Dark Jack

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

Upon hearing Ophelia's answer to the question the doll had conveyed for them, the Shopkeeper turned their head right, then left, then abruptly dropped to their right knee and bowed their head to her deeply. Beside them the doll looked at the caretaker of the dream, took a step back and let out a small gasp of surprise before turning to Ophelia again.
Yet she hesitated, glancing at the Shopkeeper – who remained kneeling – and asked: “Are you certain, good Hunter?”
The figure nodded their head affirmatively without looking up.
The doll's eyes refocused on Ophelia. “Good Hunter, the Shopkeeper would like to offer their condolences and their apologies. These tools are indeed the very ones that once belonged to the witches. Five years ago, the Shopkeeper brought the tools here... after killing the witches.” The doll shuffled uncomfortably in place for a second before continuing: “If you wish it, the Shopkeeper offers you their head. It is not much as the Shopkeeper is bound to the Dream as you are and cannot be so easily killed, but they want to minimize the animosity you feel toward them.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

It could come as no surprise when Ophelia, upon searing the Guidance Rune into her mind, began to see the Hunter's Dream she had only just discovered rather differently. Everywhere she looked there, inside and outside; darting across surfaces, crawling up the legs of tables and chairs, weaving past obstacles, flitting through empty air; everywhere, absolutely everywhere in the Dream was alight with Guidance sprites. Their light was dim enough to not blind or dazzle her, but if Ophelia needed any further proof that they were truly in a realm of the Nightmare, she now had it. Before her eyes, and her eyes alone, strong, resilient moon-sprites swarmed and danced...
A wordless whisper from the sword – her sword – gently caressed her mind. Though she would know that she could share the Guidance Rune with the others the same as she could her Lake and Eye Runes, she would also have a very strong feeling that it would not work as well for them. She could feel the Holy Moonlight Sword resonating with the rune in her mind, empowering it. It relished her admiration, but she could also feel its influence try to calm her; to dampen her fervor and restore her focus.
As it had with its most famous wielder, the great Ludwig, the Holy Blade... as it had continued trying to do, even as he was lost to the Nightmare and became Ludwig, the Accursed... the Holy Moonlight Sword did its best to safeguard her from madness. It would be at her side, through it all. It would be her true mentor. Her guiding moonlight.

Torquil looked from Ophelia to Farren, then back to Ophelia again. He did not understand what they were talking about at all. He did not understand what these runes were, the effects Ophelia were describing, nor why she was speaking to her sword. It was all very confusing to him, but then so were lots of things. In the end he just gave up trying to make sense of things and, as was becoming habit for him, simply accepted whatever judgment the others made.
“If you think it's useful,” he said, his voice slightly muffled by his new helmet, “you can put a rune on me, too.”

Meanwhile, over by the door through which they had all entered, the clicking of her heels and the ruffle of her skirt announced that the doll had climbed the stairs as well, and now joined them in the workshop. She looked briefly to the Shopkeeper, then back to the Hunters.
“The Shopkeeper is surprised, good Hunter,” she said, looking straight at Ophelia. “They have not known a Hunter to come to the Dream for the first time to already be familiar with Caryll Runes before. They wonder if you are perhaps from Hemwick, and might have been an associate of the witches who used to live there?”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

The shimmering light of the blade filled Ophelia's vision, gentle enough as not to be blinding, yet somehow its brilliance seemed to overshadow everything else. Her whispered question directed into it seemed to echo endlessly for a moment, as if bouncing back and forth across a large, empty room... or being repeated back to her by other voices that sounded exactly like her own.
The gleaming sword dominated her vision... accompanied by tiny little playful, dancing sprites of light. And accompanying these sprites, the whispers:
“It has already granted its power... For now, all it can offer... is its guidance...”
Another word was conveyed to her, but it was beyond what could easily be transcribed into human speech. While the sword's other whispers had been intelligible and somewhat easily understandable, this singular utterance seemed to contain more knowledge and meaning than all of it combined, all compressed into something less than a syllable, less than a grain of sand. It was a piece of a wisdom that surpassed human comprehension, and only due to her familiarity with Caryll Runes could Ophelia even begin to guess at its meaning.

Ophelia has obtained the Guidance Caryll Rune. When branded on a Hunter's mind, this rune will sometimes reveal sprites of light that draw attention to powerful traces of the Nightmare.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

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.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

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...”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

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.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

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.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

The Hunter's Dream

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.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Reception, the Hunter's Clinic, in the outskirts of Yharnam

“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.

The Hunter's Dream

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.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Reception, the Hunter's Clinic, in the outskirts of Yharnam

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.