"Best not to, mm? The only reason the Moonborn would leave is if bidden, and I did tell them to prepare for a Chalice ritual... Do you know what happened, Torquil? You were here and we weren't, after all." Ophelia responded to Gerlinde, giving her a bigger smile than she could muster for Torquil when she turned to speak to her.

"Find anything interesting rifling through that thing's remains?" Ophelia queried almost as an afterthought. Her mind was still recovering from their ordeal with the Winter Lantern to truly think through the implications of her most recent observations, and she felt better for occupying her mind thinking about other things for the moment. She had much less of Farren's spiritual weariness, now buoyed by the fact that death even in their Dream was not permanent... though she thought back to when she'd brought her concerns to Harold, and how she worried that something might loose the false Paleblood Hunters from their tie to the Dream. How he'd said that unless they did something very stupid, such a thing were impossible; how, in hindsight, that seemed awfully like a threat to her mind.

"In the absence of the doll to convert our echoes to power, perhaps we should spend up at the shop? We don't want to lose them to the labyrinth, after all." Ophelia spoke, quickly walking over to the shop and perusing the wares for a moment before she made a few purchases. She refilled her store of Quicksilver Bullets, the Blood Vial she'd used, and got a few extra besides and promptly stored the excess with the Messengers (or would be happy to share it with the others, if they inquired after them)--it was never a bad idea to have more. She looped back around by walking up past the headstones, giving all of them a quick pass over as she did, seeking to confirm what she expected--that the golden markers for the White Church had disappeared.

As she entered through the southern door she felt... something, a tug, much like she had moments before while browsing through the echoes. She looked down immediately at the doll, laid nearby in her position of repose, and knelt as she considered the sensation. She took the doll's hand in hers and let the echoes flow from her person, happy to give them up for even the slightest hint of a chance at restoring their friend and ally's life. Without her they could not grow stronger, and they could not communicate with the Moonborn--but more than that, the Dream felt lonely without her. She was one of Mother Moon's children, and she would not be left behind--not now, and not ever.

Torquil raised his head with an expression of surprise, as if awakened from a daze by Ophelia addressing him. “Uh... I'm not sure, it's not like he told me anything. He just gestured for me to stay, touched one of those and disappeared.” He pointed out the southern door of the workshop toward the series of altars lined up next to the path, three of which were adorned with chalices of different designs.

“Another blood gem, like the one you gave me,” Gerlinde explained when Ophelia asked if she had found anything interesting. “Only this one is apparently 'cursed'. When socketed into a weapon it'll draw on its wielder's vitality to make its effect stronger... and its effect is apparently 'fire'. If any of you want it you're welcome to it.”

Finally, when Ophelia knelt by the doll and offered up her blood echoes to her, an ethereal something seemed to pass through the area that was hard to define. There was a subtle sound that almost seemed to blend in with the ambient sounds of the Dream, like a single gust of wind that none of them felt, and for a second the Dream seemed to grow just the slightest bit brighter, only for that additional light to seem to all collapse in on the doll, coalescing in a white flash on her chest.
It was a strange thing to observe given that the doll was, after all, a doll; her eyes had been open even in her dormant state, and regardless of whether she was animated or not she did not breathe. She did not blink her eyes and there was no sharp intake of breath; the doll simply and unceremoniously sat up straight and looked around curiously.
“Ah,” she said, finally blinking her eyes and following up with a gentle smile. “My apologies, good Hunters. It appears that I have inconvenienced you somehow... ah.”
But even before the doll could finish speaking there was another, much louder sound like that of a piece of sturdy fabric being violently torn apart. Right next to the doll the Shopkeeper seemed to just spontaneously fade into existence, only for them to immediately kneel by the doll as well.
“Do not worry, I am well now,” the doll assured them. “Thank you.”

Ophelia looked around with a sense of comfort at the churning of the Dream, finally feeling like something went well for them... but also as though this was a more natural function of the Dream, and not some insidious manipulation by the charlatan that would usurp them. Those soft and fluttering feelings of comfort culminated in an audible sigh of relief when the doll finally seemed to awake and rise, and she immediately went to apologise for inconveniencing them Ophelia couldn't help but crack a smile and let out a short, halting laugh.

"No, love, we... we simply were worried we'd lost you. Think not such thoughts, it turns out that you are loved very much indeed: I, for one, was ready to wage war upon the whole world just to bring you back. I know we're an odd bunch, really, but we are Mother Moon's children one and all. She has not abandoned us, and we will not abandon you. Never." She smiled, giving the doll's hand a gentle squeeze as she stood up and offered to help the doll up as well.

"Moonborn, have you made progress? I'd quite like to see one of these chalice rituals, I must admit, they seem rather in my wheelhouse... but take your time. Enjoy the fact we're hale and whole once more, there's no rush... In fact, might you take a look at the chalice, love?" Ophelia asked, turning back to the doll for her last question. "I wonder if you think we're ready for it now, or if we might need to get a bit stronger first?"

_Farren

didn’t see her rise, merely caught the strange phenomena that preceded that event–a faint but pervasive, nearly swallowed, sound like wind; then a faint luminescence as if someone had increased the contrast of the paints that Flora had used to craft the Dream. Farren frowned as all that just-barely there–brightness snapped in one direction like stars falling towards some abyss, if those stars were so numerous they had suffused all things in sight.

Farren forced himself to his feet with a grunt, rushing up the stairs until he stopped at the threshold, standing in it for a moment.

There she was, sitting up, Ophelia already speaking to her.

Amaris.

Farren felt a weight lift from him and a faint surge of adrenaline that left a deep sense of relief, his fatigue beginning to melt away already. He still felt some of that guilty, but now…she’d been returned to then.

With no mind for their current conversation at all, Farren spoke, “How?!”

While Ophelia spoke, the doll daintily got her feet under her, stood up and started idly trying to smooth the wrinkles in her dress that had occurred from her lying on the floor. “Your fondness of me... I think it may gladden my heart, good Hunter,” she said with an uncertain smile. “But you mustn't so readily sacrifice yourselves or others for my sake. Remember that I am but a doll, after all, given motion and voice by the Dream. And when the time comes for you to leave behind the Dream, you shall leave behind me as well. Such is the nature of the Hunter's Dream and those tied to it.”
Turning to Farren to address his vague inquiry, the doll assumed her habitual submissive stance with her hands folded over her stomach and a soft smile on her face. “I am afraid I do not know, good Hunter. The last I remember was being here with the Shopkeeper, helping prepare chalice rituals, and then I was on the floor with good Ophelia by my side. I remember not what happened to put me on the floor, nor what reawakened me.”

At Ophelia's series of questions regarding the ritual she meant for them to undertake, the Shopkeeper reached out and took the chalice, only to then walk off unceremoniously through the southern door. “We do not know, good Hunter,” the doll told her apologetically. “The Shopkeeper has not visited the part of the Old Labyrinth sealed by this chalice, so we have no knowledge of what awaits there.” She paused, listening. “They say that while strength is beneficial, it is far from necessary for you to succeed. You are bound to the Dream, and as such you can explore without fear of death. As long as you are prepared for anything, there is nothing you cannot eventually vanquish, even if it may take you many deaths.”
Outside, the Shopkeeper had placed the Pthumeru Yharnam Chalice on a vacant altar beside the other ones, and they appeared to be studying it. Then they held up their right hand toward the workshop with three fingers extended. After a second they curled their middle-finger... another second their thumb, so only the index-finger was held up. And after a third second, rather than curl the last finger, they lowered their hand and used that finger to point toward the headstones, just the instant a figure materialized there.
A second Shopkeeper arrived in the Dream and went immediately to the first, carrying a sack bulging with... something. The first Shopkeeper received the sack, and the second Shopkeeper disappeared.
“They are ready for the ritual,” the doll explained. “It will only take a moment.”

Ophelia turned to Farren as he spoke, raising her right eyebrow a little as his little outburst interrupted them briefly--though it didn't stop them from finishing speaking. Once there was a suitable gap in the conversation for her to actually reply she did, looking thoughtful the whole time.

"As I happened to be near her, I felt... the same sort of pull on my blood echoes that we feel at the birdbath when browsing items. The remainder of them after I'd stocked up on supplies, but they're hardly a difficult thing to come by! Then... here she was." she replied to Farren, heading over to the southern doorway to peer out and watch the Moonborn's activities while she continued to chat.

"We cannot sacrifice ourselves, dear, not really--as you say, we cannot die, so think not such thoughts. You were rendered inert by us bringing a larger volume of false Paleblood into the Dream as we sought to move it to a safer place. We left it with Queen Annalise, knowing that it will be far out of the reach of the White Church and with hope that her knowledge of the Old Blood might prove beneficial... and a Winter Lantern appeared here while you were gone. Wretched thing; if I never see one again it will be too soon. The White Church have declared war on us, and the world, as we have freed Dietrich from their grasp... and they enslaved our friend, Victor. Their golden markers on the headstones have faded... and there were some problems with the little ones. The false Paleblood disrupts the Dream's connection to Flora, it seems. I think that is part of its design, perhaps, or at least its intended purpose... the Golden Bastard wishes to usurp our Dream for his own vile ends, I'm now beyond certain of it. I had idly wondered if perhaps he has taken Flora hostage somehow, but... I do not know if she is even alive still. I know that she is not in any of the realms we have visited... but... why does the Interstice exist at all? Great Ones seem to traverse realms as easily as we can walk, no? Perhaps Annalise will know; it was... the Pthumeru that built it, I think? Knowing that it was the tainted influence of Gold that spurred that civilisation's ruin, I wonder... did He have a hand in the creation of the Interstice itself for some reason? Ah, but look at me talking your ears off..." Ophelia spoke, easily settling in to her usual excitable rambling as she observed the Shopkeeper.

The doll seemed to listen to Ophelia's part-recounting of events and part-random musings attentively, blinking her eyes several times in rapid succession at multiple points as she tried to keep up with all the information she was being asked to process all at once. While she was busy with that, the Shopkeeper – content for the time being to let the doll deal with Ophelia – began pulling out a series of items from the sack they had just received from themselves. First they poured in several bottles worth of what appeared to be blood, only to start throwing weird and macabre items into that blood. A strange, writhing bit of cord or string of some kind; a handful of flowers with pale, grayish petals surrounding a bright red center; a handful of pale, partially translucent slugs; and finally a lump of red flesh that looked anonymous from a distance, but to an attentive eye would resemble a stillborn fetus of some manner of creature. Once that was done the Shopkeeper simply stepped back, crossed their arms and seemed content to observe what everyone else were doing.

“Ah,” the doll vocalized once Ophelia finally stopped herself from speaking continuously, “it sounds as though this night continues to be very eventful, good Hunter. But I should point out that even the Great Ones are incapable of killing Great Ones; even if such was the Golden One's ambition, he would not be able to kill Flora. Also...” The doll lowered her eyes somewhat. “If Flora was dead, so would I be. She is what gives me life. So rest assured that wherever she may be, Flora is still alive.”

_Farren

took in Amaris and Ophelia’s words quietly, his shock slowly fading as he nodded along, appearing still slightly confused when each of them was done. It wasn’t a truly satisfactory explanation…but when Amaris mentioned that her life was tied to that of Flora’s—the Great One that had presided over the Hunter’s Dream—well, that suddenly had things clicking together.

Distant as Flora likely was now, perhaps the Great One could not animate Amaris without some impetus or energy to do so. What better to serve as a source of power to fuel Amaris’ mind and movement than echoes of the Old Blood.

Still, even if they could bring her back should such a thing occur again, Farren hoped it simply would not occur a second time. Taking a deep breath, Farren cracked his neck even as he worked to clear his mind.

Then something occurred to him. If Great Ones could not kill eachother…than how had the Moonborn Hunter done so? how could a being beneath them slay them…if their own equals could not?

“How is it…that they cannot slay their own, but the Moonborn slayed many of their ilk?” He asked, frowning slightly in thought.

The doll bowed her head apologetically to Farren. “I am very sorry, good Hunter, but as we have discussed previously we do not know how to slay a Great One. Until the death of Kos most assumed that the Great Ones were truly eternal, and until the Night of the Blood Moon most assumed that they could not be killed. Not even the Shopkeeper nor I know how they killed Mergo's Wetnurse; all we know is that it was an act so contrary to the laws of the universe that reality and time itself shattered for a while when it happened. This is what the Shopkeeper is studying currently, to aid you in vanquishing your adversary for good.”

_Farren

nodded, having half been talking to himself…since he’d asked before and they’d had no answer. Still, it gladdened him that she was back and that they had allies digging into the lore, searching for answers so they might vanquish the Golden Bastard. Farren turned, looking to Ophelia, “Well…suppose it’s to the Labyrinth then,” he commented. Then he recalled the echoes in his blood. “Ah…but let me divest these echoes first…” he said, rifling through his things…checking his bullets and vials.

Farren stepped closer to Amaris and put a hand on her shoulder, “…I’m…glad you’re back,” he said, quietly, almost somber as he held her artificial gaze. Then he lightly let his hand slip away and hold between them. “Might you…turn some of these echoes into strength? I’ve felt a mite sluggish of late…” he said, referring to the strange ‘slowness’ of mind that had mostly slipped into the periphery of his awareness since one of his entrances into the Dream.

Farren closed his eyes, allowing her to assist with the process of allocating a portion (100) of his echoes to renew the nimbleness of his mind to its former state. He thanked her briefly, feeling better, more himself, and then moved over to the Messenger Fountain after he’d left the workshop. He briefly noted the lack of anything new, then he focused on what he needed.

Eleven Quicksilver Bullets and three Blood Vials. The Messengers eagerly manifested them from the echoes remaining in his blood and Farren quickly deposited them in their respective places at his belt. When he was finished he glanced over towards the Moonborn Hunter and the altar upon which the chalice sat.

He walked over, nodded to the man and regarded it with an inscrutable expression, wondering what the Interstice held for them.

One by one the Hunters went to the chalice they had gotten from the Vileblood Queen – a chalice they might note looked much prettier and far more expensive than the others that had been arranged on other altars – and looked into their crimson contents before touching the chalice itself. Though it was visually very similar to when they used the markers on the headstones or the lanterns, interacting with the chalice was a much different experience when they did it. Rather than feeling as though they were falling asleep and immediately transitioning into waking up, touching the chalice brought about a distinct sense of falling into something unfathomably deep. The Hunter's Dream was ripped away from them rather than fading to the embrace of sleep, and for nearly twenty seconds they would all find themselves in perfect pitch darkness with the sound of the wind rushing past in their ears and a sense of nothing but empty void under their feet.
They all felt rather than saw a multitude of something rushing past them; approaching, missing and vanishing back into the nothing from which they had come. Deeper and deeper they fell; it felt as though they were moving insanely fast, much faster than should be logically and physically achievable, yet they kept accelerating to even higher speeds, until they thought they must have descended into the very bowels of the Earth, the bottom of the pit at the end of the world, the lowest of all things were the Waking World and the Nightmare overlapped.
Then, and only then, did their feet come to softly land on stone, as reality seemed to rush back into being from the black... and just like that they were there, where they had wanted to go for some time now: the Old Labyrinth, at last.

The place they found themselves in was a somewhat dark hallway, helpfully lit by evenly spaced sconces, though these did not appear to actually burn or give off any warmth, instead bathing the area in ceaseless cold, blue light. The floor was made up by flagstones of varying colors, shapes and sizes, making it rather uneven and a genuine trip-hazard. The walls at their sides were close by – the hallway was only about three meters wide – and made from smaller bricks that, though still somewhat uneven, appeared at least a bit more uniform than the floor. Above their heads the walls transitioned smoothly into a rounded, vaulted ceiling that was four meters high at its peak.
Ahead of them this hallway stretched on for what looked like fifty meters or so until it terminated in an open doorway that took up almost the entire end wall, spanning nearly from side to side and top to bottom, beyond which they could faintly spy a poorly lit room. They could see more flagstone floor beyond it and more bluish light, but beyond that they could see nothing from their current vantage point.

That is, they could see nothing in the room. It only took the very briefest glance at their surroundings for them to realize that the hallway they were currently in was far from empty. In a way the scene might remind them of what they had seen on their short trek into Yahar'gul with the statues of figures in agony and fear... but these were not stone, these were flesh, blood and especially bone.
Scattered along the floor of the hallway lay fifteen emaciated, long-limbed figures with black, sunken eyes, like smaller members of the same species that Pallid had belonged to, their bodies twisted, curled up and crushed to death. There were also two much, much bigger men with similarly elongated limbs, but also large hands, pale eyes and bodies clad in black hooded rags, one of which appeared to have been pierced and pinned to the wall behind it by a blade that had since been removed, and the other looked to have been bisected at the waist. A little further ahead lay two creatures that could best be described as twisted, demonic imitations of dogs, with horned heads, absurdly long tongues and generally misshapen bodies, draped over a much more humanoid figure clad in unusual armor, with a pointy, wide-brimmed hat, underneath which was a face that was anything but human; all three of which appeared to have been smashed into the wall and flattened by great force.
But most notable of all was that there was, intermingled with all these slain, seemingly alien creatures, were the remains of a dozen figures that appeared to be human in shape. Not only that, but these men and women were all clad in similar garb, and garb that especially Ophelia would recognize: the finery of knights of Cainhurst. The sex of these knights could only be guessed at from their clothes, however, as the people wearing them had long since been reduced to naked skeletons, their flesh either decayed with time or devoured by the denizens of the labyrinth.

Observing her surroundings, Ophelia would find that here, just as in the Hunter's Dream, there were moon motes everywhere, because the Nightmare was everywhere; the only advantage the Guidance Rune would offer her here was her hightened connection to the Holy Moonlight Sword. This connection she did have, however, and she would hear its whispers as they arrived: “It is here... its other half. It can feel it... The darkness to its light... the wrath to its serenity... the other side of its coin. It is near. It waits ahead. Waits to be made whole again.”
Deathly silence gripped the area. Nothing was moving but them and the faintly flickering blue firelight.

The sensation of falling into the chalice was unlike almost everything Ophelia had ever experienced--almost. She'd dreamt of experiences like it, though that was simply a tumble into a fathomless pit within the earth, and she initially felt... not comfortable, but at least metaphorically somewhat grounded. The sensation quickly cascaded in intensity to levels she could not have imagined, even in the world of Dreams where one's imagination was unbound, and only that feeling of surreality stopped it from overwhelming her terribly. She made out brief glimpses of... matter, she presumed, coming into view and falling away just as quickly without enough time having elapsed to give her any true sense of proportion or detail. She assumed it must have been layers of the Labyrinth, for she understood enough to know that this little shortcut was simply skipping massive amounts of a real physical structure, but between the overwhelming sensations and the inability to perceive detail soon even the speed of her thoughts could not keep up and the only recourse left to her was simply to let it happen.

When they arrived she teetered unsteadily on her feet for a moment, as if afflicted with vertigo, and took a couple of seconds to properly steady herself before the whispers sang to her and she steeled herself, wondering what precisely her blade's wrath would look like if all she had been unleashing thus far was its serenity. Treading carefully over the treacherous cobblestones she took a few tentative steps forward, peering at the remnants of what had come before and failed. Wretched husks not unlike the pallid one in appearance, though emaciated from time's uncaring embrace after their demise; much larger beings defeated by something much larger (or at least stronger) still, that reminded her of the scene in the Industrial Region's square where Crowmother had made even horrendous beasts look like children's dolls; further still Knights of Cainhurst, from a time long ago... it made Ophelia wonder precisely when this might have happened. Such mortals would have to have made the journey here on foot, and she did not have a good understanding of how deep they were and thus how arduous the journey must have been... but it seemed to be deeper than when Ludwig and Izzy had found moonlight's serenity, if she had to guess, and that had taken two exceptional individuals to get that far. Ophelia surmised they might have made the journey here in a time where there simply was less physical distance to traverse, and beckoned the others over as she carefully made her way towards the corpses.

If they had anything on them that might identify who they once were, or mementos that belonged back at Castle Cainhurst, Ophelia was curious to find out: if there seemed to be no danger in the low, eerie light she would take some time to give the corpses a thorough look. After that, she'd have look at the larger corpses against the wall to see if she could glean any idea what kind of weapon might be used against them, or if any signs of the struggle that she could parse had survived the passing of ages since it'd happened.

"Let's see if we can get an idea of what we'll be facing, mm? I think it's time to review our runes, too..." Ophelia spoke as softly as she could while still letting the others hear, and assuming safety pulled out the runebrand to change her own rune to something more appropriate for combat: the rune that Dietrich had revealed to them, the Hunter. She'd apply that to herself and wait for the others, and if no other revelations were forthcoming she would ensure everyone was prepared before moving to enter the room at the very end of the hallway.

Arriving in the dungeon, Torquil stumbled so thoroughly with imaginary momentum that he actually fell to his hands and knees, his inhuman tongue lolling out of his mouth as he hyperventilated. Gerlinde, meanwhile, appeared to simply manifest in the spot as though the experience had barely differed from using the headstones, and seemed completely unfazed.

The corpses, Ophelia would find, not only did not have anything of note on them, but it appeared as though something had very roughly handled the bodies to the point where the knights' clothes had been torn by grasping fingers, but a fair bit of the damage the bodies had taken was post-mortem. Not a single weapon, ring, necklace or coin remained.
Examining the two large bodies, it did not take much for Ophelia to conclude that they had been hit by a very large blade of some kind. By looking at the one that had been stabbed it would be easy to determine that the implement had been very broad – possibly even broader than her own Holy Moonlight Sword's transformation – and both the stab and the hit that had bisected the other appeared to be caused by a cut from a physical edge rather than a severance through arcane force.
Something else very notable Ophelia would find was that while the Cainhurst knights seemed to have been dead for a very long time – decades at least, perhaps even centuries – all the other corpses were much more recent. They still smelled fresh, their wounds still leaked somewhat liquid blood, and touching them would reveal that they still held on to remnants of body heat. Being very experienced with corpses, Ophelia would be able to determine that these creatures had most likely only been dead for an hour or two.

Nothing seemed to happen at the moment, and the Messengers came promptly when called upon, happily delivering the runebrand. Ophelia branded herself with the Hunter Rune, and as she did so all the Guidance sprites vanished before her eyes and the eager presence of the Holy Moonlight Sword faded to a faint murmur in the back of her mind.

_Farren

reached down to touch the chalice with the others, then—

He fell.

Endless Black, like the half remembered dream at the inception of his new self upon that clinic sickbed.

Unmoored.

Plummeting fast. Fast. Faster.

Sickeningly swift.

As if pulled by an unseen force through space, through distances he could not conceptualize, let alone count.

His mind wheeled upon itself, an intense gut-deep unease growing.

They passed something, a flash of substance, impossible to identify, there and then gone in less than an instant.

Then—

His feet touched uneven stone, Farren stumbled, reached out, gripped bare stone to steady himself. His gorge rose as the depth and breadth of that not-movement slammed through his entire body all at once, like he’d not had a vessel until just then.

He tasted bile, but clamped his teeth down and swallowed. Hard. Eyes too wide for an instant, Farren shuddered, gagged, then swallowed a second time.

A sharp exhale. He wet his lips, the unease began to fade, the nausea followed, overtook it, then was gone even more swiftly.

Farren shuddered, full body, visible, then shook himself and forced himself to pay attention.

A long hall of stone.

Bloodied bodies. Fresh.

Bare skeletons, garbed in torn and ruined garments, older, half buried in the detritus of strewn gorey ruin.

“Inviting,” he muttered sarcastically, feeling the urge to retch once more for a moment before he forced it down and straightened, his hand leaving the wall.

When Ophelia spoke, mentioning their Caryll Runes, Farren lightly brushed her shoulder with his fingertips and nodded once, “Metamorphosis,” he offered in his usual gruff manner, offering the back of his hand.

He didn’t flinch.

When it was done and a surge of vigorous energy finished suffusing through him, Farren knelt and quietly called upon the Messengers.

No longer burdened by the case of stolen blood, he requested his other armaments: The Beastflayer and Piercing Rifle. Thanking the helpers with a brief nod as was his way, Farren rearranged his gear and affixed the two weapons to his back as before so that he could swiftly draw them if needed–the firearm he made sure to load with quicksilver before stowing it away.

As Farren rose to his feet he drew first his Blunderbuss and then his Hunter’s Pistol, loading both, before replacing them to their hooks at his belt.

Satisfied, Farren drew the True Blade of Mercy in one hand and then followed Ophelia once Torquil had recovered, keeping his senses peeled for any telltale signs of threat or interest.

Ophelia's investigation presented a couple of bits of useful information and she relayed those with her usual excitedness to the group while she went about the grisly work of poking and prodding the corpses as though she were doing something as benign as tending a garden.

"Mmm... bladed weapon, very broad... wielded with colossal strength... reminds me of Skinner, somewhat. Knights have been dead for longer than we've been alive, I'd guess. Everything else is fresh, though, and something down here is hungry... I think we've quite the fight on our hands. Torquil, dear, I want you to stick with Farren, and put that strength to work when there's an opportunity--you can let him know when, Farren, mm? Gerlinde... unrelenting assault is your forte, and I see no reason to deviate now." Ophelia opined, though her tone was one of suggesting more than demanding--she was curious what the others might make of the situation, and what insights they might have into the fight. She, of course, would dash around the battlefield and observe to make use of her consistent and powerful ranged abilities while learning what their foe could do. The memory of Dietrich's fight had inspired her somewhat, on that front--he seemed to know what enemies were capable of and leverage their points of greatest weakness against them. If it was a sound enough strategy for the former First Hunter, Ophelia saw no reason to not do the same... and it had mostly worked with Paarl.

Receiving Ophelia's orders prompted a firm nod from Torquil, who hoisted his Loch Shield for a moment, only to stop himself and consider what he had just been told. They were up against something wielding a blade with “colossal strength,” apparently, and as situationally useful the Loch Shield had been against Skinner and the darkbeast's lightning, he also remembered very well how little the shield had done to protect him from a direct hit of the undead monster's claws. If Ophelia was right and whatever was down here fought primarily with brute strength...
Somewhat hesitantly Torquil took the Loch Shield off his left hand and hung it from a strap over his shoulder instead. He was not foolish enough to throw it away like he had against the darkbeast, nor was he confident enough that his deduction was right to hand it off to the Messengers, but the way he saw it, he would gain more from having an extra hand on Fulmen than he would having the shield.
With that part of his plan in place and a role assigned by Ophelia, the only thing Torquil had left to decide for himself was which Caryll Rune to use. Part of him was still slightly distressed that he had not simply been told which rune to use, or even just offered and recommended one... but another part did not mind too much anymore. It felt as though it was becoming more and more effortless for him to think with each new nightmare he lived through. So he considered the Caryll Runes the others had taught him, considered how he fought and how his battles had gone in the past. He mentally ran through his inventory of items in his bag – four blood vials, a piece of bolt paper and the blue elixir that had appeared there after the Winter Lantern killed him – and considered how to best utilize what was available to him.
Ultimately Torquil determined that he, with his meager supply of blood vials and undeniably impressive physique, was best served by simply having a slightly better change at avoiding damage. So he took the runebrand and – flinching a little less now than last time he had touched it upon his skin – branded himself with the Lake Rune. “We've got to make you more hardy,” Farren had said. Well, Torquil would much rather be just that little more likely to avoid or at least limit the damage he took than just being able to wear it.

Gerlinde, meanwhile, spent a moment calmly strolling up and down the hallway, performing her own silent examination of the corpses at the same time as Ophelia did hers. She listened to Ophelia's evaluation with an unwavering smile, slowly nodding her head.
“Skinner,” she muttered to herself, her eyes growing a size wider. “Hungry,” she whispered, and her lips parted to show off her perfect teeth in a grin practically glowing with madness. “Unrelenting assault, yes. I can do that; carve the flesh, spill the blood.” She turned her head to look at Ophelia. “Snakey still has the mouthful of arcane healing, in case it becomes relevant. If things get bad enough, come to me; it's only once, but it's quite powerful.”
With that, Gerlinde retrieved the runebrand after Torquil was done with it, and quickly afflicted herself with a new Caryll Rune without telling anyone which one. Then she went straight to the many-eyed creature in the strange garb and the pointy, wide-brimmed hat, seized its left hand and swiftly used her threaded cane to sever its pinky. Peeling the finger – shriveled, miscolored and misshapen, much like Pallid's body had been – out of its armored sleeve, she then raised the finger to her face, put it between her teeth, bit into it and tore off a small piece of its flesh. She swallowed without chewing, paused, and smiled again as she opened her pouch and stored the pinky in there.
Gerlinde then proceeded to go first to the two demonic dogs, then the larger Pthumerian creatures, and finally each of the fifteen smaller of the fresh corpses, and for each and every one of them she cut off a small piece of them, took a bite, and stored the rest in her pouch.

_Farren

stopped in place, standing roughly between Ophelia and Torquil in the hall, watching as Gerlinde began her macabre feast. A surprisingly tactical choice, it had him smiling as he uttered familiar words, “Take any advantage.”

Farren was beginning to wonder how Madness and Intellect related and if they perhaps coincided more than he could have known. At Torquil’s actions he nodded as well, just barely catching sight of the Lake Rune in the projector as the man engraved it upon his mind. Recalling his own earlier words, it made sense to him. Why endure a foe’s strength, when you could avoid it and turn any attack into a potential opening. It was…surprisingly wise for Torquil, he silently observed, making note of how his ally had made the decision on his own, without any visible guidance.

Like each of them in their own ways, Torquil too seemed to slowly be changing.

Farren took a deep breath then, closing his eyes as he focused on why they were here. He called upon the image of Amaris, slumped upon the ground; the Winter Lantern–as Ophelia had called it, the horrid thing–and what its presence in the Dream entailed; the Vicar’s words and how they’d twisted at his mind and his freedom; the seeking tendrils of the Golden Bastard, Ego, and what he would do when they stood before its twisted radiance.

Rage shifted.
Fear roiled then smoothed.
The bonds he’d forged with his companions warped and solidified and strengthened in his mind.

Farren opened his eyes and the emotions cooled, yet intensified all at once into something else.

His jaw set, his posture straightened and grew just the slightest bit more confident, and where before a slight sense of despair had still clouded his azure eyes, now they cleared once more.

Determination, forged and earned and reaffirmed swept through him not like a tumultuous river, but like a slow stream pooling into a placid lake.

His eyes did not shine, not as they had–though he knew naught of the phenomena–but where they had been faintly dull for a time, they were clear and pure once more. Farren turned those eyes on their surroundings a second time, then between his allies, then finally back down the hall.

He smiled. Just slightly. Then spoke.

“I’ll adapt, but as before with Paarl…Gerlinde and I can take point.”

A pause, a glance a third time over the corpses, new and old. Their wounds, their positioning, and the physical nature of their wounds.

“I’d wager your observations well worth their weight. Whatever struck these down…mmm…a savage foe, but likely either quite swift, quite slippery, or hardy beyond belief.”

Farren turned his head and spat onto the edge of the hall, “Or all three, I suppose. Reckon it weren’t large as some we’ve faced, but no less deadly for its lack in size.”

Farren’s gaze shifted up ahead, past his allies, “Shall we?”

Though his words were a question, Farren only waited a brief handful of instants before he stepped forwards and headed for the hall’s end, grudgingly curious–and wary–of what they’d find beyond within the fell corridors and rooms of the Labyrinth. He didn’t bother to look the bodies over for materials, but perhaps a few steps in he paused, stopped in place and glanced back at Ophelia–having tread only several paces past her.

“Think this lot’s blood remains of any worth?”

He awaited her reply, but didn’t remain idle, pulling out the extraction tool the Moonborn Hunter had granted them some hours ago as he stepped towards the nearest still-warm corpse, seeking value in its blood.

Ophelia nodded at everyone's preparations individually, though she did take a particular interest in Gerlinde obviously using the Hunger rune. A thought idly nagged at her about the Kos Parasite, wondering if it might be a good idea to give it to her to take advantage of its power... but it was the only one left in existence, as far as the little ones knew. Wasting something that might contain a wealth of knowledge on Gerlinde's madness and lack of foresight made Ophelia uneasy enough that she thought better of it and kept the idea to herself.

"Mmm, no better than the blood we've got. We can always come back and try again, we don't have to succeed on the first time--that's the trick of these things. Watch what the enemy can do, learn its patterns, and use that to avoid them in the future. I'll be keeping an eye out myself, but why don't you try too, Torquil? It's hard to talk during pitched combat, so I'll do what I can, but I think it'll help for you to start learning these lessons yourself, mm?" Ophelia offered before taking the runebrand back and handing it off to the Messengers if everyone was done with it--knowing it was safe put her mind at ease.

She then shifted her grip and stance with her blessed blade to be more combat focused and proceeded through the opening to the next room carefully, observing her surroundings closely and ready to quickstep away from any sort of imminent danger. She opened all her senses to the task of understanding what was happening in there, sight and sound and smell... taste and touch would likely come later, no doubt.

Having shared their last few instructions and looked over the macabre decorations of this little hallway one last time, the party ventured forth to the doorway ahead and finally emerged into a much, much larger chamber. A chamber so large, in fact, that it was cavernous to an unsettling degree, and bigger than any single interior space any of them had ever seen before. Just as with the hallway they had just come from the walls here were adorned with evenly spaced sconces giving off a seemingly perpertual bluish light, which was the only reason they had any ability to perceive the vastness of the room at all, as they could faintly make out the string of blue dots of light all the way along its edges. It was big enough that its size got difficult to even conceptualize just by looking at it, but they might be able to – especially if they realized that the sconces were indeed evenly spaced and could be used as a reference to measure by – that they were in a circular chamber that was probably around five hundred meters in diameter.
The sconces being the only light-sources here naturally left the majority of the room in darkness, making it extremely difficult to pick out details, but at least the fact the little light they had allowed them to mostly discern contours and silhouettes. They would also recognize that aside from the lights along the outer edge of the room, there was another series at the center, mounted at the foot of a massive stone column. It appeared to be round like the room it was in and easily ten meters thick with a curious, weirdly random-yet-consistent pattern on it, like a shallow thread of a screw, except with grooves that seemed to shift angles occasionally and vary in depth. Just as the light did not extend to the entirety of the horizontal plane of the room it did not light all the way up the column or the walls either, leaving the entire space above in in pitch darkness to the point where they could only guess at how tall this chamber really was.

Though nothing was moving in there and they did not see anything that was obviously a threat, there was plenty of other things to see. Looking along the walls they would be able to spot no less than five quite large mounds of what appeared to be discarded bones from predominantly human-sized creatures, distributed in seemingly random spots around the room, with the closest to them sitting about twenty meters away. Perhaps even more notably, however, they would also be able to see some much larger and more familiar remains scattered about the floor, with most of it being left in shadow but with enough of it having strayed closer to the light that they could identify it. It was the scattered remains of a darkbeast like the one they had fought and defeated outside Yahar'gul, only this one looked to have been considerably larger. The creature had been torn limb from limb, with each piece having been tossed aside and away from where its mostly-crushed torso lay; they would even be able to see the top of this darkbeast's skull, its jaw torn off and left elsewhere, with its scalp cleaved down the middle.

Along the walls they would also be able to see another two doorways like the ones they had just passed through, positioned at their 2 and 10 o'clock respectively, making all the doors equidistant to each other and simultaneously as far from each other as possible.
Interestingly, they would also find the walls – seemingly all the way around, from floor-level to a good five meters up – to be absolutely covered in crudely carved Caryll Runes. The runes varied greatly in size – the smallest was small enough that it would fit in the palm of a hand, the biggest was nearly three meters across – and detail, with many of them being so rough in shape that it was a challenge to even identify them as Caryll Runes, let alone understand what they meant. But the ones that were of relatively high quality and intelligible, they would realize, all featured just two runes repeated over and over, in a way that probably seemed distinctly obsessive. One rune they all instinctively knew what meant, and Ophelia in particular was deeply familiar with it, as it was clearly the Hunter Rune. The other was not one any of them had encountered before... though there was also something about it that felt weirdly familiar to Ophelia. With some imagination and creative license, it almost looked like an upside-down, mirrored and distorted version of the Guidance Rune.

Mother Moon... it makes Castle Cainhurst look small, and even that seems like it was built for the big pallid ones... and those bones... another darkbeast? Given the size and shape... My, my. Wrath to our Serenity indeed. Ophelia thought to herself, and found herself somewhat dismayed at the lack of response from the Holy Moonlight Sword. It was her own fault, of course, for stripping herself of the Guidance rune... but she'd expected combat sooner rather than later and nothing immediately leapt out at her heightened senses. She split off to the right as she wandered, ushering Gerlinde close so they might share in any arcane findings and whisper feverishly to one another, and found herself immediately attracted to the walls of the place. It took a good ten, twenty seconds of curious head tilting, squinting, and furrowed brows before she came to the realisation that they were Caryll Runes. The image of the Guidance rune flashed across her mind's eye, accompanied by a phantom tingle of the focusing pain of the runebrand that rippled across her senses--the imagined shock of it brought her to kneel and beckon the Messengers forth. She bade them retrieve the brand, then to stay, and imagined the Guidance rune in the projection case as she pressed the metal to her flesh. The real thing gave her a burst of intense focus, and she let the two images overlap in her mind as the ever-eager resonance of the serene whispers returned and she posed to her blade the question that had consumed her perception entirely.

Your sister-rune... carved by the one who wields your wrath? she asked, letting her gaze trail up across the sublime vastness of the structure's wall and her eyes sweep across the runes. One was the sister-rune, she was certain. She could almost feel it vibrating within her, eliciting a shudder as she briefly recalled the frenzy of the Winter Lantern and let the soothing light of her blessed blade banish it before she could even consider it again. The soothing radiance of the whispers made her consider what the true form of Mother Moon's Wrath would look like, and what would wield it. These imitations on the wall were just... shapes, not the sterling clarity and distillation of knowledge that a Caryll Rune was... but the shapes meant something, and vague feelings could be strummed like an instrument to find what harmonised with the allusions of the pattern if one was learned in the right runes and attuned enough to their particularities.