_Farren

scanned the room, his sharp azure eyes narrowing a twitch as he spied the bones and identified their likely nature. Multiple piles…all the same beast…or several? His brow furrowed, eyes narrowing a shift further.

Ophelia stepped forth, followed closely by Gerlinde, but Farren didn’t move for a moment still. The silence.

It stretched and he felt an odd tension in the air, in his own muscles. He stepped forward, “Be ready,” he uttered, before the other two were too engrossed in the etching on the wall. Farren, for his part, took several more steps deeper into the room, not following the ladies of their party, but walking perhaps four strides forward into the space before he stopped. The sheer size of the place boggled the mind, making his senses swim when he tried to stare in a straight line. Much of the space seemed to fade into a murky mire of off-black, while far off points of eerie blue lantern-light steadily glowed against the distant walls further out.

Circular, it seemed…. Strewn with bodies, or at least with the remains of a Darkbeast like Paarl had been. Yet…likely larger still.

And this place, the Labyrinth, the Interstice, was a dangerous one, always spoken of with a certain wary reverence that he was swiftly beginning to understand.

“Something’s wrong,” he said, his tone even, wary, eyes scanning, senses stretched for any sound or scent or any other sign of–...of what?

Danger? Something else?

His eyes cast across the nearer walls as he turned in place, only ever putting his shoulder facing the pillar at the room’s center, keeping it in his left periphery as he turned clockwise. What had made the etching? Surely they weren’t a native part of the room’s design. They seemed too…rough compared to the rest and…almost fresh–or at least fresher than the rest of this place. Even the air here felt ancient, smelled stale, like stone, dust, and the long slow drying and powdering of Old Blood.

The Old Blood.

Farren turned again, swiveling counterclockwise until he laid eyes on the skull fragment of the Darkbeast, trying to really focus on it as he drew in a deep pull of the stale air. Was there a hint of something voltaic in the air, a scent of decay that was too fresh, perhaps? Did the skull shift faintly with the unsettling not-life that Paarl’s undead remains had, did they crackle with unnatural lightning?

Something was off.

The question was, could he sense it…?

Examining the darkbeast's skull from afar did not yield much information to Farren; the skull appeared completely inert and exhibited no kind of electric energy or lingering spark of life. It was also too far away – even relatively close to them as it was at just forty meters or so – and somewhat in darkness, so seeing any kind of fine detail was out of the question. But there was no smell or movement that could indicate that the sundered darkbeast was somehow faking its state.

Over by the nearby wall, Ophelia finished reapplying the Guidance Rune to herself and attempted to confer with the Holy Moonlight Sword, only to find that the whispers sounded somewhat more frantic and disjointed than usual.
“Sister-rune? You received its rune... its Guidance... yes... this is its other half. The other half of the word... the other side its Guidance. Yes... it is here. It is close... it is so close. Its other half... it is here... it is here... it is coming. It is so very close. Wielder, its other half is so close. It wants to be whole again. It is close... it is here... it is close. It is coming!”

The frantic nature of the whispers soon drew Ophelia into alertness as her reverie was broken, and she used the time she had to quickly hand the runebrand off to the little ones while shouting "It's here!". There was no point in stealth now, only in preparedness and what little they could muster. Ophelia sprang up from kneeling into action, blade bared, and fought through the sudden clarity of her heart thundering inher chest and the now-familiar feeling of adrenaline beginning to flow. Do you remember what it does? The blade of wrath? she queried, hoping the increasingly slick whispers made her suddenly recall how wet her neck felt--her whole head, really--and she could not discern whether it was sweat or simply the whispers in this place so-tinged with Nightmare.

Ophelia felt in her bones that she would be the immediate target of this thing's ire, her shadowy counterpart. She would be prepared to react defensively, hoping to use the advantage of her relative sanity and increased numbers to outwit the thing rather than overpower it. This was an opportunity to learn, if nothing else... though every death untethered one from the waking world more and more. Ophelia's periphery flicked to Gerlinde to observe her for a brief instant, and she considered how willing to become like Gerlinde or their new foe she was... or she would have, if that thought lasted for longer than she'd looked over. She had to be present in the moment, steady, observant... and she had to use every advantage the blade of serenity could give her.

While Farren and Torquil remained in place, watching this huge, mostly dark space with all the vigilance they could muster in the face of Ophelia's warning, and Gerlinde and Ophelia remained by the nearby wall. Ophelia queried the Holy Moonlight Sword again, but it seemed that the whispers – though still obviously trying to be helpful – were having a harder and harder time reigning in its dread and enthusiasm.
“Here... here... What it does? Yes... cuts... stabs... blade. Wrath to its serenity. Dark to its light. Word... rune... other half... other side of coin. Deception to its Guidance. IT IS HERE!”

No one noticed anything; none out of the four of them registered any sort of sight, sound, feeling or smell despite all their efforts to maintain awareness of their surroundings... and even now, Farren, Torquil and Gerlinde still did not notice anything. To them, Ophelia was just spontaneously propelled off her feet and backward, being lifted off the ground as she did, before slamming into the wall behind her with enough force to crack the stone. A huge wound opened across her body – a wide gash spanning diagonally from the left side of her chest and down toward the right side of her abdomen, positively gushing blood.

Ophelia, likewise, did not register anything unusual until she abruptly felt a huge blade pushing into her body, and only then did she realize that something had been right in front of them all this time. It had not been invisible, it was plainly obvious right there in the middle of the room; it was not soundless, it was loudly growling, muttering words in a language she did not know, but sounded vaguely similar to the one Pallid had spoken; its every movement filled the air with a loud rumble, and she could clearly feel tremors in the ground under her feet; and the stench! A foul odor of rotten flesh, excrement and urine was so thick and sickening to the point of making it hard to breathe. It had been here all this time, but until this exact instant her mind had simply been incapable of recognizing any of it.
The blade pushing into her body was nearly as wide as her own transformed Holy Moonlight Sword and only a little longer, but whereas her own sword mostly consisted of arcane moonlight, this blade appeared entirely physical... and like the physical blade of her own weapon, it looked positively ancient. It had no crossguard, and bizarrely its handle seemed much too big for the weapon, longer than that of the Holy Moonlight Sword, but also many times thicker, to the point where a human-sized hand could not possibly grasp it. Despite its relatively large size, taking the proportions into account would reveal that this weapon was not a big greatsword or anything of the sort, but rather an obscenely huge shortsword or gladius.

Holding the blade was a hand that, unlike Ophelia's own, had a size that was quite well-suited for wielding this oversized implement. It looked swollen and unhealthy, its sickly orange skin covered in boils and blisters, and was attached to a two meter long arm that bulged obscenely with muscle. And it, in turn, was attached to the torso of the single most vile creature she had ever seen. It was utterly deformed, its body bulging and twisting with strange growths both on and under its skin, twisting and churning as though it was a sack full of snakes. The arm that had stabbed her was its right one... or rather, one of its right arms, because just below the shoulder of that arm extended another arm, just as long as the first one but much thinner, looking feeble and bony compared to the brawny appendage currently pinning her to the wall. It only had one left arm, meanwhile, but it was just as muscular as the sword-wielding right one, but unlike the right arm was also covered in thick orange scales, and each of its fingers – much longer than those on its right hands – was adorned with fifty centimeter long claws, each one practically a small sword in its own right.
The head – hovering about a meter in front of Ophelia – was very wide, and just as crooked as the rest of the creature. The right side of its skull was relatively flat, barely any taller than any of their own heads, and actually looked vaguely human, if discolored and hairless. A normal-sized blue eye sat there, rolling wildly and looking at everything and nothing in particular. All of this was in sharp contrast to the left side of its head, of course, which was not only much taller than the right side, but bulged in a way that seemed distinctly unhealthy and brought to mind thoughts of horrid diseases and cancer. A huge eye, its pupil a vertical slit unlike the right one, its iris glowing with a soft azure light, and was entirely focused on Ophelia. Around that eye were a smattering of smaller ones, seemingly just scattered randomly across its face, with some on its scalp, some on its jaw and chin, and all of them blue, roiling and unfocused like the right one. Its mouth was similarly asymmetric, with the right side looking something approaching human, the further left one looked from the right corner of the mouth the lips seemed to give way to longer and longer fang-like teeth, so long that they did not fit inside the mouth and had to press out. In fact the teeth furthest to the left not only penetrated the creature's cheek to get out, but their tips dug into its cheekbone and forehead, shifting up and down and carving fresh wounds as the creature spoke, bleeding disgusting, yellowish bile for an instant before regenerating, only to be carved open anew as the teeth kept shifting with its speech.
Things only got weirder looking down at the creature's lower body, because it had no legs... or at least, it did not have legs where one would expect them from human anatomy. Instead it seemed to just curve away at the waist, only to extend behind it in what might momentarily look like a reptilian tail of some sort, though a more apt comparison would actually be to the body of a millipede. The body did not taper, but seemed to continue at the same thickness all the way to a rounded end, and rather than slither like a snake, it was raised up and carried by... appendages. Because the entire hind-body was absolutely covered in appendages. Many looked like somewhat human arms and legs, varying wildly in size – with some being nearly three meters long and dragging along the floor, and others being so small they would have been more at home on a rodent than this beast – and deformity – with some being elongated, some stumpy, some having too few fingers and toes, others too many – but others did not look human at all. There were paws, hooves, talons, tentacles, pincers, segmented insect-legs and more that defied description and did not seem like they belonged on any kind of natural being. Any and all of these appendages capable of grasping anything also seemed to be doing so, and holding onto... things. Swords, spears, axes, maces, pistols, rifles, but not only that; random bits of rock, strips of cloth, handfuls of buttons, buckles, brooches. Just a completely nonsensical and erratic selection of nondescript things, all of which were being flailed around wildly.
Its front-body was about four meters tall and of vaguely human proportions, with a head that was vaguely two or three times as big as your average human head, whereas its hind body was a mostly-consistent two meters thick and nearly ten meters long.

“Arrayah,” the whispers told Ophelia breathlessly. “Wielder... Huntress... Champion... Arrayah... is here.”

_Farren

watched, listened, even sniffed at the air, but none of his efforts–nor those of the others–proved remotely effective. Worse still was the fact that somehow, despite his vigilance, something truly frightening slipped past his guard–past all of their guards. Ophelia moved, sudden, but after a flash–a mere instant–it became abundantly clear that it was not of her own volition.

A wound split open in a single timeless moment and Farren’s eyes widened, but his hand was already moving.

He drew his Hunter’s Pistol, unable to see the threat, and trained it on Ophelia. Some might have panicked, might have wildly swung the weapon about, or twitched it between near-random points in their companion’s general direction.

Farren trained it on Ophelia herself, at the center of the wound, at the spray of blood that gushed from her form, at where the blood could not pass, but neither did it cling. Then his eyes shifted in a straight line back from the rift in her torso, through what his senses told him was empty air, along nothing at all. Farren, of course, had no idea what precisely was attacking Ophelia, no clue what its dimensions might be, so he shifted the muzzle of his firearm to a spot perhaps 2 meters back from Ophelia, keeping the weapon trained at a spot roughly the same elevation as the center of Ophelia’s wound.

Then he fired.

The first thing that Ophelia felt was the immediate concussive impact, incredible force passing through her and carrying her along with it. It knocked the air from her lungs and strained, creaked, and cracked through her ribcage as another impact from the back seared through–and then a burst of brightness as the cutting edge of the blade sprayed forth her lifeblood and the ruinous forces now exiting her body faded. She gasped awfully, her regeneration already knitting together her wounds enough for her to draw air back in, and the pain brought forth another wave of sweet revelation: the deception to her guidance, the shadow to her light! It was suddenly all so obvious! The next breath she drew in through her nose carried a grave-stench even her hardened senses protested against, she could feel the impacts of its movement against the ground and through the wall and vibrating through its chest, hear the madness that oozed from its lips as bile and pus did from every other aspect of the horrid creature she espied as she opened her eyes.

“Arrayah…” she repeated, her voice gasping and straining as she stared at this thing that wielded the other half of her blade. She… hadn’t expected it to be so… unimpressive, compared to the splendour of her blade–but it hadn’t been half as luminous until she’d truly wielded it for the first time either. But its power was not in the bearing of brightness like hers was–no, it was Mother Moon’s shadow. To have the power to reveal, one must also have the power to conceal–and it was a mightily powerful illusion. There was no way any of them wouldn’t have heard, felt, smelled, and tasted this thing on the air long before it ever reached them–it was as though her mind had simply refused to register its existence, and she guessed it was only by the grace of her Guidance that she could perceive it now. Well, that poses rather a problem, she thought, waiting for a moment to be able to wriggle free enough from the rather precarious position she found herself in to administer herself a blood vial and quickstep away to relative safety.

“It’s invisible!” was all she could command herself to shout to the others, and even then she wasn’t sure if anyone but Gerlinde who’d been close to her already might have heard it–her mind was spinning, as though compensating for all the loss of perception before, and she reeled as the waves of surprise and surges of sudden information fought for control of her faculties.

The abomination did not even flinch at the sound of Farren's gunshot and simply remained in place, unconcerned by the quicksilver bullet that whistled through the air, missed it and vanished into the darkness. Right next to it and Ophelia Gerlinde immediately sprang into action as well, twirling her threaded cane in her hand at the same time as she changed it into its whip-form, only to immediately lash out in a wide, sweeping swing from right to left... that also missed the creature. Gerlinde swiftly followed up with another blind swipe, this time from left to right, toward the back of it, only to halt the swing an instant before it would have made contact. Finally she lashed vertically with the wire-connected blade-segments right in front of Ophelia, aiming at whatever had her pinned to the wall... and again she missed. To Ophelia, would seem as though she was missing on purpose.
Torquil started running toward Ophelia with Fulmen held at the ready, but it would take a moment for him to make it there.

During the time the others tried in vain to save their pinned companion, Arrayah kept repeating the same sentence over and over again, chanting the same few words in Pallid's language seemingly to itself, only to halt its chanting when Ophelia spoke its name. It seemed to pause for a moment, and the relatively human right side of its face twisted into a toothy, joyless perversion of a smile.
When its mouth moved again, it carefully uttered: “O-phe-li-a.”
While the monster resumed its chanting, the two of its front-hands that were not currently holding the sword still embedded in Ophelia's torso reached up and went to seize Ophelia's arms; the thin secondary right arm going for Ophelia's left, and its muscular clawed one her right, moving to pin her wrists to the wall as well.

At first Ophelia couldn't believe her eyes--the others were just... missing? It looked almost intentional, but she supposed the effect that hid Arrayah from their ability to perceive it at all would look like someone consciously choosing to miss... that was the preferable reaction, at least, compared to simply leaving her to suffer whatever most assuredly unwholesome intrusion upon her person was about to happen with the way it was grabbing her. "Illusion!" Ophelia wheezed out as loudly as she could as she struggled feebly against the grip of Arrayah's many awful limbs. "The brand, ah, Mask!" she gibbered quickly, struggling to remain serene as Arrayah likely simply overpowered her--and she continued to fight to escape with all of her might, unwilling to simply let whatever the monster wanted to do to her happen. She had no advice nor words of wisdom for her companions, knowing that whatever was happening to her they simply could not yet perceive--and for that, she was grateful. At least they would not know the suffering inflicted upon her, and it could instead fester within the madness that had long been growing within her.

_Farren

missed, but it was more than that, even Gerlinde’s wide sweeping strikes with her whip seemed to have no effect. Was it regenerating too fast…or was this something more than mere invisibility? As these thoughts flowed through his mind along a raging river of analysis and instinctual considerations, Farren reloaded his pistol with quicksilver, holstered it, sheathed any other weapons, and then drew the Beastflayer from his back even as he stepped into a running approach. Farren reeled his weapon back, flicking and twisting his wrist as he looked up towards the ceiling swallowed in darkness. Then, not aiming at anything but the open air above, he swung in a vertical slash, the Beastflayer extended out into its cleaving ‘whip’ blade form as it swung up overhead then downwards. It wasn’t well aimed at all, but Farren had intended to aim for a spot a ways above and in front of Ophelia. Not where they thought the creature was at all. Perhaps if he wasn’t focusing on the creature…it would be possible to strike it.

It didn’t do any of them any good as somehow, he pulled the strike back–not even meaning to–before the elongated whip-blade would have ever reached its undetectable target.

Farren’s eyes narrowed. He debated firing his blunderbuss at it…as there was an element of randomness there, but he had a feeling that was equally pointless. Farren did it anyways, flicking his wrist to snap the beastflayer’s segments back into place as it came back towards him, at the same time he drew the blunderbuss and fired in the unseen beast’s general direction.

Nothing changed, “Gods dammit,” he hissed…then surged forward in a quickstep directly at Ophelia. As he moved, he holstered the spent blunderbuss, drew a blood vial and slammed the ‘flayer back into its place on his back. All in a blink.

In sequence, if nothing struck him off course or otherwise impeded him, Farren would slam a blood vial into Ophelia’s side with his left hand, depressing it, even as he effectively tackled her with the other, using his momentum and considerable weight to try and push, drag, and pull her to her left (forward for him) in an attempt at getting her off whatever was impaling her…even if it meant tearing the blade out of her side and through his own fucking body. He braced for pain, be it from his maneuver itself…or attacks he couldn’t even perceive coming.

Farren missed, first with a huge swing of his Beastflayer, then with a blunderbuss shot; Torquil walked right up and stopped about one hand a half meter from Arrayah and swung Fulmen three times – left to right, right to left, from high to low – and missed every time. To everyone else it would seem as though their adversary was incorporeal and impossible to hit, but Ophelia would see every single attack aimed anywhere but at the creature. Gerlinde even ran over and past Ophelia, intending to bodily slam herself into whatever they were up against, only for her – without her even realizing it – navigating the space exactly so that she avoided colliding with any part of the beast.

After having moved several steps past Ophelia, leaving her rather convinced that she would not be able to impact their enemy like this, Gerlinde swiftly dropped to one knee. “Little ones!” she called, and a Messenger promptly appeared. “Runebrand!”
But rather than retrieve the item the way they usually did, the Messengers merely sat there looking at Gerlinde confusedly. Realizing immediately that they were not going to be giving her what she wanted, Gerlinde let out a giggle before rising back to her feet, turning around and resuming flailing her whip around in vain.

By the time Farren reached Ophelia, administered his blood vial and started trying to force her to her left, Arrayah had already grasped both of Ophelia's wrists. Aside from one of the monster's smaller, wildly rolling eyes suddenly seeming to stop moving to focus on Farren, however, Arrayah seemed quite content to ignore Farren and let him do as he pleased. Try as he might, though he would manage to pull Ophelia some of the way – causing the blade embedded in her torso to carve through her anew – but as soon as her right arm was stretched out she would move no further, because Arrayah's grip was strong and unyielding.
The creature kept chanting those same few words, though it seemed to speak them somewhat more slowly as its one huge, glowing azure eye shifted from Ophelia's face to the Holy Moonlight Sword in her hand. She would feel the bestial fingers start squeezing her wrist, trying to make her let go of the weapon... or break her hand if she refused.
“Ophelia is Wielder...” the whispers nervously muttered in Ophelia's head. “Ophelia is champion... but Arrayah is wielder... Arrayah is champion. Arrayah will make it whole...”

_Farren

pushed, shoved and whatever it was just ignored his efforts, too powerful for him to make any significant progress. So Farren gave up, took a few hopped steps back, drew his pistol, raised it...and fired directly at Ophelia's head--his eyelid twitching feverishly as he did so.

It was undeniably a gamble for Farren to fire his pistol at Ophelia's head at this point, given that he had loaded it with a quicksilver bullet while having modest bloodtinge and having just injected her with a blood vial to restore her regenerative potential. Luckily – if one was inclined to deem it as such – he had also just yanked on her body with all of his weight and strength while she was still pinned to a wall by a large blade, she was still bleeding from being impaled, and her wrist was continuously regenerating Arrayah's efforts to break it. All of this combined with Ophelia's naturally puny vitality meant that even Farren's relatively weak bullet did enough damage.
The last thing Ophelia saw was a flash of particularly bright azure light in the monster's bigger eye, then she faded into the embrace of death and reawakened back in the Hunter's Dream... still holding her Holy Moonlight Sword.

“Unexpected,” Gerlinde giggled over on the other side of the creature that none of them could tell was there, grinning widely at Farren. “Now what?”
But as it turned out what happened next was quite out of their hands. With none of them being aware of their opponent, Farren had no warning and no way to protect himself against Arrayah's furious vengeance. All he felt was a sudden sharp pain in his neck, then his head tumbled off his shoulders, being treated to a couple of seconds of being able to see their deformed enemy through the eyes of his detached head. Then he faded back into the Dream as well.
“Oh,” Gerlinde mused, blinking her eyes and letting out a small laugh. “Well. I guess I know what comes next.”
And indeed, a second later Gerlinde was beheaded as well. That left just Torquil, whose arms dropped down his sides as he closed his eyes and heaved a sigh. “Not again...”
Then he was killed as well.

Ophelia's world had narrowed down to Arrayah's chilling gaze in that instant, as the whispers in her mind lost the sense of surety and serenity she'd relied on so far. It panicked her like nothing else, and feeble though her grip was before a monstrosity like Arrayah her grip on the Holy Moonlight Sword did not relent or yield for a second, almost as though rigor mortis had already set in. The breaking and repairing of her wrist repeating over and over was some dull background concern compared to the final reserves of stubborn defiance and adrenaline she felt surging, and she did not even hear the gunshot that ended her grip on consciousness nor feel its sultry kiss any more than the other torments visited upon her leading up to the crescendo as nothingness overtook her... and she awoke within the Dream, as though from a slumber that never was.

She could feel the comforting grip of the Holy Moonlight Sword in her hands, see its sidereal radiance, hear its whispers... she was whole, preserved, and had another chance. Most of the panic had been chemical, her body pushed to the very brink of expiration and desperation, and here in the Dream there was a haziness that made those final moments feel so... far away, like she only had to focus upon them if she truly wished to. Again she reflected on how many times Gerlinde must have done this, how the promise of constancy afforded her the luxury of abandon... how easy it could be, truly, to forget that the Waking World had ever existed at all... or to forget that it was distinct and different from these realms of Dream.

A good ten seconds passed in solemn reflection before she knelt to beckon forth the Messengers, bidding them deliver the runebrand. She was amazed not only by the efficacy of Arrayah's power, by how it seemed to convince their minds so thoroughly it was not there that they physically weren't capable of reacting to it, but by the prospect of obtaining that power for herself. Against such a power, what could possibly stand? Adelaide's gift once again had proven its worth, and her mind drifted towards the sweet lightbeast even as her right hand gripped the brand firmly. After they were done... they had to go and direct Adelaide to the Crow's Nest... and explore the Woods. She'd been foolish, she realised in hindsight, to delve so deeply into the mystery behind it all--anonymity would have afforded them ample advantages, let them learn the lay of the land in peace before their enemy knew to mobilise. Arrayah's rune and the Holy Moonlight Sword made whole would make up for it, though, of that Ophelia was certain.

A short ways off the Shopkeeper and the doll emerged from the workshop and started descending the stairs to greet her, as they usually did, though what was likely a much more welcome relief to Ophelia would be to feel the influence of the Holy Moonlight Sword return. It took several seconds for it to calm down, but when the whispers were eventually heard again, they had returned to their normal self.
“Apologies, Wielder,” it told her regretfully. “It was near enough to its other half that it began to overlap... and though this half considers you its worthy Wielder... its other half has chosen Arrayah. In the moment, you were both worthy... and it would have accepted either of you. And just as this half wants you to retrieve the Profane Abyssal Blade... its other half wants Arrayah to retrieve the Holy Moonlight Sword.”

_Farren

relief when Ophelia’s form faded–Greatsword with it–was short lived and had he been a normal hunter…so too would he have been. In the next instant, whatever had beset Ophelia sent him tumbling, or…at least, that’s how it felt. Then he seemed to be…rolling. Profoundly disoriented, Farren didn’t even have time to realize what had happened before his consciousness faded and was reclaimed.

---

Farren resolved into shape in the Hunter’s Dream, not terribly long after Ophelia, but he felt oddly…disembodied, unmoored, disoriented, and…out of breath?

Farren put a hand to his chest and slowed his breathing, eyes screwed up in a frown of concentration as he tried to parse his last few memories. Only as he glanced down and saw his boots did he understand.

They were the same boots he’d seen in the corner of his slightly reddened vision before he’d been dragged back to the Dream. He shuddered, his bile rose, but Farren’s left hand covered his mouth even as he stumbled forwards and laid a hand on a tall tombstone’s zenith to steady himself. He swallowed, hard, several times, knuckles whitening, and then took another long, slow, breath.

He slowly turned, glancing at Ophelia–looking slightly nauseated–and then to their hosts. “That…” he began hoarsely, “...was profoundly unpleasant,” he said, and then as the flash of pain he’d felt at his neck seconds before the disorienting experience of his head being severed came back to him, Farren doubled over and threw up.

"Mm... you haven't the half of it, dear, what an awful creature..." Ophelia replied to Farren, though she didn't turn to face him. Her mind instead drifted to the whispers as they returned, joyed to hear them though darkly resolved to not let such a disadvantaged situation happen again. She replied back in her mind: I understand, it's alright. We weren't prepared before... but we are now. We will make you whole, and claim Mother Moon's shadow as well as her light. Neither has the answers we need alone... there is much and more to make whole.

"Arrayah, the moon's shadow. Profane Champion. Our enemy. You were trying to hit him, weren't you? But your minds simply refused to perceive where he was... as I wield light, he wields the dark. But we will be fine, for we have a Mask to shatter his deception... and we only have to succeed once." Ophelia replied after hearing Gerlinde and Torquil reform, turning to them with the runebrand in her hand and a grim determination upon her face. "Seems like we should switch our runes back, mm?"

Can I defeat him with the Guidance rune? Need I sacrifice your whispers to shatter his illusion? she asked the whispers, while beckoning the others to come forth and receive the rune they'd need to even participate in the fight.

“Bloody thing,” Gerlinde sighed, rolling her eyes with a wry grin. “Sure, I'll switch to the Mask Rune. I guess I'll just dump all these bits of creature somewhere, and maybe go make myself vomit before I actually digest the bits I swallowed...”
Torquil just stood there with Fulmen in his hands, looking somewhat dejected. He was caught between his annoyance at having died again, his relief that the others had not only died as well this time, but they had even died before him, and almost a sense of boredom and impatience with how he had died. Compared to the three times he had died earlier this night – having his head repeatedly smashed into a stone floor, exploding from frenzy and exploding from frenzy while being gnawed on my dozens of horrid, nightmarish mouths – being beheaded seemed almost boring and uninteresting. Not only had the pain been much less, but he also had to just lie there as a disembodied head, waiting to die...

“My Guidance sprites would tell you where Arrayah is... if she had not been in the Interstice... where the Nightmare looms close everywhere,” the whispers hesitantly replied to Ophelia's question. “She wears the Deception Rune... which does more than you think. It does not make her invisible... you can see her... hear her... smell her... she is fully perceivable... but the rune bends your mind. Makes you ignore her. Under its influence... you cannot even touch her by accident... because subconsciously you will avoid her. Without meaning to... you will be trying to miss.”
There was a brief thoughtful pause. “But as you experienced... it has limits. Once Arrayah interacts with you... Deception will become ineffective. If she speaks to you... touches you... or attacks you, you will see her... and be able to touch her.”

"I wonder if the Dream recreates them, seeing as they weren't yet part of you? Can you still taste them?" Ophelia replied to Gerlinde's question with a small grin of her own but no light in her eyes, branding her quickly if she desired and then taking the brand over to Torquil.

"Are you okay, dear? That thing... her name is Arrayah. She bears a rune that makes it so that... she might as well not exist to you, until she interacts with you in some way. Let's switch back to the Mask rune, and then we'll be able to fight properly... Do you want to try staying back and looking for a good opportunity to put your strength to work this time? Arrayah will ignore you and go straight for me every time, if you stay with me you should be able to seize a weakness and get a really good couple of hits in. If you can knock her down, give her that moment of vulnerability we've seen in other foes, we'll get her. Sound good, love?" Ophelia asked, giving Torquil her best impression of a warm smile. She felt somewhat... dissociated, dreamlike, still--but this, her desire for vengeance and earnest desire to see her blade made whole, remained. They were what remained of her in this moment, the things she could cling to with certainty and focus while everything else... settled back into place. Her little bit of exposition was aimed at Farren too, and she gave him a couple of knowing glances to include him in the conversation too--though still with that hollow, not altogther there sort of fugue in its last moments before dissipating.

_Farren

dry heaved once more from the taste the first wretched retching had left in his mouth, but thereafter he wiped his lips and quickly began to properly recover. “Ugh…” he groaned, taking in Ophelia’s words. If he were honest…Farren had little desire to return, but he understood how it could benefit them…and that if it came down to it, Ophelia would likely have gone alone over and over again until she succeeded. Besides…surely the echoes in this Arayah’s blood would serve them well.

“Brand me then.”

When she was done with that business, Farren took to reloading his various firearms. When he was done and they were once more in place, Farren went to the workshop-cabin atop the hill and then to the chest full of armaments. He sifted through, wondering just how many Hunter’s Pistols remained therein.

However, as he withdrew some, and reached the bottom of the chest…there always seemed to be more. He stopped after ten of each, frowning. Well…he did suppose it was a dream, even though he knew the armaments were real enough. Shrugging slightly, Farren beckoned the Messengers, handed off three unloaded blunderbusses–just in case. It made sense to have spares. Then five Pistols as well.

That done, he glanced at the pair of Hunter’s Pistols, and the pair of blunderbusses that remained, now laid out atop the closed chest. With the Messengers still at hand, he gave them his Piercing Rifle. He loaded the second blunderbuss and slid it into the fastening at his back where the rifle had gone previously. This left him with a total of three blunderbusses and three pistols, Bulwark, the Beastflayer, and his Blade(s) of Mercy, Effigial and Mundane.

First he loaded the remaining firearms, then he affixed a new hook to his right hip and hung the final blunderbuss there–one at each hip. The pair of Pistols he regarded for a moment, then affixed holsters at his belt near his lower back before he slid them in.

Two Hunter’s Pistols, on opposite sides of his spine, holsters at the belt that held his pants and various other accouterments and armaments. One such Pistol at his left hip, holstered. Blades of Mercy at each hip, sheathed–one Effigial, one not. Beastflayer and blunderbuss upon his back, and one Blunderbuss at each of his hips, hanging from hooks. Bulwark too remained, hanging from a loop at his right hip, slightly back from the Blade of Mercy.

It was a lot, but he had a feeling that having the extra firearms–if only for this fight–would let him do more harm to Arrayah’s healing than not. Lodging all that quicksilver in its flesh–even with his weaker bloodtinge–ought to do something.

All that done, Farren rose, weapons either equipped are stowed away with the Helpers, and exited the building returning to his companions.

“I’m ready.”

“I'd think so,” Gerlinde replied to Ophelia's question, specifically as to whether the Dream would recreate the creature bits she had eaten and carried in her bag. “If it didn't, we'd all show up naked and unarmed any time we came back here... which, as fun as that sounds, hasn't happened.” She shrugged. “But I can't taste them, no. I suppose it's not that much worse than making their blood spray into my open wounds... or downright drinking their blood, even. Eh, who cares.”

When the turn came to Torquil, he turned to her and blinked... but otherwise it would probably be challenging for Ophelia, or any of them, to read any kind of emotion out of his altered, three-eyed face. A lot of thoughts went through his head while Ophelia spoke, including How do you know that?, How long have you known that? and Why didn't you mention that before? But perhaps luckily she changed the subject before those stray thoughts had time to crystallize into questions he felt comfortable speaking aloud.
“I got a look at, uh, her before I died,” Torquil told her, his altered voice only somewhat easier to read emotion from than his face, but his tone only betrayed a trace of annoyance. “The hammer isn't really long enough to get to her, uh... weird, long butt without getting hurt from all the flailing things. So I'll have to go for her front. Unless... should I switch back to the axe? That might be long enough.”

Both Gerlinde and Torquil got branded with the Mask Rune anew, and it seemed that they were just about ready to get back to it.