Ophelia placed the chalice down on a table or some other stable surface as quickly as she could, and then turned to actually take stock of the situation. She noticed Torquil in here for the first time and felt a measure of relief that he was safe, and even though his face was much harder to read with its recent transmogrification everything about Torquil's otherwise normal body language betrayed the same fear she felt--perhaps even moreso, given his general disposition and the fact that he'd not noticed her for being transfixed on whatever it was that she'd run from. With the chalice safe, not at risk of being damaged during the inevitable combat, she darted over to the wall and pressed herself against it next to Torquil to both observe what he was and give them both a much-needed sense of not being alone. Rather than actively look at what he was, she first turned her head to him, and whispered.

"I don't know what this is, but we have to kill it. We'll let the others engage and move in when it's focusing on them."

Torquil always did best with direction, after all, and it made sense to let the people actually near this thing make the first move. Ophelia fiddled with the tube of quicksilver at her hip and made ready with it, figuring that if there was any time to truly unleash the power of the Holy Moonlight Sword, it was against anything that could make them feel like this. With that, Ophelia finally turned to observe what Torquil was, and prayed to Mother Moon that her courage would not fail her. Even the soothing presence of the Holy Moonlight Sword felt insufficient to quell the dread that the haunting melody had instilled in her, but grim necessity spurred her onward as she held her body tense and ready to strike when the correct opening revealed itself. She found herself quite unsure what would happen if they might die in the Dream, and supposed that she might well have her answer ere long.

Within the pall of darkness hanging over their Dream, Ophelia recalled the description of the Guidance rune and the visions of Ludwig finding the sword for the first time. Even within the deepest darkness the moon-motes remained, a sure sign to Ophelia's mind that Mother Moon had not abandoned her (and indeed never would), and their presence dampened the fear enough for her to think... and to beseech the power that buoyed her flagging spirit. What is this thing? Must we slay it, bring it low before our Glory? she whispered to the Holy Moonlight Sword as she held it close and poised to strike.

Torquil almost jumped in surprise when Ophelia approached him, but even then he found himself too petrified with fear to attempt fleeing or fighting against what might easily have been another enemy. He calmed quickly when he realized who it was – as much as he was fundamentally capable of being calm when there was a monster like that taking a stroll through the Dream – and listened attentively to her instructions.
“It has eyes in the back of its head,” he told her in a whisper, speaking a phrase that was usually an idiom not to be taking literally since no one actually had eyes in the back of their head... yet it still struck him, as it likely would Ophelia upon seeing the creature, that the words were an understatement. Its entire head was covered in eyes; the front, back, sides and even the top of the head had eyes everywhere.
“I don't... I'll try,” he told her, fighting back the urge to excuse himself from the fight as he grasped Fulmen tightly in one hand and the Loch Shield in the other. He blinked – with all three of his eyes – and licked his lips. Though he remained restlessly caught between the urge to fight and flight, he followed the directions he had been given and waited for what they hoped would be an opportune moment to act.

Ophelia's internal inquiry, meanwhile, received its own response from the whispers: “Winter Lantern... a most fearsome Nightmare. Its sight will wound you... and frenzy your blood. Do not let it see you. Its vision kills. It will die... but it is the most dangerous thing you have ever faced. Beware, Wielder; this glory may cost many lives to claim.”

_Farren

was struck by a chill–bone deep and sinew freezing, making every part of him feel frigid and brittle even as his body shook as if to throw frost from ever corded muscle, soft tissue, and rigid bone within his being. His nerves made him twitch, little jittery motion that went in a way down from his face, which was startlingly the most still as he laid eyes upon that thing. To call it horrid would be a compliment compared to the truth. To call it dreadful not simply an understatement, but a dismissal of how truly abhorrent it was to his every sense.

Farren breathed, but couldn’t stop his jaw from locking, his teeth from gritting so hard that they almost felt as if they’d crack.

‘Gods blood,’ he swore internally, driven speechless, rendered mute.

His mouth and throat were dry as bone.

His eyes were wide, pupils dilated as adrenaline surged through his body, trying to get him to flee. He didn’t.

Farren stood, stock still, like if he moved the thing might notice him, like he was fighting against himself.

A memory, a flash of a golden something, massive and spearing up from the earth, flickered in his mind, followed by skittering pricks of paranoia through his awareness. Farren had almost missed Gerlinde lowering her profile, trying to stay out of sight–actually being serious…for the first time perhaps since they’d met? Reunited? Didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered.

Just this thing and its bloated head, roving unfocused eyes, insectoid protrusions and limply hanging arms. Farren suddenly wished–more than ever before–that he had more firearms and fewer blades. He regretted never having pulled the Beastflayer from the place the Messengers stowed it. Regretted that he couldn’t do it now.

He’d have to speak, make sound, move, draw attention to himself. He’d have to act.

It felt impossible.

Farren took a barely quiet, shuddering breath. Willed himself to take a step forward…to the side…anywhere but back.

He didn’t move.

‘This is who you are,’ something seemed to say. Farren would have violently shaken his head to try to dispel it, but he was scared even to do that.

‘No,’ he insisted.

He took a step. It was quiet, but felt too loud despite that fact. Farren raised his pistol, trained it on the abomination’s bulbous, fleshy, eye-covered head…and fired.

"Don't look at it. Avert your gaze, or frenzy will take you. Hit it with your eyes closed." she whispered feverishly to Torquil, knowing they had scant little time before something happened. Every fibre in her body still screamed at her to run, to not let its gaze take them, even to wait and brand herself with the rune of the Deep Sea to stave off the Frenzy. She didn't know how much time they had, how long before this eerie and dreadful interlude would be over and the slaughter--theirs, and its--would begin. She loaded a bloodied quicksilver bullet into her Evelyn for the first time, readied herself to loose a blast of light, and nodded at Torquil. There was so much more she felt like she should say, but time was slipping through their fingers like sand. Hadn't Farren bought some sand from the birdbath? She wondered if he'd remember, but the thought didn't get far as the numbing guilt of leaving him froze her synapses and left her entirely locked in to the combat that was about to begin.

Gerlinde was always so fearless, even in the face of the terror that had been Paarl. Ophelia wondered how she fared, if she could lead the charge and grab its focus for long enough that Ophelia could brand a rune... but even the deliberation had taken precious seconds, seconds they needed desperately, and she was about to fish out the runebrand before she heard the telltale sound of a gun firing in the distance. Someone had broken the wretched spell of fear, the dirge that called them to the grave, and Ophelia stiffened as though ready to pounce. She nodded wordlessly at Torquil for the last time and was ready to go. Agility was her only answer to danger, and not being able to so much as look at this thing without that horrible thing happening to her--visions of Farren in Rebirth's Rise threatened to assault her if not for the imminent danger--meant that she would simply have to fire off whatever projectiles she could and escape far from its range. She'd have to call out to the others, warn them too, but not until everything began.

When she heard combat begin in earnest from the other side too (hoping the song would at least end), she'd press a quicksilver bullet into the light of her blade, let it build, and look just long enough to aim before scything her sword down and loosing the projectile at the centre mass of the Winter Lantern's head. She'd shout out: "Don't look! Frenzy!" before darting back--quickstepping if necessary--into the Workshop and out of the way of its gaze. Her mind tried to recall other spots that might be good to hide behind if they needed to vacate the cottage (which they would, for she could not risk the chalice) and could only really think of the clustered headstones and the statues of previous Palebloods.

“Don't look?” Torquil repeated her instructions breathlessly and incredulously, feeling even more of his already diminished courage drain at those words. How in the world was he going to fight something without looking? And if he looked on accident... oh gods, he had three eyes! What if it was even more dangerous to him? But no matter how little he liked the instructions, he decided to trust that Ophelia knew what she was talking about and resolved that whatever disadvantages he had to fight under, he still had to fight. Ophelia said so. No matter how much he wanted to hide or flee, if her and Farren wanted to fight then Torquil would fight.

Outside Farren fired his pistol, letting the sharp bang of the gunshot cut through the ghastly song, and a quicksilver bullet zipped across the graveyard, and embedded itself in the Winter Lantern's bulbous head.
The song did indeed still, but the abomination barely even seemed to flinch at being shot. What it did do, however, was raise its head, train several of its multitude of eyes on Farren... and started letting out a horrendous, continuous and deafening, baleful screech. A dull, yellow glow emerged from its many eyes, and even at a distance, Farren would immediately feel the effect of having drawn its ire: not only could he feel the familiar sense of madness creeping into his mind and every cell in his body start vibrating with building frenzy, but the eyes of the monster also proved to have a much more immediate effect.
As soon as its attention hit him, Farren felt something sharp pierce into his lower abdomen from the side, and looking down he would find himself impaled on some sort of long, shadowy quill-like arrow or spear. A second later and the object, whatever it was, vanished as spontaneously as it had appeared, just as a second one seemed to manifest out of nothing and stab into his back, just below his left shoulder. Another second and that one disappeared, and a third one was suddenly in his right thigh.

The creature started moving toward Farren, but before it got very far it was struck by the blast loosed from Ophelia's Holy Moonlight Sword, which appeared to stagger it for a moment. But even staggered its horrid screech did not stop, completely drowning out Ophelia's warning, and Farren still felt the effects of its malevolent gaze. But as soon as it recovered, it turned around – with new eyes on the side and back of its head continuing to stare at Farren – and it began to rapidly skitter up toward the workshop instead, vengefully pursuing the origin of the much more damaging surge of arcane power rather than the lesser threat of Farren's humble gunshot.

_Farren

regretted it immediately, regretted finding the courage to act, regretted choosing to fire his pistol–quicksilver bullets or not–and most greatly he regretted ever bringing the case into the Hunter’s Dream.

As the searing, cringing terror of frenzy thrummed through him, Farren realized one thing.

It hadn’t started until the thing’s gaze had fixed upon him. He knew not if it were its eyes or the peeling shriek that it had unleashed, but either way, avoiding one would have to do. Farren lunged towards the nearest cover, a look of frantic terror that was quite unlike him plastered across his face.

Not a graceful motion, not even the swift blur of a quickstep, just a lunging–almost tackling–motion that would probably bring him into a somersaulting roll to get behind anything…anything at all that might obscure the abomination’s ire. If it were the shrieking, of course, it would do nothing and he’d be even further from dealing a killing blow upon it.

Not that he had much hope of that.

As soon as the combat started in earnest and the horrifying screech filled the air, as soon as she had unleashed her blade's power, she realised her mistake as her mind caught up to what the whispers had been telling her: it was the Lantern's gaze that was to be avoided, not theirs. Otherwise she'd not have been able to so much as look at it, and she hadn't felt a thing in the brief moment she'd let herself focus on it. She shouted to Torquil as best as she could, knowing how little time she had to give him a tool he desperately needed to act.

"You can look! Its gaze hurts you!" she shouted, hoping he'd understand, from the other entrance of the Workshop. Torquil was between them, thankfully, so a quick plan formed in her mind: Torquil's presence in the doorway, and his inevitable hitting of it, would no doubt cause its ire to focus on him for a brief moment. The thing appeared to be able to see in all direction, but a pincer manoeuvre was her only real hope nevertheless. She sprinted out from the second exit, leaping off the edge above the birdbath where the messengers gathered to sell them wares, and midair quickstepped downwards at approximately a 45 degree angle to direct the momentum of her movement somewhere useful rather than sailing through the air--every tiny fraction of time counted for something. While quickstepping she loaded another quicksilver bullet into the Holy Moonlight Sword. By this time she was hoping that Torquil would be ready with a strike, or at least that the Winter Lantern would've seen him and directed its ire at him, and as she landed on the ground and her blade warbled with arcane power she carried her momentum on and readied herself to loose another refulgent scythe of light up at the bulbous head of the Winter Lantern looming around the doorway as she made it nearly to the bottom of the curved staircase up into the workshop and stopped there as best as she could, ending up near the headstones on the other side of the stairs. She controlled the undulating and rippling power in her blade as best as she could, waiting up to a precious two seconds to see if Torquil had hit it or if it made any offensive moves towards her before letting her attack fly--she'd once again aim for its centre mass vertically, unless Torquil somehow managed to knock the thing back far enough with his inhumanly vast strength that she'd have to compensate. If Torquil still hadn't struck within those two seconds she'd unleash the attack regardless--hoping that Torquil would then follow up while it focused on her.

Desperately diving for cover, Farren's closest option were the smaller headstones in front of him, which predictably left him on the ground right next to where Gerlinde was still hiding. The woman watched him attentively, evidently still curious to observe the strange phenomenon that afflicted him even if she lacked her usual glee, but otherwise stayed put.
Farren would find that breaking the creature's line of vision on him seemed to immediately stop the black quills from materializing and skewering him, allowing him a moment to heal, though he would also feel quite clearly that his cells continued to vibrate with frenzy. The build-up of this maddening influence did not dissipate immediately, it seemed, but only slowly began to gradually recede.

Up in the workshop Torquil had been preparing himself mentally, trying his very best to bolster his will and hone his body to the point where he had a chance to do what Ophelia had asked of him. “Don't look at it,” she had said. “Hit with your eyes closed,” she had said. “We'll let the others engage and move in when it's focusing on them,” she had said... though that last part made it feel very weird to him when she suddenly darted out of the workshop on her own as soon as they heard someone discharging a firearm. He was very confused about her actions and could not help but question how this fit in with the plan she had just told him... but even so he pushed aside his doubts and steeled himself. Ophelia knew what she was talking about. We'll let the others engage and move in when it's focusing on them. Don't look at it. Hit with your eyes closed.
He tried to memorize the layout of the Dream, closed his eyes and worked on visualizing it, as well as listening for the monster and trying to determine a way to tell its exact location from sound. He imagined running in with his eyes closed, remembering the path he would need to run along, and how he would swing his hammer at it. They had a plan; all he had to do was follow the plan...

“You can look! Its gaze hurts you!” were Ophelia's words upon returning to the workshop a scant couple of seconds after she had departed, and then she kept running, leaving Torquil to stare at her as she left him once again. Leaving him to the sound of the living nightmare coming straight toward him, wailing like a banshee, at a highly disconcerting speed. Directly toward him. It was coming to him.
But... I was supposed to move in while it focused on them, he thought, his heartbeat quickening as he felt his heart sink. I... wait, no, just give me a moment, just a second, just let me think, just, please, just a second, please, please...
But Torquil did not have a second, let alone a moment; the Winter Lantern was on the doorstep, its hideous form right next to him. He could not think. He just had to act.
Acting on the instructions he had had a chance to prepare for rather than the ones he had only just heard in passing, Torquil closed his eyes, gripped Fulmen tightly with both hands, summoned every shred of superhuman strength he had, and swung in a big, horizontal arc. With a surge of elation he felt that he hit something, and knew he hit it very hard... though neither he nor anyone else – since no one else was around and his eyes were closed – knew that the thing he had hit was not the abomination, but the frame of the doorway.

Despite his eyes being closed, Torquil felt the familiar sense of building frenzy wash over him, and felt thin spikes punch into him, piercing deep into his flesh. Then he felt four “hands” grasp him, of which two – the ones seizing him by the waist – felt like somewhat human hands and two – grabbing him by his shoulders – felt horribly misshapen and weirdly amorphous. Looking on from outside, the others might have a chance to witness the tendril-like appendages hanging from the creature's head to spontaneously rise, combine and morph into a pair of huge, absurdly muscular arms.
The grapple carried Torquil and the Winter Lantern both into the workshop and away from the doorway, out of Ophelia's line of sight and, more importantly, the line of fire of the Holy Moonlight Sword. Letting out a whimper that had no chance of being heard over their opponent's screeching, Torquil finally opened his eyes just in time to see his captor lift up its head far enough to reveal its underside, which he found was the only part of the head not covered in eyes. Instead, the lower part of its head appeared to be occupied by numerous mouths. Gaping mouths with sharp teeth and snapping jaws.
The mouths descended upon Torquil's head, and he closed his eyes again.

_Farren

gasped in several breaths, the Frenzy continuing to build. Pushing up into a crouch with shaky, jerky movements, Farren tried to ground himself with deep slow breaths. It didn’t work, each breath came in gasping near-hyperventilated pulls. He felt eyes on him, eyes from all angles, so when he had the presence of mind to notice Gerlinde, Farren nearly toppled back, barely catching himself by gripping the edge of the headstone before he fell out of its minimal cover. “Fuck,” Farren breathed. He closed his eyes, heard the sharp thud and crack of something large slamming powerfully against wood, the strange noise of Ophelia’s blade, and then all that remained was the continued shrieking of the monstrosity.

Farren forced himself to act, clawing desperately through the haze of frenzied paranoia and dread that viced at his heart and mind, threatening to drag him down into a madness that Farren now thought indeed had once been his ruin.

He reloaded his pistol in a series of swift motions, then, desperate, he murmured for the Messengers, hoping against hope that they might answer his summons and bring forth the Beastflayer.

They didn’t come, not for one second, or after three. Farren huffed out a single, long, sharp breath.

He rose from cover, caught sight of the monstrosity disappearing further into the workshop. The workshop that Ophelia had put the chalice in. Where Amaris’ lifeless form lay, where perhaps Torquil might have been, but clearly not the Moonborn Hunter–he’d have already emerged. Farren lowered his pistol, slamming it into the hook at his side. In the same motion he palmed a blood vial and turned his head to Gerlinde, letting four two breathless words, just loud enough to be heard over the piercing shriek of the creature, “Circle round.”There was a desperate terror in his eyes as he said it and a shaky trust that she would act.

Then he was gone.

Farren didn’t care how many it took, he drew upon his body’s reserves, pushing harder than he ever had, forcing himself to bull through the fear before he could properly think, he quickstepped once across the distance to the main door on the narrow side of the building–closer to him–and then turned on his heel as he drew back his right arm blade before surging into a second blurring flurry of motion across the workshop’s length. He’d barely taken in the scene by the time he’d arrived, but his body had acted practically on instinct, lowering his stance, entering a slide, then planting as he slammed to a step and thrust his right blade towards the creature’s disgusting countenance with all the force he could muster, regardless of whether it had engulfed Torquil’s skull or not.

It was a desperate thing, that attack, but not wild or unfocused, though any looking upon him would see that he wasn’t the least bit composed.

Farren knew he simply must act.

Despite regret.

Despite terror or dread or sickening paranoia and spreading distrust.

He had to act.

Just move.

Just strike.

Stab.

Repeat.

He had to.

There were no other choices.

Ophelia darted into action the very instant she realised that the blast of light would miss, quickstepping up to the top of the stairs to go through the other end while Farren dallied in his panic. It turned out that the idea of sweet Torquil contending with that thing motivated her to move even more than fear demanded she delay like Farren, having lost too many people already to even consider letting another fall. She grabbed the Evelyn from her hip as she quickstepped and upon arrival at the entrance where she could see what was going on aimed it at the largest of the bulbous eyes that she could see atop the thing's head-brain and fired the loaded quicksilver bullet within directly into the its pupil--and then quickstepped again, holstering the gun again while she loaded another quicksilver bullet into the Holy Moonlight Sword. It was less than ideal to do what she was doing with Torquil so close, but as she witnessed the dawning horror of the Winter Lantern grabbing her friend she shrieked to match its own, her sudden movement bringing her to a crouching position by Torquil's left side, where she immediately attempted to thrust the Holy Moonlight Sword's luminescent point upwards into the centre of the bulbous mass and loose its devastating explosion within its head. It mattered not that they were close by, that Torquil was, perhaps even that Farren was by that time. It mattered not whether she felt the quivering tension of Frenzy's riotous influence building within her, nor the puncturing of the queer feathery quills that she had briefly seen within Torquil, she would see it through no matter the cost to save him from the snapping jaws of death itself.

She made herself ready to follow up again, either by bearing down with her strikes or dodging the Winter Lantern's retaliation--but more pressingly, if Torquil was injured enough to warrant it and not clearly dead, she'd swiftly grab a blood vial and stab him with it to preserve his life even at the cost of becoming the Lantern's next victim. They had lost too much already, and not knowing whether a death in the Dream was final, she would take no chances.

Ophelia arrived to fire her pistol at their adversary, puncturing one of its eyes, only for that eye to immediately reconstitute itself without the creature it was a part of so much as flinching. Farren arrived and stabbed into its head with all of his strength, drawing blood and jostling it, but its wound regenerated. Ophelia stepped forth and detonated an empowered thrust of the Holy Moonlight Sword, blowing a hole in the bulbous brain only for it to regrow into a new whole. Gerlinde arrived behind it, slipping into the workshop from the other door, and stabbed it in the back with her threaded cane.
They all arrived and attacked it with all their strength, and the Winter Lantern merely kept holding on to Torquil, enveloping him, gnawing on him, consuming his flesh and blood... and in so doing replenishing itself. Whatever regenerative potential it spent to recover from their onslaught was restored as it consumed their captured ally; it was, for all intents and purposes, content to simply ignore them and let them attack it.
And through it all, despite all the damage it had taken, its glowing eyes remained on them. Ophelia, Farren and Gerlinde all felt frenzy building, and they all had black quills materializing and stabbing them at a steady pace, like the ticking of a nightmare clock. The quills were real; each one truly did skewer their flesh and spill their blood, and each one did diminish their regenerative potential.
Farren did indeed exceed his capacity of frenzy and exploded in a cascade of blood, only to find – in the brief instant before he injected himself with a blood vial – that he was on the verge of death. Between the continuous damage inflicted by simply being in the creature's sight and the frenzy, the damage had far exceeded his regenerative potential. Had his reaction not been prepared and prompt, he would have died... and even now the blood vial only bought him time, as he felt frenzy start building once more and the quills continue to pierce him.
Ophelia, despite not having been near the monster quite as long as Farren, would also feel that she was on the verge of erupting with frenzy, made more vulnerable to its influence by her greater insight.

A burst of blood spurted onto the ground from Torquil's lower half – the half not inside the Winter Lantern – as frenzy overcame him, too, and finally the abomination seemed to stumble and stagger for a moment. Not from any amount of damage they had done to it, but rather because the person it was leaning on – Torquil – faded away and disappeared.

The room for strategy was over, it seemed--as Torquil vanished, and the horrid creature looked no worse for wear having feasted upon him, Ophelia knew that it was that simple. Do as much as she could before the quivering rapidly within her escalated to the point that it felt it would tear her asunder from within every miniscule part of her. She knew such things about the body, how they worked, how frail and fragile and strong they were, and it felt like all of that knowledge had turned traitor as she could feel things inside her that she was not supposed to be able to feel coming apart at their most basic and fundamental level. She'd gotten the blood vial out for Torquil, and not knowing whether or not she'd survive she jammed the thing into her thigh and depressed it slightly, hoping the rest of the crimson ichor that gave them their supernatural vitality would flow into her after she came apart.

Her sword was still inside this thing's head, so feeding it another quicksilver bullet to trigger another explosion--hopefully where its many toothy maws were, perhaps a weak point--was trivial. She did so, knowing that she was about to reach the end of her stamina, and would quickstep directly back only to try and avoid getting grabbed by this thing if, indeed, it did target her next. With her goal clear and her mind and body so overloaded by everything going on, she simply did what Gerlinde had done and attacked wildly until one of the few things she could still keep in her mind happened while everything else fell apart. Torquil had vanished, at least, which gave her a comforting sense that he was not gone forever... but she would seek vengeance upon this thing as a proxy for the Golden Bastard and his minions, for sweet Quilly (though that name was somewhat tainted now by the feeling of these quills pricking at her like needles), for all of them. There was little else to do: their combined assault would simply have to destroy this wretched creature before it could do any more damage to them.

_Farren

felt his attacks land, saw them pierce, felt them do nothing. His heart sank, an explosion bright as his once glowing eyes–brighter–ripped through the head, but the abomination recovered.

Farren’s entire body erupted, twisted, warped, grew, then–and only due to the blood vial he’d prepared–recovered. Foolishly, he’d unconsciously been suppressing the stabbing rhythm of pain from that monster’s phantasmal quills.

Another struck him, a breath, another. Farren slammed another vial into his leg with one hand, then slotted a quicksilver bullet into his blunderbuss, leaving one of his True Blades of Mercy lodged in the monster’s bulbous head.

Torquil faded and a violent desperate rage took hold. Farren didn’t aim for the head, he slammed the barrel into its much narrower neck and fired even as he held onto the other blade–still lodged in its pulsating flesh through one of its many eyes.

If, for even a moment, the neck was rendered nearly into a gaping hole, Farren would move his sword arm, violently attempting to tear the bulbous core from the rest of its humanoid frame. The blunderbuss he’d shove through whatever hole its spray had formed, trying to prevent it from easily recovering.

Unbeknownst to him, Farren had begun to scream, raging in a wordless sound that despite the lack of language felt as if he were roaring ‘Diiiieee’.

The Winter Lantern stood surrounded by Paleblood Hunters, momentarily put off-balance by the sudden disappearance of Torquil and then utterly staggered by Ophelia unleashing another blast from the Holy Moonlight Sword directly into its head. Farren unloaded a shot from his blunderbuss point-blank into what would anatomically be presumed to be its neck, and he, Ophelia and Gerlinde all proceeded to unleash a barrage of blows upon it. The creature could not recover; the combined efforts of three superhuman entities hitting it over and over was too much for it to break free from being stunned and staggered over and over again, and without prey to feed on and replenish itself with, it did not take more than a couple of seconds before its regeneration began to fail.
Ophelia experienced full frenzy for the first time as her body tore itself apart in a cascade of blood, but thanks to her foresight in taking blood it was not quite enough to overcome her vitality, and her grievous wounds swiftly regenerated. Less than a second after Ophelia Gerlinde burst like a gore-filled balloon as well, only for her to fade away as Torquil had. But even without Gerlinde, Ophelia and Farren's efforts were enough to carve away the last remnants of resilience in their adversary.
Letting out a noise that was somewhere between the sound of its discordant song and its hideous screech, like a final exhalation, the Winter Lantern – utterly eviscerated – crumpled, until all that remained of it was a pile of fine silver dust.

Behind them, at the end of the workshop standing above the headstones connecting to the world outside the Dream, Torquil belatedly arrived, hammer at the ready and three eyes that were wide with fresh trauma.

Ophelia and Farren has received 200 blood echoes.

There was no experience Ophelia possessed that prepared her for the feeling of frenzy. It was as though every atom of her body had split off from one another, and all of them occupied the same space in a superposition of each of their others. Uncountable instances of every possible configuration and permutation of her body, her mind, her very being overlaid on top of one another like sheets of metal, forged into a single alloy that was every alloy that had ever been--and it was only her quick thinking earlier than prevented her from immediately expiring. Once she'd recovered from the experience--physically, at least--her resumed assault combined with that of the others took the monstrosity she now knew to be called a Winter Lantern and she joined Farren in his wordless expression of rage. Gerlinde, with her usual lack of self-regard, also expired from her injuries; as she dissipated and vanished into nothing, Ophelia silently mourned the loss of her sister too. She was still uncertain whether a death in the Dream was a true death, and in the absence of information assumed the worst after her ordeal.

Her hand idly scratched at the places the phantom quills--though real enough to cause physical injury--had skewered her as she panted and recovered her stamina. She felt the telltale weight of blood echoes settle about her person, and after a full minute or so of convalescence and steady breathing she grabbed the chalice. She hastily checked it to ensure it had avoided damage in the corner she'd stowed it, before kneeling down to beckon the messengers to inquire about it. Besides being interesting, items like the chalice offered an insight into the very nature of the Old Labyrinth--and given everything they knew and that they'd encountered, Ophelia was beginning to believe that learning of the Labyrinth, its origins, its nature, and its contents were what would reveal their path forward. Indeed, even the twin of her blessed blade was to be found there.

Once that was done and she'd read the description offered by the messengers, she left the workshop and surveyed the Dream. Seeing Torquil rose her spirits immediately, and she visibly let out an exhalation of relief as she waved him over with a bright, wide smile.

_Farren

stood, panting as the blade that had been lodged in the monstrosity’s skull clattered to the ground when it disintegrated into dust and faded. His arms fell to his sides, slack in an instant. Anger roiled, paranoia scratched at him incessantly, but it all began to fade into a terrible numbness. He forced himself to breathe and to focus only on that even as his mind wanted to fixate on the fact that both Torquil and Gerlinde might be truly gone.

Some small part of him, though, figured that they’d have left bodies though. Still…what if they had ended up…somewhere else, reincarnating in some other literally nightmarish place. Having nothing better to do, Farren watched Ophelia begin to function again. However, only distantly, like the events around him were far away. His gaze drifted out the door and so he caught sight of Torquil before she had excited.

A beat. A moment. Relief. Farren slumped, stumbling towards a wall, pressing his shoulder to its surface to steady himself. Then he sank down into a sitting position, legs splayed back on either side of him. A shuddered breath, a choked sound, and then silence.

“Thank the Mother Moon…” he murmured, quietly after Ophelia had moved to exit the workshop. He wasn’t a religious man by far, but he’d feared the worst, dreaded it.

Farren let himself linger there for a long while, or at least…long given all they still must do. After perhaps a minute or so, he pulled himself forward, grabbed his fallen Blade of Mercy and then snapped the two together, before sheathing them at his hip after he’d pushed to his feet.

He moved, almost by rote, leaving the Workshop—trying not to glance at Amaris’ vessel—and approached Torquil. He offered the man his hand, meaning to clasp the Hunter’s own. Firm and solid. Part of him wanted to embrace the man, another part wanted to apologize. Instead he just did his best to hold Torquil’s wide three-eyed gaze. There was clear relief on Farren’s face.

“We’ve got to make you more hardy,” Farren said, trying at a half-serious joke as he finally cracked the smallest of smiles. This was the second time this sort of thing had happened and he was rather frustrated by that fact, but he didn’t let it show. Glancing about, Farren waited for Gerlinde to reappear as well.

While Farren took a moment to sit and recover, Ophelia knelt and called upon the Messengers to learn more about the chalice they had received from the Vileblood Queen. She would likely be concerned when the little ones did not respond immediately, as they usually did, but waiting a couple of seconds would see their diminutive helpers emerge from the ground as they always had. On top of that the gloom that had gripped the Dream finally seemed to fade, and little by little light and color returned to the world as the final vestiges of the Winter Lantern's ominous presence faded.
Dutiful as ever, the Messengers responding to Ophelia's summons promptly produced and unrolled a scroll with what information they had been able to gather from the Nightmare:

Pthumeru Yharnam Chalice
A chalice that breaks a labyrinth seal.
Use it in a ritual at the tomb altar in the Hunter's Dream to break the seal of the old underground labyrinth.
As ancient great Pthumeru wallowed in the insight and power they had accrued, they abandoned their humble origins and sought ever-greater mastery of the Old Blood.
Their arrogance brought about a scourge of beasts... and the scourge of beasts brought about the creation of Hunters.
“Kill the beasts... all of them... they are all beasts... we will hunt... you and I, my abyssal mentor. Forever.”

Torquil tried to smile, but the expression came out twisted – both because of his inhuman features and his lack of sincerity – and did not reach his eyes. He lowered Fulmen, relieved that their enemy had been slain before he had to fight it again, and when Farren approached took his hand and smiled with an iota greater enthusiasm than before, but still clearly strained.
He opened his mouth as if to say something, but changed his mind before he could even form the sentence in his mind. “We've got to make you more hardy,” Farren had remarked, which seemed a fine suggestion on the surface, but then Torquil actually thought about how that would have helped him. He was already very strong, he was quite aware of that, yet he had been utterly helpless against the grabbing hands of that monster. And if he had been more durable, able to regenerate more... would all that accomplished not have been making him trapped there for longer? Just the brief time he had already spent there, with the creature... the feelings, the sounds... He had to suppress a shudder. At least when the Mad One had killed him it had done so by smashing in his head, which had left him dazed for the duration. This time the death had not only been much more gruesome, he had also been fully conscious and aware for the entire thing.

It only took a few seconds while everyone else was busy with other things before Gerlinde returned, too, though she did so through the other doorway. Unlike Torquil she seemed entirely indifferent about having just died, and though she seemed initially serious as she had before, it only took briefly scanning the interior of the workshop with her eyes for her demeanor to shift back to normal and her eyes to light up in a fiendish smile. Leaving the others to what they were doing, Gerlinde hopped merrily to the pile of dust that remained of their adversary and started sifting through it.

Ophelia gave Torquil a guilty look and took a few seconds to compose her thoughts before speaking--which was fairly unusual for her, as she normally found words positively spilling from her without so much as a second's consideration.

"I'm so sorry, love, that was my fault--I was so scared by that thing, I misunderstood Mother Moon's whispers and told you wrong... I hope you can forgive me. I tried to save you, but... gods, what an awful thing. At least we know now that death here isn't permanent, I suppose... If--when--we ever encounter one of those things again, I think we simply have to rush it and kill it before it can afflict us with frenzy. Gods, what a horrible sensation--I knew it looked bad from seeing it affect Farren in Rebirth's Rise, but I wasn't prepared for how phenomenally awful it feels. I'm glad you're back and safe, though, dear." Ophelia confessed, hoping that the admission of it being her fault--which she earnestly felt it was, knowing that Torquil relied on her for guidance--would at least assuage some of whatever he felt in this moment.

"I suppose now we wait for the Moonborn to get back with the chalice materials... Gods, and have you noticed that the little ones are slower to appear than normal? They, like this Dream, come from Flora--and as the Dream's connection to Flora is weakened by the false Paleblood, so too must they be. Has anything else odd happened with them? I wonder if the Golden Bastard has taken her hostage, or done something else to her..." Ophelia followed up, loudly enough that Gerlinde in the shop would be able to hear too. She didn't really have a point, just felt compelled to speak her findings out loud to get them out of the jumble that was her mind and into reality. Farren and Torquil weren't versed in the esoteric topics she and Gerlinde were, but often that presented an opportunity for them to make connections that the womens' minds simply wouldn't.

_Farren

understood the wan nature of that smile somewhat warped by Torquil’s alien features, but there was little he could do about it. He simply gave the man a clap on the shoulder and let him go. “Would that we had known…” Farren said after Ophelia had finished speaking, shaking his head.

He noticed a bit of movement at some point during the small reunion, and was relieved to glimpse Gerlinde rather than something terrible. Further, the shift of the Hunter’s Dream back to a more familiar and comfortable state was greatly appreciated. A relief certainly. At Ophelia’s reminder that likely they’d be waiting, Farren moved to one of the headstones and let himself just…slide down with his back against it and sit.

He looked exhausted.

Felt it too.

“Wonder if you can slumber in a Dream,” Farren commented. Though, realistically he knew that this was more a fatigue of the spirit than one of the body. Truly the fight with that twisted thing had taken much out of him. Moreover, even with Ophelia taking some measure of responsibility for what had happened to Torquil, Farren could still not entirely shake the idea that he had brought that False Pale Blood to the Dream and had he not this ordeal might not have been so fraught.

“We can't,” Gerlinde immediately answered Farren musing about slumbering in the Hunter's Dream. “We can't sleep. At all. Anytime you fall asleep, you just wake back up in the Dream immediately. So we can't sleep, but also don't need to sleep; I haven't slept since becoming a Hunter, and I feel fine.”
She pulled something from the pile of dust – a stone about the size of a chicken egg, pulsating slowly with an inner scarlet glow – and called the Messengers to query them about the nature of her find. “They seem to come quickly now,” she evaluated, as a pair with a scroll did indeed appear immediately. “So it's getting better, at least.”
Having read the information she had ordered, Gerlinde stood, brushed off her skirt for a moment, and then produced her Moonborn Bell from her pouch. “We don't need to wait for them to come back, right? We could just call them.”