The figure in the wheelchair turned their obscured face in Farren's direction, but did not speak. Instead it was once again the doll that answered his question: “The Shopkeeper is not so called because they buy, sell or craft wares, good Hunter, but because they are the caretaker of this place. The Hunter's Dream is modeled after the very first Hunter Workshop as built by the first Hunter, you see. The Shopkeeper is the custodian of the Dream and the guide and guardian to its Hunters.”
There was a pause as the Shopkeeper turned their face to the doll and the doll looked at them, resulting in a brief moment of silence. Yet though not a single sound was uttered by the Shopkeeper, Ophelia would feel a subtle itch in her brain. They gestured toward the small house at the top of the hill marking the highest point in the Dream, and the doll nodded her head in acknowledgment. “The Shopkeeper wants to let you know that while they do not trade goods, they do have an assortment of Hunter tools, weapons and garbs in the workshop that you may take and use as you see fit.” Another moment of silence, another itch in Ophelia's head, and the Shopkeeper gestured toward the birdbath overflowing with Messengers. “They also want me to let you know about services offered by the little ones to good Hunters like yourselves,” the doll translated the Shopkeeper's intent. “As I said, the little ones traverse all manner of worlds much more easily than others do. One of the services they provide with this ability is to deliver messages across distances and even between worlds, as I understand they have already delivered a couple of messages for you from the Shopkeeper themselves in the Waking World. Another is that if you ever acquire something that you want to take with you, but would be cumbersome or otherwise troublesome to have on your person, the little ones can keep them safe until you need them.” At this, the Shopkeeper picked their book back up and held it up to show them – incidentally displaying a cover with large, gilded font reading “How To Pick Up Fair Maidens” – before reaching the book over the armrest of their wheelchair and toward the ground. As they did so, a Messenger immediately emerged from the ground and eagerly received the book into its arms and, as soon as the Shopkeeper relinquished their hold on it, took the book with them into wherever it went. “Also,” the doll spoke up again, “the little ones find more in the Nightmare than just information. They travel alongside you as you explore the worlds and may occasionally find things in other worlds that may be of use to you. If they do, they will bring such items to this basin.” She pointed to the birdbath. “They will show you the items in the reflection on the water, but sadly the little ones lack the power to manifest these items for you on their own. To get them, you will have to supply this power yourselves through the echoes of your fallen prey that cling to your blood.” The doll bowed her head. “Though I am but a doll, good Hunters, I can also use these echoes to assist you. If you wish it, I can turn your blood echoes to strength, skill, vitality, endurance, bloodtinge or affinity for the arcane.”
listened intently, and though he was slightly disappointed that the so-called Shopkeeper wasn’t actually a merchant OR a craftsman of any kind he did find the explanation illuminating. Still, as the Doll explained, answering in the man’s stead, Farren felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips and an excitement bubble in his veins. That was strange, why was he so excited actually? A frown flickered across his features, but his brief confusion was swiftly washed away as the Doll explained that she too could offer them something for the echoes in their blood.
“You…can enhance the potency of our humors?!” Farren exclaimed, his eyes growing wide as he turned to the doll. That was incredible, he’d never known that such a thing could even be possible.
Yet, that wasn’t what called to him, as evidenced by his eyes quickly shifting back to the building on the hill. Before he could even think of how rude it might be, Farren found himself moving. He’d passed the pair and was halfway up the stairs before he realized that perhaps he ought to say something. He paused, “Ah…sorry, I…I simply must see the workshop,” he called back over his shoulder before he came to the door and did what was needed to make his way inside. If the Doll explained, then surely he could hear it from Ophelia later. The woman would surely bec far more curious than he about such things.
Besides, he vaguely recalled having heard rumors about this place. Whisperings mostly, some were surely tall tales, they’d said the place had been eaten by the city, swallowed by time or some such nonsense. Still, he realized he’d always been rather pulled in by such places…he’d liked the new workshops, worked there once—from what little he could glean of his memories. It felt…right that he would come to use one again and even if his interest had not existed, this was the most practical option. They needed proper weapons…and Farren was itching to see what options might present themselves.
Ophelia listened to the doll's explanation keenly, eyes sharp and still. Though she continued to look up at the moon in the sky, her periphery gave her all the information she needed--there was hardly a dearth of places for her to look at the moon in the sky. She nodded along, slack-jawed with appreciation for the majesty of the place and how vividly rich and detailed this place was. It felt surreal, though she knew with a certainty she could not articulate that it was just as real as the world they had fallen asleep in. She could imagine Victor's shock--and also his stoicism if he'd known all along--at how they must have... vanished, like Torquil's corpse had. That was what the doll had said; she seemed quite earnest and pleasant, though some of that seemed to be down to the fact that she was as expressive as the person interacting with her... and there was this itch in her mind, this tingle just beyond where she could touch with her traditional senses, that intermittently came and went before the doll spoke. This shopkeeper used it as... a doll? A plaything? A translator? It was curious that she should empathise so with the thing, wondering what agency it had, just as she had with the little messengers so eagerly clamouring for her touch and her attention. She breathed in a calming breath, letting the queer scent of the moonlit air rush through her and soothe the fevered ache in her mind, and focused on simply being present and open... and letting her fevered musings melt into distant thoughts, until the smell of it was all her senses could detect.
She'd gotten whiffs of hunters before--and she supposed she smelled like that now--but this Shopkeeper was the most like a Hunter she'd ever smelled, as though all the scents were mere imitations of this original. It sat like a gentle buzz in her nostrils, full of character but quite unlike anything else she'd smelled, until she realised that Farren had begun to ascend the stairs up towards the house that the doll had pointed out. Ophelia smiled and excused herself from the little cluster of people, gracefully weaving her way around them to meet Farren up at the top of the hill toward his destination. She stepped inside alongside him, taking in the unfamiliar sights with similar awe to earlier. Her eyes firstly and immediately were drawn to one particular item in the room: the Rune Workshop Tool. She drifted towards it as though pulled by some invisible force, her fingers gently caressing the cold metal handle of the brand with a familiar reverence. Flashes of a distant time came to her, holding this exact tool under the tutelage of the Witches of Hemwick in a life that felt like she'd left it behind. She wondered how it had come to be here, in this place--how much of the Yharnam she'd known before that fateful night had disappeared without a trace? How much of it had sought refuge in places like this? It was something she was quite certain the little Messengers could help her with... she would have to spend some time with them when they were not expected back in the waking world.
A glint of moonlight shot through the window, illuminating a rather unimpressive sword (with a blade far too narrow for the ponderous hilt), that Ophelia's eyes were instinctively drawn to. She wandered over to it as though in a trance and felt her hand reaching out to take it, whispers of arcane power softly radiating from its presence. They were... plaintive, almost, she felt--beseeching, and something in her earnest nature could not help but answer its perceived call. She attempted to heft it off its stand with a single hand but found her strength somewhat lacking, stumbling slightly before adding a second hand to support the surprising heft. She looked it up and down more closely, felt its weight and its balance, attuned herself to its subtler and more esoteric qualities.
As Farren and Ophelia went to examine dreamscape construct that was reportedly a reproduction of the first Hunter Workshop, Torquil hesitated – looking back and forth between his companions and their hosts in the Dream – before finally following, but in so doing he witnessed yet another thing he had not expected. As the last of the Hunters started ascending the stair toward the house on the hill, the Shopkeeper quite simply just stood up from their wheelchair and started to follow. Their footfalls were light and silent, their movements precise and graceful, in a way that quite clearly suggested that this person had never actually needed the wheelchair. That part confused Torquil, but so did everything he had experienced since the Mad One had bashed his head into mush. He thought wheelchairs were for people who could not walk, or at least had difficulty walking... and how did this person see while blindfolded like that? What was this place, really? And then all the things they had talked about, with nightmares, gods and worlds, and books disappearing into the ground. Torquil did not understand any of it, which frustrated him a little, but he ignored it and told himself to just be happy he had companions who seemed to understand.
Inside the small, quite homely little workshop clearly not meant for more than several people at most, the Hunters found an arsenal of Hunter weapons big enough to equip a small army. Powerful, unique weapons hang on the largest unbroken wall, one large chest was full of more mundane Hunter weapons and yet another was full to the brim of different garbs meant to provide protection during the Hunt without slowing the wearer down. Again Torquil was overwhelmed, faced with a huge number of implements of death he had never seen before and had no idea how worked or how to use.
But Ophelia did not pause at this sight. She immediately recognized the Caryll Rune tools she had used while working in Hemwick, only for those tools to have disappeared when she returned after the Night of the Blood Moon. A small piece of something familiar in this alien place, a fragment of a past she might have thought lost. And then her attention turned to one of the swords mounted on the wall; a sword positively radiating eldritch power to her senses, attuned to the arcane as they were. She went to it and retrieved it, and though she might try to focus her senses on it, she would find that doing so was not necessary, for simply touching it was enough. “Huntress... Heroine... Wielder...” Ideas whispered in her mind; they were not words, nor even sounds, but something strange and otherworldly. Whatever this was, it was not something the senses of a regular human could normally detect, nor their brains comprehend. “It has dwelled... It has waited... It has languished... No more... A new wielder... Feel its holy power... Let it calm your mind... Listen, always... Stroke its blade, and listen to the guiding moonlight...”
Within the caverns of Ophelia's mind the eldritch whispers settled, diffusing into abstract streams of thought not unlike a dream within a dream. She felt herself immersed in the soothing radiance of gentle moonlight through the little structure's windows, wood of the floor contrasting against the argent glow reflecting from the keen polish of the blade in her hand. Almost absentmindedly she brought her left hand away from the hilt to the blade to gently caress along it, feeling the thrum of invisible power radiating from it. She lost all focus on anything but the source of the moonlight above them as her mind resonated with the unseen whispers, letting the subtle guidance it promised fill her very being. Something about it called to her, and something about the place they were in had a resonance she could not understand but could detect.
"I am ready, Mother Moon..." she whispered, an almost-silent prayer leaving her lips. The silence that followed grew louder and louder in her mind, all for the nuances and subtleties of the blade's mysterious urgings to permeate her very essence. She felt nearly compelled to do as it bade, so strong was its longing for purpose and for use--and it held an echo of something principled and chivalrous, she felt, though she knew not where that notion came from nor what it could possibly mean. She was not quite sure if she had not simply imagined this whole thing, so familiar was the rune-brand and so queer the moon... but she could feel the thrum of this thing in her hands, the shivering ache of its desire to be wielded again; of the lack that it had endured for so long. It could not be anything but real, and Ophelia wanted nothing more in that moment than to oblige it.
entered the building and as he did something about it struck him as–at first–faintly familiar. There was something about the shape of the place, the contours of it, and its contents that truly screamed ‘Workshop’ to him. However, what truly called out to him wasn’t visual. Farren closed his eyes for a moment and inhaled deeply–it was the smell of the place. As he took in that aroma, Farren oddly felt…at home. It was a strange thing, the sweet, pungent lingering scent of hunters, of the oils and greases used to maintain weapons and other tools of the trade. It smelled faintly of stone dust from grinders, the sawdust from recently cut wood, sweat…iron, salt and a plethora of other less apparent notes.
Farren found himself smiling in that moment as his eyes opened once more and he once more took things in. This time he actually paid close attention to the various weapons, tools, and facilities provided to them in the Hunter’s Dream. There were some familiar implements that he felt he’d seen before, that he got brief flashes of being dropped off, picked up…that he’d felt in his hands before—if only as he made sure they were in the best possible shape.
As he took it all in, he marveled at the fact that they had so much available to choose from, but particularly what drew his attention was a single, warped curved blade that hung in a special place on the wall beside a number of other weapons. Farren began to drift towards it as he took in the room, but after a moment he narrowed his eyes slightly and stopped himself. Shaking himself slightly, Farren turned away from the wall of singular weapons and went to one of the chests instead.
As he looked through the various weapons therein, his eyes widened slightly due to the sheer quantity of choices. He took a step back and closed his eyes again and tried to really focus on what he wanted. After a few moments he opened his eyes and fished out a few weapons. Gently he laid them on the ground in front of him and then he stood there for a moment, looking them over. After a moment he put a number of weapons back into the chest, leaving him a much smaller potential arsenal.
Farren smiled and then crouched down and tapped two of the weapons. Somehow he knew their names, Bulwark…Kirkhammer. “Messengers…could you hold onto these for me?” He said, feeling a bit awkward talking to thin air, but then the little figures began to emerge. Farren nodded a bit, stood, and began to take off the makeshift weapons and holders he’d fashioned at the clinic. He laid the sabers and the axe on the ground in the same area as the two weapons he’d asked the Messengers to take, “These too,” he added, figuring that there was no real reason to dispose of them. That done, Farren moved around, grabbing what he felt he’d need to affix the various implements to his person. However, before he moved further, he shifted the positioning of his chosen weapons so they wouldn’t get in either Torquil or Ophelia’s way.
Then he checked the second chest and found a series of garments. He’d seen hunters wearing them before, but he wasn’t strictly certain what the differences were…aside from style and general convenience of each depending on how one intended to arm oneself or move about. Nonetheless, he picked out a few and—after a few moment’s consideration—Farren decided on one. Naturally, he didn’t change right that moment, but simply put the clothes aside along with the dual harness he’d picked out, and the belt-loop hooks that he’d decided he’d be hanging his firearms from.
Once he was satisfied with his choices, he noted Ophelia and Torquil’s presence and positions. Ever-so-briefly he considered if going somewhere else to change was necessary, then he decided against it. He didn’t much fancy being bare as the day he was born beneath the giant pale eye of that moon.
So, he grabbed his chosen garb, starting with the cloak, and affixed that. He turned his back to Ophelia so it concealed him—more for her than for him—and began to shed the rest of his clothes. He started at the bottom, then pulled on the various pieces that composed the Crowfeather’s set, those raven-colored garments. Once his pants were secured, he removed the cloak, folded it back up and set it aside and began donning the rest, though he took a similarly dark-colored hood and donned that along with the coverings for his torso and arms. When that was done he affixed the belt hooks at his right hip, then strapped the dual harness onto his back. All that finished, Farren stepped back over to his chosen armaments—those that the Messengers hadn’t taken at least—and began to affix them to his person. First were the Beastflayer and the Piercing Rifle, both which went into the harness at his back, both with their pointy ends poking out behind his right hip. The butt of the rifle was roughly at his shoulder blade, while the last bit of the glaive’s shaft poked up above his shoulder just enough that he could reach back and grasp it with two hands if they wished.
That done, Farren plucked the other two firearms (Hunter’s Pistol and Blunderbuss respectively) from the floor and hooked them securely into place at his right hip—the mechanism being basically identical to what he’d seen Victor do for his blunderbuss. Yet…his right hip felt empty and he found himself frowning a bit and glancing back at the wall of special armaments he’d first been drawn to.
He didn’t know what that strangely enticing warped blade was…but now that he felt properly equipped otherwise, he decided to investigate.
Farren glanced at the feathered cloak, offered it to a Messenger that emerged when he whispered under his breath, and then strode across the room. He made a beeline for the warped blade, his strides covered the distance quickly. He stopped smoothly before it and almost reverently reached out and took it from its perch upon the wall. Farren’s azure gaze swept over the implement and his brow furrowed. After a moment he placed both hands on the distinct sections of the grip and then in a single swift motion he jerked his hands apart. The blade split in two and Farren couldn’t help but grin the expression filled with a glee that was half boyish delight and half a new predatory amusement likely derived from the pale blood that now flowed through his veins.
This time, unlike the other weapons, nothing came to him as he held the blades. After a moment he glanced at the floor and angled the tip of one the blades so it nearly touched the wood, beckoning the messengers to help in deciphering the mystery of the strange paired trick weapon.
The withered, eyeless helpers rose from the floor swiftly, eagerly holding aloft a scroll as high as they could. Farren squinted a bit, the words shifting around in his vision...or perhaps his mind? It took him a bit longer, but eventually managed to unravel the text of the scroll.
Blade of Mercy
A special trick weapon passed down among hunters of hunters. One of the oldest weapons of the workshop. Splits into two when activated. The weapon's warped blades are forged with siderite, a rare mineral of the heavens. Most effective swift attacks, such as after a quickstep.
“Blade of Mercy, huh?” Farren commented with a chuckle before giving the Messengers a grateful nod. turning his attention back to the blades, Farren--with a bit of fiddling--managed to fit them back together with a satisfying snap. Promptly he carried it back over to another area and found a scabbard that would suit its form. Affixing that, Farren then sheathed the unified blades at his left hip, finally satisfied and too caught up in arming himself to notice the strange air that had come to almost possess Ophelia.
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. “Then it is done... A pact is forged... You will carry it into battle... and it will carry you to glory...” 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. “It has languished for too long... The other did not feel its whispers... But you do... You will help it...” 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. “The Huntress will wield it... and it will wield the Huntress... It will guide you... and give you power...” 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. “Hark, Huntress, for you hold now the light of the Cosmos... Hark, and take heart, wielder of the Holy Moonlight Sword...” 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 hurt.
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.
