"We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far." –H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

What a miserable night to be alive.

The countryside was a procession of quaking trees, most of them having already lost the majority of their leaves, making them black and skeletal, while the rest of the foliage was shades of bloody crimson and gold, wavering precariously in the wind. Beyond that, the full moon was a disk of sickly, glowing milk on the horizon, the icy bay shimmering in its wake.

The sleet beat Liam's face as he trudged through puddles of chilled water and mud, soaking wet beneath his hunter's attire. His entire body was racked with a deathly chill as the rain came down, blowing into his face in the autumn wind, his hat missing, leaving only his laced up, frayed leather hunter's high collar to protect him. His hunter's garb was useless against the sporadic downpour from various clouds hanging overhead, the heavy leathers filled with burns, bullet holes, and rips.

Not far behind him, he could hear the hunting party crashing through the underbrush, ripping through the foliage with their giant Kirkhammers and "Holy" Swords, mockeries of the one the great Ludwig once carried. They were accompanied by the feral roars and barks of dogs, springing through the bushes while the black-clad hands of the Church drove them forward as they strained against their leashes. The light of their lanterns occasionally hit Liam's back, making his shadow dance for them as the yellow rays broke through the moonlight and fractured the rain.

The Hunter was keeping ahead of them, high on his usual cocktail of enhanced blood, adrenaline, stabilizers, stimulants, and painkillers. A drop of his blood could burst the heart of the heartiest dock worker, but he was wearing out. He was down to his last vial, his skin was cold and wet, and the constant run was sapping his stamina. Hunters were nearly superhuman, but even they had limits.

It didn't help the party behind him numbered over a dozen men, and after the first engagement he realized they were vicious bastards, even for the Healing Church's elite minions. They were Laurence's finest; adept, merciless, and addled with blood so strong it was practically acid to a normal human. He bloodied them, but they overpowered him fairly effortlessly and now he was running himself to death in the rain, on an icy beach in the middle of nowhere. Nearing the end of his rope.

It was supposed to be an easy job, a proposal from a bunch of aristocrats in bright dresses, the reek of top-shelf blood on their lips and the purses at their side overflowing with golden coins. Yharnum's elite.

A simple situation; A cargo ship, bloated with Old Blood, never came to shore in the harbor. Since a few nights before, the autumn winds were howling with freezing rain, making any travel perilous, and the coast around that area was jagged and shallow. It wasn't hard to imagine the hardened frigate veering off course in the currents and dashing on the rocks, like a bundle of sticks cracking under a boot.

All that blood and gold for the taking, and he would have a favorable share. All Liam had to do was get there before the other hunters, or whoever owned that ship.

He was on open coastline now, ascending an inclined plateau, riddled with pitfalls, tiny dunes, and sawgrass up to his waist. A blackened lighthouse cast its blind gaze around the bay from its perch at the top of the cliff, the light snuffed out. Whatever was on that boat, the Church wanted it bad. If the keeper wasn't dead, he was far, far away.

Liam considered hiding in the vacant lighthouse, but put it out of his mind. That's the first place they'd look. They had dogs so even if he wasn't spotted by the Hunters, their companions would sniff him out him and he'd be completely trapped.

He was running out of options as his pursuers came closer and closer. Liam's surefooted jogging was soon reduced to a heavy, stumbling gait, until his toes drug through the sand with each step.

He didn't give pot of piss about honor or glory. A hunter was just another killer, by a different name- though he wasn't shy about collecting well-due rewards from the townspeople he saved from the beasts that skulked around. It was good to take their wives, daughters, and blood, only for them to bow down and worship him for it. "Savior!" "Savior!" they called him as he passed. Many reviled him, spat in his direction, and despised him as a tainted outsider. When he took his dues, they called him a devil and a coward. Others got physical, and they discovered the great, jagged Saw Cleaver laden with clods of blood and bone chips wasn't at his side for show.

Yeah, savior indeed. The only one he was concerned about saving was himself. From being weak, from being just another dopey-eyed layman toiling for a greedy merchant somewhere. When he was near fatally injured in that mill, it wasn't the union or the boss who gave him his arm back. The life of a hunter was certainly more satisfying than the toil of fetching crates and milling steel, and he would take care of himself, rather than being thrown to the streets to beg and starve. He wasn't dying on this stretch of wasteland tonight.

At any moment, his vanishing cover would be gone and they'd run him down, so he ran to the edge of the cliff, peeked over, and saw an outcropping. Without hesitation, he leapt off the side, landing hard on an eroded floor of rock, and it took strong resistance to keep his trembling hand away from his final vial.

He slumped against the cliffside, more tired than he realized as his pouring blood washed away with the rain. He suddenly felt suffocated by his mask, and tore it away. Liam panted, the humid air caressing his mouth and tongue while his sweat froze as fast as he could make it. He looked down the thirty meter drop to the roiling sea and jagged rocks, foam spraying from the maw of the rabid sea.

He'd found a good place to catch his breath, but he knew this was the end of the road. Hopefully they would pass him by, their roaring voices growing overhead as they coordinated the search over the sandy hills. He would have to climb his way out later and get far, far away from that accursed beach before even more reinforcements came.

Otherwise, he was going to pop his last vial. He would either die of hypothermia, get torn apart by the hunters when they found him, or take his chances and plunge into the sea below. The last option had merit. He'd been ripped open so bad on some of his past hunts, if he took a drink of water it would spring out the hole in his chest, and he still came back from it. The more likely outcome, however, was his skeleton would turn to splinters, he'd sink below, drown, and be fodder for the fairytale beings he'd heard so much about.

Directly overhead, he heard two voices:

"Sir, he appears to have gone missing."

"Missing?" The other boomed, no doubt the half-giant that towered nine feet high, whom Liam saw earlier. "No. He's nearby. We were right on his heels, I could practically smell the reek of blood. He will not get away."

There was a pause, before the smaller voice responded, "Perhaps we should break pursuit? Focus on-"

"We will focus on the relic when that hunter is dead."

"But Sir-"

Liam flinched as the hunter's speech was cut short, calling out in surprise. He could practically hear the inhuman brute spitting as he boomed, "I'm the Captain, and the Captain says we're going to find that skittering rat and kill 'em!" his ragged breath filled with bloodlust and urgency, "That relic… only once in a lifetime can the Choir have the power and resources to build such a thing. It is the fruit of a rare communion. If there is even a slight, slight odd that the hunter will find it before us, the Choir will mount our heads on a spit!" The giant vomited the last word, splashing it in the face of the smaller hunter, "so grab the relic, or kill him! Do it!" There was a splash, the smaller hunter being thrown in the mud, and frantically crawling away.

"Yes sir!" For the Good Blood!" The Good Blood, the rest the hunters nearby echoed, searching fervently for the trespasser.

Liam shook his head.

So, that's what all this was about. The wild chase, the fervor, and the absolute, unrelenting hunt… for a bunch of magic blood rocks?

Some days, he regretted coming to Yharnum. The Blood was great, but the stinking town was a nest of degenerates and lunatics.

his blood ran cold as he listened against the wind and the sleet, hoping that he was wrong as he picked up on something nearing his hiding place. A dog snuffling up the side of the dunes, getting nearer and nearer. Liam looked straight up, squinting through the rain, at the wall that made up one side, and the grey, brooding clouds lit by the moon.

The head of a dog, with a scraggly coat and a maw coated with blood, appeared over the edge, it's eyes glinting yellow as they locked onto him a moment. The hound went rigid, jumping straight up as a few more joined him, the bunch unleashing great barks and howls from their foaming jaws. Liam's face was hit by stray clods of dirt and pebbles as the dogs nearly threw themselves down at him, their paws digging at the edge of the cliff.

Within moments, their masters called to each other, and soon he saw the black hunters peering down on him. Moments later, the bullets were flying, Liam feeling the sting of pistol shots tearing into his arm, the black powder leaving an acrid scent as the bloodied bullets pelted him.

In a split-second decision, he jumped off the outcrop, plunging towards the sea, his arms flailing wildly as the toothy shore expanded in his vision. He somehow righted himself, keeping his body straight, so when he struck, rather than being pasted on the rocks, his legs shattered on the impact, and he went tumbling down.

The black sea yawned, until it enveloped his vision, the chill swallowing his every sense as he plunged into the depths. His lungs burned, salty water rushing into his stomach in a torrent. He lost his sense of direction instantly, getting tossed against the rocks and breaking his back, before being pulled every which way by the raging current, bubbles of precious air pouring from his mouth. He would've vomited if his throat wasn't full of sea water.

Through all of that, on pure animal instinct, he went rigid, reached to his side, and grabbed his vial. He pulled it from the holster and rammed it into his thigh. The prongs, activated by shock, sprung forth and drove into his leg, the hollow tubes flooding with blood and ejecting it violently into his muscles through their various pores.

The Blood recalled his first transfusion, his eyes springing wide open. Liam' severely broken legs snapped into position, creaking as they fused together. The bullets were buried by fresh muscles as the coils unspooled and wove together. His entire body surged with energy, the pain going from nearly impossible to bear to a faint annoyance as his eyes dilated. To his newly refreshed senses the turbulence of the sea seemed to slow to a crawl, the hunter righting himself and surging through the dark seas.

He worked himself around tall spires beneath the water, nearly raking himself on the stone shelves rising beneath him as he dove down, the deeper currents undisturbed by the turmoil above. After a considerable distance, pushing through wiry algae and treacherous riptides, the stone turned to sand, the water shallowing as Liam came to another stretch of beach. He erupted into a cove below the rise, salty water cascading off his back as he tried to stand. He immediately vomited, coughing several times before lurching forward, spasming as his lungs tried to expel their contents, flecks of algae and seawater spurting from him as he tried to catch his breath.

Wrent by the cold and surging with energy, Liam rocked on his heels and kept his shivering arms close to him, his head ringing from the drop and oxygen starvation. His hand went to his pistol, opening the chamber and dumping a mix of water, blood, and quicksilver from the ruined interior. Unwilling to test the flooded pistol, lest it backfire, his hesitantly discarded it. Likewise, he lay down his Saw Cleaver. It was dead weight at this point anyway, since he was running out of stamina and the brief boost of vigor he gained from the Blood would not last long. He couldn't fight, so anything to help him get out faster was his priority.

Before he could pick a direction to run in, he beheld the husk of a ship, the moonlight resting on its sopping skeleton. It lay on its side, the stomach burst open, pieces of hull scattered around alongside nets, tools, and crates. Bloated corpses were strewn over the sands alongside woodchips and twisted metal, unable to withstand the merciless seas, while the windless sails lay uselessly on the rocks.

The sight sent chills up Liam's spine… alongside something else. He couldn't place it, but he felt like he wasn't alone in there... like something was leeching into his thoughts. The shadows felt deeper, like portals to another world…

He shook his head. Nonsense.

He'd born witness to the superstitious mania that came with the hunt. The lust for blood. The mysterious properties of the plague, and all the old wives tales about wrapping belts around your leg to slow the beastly transformation.

No-one was immune to going a little mad in Yharnum. The hunger. For blood, for the rush of endorphins ripping and tearing into the beasts, for indulging in his baser instincts. Some nights, in his dreams, he felt as though he were beckoned to other worlds, unsure where the world ended and the dream began.

But all that paled in comparison to the Church's fixation on the beings they called the Kin. As much as Yharnum depended on them it was no secret the citizens were terrified of contracting the plague, or showing sedition, lest they vanish like so many others. And for what? To make fever dreams reality? To gain the favor of fairytales and aliens?

And yet, he was strangely compelled forward, his boots squeaking as they drug through the frigid sands, drawing him towards the wreckage, the ebbing and flowing tide echoing off the walls of the cavern.

Since he was here anyway, and since the Church Hunters were a step behind him, there was no reason not to see what all the fuss was about.

His boots worked over the timbers, kicking aside stray scraps and stomping over the prone corpses.

I'll just take a look, and see if anything remains of the cargo,

He was now on a sizable chunk of the deck, walking up a forty degree incline, stepping carefully over the mainsail and towards the shady captain's quarters, the door broken from the hinges.

I'll grab anything worth taking, then escape into the night.

He walked through the threshold, beholding the nerve center of the vessel. Paintings were reduced to splinters and wet paper. Baubles and ornaments, depicting all their little deities, were now indiscernible scraps of glass that crackled under Liam's feet. There were Blood Vials, but they were all shattered and their contents diluted by the sea.

Several corpses were piled against the front wall, the power of gravity and the ship's angle throwing them around. Some had the bleached, bloated look of drowning, but nearly all had signs of violence upon them. Crushed skulls and skeletons from Kirkhammer, deep gashes from the Holy Blades, the giant holes of men ripping eachother's organs out in a bloody rage. A peppering of charred bullet holes, the chains of Threaded Canes buried in the flesh like worms in dirt.

He walked over them, going towards the back. The windows were blown out, letting wind rush through the ruined cabin. A priest in especially lavish garb appeared to be the captain, his silly blindfolded hat torn nearly in half and priestly robes marred. His desk was overturned, sitting on top of him along with most of his other possessions, the things falling against him when the ship came down.

Liam easily threw the heavy oak to the side, exposing a chest resting beneath, alongside its protector. The dead man was grasping a parasite, now stone dead; a weapon used by especially gifted clergy. One that wasn't used lightly.

The scene played out in his head:

The ship was coming apart under the punishing waves, and crashing on the rocky shore. His crew barged in, looking to use the cargo to save themselves, but the captain's dogma commanded that no-one open the case. The loyalists and mutineers killed each other off, and the wounded survivors drowned to death.

Liam lifted the box, the metal frame beneath his fingertips prickling his nerves as though it was blazing hot to the touch, yet the metal was cool to the touch from resting in the breeze. How fitting the crew would be devoured by the very deep they so fervently sought after. And all over this tiny wooden box, barely a chest, just big enough to fill both Liam's arms but far too small to contain anything like a trick weapon or blood rock.

Liam, curiosity overflowing, attempted to pry the case open, but it was stubborn for such a little thing. He didn't want to smash it open, at the peril of damaging its contents, and he didn't want to wait, since it could possess something to assist him.

He settled for searching the priest roughly, the former man of the Choir convulsing as he was worked over by Liam's free hand, while the other cradled the case. Liam found what he was looking for, a thick iron key, and placed the box flat on the ground.

With a turn of the key, the case opened, Liam on his knees as lifted the lid. The case was clogged with sopping wool, the Hunter pulling the white spools out by the fistful, and feeling a heavy weight pulling them down.

He gave a final tug, unearthing a pair of gloves nestled beneath the padding. He was about to dismiss them, but after a moment's glance he understood they were no ordinary fabric.

They were leather, though calling them "leather" was hardly the long of it. It was no hide he'd seen before; rough, milky white flesh faded to a grey blue, with heavy stitches pulling the rough patches together. The gloves had three rings of carved blood rock around the forearm, with hollow tubes and metal coils between them, the decaying blood and its energy recycled through them.

Liam's mouth was watering gazing upon the marvel. The blood rock alone was worth his weight in gold to a smith. He had no idea what the contraption did as a whole, but he assumed it had something to do with rituals and Kin, which gave it a value near priceless, and he could feel the Blood Echoes roaring through them.

It was vain hoping to barter it to the Healing Church, but he could surely find a buyer, which left only one thing to do.

He pulled the first one, the left hand one, from the case, and slid it on. He thought it was too large, but the fabric made a sickening squelching sound as it shrunk, until it hugged his arm snugly, the brass fittings on the fingers and rocks settling in. He knew it would be moist, but even still the interior of the gloves felt like living flesh, pulsating and drooling on his hand while he felt the heat of the charged blood echoes warming his arm.

Liam found it pleasurable to wear, but faster than he could think an immense dread drowned out his thoughts. His head started to hurt, slightly at first but after a moment he felt the arteries in his skull pressing out, his mind assaulted by something akin to concentrated dread, as though he remembered a terrible thing, only these thoughts did not belong to him.

He looked down at the other glove, blinking through a cold sweat, and felt a compulsion so overwhelming that within the blink of his icy eyes, he had the second glove on, the panic subsiding.

When he touched the tips of the two gloves together, he felt a charge run through his entire body, as though the two yearned to be close to one another and granted him intense euphoria to unite them. He was starting to doubt his choice to don them, as he couldn't shake the feeling they were no simple objects.

He shook his head, again trying to rationalize it.

He was a hunter born to a more enlightened time… right?

He examined his new wares a little more closely, and went to checking his palms. They were covered with runes, something he recognized from the Hunter's Dream his mind sometimes wandered to. He did not dream often, but he'd seen the effects of the bloodless arts on some of his compatriots. These were different though.

They writhed and seethed, they devoured echoes, and as he stared into them, the burning suddenly took his entire body. He felt his mind coming unraveled, old memories, new memories, and dreams all bleeding together, the otherness of the force he was beholding tormenting him.

It was the strain of trying to understand something unlearned, but magnified, again and again, until Liam was grasping his head, and trying without success to suppress the overflowing insight that was becoming nothing but a garble of white noise.

No… black noise. Deep. Like water. Liam heard a sticky sound in his head, so loud he could feel it reverberating in his skull, and felt the water welling up from beneath him. Though his eyes were closed he saw waking dreams and felt his body go numb, his mind breaking free from its vessel and being pulled into a swarm of churning, half-formed nightmares.

Somewhere on the other side, he felt two fair maidens grasping him on each side, his arms pushing through their flesh and into their murky insides. Without seeing them he saw forms that were so far removed from human, mortal words could not give them shape, his mind trying to turn their otherness into a form he could comprehend, and straining painfully with the effort to do so. They flickered between an insane sludge of flesh and blood to a pair of pale, identical tadpoles, youthful yet ancient.

Their eyes were black and contained infinity, their lips uttered words that could make the most firm mind crumble into raging lunacy, and their anatomy abided by no laws of biology, possessed of wings and tails and eyes, only the vaguest and most primal parts of their physique marking them as female.

He lost dominance over his mind, pulled forward, and made to see…

The nightmares were too weak to take full form, and instead came to him as the briefest flickers of truth.

He saw a nightmare of Lumenwood and phantoms, of spongy mountains and frothy air. The vale collapsed, as an inky blackness forced its way through the seams. This Dark took the form of another Nightmare, one of vastness and terror that caused the young kin to quake.

They fled, and fell into the whispers of another world, drawn to a commune of their kind while the Nightmare behind them collapsed into nothingness with the violence of a collapsing star.

They fell to earth, before a group of flickering human figures.

They were strapped down with slabs of flesh and reeds of metal, the noise around them disorienting as the primitive things around them chittered back and forth, hiding beneath blindfolds and oozing fatigues to shield themselves from the blood spattering upon them.

The sisters could not be saved, and one watched the other watching the one next to her watching her…

...flayed open and pulled apart, the echoes of their thoughts trapped in a jar of glowing runes like fireflies. They were sealed in a vessel of their own blood, yearning to touch and feel, and to contrive a world without sense or logic to flutter within, but they were thoughts without brain and stillness without body.

The twin hearts, exhausted, drifted to the infinite beyond save for the tiniest echoes, leaving Liam alone in the Nightmare once more.