Chapter 2: Beast! Oh Foul Beast!
"Yes, yes, see? Woken up with something of nightmare, have you? Heeh, hee hee... Oh, but I have nothing more to tell. I only show the way and the way has been shown. Now, it's in your hand. Until the dank, sweet mud takes us all... Upon the awakening of Ebrietas."
The man was undeniably mad, she thought, and had something burst into flames to her right, she jerked slightly away from the flame, only to realize that it felt… good. Comforting. The sizzle of the flame danced against her skin. It didn't hurt. But what about the-
"My death matters not... It's your nightmare, after all..."
And with that, her world went dark once more.
When she woke up, Harry found herself wearing a strange outfit, her normal clothes gone in place of an odd hood and a dress shirt, paired with a striped pair of slacks, and an odd pair of boots.
But, as she sat up from the table, she realized that her previous aches and pains were gone.
Instead, her body felt revitalized, and she felt… different.
Within the past however long ago it had been at this point, she had gone from her normal self, being in a somewhat intoxicated state, to being sick, and then to when that… odd man was there, and she was finally glad that her body had been healed of whatever that had been previously afflicting her.
She was also still in the same room, except this time there was no fire or old man, although she could see the table from which he had grabbed her contract, and there was a relative hole in the floor next to her, proof that whatever had burst into flames had come into the room.
Slowly getting to her feet, she stumbled forward slowly, as it seemed her body, although now healed, was still a bit sluggish. Now that she was awake, however, she could finally walk around and get a better look at the room.
The room itself was as she remembered: the walls were covered in books, torches the only thing giving light to the room, and all the books had strange titles. However, there was no old man or even proof that he had been here.
"Strange…" Harry mused aloud. It seemed wherever this man had taken her was someplace either underground or it was night since the door had a window, but no light was shining through.
Walking around the room more, Harry attempted to see if there was any clue to where she was, but none of the books seemed to offer any clues as to where she was. There was, however, a note: Seek paleblood to transcend the hunt.
"…Paleblood?"
The room she was in had two doors, although, the one without a lantern next to it was locked and wouldn't budge under her weight, and the other one, the one with the lantern, opened with a simple twist of the handle.
When she opened the door, it immediately left to stairs that led down straight in front of Harry, and that was when she finally saw light. The window, which was level with her eyes, seemed to lead outside, if the orange glow was anything to go by, and the light sparkled off of the chandelier that was between the two of them.
"So I'm not underground… but where am I?"
Trekking down the stairs, painfully aware of how much noise she was making due to the creakiness of the boards, and the door at the end of the stairs was open, leading to another room. This one, while similar to the one she woke up in, did not have a table or IV stand, but instead had a larger table in the corner. There was also some blood littering the floor of the room, its contents making her gag slightly on its foul stench.
However, the door straight in front of the door she had entered through, was also open, but the content of this room sent her reeling and chills travelling up her spine.
This room, like the one she had woken up in, had tables and IV stands in it, however, they were multiple, and this room was probably triple the size of the one she had woken up in. It was also dark, but there was more blood in this one compared to the one she had just left, and it seemed to leave a trail towards the rest of the room, partially hidden by all of the beds and the stands.
That wasn't the thing that was bothering her, though. It was what lay in the unofficial center of the room, and as she slowly stepped through the room, she found herself coming to a stop and holding her hand up to her mouth to stifle whatever was coming up.
There were two lanterns, one on each side of the doorway that lay at the end of the room, and the lanterns illuminated what was directly in front of them: a man, one who seemed to have been torn to shreds, was lying in a pool, what Harry presumed to be the man's blood, and there were giant claw marks along his chest, part of his guts spilling out onto the rest of his body.
The main concern, however, was the giant wolf-like creature that was gnawing at the dead man in front of it.
Wolf wouldn't be an ample description, as this thing was larger and harrier, as well as more muscled, than Professor Lupin's wolf form she encountered at the end of her third year, but it was the first word to come to her mind when she saw the… beast, or whatever it was.
Harry, petrified at the scene in front of her, watched with a sort of morbid fascination as the beats continued to gnaw on and eat up the bits of the dead man in front of her. She took a quiet and slow step back, and the beast made no notice of her.
She continued this, making only a few more steps back, until the solid crunch, of what Harry could have only assumed was a vial of some kind, broke the somewhat silent noise of the room.
The beast, which hadn't made any notice of her, snapped up its head at the sudden noise, and Harry felt her heart almost leap out of her chest.
With that, she quickly whipped around, barely managing to race up the stairs from which she had just come down, but a sharp pain on her foot and a jerking motion made her fall on the stairs she hit her head lightly, and only managed to turn onto her back when the beast clamped down harder on her leg, the sickening crunch making her fairly light-headed.
The beast, seemingly content to toss her foot, which Harry just realized was off of her leg, into the air and eat it, and suddenly, adrenaline was pumping rapidly through the young witch's veins, and she managed to land a solid kick to the beast's belly, managing to send it down the stairs only due to the elevation of the stairs.
The beast shrieked and roared as it fell, and Harry barely managed to pull herself up and oddly shuffled up the remaining stairs and closed the door behind her, and the resounding thud of the door shook the dust off most of the books in the room.
"Morganna's tits… I'm gonna die here!"
Quickly beginning to hyperventilate, Harry once again looked at her leg and saw that her foot was missing, the remaining stump leaking blood at a mighty pace.
The door thumped again, and Harry looked up to see the other door in the room, seemingly her only chance of escape until a soft glowing light caught her eye.
A lamp, it seemed, glowing a soft, but still dark, blue, stood out like a lighthouse amongst the darkness of the room, and Harry, in her shocked state, started to crawl towards the lamp.
The door thumped again, and as she got closer to the lamp, she swore she started to see… little skeletons? They were surrounding the lamp, and she wondered how she hadn't seen them before.
She must've been losing her mind, she thought.
The skeletons, odd little ones with big eyes and strange bodies, stuck their hands out to her as she crawled towards them, and just as she touched the lamp, the door finally kicked open, and the beast lurched into the room.
It sniffed the air, almost as if it hadn't seen her before it locked onto her and leaped upon her with a start.
Harry, who was mostly in shock by this point, felt an odd sensation on her shoulder as she felt the pressure of the beast on her back, and a fine spray of mist decorated the lamp in front of her, and she blankly realized it was her blood.
She felt another crunch, a relief of pressure, and then she was ungracefully flopped over and saw what she believed to be her arm in the beast's grasp before the claw of the beast sliced her belly open, a splash of blood getting into her eyes, and she felt blood gurgling out of her mouth.
The beast tossed her arm aside and reared back to strike again, and Harry's last thought was that she would never be able to eat Treacle Tart.
With a start, Harry realized that her face was being pressed lightly against a stone of some kind, and her entire body felt… weird.
Like she had just woken from a seemingly real dream, but now she was awake, and whatever had happened in her dream was now undone, as she was now in the waking world.
Some of that was true.
Pushing herself up (both of her hands?), she propped herself up on a knee and stood up (on both of her feet?) gazing around her new surroundings, and wondered just where the hell she was now?
Wherever she was… it was very different from where she had woken up from.
As opposed to the dark and musty room she had woken up in, the area she had just now woken up in was… outside? There was a building, one that reminded Harry oddly of a building in Diagon Alley, and it was surrounded by flowers and plants of the like.
Fences surrounded her, except for the cobblestone path that led to the building, and another to an odd bird-dish-looking stone, and everything around her was either grass, flower, or fence.
Finally standing up now, she brushed some rock and dust off of her outfit, the same one she had woken up in, except this one wasn't torn where her arm and leg had been ripped off, and her leg and arm were there! It had been like… like she had just restarted the day or something.
Or had respawned like in those stupid video games she had watched Dudley play.
She had to be off her rocker or had to have been laced with something at Hogwarts… nothing else could possibly explain what was happening to her.
But what could possibly make her hallucinate… this?
The moon, which seemed much bigger than it did when she would look at the night sky at Hogwarts, loomed over the building and surprisingly illuminated the area much more than she expected.
Everything in the little clearing was easy to see, but it was undoubtedly moonlight that lit the area, and she wondered how bright the area would've been if it had been sunlight instead.
But besides the moon, and the area she had woken up in, the rest of her surroundings appeared to be… endless clouds? Or mist?
Whatever it was, it seemed to go on forever, and she couldn't see anything in the mist, all except the giant pillars that went farther up than she could see. They were scattered everywhere and were massive.
But that was it.
Just the moon, the flowers, the building, and a… doll?
Walking up to what appeared to either be a dead person sitting on a patch of grass that extended out from the wall next to the road, or a doll, she gave it a tentative tap with her finger, and involuntarily took a step back, thinking the person/doll would attack her, but no such thing occurred.
Slowly walking forward now, Harry poked the doll again, but didn't jump back. When the doll, which undoubtedly was due to the porcelain texture of the doll's face, made no move, Harry took another step forward and began to inspect the doll.
It was wearing somewhat odd clothing, but something that didn't appear to be out of place, that seemed to be made out of dark brown wool, with pink lace lining the cloak she was wearing. The dress she was wearing fell all the way to the doll's ankles, and the hat it was wearing held back locks of silver hair, which, under Harry's touch, revealed to be quite soft.
All in all, the doll was beautiful, but it was inanimate, and just added to the strangeness of the situation Harry found herself in.
Stepping back from the doll, Harry made her way to the door of the building and jumped back quite suddenly when those same creatures she had seen near the lamp earlier popped out of the ground, their hands seemingly grabbing at her as they made strange groans and noises.
"Merlin's tits!" Holding a hand over to heart in an attempt to calm herself down, Harry glanced back down at the odd little creatures, which seemed unfazed by her sudden movement, and they appeared to holding… was that an axe?
Creeping towards the odd creatures slowly, Harry crouched down to her knees when she got close enough and watched as the grey creatures moaned and groaned as they began to move their hands towards her, and the handle of something began to reveal itself to her.
Leaning forward, only hesitating a little due to the sheer insanity of the situation, Harry grasped the handle and pulled.
And when Harry pulled out a giant axe with an axe head the size of her torso and one that weighed so much she could barely hold it, she dropped it with a start and wondered just how the hell that had happened?
The creatures, which only offered another handle for her to grab, chittered almost excitedly, almost as if they were pleased that she had accepted their gift, and offered another handle.
This handle, Harry found, led to a giant cleaver-like weapon, for that could surely be this item's only use, as it was covered in serrated blades and also seemed to sink in her grip, it also is entirely too heavy to be used normally.
She dropped it as well and watched with the utmost fascination as it seemed to fade into nothing with a blue light, as well as the axe, which had also disappeared.
Chuckling awkwardly to herself at the sheer absurdness of the situation, Harry glanced back down to the odd creatures that appeared out of the ground and offered her one last handle, one that gleamed with ornate silver and when Harry grasped it, she yanked it hard out of the ground, as it did not weigh as much as its counterparts.
The… cane she had pulled out of the ground reminded her of Lucius Malfoy's cane, except this one actually screamed of wealth and appearance, and was covered in odd and intricate markings and carvings on it. It did, however, sit quite comfortably in her hands, and it seemed much more practical to use compared to the axe and giant cleaver.
She did, however, quickly discover what happened when you sat it down on the ground, though.
She had taken a step forward, another cluster of the little grey things she had just taken this mysterious silver cane from, when it made a sudden noise, and when she pulled it up to inspect what had happened, and found the cane now in the form of a… whip?
The handle remained intact but had shifted, almost molding itself to her hand, as the rest of the cane had seemingly split apart into a serrated kind of whip, one that dangled in her hands and was made of the same tiny blades that covered the cleaver she had found earlier.
Letting it dangle, and wondering how she could get it back to being a cane again, she whipped it around a few times, and only when she flexed the handle in a certain way, did the whip seem to retract itself back into its previous cane shape.
It thrummed in her hand, and some part of her had seemingly reveled in the way it slashed and whipped around in the air, and she determined that this was the weapon for her, for what else would one use a serrated notched whip?
Holding it off the ground, so as to not activate the whip, she marched her way up the stairs to the next group of creatures, and when they offered her a slightly bowed handle, she lifted and was shocked when she then held a gun in her hand, or some old ornate version of one.
Nothing at all like the guns she saw in Dudley's TV shows, it weighed a lot in her hand, and when she pulled the other handle, it revealed an even larger gun, one that dropped like an anchor when she tried to hold it with one hand.
Letting the larger one disappear, she looped the other gun into one of the many loops on her outfit and adjusted her grip on her newly acquired cane, and continued up to the door of the building.
The doors were quite large, with them being taller than two of her, and they wouldn't budge under her actions as she pushed and leaned against it. Huffing in frustration, Harry left the door and made her way back to where the doll was, only to once again be jump-scared by another group of those odd small creatures, this time by a gravestone instead of at a random point in the ground.
She had noticed the numerous gravestones lining the entire area she had woken up in, but none of them had creatures next to them or candles next to them, and when she leaned down next to the lit gravestone, she had to stop herself not to jump as the slimy skin of the creatures made her skin crawl, and then, with a sudden intense feeling, she was gone.
When her vision cleared, and she jerked back into her own body, a feeling she couldn't really describe, she realized that she was back where she had died.
Except… where was her body?
She knew that what had happened to her had happened, due to the faint scars that decorated her pale skin, but… if it had happened, where was the blood? Her body? The beas-
With a sudden motion that was entirely instinctual, she jumped out of the way of the beast that had killed her earlier and let out a snarl of her own and it tore into the bookshelf, having missed her entirely.
She unhooked her pistol, and, like she had seen in Dudley's shows, aimed it right at the beast, and let a small bullet jump out of the pistol she had and make a small splash onto the beast.
It did nothing.
The beast, it seemed, was only more enraged at this, and quickly whipped around toward Harry once more, and began to lurch over towards her, saliva dripping from its mouth, and blood coating its features.
Now shaking, both from the bullet firing and from its lack of effect against the creature, Harry let her arm fall, and only barely managed to jump away from the beast once more, as its razor-sharp claws streaked across the air and slashed where she had just been moments ago.
Backing up to the corner of the room, Harry quickly looked from one side to another, to try to find an exit. The one door led to another, but the one she had come through earlier only led to the room that was a dead end, so she took a deep breath, readied herself, and thought.
What was she to do? The gun did nothing, and there was no way she would be able to kill a beast that had so easily ripped her to shreds and bested her earlier. It did seem, however, that her reflexes had increased considerably, and her body did seem to move on its own when approached with danger. But she couldn't do that forever, could she?
The beast attacked again, and once more, Harry found herself side-stepping around the beast's rushed attack and watched as it accidentally lodged itself into the bookcase, furiously trying to rip its claws out of the wall it had lodged them into.
What was she to do?
She couldn't do anything against this beast, it was too large, and she too small, and she didn't have anything to-
With a start, Harry glanced down to her side, where the cane she had just acquired dangled in her grasp, its silver finish gleaming brilliantly in the dusk light leaking through the window.
She glanced back from the cane to the beast, then to the cane, then to the beast.
Steeling herself with a newfound sudden resolve, Harry tapped the cane against the ground hard, watching with morbid fascination as it then assumed its notched whip form, and the beast made a furious and somewhat whiny noise as if it knew what had just happened.
Harry, who had no clue what she was to do in this situation, raised the whip into the air above her, and let it fly towards the creature that had killed her, but that was a different her.
Blood sprayed in a fine pink mist, and when some of it entered her mouth, she involuntarily swallowed, and a furious desire to rip, and shred, and to kill filled her like nothing before, and even when the beast got itself unstuck from the bookcase, she felt no fear.
It slashed at her again, and this time she allowed herself to duck under its claw and she swerved around so she was behind it, and let her cane rain down from above in a brutal motion as she hacked at it and whipped again and again.
When she stopped, the beast was dead, a slight gurgling sound resounding from its body as it died and then disappeared before her, its body turning into a cloud of pink mist as it rose away into the air, and fell to her knees as the adrenaline slowly disappeared from her body and she felt utterly exhausted.
Breathing in and out, trying to regain her breath, Harry felt both disgusted but also felt amazing. The feeling of the whip lashing through flesh, the way the blood splattered against her clothes and left her drenched in it, all of it left her feeling disgusted, but morbidly excited, and she was afraid of the high she felt when she was in combat.
With the adrenaline having left her body, Harry realized that the beast, despite her dodging, had managed to nick her knee, leaving a small flow of blood running out of the wound. Making her way up the staircase that led to where she had come before, Harry felt it good to explore where she was before she left.
This time, however, when she made it back to the door, there was someone on the other side.
The door was still locked, but when she pushed it this time, a quiet curse left the mouth of someone on the other side of the door, and the curtain pulled back to reveal a woman, one in an odd white garb and with blonde hair.
The woman seemed fragile but held a kindness in her eyes that Harry hadn't seen for quite some time, even at Hogwarts.
"Are you... out on the hunt? Then I'm very sorry, but... I cannot open this door. I am Iosefka. The patients here in my clinic must not be exposed to infection. I know that you hunt for us, for our town, but I'm sorry. Please. This is all that I can do."
The now-identified Iosefka, who moved to close the curtain, paused when Harry began to rattle off questions to the lady she had just met.
"What do you mean by hunt? And what… what infection?"
Iosefka paused at this, and let out a small chuckle, seemingly knowing something that Harry didn't.
"You… are you not a hunter? Did you not kill the beast that had broken into the side entrance of my clinic?"
Harry paused at that, and glanced down at her bloodied cane as it dangled in her hand, and then looked back up at the woman. "I suppose that makes me a hunter, then. And what town am I in? I just woke up, and the old man in the room I woke up in didn't say anything to me."
Iosefka, who had been listening raptly, looked confused at this and shook her head before speaking.
"What old man, dear? There are no old men who reside here in the clinic, at least not to my knowledge."
"But… there was an old man, in a wheelchair, with a dingy little top hat!" Harry exasperatedly explained to the woman, who shrugged, having no explanation for what Harry had seen.
"Well, if there wasn't an old man, then explain what he did to me! He gave me that blood in the IV, and it… and it changed me! I died! And then I woke up!"
"Ah… you must have been really out of it then because I gave you that transfusion. The blood here in Yharnam has terrific healing factors, is well known across the lands to heal illness, and often has other benefits as well. And, you said you… died? A dreamer, then."
Harry, who had been listening to every word, cocked her head at that. "What do you mean by dreamer?"
Iosefka, at this, seemed lost in thought for a moment before opening her mouth to speak. "It is rumored, amongst the town folk, that some Hunters are able to awaken anew during the hunt, and are cursed to fight forever during the night of the hunt, only being released from their curse after the night is over. Another Hunter, Eileen, who often escorts patients here, once said she used to dream…"
Iosefka paused once more at this, and let out an awkward chuckle. "But of course, what nonsense, that doesn't make any sense at all, does it?"
Letting out a nervous chuckle of her own, Harry found herself nodding before hissing as her knee bucked a little from the pain in her leg.
"Oh my, are you hurt dear? Why, you need some blood vials." At this, Iosefka turned away, the only thing Harry heard was the rummaging of items in the back of her clinic, before the blonde lady returned, returning with a handful of the vials she had seen earlier, as long as a more narrow vial with more golden-hued blood within. She opened a small hatch on the door and pushed the vials out so Harry could grab them.
"Here you go, Hunter. Some blood vials for that injury of yours, as well as a blood vial of my own… my patients have always said a pinch of my blood left them feeling better than usual, so use it when needed!"
The lady began to turn around again, but Harry stopped her. "Iosefka… how do I use these blood vials? Don't I need a… tube or something? I don't know how to use a needle." Looking down out of slight shame, feeling inadequate in front of this nice and caring woman, she was relieved when the woman simply laughed softly in reply before speaking again.
"Simply smash the vial into your leg dear, and the blood will do the rest. Only in larger amounts do you need to use those IV stands you saw earlier."
Harry nodded, before grabbing one of the wide red blood vials and then jamming it into her leg. It stung for half a second before she felt the flesh in her leg start to knit back together and all sorts of other euphoric feelings course through her. Whatever this blood was, it made her feel powerful and left her wanting more.
It was addictive.
"Now, go. And good hunting."
And with that, Harry was gone.
If what she thought that Dudley's horror movies were scary, this place was nothing short of terrifying.
Quickly after leaving Iosefka's clinic, she ran across a gate, which led to an overseeing area, in which she was able to make out a massive bridge, and a few other buildings, the architecture reminding her of some books Hermione had shown her of Eastern Europe.
But this place was anything but modern, and everything was old, but there were things here that people didn't have in the Wizarding world.
Blood that could fix almost anything as quickly as it happened, including crushed bones, scorched skin, claw marks from beasts, an executioner blade nearly sawing her in half, and all other sorts of injuries had her dying and dying more and more, over and over, but eventually, she got the hang of navigating the small area she was in.
It also seemed that other people killed the beasts that she had in the clinic, but these people were just as likely to kill an outsider just as quickly. They screamed horrible things at her, called her a "dirty beast", told her to "begone", and it took killing them for them to finally leave her alone.
Despite the massive population of these beast people, some people still had their sanity.
One man, who sounded sick beyond belief, had wished her luck on her hunt, and it seemed that everyone but her knew that she was a hunter.
Having not seen any other Hunters, even though they existed, at least to the man she had spoken to, she took a sort of sick pride in what she had been doing. The sane people that she had spoken to seemed terrified of the beasts that roamed the ravaged city, and she wondered how this city had inhabitants at all.
So she wondered about the area she was in, with gates and the like blocking parts of her path, and she wondered where she was supposed to go. It seemed that whenever she killed any number of beasts, more and more filled their places, and she wondered if the supposed dreamers before her ever lost their sanity.
Especially when she had seen one of her previous bodies torn and crushed beneath the foot of a troll that had just killed her, and she was beginning to question everything.
Iosefka had continued to supply her with blood whenever she needed it, and she was glad at least a few of the people she had met in this city were kind, as opposed to the cruel and ravenous beasts she had killed throughout the city.
Her last death had been from falling down a rafter, and before she could die from the blood loss of her legs being crushed, she was eaten alive by rats the size of Sirius' Animagus form, and instead of trekking back into the city, she backtracked to Iosefka's clinic.
The woman had been nothing but kind, and Harry was beginning to doubt that she had the mental capacity to get through this, especially when it seemed like she was running out of ideas.
When she had approached the door and knocked, the woman first appeared frightened, but soon seemed calm at Harry's presence.
"Ah, you are safe. Thank goodness. But I'm afraid nothing will change my mind. I cannot open the door. I'll do what I can, of course. Perhaps this will help you, if only in some small way. This night is long, but morning always comes."
"Hello, Iosefka… I just… no matter what I do, no matter how many beasts I kill, it never seems enough… and I'm lost to boot, out of places to go seemingly, despite the fact that this city is larger beyond belief."
"Someone of your caliber won't fail us, I am certain. And once the night of the hunt ends, we can speak face-to-face. Then I can finally see what you look like. I shouldn't be thinking this but I am rather looking forward to it. So please, be careful out there."
Her talk with the women left her with a new drive to escape the hell she had found herself in.
"And Harry, the sewers, despite how gross they are, lead to another side of the city. You can find a shipping building above the sewer, and it should lead you to new places."
With that, Harry nodded her head and made her way to the sewers.
The sewers, it turned out, were quite horrible.
The shipping building that Iosefka had described was hidden behind another lady's house, and it took her accidentally falling through a stack of boxes that she found at the entrance, although a pack of dogs blocked her path.
The dogs, it seemed, were quite vicious. Faster and more agile than the beast she had fought in the clinic, it took her whipping her cane around multiple times and all around her to kill all of the dogs. Some of them were even in kennels, as though someone knew that they would turn into these ravenous animals.
It made her wonder more about this town and the mysterious illness that seemed to rack everything and everyone, even the animals.
After the dogs, she had finally found the bridge Iosfeka had been talking about, only to realize that this was where she had fallen and had been eaten by rats. Being more careful this time, and keeping her balance so as to not fall, Harry carefully tracked her way through the rafters and made her way out to a balcony where she met her first hunter: Eileen.
The Crow, as she liked to be called, was a fascinating woman, and her talk with the older hunter left her feeling more curious as to the nature of the beasts and hunters alike.
But the sewers were worse, and as she fell down onto the water below, and after she had disposed of the rats, one still gnawing on her dead body, she thought back to Eileen's conversation with her.
"Oh, a hunter, are ya? And an outsider? What a mess you've been caught up in. And tonight, of all nights."
The Crow had been stalking out onto the Yharnam cityscape beneath them, and Harry stared at the blades that hung at her hip, along with the crow feathers that decorated her outfit.
"Here, to welcome the new hunter…" At this, Eileen had given her a few more blood vials, some bullets, and the like, and Harry hoped the other hunters she met were this nice.
"Prepare yourself for the worst. There are no humans left. They're all flesh-hungry beasts, now."
This only left Harry with more questions, and she was dying to have answers, but all she could get was that these beasts used to be people, but now they weren't.
"Still lingering about? What's wrong? A hunter, unnerved by a few beasts? Heh heh... No matter. Without fear in our hearts, we're little different from the beasts themselves."
At this, Eileen turned around to fully face Harry, and she put a gloved hand on the younger hunter's shoulder, and Harry felt herself jump a little, slightly lost in her reverie. The crow looked her up and down, nodding in approval of her cane, and noticed her strapped pistol.
"Try using that, but not to kill, but to stun." Harry, who had been silent so far, just nodded and at that Eileen let her go, looking back out onto the area around them, and the sunset, which only made the sky a dark pink-purple color, and Harry was content to stand there a while before Eileen spoke again.
"What are you still doing here? Enough trembling in your boots. A hunter must hunt."
A serrated sword the length of her torso whizzed past her through the air, and she deftly avoided it and let her notched whip wrap around the beast's throat, and pulled and a spray of blood whipped across the stone that she found made up most of the sewers.
So far so good, but the smell and the rats made it a less to be desirable experience. There were also crows, and while they didn't do much, they were annoying and made god-awful noise.
And maybe it had been the fact that she hadn't found anyone before coming down here, but she had found a second hunter, and he was accompanied by a third, both of whom were attacking a pig the size of which she had never seen before.
The two of them were deftly stepping from side to side of the pig, the one's axe leaving deep cuts in the pig's hide, and the other's cleaver leaving horrid and jagged marks on the pig's face. It made horrible squeals and they reverberated through the tunnel the pig was in before the great beast fell with a thud, the two hunters standing around it breathing hard.
"Hello… are you two Hunters?"
The two men, one in dark robes with a wide hat and the large axe, and the other in a tan outfit and a cleaver in his hands, turned to her and began to raise their weapons, only to realize that she was no threat to them, as she was a hunter, same as them.
The one in dark robes stepped towards her, his axe shortening as he shoved it back into its short form, and the man in tan did the same with his cleaver, it folding back in on itself. They both approached her, with the one with the axe seemingly taking the lead.
"It's been a while since we've seen another hunter down here, a female at that. Pleasure's mine, the names Gascoigne. This here is Henryk. We were just clearing up down here before heading home. And you are?" Both men nodded at her, and she found herself oddly relaxing in the sewers and began to speak.
"My names… Harry. Nice to meet you. And I'm a new hunter, and Iosefka led me down here. I uh… just talked to Eileen, and uh… are you trying to say that females can't be hunters?"
The man, now she knew as Gascoigne chuckled at her, and she must have mistaken his statement, because he responded kindly: "Not at all, Miss. just that we hardly ever see any, with Eileen being one of the only ones we've seen as of late. We meant no offense."
The other man nodded in agreement, before talking, his voice a bit lighter than the other man's: "Anyone brave enough to fight the beasts of this city earns my respect, and us Hunters have to stick together. Doesn't matter if you're a miss."
Gascoigne had walked back towards the pig and began fishing for something in the water, and Harry turned back to Henryk.
"Umm… you wouldn't know where I could find an outfit like yours… I'm kinda tired of wearing these weird clothes and whatnot. Kinda don't offer a lot of protection…" Harry shifted slightly at that, and she felt Henryk's gaze on her scar-littered arms, and huffed slightly, getting him to look back up to her.
"Normally, Miss, these outfits get constructed for us by whoever is willing, and are normally made of leather, but take a good amount of time to make… You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who'd make one tonight, much less in time for it to be of use. The night is almost upon us, and you best be ready. However, we have some you can use…"
Gascoigne, who had come back with a strange look on his face, was staring at the blood on his hands and looked… hungry. Like he needed the blood. It scared her, and she remembered something Iosfeka said about being "blood drunk", but Henryk interrupted her thought train with a slap to Gascoigne's arm.
"Get ahold of yourself… Now that I think about it, it's your turn to stay in tonight. The girls need you, Viola needs you. And I don't have that damn music box she always uses to bring you back." Henryk had shifted slightly during his talk, almost to shield Harry from the younger man, but it seemed Gascoigne wasn't gone yet.
He snapped out of whatever stupor he had been in and nodded worriedly.
"I'm sorry, Henryk… I thought I could resist it longer… Let's go home."
Henryk let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding in, and Gascoigne bid Harry a farewell nod, and she was somewhat shocked to learn that he had a family. People had families in this cruel and horrible place?
"I worry for him… some Hunters don't succumb to the bloodlust, but it calls to him… as it does to me. Eileen, if you didn't know, has been a Hunter for as long as I can remember, and she hunts the ones that lose themselves to the madness. I pray, Harry, that wherever your journey takes you, you don't succumb to the addictiveness of the blood."
Harry, somewhat shocked by his rather serious admission, watched as the two men walked away through the tunnel she had seen them fighting in earlier.
She turned around herself when Henryk's voice broke the silence of the sewers and called out to her.
"Regarding that gear, there was a Hunter… who died recently, further down in the sewers. He was small, like you, and his armor might fit you. I know ransacking this dead is horrible to do, but… in this city, you have to do what you must."
And with that, they were gone.
She had found the body, a tall and hairy beast man looming over it, with his blade raised high, and he had almost slashed her head off, if not for her reflexes. She sidestepped the beast, and a deft kick sent it flying down the rafters below.
The man's body was rotting, and all of the other items on his person had been removed, weapons and all. Only his outfit remained.
Burying what guilt she had, she pulled and unbuckled the leather garb on the dead man's body, not even bothered at the scent, and wondered what the people of Hogwarts would think about her if they ever knew what she had been doing.
She had been here… for god knows how long, waking up and dying again, and again, and again, seemingly in an endless cycle of death and rebirth. And while some of it had been for the better, most of it left her a paranoid somewhat insane person when she wasn't in the middle of battle.
Ducking into an alcove and changing into her new garb, Harry unsheathed her pistol and drew her cane, and made her way down the sewers.
She had made a full loop of the sewers and had gotten back to where she had fallen down, her new garb offering her more protection, however slight, from both the elements and the beasts she had been fighting.
More corpses littered this area, slightly above the tunnel that led down to the sewers, and she found herself another weapon.
Similar to the cleaver she had seen Henryk using and the one she had found near the building in the odd place, this had a similar blade but instead was a spear.
She was hesitant to get rid of her cane but found she could loop either of the weapons on the straps decorating her new outfit and could switch between the weapons.
The spear offered her more reach and could tear through flesh like butter, while her cane was more of a blunt weapon. All in all, she liked the versatility both weapons offered and made quick use of both of them.
She was also slowly getting better with using her pistol and found that if she used it at the right time, it would stun enemies, leaving them bare to attacks that she normally would have been able to pull off. Yahrnam was slowly becoming easier to navigate, and she was glad that she was getting a handle on things.
Having now left the sewers, she was making her way through a house when a man jumping out of the shadows nearly left her gutted, and she made quick work of the inhabitants of the house. A man in a wheelchair, with a flamethrower no less, left her wondering what else was in store for her.
The second story had a few more men, and they also fell to her cane and spear.
Leaving the house left her on the giant bridge she had seen when she had just left Iosefka's clinic, and one side at two of the beasts she had killed in said clinic, and these weren't already burned or weak. They made for quite a challenge, and she knew she had changed from the young girl who had first come here when she had one staked with her spear, and the other whipped into pieces from her cane.
Breathing heavily, and injecting herself with a blood vial, she had come to know what Henryk was talking about.
The blood here was… different, from anything she had ever heard of before, the same with its effects. She knew alcohol back in her world was addictive, and that people suffered from addiction, but she had never heard of it affecting people like the blood here did.
She found herself sometimes craving it, staring at the way it danced and shone in the light of Yharnam, and whenever she injected herself with it, it made her blood drum with adrenaline and it was more tasteful than any dessert she had ever had before, and left her pulsating with need for more of its sweet taste.
How Hunters did this for years, she had no idea, but her pure will to escape this hell snapped her out of her reverie more than a few times.
So she thought that was why.
Having just plunged her hand into a troll's side, she felt great satisfaction as it slumbered over the other corpses of the crows that had surrounded it, and she glanced upwards towards the bridge that lay beyond its path.
It was a giant bridge and led to an even greater building, one that was ornate and beautiful in design, and Harry was momentarily captivated by its design as she trekked down the bridge towards the gate that hid beneath the shadows that the building above projected.
That was before all hell broke loose.
A shriek, the likes of which sent violent shivers down her spine with pure terror, was her only warning before a beast, the size she had never seen before, lurched and leaped over the railing of the balcony above, and landed in front of her with a heap.
She felt a twitch of something in the background of her skull, and her vision warped and wavered before she got a hold of herself, and glanced back up towards the beast.
This beast, unlike any she had seen before, was massive and was truly disfigured. With gnarly horns that spiraled in on themselves and were sharp and wicked in nature, its face was ugly and rotten, and was twisted and horrid, and the screech it gave again made goosebumps spread across her arms. Its legs, covered in some kind of weird fungus, warped around nails that were embedded in the creature's skin, and its claws were different lengths, with one being short, and the other long and covered in long and greasy hair, likely coated in blood.
Harry, who was far away from it as it hobbled over towards her, gathered her resolve and steeled herself as she prepared to fight this monstrosity that was lumbering towards her.
She was Harry Potter, Girl-Who-Lived, Hunter of Yharnam, and she wasn't going to let a petty beast get in her way, not after how far she had gotten.
Unlatching her spear, she assumed a low stance, and then lurched forward, getting ready to begin her attack. The beast looked at her for a moment, almost docile, before it shrieked again, and began wailing all over where she had just been. Deftly dodging the creature's claws, she maneuvered around it and jammed her spear into the creature's legs, grinning with satisfaction as it howled and clawed at its leg.
She then whipped her cane out and was about to strike again, before she felt a sharp pair of claws tear through her midsection, and then all she saw was black.
When she awoke, she was back to the old building and the garden and was shocked to see two things.
For one, the doll was standing up, and two, the doors were open.
Approaching the doll slowly, as she hadn't been back here since last time, and things were different, she was curious as to what had happened and why now things had changed.
The doll blinked, and then turned towards her, everything about her appearing human save for the parts of her that were distinctly doll, such as her joints.
The doll nodded, and walked slowly towards her, smiling softly as if greeting an old friend.
"Hello, good hunter. I am a doll, here in this dream to look after you. Honourable hunter, pursue the echoes of blood and I will channel them into your strength. You will hunt beasts and I will be here for you, to embolden your sickly spirit."
Her voice was melodious, and it made her involuntary relax and also made her want to crawl into a bed and sleep forever.
"Hello… my name is Harry. What's your name? And blood echoes? What are those?"
The doll nodded once more, before speaking to her once more. "It is nice to meet you, good hunter. And the blood echoes, retrieved from beasts and others alike, are the echo of someone's will. And I do not have a name, I'm simply known as the plain doll."
Harry, slightly disturbed that this so animate doll didn't have a name, walked closer to the doll and noticed the doors open.
She began to slowly approach the open doors, not noticing the way the doll seemed to stare at her as she walked or the little creatures she had come to like to pull at her feet as she walked past them. With the doors open, she was able to walk into the building and saw that it was a rather large chapel-like building, one that was filled with a large cabinet, likely for storage, and one that was decorated with books and other strange items.
There were also a few desks, one with multiple weapons littering the area above it, and it seemed to be some sort of workbench, with old-looking tools littering its surface. However, there was another thing that shocked her.
A man, one strikingly similar to the one who had her sign that bloody contract, was resting also in a wheelchair, and instead of bandages covering his eyes, he was wearing a smaller top hat and an old garb, one that seemed weathered with age.
He gave her a once over, and he lifted his legs slightly, and she was shocked to see a peg where one of his feet should have been.
He made no notice of her staring at his stumped foot, and wheeled forward, his voice raspy.
"Ah-hah, you must be the new hunter. Welcome to the Hunter's Dream. This will be your home, for now. I am... Gehrman, friend to you hunters. You're sure to be in a fine haze about now, but don't think too hard about all of this. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your own good. You know, it's just what hunters do! You'll get used to it..."
He paused at this, and Harry just continued to stare at him. Every time she felt like she had gotten the better of something here, another thing would pull the rug out under her and leave her just as dazed and confused as when she had first gotten here. Everything was constantly changing, and she doubted she'd ever come to truly understand the place that she was. She felt Gehrman sigh, and then he began to speak again.
"This was once a safe haven for hunters. A workshop where hunters used blood to enhance their weapons and flesh. We don't have as many tools as we once did, but... You're welcome to use whatever you find."
He paused at this, and then somewhat dramatically leaned forward, whispering quietly, so that she even had to lean in somewhat to listen to what he was saying.
"…Even the doll, should it please you..."
She jerked back at that, with a slightly disgusted look adorning her face, hidden as it was beneath her hat and cloak.
Did that mean… that previous people had used the doll, for… that reason?
Bile rose in her fault, and from what she had gathered, the doll was sweet and caring, and she hated that Gehrman had just offered her up like that.
But she didn't want to make enemies with this mysterious man, especially when it seemed like he had a wealth of information, so she didn't say anything, and instead just nodded, and then turned around and made her way out of the building, one now revealed to be a workshop.
She walked down slowly, trying to gather all of the information she had just taken in, and approached the doll once more.
"Did you speak with Gehrman? He was a hunter long, long ago. But now serves only to advise them. He is obscure, unseen in the dreaming world. Still, he stays here, in this dream. Such is his purpose."
Harry paused at that, and she began talking back to the doll.
"Yeah, I met him… Kind of an odd bloke, heh? Is he always like that, talking all creepy like?"
The doll cocked her head, almost as if she didn't get what Harry was talking about, and Harry felt herself inadvertently chuckling. Something about the way the doll was just staring at her made her laugh, and she doubted the doll ever had someone to talk to, besides other hunters, because she figured Gherman made for poor conversation.
"He is not the most… social person, but he is just creator, and as such, I owe him much. I take care of him and the dream, as well as the Messengers that inhabit the dream."
Harry felt herself frown inadvertently before she asked quietly: "…Messengers?"
"Ah, the Messengers. Inhabitants of the dream, they find hunters like yourself, worship and serve them. Speak words they do not, but still, aren't they sweet?" The doll, who had since stood up and began to walk towards where a few of these now identified messengers began to paw at the hem of her leathery garb, as Harry had followed.
"… A little odd, yeah, but they're cute."
A peaceful silence filled the area, save for the groans and moans of the messengers, and at this point, they had all gravitated towards Harry.
"Why do they act like that, to me specifically?"
The doll looked contemplative for a moment before she spoke once more.
"They live to serve you, and as such, you are their master, or mistress in this instance. They live to serve, and care much about you as a result of that."
The blood echoes Harry had been unknowingly gathering allowed for the doll to make her stronger, change her, make her faster and more aggressive, and as she made her way back to the bridge once more, she tore through enemies she once had trouble with.
When she had finally made her way back to the bridge, the monstrous creature remained and sat with its back to her as it tried to claw her spear from its leg, which proved to be quite the challenge. With a crack from her whip drawing it out of its concentration, it angrily stomped around and thrashed the floor, only to then leap high in the air towards her.
Running as to get around it, she lunged towards the creature only to bend under its hideous legs and yanked her spear with vigor as the momentum of the beast allowed her to yank it clean out of its leg. Blood spurted everywhere, and when some inevitably got into her mouth, her vision flickered, and then she was once again upon the creature.
She was a blur as she danced around the beast, and its blood was only fuel to the fire, and the more she drank, the more she slashed and clawed and shredded, and its shrieks reverberated in her ears as an all-encompassing hunger and fury filled her.
Her spear found herself lodged in one of its horns, sticking out at an awkward angle, and she wrapped her whip around the handle and yanked, such a thing impossible due to the size of both of them, but the beast fell, and she felt great satisfaction as it groaned under her actions.
She leaped upon the now fallen beast, and with a plunge, she lodged her spear deep within the beast's skull, and it shrieked one last time, before collapsing.
Falling slightly and barely remaining upright due to her hold on her spear, she heaved deep breaths before her legs finally gave up on her, and she fell down onto the puddle of blood that had begun to pool around the beasts.
Whatever had happened to her, it seemed she was now able to absorb whatever she could from the beast from its blood echoes, and something oddly similar to viewing a memory through a pensive, like she had with Dumbledore, began to transpire.
Blood and light filled her vision, and she felt the blood around her begin to take shape and form, and when she blinked next, she was in an odd room, filled with trinkets made up of blood, in fact, the entire area was made of blood, and everything was happening all at once.
People began walking by, people robed in odd garbs, talking of churches and grand cathedrals and such, and when she blinked again, she found a man, one she had seen earlier, moaning and clutching his head as he began to keen and then, with a start, blood spurted everywhere, and in the place of the man there was only a small creature, one oddly similar to the one she had seen on the bridge.
Only this one was smaller.
More things began to rush by, and she watched, morbidly fixated, as she saw the beast be captured, nailed down to a stone room, and then escape, and the more it killed, the more it grew, and everything blurred passed, until she lurched back into her body, once again on the bridge of where she had just killed the Cleric Beast.
She heaved as her spear ripped out of the Cleric Beast's head, and blood spurted everywhere in the most vile but exquisite way.
"That was… fun." Harry took a step forward but felt a slight tugging at her eyes, and when she blinked again, she felt herself be caught by the messengers, and then she was no more.
When Harry awoke again, she bolted upright, not knowing immediately where she was, as the room she was in was dark and poorly illuminated. Reaching for her cane and flintlock pistol, she was shocked when she came up with nothing and then realized what she was wearing.
"A… hospital gown." Glancing around in horror at what she was beginning to realize, she stood up and then blinked a few times, her eyes adjusting to the darkness.
She was back at Hogwarts.
One of the badges crafted by the Healing Church.
The silver sword is a symbol of a Church Hunter.
Ludwig was the first of many Healing Church hunters to come, many of whom were clerics. As it was, clerics transformed into the most hideous beasts.
-text on the item "sword hunter badge"
Hello! I hope you all like this chapter, and let me know if you want/need me to explain anything, and let me know what you guys think of this chapter! Reviewing is always appreciated, and thank you so much already for over 20 favorites and over 30 follows! It means the world to me, and I can't wait to see what you guys think!
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