It was one of the strangest things Balyn had yet experienced on the night of the hunt.
That was a statement that should not be made casually. His experiences in Yharnam had been grotesquely eye-opening, as he'd met ever-more-hideous beasts, wizened little manikins that transported him in and out of fantastic and appalling dream-worlds, and cosmic horrors that redefined his understanding of reality by their very existence. Not to mention the walking, talking, praying, and occasionally sleeping animated doll that somebody (probably that creepy Gehrman fellow; he certainly seemed like he had some curious mania) had spent way too much time building. So when he said things were strange by the standard of the Blood Moon, that meant something.
But…what else was he supposed to call it?
Little blue creatures, almost human but for their glowing yellow eyes and weirdly bulbous heads, tottered towards him on spindly legs, slapping at him with their six-fingered hands.
He stabbed them with his rifle spear, and they fell over dead.
Eventually, one of them swelled up to triple its starting size in a puff of blue energy…and continued to slap at him just as aimlessly. Balyn's biggest problem in sidestepping was in convincing himself that yes, it really was attacking him in such a weak and pathetic fashion.
Shrugging, he stabbed the thing three more times and it exploded like a popped balloon, leaving him alone in the garden full of closed lumenflowers.
"Huh."
There was a large picture window that bore investigating later, since if he had his mental geography right it looked into the Grand Cathedral's upper balcony, but just then he figured it was better to simply light the lamp (where did those things come from, anyway?) and return to the Hunter's Dream.
~X X X~
"Welcome home, good hunter," the Doll greeted Balyn as usual upon his return. She regarded him solemnly for a long minute, as if something about his matter had caught her attention. Then, hesitantly, with the air of a person overcome by curiosity but dreading the potential consequence of acting upon it, she at last asked, "You seem somehow troubled. Is something wrong, good hunter?"
Balyn frowned, cupping his chin in his hand.
"I'm not really sure. I was just in the Upper Cathedral Ward, and I fought one of the Choir's experiments, a gigantic Celestial Emissary."
"Is it the aftereffects of the creative and doubtlessly grotesque methods of violent death it subjected you to that is disturbing you now?"
"No, and that's what's bothering me!"
She tipped her head to one side, observing him as if she wasn't quite sure which of them required an alienist.
"The whole point of this Hunter's Dream thing is that if I get killed out there, I come back to life, right? So when I fight tough beasts and other creatures, I go out and learn from my mistakes. But this time…I didn't die. I wasn't even hurt!"
It was remarkable how a porcelain face that could not move could display such obvious doubt and concern.
"Hunters have told me about how, when they come to this dream, they have difficulty remembering the events of their past lives. Is it possible that you are suffering from a recurrence of this?"
"…I would probably be upset at your lack of confidence if I hadn't been asking myself the same question. But no: it really, honestly happened that way."
"How passing strange."
Balyn shook his head. Weirdness aside, he needed to get back to work. He was sure that the Choir still had more secrets that needed to be hunted out.
"Still and all, it's a good lesson to learn."
"A lesson, good hunter?"
He nodded.
"The value of quality craftsmanship. Because unless what the Choir wanted their emissary to tell the Great Ones is that humans are lousy builders, I don't think that anybody out there got the message."