The gates, it turned out, were built to withstand explosives. Djura had unleashed his considerable creativity on the only real exit from Yharnam, which was a fifteen-foot tall monstrosity surrounded by stone walls and sealed by a grating of dense metal bars. Perhaps these bars were a little blackened, but the gate still stood. Djura had started with Molotovs, lobbing them at what he considered to be weak spots in the structure. Then he had moved up to powders, and finally solid explosives with fuses, but none of these did anything to disturb the integrity of the structure. Djura had also made Sean lug over his pet project, a handheld version of a cannon, and together they fired the thing at the gate. Maybe the bars were dented very slightly, but that was all. The cannonball bounced off in a shower of sparks, forcing the men to jump away to avoid being hit by its recoiling force. Even though I was standing at a safe distance, my ears rang from the sound of its impact and Mergo made it known that she didn't like all the noise and commotion.

Even after several more trials, the gate appeared to be damn near indestructible. I was beginning to fear that some stranger force than iron and steel was at work here. Maybe the influence of the Moon Presence did not extend beyond Yharnam, and therefore it was keeping us trapped here until we fulfilled its desires?

Sean may have been coming to a similar conclusion, based on the way he stood with his arms crossed, audibly grinding his teeth in frustration. Earlier, when Djura's latest experiment had failed, Sean had literally thrown himself at the gate from a running start, and had managed to climb nearly all the way up by gripping the bars in a show of raw strength. But then he came to the barbed spires at the top, and he was forced to either let go or impale himself in an effort to climb up and over the edge. Whoever had planned this city had thought of everything in an attempt to protect Yharnam from outside threats and contain the healing blood of the city within.

Djura didn't want to give up, but after several hours of trying Sean and I were ready to move on. "We can try again later," I consoled him. "Surely you'll think of something."

"Maybe if I increase the temperature of the flame," Djura was muttering to himself. "If only I knew what metal was in these bars!"

"Is it not just iron?" I asked curiously.

"Iron would have broken long ago. And even steel should be showing a mark by now. I can't help but wonder if it could be… No, surely not. It would be a waste of the material, and they wouldn't have enough of it for an entire gate." Sean and I must have looked confused, because Djura explained further. "Siderite," he clarified. "A mineral that can be drawn out of the rocks that fall from the heavens. It is said that it is nearly unbreakable, and can sever the ties between dreams."

"That's probably just an old legend," Sean put in. "Sounds too good to be true."

"I thought so as well, but that was before I saw Gehrman wielding a blade forged of the metal. I think Eileen's blades have some alloy of it as well. Speaking of, have either of you met her during the Hunt? She can often be found flapping around Central Yharnam, looking for blood-drunks to dispose of."

Sean looked straight at Djura, while I glanced downward to avoid his gaze. "I knew her, a little," I said hesitantly. "I met her while I was just starting out, and she gave me some good advice. Later I saw her fighting Henryk when he went mad, but I didn't know who either of them were, and I didn't know what to do… Then I recognized her cloak and tried to help, but she was hurt already, and he was too strong…" I trailed off, unable to continue past the lump in my throat.

When I had realized it was Eileen lying there dead, Eileen who had been the first friendly person I had talked to in Yharnam - for I had not thought to speak to Gilbert the first time I walked past his lonely window - I had nearly gone mad myself for a time. I'd charged at Henryk without sparing a thought to strategy, and promptly found myself on the wrong end of his saw cleaver. I died, and when I woke I had immediately come at him again, fighting like a mad thing until I'd fallen. Again and again I fought the small-statured man in yellow, neither of us speaking a word to each other, until finally a spark of my old intellect had awoken and I decided to end him by throwing poison knives from the rooftops. That had been a defining moment for me as a hunter, but certainly not in a way I was proud of. I had realized that inaction could have deadly consequences, and I'd gotten the first inkling of how to handle significantly stronger opponents with cleverness rather than brute force. The two lessons may have occasionally contradicted each other, but I learned them both all the same. Still, though Eileen was the first innocent person I had allowed to die on my watch, she was far from the last.

Djura looked crestfallen, and he didn't speak for a long time. "That's a damn shame," he said finally. "I knew them both, once, back in the days of the Workshop. Fine hunters, but it happens to the best of us."

"That's terrible," Sean said, but without much conviction and sympathy. "But we have to focus on what's going on right now. Are there any other ways out of this city?"

Djura visibly pulled himself together and considered the question. "Yharnam is located in a valley between two mountains," he said as if reciting a lesson from a schoolbook. "Much of it is surrounded by the lake, wrapping around Hemwick and marking a boundary to Byrgenwerth and the Forbidden Woods. You could swim for hours and never reach the other side. Cathedral Ward is located in the heart of the city, and Old Yharnam lies beneath it. The mountains are too steep to climb from there, and there are no easy passes between them. The Unseen Village - don't look so shocked, why wouldn't I know of such a thing? A man should meet his neighbors, after all - is surrounded by walls on all sides, taller even than those in Central Yharnam. This city was built to be defended, and to contain its secrets within. I'm afraid the gates are our only logical way out at the moment."

Sean sighed, putting a hand up to his face as if he had a headache or was meditating upon the Hunter's Mark. Then he sat down right there on the street within view of the obstinate gate. Something about his position reminded me of an enormous child having a tantrum.

I went over and sat down beside him, but he flinched away from me before he could stop himself. "Still having issues with Mergo, I see."

"Just a bit. Might take a while to get used to after it frenzied me." I restrained myself from correcting his pronouns, considering myself lucky he tolerated our presence this closely. "I can't believe there's not a way out of here," he continued morosely. "If we can't end the night, and we can't leave the city, then what the hell are we supposed to do with ourselves?"

I found myself at a loss for words. "I don't know… Maybe Djura will think of something else later, something more powerful that can blast through the gate or maybe even the whole wall. Or we can go back to Yahar'gul and look for any gaps, or get some ropes and try to climb the mountains up out of Old Yharnam…" I knew as I said these things that they were pipe dreams; that even if we tried to act on them something would always stop us at the last moment. "Sean, I know this shouldn't be your problem. You only got called here because of all the business with Mergo, and I'm sorry I got you into this mess."

"It's no problem," he said distantly, his eyes not meeting mine and his mind clearly elsewhere. "We'll figure something out."

Before I could say anything further, Mergo began squirming in my arms. She'd been getting better at gripping and holding on to me of her own accord, so I sometimes forgot I was holding her, but now she made her presence known. For the first time since I'd rescued her, Mergo actually seemed to want me to put her down, judging by the way she was reaching down toward the ground. After a moment of consideration, I allowed it, and gently set her down onto a small patch of grass beside the road. She lay there for a second, then turned over and formed all her tentacles into four cohesive limbs. Using these to push off against the ground, she actually managed to raise her body a few inches off the ground and wobble there for a few seconds, before collapsing back down.

She tried again and got further this time, taking a few tentative crawling steps. I realized that she was using her legs as well, which were solid limbs rather than tentacles, and what I had thought was a terrible defect in them was simply the fact that the joints corresponding to her knees could bend backwards. She didn't have much in the way of feet, but she appeared to be gripping the ground with claws that looked like tiny retractable blades.

It seemed that Mergo could creep across the ground this way, looking rather insectoid with her black body – still half-covered in bandages from earlier – and six limbs. She crawled in a narrow semicircle around me, staying near the side of my body that faced away from Sean. After a minute of this she lay down, too tired to continue, and I scooped her back up again. I was unable to keep the smile off my face, as delighted as a mother whose own child had taken its first steps.

Djura had been watching, and he nodded appreciatively at the spectacle. Sean said nothing, probably still brooding about the gate. He sat casually on the street with his hands on his knees, but his face made me think of clouds gathering before a storm.