Ready for another chapter? I really am! Mostly me because I've been studying for my finals and really want to die. Hell week is almost over, and with that I get to reveal a surprise to you guys.
The Hunter walked briskly to the erected lantern and barely managed to light a match for the messengers. The light glow of the new lamp post attracted messengers, and they took his slumped form back to the dream.
Eileen walked the roofs of Yarnham with ease, searching among what remained of the slaughtered corpses of the beasts in the street. She climbed down a small chop ladder to inspect some of the corpses better. The eviscerated beasts were lying in heaps of parts, their extremities cut cleanly from them rather than the battered and ragged lacerations from the Hunter she knew in the streets. Many of the bodies lying in the road were killed with one or two blows, with something extraordinarily sharp. She looked to the sky to see the twilight setting upon Yarnham, silently thinking to herself of the Hunters she knew who possessed such power.
She thought briefly of the earliest days of her job, how the other hunters about each workshop would stare at the grim young woman, who would return to them coated in the blood of their comrades. She would wash her hands in the basin, and keep her eyes fixed on the ground as the disapproving gazes of the other Hunters would bore holes into her body. She used to be one of them, before her late master handed the crowfeather mantle to her, the new Hunter of Hunters. She accepted the job as tribute to her master, and took to the streets, coldly hunting friends turned foe, and washing the blood off her hands in the presence of the deceased friends. The job had no glory, no honor, no Hunter spirit. Eileen the Crow was the feared shadow for the Hunters who savored the kill, the antithesis of the thrill of the hunt.
Often she would return from her job, covered in the blood of the maddened students of the workshop. Often she would experience the hateful gaze of Djura, who would tinker in the powder keg shop, or she would have to pass Henryk and Gascoigne, the latter often speaking gruff utterances. "The Hunt is tireless lass, if you finish early, you may come and dine at my table, the children rarely see guests these days", she quite missed Gascoigne, pity he had to go. She then thought of how the workshop began to cloud in fog, and she would see the prodigies of Gehrman leaving for the Hunt, that top hatted Lawrence with his wild eyes, and that white haired woman of cainhurst with the soft eyes. She was always uneasy when they were around. Eventually she too began dreaming, and those hunters that did not seemed to disappear into the masses of beasts and the rivers of blood and seemingly the fog itself. She eventually stopped seeing them altogether when she spoke to that Doll in the shop.
Then she stopped dreaming, and was left with nothing, no basin to wash her hands, or hunters to disapprove of her, not even a trace that the hunter's ever existed as an organization. She was alone, and in a way, she missed the disapproving looks of the others. She said aloud "I wonder if Djura is still alive in the old city?". Then she stood, took a blood sample from the viscera, and walked briskly towards the lower wards.
He sat on an old chair on the top of a tower in a city that had long been burned to the ground. His eye was trained on the plaza where the seal he set long ago was posted. The now rusted iron chains sat in their usual position, and he smiled to himself on his handiwork with the lock. He built it himself after all. The older man stood to gain a better view, and saw the creatures wander the streets aimlessly and without threat. Every so often one would bump into another and a scuffle would erupt, though it would never last long before a dominant would come forth and break up the violence. He was fine with the job, or rather, his retirement. He would watch from his tower as the world and the hunt would fade in and out, firing his great turret at whatever blood soaked murderer would try to slaughter the innocents below. He worried little though, one had not turned up in over four years. He sipped from a cup he kept nearby, and toiled with a gear in his signature weapon. He never grew feeble though, Djura was the last Powder Keg, and if he didn't have kick, he just wouldn't be worth the title.
All the while Gehrman sat in the garden with his eyes closed. There were no other presences, though in the dream he felt the eldritch energies swarm around him like a hive of bees. There were voices and feelings and sensations that he couldn't describe, sounds and voices of people who no longer were alive. He called out into the void when he heard that light Cainhurst accent "Maria?" and then began to think. He called out in frightened whispers"Oh, Laurence... Master Willem... Somebody help me... Unshackle me please, anybody... I've had enough of this dream... The night blocks all sight... Oh, somebody, please.." but began to sob on the last syllable. To him the dream has always been with him. The workshop was his home, though every time he gazed at the silver hair of that doppelganger, it threw him into a low rage. He missed the proteges, and remembered when he first laid eyes on the doll, he slapped the hair ornament that Maria used to wear.
He opened his eyes, and saw Maria's corpse, a great beast sleeping on an altar, and the Hunter return through the fog. He opened his eyes in full and looked up, the moon was staring back at him.
The Hunter stumbled back from the Cathedral and into the garden of the workshop, tripping and falling into the damp grass on his way to the path to Gehrman. He looked around, and saw that when he tried to move, he was still wounded from his battle, the blood he shed making the flowers about the garden bloom. He sat upright and used his last vial he would keep around his neck to heal himself, before falling back into the grass and out of consciousness, the voices in his head shouting and clouding his focus. He felt the cold hand of a messenger grasp his palm, and there was something smooth and wet in his palm, he cared not for it though. The whispers around him became worse and worse in the shop, and for a moment he raised his pistol to his temple and thought through clouded thoughts if it would make the voices stop. The dread he felt intensified with the pounding ache in his skull, and he silently cried out to any of the voices to stop their assault, he commanded them to be silent, he writhed with the feeling and wrestled with the overwhelming void that was threatening to burst from his eyes. Then he passed out, beneath the concerned and frightened gaze of the Doll.
She sensed the Hunter enter the dream, but something was different in his awakening. She felt his panic and watched as some of the lumenflowers began to bloom, which signaled that someone was injured. She walked briskly from Gehrman's side and rushed to the usual point that he would come from. He was writing on the floor with one hand on his forehead and one on a pistol. He threw the gun from his reach and held tightly to what she saw was a grotesque bloodshot eyeball before murmuring in strange tones, then passing out. She knew not what to do, though she felt that he shouldn't be sitting outside in such a state.
She went to the back of the shop and called out in a voice that was not hers to the awake host Gehrman "Master Hunter, your new student lays dying in the lumenflowers, help me". He seemed to further rise from his daze, eyes growing full and aware as he commanded "Take me to the boy". He wheeled himself from his post by the moon and stopped near the flowers in the garden. "Take from him his weapons and coat, I will bring him to the shop" and she did. Though when the Doll turned to take the weapons back to the shop, she stopped and stared as she witnessed a new spectacle.
The old master Hunter seemed as though he was much greater than a moment before, and he stood from his chair without assistance from his cane. He rose to a mountainous height, a thin frame with definition all about his arms and legs, his cap casting a shadow upon his wrinkled face, but his eyes glowing with an old strength. He walked into the flowers and with a single hand lifted the large man from his place, and slung him over his shoulder before walking back to the shop. On his way though he began to hear the voices once more, though this time emanating from the boy. He dropped to a knee and the Hunter fell from the great man's back and onto the floor. He cursed under his breath, and took the Hunter into the shop, placing him in a large chair by the hearth. He did this, then felt the strength leave his bones as he braced himself against the wall and called the Doll to bring him a chair. He looked in a mirror and remembered the days when he too participated in the hunt. He smirked, and then wheeled himself back into the yard, calling out "Maria, please tend to our injured guest, perhaps get the biscuits Laurence has hidden behind the desk". The Doll did not respond, and assumed the old man had already fallen asleep and was murmuring.
Knowing little medicine, and having no true experience with the wounded, the Doll instead sat near the Hunter and read, periodically stopping to clumsily, though tightly, wrap and change bandages on the Hunter. She would periodically glance at him, making sure he still drew breath. She knew he would survive, her life was tied to his, but it calmed her to see his shallow breath. Soon he began convulsing in his seat, and she felt the old whispers in his head, so she took hold of his arm and thought aloud, the emotions she knew he would not remember or feel. "Hunters have told me about the church. About the gods, and their love. But... do the gods love their creations? I am a doll, created by you humans. Would you ever think to love me? Of course... I do love you. Isn't that how you've made me?". She ended on a whisper, an unfamiliar pain rising in her chest as she thought of all the places she read of, the places she would never visit, and she thought of the woman in her dreams, the one that stared back when she looked in a mirror.
The Doll held him until he stopped and resumed calm breathing. She then stood and felt his consciousness returning as she put water on for tea. She looked quickly at his form, bandages holding firm, and tattered clothing from his hunt. Usually when he returned, the messengers would restore him in his reawakening, though she suspected that perhaps the forces that overcame his mind scared them off. She let him rise slowly, and offered him tea when he managed to stand upright for a minute. He wordlessly nodded and she passed him a brew. He drank slowly before walking over to his chair and thinking to himself. She looked at him and concentrated on his essence, feeling in the massive quantities of echoes in him for his spirit. She saw it then, the inhuman knowledge flowing freely in him, and the strange and frightening sounds that surrounded his mind. He existed burdened not only by the weight of the Hunt, but the wisdom that came with succeeding in its slaughter.
He stood, and put his weapons back on the workshop bench, then drained his mug of the remaining tea he had. The Hunter slumped down on the chair and breathed deeply, he desperately wished for a drink about now, his head was pounding, it felt as though someone has shoved a billiard into his forehead. He instead felt the smooth porcelain of his only companion's hand on his shoulder, he reached and took it in his own, savoring the feeling of pristine skin on his rough hands before looking back to see the smooth ceramic woman he was used to. He thought it strange, but instead opened a powder keg tome and decided to try and focus on some work more productive. He was about to ask the Doll if she would like to sit with him and keep his company, but when he turned there was no one, and he sighed before turning back to his thankless work.
He tried to focus on the diagrams of the complex trick weapons, the pistons and screws that latched in place and the gears that worked almost as clockwork. He tried and tried to glean some usable knowledge, but he could not focus. Images of the old Byrgenwerth master, and his treacherous student, and the ever bloody hunt that dragged the once thriving city into ruin clouded his vision, and even when he dozed off, nightmares haunted him.
He stood in a massive hall among hundreds of other men. Legions of other human beings brandishing old rifles, blades, sabres, trick weapons, and some using crude traps. He stood in a line of ranks, seeing Gascoigne, Henryk, men in white and black church garb. He was then in the streets, running as hordes of enraged beasts charged the streets in a rage, indiscriminately eviscerating and tearing other less swift hunters apart. He watched as he walked back into the hall, where only a few dozen remained, and only a few came back with no injury. All were covered in blood. He looked to the forefront of the hall, then up, where he saw more hunters hanging in the upper levels. He stood in a massive tower, the stories ascending high above him, and hunters all working tirelessly. He saw an old man in a wheelchair flanked by two silhouettes.
He was then alone in the tower with about a dozen other compatriots. One of them began screaming like a madman and fired a bullet into the man next to him, then rushing one of the riflemen with his sword. Before he could thrust his sword forward, a knife embedded itself into the hand of the frenzied man, and then a large axe severed the head of the poor fool, his clouded pupils falling out of focus. Then all hell broke loose as the Hunter looked around as a great many of his comrades simply faded into clouds of dust. He heard a scream as a pair of bodies fell from on high and landed in a messy heap on the floor, one of them gurgling in his own viscera as if praying. He then looked to the exit, and a large horned wolf stared him in the face as it lifted an impaled church hunter in its hand. The Hunter ran to the beast, but something was weighing down his arm. He looked, and found the dead hunter hanging from a blood soaked claw. He was standing in front of a mirror. Then darkness, and he saw the eyes. Hundreds of eyes staring at the inside of his head. He was inside himself and the eyes tore him from the plague and into a rapturous frenzy as he screamed out for anyone.
Then he awoke. Coated in sweat and grease from the workshop, tears staining the pages of the book he was reading. He turned around, and saw the old man staring at him. Gehrman wheeled to him and handed him a rag, all the while patting his shoulder and saying "don't worry lad, none of it will remain once you leave the dream. Just pay it no mind and keep hunting, the pains and the nightmare will pass. A nightmare, that's all it is." He sighed, but the headache was gone, and he would not allow this weight to slow him down. He returned to work revitalized by the knowledge that he now knew where he would need to go. He knew where Byrgenworth was, and he knew he needed to find the old scholar of Kos.
I intended for this chapter to be much longer. Though I think that I'll make a mega-chapter when I have time after finals. Given that my last final for the semester is in a few days. I really miss doing these more frequently, though I hope the winter holiday lets me get some real work done. I may do a completely irrelevant chapter just to give some fanfare or fanwank. Either way, I'll see if I can do something you guys will like. I always love your reviews, so keep them coming. Anyway just in case, happy holidays, happy new year, and I should see you all beforehand.