Omake Week 2024, Day 5

When you get right down to it, the entire story of Bloodborne is basically the take of human beings messing around with things they really shouldn't, and having too much hubris to realize that they have no clue whatosever what they're actually doing. Balyn has a definite understanding of how "no clue what they're doing" works.

~X X X~

Balyn sat down on the low stone wall alongside the stairs that led up to the workshop building and listened to the crackle of the flames. It was kind of a nostalgic spot as far as his relationship with the Doll went, he thought. This little bit of elevated garden was where he'd first found her lying inert, back when he hadn't had the insight to realize that she was actually a living, thinking person in her own right, despite the whole "being a doll" thing. It was also where she liked to sit down and rest her eyes when she was tired of having to deal with the stress of her job.

The hunter decided not to think about what, exactly, the source of that job stress might be. After all, he'd just won a great victory, and there was no point in dragging himself down.

"So," he said, listening to the soft hissing and popping of the fire greedily burning away at the workshop building yet not actually seeming to consume any of it, "I guess it's almost over."

"Yes, good hunter," the Doll told him. "Dawn will soon break, and this night and this dream will end. Gehrman awaits you, at the foot of the great tree."

"Oh, so now he shows up. The guy's been asleep ever since nightfall. I know seniors usually go to bed early, but there are limits! Especially when some nutjob is out there kidnapping dead eldritch babies to use in a half-baked, crazy ritual to beckon the moon! I mean, is it too much to ask that he stay awake to give me a little guidance through all that?"

It will be noted that the Doll did not have an entirely favorable opinion of Gehrman. She did not hesitate to nod in agreement.

"Indeed, good hunter. I believe that it would have been most wise had Gehrman continued to provide you with direction to keep your progress timely and efficient."

Possibly it wasn't Gehrman of whom her opinion was "not entirely favorable."

Undeterred by the possibility, Balyn continued on his theme.

"Now, you weren't there, but if you'd seen the size of the moon when I was in Mergo's Loft, you'd really have understood at once. Micolash's ritual was absolutely beckoning the moon. It was going to crash right into us! I mean, not literally…I don't think…but in that weird worlds-are-overlapping-dreams kind of way? Like how the Blood Moon made everything crazy in Yharnam, just as a side effect of what was happening. And I read somewhere in that lecture building that it was the moon that conceived the Hunter's Dream. So that means that, maybe, Micolash was trying to reach here." He gestured emphatically with both hands. "Can you imagine what that would have been like if I hadn't gotten there in time to stop him?"

~X X X~

The hierophant's eyes were wild, wide open, suffused with the passion of his cause. The skies sang above the tower heights, the wailing of the infant rebounding from the clouds, circling around the moon that swelled to immensity, shining its silver-white brilliance until it was almost blinding, until at once the moonlight swallowed the world. Tangible, it flowed across Micolash, buffeting and tugging at his robes, bathing his skin. The framework of the Mensis cage surmounting his head bent and buckled, rivets popping loose as the inconceivable force of the Moon brushed against his mind.

Paleblood, he thought, as the sky engulfed him and nightmare met dream…

…and the scent of moonlight filled the air. Lumenflowers, like those fools in the Choir cultivated, dating to the first, fumbling experiments the Church had built on the back of what Byrgenwerth had learned at that long-buried fishing hamlet. Dead ends, all of it, for here was the eldritch Truth lain open to him, the small stone chapel surrounded by tumbled grave-markers. And before him, at the base of a curving staircase that led to the chapel door, was a tall, blonde woman in the simple dress of a housekeeper or nurse, shirtwaist and skirt, shawl and bonnet. Her face was eerily still, and when she spoke her lips did not move.

"Greetings, ailing one. What is it you desire?"

And Micolash looked up into the cloud-streaked sky, at the great Moon that hung there, its edges ragged as if it could no longer disguise what it was, what Presence dwelled within.

"Oh Kos!" he cried out exultantly. "Or some say, Kosm! Do you hear our prayers?"

The living doll before him shook her head.

"I am sorry, but the Great One you are attempting to reach is no longer in service. Please hang up, and in strange aeons where even death may die, try your call again."