I had to written this author notes five times because my shit wifi is falling because it's raining and unfortunately this isn't a joke. I forget what i was gonna to say so to the story.

Beta by Bellum Gerere

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."
―Friedrich Nietzsche(Beyond Good and Evil)

She was hoping to find a lot of things in Iosefka's Clinic. More blood vials, for one. Information about paleblood, or maybe a huge beast feeding on the clinic's stored blood. But when she returned to the place where she had awoken, it had been ransacked. The back door, however, was unlocked, and nothing could have prepared her for what was inside—an invitation to Cainhurst castle. Something she had given up hope of ever finding. Even more baffling, it was addressed to her. The hunter of the Hunter's Dream Workshop. As far as she knew, there was only one. Her.

The invitation told her to go to Hemwick Crossing and a stagecoach would await to pick her up. The place where she had killed the witches of Hemwick, nasty old ladies that had been the leaders of that place. The fight resembled a game of cat-and-mouse more than an actual fight, and had her searching the room for the witches while avoiding some strange beasts, tall things with sickles. The reward had been a Rune Workshop Took, one that belong to the Hunter's dream, according to Gehrman. The promise of finding it was what had motivated her to divert from her path to the Great Cathedral down Hemwick Charnel Lane.

Now, it seemed, not only did this path hold the possibility of equipping runes, but the way to Cainhurst Castle, where she could finally be free of the possibility of succumbing to beasthood. She'd had trouble when she ran across the Blood-Starved Beast. It had spilled so much blood (despite its name) and it was so sweet. The blood of the transformed Vicar Amelia had not been quite so great, but the quality was so much better, since it wasn't poisoned like the Blood-Starved Beast's had been. Hers was so smooth, and resisting it had been far more difficult.

She needed something to help her, and this short walk had provided her just that—the chance to find Master Logarius and become an executioner. No more worrying about falling to beasthood. She could finally focus on the hunt and getting to Byrgenwerth to look for this so-called paleblood. But first she needed to find a way to control her thirst. First she needed to get there.

When she reached Hemwick Crossing, the area was almost empty. She could see some beasts skulking in the distance, but she had just killed all of the area's other inhabitants before sunset. It didn't take long, however, for the area to be refilled with beasts. This was true of the entire city—she'd clean out a block and then, five minutes later, it would be full again. According to Gehrman, she had to focus on the large beasts. They were the most problematic, and killing them was the only way to end the hunt.

Refocusing, she looked around at the corpses bound on poles along an abandoned road, with weeds growing beneath the cobblestones. It clearly hadn't been used in a long time, and it ended in a broken bridge. How, she wondered, would the stagecoach be able to reach the castle, if the bridge was broken? She noticed a pillar that looked like it came straight out of a cathedral—well decorated, but covered in moss and ivy. As she approached it, she heard a horse clopping behind her. She turned around, and a mist had formed. Soon a stagecoach emerged from it, being guided by two identical horses, mirror reflections of each other, with empty black orbs for eyes and hides covered in marks that made them resemble stone more than living flesh. They advanced until the stagecoach stopped in front of her, its door swinging open slowly while mist poured from it. And inside…nothing. Just some benches to sit on.

The whole thing stuck her as incredibly strange. First, it emerged from an impossible place, as a coach shouldn't have been able to get through the entrance of Hemwick Charnel Lane. She hadn't seen it when she walked in, either. Second, where was the driver? A stagecoach couldn't be guided without one. She had a lot of questions, but she put them aside for now. She needed to become an executioner, and though this was a bit sketchy she would have to face the chance of beasthood if she turned around, and it was more than likely that she would fall eventually. Her choice was clear.

"Take me to Castle Cainhurst, please," she said to the horses, who didn't respond. After a moment she awkwardly entered the coach, pulling out her Rifle Spear and pointing it at the door. It was never a bad idea to be prepared, and having a weapon at the ready would shorten her response time.

But where she was going? Yes, to the castle, but how? She could feel the stagecoach moving forward, but the only thing ahead of them was the broken bridge, and they should have hit the water by now if they were going that direction—but she wasn't falling. She tried to look out the windows, but they were boarded up to prevent them from being opened. She could tell as well that the jogging had stopped, but not the carriage. What was pulling the coach forward?

She removed one of her knives and started to cut away at the boards blocking the window. She had to know what was going on. She managed to cut a small hole, barely enough to see outside, and pressed her eye to it.

Some things are better left not described, some things impossible to describe. What the hunter saw was both. It was something she would never forget, and though she knew it was wrong, she couldn't put words to it. Only sensations. The only reason it didn't cause her to go insane or die was because she still didn't have the insight needed to truly see it all. If she did, she wouldn't have been able to handle it, the things she was seeing would destroy her brain at worst or cause her to lose her sanity at best.

She launched herself back to the opposite wall of the coach, panting in shock. What was that? She immediately started looking for something to close the gap, and ended up cutting off a piece of her shirt and stuffing it into the hole. Outside…she simply couldn't describe it, and she didn't care to try and remember. She returned to the seat with her head in her hands, her breathing steadying right away (one of the benefits of being a hunter). With her weapon at the ready, she waited, trying to forget what she'd seen only moments ago.

When the door to the coach finally swung open, the first thing she felt was the cold. The place was covered in a sheet of snow. She stepped onto the ground, weapon in hand, and beheld in front of her a huge gate, surrounded by walls. She could see the castle through it, but how was she to get in? She was ready to walk around the wall, searching for a weak spot where she could enter, when she stumbled across a dead horse. She looked back at the stagecoach and saw it abandoned. The horses were lying dead and covered in snow, as if they'd been there for years. But how had the coach brought her there, then? There's no time for that, she chastised herself. She wouldn't find the answer standing there, anyway, and maybe after what she'd seen, she didn't want to.

She climbed the stairs until she came face-to-face with the huge gate. Surprisingly, she could hear the sound of chains rattling, and a moment later it started to open. She slipped through and picked up an abandoned lantern, lighting it to try and get her bearings. She was in a courtyard filled with statues that had a royal air about them. Ahead of her, it ended abruptly at the precipice of a valley, and she could see some sort of worm creatures on the other end. She knew those things. She had faced them below Iosefka's Clinics, and knew to stay away from them. To her left, the courtyard hugged the walls of the castle, and to her right was a locked elevator. She decided, since she couldn't use the elevator, to go left.

A lot of strange things were happening in this place. Not just the skinny four-legged monster with a blood belly; the architecture of the place was somehow wrong. It felt like it was made to be lower, and the trees looked like their roots were sunk too deep. Branches popped out of the ground, but they were too thick to be bushes. The fountain was raised, with steps leading up to it, but most importantly, the statues. They were representations of important Church members and saints. She could make out some of the names on the plaques below—Vicar Olivia, Researcher Sasha. If these people were all from the Healing Church, then why were they here? Some of the beasts were sucking the blood out of a corpse, one they had dug out from the half-frozen ground. She shivered. Was all the ground below her littered with corpses?

She started to dig a hole in the dirt with her spear—not as part of the hunt, but out of personal curiosity. It didn't take her long before she found a corpse dressed in worn but well-made clothes. She managed to extricate it, and it was just a man, nothing new or ordinary. Had he been a Vileblood? She'd expected something far worse, but the thing that made her stop was what was below him. More corpses. She saw hands, feet, heads, all crammed together. By the good blood, she was standing on a mountain of corpses. That was why this place felt wrong—they'd buried so many bodies that it had elevated the courtyard. She started to leave quickly, sickened. This must have been what Alfred means when he talked of exterminating the Vilebloods. The executioners must have killed hundreds to fill this courtyard, and the valley was probably the original height of the place. How many had been killed to create this mountain? And she swore that some of them were too tiny to belong to adults…

She made her way to the grand entrance as fast as she could, and found that the front door was open a bit, allowing her to enter. Who was opening the doors for her? First the gate, now this. Was she being guided? Maybe some of them were still alive, luring her into a trap. She readied her rifle spear and…nothing. Just a salon with stairs at the end connecting it to the other floors. The walls were covered in portraits and candles. The foyer, maybe? There were little beings there, too, cleaning the floor. She approached one of them, the height of a small child and scrubbing quickly. It was wearing the clothes of a servant, old and torn with time. It didn't seem aggressive, but she couldn't afford to let her guard down too much. "Hello. Could you point me to where Logarius is, please? He might have been the one who came in here and killed everyone—not that I'm his friend or anything, I just…I'll stop talking now."

The thing stopped scrubbing and turned its head. In a flash, it had pulled a cane from its rags and tried to hit her. She jumped back and shot, sending it flying, then closed the distance and shoved her spear into it. Just another beast, then. She continued to explore the salon, killing the servants as she found them, and eventually she happened upon a chest. She wondered whether there would be a new weapon inside, and opened it eagerly, gasping at its contents. Inside was the Reiterpallasch, the weapon that inspired the rifle spear she was holding. Inside the blade, a small gun was hidden, so she could deliver a quick parry, and it was beautiful, allowing for transformation with ease. The rifle spear was far cruder by comparison, as it didn't have the Reiterpallasch's complex mechanism.

As she was admiring her new weapon, she didn't notice the horde of blue figures, nearly transparent, that emerged in the salon, nor the fact that their necks were cut. They all held knives, and the females were dressed nobly, but she was too engaged with the weapon to notice. She only snapped out of her trance when they started attacking her en mass, cornering and killing her quickly even though she tried to heal herself. As her body dissolved, the figures returned to their places and began to weep. Some servants descended from the second floor and started to scrub at the blood she'd left behind by her death.

She was killed by ghosts—ghosts she hadn't even noticed. Grotesque beasts, fallen hunters and crazy old women, fine, but ghosts? She couldn't call them beasts because beasts carried blood, and ghosts carried…dead blood, perhaps? And how would she hit a ghost? What if she ended up cursed? But she would need the hand of a dead one, a cursed one. Or cursed weapons. The soul of a….

She was getting off track. She'd managed to hit some of the ghosts before she died, so there would be no reason for her to get cursed. She could kill them. All she had to do was cross the corpse mountain again.

She cleared the entire salon and explored the stairs to both side, and now the only thing left was an entrance to another salon. This one looked more like a dining room, with two large tables that were covered in tarnished silverware, where ghosts sat. She was able to catch them unaware, and proceeded to slay them all, charging them with her transformed rifle spear and shooting after she hit the target—a deadly combination to slower enemies like ghosts. Of course, she didn't only have the rifle spear, but the threaded cane in her cloak as well as a backup weapon in case something happened. A prepared hunter always had a backup weapon, according to Gehrman, and another pistol in case the rifle stopped working. If it did, she would have to use something else to parry.

Once the place was empty and she had a moment to look around, she saw there were portraits covering the walls. Probably of the Vilebloods that lived there, and they were quite surprisingly beautiful. She had been expecting something a lot more grotesque, images of killing or sucking the blood from hunters. But they were all posed portraits, deceptively normal, no fangs or anything like that. They looked…human. Snobbish, but human. She knew that some beasts looked like humans but were as vicious as any that didn't, but this was really something else.

If Alfred claimed that the Vileblood were monsters that killed without remorse and sucked the lives out of others, what about the Executioners? There was a giant mountain of corpses outside the castle and some of them belonged to children, servants, individuals who were not Vileblood but had been treated like they were. How many of these innocents had been killed by the Executioners when they took this place? If the Executioners were so merciless and bloodthirsty, just as they claimed the Vileblood were, what was the difference? The Church? One followed the Church's rules and the other didn't? But what difference would that make? The church wasn't a good institution. They'd burned Old Yharnam and closed themselves off from the rest of the city. Most importantly, she remembered the crow woman telling her about the Albin and how Alfred had killed them all. They were odd, and had a lot of money, but did that justify their slaughter? According to Alfred, yes. The Church was never wrong, even in the face of the truth. But they could become beasts. Look at the Vicar she had faced, and the cleric beasts. What else had they lied about?

This didn't seem as black and white as she thought. It was more a struggle for power than anything else. Maybe the Vilebloods had something the Church wanted, so they created a group to wipe them out. It made sense, but it also complicated her decision to become an executioner. Of course, she didn't want to be a slave to her desire for blood any longer, but to trade that in and become a slave for a killing institution didn't sound so good….No matter, though. She still need to find Logarius. Maybe talking to him would give her more information. According to the crow woman, he'd been against the massacre of the Albin. He might not be such a fanatic about the Church. But where to find him? Alfred had said he was still trapping the undead queen, so if she found the queen, she'd find Logarius. A decent plan—but where was she? Her mother always said to look in the library if she had a question. Well, it was a start anyway. She started to wander down the corridors at random, hoping to stumble across it. "Of course….I just have to search in a castle full of things that want to kill me…."

But somehow, she had a sensation. It was almost like she knew where everything was, and it all looked so familiar. Perhaps it was because she had absorbed some of the blood memories of Laurence, head of the Grand Cathedral. She saw some strange discussions, the betrayal of Laurence to some Master Willem. She pushed that thought to the back of her head. Better get going, see where her gut would take her. She sighed, anxious but knowing it was better than nothing. As she left the salon she was greeted by a wave of cold. However, her cheeks didn't redden, and she didn't quite feel it, though her breath fogged in front of her. In spite of that odd sensation, she had to admit the view was beautiful. She was on top of a wall now, maybe connecting to another part of the castle, and she could see Yharnam from here….Stop. Focus.

She faced a decision now. Climb a small set of stairs to the right, or pass through a bottleneck of statues? The latter seemed too much like a trap, so she mounted the stairs. She was starting to get a bit disappointed, but she was distracted by something coming in her direction. It looked like a bat, but somehow human, with the arms forming wings, and a bear-like grey face. It landed in front of her, in an odd place that formed a circle of statues, a free fall to her right. She readied her rifle spear and her pistol. She'd never seen a beast like this before, so she didn't know what to expect, but she jumped closer and shot. It took the damage without flinching, and the bullet didn't penetrate at all. It slashed at her with its claw and she jumped back, retaliating with her spear. This time it sliced through the flesh easily. As she was preparing another attack, it slashed at her, and she immediately attacked back, sending it to the ground. She jumped closer and impaled its heart, and it spasmed for a moment before it fell still, and she felt the blood enter her. Not so difficult, but its appearance was a little worrying. Its color blended in with the walls, so she'd have to be attentive. In front of her was a passage that led to the interior of the castle, which she saw as a chance to get more goods and maybe another weapon. She headed right without hesitation.

More of the grey things attacked her, but she didn't see any other beasts. The only things she found were stones to upgrade her weapons. There were more statues, forming a strange passage that looked almost like a bridge, and one of the servants stood in the middle. It wasn't scrubbing, though, but it held a rapier out, a duelist's stance, ready to strike. And strike it did, and she didn't manage to dodge it and was forced to take the hit. It continued its sequence, the rapier swishing past her so fast that she couldn't dodge. She managed to hit the release on her rifle spear, transforming it and shooting at the thing and sending it flying. Deadly, but small, and one more hit with her spear killed it. She couldn't underestimate the servants now. They were deadly, but very fragile. She continued to advance, and after a few more minutes, she found it.

The library was huge, and almost familiar. To the left was a chest and an elevator shaft, probably leading to the one that was grounded in the courtyard. When she was on her way to open it, she saw a book laying open on a table. A Vileblood register. She perused it as she waited for the elevator to rattle up to her. There was a huge list of names inside, written in red, with their status in the middle column, where they were all marked as dead. How had the book even been written, then? She kept flipping through it, but every single name was marked dead, right until the end. If they were all gone, who had written this down? Not the ghosts or the grey things. Maybe the servants? But something strange was happening. As she held the book open, her thumbs on the page, the names began to turn around her finger. She placed her fingertips in the middle of the page and the same thing happened. By the good blood, the thing was alive. She continued to test it, and every time the words dodged her hands. That was how these things had been written. The book somehow knew about the deaths. But how?

Before she could figure it out, the elevator arrived, and she exited in the courtyard and returned to the dream. She had a fair amount of blood echoes beating away in her chest, and the sooner she got rid of them, the better. She was lucky, she thought, that this place didn't have good blood. Ghosts didn't bleed, but the servants did, and the grey things, though their blood was old and without taste. If all the beasts were like that, she thought wistfully, she wouldn't have a chance of beasthood. She sighed as she returned to the dream.

She'd finally cleaned the library and opened the secret passage. It had taken some serious work, killing ghosts every step of the way and dodging servants that shot small darts at her in the dark, ones that attracted ghosts. She found a gun, though, a very beautiful one. Evelyn, such a work of art in aesthetic and functionality that it almost felt as though it were alive. She could finally see the ladder hidden behind a moving bookcase, activated by a lever. She walked outside the library to a small parapet, one that she wouldn't have even known about if she hadn't walked through a broken window. She was finally arriving on the third floor, and after that, the queen, and she had a feeling where she was.

She cleared the third floor, finding only some stones to upgrade her weapons, and climbed the final flight of stairs to the roof. It consisted of two parts, the vast plane that she was on and a small one below that. She had to jump from section to section to make her way across, admiring the majestic view as she went, until she found herself in front of a portal, and at the end of it, someone in a chair. Master Logarius. She came closer, and saw that he carried a crudely made scythe in one of his hands. He looked like a dry corpse, but he was moving, his arms and legs like breaking bones, and eventually stood up with the scythe in his hand.

"Hello," she said timidly. "I'm a hunter, and I wish to be an executioner…." It made no indication that it had understood her, but instead advanced against her, wielding the scythe. She started to attack with the rifle spear, but when she finished her attack she saw a large red skull descending. She darted back, but the thing followed her, slashing and making the skull scrape against her. She was hit. He moved the scythe strangely, all she could see was a skull and…she was back in the dream. Okay dodge the strange movement with the scythe and avoid skull now she would only have to get all over there again….

It took a while, but she'd finally managed to bring him closer to death. He tried another one of his odd moves, sending several small skulls swarming around her which she'd gotten accustomed to dodging. One of the larger ones imploded in front of him, and she took the opportunity to attack, slashing against him until at last he bled. He pulled a rusty blade from his clothes and stuck it in the ground, clenching it in both his hands. She could tell something new was happening, and she tried to stop him, but a huge explosion threw her back. She got up quickly and injected some blood vials to heal her. He was surrounded by a red glow, and instead of keeping his distance as he had before he advanced on her, attacking with his scythe. She dodged and jabbed him with the spear a couple times before he advanced again, this time using the sword. She dodged and tried to jump at him, but the echoes of a small explosion caused by his blade slashing the air pushed her back. He wasted no time in attacking her again, and she only managed to inject one blood vial before he switched back to the scythes. One of his attacks dragged a line in the dirt in front of him, and he switched weapons as soon as she got used to his attacks. She dodged as fast as she could, but one of his last attacks hit her, and he jumped, landing an incredible distance away, preparing for a slash. He returned at high speed, and she tried to parry but the timing was off. The slash left a huge cut on her stomach, and though she managed to get up, she was starting to smell something…she could only taste small traces of its blood, and it was so delicious. Imagine what it would be like if he died, it's getting even better, she wanted more, more, more….

He stuck his sword on the ground, and out from it other smaller blades emerged, swarming her in the same way the skulls had. She evaded them until she could get clear of the larger blade. Maybe if she destroyed it, it would stop sending them? Would it rain his power? She could see the beast looking at her, approaching for another attack, and she jumped backwards, responding every time she found an opening. Yes, she could feel more of this amazing blood, only in pieces, but soon she would get more and the smell was getting sweeter by the second….

He tried a slash, but she dodged and parried with her rifle. She hit him again and again, trying to regain her health. He began a sequence of attacks with the sword and she took them as best she could, waiting for the right moment to shoot. Now. She shot, making him fall to his knees, then jumped closer and stuck her hands in his belly, grabbing and twisting. The blood, the feeling of the wound was so good, it healed her completely and the smell was even better, how could something already so perfect become better?

He got up before she could attack him and launched himself away, preparing for another huge attack. This time, she would give him a gift. She smiled, stretching her face, and prepared her rifle spear with a simple push to the mechanism. When it hit something, it would contract and shoot. The beasts started to get closer, and she aimed her spear and threw. The velocity he was approaching at made it impossible for him to dodge, and doubled the impact. It hit him straight in the chest, entering his aged flesh, and the mechanism contracted and shot inside him, making him lose control. He went crashing into one of the pillars. Yes, yes, the blood she had spilled was wondrous, now he just needed to die…the smell was so divine, but she could make it even better. She removed her threaded cane off her back and approached it, but when she tried to hit him she was forced back by a slash of his scythe. Somehow the thing had survived, even with blood spurting from the hole the rifle spear had made in his chest. Not a problem for her, though. More fighting, more of that smell, more blood, more, more, more….

He attempted an upward slash with the sword, but she dodged and attacked him with the cane. The smell was too good, too good for her to want to stop—but the explosion of the sword made her stumble and she was forced to dodge his next attack to inject a blood vial. MORE BLOOD. She jumped closer to him, delivering more attacks, and transforming her cane into a whip to get more of this delicious blood. She started to dodge and attack with only the whip. It wasn't as effective, but it provided her more safety and more blood. He got closer to her, but she simply transformed the cane back and delivered a strong thrust. It didn't stop his swords, but she managed to dodge most of them, and heal the wounds when she couldn't. MORE BLOOD. He didn't die, despite the spear sticking out of his chest and all the attacks she had delivered and she wanted to end him, taste the blood, but continuing the fight meant more of this heavenly smell.

He moved closer, preparing an attack with the scythe, and she tried to parry but failed, resorting to more hits with the cane to recapture some of the health he'd stolen. When he attacked with his sword, she parried successfully, and she performed a visceral attack, causing a shower of blood to erupt, and he fell to the ground—back on the roof. The marvelous aroma emitted from the wound, it was time to end this. She jumped closer and grabbed the spear, shooting into his chest and twisting it, destroying his insides. YES, YES, DIE, DIE, GIVE ME YOUR BLOOD. With its dying breath it conjured an explosive skull in front of her and sent her flying backwards. She collapsed.

Perhaps the euphoria of the hunt had caused it, or something inside of her had been fighting the whole time to retake control, but in the end she blacked out. The beast tried to get up, but fell to the ground again. The damage was too great. That was how Logarius, master of the executioners, died, bleeding on the ground with a spear in his belly.

She woke on the roof. She could feel the sheer amount of blood pouring into her, delicious blood, and she realized with a sickening feeling that she must have lost control again. The memories were fuzzy, but she knew what had happened. She had lost control, and only the wounds that made her black out had stopped her from succumbing to beasthood. She approached the body of the now-dead Logarius. He wore a strange crown, which she lifted off his head and placed on her own, though she didn't quite know why. Suddenly a huge building appeared inside of her. This must have been where he trapped the queen, she realized, and she entered it.

The thing was huge, with a giant staircase flanked with statues, and she was all the way at the top when she saw her. The undead Queen. Her hair was pale, and her face covered by a helmet. She sat on a throne, and though she had never seen her before, the hunter knew that it could only be the Queen of the Vilebloods. She looked around as she approached the throne and saw a Cainhurst summons on the table. She could deliver it to Alfred, and he could kill the Queen and turn her into an executioner. But did she really want to be a slave of the Church? They were no better than the ones they killed…

The helmeted head of the queen turned in her direction as the hunter approached. "Kneel, visitor. Here is our throne; show your respect." When she knelt in the center of a strange tapestry, the Queen continued. "You are young. Still a child. But you are a hunter, so that makes you a woman. What do you seek?"

The hunter inhaled deeply and began. "For something to escape the chance of falling to beasthood. A way to continue the hunt."

"Do you desire to be free of the temptation? That is impossible. No blood can provide you that, not the Church's nor my own." The hunter's shoulders drooped, but the Queen continued. "But I can offer you a way. Serve me. My blood and rune will make you immune to beasthood, but you will need to deliver blood to me to sate your temptation. It will only grow as time passes, but no longer will it be as prominent as you fight. Is that what you desire, Hunter?"

"Yes," she answered without hesitation. The Queen held her hands out in front of her and cut her wrists.

"Then come, and drink this corrupted blood."

The hunter pressed her mouth to the wounds. It tasted…odd, not sweet like the other blood but with a distinct taste of salt and rust, a feeling that spread throughout her body. "Feel the corruption spread in your flesh," the Queen said. "Now you are a Vileblood."

I prefer reviews then favorites or follows because in reviews i now what do you think of the story beyond i like it so please review

Update in 12/20/2016 or 20/12/2016

удачи