Bloodborne.
The Tale of Dionysus.
Chapter 1
"Uhhh Gods, my head,"
I awoke in a strange room, books and blood surrounding me as I lay on some kind of operating table. My name is Dionysus, but that is all that I remember for some reason. I know not even where I am, how I got here, or why I came.
"Wait," I say as if there is someone around me to listen, "the man…"
Yes, there was a man. I believe he was sitting next to me. His white beard showing the years he has spent, perhaps enjoying life or rebuking it. I do not remember much else, other than he said something about 'a contract.'
I look around the room, looking for something that isn't stacked or covered in blood. I sit up, then immediately reach for my arm as a stinging pain pierces nigh to the bone. I look to the crook of my arm and see bandages wrapped around my forearm and bicep.
"The hell has happened to me," I ask the air. I stand to my feet and walk around the room, looking, once again, for anything that may aid my memory. I notice a small note atop a small desk near where I awoke.
"Seek Paleblood to transcend the hunt."
What a queer little note. 'Paleblood,' now where in the world would I find that? I see no other writing on the piece of paper and return it to its place on the desk before turning to the door on my left and opening it to a set of dimly lit stairs.
As I made my way down the steps and into a form of clinic, I began to hear a sound similar to a hound eating a leg of deer. The teeth ripping the meet from the bone as the canine chewed. What I found after rounding a corner horrified me on many fronts.
A beast, twice my size, devouring a mangled corpse that lay beneath its large claws. The beast must have smelled the fresh skin as I turned the corner, as mere seconds after I saw it, it looked to me. As I saw the monstrosity's face, I was reminded of a similar sight before waking a floor above this hellhound.
A pool of blood, a near pitch black room, and a beast, its fur was matted in blood as it rose from the ground and seemed to hold is claws to my face. Before I could recover from the shock of seeing the creature that was eating a fellow man, I felt razor sharp blades rip at my flesh and clothing as I was flung across the room, slamming into tables and bookshelves alike. I looked up to see the demon charging at me at full speed, leaping into the air as a lion onto its prey.
I covered my face with my arms as I prayed for any form of savior to protect me. With the sounds of chains hitting flesh, and a cry from the beast, I look up to see the beast had been pushed to the side of me, destroyed bookshelf fragments lying around it.
"Get tup if you're alive," I hear a woman call to me from beyond where I first saw the beast. A woman with pale, dark skin stood over the body that was once a monster's food. She pulled a long whip back behind her and held a blunder bust before her, slamming the whip into a solid cane.
I quickly stand to my feet and dodge to my right, letting whatever fight was about to happen, happen. The beast snarled at me as I ran, but before it could move to take me down, a loud blast rang out through the building and the beast was riddled with bullets. The woman whistled to the beast as if calling over a pet, and moved closer to her target.
The monster jumped and attempted to slice at the woman, but she was faster than the beast, holding on to her top hat as she rolled under the claws and quickly turned and fired again at the beast's back. The monster released a pain filled cry as it fell to the floor with a thud, the huntress dashing forward and stabbing the creature with her cane. The cane had dug itself deep into the creature, I would say just below its ribs, and with a click of a button that was on the handle, turned itself into its whip-like form and was viciously pulled from the monster as it released one final cry before falling onto its stomach, feet before it last victim.
The huntress slammed the strange weapon back to its walking cane form, splattering blood around the room, including on my own clothing. The woman slung the blunder bust back around her shoulder and removed her top hat, releasing her short, auburn hair and wiping the sweat from her brow. I looked as her long cloak was almost completely covered in blood, staining onto her black gloves, shirt, corset, bow, pantaloons, and boots.
She looked to me and gave a slight smile with her thin, violet lips. Her light brown eyes, though looking like they had seen far more death than most have thought of, seemed to be relieved to see that at least there was one person she was able to save. She leaned the cane against an operating table and pushed her hair back into her top hat before looking back at me and extending a hand.
"'Ello," the woman started off with, "My name is Illya."
"D-Dionysus," I stammer out, "I think."
"You think," the woman chuckles as we shake hands, "You're not too sure about it?"
"Not really," I reply, "It's all kind a blur at this second."
"Well your name at least explains a little about why you're dress looks so foreign."
Confused, I look down. I see only a simple, tan vest, a white, collared shirt, black pantaloons, black boots, and a strange black cape. Strange, I do not even remember having these clothes. Come to think about it, I could hear how our accents seemed to be different as well. Where ever I came from must have my name, accent, and clothing as semi-regular at the least.
"Well come then," Illya says as she walks past the man on the ground, his stomach cavity chewed out by the teeth of the dead creature, "Master will want to me a new Hunter."
"Hey, wait," I say as I quickly catch up to her, "A new Hunter of what?"
Illya turns to me, crouched by yet another body, this one propped—or fallen—against an anwar. Without a word, she tossed me two strange syringes and began to walk out the front door. After looking around outside, she turned back to me.
"Just jam one of those in your leg," she said, "Should heal ya right tup."
I looked down at the small syringes in my hand, the contents seemed to be blood. I went to ask Illya about what she had tossed me, but by the time I looked up, she was gone. Without even hesitating, I stabbed myself in the leg with one of the syringes, feeling better than when I had woken up. I jogged out of the entryway and into a gravestone-riddled courtyard. Illya stood on the opposite side of the courtyard and waited at an open gate.
"What was that," I pause to try and come up with a good word to describe the monster I witnessed her kill.
"It was a beast," her high-pitched voice calls back.
"Well I kind of guessed that," I reply, my grunt voice working in tandem with the snarky rebuttal.
"Relax," Illya places a hand on my shoulder as I finally reach her, "Master Gehrman will explain everything ya need to know when we reach the Dream." I stand, more confused than ever, as she walks down the cobblestone roadway. "Come on, I have a Lantern light just ahead."
I walk close behind as we travel the short distance and finally reach a ladder that scales one of the building that line the street. I look around as Illya climbs, noticing a large bridge that links a cathedral with our side of a cravat. I snap back to attention and begin climbing as Illya calls to me from halfway up the ladder.
As I reach the top, an unholy screech rings out across the land from the cathedral I was just admiring. I look towards the sound one last time before finishing my climb. Illya stands before a single lantern placed before a home, alone red lantern hanging just beside a closed gate.
"Right this way," Illya exclaims before gesturing towards the standing lantern.
As I approach, from the ground, a horde of small, white beings rise and begin reaching for the lantern. Their bodies not allowing them to grasp the light. I step back in terror as I remember these things enveloping me in the same dream as the bloodwolf.
"Oy," Illya snaps, "You goin' or what?"
"Where," I snap back, "Where am I going to, what the hell was that monster back in the clinic, who the hell is the 'Master Gehrman' you keep speaking of? Unless you give me an actual answer, no, I'm not going anywhere."
Illya stood at the lantern, staring at me. For the longest time, she said nothing. I was beginning to wonder if what I had said was too far, and that she was contemplating killing me with as much easy as she had with the wolf. Instead, she merely sighed and looked at me with the utmost seriousness.
"This," she began, gesturing to the city, "Is Yharnam, a shit hole of a city, built over an even shittier city. Yharnam is a city that is plagued by beasts, the insane who believe themselves sane, and the sane who no one believes are. Everything that walks, everything that breathes, everything that is wants to kill you.
"We are the Hunters, our job is to kill the beasts that exist outside and inside man. What happened to you, where I found you, that clinic makes Hunters out of foreigners by transfusion of tainted blood. From the second you woke up, you were giving your life to this cause."
I began trying to contemplate everything she had just told me, of beast and the insane, of tainted blood. Mostly, I was trying to figure out what she meant by 'a cause.'
"Now," Illya concluded, "Master Gehrman, the first Hunter, is waiting on the other side of this lantern to explain everything else to you. Let's not keep him waiting."
I looked back and forth between her and the glowing white lantern. I walked forward, towards the imp-like creatures thirsting for the light. I extend my hand to the lantern.
"Kneel down and pray," Illya tells me, "The Lantern will do the rest."
I take a deep breath, then go onto my knee, and pray to take me somewhere sane. With a flourish of light and sense of blowing away like dust in the wind, I feel myself taken away from this mad house of monsters and land somewhere hard and smelling like lilies.
Once again, I awaken in a haze. This time, somewhat to my pleasure, I awaken to the entry to a withered home. Stairs lead along the edge of a small over hang, with a large doll sitting on a ledge at the beginning of the stairs. Along the stairs lie a row of yet more gravestones, the first and closest one having lit candles at its base.
I look around my newest surroundings in an attempt to find my bearings, though I feel as though that is not as easily done as it is said. I look behind me to see an ocean of fog with numerous pillars spanning to the heavens. I take a second to understand the world I have just traveled to before walking up to the house.
My eyes follow a side path that winds along the opposite edge of the overhang with still more gravestones, a small bird bath stands near a single lantern at the end of under the overhang. I glance closer at the bird bath and see two or three more imps splashing around in the water.
"Hello again," Illya's voice calls behind me.
I turn and see her kneeling on the dirt path as I was a moment ago. I wave back to her and give a skeptical smile. She stands up, brushes the dirt off of her pants and begins to walk towards the bird bath.
"Master is just up those stairs," she says as she reaches the bird bath, "And I suggest you talk to the messengers and get yourself a weapon and gun, you'll need 'em."
Confused as to what messengers she was referring to, I turn to the steps and look down. At my feet grip five imps as ten or twelve more hold various weapons; a cane similar to Illya's, an axe, and some type of monstrous device with a saw-tooth design on the blade. I turn to Illya and ask which weapon I should go with.
"Any of them will do," she replies, not turning from the messengers in the bath, "I prefer the distance of the cane but it's your choice."
I turn back to the messengers at my heel and sigh, taking the axe with hesitation. A few steps up the stairs and more messengers grab me, this time offering a blunder bust or pistol. I take the pistol and strap it to my waist as I thank both groups, or perhaps the same group as before, and continue my way up the stairs.
As I reach the top of the stairs, one more tiny hand take hold of my trousers and stops me. I turn and see a lone messenger holding a small notebook up to me. Once again I thank him and take the notebook, and finally enter the home.
As I enter the small home, which as I quickly notice is more of a workshop than a home, I look to my right and see a large chest under a hanging rack, slightly beyond that is a weapons rack, and at the opposite end of the room is a form of alter adorned by a multitude of candles. I notice a man sitting near a window in his wheelchair, his hat withered and torn like most of him with age.
"Ah-hah, you must be the new Hunter," the man says in a gravelly voice, "Welcome to the Hunter's Dream. This will be your home, for now."
"Are you Gehrman," I ask, taking a seat near the man, "Gehrman, the first Hunter?"
"Yes," he replied followed by laughing, "Though I have not been a part of the hunt for many a fortnight. I'm sure you're to be in a fine haze right now, but don't think too hard about all of this. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your own good."
"But, why," I ask, "I-I mean why me?"
"You know," the old man says, swinging his cane around, "It's what hunters do! You'll get used to it."
"But," I begin to reply, "Why was I chosen to become a hunter? And what beasts am I supposed to kill?"
"You were chosen," Gehrman began, "Because you either wanted to, or you were made to. The reason no longer matters, only that you fulfill the destiny that was bestowed upon you."
Gehrman began to back away from the window and rolled himself towards the back door of the workshop. I stopped him, asking what the Hunter's Dream was and why it was not attached to the world. The aged hunter spun his wheelchair around and looked back at me.
"This was once a safe haven for our brethren," he said, pointing his cane out the window, "A workshop where hunters used to use blood to enhance their weapons and flesh. We don't have as many tools as we once did, but…" the elder paused. "You're welcome to use whatever you find."
With that, the old man wheeled off out the door. Stopping and pulling himself back to say something that I found rather… disturbing.
"Haha, even the doll, should it please you."
I shivered as to the depravity of the old man. After recovering, I looked around the room to see what I could use. I looked in the chest and grabbed five of the quicksilver bullets, loading one into my pistol and placing the rest in my vest pocket.
I then moved over to the weapons rack and looked for what tools there were, then noticing that other than a sharpener, there was nothing at it. I looked around at the alter for what it had to offer, which also resulted in nothing. With a sigh of slight annoyance, I walked out the back door to the workshop and noticed a small side path around the back of the workshop that was hidden in the flowers.
I walked around the small dirt path and came upon a small hollowed stump with water in it like the bird bath. Looking inside for any sign of life, or whatever the messengers had to them, I saw only my own reflection. My broad nose, square jaw line, unkempt, coppery-brown hair, my bluish-green eyes… or, should I say eye as it had appeared as though my left eye was blinded with a scar running down my left cheek.
I walk back up the dirt path and meet up with Illya, whom is at the workbench sharpening her threaded cane. She turns and sees the axe I hold on my back and pistol at my hip and scoffs. She snaps the threaded cane back to its sheathed one could say form.
"So ya went with the Hunter's Axe did ya," she says, "I have one too, as a backup in case of beasts."
"Well," I take a deep breath, "Nothing else the messengers had seemed to look good to me."
"Have ya tried the secondary form yet," she asked me.
Secondary form, I thought that was only for her weapon. Curious, I take my axe in hand and look it over. Noticing a small button near the axe head and that it looked like the axe extended beyond its one handed form, I cautiously pressed the button. In an instant, the handle shot out of itself and tripled in length to become a long axe.
"Whoa," I say as I look my second stage weapon over.
"Aye," Illya says, "It's instantaneous for combat purposes. When you're fighting people, you can hit the button and transform it to fit the needs of the combat. Shorter for quick strikes and shooting your gun, or longer for heavier strikes."
I return my weapon to its regular, smaller form and rehang it on my back. As I do so, I do notice that the weight of the blade isn't as great in its smaller form than as its war axe one. I am amazed at how one could have placed so much weight into the end of the handle of the weapon without making it unusable.
Illya leads me outside and towards the tombstone covered in candles. Illya points at the tombstone and explains that this one will take me to where ever in Yharnam I have a lit lantern, also saying that the more lanterns I have, the more places I can go. She then points to the three other tombstones that line the stairway to the workshop, stating that I cannot use those until I have at least one lantern lit in those areas.
"So where do ya want to go," Illya asks, "Central Yharnam or back to the sickroom?"
"Hm," I say, thinking about it for a moment, "I guess back to the sick room."
"Alright then," Illya says as she kneels to the tombstone. She places one hand on the stone's face and whispers to the stone, almost so quiet that I almost miss it. "1st floor sickroom."
With those three words, a light appears from under her and she begins to fade away. After disappearing, I walk over to where she was and kneel down and place my hand to the tombstone. after repeating what Illya said, I am enveloped in the same feeling I felt when I entered the Hunter's dream and am whisked back to where I awoke.
Back to Iosefka's clinic.
Chapter 2
As I take my first breath back in the real world, I look around for Illya. Instead of finding her, I find that the table that I woke up on has disappeared. I then hear sounds of people's voices coming from the opposite direction of the door I first opened. I walk up the steps and come to Illya talking to a woman behind a closed door.
"I'll talk with you later," Illya says as she sees me approach.
"What was that about," I ask as Illya walks past me on the stairs.
"Hm," she replies, "Oh she's just a friend to hunters. Now come on, it's time I teach you about Blood Echoes."
I look back up the stairs to the closed door, then follow Illya's lead back out to the street. After we reached the street, I notice something I hadn't before. There were an immense amount of coffins just lying on the street.
"Blood Echoes," Illya finally begins, "are our currency, to say blatantly. We receive them as reward for killing creatures. Have you noticed how my cloak is now clean of blood?"
Come to think of it, it had completely skipped my mind when we were in the Hunter's Dream that her cloak had turned back to its black leathery exterior. Had transporting to that plane somehow cleaned her up?
"To put it basically," Illya continued, "the more blood that's on your cloak, the higher the Blood Echoes you have. We hunters are unique; we can attract Echoes without even having to kill a beast. We will however lose our blood echoes if we die and they go to whatever beast killed us."
"So who ever kills the beast that kills another hunter," I begin to ask.
"No, if we are lucky," Illya explained, "We may be able to come back and be able to try and kill the beast again, doing so allows us to retrieve those Blood Echoes."
We traveled back up the ladder, Illya began to walk towards the right of the house and down steps while I stood in bewilderment. I walked over to the red lantern and gently knocked on the bars over a lit window.
"Oh, you must be a hunter," a sickly male voice spoke out, "And not one from around here, either."
"My name is Dionysus," I speak back to the man.
"I'm Gilbert," he replies, "A fellow outsider. You must have had a fun time of it. Yharnam has a special way of treating guests." the man chuckled a little, followed by a deep chest cough. "Well, I don't think I could stand it if I wanted to… But I'm willing to help if there's anything that can be done."
"Is there anything you can tell me about Yharnam," I ask.
"This town is cursed," Gilbert replied after coughing once again, "Whatever your reasons might be, you should plan a swift exit. Whatever can be gained from this place, it will do more harm than good."
Right as I'm about to walk away, I remember something from the clinic. I knock on the bars again, this time asking about Paleblood. Gilbert takes a moment to think about it before answering.
"Paleblood, you say," he repeats, "Never hear of it, but if it's blood you're interested in, you should try the Healing Church."
"Why?"
"The church controls all knowledge of blood ministrations, and all verities of blood. Across the valley east of Yharnam lies the town of the Healing Church known as the Cathedral Ward. Deep within the Cathedral Ward is the old grand cathedral, and birthplace of the Healing Church's special blood… or so they say. They normally wouldn't let you near the place, but the hunt is on tonight, this might be your chance."
"Dionysus," Illya's hushed voice calls out, "are you coming or what?"
I quickly move around the house and down the steps, meeting up with Illya behind cover at the edge of a large bridge. At the opposite end of the bridge, a lone madman swings a large cleaver around in the air. I look to Illya for an answer.
"Pungent Blood cocktails," she says, "Good for drawing out man and beast alike. Too bad that was my last one."
"Then why did you waist it," I ask.
"Because last time I came down this way," she looked around wildly as if looking for something that wasn't there, "I had to fight off seven of those guys and I didn't want to do so again."
After she said that, Illya charged towards the lone nutjob across the bridge. Illya transformed her threaded cane and swung with a large downward swipe, downing the man in one strike. Illya returned the threaded cane to its proper form and gestured it was safe for me to come over.
We travel down the steps and Illya pushed me backwards, holding my mouth as she gestured me to keep quiet. We peeked out heads around the corner and saw two men at the end of a small, dark alley. One man was sitting, bent over on the ground while the other was looking over something and holding a torch.
Quietly and slowly, Illya moved into the middle of the walkway as I watched the two men. With neither of the men noticing us, she gestured that I be the one to take the sitting man out. I shook my head with disapproval, though her blunder bust made me reconsider my options.
I moved ever so slightly towards the end of the alley, Hunter's Axe in hand and pistol ready for emergency. I stood before the man, still asleep almost, and took a deep breath. I pressed the button on my axe and turned it to its two-handed form.
The sound of the transformation caused the man before me to wake up from his haze. The hatred in his eyes was equal to the werewolf from the clinic. Without hesitation, I swung the Axe over my head and into his, logging it deep into his skull.