A/N: Well…I lasted nearly seven months before another one of these went and peeked out from the abyssal cosmos. Apparently this omake series still carries the Hunter's Mark!
~X X X~
Balyn had only one thought in his head as he moved through the lore-soaked halls of Byrgenwerth, the wellspring of the Healing Church and the present generation's knowledge of the Great Ones and the eldritch Truth.
runawayrunawayRunAwayRUNAWAYRUNAWAY!
He'd had far too many encounters with the weird, insectoid beings with their bloated, eye-filled heads as he explored the campus grounds. He was out of patience, out of sedatives, and when one of the things plunged down from the observatory tower at him, out of luck.
The grand, sweeping staircase that led down to the ground floor was just ahead of him, though. He grabbed the balustrade rail and used it as a fulcrum so his momentum swung himself around in an arc without any loss of speed. His foot went sailing over the edge, landing two steps down without breaking stride, and then his other boot swung past—
—coming down square on the rounded surface of the threaded cane dropped by that crazy Choir hunter he'd had to fight to get up here—
—and he was plummeting twenty feet through the air to land head-first on the hard floorboards below.
The snap of his neck was, at least, an instantaneous and relatively painless death.
~X X X~
"Welcome home, good hunter," the Doll greeted him upon his return to the Dream. "What is it you desire?"
"More sedatives would be good. I think I have some stashed in the box."
"Sedatives? Are you agitated, good hunter?"
Balyn sighed.
"No, I guess not. I mean, those things are pretty frightening, but I've seen worse things in Yharnam." He kicked at a pebble. "I just wish I'd stop screwing up and doing careless, clumsy stuff! What kind of hunter trips and falls down the stairs?"
The Doll chose not to answer the rhetorical question, showing surprising compassion for someone who'd had to put up with him for as long as she had.
"I tell you, it really makes me sympathize with those fellows at Byrgenwerth, though," Balyn continued.
"Really? In what way?"
"Well, that Willem guy apparently had some big insight about lining his brain with eyes so that he'd be able to perceive things that he ordinarily couldn't, and I really get that. I think if I followed in his footsteps it would help a lot, because that way I could keep an eye on myself at all times."