Chapter 6 - Relative Sanity

The Good Hunter was a strange one, thought the doll. Tanya von Degurechaff did she call herself. A name which was not of Yharnamite origin. That in and of itself was nothing abnormal. Many strangers from all around the waking world had travelled to this city to find release from their bodily burdens through the Old Blood.

Of course such promises had only been fulfilled if one possessed a heavy purse, for nothing came without cost in the City of Blood.

What was remarkable however was that young Tanya ´s soul resonated in a way no human´s should be able to. The power of the arcane was flowing through her in droves, but it was filtered, less heavy. It was not made from the same powerful currents of the cosmic waves, yet it was (what the humans called) "magic" all the same. How peculiar.

Other members of the Good Hunter´s species would have immediately succumbed to the eldritch truth that such power granted, their feeble minds ripped apart and overloaded with the heavy burden of the arcane. Humans were not able to naturally see the universal ocean and its endless depths. Those that attempted to harness it quickly got pulled under and drowned.

Furthermore Tanya´s essence had been deeply marked by another higher power. It had clearly been more powerful than the inhabitants of the waking world, but it had not carried itself like those born of the endless dream. Whoever had taken an interest to the Good Hunter´s soul before Flora had not – for lack of a better word – smelled like a Great one. It was far more human and simple.

This unknown entity had been slowly spreading its authority throughout her being in harsh lines of golden light. Her spirit had surprisingly well resisted the taint, but nonetheless began to warp around the edges. At least that was how the doll perceived it.

Flora´s influence had severed those connections and purged Tanya´s milky-white soul of all colour. Only the blood red Hunter´s Mark bound her now. Was this an improvement? The doll couldn´t tell.

But regardless of all these oddities, one fact had truly surprised the doll.

Tanya von Degurechaff was older than her body.

Far older.

Like she had lived a whole second lifetime.

How was that possible? It seemed impossible, but the echoes in her blood could not lie. Had the golden entity taken her soul from body to another? From one world to another? That would explain the Good Hunter´s absolute lack of knowledge on Yharnam and its many traditions.

But what did she know? She was just a plain doll. Created to serve and soothe, not think.

Although a small part of her wondered why she felt so warm when the Good Hunter treated her as an equal. Why was that? She wasn´t supposed to feel good! Her maker had told her time and time again that she could never compare to a real human, that she was waste which barely deserved to exist at all. That was her truth, the law of her small, little world of unchanging tasks and sleepless slumber.

Yet Tanya had never given her reason to believe that. Whenever she returned from the arduous hunt she smiled and greeted her more so than even her creator. Despite all her stress and exhaustinon she showed the doll kindness. Was it not a human like the Gehrman who should receive such respect rather than this doll? Humans were puzzling creatures. Not one of those who had passed through the dream had been the same, but Tanya was even more different. How hauntingly beautiful must be the song of the endless ocean to wash her up on shore of this sad, forgotten dream.

May the cosmos guide her way and release her from this prison. To wake, to live and pleasantly forget. The doll would pray for her well-being.

~\\∞۞[]۞∞/~

Tanya had searched the small valley more thoroughly and found two interesting things. The first was one of those damned snatchers from Yahar´Gul. One of those had – to her great shame – captured her once in his smelly bag and transported her to the Unseen Village as some sort of sacrifice. Luckily, the locks in their badly maintained prison had rusted over time and had not been difficult to cut even with her weak mage blades.

These fools had also failed to take her weapons which was very strange. They seemingly didn´t care about anything but following their orders, almost as if they had been programmed like a machine. Or they had simply gone mad and repeated their jobs over and over again, because it was the only thing they could remember. She had seen far more crazy things.

Of course she could have just ignored him and avoided his path, but out of petty vengeance she decided to end him for good. Those snatchers were a danger to the public, so it was ultimately a rational decision to kill him. If she wanted to travel to Yahar´Gul then she would just teleport there instead of being carried in a bloody bag!

The other out of place thing she found was an underground lake.

It was shallow, shimmered unnaturally, was crowded with giant leeches...

And most importantly...

Was poisonous.

Of course. A sight of natural beauty inside a geologically fascinating location had been turned poisonous. Those Yharnamites really knew how to make their city the opposite of "tourist-friendly".

Tanya had to call the messengers to bring her cloths better suited for this kind of toxic environment. As much as it repulsed her to change into, but the garbs of the healing Church were optimal here. Probably because of their dealings with copious amounts of blood all their cloths were highly waterproof. Nonetheless did the venomous fumes in the air slowly deteriorate her health, so that she had to constantly swallow some antidotes.

(A simple pill that helped against most kinds of poison was a medical revolution, but naturally something like this was totally common in Yharnam. How could people live in a place that required products like this?)

The warms that jumped at her out of the water were annoying but easy to deal with, as were the giants who seemed to contemplate their life choices by blankly staring at the ground. Honestly, why would they stay in a poisonous lake full of leeches? Such lifestyle madness was disgusting.

Tanya helped them see the error of their ways be setting them on fire and bashing their heads in. Always fun. For as big and strong as they were, they moved also very slow. Compared to the erratic movements of regular beasts it was child's play to evade their attacks.

The moonlight shone gently on the small waves in the water and created a natural light show of the greatest complexity. Had she not been afraid of slowly dying from the toxins around her then she would have sketched the place into her notebook. Reminding oneself of beauty even in the darkest of places did wonders to uplift a weighed down spirit. Not that she was even close to breaking, but taking care of her mental health was important to Tanya.

Here in the City of Blood where she didn´t need to sleep, eat or wash herself; where she could die without consequence and was unable to escape... it was more important than ever to ground herself and not risk her sanity. Lest she fall to the Hunt and lose herself like Father Gascoigne had done. His death had served as a bitter reminder to Tanya to always keep herself in check and to not lose order in her life.

Small things like drawing locations and maps, regularly taking inventory of her items and having small conversations with the doll served to create anchor points in the bloody chaos around her. They were her reprieve from the Hunt and she treasured them deeply.

Unlike climbing ladders.

Because holy shit had this city many ladders.

And it seemed that she had found the longest one yet. It reached over a hundred meters up from a small nook in the caves. Her fingers would hate her for this, but her curiosity won over. Where would it lead?

~\\∞۞[]۞∞/~

"Holy", "Divine", "Souls" and "Magic"...

Was it not strange that humans developed words for the unspeakable? The untraceable that they never encountered in their day to day life? That people had defined things and properties long before they had ever really come into contact with them? How could a farmer on earth have thought of such elaborate concepts beyond their sphere of existence?

Maybe mankind had always sensed the greatness above their heads. The glories of the infinite universe could not be ignored by even the most ignorant mind. They were destined to notice the stars watching them after all.

Nonetheless without real eyes to see and sufficient brains to think humans were like just puppets. Moving along their unchanging paths without paying attention to the marvels of the cosmos that were unfolding all around them. They possessed not enough inight about the strands of fate that were clearly laid out to them and so they often brought about their own damnation. How comical.

Those poor, misguided souls needed guidance. She would help them achieve their next step of evolution! And all the while she herself would ascend to the highest of planes!

Sacrifices were made along the way, but she was more than willing to accept them. The real Iosefka had been a fool who only thought to hinder the inevitable by prolonging the suffering of her patients. She would put them to much better use!

Together they would ascend! Yes, higher and higher!

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Note: Do you know which ladder that is? :)