Ophelia internally cursed as the attack she launched proved ineffective yet again, though that part of her immediately fell into silence as the completed blade communed with her again. Of course, she thought, that makes sense. The Nightmare here was so thick it was almost suffocating, and Arrayah had been down here for countless ages--of course her bestial form had grown inured to it and all things born of it. She grinned to herself as the blade revealed a new mode of its power to her unbidden, and without even thinking about it she followed the instructions as soon as they were given--two more quicksilver bullets were fed into the blade as her right hand manipulated the tube, and her voice spoke out with piercing clarity: "Evoke Archspark."

She was not sure precisely what would happen, of course, but it sounded as though it were some sort of offensive blast: so in the same motion that that withdrew the blade from the ground with her left hand and fed it with the right, she pointed the blade directly at Arrayah's center mass as she completed the incantation and waited for another display of its profound glory to instil in her new heights of awe. An attack finally piercing Arrayah's hellish resistance would be immensely satisfying, though Ophelia could feel the dim tightness of fear attempting to encroach upon her as the inhuman wailing shook her conviction down to its core. With the blade's gentleness now combined with authority her resolve stood strong against it, but she knew that what came next would not be pleasant to witness or to be on the receiving end of and prayed they could slay Arrayah before the truest depths of her malice could be inflicted upon them.

Though Ophelia prepared for something immense to happen when she offered the required quicksilver and uttered the requested incantation, the effect was actually rather subtle. The pale moonlight and white starlight upon the night's sky contained in her blade merely appeared to shimmer for a moment and then, with a faint electric crackle, all turn a subtle shade of blue.

"There," the voice told her. "It is no longer an arcane implement. Its blade and all of its powers will now inflict voltaic energy upon any target, which it senses Arrayah has no resistance against. You can hurt her now, Champion."

Suddenly very glad to have stocked up on Quicksilver Bullets, Ophelia let out a deep breath before feeding yet another bullet into the blade and eyeing up more shadows from which to strike Arrayah. While she seemed to be currently in the process of metamorphosing somehow and was still vulnerable Ophelia opted to strike nearly vertically from the floor right in front of Arrayah, so as to impale her elongated torso segment the whole way up. She made sure to do so after Farren's current strike had landed and before his next one would land, again withdrawing the blade as quickly as possible. She would hate for Farren to somehow get a shock from the blade's unrestrained power, but there was hardly even the time to call out to let him know, let alone time for him to react.

_Farren

bore witness to the writhing of Arrayah’s flesh in response to his strike, to her wailing, to the warping growth of her already grotesque visage. Stepping back a foot or two, Farren’s Beastflayer ended up in one hand as the other unholstered his remaining Blunderbuss, raised it and then fired it almost point blank into the writhing mass of Arrayah’s flesh, more curious at the effect rather than the efficacy of the attack.

As swiftly as he could, Farren holstered the weapon once more and twisted in place, winding up to lash out with the Beastflayer again, this time in its extended whip-flail form.

Farren was the first to follow up his first attack with a shot from a blunderbuss straight into the warping flesh of the rapidly mutating thing that resembled Arrayah less and less by the second. Fired from a couple of meters away, most of the quicksilver pellets hit the surrounding flesh due to the enormous innate spread of the blunderbuss' projectiles, but at the same time that also meant it was borderline inevitable that some of them did manage to hit the wound itself. The reaction to this was instant, as the afflicted area seemed to suddenly swell and leak some manner of disgusting, necrotic-smelling yellow fluid.

But while Farren was doing that, Ophelia took the time to follow her completed eldritch weapon's instructions and evoked the power of the Archspark, which switched the very nature of her blade from being arcane-based to being bolt-based. When she immediately followed up this change with a repeat of using the ranged attack of the Profane Abyssal Blade, plunging her sword into her shadow once more, they all found that the actual manifestation of the attack differed quite a bit from how it had appeared the first time. Whereas before the blade emerging from Arrayah's shadow had been black, it was now an intense shade of sapphire blue; still a thing of darkness, yet seemingly giving off a hint of color it did not have before.
The blade thrust up into the monster's body, but this time it neither shattered nor deflected when it met her hide. Instead the unnatural attack seemed to simply bypass Arrayah's skin and flesh entirely, phasing through her without inflicting any physical damage... except that from the point of contact, electric sparks and fingers of crackling lightning seemed to be shooting out and crawling across her exterior. When Ophelia immediately retracted her sword, a fine mist of steam remained behind as the projected blade disappeared.
Though the damage did not seem to particularly hinder Arrayah – as almost no damage had managed to do so far – it was clear that the voice had spoken the truth: her sword had hurt Arrayah much more than when it had been attuned to the arcane. Sadly even this increased damage seemed almost beneath her notice due to her immense and recently replenished vitality.

Yet even though both Farren and Ophelia managed to land a couple of attacks first, it seemed that the abomination's writhing and screeching finally reached a crescendo. Very abruptly the flesh just below Arrayah's left arm bulged, only for the skin to burst in a spray of blood as a fourth arm seemed to grow out of her explosively, as long, strong and clawed as the three others had now become. Her new hand immediately shot out and viciously slashed at the nearest target: the Moonborn Hunter, who had been bludgeoning her hip with a charged Tonitrus. The attack was shockingly fast, even faster than Arrayah had been before, and even the Moonborn did not have time to react before blood splattered from the wounds left by the talons of their enemy. The Hunter stumbled backward and fell to the floor; still alive, but sufficiently eviscerated by the attack to need a second or two to regenerate.
Then Arrayah reached down toward her waist with all four of her hands, and placed one set of left and right hands on what would be equivalent to her hips and one set on her hind body. With a deafening wail that all but completely drowned out the sickening noise of rending flesh, she liteally tore herself apart. She did not cut, but pulled her own flesh and bone apart with sheer brute strength, spilling obscene amounts of blood as she did so. Ultimately her hind body simply collapsed on the floor, its countless limbs still twitching in death-throes but rapidly growing still, while Arrayah's top part dropped to the floor about a meter from it, still very much alive.

Arrayah's hands reached toward the floor and raised herself up, using her arms as disturbingly insect-like legs. And then, in a flash – the speed of which they would immediately realize was that of a quickstep, though its range appeared much longer – she was within a meter of Ophelia, with one of her left hands lashing out to claw at her with blinding speed.

It was clear to Ophelia in the moment of Arrayah's movement that she had let herself get a little too awestruck, and had not noticed when her last foot left the ground and simply had not returned. It was something of a rude awakening, a very real and rapidly approaching outcome that involved her body being quite horribly dismembered by what remained of Arrayah, and as the monstrosity practically vanished across the floor even her new Hunter's insincts balked and she realised she was not quick enough. She initiated the quickstep too late to avoid getting struck by the blow, though quickly enough that she rapidly retreated in Farren's direction and began to hurriedly administer a blood vial--she did not get the feeling that she would survive a second attack, and Farren still had the darkbeast's blood flowing through him... if Arrayah followed up into the two of them Ophelia would quite possibly get hit again--but Farren would also get another chance to strike, which might in turn offer Ophelia another moment of opportunity to act in.

It was clear to her that there was no more time for edging around their goal: now it was simply a matter of exterminating the beast before she did as much to them. Several thoughts buzzed around her head, though her awareness was now too submersed in her body to process them before the next thing happened--she could only wait for everything to catch up before she could decide what to react to next.

_Farren

aborted his strike, eyes growing wide as two events happened in rapid succession. Ophelia’s electrified attack and withdrawal, followed immediately after by Arrayah’s tearing severance from her own lower pseudo-centipedal body.

Farren had to physically force himself to act in direct contrast to the intense disgust that writhed up his spine, and that moment’s hesitation allowed Arrayah her next maneuver: A quickstep.

‘Scourge!’

He acted in the next instant, quickstepping as far as needed, and as fast as he could, to reach Arrayah. Within the blur of that movement, Farren was already swinging in a diagonal slash with the blade of the Beastflayer so that the moment he exited the quickstep he was already midway through his swing upon Arrayah’s back. Farren knew he’d have no real chance to interrupt her attack, but redirecting her focus afterwards could be pivotal in its own right and if he managed that he’d likely quickstep back, constraining it to the shortest possible distance even as he repositioned his glaive to prepare for another attack.

Rushing in with two quicksteps in rapid succession – which was necessary to catch up to Arrayah after the much longer quickstep-like move she had made to get to Ophelia – Farren delivered a swing with his glaive aimed at the back of their quarry. His slash struck true, carving a bloody gash across her flesh... which, he would doubtlessly notice, did not regenerate instantly the way her wounds had so far. Instead he would find that just like the wound he had shot at earlier, this one healed much more slowly, with the flesh around the injury starting to rapidly writhe and swell.

Shrieking with bestial rage, Arrayah set herself down on the floor to free up all four of her hands, only for her to start lashing with her claws out at a frenzied pace. Most of her attacks seemed random and aimless, with each arm almost seeming as though they were attacking blindly in separate directions, but the very first blow of one of her left hands was clearly aimed specifically at Farren, slashing down on top of him with her vicious talons.

Bountiful as her supply was, Ophelia did not take even the brief instant necessary to evaluate whether she should use another quicksilver bullet--she simply retrieved the tube, loaded a globule into her weapon, and performed the same attack she had previously simply through as much of Arrayah's mass as possible. This time she would keep the blade there instead of withdrawing it immediately, however, waiting to see what the natural length of the effect was and if she had any control over it. With how Arrayah's wounds were knitting she figured there couldn't be too much longer to go (especially given how much of that damage was self-inflicted). She did not bother to quickstep out any further, with her and Farren almost having changed places and now being within a quickstep's distance of one another and Arrayah simulataneously. It seemed as though if they simply kept these powerful attacks up for long enough they would win, and Farren seemed to be taking leadership quite well: she would provide support until Farren worked up an opening that they could both exploit, or until something happened that appeared to threaten her.

_Farren

could not have predicted the precise nature of her retaliation, but he’d had the reasonable assumption that she would indeed strike back. Still in the throes of the Darkbeast blood, Farren didn’t even hesitate, he just quickstepped to the right, in a slight arc, restricting the length of his dash to its minimum, its angle taking him just slightly out of range of her thrashing.

Seeing Ophelia attack, despite the risks, Farren kept up his own assault, bringing the Glaive back around and twisting to activate its mechanism, he released it in another slash, this one in the opposite direction from the first. In his new orientation it was more directed at one of her sides, rather than from the front or behind.

Almost subconsciously, he noted the strange bubbling and writhing of her flesh where he’d first struck…and the fact that she didn’t seem to be properly recovering from the damage they dealt her.

Ophelia's scintillating blade emerged from the ground and once more sent fingers of lightning crawling across Arrayah's flesh, but while Ophelia kept her sword embedded in the ground this time rather than retracting it immediately, it seemed that the electric sparks lasted only for half a second or so, and the projected blade seemed to dissipate of its own accord after about a second.
Farren transformed his Beastflayer and lashed at the monster's side, drawing another long, albeit shallow, wound across her side. Just as with the others, the wound did not appear to regenerate as rapidly as before and instead started to distend with some manner of unholy activity just beneath her skin.

Arrayah screamed, and screamed, and screamed, all while flailing rabidly with her arms, so lost in madness she barely even seemed to notice that both of her opponents were able to hit her from outside her range. But while she did so, her frenzied mutations also seemed to progress. A fifth and sixth arm abruptly burst out from her sides, each adorned with talons matching the other four. Her wide-open maw suddenly trembled, and her lower jaw cracked and split down the middle, turning what had once been something resembling a mammalian mouth into an opening that reminded more of the mouth of an insect, with the two halves of her jaw now acting as tooth-adorned mandibles.
And out of her back, right where Farren had hit her moments ago, a pair of long translucent insect-like wings emerged. They were narrow like those of a dragonfly and started flapping immediately and rapidly.

But then, just as it looked as though Arrayah was about to use her new wings to take to the air, they might just barely be able to make out another sound past their adversary's shrieks: laughter. Manic, eager laughter. Approaching swiftly.
From somewhere behind Ophelia, Gerlinde abruptly came flying through the air, drawing an arc nearly five meters in the air. She was drenched in blood, her clothes were ruined and rendered almost entirely indecent, and she was holding a weird long, curved implement of some kind in either hand. Not blades; these things had no edge, with the only vaguely dangerous thing about them being the fact that they ended in a point.
She landed on top of Arrayah, and plunged both of her weapons into her quarry to impart the force of her own descent. One of the strange curved spears, if one could call it that, managed to pin one of Arrayah's new wings to her back, disabling this new mode of movement. The other just pierced deep into the monster's abdomen through the back.

Ophelia took note of the short duration of the attack and pulled her blade from its shadowy sheath and admired it once more, in stark contrast to the new heights of revulsion Arrayah's monstrous form inspired. Ophelia had truly seen a lot--but all of that had been just people, or animals, or on occasion those who might find themselves betwixt... not this, not whatever foul progeny of the Old Blood this was. Arrayah had been down here devouring and being devoured, mutating and multiplying, for longer than Yharnam as they knew it had existed. Perhaps for longer than humanity had existed? As the abomination's chitinous insectoid wings detached themselves from their fleshy cocoon and began to vibrate they were joined by another keening from behind, though it quickly became obvious that it was Gerlinde--down but not out, and having healed herself enough to rejoin them in spectacular style.

Ophelia took advantage by following up with yet another repeat of the same attack, albeit this time taking the extra time to find a horizontal shadow from which to slice through Arrayah but leave Farren and Gerlinde unscathed. She considered perhaps using one of the attacks she was more familiar with, wondering how they looked both from her weapon's new heights of power and its change to being voltaic in nature... but as she loaded yet another quicksilver bullet for a follow-up, she figured that she would wait for Arrayah to finish whatever this transformation was and potentially use another attack depending on what happened next.

_Farren

bared his teeth as his strike did practically nothing to Arrayah, even as he reminded himself that every successful strike was a blow against her vitality. As a natural follow up to his strike, Farren whipped the extended glaive back towards him and let it lock back into its base state. As the inertia tapered off, Farren slipped one hand from the shaft of his Beastflayer. His left hand darted down to his belt even as he began to just barely hear the sound of something else just beneath the incessant wailing of Arrayah. Recognizing the sound, Farren actually felt one corner of his lips twitch upwards, but he didn’t pause his movement, he grabbed his hunter’s pistol where it’d hung at his hip and he rapidly began to unload the quicksilver bullet therein.

As he did so, Gerlinde slammed into Arrayah, fortunately grounding her and buying them precious moments in the process.

The moment he was able to fully extract the quicksilver bullet, Farren effortlessly dropped the pistol back onto its hook and inserted the quicksilver into the Horn of the Old Lords. At the same time he brought the Beastflayer’s length across his body from where he held it in his right hand, so the glaive’s blade hovered near the Horn.

Almost immediately, flames licked at the tip of Farren’s glaive, then burst alive into a vivid dance of heat and light–all the more startling in the vast darkness of the chamber. Turning his azure eyes upon Arrayah once more, Farren whipped forth the glaive once more, never having fully locked it, thus allowing it to extend back into a mid-range strike to sheer across Arrayah, this time in a mostly vertical lashing strike. It was meant to strike in a manner so as to deliver the most damage he could manage in a single strike. All the while, the entirety of the extendable section of the weapon burned with the imbued fervor of the Old Lords.

All the while, Gerlinde’s manic cackling served as the symphony to which they conducted their bloody dance.

The rabid creature that had once been the proud Arrayah, the Black Blade of Yharnam, continued to fill the air with her screams as the Hunters around her kept up their relentless assault. Yet another projected blade emerged from the shadows beneath her form, conjured forth by Ophelia to send another bolt of lightning through the monster's body. Farren brandished the Horn of the Old Lords he had borrowed from Gerlinde and wreathed his Beastflayer in flame, only to lash it at her and inflict yet more cuts and burns to her form.
And all the while Arrayah's body kept rippling, bulging and twisting, quickly erasing all semblance to the being she had once been. More and more eyes kept opening all over her sundered body, dozens of them in all shapes and sizes, and another two sets of arms ending in clawed hands emerged from her body.

Gerlinde kept laughing as she held on for her dear life on top of her frenzied opponent, not moving nor letting go even as two of Arrayah's clawed hands slashed at her, cleaving her flesh and spilling her blood once more... wounds which, quite notably, did not appear to regenerate. After Ophelia's projected blade had vanished again, however, Gerlinde did relinquish her hold on the crooked spike she had driven through the abomination's newly formed wings, leaving it in her flesh while she rummaged for just a heartbeat for something at the small of her back, tangled in the bloody and tattered remains of her skirt. Finally she retrieved an item from there the likes of which Ophelia had likely never seen before, but with which there was a small chance Farren was familiar: a cylindrical metal canister adorned with three sharp spikes, one of which was twice as long as the others. A rare and devastating weapon filled with gunpowder, the kind of which the White Healing Church tended to reject: a grenade.
Pausing her laugh for just long enough to pull a piece of string attached to the device with her teeth, Gerlinde then pulled the spike-like weapon she was still holding on to out of Arrayah and scrambled up to her head. The grenade was giving off sparks at this point as though from a lit fuse, and continued to do so even as the Huntress slammed it down into the nape of the monster, hooking its spikes in flesh.
One of Arrayah's hands slammed into Gerlinde's back, driving its claws into and through the woman's chest and abdomen, but even so Gerlinde kept wearing a triumphant, open-mouthed smile. A second later the sparking at the monster's head ceased, and suddenly Arrayah's deafening screams were silenced by the booming explosion that filled the air, enveloping the top part of Arrayah – her head and Gerlinde's impaled form alike – in a cloud of flame and shrapnel.

Arrayah dropped to the ground, her arms splayed out around her and twitching awkwardly. It seemed that Gerlinde had disappeared, likely killed by her own explosion, and their prey had been severely wounded. She was stunned, but not dead; not yet. Her momentarily inert body kept writhing, continuously mutating even now, and her wounds still regenerated... though they did so much, much more slowly now. Based on what they had seen so far, it would not be hard to determine that she had expended her regenerative potential and was down to the last flickering embers of vitality.

About ten meters away the Shopkeeper stood back up, finally recovered from the grievous wounds they had been dealt. They started sprinting toward Arrayah, right hand already poised for the visceral attack to finish her off... though Farren and Ophelia were both closer and could easily finish the fight before then.

_Farren

watched as each strike whittled away at Arrayah, not visibly slowing her mutagenic regeneration, but at least causing constant change. Furthermore, every strike seemed to elicit greater wailing in that haunting, shrill, beastial tone Arrayah had taken on. Then, all at once, after a brief scrambling of the borderline unclothed Gerlinde up the twisted monstrosity’s form, Farren caught the glint of three spikes that drew his gaze. Eyes widening, the sight of the tool stirred a brief memory of something he’d seldom seen, but nonetheless knew of. Farren wasn’t quite sure if he’d ever borne witness to the use of one such explosive implement, but some part of him must at least have known its function–or the stories of the terrible wounds they could inflict–for he drew up one arm as the Beastflayer withdrew and shielded his eyes in the moment just before the detonation.

Even with the slight distance, shrapnel tore into him, each its own searing point of sharp heat. The only blessing that he had not been closer, well…that and the fact that his body quickly ‘spat out’ the shrapnel and mended. Still, Farren grimaced, shook himself and then peered past his upraised arm to see what had come of both ally and adversary.

The former, gone; the latter, remained. Yet, it had not been fruitless, for Arrayah appeared stunned and the sight of that stirred something furious, cold, and starving in Farren’s gut.

Like the cold azure of his gently gleaming eyes, a formless flame burned in his belly and without hesitation he locked his glaive back into its static state. With only a single thought in his head–if one could call such a thing a thought at all–Farren quickstepped across the intervening distance between him and Arrayah.

As the space shrunk to nearly nothing, Farren wheeled back his free left hand, and right as he came out of the blurred motion of his quickstep he tore his bulging, briefly clawed hand directly into Arrayah’s chest. The visceral wetness of essential fluids, the unpleasant, discomforting warmth within Arrayah’s chest cavity greeted his awareness. Farren grasped at whatever his warped and shifting limb could find therein and then–with a snarl–he wrenched back his hand from Arrayah’s fallen form.

A spray of blood and gore struck his face, his eyes gleamed more prominently in the dim, and Farren raised the Beastflayer, hiking it up with the momentum of that motion so that he held it just below the still flaming blade of the glaive. Then he drove it down directly towards–and hopefully into–the top of her skull.

“Cursed beast,” he hissed, more to himself than anything.

As Ophelia withdrew her now-completed blade and Gerlinde released something Ophelia had never seen before that exploded in dramatic fashion, she took a moment to brush off whatever debris had travelled enough to hit her (if any had) and quickly retrieved the Moonborn's bell, ringing it again in hopes it might dismiss their ally and prevent them from absorbing Arrayah's no-doubt powerful amount of blood echoes... but when it failed to do so, she simply shrugged and put it away before kneeling to beckon the little ones forth once more and retrieving the runebrand.

She posed a couple of questions to them while down there, too, asking them what they knew of both the Deception rune and the completed blade... and after she got her answers she reapplied the "Guidance" rune, and sighed with relaxation and relief at the whispers of her blade once again sounding whole and rich rather than restrained and distant and dull. Does the Deception rune allow you to commune with me just as easily as Guidance? And... given how similar they are, I cannot help but wonder: were they once part of a singular rune, or may they yet be in the future? she asked.

Through first his partially transformed hand and since through his grip on his Beastflayer, Farren would very strongly feel everything inside Arrayah moving and shifting as he delivered two brutal attacks in quick succession. Though her wounds no longer appeared to heal it seemed as though the rampant mutations assailing her only intensified, sending ripples of change through her form... but as her once-powerful regenerative ability depleted and failed to keep up with it, there was nothing to hold back harmful mutations as well. Within seconds Arrayah – desperately clinging to life even with a gaping hole through her chest and a burning glaive embedded in her head – was covered in repulsive cancerous growths. Her body convulsed, pushed far beyond any sort of functionality, and started randomly spurting blood as her skin tore open on its own.
She kept mutating, and the mutations kept becoming more and more destructive. After about ten seconds it had escalated to the point that her entire form quite literally unraveled, with flesh and muscle shredding apart from the sheer enormity of unbridled change. That, ultimately, was the final fate of the Black Blade of Yharnam: with her misshapen naked bones lying amid a pile of steaming gore. Only then did her failed evolution end, and her form finally became inert.

The Shopkeeper stopped their approach long before then, once they saw Farren deliver his visceral attack, and the last vestiges of a will to fight left their prey. They hesitated for a moment, cocked their head, and then faded away, their hunt at an end.

Ophelia, meanwhile, immediately went about seeking all the knowledge and understanding she possibly could while Farren put an end to what had unquestionably been by far the most harrowing fight of their short careers as Hunters. She called upon the Messengers and, using the runebrand as a medium as she had done before, showed the Deception Rune to them to see what wisdom they could offer from the Nightmare.

Deception
A Caryll Rune discovered by the Pthumerian Hunter Arrayah along with the Profane Abyssal Blade.
Erases the bearers presence indiscriminately until they interact with the creature. Also allows one to speak without producing sound, essentially communicating telepathically.
Arrayah wanted to be the true Champion of both her beloved blade and Pthumerian Yharnam more than anything else. The blade gave her power, told her what she needed to hear and showed her what she needed to see, all while hiding her crimes from the world.
For what is a more powerful deception than what is derived from truth?

Cosmic Sword of Truth
An impossible conceptual weapon that is the distilled essence of the Cosmos.
Holds the powers of the Holy Moonlight Sword and Profane Abyssal Blade alike, but also so much more. Only the gods could guess at its limits.
Long ago, two siblings wanted to kill a Great One and, in their quest, created a sword. But since there was but one sword and two of them, they split their god-killing weapon into two, and ventured into the Old Labyrinth to hunt their prey.

A moment later Ophelia applied the Guidance Rune to herself and addressed the voice in her head, only to find that it still felt somewhat faint, its connection to her still far from as strong as what she had once had with the Holy Moonlight Sword. “Once part of a singular rune? Champion, they are mirrors of the blades they belonged to. Just as the Holy Moonlight Sword and the Profane Abyssal Blade were each independent entities, yet also halves of this whole, the runes are the same. Guidance and Deception exist on their own... but together, they form the two sides of Truth. And Truth is what you need to fully wield the power of this sword.”

Ophelia pondered the reply for only a moment before she manipulated the runebrand once more and applied to herself the Deception rune, wondering what might happen if her mind was the catalyst that might enable these two mirrors and halves to become conjoined: and indeed, a new rune was formed within her as she applied Deception atop Guidance.

Ophelia has obtained the Truth Rune. On its own, manifests the combined properties of Guidance and Deception. But when used by the wielder of the Sword of Eldritch Truth, it protects from eldritch influence and allows it to draw on the arcane aptitude of its wielder to invoke great powers, unleashing its true potential.

Kneeling down she once again proferred the projection case of the runebrand to the little ones to seek their insight, and they dutifully presented her with another scroll.

Truth
A terrifying rune that has never before touched a human mind.
On its own, manifests the combined properties of Guidance and Deception. But when used by the wielder of the Sword of Eldritch Truth, it protects from eldritch influence and allows it to draw on the arcane aptitude of its wielder to invoke great powers, unleashing its true potential.
Truth is the primordial basis of all insight. To obtain truth is to stand on the precipice of doom or divinity, for nothing could ever be more maddening.

"Ah, there it is. You have finally obtained Truth, Champion, and you and this one are finally truly bound together. This one has many powers, but its power is dependent on your attunement with the arcane. The more attuned you become, the more powers you can invoke. Would you like to know what you can do with your current power, Champion?"

"Ahh, Truth... At last. Yes, my blessed blade, please enlighten me. I have so many questions, and there is so much more to know." Ophelia thought, mind aglow with something profound beyond the ability of words to describe. It was rather rapturous, even dizzying, to feel such awesome insight occurring in real time.

"Indeed. The powers of this weapon, as you might have guessed, are invoked with short incantations. You already know 'Gestalt truth' and 'Evoke Archspark', which creates the Cosmic Sword of Truth and attunes it to voltaic energies. 'Fractured truth' will split it back into the Holy Moonlight Sword and Profane Abyssal Blade until such a time as you recombine them. You can also change the shape of the Cosmic Sword of Truth by incanting 'Elucidate Holy Truth' to make it resemble the Holy Moonlight Sword, 'Elucidate Profane Truth' for the Profane Abyssal Blade, and 'Elucidate Cosmic Truth' to return it to its current form. Aside from Archspark, you can also 'Evoke Archflame', 'Evoke Archblade' and 'Evoke Archtruth' to shift the nature of its blade and powers to flame, physicalit"The sword can only grant its power to its wielder, Champion. But channeling blood echoes... that could work. Yes, channel blood echoes to grow your arcane power, and you shall access more of the dormant potential of the sword."y or its base nature of the arcane... though all the invocations that change its attunement will require two quicksilver bullets. Finally - at least for now, until your power grows - you can incant 'Come forth, Gnosis' while supplying it with three quicksilver bullets, and its blade will be wreathed in energy that will completely immobilize the next creature it touches for three seconds."

"Such majesty, such wonder... with power like this, what can stand before us? We are bound to Flora's Dream, and can channel the power of Blood Echoes to augment our capacity as Paleblood Hunters--is this what you mean by our power growing? Ah, and I wonder... though only I can be the Champion, can others wield any of your powers if I allow them to wield you?"

"The sword can only grant its power to its wielder, Champion. But channeling blood echoes... that could work. Yes, channel blood echoes to grow your arcane power, and you shall access more of the dormant potential of the sword."

"Then we shall seek out worthy prey and grow strong, stronger than anything... You were forged to kill a god, is that right? Which god? By whom?"

"Kill a god? This one has no memory of such a thing, nor any who wielded it for that purpose."

"How strange; the little ones who traverse the Nightmare told me such. Perhaps it is nothing more than a tale, or a memory deeper than you have access to? Does the depth of your knowledge increase as my affinity with the arcane does? Do you remember everything now? I once asked my half if there was a method of ascension to becoming a Great One that you know of--is there anything you've remembered about that?"

"It recalls every moment since it became aware; if there was such a god-hunt with the sword, it would have to have been before it gained awareness. As for its knowledge, about most things it is already as great as it will ever be. But becoming a Great One... it cannot be certain as it does not have a clear idea of what powers it may gain, but it has a feeling that sufficient arcane power may enable such ascension."

"Hm... The ritual at Yahar'gul, beckoning the Cosmos... is that what they are doing there?"

There was a moment's silence. "Return to the Waking World and ask again; it is difficult to get a good feeling of what is happening there from the Interstice."

"Yes, it is about time we returned. I wonder... can you sense the conduits, the unlit lanterns, that enable us to return? If so... is there one nearby?"

"The movements of the denizens of the Dream are sadly beyond its power to perceive. But if there was no conduit where you arrived, perhaps there will be one down one of the other tunnels?"

"Quite; let us search. Ah, and there is something else I must know: the false Paleblood that runs through Farren's veins... is there anything you can tell me about it? The Golden One is our sworn enemy, and together we shall slay him. Every scrap of knowledge about him, his works, his minions, and his master Cael is precious." Ophelia thought, though she turned her gaze to Farren shortly after. Silence followed from her blade as it sometimes did when posed too many questions at once without room to think.

"Perhaps there's a lantern down one of the other tunnels? Or we could kill one another, if you prefer, but... I think it best to search first, mm? Though do beware--if there are any enemies left down here, they will go for you. Like Arrayah once was, I am now veiled from their perception."

Having put the Beastflayer in its place on his back and taken a knee while she was busy, Farren was in the process of gathering several vials of Arrayah's blood from the still steaming pool that had once been her body. Somehow, the act did not disgust him in the least. Perhaps after everything he had seen and they had endured with Arrayah, such a small thing simply paled in comparison. Finishing at three vials, Farren glanced in Ophelia's direction briefly before looking back to the ground. The Messengers had emerged--he'd called amidst his work--and he thanked them briefly before accepting the bundled fabric they had brought him. Pushing fully to his feet, Farren replied, “Mmm, just as well. I say we explore, see about locating a lantern. Before that, though...” he trailed off and briefly his gaze shifted through the dark. Farren grimaced. “I'll need to retrieve my damaged weapons.... Further, should we send word for the others?” It was phrased vaguely, but Farren seemed faintly distracted...and the slightest bit annoyed. While he awaited her reply, Farren's free hand retrieved his utility knife and he very carefully--with a surprisingly light touch--carved an 'A' into the side of each of the three blood vials now filled with Arrayah's blood. Then, just as carefully, he carved three lines, each radiating out from the letter.

That way, he could identify them by touch alone.

"Ah, yes! Torquil's axe and Gerlinde's... saw... thing? I think I heard one of them thud into the wall... I think maybe we just explore ourselves for now. If we don't find a lantern it seems a bit of a shame to make them come down here only to have to kill them again. I feel terrible enough for how much poor Torquil has died already; I motioned for him to go in with us to provoke that terrible onslaught of arcane blades she summoned, and I really did think she'd go for me--the poor dear... he's suffered the brunt of our bad luck. We should make it up to him, somehow, though... I don't know how." Ophelia chatted back, though she did so wordlessly with the aid of the Truth rune, ever-eager to explore the fruits of their labour. As she did so she searched around for the mislaid weapons, now more fearless than she'd ever been.

With Arrayah reduced to a mess of naked bones and sloughing flesh, there was not much more to do in the Pthumeru Yharnam layer of the Old Labyrinth. Finding Gerlinde's saw spear was quite simple since it jutted out of the rock wall quite prominently, though dislodging it – especially without utterly destroying the blade – would take some work and time. To solve this issue, Farren first tried pulling it from the wall a couple of times, which accomplished little besides slightly wiggling it in place and probably bending the blade a little. With his first strategy seemingly having failed, the aspiring craftsman and mighty Hunter beckoned the Messengers and retrieved his Kirkhammer from them, and then proceeded to start smashing the wall a couple of meters next to where the saw spear was lodged.
Sadly the wall, even after a couple of good hits with the hefty hammer, did not appear to be particularly liable to crack or fall apart. Bits of dust and pulverized stone drizzled from the hammerhead and a new slight indentation in the wall, but otherwise it seemed that destroying the cave wall was not a viable solution either.
“Even if we get it out, it'll be terribly blunt. Let's pick up a replacement in the Dream instead, mm?” Ophelia suggested.
“Mmm…seems a shame, but….” he grunted once, frowned and knelt. After a murmured word and a moment, the Messengers rose. He sent a message for Gerlinde,

Shall I retrieve your Saw Spear? - Farren

After just a few seconds the Messengers returned to present Farren with a scroll:

That would be wonderful! But don't take too long, I think Torquil isn't doing too well. Gerlinde

Farren read the message, his eyes narrowed, but he remained in place for a moment before he began to position what few tools he could to begin extricating the weapon. “Torquil’s not well…go. I’ll get this. Should be…perhaps 15 minutes, hopefully less. If it’s dire, send a message and I’ll abandon this and come.” That said, he started to get things in place.
“I doubt that particular one holds any sentimental value, love. Let's just pick up another one in the Dream and be done with it, eh?” Ophelia replied, though she would acquiesce and leave if he seemed determined to continue.
Farren paused, glanced at her, then glanced back. His azure eyes lingered on the weapon for almost a full minute before he sighed and withdrew his implements and stowed things away. He grumbled something unintelligible under his breath, “Fine…” he clearly didn’t like to leave a perfectly good weapon behind, but he did his best to let it go. Ultimately, Torquil was more important.
Ophelia's expression softened somewhat at Farren's clear disappointment and she gave him a smile. “It's not like anything will happen to it in our absence, so we can always come back and get it later?”
“Mmh. Hard to say. Who knows. Could soak in the nightmare and…” he shrugged, having no idea what that might do to a physical object, though his gaze did shift to her weapon briefly. Something occurred to them then…all the bodies that had been in the tunnel they’d originally came from. Farren stopped and pivoted so one shoulder was turned in the tunnel’s direction.
“It just…occurred to me. Arrayah never came for us in that tunnel,” Farren pondered aloud, his eyes narrowing, “…and some of those corpses were new...”
Farren wet his dry lips, the dust and stagnant air having dried them out. “So, if not her…then what killed them…?”
He exhaled after a moment, fully turned and headed the other way. Afterall, who was to say the lantern was down one of the other corridors?
As he headed that way—his stride determined, but not brisk—Farren drew the True Blade(s) of Mercy (right hand) and one of his loaded Hunter’s Pistols (left hand).
Ophelia nodded and followed Farren. “They do have to come from somewhere, don't they? I suppose the labyrinth is perpetually filled with beasties if the tales and our experiences are any measure. Though... we should be quick. I want to get back to Torquil sooner rather than later.”

The two of them went back and checked, and sure enough they discovered something they had missed the first time around. Right in the middle of the ceiling, almost all the way back toward the deepest end of the tunnel, they discovered a small square hole – less than a meter in either wide and long – with what appeared to be a metal ladder attached to it. The ladder ended just as the hole opened into the space, however; while it seemed like a probably point of entry, it would have been too high for anyone to feasibly be able to climb back out again.

Torquil's axe, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen, no matter how they looked around the area where Torquil collided with the wall and died. If either of them had watched Torquil get thrown, impact and die and tried to recall it, they might remember him still holding on to the axe when he disappeared and it vanishing along with him. It took another several minutes for them to locate Farren's mangled piercing rifle, which would require extensive repairs if it was ever to function as anything but a crude bludgeon.

Searching for a way out of the chamber turned out to be somewhat time-consuming as well, though mostly due to the sheer enormity of Arrayah's cavern and the distances they had to cross. They already knew what was down the tunnel they had entered through, of course, but even ignoring that there were another three tunnels to search. Two of those three turned out to be rather quick to explore since they seemed to have collapsed and been blocked by rubble just a couple of dozen meters from the entrance, whereas the fourth and final tunnel turned out to be mostly intact.
They followed the tunnel for about a hundred uneventful meters before they discovered two things: an unlit lantern waiting for them to act as their means of return to the Dream, and a... sort of dead end. The tunnel seemed to end in a massive door of some kind, made entirely of metal and decorated with all manner of interesting iconography, most of which appeared to be humanoid creatures of some kind that appeared unusually tall, long-limbed and beautiful in the way they were portrayed, and garbed like high nobility. Among dozens of these figures that appeared to turn away and cast down their gaze in what appeared to be shame were two figures that stood out from the rest. One was a male clad in armor, who leaned on a quite distinctively shaped spear in his left hand; the other was female, clad in flowing robes, with her right hand on an equally distinctive greatsword with a broad blade that was depicted as giving off some kind of energy.
There could be little doubt that the adornment on the door showed two past wielders of the Profane Abyssal Blade and Holy Moonlight Sword, respectively. But even though it was obviously a door capable of opening, there was no obvious mechanism to do so, and it refused to budge even when forced. Thus even though there appeared to be more further into this layer of the Old Labyrinth, it was effectively a dead end.

Ophelia pondered the strange mural for a moment as she hemmed and hawed, before beckoning Farren to join her.
“It's a bit of a long shot, dear, but... Fractured Truth.” she spoke as she raised the Cosmic Sword of Truth aloft, and allowed each hand to take one of the two blades that resulted from the separation. She turned to Farren and offered him the Profane Abyssal Sword, nodding her head towards the engraving with a curious smile. “Perhaps?” she muttered as she cradled the Holy Moonlight Sword softly, awakening its radiance if it was not already and offering similar instruction to Farren if the same was true of its counterpart.
But even with the two halves of the Cosmic Sword of Truth divided, the door seemed to remain as immovable as ever. “The door seemed to respond before... when it was whole...” Ophelia would hear the soft whispers of the Holy Moonlight Sword tell her. “But now... there is still something... but much fainter. This door... must be very old. Perhaps if you... were more powerful... and it was whole...”
“Ah, of course... we humans must pale in comparison to the depths of the arcane that those who came before achieved. We shall return when I have grown to their might.” Ophelia responded, before motioning to take the sword back if Farren had taken it already. “Gestalt Truth,” she incanted quickly to conjoin the blades once more, “Ah, not yet. We... hah, we've taken rather a direct path to this point, haven't we? We must hunt, dear, that's all... grow stronger. Then we may return and see what lies beyond, mm? For now... let us return, yes?”
For his part, Farren simply grunted, having offered back the Profane weapon, shivering slightly as it left his touch. He decided he’d leave it to her unless it was ever truly necessary for him to wield. Though…the united form was appealing to him, it had a draw that felt…otherworldly. It didn’t suit him. “It’s just as well,” he said, somewhat gruffly. He wasn’t carrying all the damaged or broken implements he’d gathered, but instead had stowed them with the Messengers.

With their hopes of conquering this intriguing door dashed for the time being, the two of them lit the lantern to summon the Gatekeepers, and promptly – after a very long and grueling fight – returned to the safety of the Dream.


Finding themselves cleaned and refreshed by the transfer across worlds, Ophelia and Farren awakened in the Hunter's Dream to find it just as they had left it. No fresh horrors seemed to spawn out of the Nightmare despite the arrival of someone with false Paleblood in their veins; instead, Farren would find a piece of fire paper somewhere on his person that he did not recall getting.

Looking around, they would soon find that the doll, the Shopkeeper and Gerlinde – her body and garb alike restored to pristine condition – were all gathered near the main entrance to the workshop, with Torquil nowhere to be seen.
“Ah,” Ophelia would hear the voice of the Cosmic Sword of Truth in her head, “that is a strange feeling, the power of that false Paleblood in Farren. It sent ripples across the Dream when he arrived, but... it does not feel as though it is intended to disrupt the Dream. It is not Paleblood, but something that merely mimics its properties. How unusual. It is as though another Great One has tried to replicate it.”

---

Upon spotting the Moonborn Hunter, the Doll, and Gerlinde Ophelia gave a friendly wave with her free right hand and looked around curiously.

"Oh? Where's Torquil?"

All three of them simultaneously pointed through the door and into the workshop.

Heading inside, Ophelia looked for their erstwhile companion and called out softly: "Torquil? Are you there, love?"

Heading inside, Ophelia would not have to look around for long before she spotted... who she had to assume was Torquil. The clothes were the same, and he still carried his axe and Loch Shield, but the mask and hat he had been wearing to conceal his altered head were gone, and the head that had been revealed was a different one than last she had seen it. His skin seemed weirdly oily and bluish, almost as though his head was secreting some manner of slime from, and his mouth was nowhere to be seen, either replaced or hidden by a writhing mass of small tentacles. Where there had previously been three big black eyes were now five even bigger ones, with a second pair pushed out and placed where his temples would normally be. Each of the eyes also appeared segmented into ommatidia like the eyes of an insect might be. The top of his head appeared quite smooth and bald, but now seemed to have some manner of strange bulging growth at the back of the skull that, similar to the tentacles on his face, seemed to be slowly undulating on its own accord.

“Yes,” Ophelia would hear Torquil's distorted voice in her head. “At least I think it is me. I can't speak anymore, but I can feel your thoughts, and I feel like you can hear mine.”

"Yes, dear, quite right--my, my, another transformation? Hm... You know, I was planning to go visit that basin that Gerlinde told us about for myself anyway. If you'd like to come along I'd be thrilled to have you? Though I don't mind you the way you are, either, of course--I know you're still Torquil no matter how you look, love. You seem like you could do with a hug, if you'd like?" Ophelia responded wordlessly, once again using the power of the Truth rune's power. She felt it might be easier for him for her to respond in kind--and thanks to his noble sacrifice they had the power to do so.

Farren frowned, having followed after Ophelia, to at least see what was wrong—not to mention that he needed to go to retrieve some…supplies and replacements—and then he felt the voice, an unwelcome intrusion in his mind.

He froze in place for a moment, a brief, sharp, violent shock of panic writhing through his skull and down his spine. First like ice in his veins, and then rage, before he closed his eyes, breathed carefully, and let it simmer down to slight annoyance.

Farren slipped past Ophelia, glancing Torquil’s way a moment, taking the changes in without much reaction, before he shook his head and went to the weapons chest.

“Discomforting…” Farren muttered as he knelt before the chest, opening it up to sort through things. He grabbed three piercing rifles and six new instances of Bulwark. After a moment of thought, he did grab another Beastflayer as well. All of these he set on the ground, parallel to eachother.

Farren stood and walked just barely out the doorway so he could see the Moonborn, “Did the Bulwark I gave you return to the chest as well?” He asked, his gaze on their host despite knowing that the Moonborn’s companion would almost surely be the one to reply.

"I don't think a hug is a good idea," Torquil's voice droned despondently in their heads. "I can't control these... tentacles... very well. I can't find anything to wear on my head that fits either, so I can't hide how I look anymore. I... wouldn't be against finding a way for me to not be... this."

Over by the doorway, the Shopkeeper first cocked their head at Farren's question, then nodded affirmatively. The doll unexpectedly did not say anything, seemingly preoccupied with staring at Ophelia and Torquil inside the workshop.

"Oh, love, I don't mind any of that... The offer's always there if you want it. And... I wanted to apologise for my error of judgement earlier, with Arrayah. I really thought she'd go for me, only she went for you instead and I was powerless to do anything about it... I feel terrible about you paying for my mistake. I'm very sorry, and if there's anything I can do to make it up to you please let me know. Without you I wouldn't have managed to get this." she replied, nodding towards the Cosmic Sword of Truth. "It's everything I imagined and so much more..." she added, smiling dreamily as she gazed at the blade for a moment and then back to Torquil.

“Mmm,” he hummed, his expression still faintly annoyed, though truthfully it had nothing to do with the Shopkeeper. He shook his head and turned about to return to his array of weapons. He extracted a seventh instance of Bulwark and then unloaded one hunter’s pistol and set the pistol next to the other weapons. Similarly, he grabbed one of the blunderbusses and set it in line with the other weapons. Farren slipped the quicksilver back into the Tube that the Shopkeeper had given each of them. That done, Farren called upon the Messengers and had them take the entire haul…except the seventh Bulwark, which he was still holding in his left hand. Farren again rearranged his gear to hold his assorted equipment properly. He actually ended up with spare gun hooks since he hadn’t given the extras to the Messengers. He left them just in case. It was like having extra pockets…for firearms.

Torquil shrugged at her apology. "I'm getting used to it," he told her. Then he cocked his head, though it was difficult to know what he was looking at with his inhuman features. "Everything looks so strange with these eyes. I see everything... and I see it a hundred times, over and over again. So this sword is what we were there for? It looks fancy."

Looking in from the outside along with the doll and the Shopkeeper, Gerlinde watched with a huge grin.

"That's right--I'll have to show you its powers as we continue our hunt. I bet that's terribly disorienting, isn't it? Come, come, let's go to the Halls of the Old Lords and get you a body that suits who you are, hmm?" she replied to Torquil, reaching out to give his arm a gentle squeeze. "I should thank you as well, both you and Gerlinde," Ophelia added, turning to Farren and returning to actually using words, "Your forethought in getting the snakescale hourglass and the darkbeast blood was magnificent, and how you comported yourself in the battle... my, you were absolutely magnificent. At the end there, Gerlinde, whew... you really came through for us and spared us having to deal with... whatever Arrayah was about to morph into and take to the skies. I owe you all a tremendous debt of gratitude; if there's aught I can do to repay you, please, let me know... ah, and I have some new runes to teach everybody who wants them." Ophelia gushed, taking a moment to address the others before her gaze settled on the Doll looking at her.

"Has the completed blade caught your eye, mm?" Ophelia asked her, curious as to what it was the Doll had noticed and assuming it was the magnificent eldritch weapon she was now carrying.

Gerlinde's eyes widened just a little when Ophelia offered her thanks, though her smile remained unchanged as she nodded her head in acknowledgment.

The doll seemed almost taken aback by being addressed, with her reaction to it being delayed more than a full second after Ophelia had finished speaking. "Ah, my apologies, good Hunter," she said quickly, bowing her head submissively. "It is only... I feel a strange kinship with that sword. I cannot explain it, but somehow it feels as though it and I are similar. I wonder if this is how humans feel about family?"

"Oh, indeed? Hmm... It is my suspicion that what gave my blade awareness is the remnants of a god that it once slew; perhaps what gave you awareness is a part of Flora?" Ophelia remarked, trying to put together the pieces of what she'd learned into something even vaguely cohesive.

"Do you feel this kinship too, I wonder?" she asked of the Cosmic blade, all while smiling gently at the Doll.

"There is a sort of resonance with this doll, yes," the voice in Ophelia's head confirmed. "What an interesting creature. The Holy Moonlight Sword never noticed, but now she seems fascinating."

"The blade gained awareness when it slew a god?" the doll asked, seemingly perplexed by the prospect. She turned to the Shopkeeper and cocked her head. "Are any of your other weapons aware, good Hunter? Any of the ones you have slain Great Ones with?" She waited for a moment in apparent silence before turning back to Ophelia. "They deny anything like that happening, good Hunter. How odd."

Farren emerged from the central structure to join the others, having overheard things from within while he'd gathered spare tools and reorganized his gear. “There must be more than one determining factor then...or you're wrong,” he offered bluntly, his azure eyes shifting over those assembled. He glanced to Gerlinde, his next words a total non sequitur, “Where did you get that grenade?”

"Hm. They also could not hear the gentle whispers of the Holy Moonlight Sword... but my blade does also feel a resonance with you. When it was incomplete it never noticed but now... it finds you fascinating, it says. The little ones showed me a scroll," Ophelia began, relaying exactly what it had said, "and yet my blade has no recollection of such a thing happening since it became aware. So I posit that it only became aware after its purpose was complete and the god slain... but perhaps I am fitting the pieces together wrong, or missing pieces, or both! Though... why don't you go ahead and touch it, love?" she continued, taking the cosmic blade in both hands with palms upturned and presenting it towards the Doll for her to touch if she so desired... though as soon as she touched the blade itself a painful jolt of voltaic energy surged through her and caused her to reflexively remove her hand.

"Ah, better touch the handle, love."

"I bought it from the Black Church Workshop a few days ago," Gerlinde answered Farren's question with a shrug and a smile. "I only bought the one, though; they're pretty expensive."

The doll, meanwhile, stared at the offered hilt of the Cosmic Sword of Truth with wide-eyed reverence. "Truly? I have never laid hands on a weapon before, good Hunter, let alone one as remarkable as this one. But if that is what you desire..."

Reaching out her porcelain fingers, the doll hesitantly gave the handle a feather-light touch... and as soon as she made contact, the glow of the blade seemed to intensify immensely. The doll immediately pulled back her hand, and the luminance of the blade swiftly faded to its usual levels.

"What immense arcane power!" the voice announced elatedly in Ophelia's mind. "It was for but an instant, but a great many of the dormant powers of the sword were awakened when the doll touched it! What a mighty Champion this doll could have been..."

Farren only nodded in reply, filing away the information for later even as he turned his gaze upon Amaris and Ophelia. He tilted his head slightly, “Amaris, why withdraw? What did you feel?”

"Ah, I see, you possess tremendous arcane power! In another life, why, you could have made a terribly mighty Champion indeed... There is a kinship between you, that much is certain. Perhaps we shall discover more in due time? For now, though, let us not tarry any longer - Gerlinde, love, could you guide us to the basin you found in the Halls of the Old Lords that you mentioned?" Ophelia spoke, the smile on her face growing ever-wider at the revelations.

The doll turned to Farren and bowed her head apologetically. "I am sorry, good Hunter, but I did not feel anything... but the way it glowed seemed dangerous. It frightened me. As I said before, I am not used to handling weapons."

Meanwhile Gerlinde turned to Ophelia and nodded her head enthusiastically. "Oh, how exciting! Just give me a moment to get my gear in order and we can head out immediately!"

Farren nodded, her explanation was reasonable enough. Faintly, he remembered when he'd been handed his first weapon. It had been more...nervousness and excitement, rather than fear, so too had there been an awareness that his mistakes might result in grievous injury. Be it to himself or to others did not matter. “Hmm, I understand. Such things...are not for everyone, I suppose.”

He paused a moment, then asked a query of their hosts, “Beyond a foe forcing the Moonborn back here, to the Dream...is there any other way they might be returned?” It seemed prudent to know, given the times they had relied upon the Moonborn...and the simple fact that it had been essentially a necessity to call upon him each time they had encountered a truly harrowing foe.

The Shopkeeper turned to Farren and cocked their head. The doll replied on their behalf: "Why, of course, good Hunter. You have already witnessed the Shopkeeper return to the Dream after a successful hunt multiple times, have you not? Even if they are not defeated, they will return once their prey has been slaughtered."

Farren grunted once, what she said was true, but it did not get at the core of what he'd meant, “And what if the Hunt remains unfinished. Does no other way exist?”

The doll blinked confusedly. "I am sorry, good Hunter... you could ask nicely, but it is doubtful whether the Shopkeeper would listen while in the throes of the hunt. There exists such a thing as a silencing blank that can dismiss other creatures called through the resonance of bells, but the Shopkeeper is not affected by such influences."

"Seems we simply have to be careful when we summon them, mm? I hope you found Arrayah to be a worthy hunt, at least, dear--though I imagine that we share a frustration in how terribly resistant to the arcane she was..." Ophelia spoke and finished the statement with a chuckle as she awaited everyone else getting ready - and then thought back to something her blade had mentioned when they'd entered the Dream and offered it her thoughts.

"Regarding the false Paleblood... yes, that's right--it belongs to the Golden One. Lord of Providence and herald of Cael, the lord of Ascension. I dare not speak his name in this hallowed place, even in my mind, but when we return to the Waking World I will share it with you if it helps. It's caused a number of effects: sometimes physical transmogrifications, like Torquil's strange new head; sometimes items appear on their person; I think Farren mentioned that he sometimes feels stronger or weaker, as though... it's like when we channel blood echoes through the Doll, I think? We left a case of this false Paleblood at Cainhurst Castle, under the protection of Queen Annalise--we can go there to examine it if you might find it helpful? The Golden One seeks to usurp this Dream from Flora--that is why he is our sworn enemy... among other reasons."

“Silencing Blanks...hmmm. Understood,” he frowned, but did not push any further. If there was a way, perhaps it simply was not yet known. Either way...well, Ophelia was ultimately correct. With his line of questioning complete, Farren turned to Gerlinde, clearly ready for her to lead them to their next destination.

And so the four Hunters assembled in front of the Nightmare Headstone to venture through the marker reading “Halls of the Old Lords”, and soon found themselves awakening in a place that seemed somewhat reminiscent of the tunnel where they had awakened before going to face Arrayah. But though architecturally similar in isolation, they soon found that the area they were now invading was quite different than that, opening up into a smaller room populated by creatures that were undeniably horrifying, but nothing next to the abomination they had just slain. They were faced with several undead Pthumerians shambling about, accompanied by a handful of obscenely huge spiders. But thoroughly blooded as they now were the Hunters slaughtered all of them almost effortlessly and without so much as receiving a single injury.
At one point during the fight, however, one of the undead Pthumerians was staggered when Torquil – aided by the Deception Rune – sneaked up behind it and delivered a mighty blow with his axe. He felt his instincts responding to its helplessness and moved in to finish it off, but did not perform the usual visceral attack he had intended and expected. Instead he found himself rooted in place next to his victim while he felt something in his head shift, and the rest of the party would bear witness to the amorphous mass at the back of his head abruptly bursting out into a thick, long slimy tentacle. This new limb struck swiftly, burying its tip in the top of the Phtumerian's skull, only for it to contract and ripple as though sucking something out of the creature's brain. Its job done the tentacle promptly retreated back into Torquil's head, leaving him disoriented and unnerved.

Setting that event aside, the Hunters managed to scrounge up four blood vials before moving on. There were two different doors to go through, but since they had Gerlinde with them to show the way they took the shortest route toward their destination. Here they faced another crowd of undead Pthumerians, only now with a couple of them armed with guns and shooting at the Hunters from afar until dealt with. Things looked to be rather dangerous for Gerlinde at one point, but thanks to the aid of Ophelia and Farren they managed to get through with only some minor scrapes.
The party managed to find another three blood vials before moving on to the next room, where they fought more giant spiders as well as two very big and powerful Pthumerians. Despite facing more powerful opponents the Hunters once again managed to get through unscathed; Torquil even managed to trip and fall at one point, ending up prone and defenseless, but was saved by the fact that enemies kept missing him due to the Deception Rune. Despite the hardships they went through there, all they managed to find there was a single quicksilver bullet.
Finally they found themselves in an elongated hall and facing a single opponent who immediately stood out as significantly more dangerous than anything they had fought there so far: an armored eight-eyed warrior in strange garb, wielding a flaming sword and fearsome fiery magic. This ended up by far the toughest fight during the trek, but was still nothing compared to the likes of Arrayah or even Paarl. Even though they worked well together, the others had to save Torquil several times, as this wicked swordsman seemed impervious to the effects of his Deception Rune. Torquil ended up grievously wounded before they managed to slay their opponent, but managed to inject himself with a blood vial to save himself before he lost consciousness.
They managed to retrieve another blood gem from the remains of the floor guardian, only to proceed to the other end of the room where they found an elevator.
In total, Farren benefited immensely from applying the Heir Rune to himself and gained 1400 blood echoes during the journey, whereas Ophelia, Torquil and Gerlinde acquired 700 each. It took them a total of twenty minutes.

“My first time through here I just ran past all the guards,” Gerlinde told the others as they rode the elevator down. “It goes deeper, but we don't need to go there to reach the basin. It's also more dangerous the deeper we go... This is my first time back here, and I haven't been any further in than this. Or... well, I went to the next room and got killed, and decided it wasn't worth running all the way back here.”


As the elevator arrived at the bottom of the shaft, the Hunters would disembark and arrive in a room that was mercifully vacant of all the horrors that usually lived in these dark, forgotten spaces. It was a fairly big, square room – twenty by twenty meters and looked to be nearly ten meters tall – with just two doorways opposite each other, one open that they entered through, one closed. Spread out in the four corners of the room were four two-by-two meter square basins, though none of them appeared to contain any water. Two of them appeared simply empty, one to be partially filled with rubble that had fallen from the ceiling, and one appeared half-full of glowing molten lava.
The most notable thing in the room, however, was a circular basin in the precise center of the space. Bathed in bluish sconcelight reflected by huge mirrors mounted under the ceiling in the corners of the room, this basin – with a diameter of about three meters – was full of water. But despite the fact that the surface of the water appeared perfectly still, as though it itself was a mirror, the light seemed to constantly be shifting, swirling and flickering within its depths.

“There it is,” Gerlinde announced happily, pointing to the central basin. “That's the one! Just stand over it and look at your own reflection. If you imagine anything different, the reflection will change to match it. And when you're happy with what you've imagined, just jump in the water and that'll be the new you!”

Ophelia found herself paying much attention to the architecture as they arrived in the last chamber, having had a remarkably easy time going through the labyrinth owing to the powers of the Deception rune and her blade--though it had been a hair precarious for the others at times, they had all made it here with only a single blood vial needing to be used and had earned a healthy surfeit of blood echoes for their trouble. Farren had the brilliant idea to use the Heir rune, which she supposed made a remarkable amount of sense, though she personally would be content to do double the work for the same echoes given how tremendously powerful the effect of her particular rune and weapon were. She stopped over at the basin that Gerlinde pointed out and admired it for a moment before beckoning Torquil over, communing with her blade as she did so.

"What a curious place... is there anything you can tell me about this basin? I wonder if it will work on me, immune to eldritch influences as I am?"

"This is very deep in the Nightmare... though it looks like the Interstice, it has long since left the Waking World behind and transitioned entirely. The basin is but one of the quirks of the Nightmare, the fleeting thought of some slumbering Great One. If you want it to work on you, Champion, an exception shall be made. Its power will be allowed through your protection."

"Seems simple enough! It occurred to me that I might get more out of Nayra if I feign having the same cosmic eyes as her, and... I think we might be able to steal the ritual they're performing away from them and use it for our own purposes. If we're clever, and obtain the right truths and the right tools..." Ophelia spoke as she stood over the basin and imagined the changes she wanted: the same starry and cosmic eyes that Nayra had for her sclera, with her iris remaining and taking on the colour of the moon within her blade, and for her hair to be thicker and healthier--and in a more elaborate pattern of braids, also changed to the colour of the moon. Everything else about herself she felt quite content with and had no desire to change.

"Should I jump in with you, or leave you behind for a moment?" she asked her blade.

"It feels as though the basin only allows one entity at a time to use it. Taking the Cosmic Sword of Truth with you could have... unpredictable results. It is probably best that you do not." it replied, and she quickly offered the blade to Farren to hold for a moment. She got the sense he would be appreciative of getting to examine its craftsmanship, at least.

With that done, Ophelia finalised how she wanted herself to look, checked it again, and then again, and finally jumped into the basin.