New Moon of Yharnam
A World of Darkness x Bloodborne crossover
Prologue
Authors note: I originally planned this for after I finished up one of my stories, but turns out that may take longer I anticipated, so I'm going to try juggling three stories now!
Nightmare of Mensis
As the Good Hunter laid low the Wet Nurse of Mergo, the infant son of Queen Yharnam of Pthumera, he jumped back to avoid any last attempts to strike him. The Wet Nurse however, now finally succumbing to its injuries after several attempts by the Good Hunter to kill it, instead simply dropped its swords as it faded away, as though resigning and accepting its defeat. The Good Hunter, after putting away his Saw Cleaver, approached the carriage which appeared, as Mergo began to cry once more. Upon looking into it, he saw that it was empty, except for a blanket which writhed and twisted in mid air as Mergo let out one more wail, his piercing cries making the Hunter cringe from the way his mind reeled from the sound. As he thought about how to quiet Mergo, he then remembered the music box he was carrying with him, and pulled it out from one of his pockets, wearing the garb and trousers of Gascoine along with Eileens' gloves and mask. As the soothing melody played, he sat down next to the carriage, as the stress of however long he had been trapped in this tormented Nightmare and everything which led to this moment caused him to fall into a stupor of thought.
When he first came to Yharnam to receive Blood Ministration for... some reason or another, the Good Hunter instead found himself in the midst of a Beast Plague ravaging the city, while time itself twisted and turned in endless loops. Eventually he learned that this was the result of the conspiracy of the so-called 'Healing Church' which was Yharnams' former shining jewel, along with the many abominations it created, and vile sins committed in the name of research or the Great Ones, a race of elderitch beings whose Old Blood was discovered by the Scholars named Byrgenwerth inside Pthumera, a land of underground super humans who were called the Pthumerians. They created their civilization around the worship of these beings and the Old Blood, and when the Scholars discovered their existence, it set off a chain of events which would lead to them and their leader Provost Willam finding that the Old Blood, when taken in small doses, could cure any disease, and heal any injury.
Eventually, a group of them, led by one of their number known as Laurence, founded the Healing Church, with Laurence becoming its first Vicar. They would then begin to administer the Old Blood to the citizens of Yharnam, growing rapidly as a result of the prestige and wealth it generated for them. Soon, Yharnam grew with it, expanding rapidly as people from all over near and far sought to partake of the Blood, until Yharnam and the Healing church were arguably one and the same as the production of the Old Blood and its products grew greater then even that of alcohol.
However, some form of infection would eventually find its way into the Old Blood, causing those transfused with it into horrific and malformed beasts, leading to the formation of the Hunters to seek out and kill them. While having already existed in some capacity, it wasn't until then that a unified organization was formed under the wings of the Healing Church. It was also that due to its power and wealth, that corruption also swept the ranks of the Healing Church like any organization, which motivated it to perform inhumane experiments on the people, in an attempt to force evolution to become Kin to the Great Ones. Much of the insight he gained led to the Good Hunter being forced to learn of things humanity was not ready to know yet, and he watched as many of the people he met and tried to save go insane or suffered fates worse then death.
As Mergo released a soft cooing sound which interrupted his thoughts, the Hunter turned to see the infant Great One was starting to lie still. At first he worried from the breathing sounds Mergo made was gasping noises, but calmed down when it was simply it breathing, and the Great One fell asleep. As the Good Hunter walked down the stairs while the baby carriage Mergo was in disappeared, he saw Queen Yharnam was still there, but she faded away while bowing to him. He then something stirring in his coat, and saw that he was somehow still carrying the Yharnam Stone, a chunk of blood in the form of a placenta, within which a fetus shape stirred as though still in its womb. It was after he defeated the insane and enraged Queen of the Pthumerians herself that it first ended up in his hands, and the Good Hunter could sense Yharnam stirring within the stone, as though disturbed by everything happening within a new prison made of her own blood and gore. Now, Queen Yharnam was no longer stirring as though in a nightmare, but sleeping as one who was given peace of mind.
A moment passed, as the Good Hunter, having up to this point failed in saving anyone else, wondered if he should be pleased to have in a way saved another being trapped in the Eternal Hunt from continual suffering. After a moment passed, he decided that he would place the Yharnam Stone back inside of Pthumeria, so that the Queen could rest in her homeland, and turned back to enter the Hunter's Dream. Upon approaching the lamp from which he could come and go, small, withered and bluish-gray creatures appeared, reaching out to him whilst moaning in wonder, worship, and awe. Known as the Messengers, the Good Hunter took the time to pet a few of them, causing them to purr happily. While they at first unnerved him when he first encountered them, the 'Little Ones' were now a soothing presence to his mind, as he then proceeded to enter the Hunter's Dream proper.
When he woke up and got back off the ground, he immediately was taken off guard by the sight of the Workshop burning, nearly dropping the Yharnam Stone in the process. Taking a second to put it in his pocket, the Good Hunter ran to investigate, when a familiar voice called out to him. When he turned to see the Plain Doll, he calmed down, having realized he had been focused on the Workshop, and panicked.
"Good Hunter, you have come..." the Plain Doll said, her voice a quiet and small one which he learned to appreciate hearing after coming back from killing beasts and later the Great Ones. "Dawn will soon break... this night, and this Dream, will end. Gehrman awaits you, at the foot of the great tree." she explained, not playing any mind to the fire that was raging behind her. As the Good Hunter was about to leave with but a nod, she spoke up. "Good Hunter, who have you brought into the Dream with you?"
Wordlessly, the Good Hunter showed the Plain Doll the Yharnam Stone, holding it gently with both hands. As she stared at it, the Good Hunter could see the Plain Dolls' eyes focused on it, as though she seemed to find it familiar somehow. "So, the Queen of Pthumeria lives on." she then walked up to it, and placed one of her hands on it, her segmented fingers lightly brushing one of the smoother portions of the Stone, while the Good Hunter looked at her, confused that she already knew who it was. "Good Hunter, I know you have come here to me often, when you realized the fates of those you tried to protect or save. You were taken aback, and forced to reconcile with what happened to them." the Good Hunter, becoming aware of several in particular, such as the daughter of Gascoigne who was eaten alive by a pig, and the men and women he sent to Oedon Chapel.
Even that Hunter of Hunters who was named Eileen was no exception, as he could do nothing except kill the man who murdered her, and saw to it that she died at peace. The Plain Doll then looked at the Good Hunter, as she raised her hand from the Yharnam Stone, and placed it on the Good Hunters' cheek. "I want you to at least know that while you could not have done anything for them, you have one who shall forever be grateful for all you have done for her." With that, the Plain Doll gingerly took the Stone of Yharnam from the Good Hunter, who entrusted it to the Plain Doll.
"Do not worry, I shall take care of the Queen, so that she may rest in peace." The Good Hunter walked away from the Plain Doll, and that the gate that was always closed to now be open. Following the path on the other side, he came upon a field of white flowers and cross-shaped graves lined it. Once he stood in front of Gehrman, First of the Hunters, the old man in his wheelchair spoke up.
"Good Hunter, you've done well. The night is near its end. Now, I will show you mercy. You will die, forget the dream, and awake under the morning sun. You will be freed... from this terrible hunter's dream..." A few seconds passed, as the Good Hunter thought back on all that had transpired. He thought of the Fishing Hamlet, the city of Yharnam, and all of the things which he had learned. As much as he wanted to be free of the horrors of the Old Blood, he shook his head, and drew his Saw Clever. Above all else, he also understood that if he accepted, the Dream would not truly end, and that Gehrman would never be freed from this prison. Gehrman looked at the Good Hunter, and had a look of understanding upon his face. Even so, he sighed, and then chuckled mirthlessly.
"Dear or dear, what was it? The Hunt, the Blood, or the horrible Dream?" Gehrman then stood up. "It, doesn't matter. It always comes down to the Hunters' helper to clean up these sorts of messes." he said before the Good Hunter could reply, not that he didn't know why he refused. Gehrman then reached out from behind his back, drawing his Trick Weapon known as the Burial Blade, and transformed it into a scythe. "Tonight, Gehrman joins the Hunt..."
The Good Hunter jumped back as Gehrman swung his scythe at them, and then rolled behind the host of the Hunter's Dream as he swung a second time with a shout, striking him in the back with the serrated edge of the Saw Cleaver. Due to channeling the power of the combat experience, instinctual memories and physical enhancement he gained from the Old Blood in the form of Blood Echoes through the Plain Doll, the Good Hunter was able to strike with a blow that would've torn normal men not empowered by the Old Blood in half. It barely cut into Gehrman, who responded by jumping forward while the Saw Cleaver was still in his side, causing it to tear into his body as he turned, and slashed the Good Hunter across the chest, the siderite blade cutting into the Good Hunters' soft flesh like an iron claw. As he recoiled from the attack, Gehrman shot him with a blunderbuss, a spray of Quicksilver mixed with his own blood which impacted the Good Hunter with the force of a cannon, throwing him into Gehrmans' wheelchair with enough force to shatter it and into the tree, causing a gouge to be blown into it.
As the Good Hunter fell to his knees, he looked up to see Gehrman reaching towards him with an arm, and knocked it aside as he pulled out his own firearm, a rifle known as the Ludwig Rifle, named after the famous champion of the Healing Church who tried to rally the citizens of Yharnam to fight against the Beasts alongside him. He quickly pulled the trigger as the memory of facing Ludwig in his final moments flashed in the back of the Good Hunters' mind, and proceeded to slam his hand into Gehrmans' torso, throwing the First Hunter back as he ripped it out, spraying blood out from him as he flew back. Taking the opportunity to get away from being cornered, the Good Hunter rolled away from the tree, while also injecting himself with a vial the Old Blood in mid-air, which caused his body into healing itself, mending the sliced flesh back together. As Gehrman got back up, he tried to hook the Good Hunter with his Burial Blade, only for the Good Hunter to dodge under it. To get a quick strike in, he transformed the Saw Cleaver, causing it to swing out its blade to extend his attack range as he dashed forward, cutting into Gehrman, who staggered from the attack. The Good Hunter was able to land two more blows, when Gehrman, through the Old Hunter art of Quickening, dodged the fourth swing.
Just as the Good Hunter recovered from his missed blow, Gehrman slashed him with the Burial Blade along the abdomen, and then another swing upwards which slashed a leaning X-shape across his stomach. The Good Hunter, grimacing as he fought through the pain, pulled up Ludwigs' Rifle once more, and Gehrman quickly jumped to the side. However, the Good Hunter anticipated that he would dodge, and thus waited for him to attempt to dodge away from the coming gunshot, and shot him as he appeared at the end of his Quickened dodge while injecting another Blood vial. Discarding the empty vial, the Good Hunter reached into his pocket as Gehrman charged him, and procured an old bone of one of Gehrmans' apprentices. He then dodged the incoming blow, one that would've decapitated the Good Hunter outright had he not disappeared in puff of smoke.
When he reappeared behind Gehrman, the First Hunter was already turned around, and the Good Hunter fired another shot with his rifle, forcing Gehrman to fall back on one knee as it hit his right hip. Once again, the good Hunter performed another visceral attack. Gehrman rolled with the force of his opponents' push, ignoring the pain he felt as he got back on his feet and fired his blunderbuss at the Good Hunter, as he switched the Burial Blade to wield it in a more sword-based form and switched his combat stance and style accordingly.
However, the Good Hunter dodged the gunshot, and when he reappeared with his Saw Cleaver in its transformed state, Gehrman blocked the attack with the Burial Blade. When Gehrman slid it down the cleaver part of the Good Hunters' Trick Weapon, the Good Hunter twisted his wrist, allowing him to simultaneously retract it back into Saw-form, and pulled his arm in to avoid it getting cut off. As Gehrman pulled the Burial Blade to block the next attack by the Good Hunter, he angled it so it deflected the Saw-Cleaver upwards. As Gehrman pulled up his blunderbuss to shoot the Good Hunter, he responded in kind by pulling up his rifle, slapping it away just as Gehrman pulled the trigger, and the sheer impact of the Quicksilver fired out of it smashed into the ground, and some of the flowers behind him were kicked up into the air. Gehrman then swung the Burial Blade, cutting rapidly into the Good Hunter several times before they could dodge, before kicking them away several feet. As the First Hunter was about to step forward and charge him, the Good Hunter threw a Molotov cocktail at him. As the bottle which contained it smashed into Gehrman, the contents caught fire, and Gehrman snarled as he rolled on the ground, quickly snuffing them out within seconds. When he had the Good Hunter in his sights again, he saw them toss aside another Blood vial while running towards him.
The Good Hunter then made a Quickened dash forward, and reappeared with his Saw-Cleaver transformed, baiting Gehrman into swinging prematurely as the Good Hunter landed just out of his reach, then slashed his arm. Recovering quickly, the Good Hunter, let loose a furious storm of attacks, forcing Gehrman on the defensive and getting struck at least four or five times. The First Hunter then finally dodged an attack, and unleashed his own storm of attacks, cut marks criss-crossing his torso and arms, which were running deep with crimson blood that splattered onto all the flowers around the two Hunters. The Good Hunter, now reeling from the furious strikes Gehrman made, was forced to dodged backwards and away to heal. As he injected himself with one vial, then another upon seeing he was not healed fully, he turned to see Gehrman was about to perform some sort of arcane attack. When Gehrman unleashed it, the Good Hunter was blown back by the attack, sailing through the air and smashing into the ground, blowing up more of the white flowers. Gehrman looked at the Good Hunter, and transformed his Burial Blade back into a scythe.
"You must accept your death... be freed from the night." Gehrman said, his tone a menacing deep rumble. As the Good Hunter pulled out another vial, and injected himself with it, Gehrman charged at the Good Hunter, only to meet the barrel of his preys' rifle lining up with his heart. Before he could react, the Good Hunter pulled the trigger, and Gehrman staggered from the point-blank gunshot as it blew a hole through his chest. The Good Hunter then got up quickly, and stabbed his arm into Gehrman, ripping out another chunk of blood and gore which sprayed out, ensuring that if the gunshot from his rifle didn't kill Gehrman, this would. A moment passed, as Gehrman struggled to get up, before he let out a soft chuckling. Reaching upwards to the sky, the First Hunter spoke his final words. "The night and the dream, were long..." he murmured, as his body evaporated into a white dust which blew away from sight. As he took another vial of the blood, the Good Hunter felt a shadow looming over him. When he turned to see what it was, he felt something within him stir, as a Great One he did not recognize floated towards him, while the moon glowed with a baleful red. It resembled some kind of mauled and flayed beast, with tentacles for a tail, and hair surrounding its head, which had a hollow hole for a face. Its torso was ripped open, exposing its bare ribs and spine, and its stick thin limbs ended with hands and feet with sharp talons in place.
Without pause, it grabbed the Good Hunter as soon as it landed on the ground, holding onto him tenderly like one would a babe, and as he stared confused as to what was happening, it suddenly buried its face in his stomach. He felt a sharp pain, and the breath in his body was let out with a gasp, until a white light surrounded him, and blew the Moon Presence backwards and away from him. As they both got back up, the Good Hunter snarled with rage, as his eyes within, a product of eating three thirds of an umbilical cord meant for the infant of a Great One were finally opened. He felt his eyes gaze into the memories of those he fought and defeated, which were inside their blood, and his Insight gave him clarity of the memories of the Moon Presence during the short time it was bonded with him.
This Moon Presence was known as Flora. It was Flora who gave Laurence the Old Blood, who in an obvious form of hindsight entrapped Gehrman to be the host of Hunter's Dream. It was Flora who was responsible for the Beast Plague, having given the Healing Church contaminated blood to begin her plans to kill the other Great Ones, at the callous cost of those mortals who were caught in between them and Flora, who was an outcast of their race, the Great Ones having always been empathetic in spirit to those that lived as ants to them. Because the Great Ones, for all their great and unknowable power, were of such variance of form and shape that each Great One was a race of one, and could not mate with each other. So they would seek mates with those like the Pthumerians and Humanity, while Flora merely wanted to toy with those who they sought to have children with, and thus Formless Oedon, the one who existed without physical shape banished her from their number. She also was contacted by Queen Annalise, and was the source of her families' Vile Blood, and had done this to spark a war between the nobles of Cainhurst and the Healing Church to distract the Great Ones so she would move her plans forward into the Eternal Hunt, and manipulated the Good Hunter into killing and banishing the other Great Ones from this realm. Flora also tried just now to claim him as the next host of the Dream, so that whatever plans she had for the future, he would be her puppet borne of Paleblood.
Flora let out a scream of rage, as she now realized that he was a threat to those plans. She leaped at him, but for once, the Good Hunter felt no fear, nor despair. Dodging the simple and telegraphed slamming of her hands, he felt one emotion. Anger, as he drew his Saw-Cleaver, and slashed the Moon Presences' wrist. When it was nearly severed in one strike, he remembered trying to contact Kos after eating the three thirds of an umbilical cord of an infant Great One he recalled earlier, only to receive silence. However, he felt that he grew the fabled eyes on the inside needed to contact her kind and become one of them that was coveted by the scholars of Provost Willem, and the Healing as well, and those eyes were now opened, meaning he had ascended high enough to face the Great Ones as one of their equals, something Flora detested along with what he learned of her. She reeled back, and tried to strike him with her other hand, only for the Good Hunter to jumped back out of reach, and jerked his Saw-Cleaver forward as he triggered its transforming into Cleaver form, and hacked off two of her fingers. As Flora tried to shoot the Good Hunter with her pale blood, the Good Hunter rolled forward, and then hacked into her torso, gouging out a large gash down it as Flora screamed in pain, which intensified as he cleaved into her leg, chopping it off as the Saw-Cleaver impacted it with enough force to shatter a boulder.
As she fell onto the ground, Flora Paleblood tried to reach back to grab him once more, only to recoil in shock as her hand flew off its wrist and landed in front of her. The Good Hunter, feeling something within him growing, then walked up to where the Great Ones' 'face' was. When she turned to look at him, the Good Hunter slammed his fist into the hole where her face was supposed to be, and roared with rage, his voice growing more and more inhuman and elderitch as he grabbed something, and pulled back without any restraint to his strength. Flora reeled as her 'face' practically exploded all over the Good Hunter, spattering him with the very Pale Blood he was told by her indirectly by the Blood Minister who found him in the very beginning of his quest to transcend the Hunt. As she disappeared, the Good Hunter felt the changes occurring within him accelerate, and his vision darken as he looked to see the Plain Doll looking on, still carrying the Yharnam Stone which carried the Pthumerians' consciousness within it wrapped in her shawl. Even so, he felt his senses grew beyond comprehension while still trying to figure what was happening to his body, and he couldn't figure why he was losing feeling in his limbs.
After a scant minute had passed, the Plain Doll approached pile of clothing, which were now empty, saved for a writhing bulge within. "Oh Good Hunter, are thou cold?" at the sound of her voice combined with her moved aside the mask and helmet of the Crow, a blue and dark gray slug like creature, shaped similar to a lighter blue familiar of the Great Ones known as a Phantasm with five feeler like appendages surrounding a circular mouth crawled out from the collar of Father Gascoines' garb. When it turned upward and opened its mouth, a single eye revealed itself, blood-red with a pale yellow pupil which glowed slightly. The Plain Doll placed a hand unto the infant Great One, which latched onto it, and tried to pull her hand into the robe. The Plain Doll, rather let him stay there out in the middle of the field, instead looked to the great tree where Gehrman had been not five minutes before, and at the remains of his battered wheelchair. She scooped up the robe of Father Gascoine, picking up the newborn in the process, and walked over to the tree the wheelchair was lying down on the ground. Setting them both next to the wheelchair, she moved it aside, and could see a place of relatively even ground. She then proceeded to make an improvised nest with the various crushed and upturned flower petals throughout the field, and by the time she was done, the fires that had been burning the Workshop to the ground died out, leaving only an ashy ruin in its place, while the Plain Doll finally set down the newborn Great One, along with the Stone of Yharnam on a flower bed. As she collected the crow feather shawl to drape it around them, the infant made a chittering noise, and wrapped itself around the Stone. The Doll faintly smiled, as she finished setting the shawl down.
"Oh Good Hunter..." she said, as she laid down against the tree. "...may you sleep well."
An unknown time later
As the Great One now known as Fauna woke up, it dragged itself up from the ground with two arms, and looked around the area. It still resembled its infant state of a Phantasm-esque slug body, but now it had grown two arms with which it could grasp onto objects, and a set of chitinous plates had formed a shell around its body, which shimmered in a plethora of fanciful colors both ones that occupied normal human sight, and ones that could never be seen by mundane eyes. Upon turn its head, its ruby red eye set upon the Plain Doll who had cared for it for the better part of a great many years. She was lying down in a rocking chair, and somewhere off in the distance, the Great One could hear humming for the new host of the Hunter's Dream within which all three resided.
"Hello Great One." the Plain Doll said, giving a bow as she knelt on one knee. "So, what shall you do now that you are finally grown enough to leave this Dream, and into the Waking World?" As the young Great One turned to look out from beyond the Dream and into the stars, its eye was drawn to a red one in particular that it seemed to have been watching ever since it first saw. For the first time in a long time, it spoke back to the Doll. While any normal person would've been driven mad due to the nature of its language, the Plain Doll and the Hunter's Dreams host needed not worry.
"There is one world I have found. When my eye fell upon it, I could not help but feel it in my entire being to go there once I saw what was happening upon it."
"Oh Great One, shalt thou show me?" the Plain Doll offered, stretching out a hand to Fauna, walking over to his face. When he turned his head to meet her, one of his tentacles shifted to the Plain Doll, and placed itself on her palm. As a small amount of his blood came out of the tip, the Plain Doll went through the memories within it to see what world he meant.
She could see that it was inhabited by the very same Humans that the Great Ones who found Yharnam were drawn to, and at a first glance, one would think there was nothing of note. However, this world, in every corner of the land, was in fact populated by creatures who all wore the skin of a Human, but were anything but. Some maintained a vestige of their image, but were in fact Beasts which drank blood like unto the those infected by the Beast Plague, and would disappear come sunrise. Others wore and could change into the forms of Beasts and wolves and men, who dwelled in the forests of the world, hunting creatures which resembled the Great Ones and their Kin. Many a Human were caught in the middle of their hunts, and grew mad at the mere sight of the Beasts when they saw them, and those who lived often tried to pretend they never saw said Beasts.
Then there was those who were like unto Humanity, which were as pilgrims ever traveling from town to town, and to city to city. Whenever they stayed in one area for too long, mobs formed attempted to drive them away, for their mere presence exuded an aura which seemed to cause even the meekest of Humans to seek their death, and the very land would also revile their presence. Practitioners of the Arcane could be seen as well casting their spells and rituals, but for what goal Fauna knew not, and so neither did the Doll, as they all stayed away from the views of those Humans they lived in the midst of, resulting in them being known only to few, and fewer still were those who lived long enough to fight back against them. And many more were the creatures she saw, with those few Humans who hunted them often being ostracized from those they tried to protect, as their insight into the true nature of the creatures which dwelled in the shadows of their cities often left them incoherent and mad, or themselves formed into secret combinations to try and fight back when they maintained some semblance of sanity. The Plain Doll could not help but nod knowingly, as she understood why, as the host of the Dream, having been listening nearby replied.
"It's in thy nature, as a Great One." The former Queen of Pthumeria said, dressed in a gown made for one of royalty, as her pale and gray formed appeared. Her eyes, which looked like black orbs with stars in them, gazed at Fauna with something like awe and respect to him. "Thy kind are always empathetic in spirit, and even now you seek to help those who you wish to save." Fauna looked at her, his eye not conveying the emotions he felt. Ever since Fauna named himself as such, and transcended the Hunt, the two shared a bond that only they knew the nature of. "Why is it that you hesitate?"
"Because, even as I seek to do so, I only know of one way: To share my blood as the others did for Pthumeria, and then Yharnam after wards. I know what could happen, if the Old Blood falls into the wrong hands, or those who imbibe it do so without restraint, for I still yet remember my time as the last of the Hunters who were born of the Blood, made of the Blood, and finally undone by the Blood." the Queen, understanding of what he meant, simply nodded.
"...and yet, you must do something other then standby and watch this world fall further into darkness." Fauna clearly understood what she was saying.
"I am yet aware of what you suggest. I have already come to the same conclusion; I must bring those Hunters who yet live within the Dream, and even those who have died within it, and awoke in the Waking World ignorant of all that transpired in Yharnam..."
Authors note: So that is the prologue to my new work. I would like to thank my beta reader DaneNagai for helping me with noticing a number of grammatical errors. Feel free to look up his works on here, which include a DoomXWarhammer Fantasy crossover.