshop, he immediately marched straight across the room in his new outfit, directly to the wall decorated with remarkable, unique gear, and, without hesitation, tore the Loch Shield off its mount to hold in his left hand.

This felt better. Safer. He did not want to die again.