Chapter 4 - Into the Woods

Tanya rose slowly from the spectral lantern she had awakened from. She had travelled from the Hunter´s Dream to a location in Central Yharnam. There were not many places here that she hadn´t seen before and the half-mad townsfolk and small beast which patrolled the nightly streets seldom proved a challenge to her. They could gang up on her and overwhelm her through sheer numbers, but she wasn´t going o let that happen.

No, she wasn´t here to develop her skills or explore the region for valuable items and written information. (Although relieving the crazed citizens of their bullets and blood vials was an excitingly easy opportunity. Without a head most Yharnamites were most agreeable.) Instead she was here to talk.

Really.

Here in the city was the highest concentration of relatively sane people she had been able to find. Even though the majority of its inhabitants didn´t want anything to do with "a filthy hunter" like her, a few were easier to talk with.

For example Gilbert, a fellow outsider to Yharnam and presumably dying from an illness that he hadn´t told much about. Not that she had asked much in the first place. She was no doctor after all. He was the one who gifted her the Flamesprayer and gave her a general sense of direction during her early days in the hunt.

But she was not here for him.

No, instead she wanted to pay Doctor Iosefka a visit. She was a little bit strange, especially for a medical professional, but she apparently did take good care of her patients. Early on she had been rather opposed to letting anyone into her halls, but after some time she must have understood that protecting the local population within her clinic was for the best. From that point onwards Tanya had been pointing any lost wanderers to her establishment to find shelter.

A nice benefit to helping those people was that Iosefka rewarded Tanya with various hard to come by items for her services. Truly a nice lady. Selflessly taking care of her patients presumably free of charge, even though she could have demanded astronomical prices with her medical monopoly.

As a result Iosefka was the far better alternative compared to the weird chapel dweller in the Cathedral Ward when it came to caring for confused citizens in dire need of help. At least she would know how to treat them and have a basic understanding of hygiene. Not like the deformed old man who tried to suffocate you with his disgusting incense. (As if the smell alone would be enough to ward off beasts! Ha!)

It helped that she had undergone a formal education and led an actually recognized establishment, unlike the chapel dweller who could obviously not be right in the head for he lived in a church! As if she would entrust the lives of innocents to a religious nutcase who was as shady as an alleyway by night! Regardless of how many times he begged her to bring people to him she would never listen. Anybody who prayed to an entity that was called "formless Oedon" hadn´t come into contact with reality for a little while too long.

Tanya interrupted her internal rant when she freed her Threaded Cane from the bowels of an amateur hunter who had had tried to rid the streets of beasts despite nearly being a beast himself. Although he retained his ability to wield a weapon in form of a pitchfork, the signs that he was soon about to turn were clearly visible. His irises had collapsed and turned into mush which he had unsuccessfully attempted to conceal with bandages around his head. His words had been slurred, his proportions unnaturally elongated. Not to mention his sharpened nails and sickly skin colour.

The line between man and beast were often blurred as she had to learn the hard way in her battle against Father Gascoigne. Despite his human appearance he had behaved himself like a rabid animal and had been totally trapped in his bloodlust. To the point that he had murdered his own wife without remorse or reason. People who had lost themselves to the blood and the hunt could only be put down "in an act of mercy" like Eileen had called it.

Gascoigne´s daughter was too young to understand such hard facts and had completely broken down when Tanya had told her of the fate of her parents. She had not expected anything different, but surely the girl must have already experienced different losses among the families of her friends and neighbours. A person not returning from the hunt was far from out of the ordinary. Probably even the norm in this crazed city.

Nothing good came from this place.

~\\∞۞[]۞∞/~

Tanya had to knock on the door to the clinic a few times before she could hear Iosefka shuffling over.

"Oh hello...You're all right."

"Yes. How has the young lady I sent to you been doing?"

She didn´t really care, but it was advantageous for her if she seemed like her interests aligned with Iosefka´s. Else she could start to mistrust her or presume unsavoury intentions.

"Very good. She's safe with me now, I presume you're to thank? The treatment is going well, stabilized, for the most part. Fascinating, really...Here you are, as promised."

Her tone was somehow off, but Tanya paid it no mind. Working fulltime as a doctor during a time as demanding as the hunt was no doubt exhausting.

"That is fortunate."

"Take this..."

The doctor handed her two glass flasks full of dull, grey smoke. Like usual it was Numbing Mist which was supremely useful in combat against other hunters. When hit by it the victim would not only be slightly weakened and disoriented, but would also be unable to heal. While blood vials had allowed Tanya to survive normally impossible situations and triumph over far stronger and enduring enemies than herself, the same was true for other hunters as well.

Often times when both opponents skill was evenly matched the fights came down to a battle of attrition as to who had stored the most blood vials to heal themselves. Not only was that costly, but also wasted time. The sooner a battle ended the safer. Every moment with her attention occupied could spell her doom, because she opened herself up to a stealth attack from behind.

So it was easy to understand why Tanya eagerly gripped the fragile glass containers and safely tucked them away under her coat.

"Thank you. Your patients have a most generous host."

"Now be a dear, find me some more." said Iosefka while chuckling darkly. Honestly Tanya had half a mind to tell her to stop with the creepy laughter. People might get the wrong impression of her.

"Of course. Although it could take a while. I will probably have to escort some of those who live too far away from here. It would be of no use if they die before arriving after all."

"What would I ever do without you? You're really making a difference. He he heee..."

What was up with that sinister laugh? It didn´t fit her at all.

Tanya waved once and made her way to the nearest spectral lantern. Ironically it was where she had first woken up after her transport to Yharnam. However that had happened... Was her employer responsible for the banishment to this nightmare? Or Being X? Nobody knew.

First she marked her acquisition of two Numbing Mist potions in her notebook and then touched the lantern to travel through the dream to another location in Yharnam. This instant travel system had saved her incredible amounts of time that she would have otherwise spent navigating the confusing labyrinth of Yharnam´s gothic architecture. How the native people could navigate the mess of bridges, ladders, hidden pathways and tunnels was incomprehensible to her. Especially considering the many disabled people she had met. (Yharnam was not very wheelchair friendly.)

Her mental image of dark trees and dirt paths took her to the Forbidden Woods. An area that she had not explored nearly enough. In fact, Tanya had only been in the forest once after she had surmounted the high wall that restricted access to the location via magic. She had considred simply guessing the required password at the door, but she didn´t want to find out what would happen if she got it wrong. In the end it had taken more than ten minutes to calculate a flight spell that could bring her safely over the wall, but it had been worth it.

When she checked on the man who asked for the password at the door it became apparent that he had long since passed and become a skeleton. How he had been able to still speak...

That and many more mysteries would hopefully be answered in the abandoned research institute "Byrgenwerth" which lay just on the other side of the Forbidden Woods if Gilbert's advice was correct. Finally she would be able to unravel more about the origin of the beastly plague and the hunt.

She was sure of it.

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Note: Who is your favourite Bloodborne character? Who do you think should get more "screentime" in my story?