[center][h2][b]Ophelia[/b][/h2][/center]

Ophelia's pace quickened from simple storming off to a brisk jog to an all-out sprint in very rapid succession, thoughts of vengeance and dismay and guilt eating away at her. Indirectly they'd been the cause of... whatever happened to Victor, and she'd managed to catch a glimpse of him coming to awareness for only a brief second before slipping back beneath his gilded prison. That gave her hope for restoration, at least, but she felt deeply personally responsible for something she truly could not abide--to see others kept under thrall, robbed of themselves. Especially in the service of their enemy. She'd done everything she could to free Dietrich, perhaps acted hastily in hindsight, only for the golden bastard to take another, and it would not stop there.

When her much extended stamina gave out she slipped back into a gentle jog to recover, wiping away blinding hot tears with the sleeve of her right arm, and repeated the process again as her thoughts became ever-increasingly feverish. They eventually returned to the lantern at Oedon Chapel, where she had expected to see Farren. She found it odd that he hadn't waited for them, but supposed it was simply a matter of eagerness that she couldn't fault him for--it had been the plan to return everything to the Dream, though she would've written a message to the Shopkeeper first to ensure everything was ready for their volatile and strange cargo... well, normally she would have. Given what she'd just seen she wasn't sure what she'd have done if they'd had the blood and all been together. She instead just sighed, and longing for some semblance of comfort, withdrew the runebrand and gave herself the Guidance rune once more--it was the only thing she didn't like about the Mask rune, to have such a powerful wall between her and the soothing light of her blessed blade. Once it returned to her in force she felt much better, a subtle undercurrent of terror that had been brewing within her washed away by glittering moonlight.

Returning to the Dream, Ophelia felt something she had never felt before--a keening, warbling tremor through her very blood... and then suddenly she felt a bottle, heavy with fluid, in the crook of her arm. She blinked, and then again, and then despite the comforting presence of the Holy Moonlight Sword a terrible panic came over her--something was horribly wrong. She could see the smouldering corpses of... something in the distance, and a patch of still-lingering flames that suggested cannon fire or a molotov cocktail or something like that, and none of the others could be seen.

"... Farren?! [b]Farren?![/b]" she shouted, her normally lilting and musical voice suddenly shrill and shaky, and she ran up towards the only place she thought they might be if she couldn't see them--towards the little workshop.