[h3]The Hunter's Dream[/h3]
Torquil smiled, nodded his head and told Farren “Thanks,” when he once again gave voice to his appreciation that Torquil was alive and well – something that Torquil admittedly was quite happy with, too – and offered a brief explanation of the words on the headstones. It did not change how happily he smiled and he did not say anything, but the fact that Farren felt the need to explain that the writing represented places in Yharnam... writing with such arcane labels as “Cathedral Ward”, “White Church Workshop” and “Old Yharnam”... it made him a little sad.
[I]How stupid does he think I am?[/I] Torquil wondered as he turned away from Farren, feeling suddenly quite self-conscious and embarrassed about his own acuity compared to the others. Sure, he did not like to make decisions or to ponder stuff he did not understand at a glance, but he was not [I]that[/I] stupid... was he? He had known they were places, just not where those places were... right?

Starting to feel really uncomfortable in his own head, Torquil looked around for something to distract himself with and settled on the living doll that everyone seemed completely unperturbed was walking around and talking like a real person. For a moment he let himself be distracted by simply looking at her, as she was undeniably quite beautiful, if somewhat obviously inhuman, and he quite liked her dress. Her hat was cute. But soon enough he told himself that cute or not she was still a doll, and instead recalled some of the things she had told them.
He was particularly interested in her ability to make them stronger, which both Ophelia and Farren had taken advantage of already, and decided that he had better seize the chance to gain some power from her, too, so he would not end up being worthless to the others.
“Uh... hi,” he said as he awkwardly shuffled up to the doll, prompting her to immediately turn to face him attentively. For a second he wondered what to even ask for, but both Ophelia and Farren had asked for stamina, so he decided to just follow their lead. “Can you give me more stamina, too?”
The doll cocked her head, watching him intently with her large, round eyes. “I am sorry, good Hunter, but I cannot. You need to have blood echoes for me to channel into strength for you, and you have none.”
“Oh.” Torquil lightly kicked a tuft of grass in the path in front of him, looking anywhere but at the doll. “How do I get those?”
“They are the lingering wills of the fallen,” she told him patiently. “You need only be nearby when someone dies, and the power of their blood will echo in yours.”
“Right.” He still did not really get [I]what[/I] blood echoes were, but he thought he understood how to get them, at least. “So I get them and come back here, and you can make me stronger?”
The doll nodded her head affirmatively. “So long as you reach the Dream through a stable conduit.”
Torquil stared at her blankly. “What?”
“You need to return to the Dream by using one of the Gatekeepers' lanterns or other markers that can send you here reliably and peacefully,” she explained. “Otherwise, if you lose consciousness or fall asleep, you will still come here but will leave your blood echoes behind.”
Nodding his head slowly, the armored Hunter pondered what he had just been told. “So earlier... even if someone had died at the clinic, I'd still have no echoes now because I died, too?”
“Indeed.”
He sighed. It seemed he had another reason not to get killed again.