“You are free to come and go as you desire, as are your fellows on the other side of Yharnam,” Dietrich declared, loudly enough that the others in the hall could hear him. Then he lowered his voice once more to normal speaking volume: “As I said, unless I am needed for a hunt, you can find me here.”

With that and a final, elegant bow, Dietrich turned and started climbing the stairs, heading back to his office and returning to his duties as First Hunter, leaving Ophelia to her victorious exit from the White Church Workshop under the envious glares of men and women of the church alike. But though she still garnered some attention, she could see and hear business in the workshop resume its normal pace even as she left, and by the time she had returned to the golden lantern the sounds that reached her from there were practically indistinguishable from when she had first arrived. Despite all that had happened, it seemed that the machinery that was the workshop, and perhaps the White Healing Church as a whole, kept churning just the same.
Though the golden lantern was obviously different from the one she had used at the clinic on Rebirth's Rise, it proved to function exactly the same as it, in spite of the lack of Messengers. She looked into the light and felt herself rapidly growing drowsy, then fell asleep and awoke back in the Dream.


She found herself in the exact same place she had awoken the first time she had come here, and the Dream itself seemingly unchanged. The doll and the Shopkeeper stood idly by the side of the gravel path leading up to this much smaller workshop, and the birdbath remained sprawling with numerous Messengers.
Immediately upon awakening in the Dream, two Messengers emerged from the ground at Ophelia's feet and urgently unfurled and held up a scroll for her to read:

“Victor’s blocking the Clinic door on our way out. You’ll need another lantern to rejoin us.” - Farren

"Ahh, Mother Moon, what a blessing to be beneath your gaze once more..." Ophelia sighed reverently, looking up at the refulgence of the moon with adoration plain across her face. She turned her gaze down to the Messengers once they appeared, and she laughed softly and sweetly and placed her free hand to her breast with another sigh, this one filled with relief. She read the scroll eagerly before asking the little ones to scribe a message for her in return.

"Understood. Just returned to Dream - no little ones in White Church. Discovered a lot. Got supplies for us all. Joining you as soon as I can."

That done she sent them away with a grateful nod, and she strode over to the Shopkeeper and Doll with a clear sense of urgency.

"... I think we have a problem, love. The gold markers--there are lanterns much like this one, albeit with gold instead of silver... and they rest upon these golden plinths--a meter tall, decorated with eyes and figures bathing in the ocean. None of the little ones appear near them. Whatever it is... I know that this gold is from the realms of Nightmare, but... There is something... very off about it. To say nothing of Vicar Harold," Ophelia began, visibly shuddering as she mentioned the vicar's name. Here in the Dream, where she knew beyond knowledge that she was safe, even thinking about the queer compulsion that she'd only barely and partly resisted made her feel as though her skin was crawling.

"He has them all under some sort of thrall--they all call him a nice old man, with that exact phrasing, and as soon as I laid eyes upon him that thought snaked its way into my mind before I even realised what was happening. If not for Mother Moon and her glorious light, who knows if I'd have been able to resist it? They know of your presence, too, Shopkeeper--it seems Gerlinde has found herself an ersatz home there." Ophelia finished, hurriedly speaking the words. She felt a sense of urgency to rejoin her fellows, after Farren's note, but more than that... She simply felt nauseous, and violated in a way that she was not sure she could articulate, and deeply worried for Dietrich, if he'd fallen under the same spell.

The doll listened intently, and one might assume the Shopkeeper did the same though it was difficult to ascertain without seeing their face. In the end, after Ophelia had given her urgent report on what she had discovered, the doll looked at the caretaker of the Dream for a moment before turning back to Ophelia.
“Troubling though this is to hear, good Hunter, I fear we cannot claim that this is the first we have heard of it. Moira and Gerlinde both spoke of something similar, though you seem to have discerned considerably more than either. We cannot even begin to fathom what manner of power could successfully ward against the little ones...”
She bowed her head submissively before continuing: “As far as Gerlinde is concerned, I think you may be mistaken. Gerlinde is quite aware of something untoward residing at the workshop of the White Healing Church, and though we have seen her return to the markers there occasionally, she has shown no particular affinity for them. Perhaps when she returns to the Dream you can speak to her yourself, to allay or confirm your fears?”

_Farren

heard Victor’s words and couldn’t help but think the man naive, for while Farren was new as a hunter, something about the White Church’s assumption just struck him as utterly foolish. Nights like these were inherently dangerous, often fatal, for those caught ought beneath the fell light of the moon. Farren had a sense that he’d once seen true horrors on such nights, or perhaps on some assignment earlier on. He had a flash of memory from when starvation had been a real concern, earlier during his time in the city, seeing something truly…monstrous.

Beastmen and such were one thing, those recently having succumbed to the scourge even moreso, but something that could do this sort of damage that a civilian might survive an encounter with was…well, something else entirely. Yet, he had the sense that he had encountered such things before, had a feeling that such encounters were part of why he had such a pragmatic outlook even after the amnesia that his metamorphosis had caused. That intuition, he supposed he had to call it, had Farren questioning Victor’s competence: after all, he couldn’t truly know if the man was simply naive, inexperienced, or gods forbid, incompetent.

“Never seen anything like this?” Farren asked, his voice relatively quiet, but not so faint that Torquil or Victor would fail to hear him. As he spoke, Farren kept his eyes wide–his stance similar–as he moved forwards, leading at a measured, cautious pace. One eye twitching slightly as he stepped around a spatter of blood and pebbles, Farren’s left hand closed around one of the pistols at his belt, and he drew it, not taking his eyes off his surroundings for even a moment as he did so.

“Have I seen anything like it?” Victor exclaimed incredulously, though he was wary enough to not raise his voice while doing so. “I don't think you understand; giants are what keep beasts away from the Cathedral Ward. Even cleric beasts are scared of them, and even Hunters are scared of cleric beasts! And this...”
He stepped closer to the motionless giant and found numerous clawmarks on its body... but not of the enormous kind left by the likes of cleric beasts. The wounds were clearly left by bestial claws, but whatever had done it had not been significantly larger than human-sized judging by the wounds. And despite the small size, it looked as though whatever had done this had been powerful enough to downright tear chunks of meat out of the poor, simple-minded creature. Examining its corpse, it looked as though something had first thoroughly maimed the church giant's legs, only to then rip out its throat. It did not seem to have any other significant wounds on its back, and it was much too heavy for them to try to turn over to examine its front.
Moving on past the giant, Victor went to his fellow White Church Hunter, who was quite clearly dead, lying face-down in a puddle of his own blood. Not only that, but the back of his coat looked as though it had been cut open and moved aside to bare his back, after which someone appeared to have skinned the entire area from Stefan's neck to his waist, leaving nothing but naked, bloody flesh.
“A beast didn't do this.”

_Farren

took in Victor’s explanation and suddenly a terrible possibility entered his mind, one that had the potential to be far worse than facing some unknown beast. Farren glanced at one of the bodies–finding similar marks to what the Church Hunter had–and his mind brought to bear a solitary image. A pair of almost cobbled together weapons consisting of two jagged, unnaturally long talons that had likely been torn from some massive beast. All wrapped together crudely with cloth, though perhaps they’d been horns or antlers of some sort, Farren considered–not that it mattered in the moment. The real issue was what that might mean, “Beast Claws…” he muttered grimly, glancing Victor’s way for the briefest moment to meet his eyes before he swept his gaze back around them.

The question was, if it were a Hunter–or if it once had been one–where was it?

Trying to shrink down and hide behind his shield as best as he could, Torquil moved very slowly to follow Victor, his axe always at the ready. He kept focusing down first one open, empty street of the T-intersection, then the next, then the first, looking frantically for movement or anything that stood out... and, in particular, anything that was coming toward them. Like someone coming to kill them. Which would be bad, at least in his humble opinion.

Meanwhile Victor's hands were trembling as he licked his lips and swallowed, his eyes scanning rapidly up and down the corpse of the man who used to be his companion. He hesitantly crouched and, without letting go of his sword, rolled the body onto its back to reveal a person who was just barely recognizable as Stefan. His jaw appeared to have been shattered, and Victor only now noticed that not only did Stefan's weapon – a church pick – lie broken and discarded a couple of meters from the body, but the street was also strewn with bloody, broken teeth. The sight brought back recent memories of the beast-man slashing Victor in the face, though Stefan appeared have been hit even harder, and with blunt force rather than a sharp instrument.
Even more noticeable, however, was the fact that – aside from miscellaneous other small bloody tears in his garb – there was a sizable hole right through the front of Stefan's coat and into his belly, with his intestines hanging out for the world to see.
“Visceral attack,” Victor muttered with a nod of his head. “A Hunter definitely did this. I've heard of this guy. They call him Skinner, because he always takes a patch of skin from his victims. He's a mad Hunter that's been killing everyone, beasts, Hunters and humans alike, for months. I had heard he was really dangerous, but this... is worse than I'd imagined.”
While he spoke, Victor's hand went to check the corpse's bag of blood vials.

Ophelia nodded thoughtfully as the Doll relayed information about Gerlinde, and Ophelia's face softened somewhat and a gentle smile revealed just a hint of her teeth.

"Ah--having never spoken with her, I'm simply scrambling to put bits of information together. I'm relieved to hear that she sees it too, and that Moira did in her time here. I thank you both for your wisdom, loves. Now... I have a little request: the runebrand, might I take it into the waking world for a brief time? I wish to mark those Hunters who'd fight beside us with what protection I can offer, and... Well, I know it sounds silly, but some time I'd like to take it back to Hemwick. Just for a moment, just for myself, to... I don't know, really. Honour the Witches' memory? Something like that; it would... comfort me, I think." Ophelia spoke, the smile not leaving her face but a mournful twinkle sparking within her eyes.

"I... Suppose I should take a gun, too... Do you have a recommendation, Shopkeeper? I find myself quite unfamiliar with them, and would appreciate your sage guidance." Ophelia added, blinking twice in rapid succession as the wistfulness left her and was replaced with determined grit. While she waited for them to speak their piece in return she idly fidgeted with the mercury-filled canister that Dietrich had filled for her, taking it from its resting place and popping the cap open. She ran her finger delicately along the sharpened edge of the Holy Moonlight Sword to draw blood, though the wound healed nearly instananeously, and let the few drops of blood that emerged beforehand to drip gently into the phial.