The dark grim buildings and streets of Yharnam surround Jonah. It is twilight with an overcast sky but the full blood moon is visible as it is underneath those clouds. Innumerable coffins are propped up along the streets, double lashed shut with chains. Distant inhuman screeches and roars are heard echoing throughout the city of the damned. The smell of blood is heavy in the air as it runs in the gutters and puddles in the streets like water during a rainstorm.

A little blue-eyed blonde girl wearing a white dress with a white ribbon stands on that street.

"What are you doing here?!" Jonah demanded.

"I'm gonna go find my mummy and daddy," she answered innocently.

She turns and runs.

"No don't go!" Jonah called out desperately as he runs after her.

She runs around a corner and he rounds it to find her further ahead and disappear around another corner. He chases after her but upon arriving at that spot, he sees her down another alleyway even further ahead than before and disappears around another corner, compelling him to give chase once again.

Jonah continues his pursuit of the little girl throughout the maze of alleyways as she continues getting ever further ahead of him.

The Good Hunter turns another corner and gasps with despair at the sight of a puddle of blood lying before him with a white ribbon atop it. The music from the music box begins to play and a form starts rising from that puddle of blood with the ribbon perched atop. It is the little girl. She is still made as blood, save for her blue eyes now glaring back at the Jonah.

"What have you done?!" Her tone demanding, accusing.

"I . . . I'm sorry," Jonah sobbed.

"Look what happened to me!"

"Please forgive me!"

"I HATE YOU!" Her wrathful voice inhuman as she rushes at him.

"NO!"

Jonah gasps upon awareness of lying face down on a cold stone floor and almost naked to boot, along with cold hard metal wrapped around his wrists with his arms pulled back. He opens his eyes and arches back in the attempt to look up and notices a pair of blue heeled shoes before him.

"Bad dreams, Mister Theron?" A familiar female voice crooned mockingly before him. "Hey Anakitty, help him up."

Footsteps approaches him and a feminine hand clasps him by one of his arms and casually pulls him upright onto his knees.

Loki squats before him within arm's reach as she stares intently into his face with a hollow look of concern. She smiles, but it does not touch her red eyes.

"That must've been one hell of a bad dream you were havin'," Loki sneered. "For the last minute you were squirmin' and mutterin', sorry, forgive me; then you started cryin' out, no, and struggled all the harder until you finally woke up."

She next stands while continuing to smirk down at the Moon-scented Hunter. "Let me guess. You were dreamin' about somebody who got slaughtered by monsters 'cause you failed them, right?"

Jonah groans as he lowers his head once more.

"Anyway, up and at 'em, Mister Theron!" Loki said with casual joviality as she backs away then stretches her arms out wide. "Welcome to Twilight Manor! And these are my pride and joy!"

Jonah looks around to see that he is within its grand hall with the entire Loki Familia now assembled in a half circle all along the back. Their expressions range from glum to outright glares in regards to Tione, Lefiya, and Bete.

"You-" Jonah rasped, only to start coughing.

"I'll give him some water," Riveria suddenly said as she takes a jug of it and pours it up.

"Lady Riveria," a blond Elf woman named Alicia said in a soft tone of astonishment from alongside her.

Riveria walks over to Jonah while holding the cup carefully in both hands, then stops alongside him and leans forward.

"Easy now," she urged gently while cupping his chin with one hand. "Drink slowly or you'll cough."

Jonah slowly juts his head forward while she carefully brings the cup to his mouth. He does as he was told by carefully taking small sips of the cool water, letting it trickle down his throat. Carefully, slowly, as she had instructed. The dryness of his throat begins to disappear and he is able to take bigger gulps. He looks up into her face to see a depth in her green eyes. Eyes too old for a face so young. Eyes of both steel and gentleness.

"That's it, Mister Theron, carefully," Riveria encouraged gently as she slowly keeps tipping the cup while still cupping his chin with her other hand.

Once the cup is drained, she pulls back and returns. Loki watches as Riveria returns to her place.

"Thanks mama," Loki teased as Riveria walks past her, earning a brief glare from the High Elf, then looks back down at Jonah with a huge grin. "Are you feeling better now, Mister Theron?"

"Yes," he sighed.

"Her name is Riveria Ljos Alf," Loki said. "And she is not just any Elf; oh no, she is a High Elf. That means she's royalty. Her daddy's a king, meaning she's a princess." Then leans forward with a gleeful look. "Admit it. You liked that. Being all chained up and vulnerable while being tended to by a beautiful elegant woman as a pretty woman holds up upright. Turn's you on, don't it?" Then slowly reaches out and down with both hands while wiggling her fingers. "Let's see if you really like-"

"Loki!" Riveria warned in a loud frosty tone.

"Just kidding!" Loki proclaimed as she instantly backs away with raised hands while continuing to stare down at Jonah, then points down at him. "Now if you were a woman on the hand."

"You're clearly a deviant," Jonah sneered.

"I wholeheartedly agree!" Loki proclaimed upon clasping her hands together momentarily. "I also heard about that incident with your Dungeon Adviser, who by the way is the daughter of a close friend of Riveria I might add. Yeah, she dragged you all the way from Babel to the Guild. It was the talk of the town. Do you have a fetish for dominant women?"

"Why? Do you want to dominate me?" Jonah sneered. "Oh wait, you currently are."

"Yeah, but I'm not gettin' a buzz outta it on the count of you bein' a man and all," Loki quipped in mock disappointment. "Now then," as she turns serious, "before we get down to the matter at hand, my captain over there had a chat with Eina the morning after your run-in with Bete and Aizy-poo. It turns out Eina told him a lot about you, but we saved that for when we went down to the church to have a little chat with Hestia and her bunny boy about you too in order to compare notes. You were really forthcoming with them. Starting off, you got here when you encountered a lamp that only exists in our world and not yours, and it was in a place it was not suppose to be in. Then you touched it and here you are. But as for your world now . . . ?! Wow, what a screwed up place you came from! No wonder you're so screwed up. I bet anyone would get screwed up going through what you went through. But the most amazing thing about you is how you soloed the Dungeon all the way down to the Fiftieth Floor, killing every monster you encountered and the Monster Rexes. Goliath, Amphisbaena, Udaeus, Balor! And all without a Falna!"

This creates shocked murmuring amongst her Familia.

" . . . He soloed to the Fiftieth Floor without a Falna . . . ?!"

" . . . He shouldn't have been able to solo the First . . . !"

" . . . He killed Balor . . .?!"

" . . . Is he even Human . . . ?!"

"If you think that's amazing, then get a load of what I have to reveal," Loki continued. "Mister Theron's journey starts with him suffering from a disease that compelled him to go to a city called Yharnam, up to a place called, the Church of Healing, because they were offering something called blood ministrations. They were offering a blood that was a cure-all that went as far as to interfere with the aging process."

There were murmurings from the group.

"But then something called, the Scourge, broke out," Loki continued in a mock concerned tone. "It was a disease that caused its victims to turn into beasts and get violent. Mister Theron barricaded himself inside of some place where he met a guy named Caryll, who asked him if he would like to become a Hunter for an organization called, the Workshop. He agreed and had some of that blood injected into him."

More murmurings from the group.

"The Workshop's duty was to hunt those who turned into beasts throughout Yharnam and in its vicinity," Loki continued. "It was located in a place called, the Hunter's Dream, where a man named Gehrman mentored them. As for that blood that was used by the Church of Healing and the Workshop, it was actually the ichor from one of the Great Ones, gods responsible for the monsters that are plaguing their world. They're so disgusting that looking at them can break your mind, but this man has killed a few of them."

"He killed gods?!" Tione gasped.

"That's quite a feat!" Alicia marveled.

"Now as for that ichor," Loki continues, "it mimics Falnas, except that in order to level up, they need to acquire something called blood echoes from the monsters they kill. They're spiritual things that they can carry as much as they want of, but they have to go up to some automaton called, the Doll, within the Hunter's Dream. The Doll will take those blood echoes and convert them into stats; they can keep doing that for as long as they can keep killing monsters."

"Whoa, that's so simple!" Tiona gasped.

"I wish we could do that," Bete grumbled.

"But here is a question that really needs to be answered," Loki said smarmily while staring back down at Jonah. "Where did the Workshop get that ichor . . . ? Well, Mister Theron? Any theories?"

But Jonah remains silent as he sneers back up at her.

"Fine, I'll give you mine," Loki said. "I theorize that those in charge of the Workshop were being led around by their noses by another one of those Great Ones. You just don't want to admit that you've been killing Great Ones and their monsters in the service of another Great One. That in turn could only mean that ichor was the source of the Scourge, which you seem to be immune to, right?"

The Good Hunter snarls and shivers at that remark.

"Hoo hoo, that really upsets you, don't it, Mister Theron?" Loki taunted. "Think about it . . . When the Scourge broke out, it created a vicious cycle: it fed into the power of the Great Ones which in turn fed into the victims which in turn fed into the Great Ones. That's why those monsters he killed out there were so horrific."

This causes another shock to her Familia.

"Th-Those monsters were once Human?!" Lefiya exclaimed.

"That they were, my dear Lefiya," Loki said. "And it was all the fault of mortals who couldn't leave something well enough alone. And now his world has been turned into a Great Ones' toilet," then leers down at Jonah. "So have I gotten everything right so far, Mister Theron?"

Jonah sighs deeply. "Yeah . . . That's about the gist of it."

"Good," Loki proclaimed with a single clap, then looked over her shoulder. "Okay, bring them out."

Some members of her Familia carry out a large table with Jonah's belongings on it and set it down behind Loki.

"You got a lot of interesting stuff here, Mister Theron," Loki said. "Love your sense of fashion by the way."

She puts it down, then picks up his notebook.

"Ah, yes, this notebook is full of drawings of Yharnam's monsters," Loki said while holding it aloft with a troubled expression. "There are even the Great Ones you slain too."

She flips through the pages and her grimacing becomes more intense.

"Damn, so many horrific monsters!" Loki grunted while looking away upon closing the book.

She puts it down and picks up a blood vial with a built-in injector.

"One of your . . . healing potions," Loki snarked, then puts it down and picks something else up. "What's this box?"

Then opens it and a grim lullaby emanates from it. Every second makes Jonah flinch, Loki wince, along with the others who listen.

"What is that music?" Lefiya muttered with a grimace.

"It's creepy," Alicia agreed while also grimacing.

"Yeah," Loki said while closing the box, "you're really screwed up, Jonah."

Loki puts the music box down then gestures off to the side. "Okay, you can come out now."

Jonah watches as through the crowd emerges a shapely attractive woman with short wavy red hair and a left red eye as she is wearing a black eye patch over her right one and wearing a white blouse and black slacks. She is followed by a hefty large-breasted dark-skinned woman with long black hair tied back in a low mussy ponytail and wears an eye patch but over her left eye instead, along with a white top with red pants.

They walk over to Loki.

"Hephaestus meet Jonah Theron, Jonah Theron meet Hephaestus," Loki introduced. "She's the Goddess of the Forge. And that other woman over there is Tsubaki, the Captain of her Familia. The Hephaestus Familia does smithing and weapon crafting. She knows everything there is to know about weapons, or at least she's suppose to. Okay, Hephaestus, there's this bad boy." As Loki gestures at the table, at the Saw Cleaver to be exact.

Hephaestus picks it up and hefts it.

"It has a good weight," Hephaestus said, then strokes it. "The blade is all bandaged up yet it remains untorn. This a remarkable weapon. One side is a straight edge and the other is serrated. This metal. I think it might even surpass the strength and hardness of orichalcum."

This results in more murmurings.

" . . . Orichalcum is the strongest material in existence . . . !"

"It's suppose to respond to whoever is wielding it," Loki said. "Trying thinking that blade to unfold."

Hephaestus does so, and the blade unfurls then furls again.

"This Saw Cleaver can keep these two positions by the will of the wielder and as firmly as if it were one piece of metal," Hephaestus mused.

"As does the sharpness," Tiona called.

Hephaestus rubs her hand over both sides. "I can feel something squishy here."

"Think it sharp!" Tiona proclaimed.

Hephaestus turns to the table and runs the serrated side over it, effortlessly carving a deep gash into the oak.

"Oy, oy, I like that table!" Loki snapped.

"The blade didn't even have contact with the wood!" Hephaestus marveled in wonderment as she casually plucks it out of the now ruined table. "There is much magic fused into this. What are these writings, Mister Theron?"

"Those are runes," he answered. "Don't bother asking me what they mean because I don't know either. I didn't create it."

"Despite its brutish appearance, this is an extraordinary weapon," Hephaestus said as she holds the Saw Cleaver aloft. "It's entirely encased in a perpetual force field so that it will bestow extra durability, hardness, and sharpness; along with mobility and stiffness of the joint when need be. Yet the blade will be given dullness for protection and friction to the handle." Then lowers the weapon. "Now where is its sheath?"

"There is no sheath," Loki answered.

"He had it stuck to his back then plucked it off when he used it against us," Tiona added eagerly.

"Again, magic," Hephaestus mused.

"Then there's this," Loki said while holding up the Hunter's Pistol.

Hephaestus hands the Saw Cleaver to Tsubaki then takes the Hunter's Pistol to examine it.

"It made a noise like thunder when he shot monsters with it, making them staggered," Loki said. "He also shot Bete with it too before giving him that visceral attack."

"This I understand," Hephaestus said while studying it. "Mister Theron, what do you call this?"

"The Hunter's Pistol."

"The Hunter's Pistol," Hephaestus echoed while studying it. "This operates on the same principle as a crossbow, only some sort of ammunition is used instead of bolts."

"I think these have something to do with it," Loki said while handing her one of the bullets.

"Bullets," Jonah admitted. "They're called, bullets."

Hephaestus nods then takes it and sniffs it.

"I smell blasting powder. Jonah Theron, what is this metal in the tip, it looks like silver."

"Quicksilver," Jonah answered.

"Why use it when it cannot be solidified?" Hephaestus asked.

"Because it can harm monsters," he answered. "At least the monsters back in my world that is. As for how we make it solid, we mix our ichor into it."

"Where do you put this in?" Hephaestus asked Jonah about the bullet.

"That pistol's been arcaned so that when shot off, the bullet that is the closest to it will teleport into the gun ready for use," he answered.

"Is that so?" Hephaestus mused.

"So what do you think of them, Hephaestus?" Loki asked.

"I think I would like to examine these weapons," she answered while staring at the Hunter's Pistol still in her hand.

"Yeah, I figured you would," Loki said whimsically.

Hephaestus picks up the bullets and pockets them.

"We'll be taking our leave now, Loki," Hephaestus said while hefting the Hunter's Pistol. "Tsubaki, come."

"Thank you for your time," Loki said with a wave.