It never ceases to astound me that people are following my work, I thank you greatly for your continued support. I really am stupefied by the patrons who rate, follow, and even favourite (who'd think it?) my work. It can only get better from here though (fingers crossed). Time for a third installment of the Dreamscape.
Drei
The Hunter came on and off to the workshop, either by force or at his discretion. he would sit in the workshop (the floor or the chairs) and fine tune his trade. Often the Doll would walk into the shop and see the Hunter peering over the workbench, sweat dripping from his brow, hands fiddling with the spring of a contraption, or he would be sitting on the floor with some old text pressed to his face, a pair of spectacles serving as a buffer between him and the old paper. He would come home (as the Doll thought it, the workshop was home. A shelter in which he could come and sit and let the weariness of the hunt ease from his muscles. He did not suffer here.) and ironically, work. Where the hunter's dream workshop was made to be a sanctuary, this man would work harder than he seemed to in the hunt itself. He would sit in the workshop for hours beyond measure (for there was no day and night here, only the moon) tinkering and reading and oddly enough, training. When the Doll first gazed upon the newcomer, he was smaller than some of the hunters she recalled, and his hands were soft and pure of injury. Now when he would hold her hand and channel newfound strength, his bare hands were rough and coated in scars.
Time after time he would come back, weary, beaten, confident, but always ready to work. The man was commendably inquisitive. It showed. Soon he was reading on other factions of Yarnham, becoming naturally stronger, toiling with weapons. The Doll walked in to see if the Hunter was still in the workshop. he sat at his desk, tomes open on the desk as he held a fine red stone in his palm. With a firm hold, he moved a number of implements into the stone, and began to press the stone into his cane, where the stone began to powderize and sink into the blade. There was a warm glow on the metal, then the blade seemed to darken ever so slightly. "Good Hunter, you are bettering your weapons?" she inquired, standing in the doorway. She had seen the hunters leave with weapons improved, but never witnessed the process firsthand. When hunters were commonplace here, she was only permitted around the workshop, never in. Now rules were as few as occupants. "I read that with these stones of coagulated blood, a hunter such as myself can make his tools stronger, more capable to cut, and withstand wear" a small sheen of sweat was visible at the back of his hairline, "the volumes failed to mention how labour intensive it is, the springs and gears of the weapons are easier to work with". The Doll timidly stepped through the threshold and sat in a chair by the rune altar, glancing at the tomes stacked by the Hunter's chair. Powder Kegs and Their Tools. Weaponising Wisdom in the Healing Church. The Biology of Plagued Subjects. One leather bound book was untitled and smeared with pencil markings, a journal perhaps.
"What do you write about?" She asks. For a moment, she is taken aback by her actions. She is to take orders, answer questions, serve. Never ask, never falter, never stray from the domain of her duty. "Many apologie-" "It is quite alright, you have the right to inquire of my business. You are so much a part of my work as are my other tools. Er, not as a tool of course, my apologies. I keep written the rumors and whereabouts of derelict hunters and hordes of beasts in the city, as to keep my duty efficient. I keep all that I need bound in the pages". She nods in understanding as he returns to his work. She glances at his person, unaccustomed to the courtesy that she is being treated with. Not in her memory had she recalled such civility, not in her lifetime had she experienced any civil times. He was slightly broader than when he had first appeared, strange because he was by no means small. Easily standing at almost two meters in height and thin, for such definition to appear was expected of those who combated the beasts. Though with muscle came scarring. His hands were heavily scarred, and there was a deep wound leading down from his collarbone. Where the messengers typically cleanse the hunter of injury upon death, some scars are overlooked. Almost suddenly, he stands and arches his back in an almost feline manner, his gaze moving around the workshop expressionless. When his eyes fall past her, he slowly walks towards the door with his newly improved weapon at hand. A quick pause, "I appreciate the workshop you know? I see horrors every time I leave here, it is good to know I have a haven and a friend". He briskly walks off, disappearing in the mists of the dream.
"Friend" she says aloud. "Fool" a rasp responds from the doorway. Gehrman slowly moves into the room, he is so feeble and old in his chair. "He is a fool, but we are all fools in this terrible hunter's nightmare. You should not grow attached to any hunter, we of the trade break. We dream and dream and dream, coming back to you to allow us to dream a little longer before we stop dreaming, then we are taken by the dreamless nightmare. You have the fortune of dying when he does, I stay here until someone else comes, I fear he will be the last." She feels his bitterness, his aged soul tired of the dream, tired of being the master of the house. He was the first, and he will be the last. She is the groundskeeper, he is the owner. The Doll remembers when he was young, toiling at the workshop, with her sitting at his side, never moving. Now he is the immobile sentinel.
Gehrman sits in the backyard of his dreamscape. He has seen the moon here millions of times, sat for years in this chair, on this grass, staring at that moon. Rather than homesickness, he is sick of his home. "Laurence, please". A choked sob. "I am of little use now….come…." tears fall freely from his eyes as he sits alone in a nightmare of his own making. The first time in decades, Gehrman feels alone.
/
He sits up on a belfry, watching shapes move about in the city. Rats and men alike prowl the streets, but he is looking for a monster. The past few expeditions the Hunter was on, parts of the city were completely cleared of life, the corpses mutilated beyond necessity. The wounds were inflicted with a weapon though, there was something more than a hunter tearing through the streets. "Hello stranger" speaks the crow, sitting by his side on the balcony. "This is Gascoigne's work no doubt, you see his rage in the corpses in the gutters. He is losing his mind" she drawls in her accent. "No doubt Henryk follows the trail he leaves. Gascoigne is no longer in my domain, but his partner is mine". The Hunter had been following the trails of blood left by the berserker, always ending abruptly in dead ends and sewer openings. The man was a ghost. Though now, from Eileen's nest, he could see all of the city, and where most of the sewers intersected. "They will be in Oedon Chapel, his daughters worry for him, his wife, missing. We must silence this before he completely loses his mind", The trek through the sewer will be easy enough. Tight corridors and limited access will make dispatching resistance easy enough. "I'll leave ya to your work Hunter" she calls out from the opposite side of the roof. "Be safe" He replies. She glances, chuckles, and leaps from her spot.
Countless times he studied the city plans of Yharnam, more than once he practiced his swordsmanship with his cane, and his accuracy with his whip. He toiled with the contraption, and even fortified his gear, making the blade finer and sturdier. He trained to gain more strength and endurance, the old fashioned way to boost the echo-emboldening provided by the Doll. "My friend through blood and damnation" he mutters. He silently considers what she does when he is not there, perhaps sleep, perhaps she cleans, maybe she speaks with the old man, bitter and tired as he is. He exist the alleyway in the sewer, wading now through the filth of the main gutter channel. He treads softly, as to not alert anyone of his presence. Quick glances reveal the long sought evidence. Scratches in the masonry, and what was an eviscerated corpse here and there. The hunter even finds knives embedded in some bodies in the periphery of the main path. Gascoigne was being followed. When the Hunter reaches the sewer line under the tomb, he stares down the channel to behold a hulking quadruped in the distance, he throws a pebble, and there is no response, only silence. It was as if a great storm tore through the tunnel, bodies piled in the filth. Hardly bodies even, pieces of bodies piled up. The end of the tunnel was blocked by the body of what once might have been the largest swine to ever walk the city. Its throat was cut, and deep gashes coated its torso, its blood still leaking into the brackish water below. He is here, this is recent. The Hunter steps aside the pig, climbs a ladder to the tomb, where he sees the silhouette of a gargantuan man with an axe in the distance. It is time.
/
A bird of prey stalks the streets, among the diseased carrion crows of the city Eileen walks unnoticed. She looks down at her notebook, leaning on a lamp post, her blade at her hip. Tonight she must find the partner of Gascoigne, old yellow Henryk. The man has been rampaging around the sewers of the city, cutting man and beast down indiscriminately. Last night she had found a young girl slumped at a well, a bucket of water in her cold hands, and a pair of fine knives in her sockets. The sewers a street away revealed signs of a struggle, blood from many beasts, bent knives, torn tendons and severed appendages littered the flotsam in the sewer, giving the usual fetid stench a tinge of iron. Eileen hated these sewers, usually she skipped hunting here unless she had to. The beasts would simply wallow in the filth until disease eclipsed the plague and made hunter's work short. Not her problem. Having to inspect the carnage though, Eileen climbed down into the dirty water, cringing at the sensation of her heels digging into the grime. She looked at the scene analytically. Two large beasts, lacerations to the sternum and throat, killed with a saw cleaver. Three infected townsfolk, knives stuck inches from the center of the skull, bodies leaning on the wall. The third party had a rifle. Remains yet to be seen. Hands and legs floating among the others, this one was different. There was gunpowder on the wall behind the torso, the torso itself was split from what remained of the right bicep to the sternum. This one was killed more viciously. Verdict? This one shot him, and he retaliated. Eileen stared at the gunpowder on the wall, then the rifle. She fingered the barrel of the gun. Warm. This was recent. He's here. Eileen dove towards the ladder as a serrated blade lodged in her shoulder.
So another chapter added to the tally. Next chapter will feature the battle with Gascoigne and maybe a bit extra. Thank you in advance for any reviews, or just reading this far in general. Here is a fun little game. I had some literary references littered through the chapters. Leave a review if you think you found them.