A Plea Heard and Answered.
Chapter 05: [Paths always lead somewhere]

After his encounter with the fair Melina, Orion found himself walking towards the Stormhill Shack, musing a few ideas. One of those ideas was how he was going to find a better method to explore the Lands Between; walking around was fine and he did have plenty of stamina, but it took time. The Hunter had little-to-none experience with horse-riding, but if he could slay Dark Beast Paarl, he could ride a far tamer creature such as a horse.

He didn't meet any other soldier patrols (much to their luck), his journey towards the decayed wooden shack unimpeded. The Hunter was a bit disappointed with his lack of enemies, but nothing that would dour his mood for too long. The mere sight of the sky changing colors in a natural manner was enough to clear the hunter's mood, as a clear sky was rarely something that he had the opportunity to see while out in the night of the hunt.

The Ascended Hunter marched with quiet steps until he reached the shack, his protégé outside practicing a few swings with her sword. She was adept with the longsword, her proficiency not too bad, if a bit stiff. Orion figured that it must be due to some teaching style; it wasn't as if hunters had no instruction after all, but there was little in the ways of formal teaching unless one were to search for themselves. Different hunters had wildly different styles to hunt their prey, and one could say that almost nothing did associate the hunters to each other.

In a sense, they were almost like the tarnished warriors.

The Hunter announced his presence with a cough, getting his tarnished companion to stop her motions and direct her attention towards him.

"How was your walk?" Audrey asked, sheathing her sword and finding a seat on the steps of the wooden shack.

Orion shrugged his shoulders, his clothes lacking any signs of battle – which normally for him would be large crimson stains. "I could have done with a bit more excitement, but it was okay." He replied, getting closer to the tarnished woman.

The Hunter was quick to make a campfire, leaning on the stairs to straighten his back as he pulled out a few parchments from inside his coat.

Audrey observed it from the corner of her eye, trying to pretend to be uninterested in what he had.

"You can go back to your practice swings." He loudly stated, eyes focused on the parchment.

Audrey acknowledged it with a humming noise, but still remained unmoved from her spot. Not that it bothered the Hunter, he was not her father after all. A few minutes went by in relative silence, but eventually the woman broke in.

"You weapons are strange." The tarnished woman stated, descending the steps and approaching the campfire.

Orion let his brows furrow for a moment and put his parchment down, wondering about the statement. "Care to elaborate?"

The woman sat on the trodden grass near the fire and unsheathed her sword, placing the blade over her lap. "I have seen a few exotic weapons before, but nothing so far comes close to that blade you used to carve up those soldiers. The Lands Between do bring about different people from different places, but so far nothing truly as…" Audrey tried to formulate the last word, but found herself short of a proper descriptive term.

Orion chuckled and grabbed the handle of the Saw Cleaver. The bandages that wrapped around its teeth were stained in a myriad of red tones, the weapon a menacing sight to behold. "Savage? Cruel? Vindictive?"

The ex-knight nodded, one hand messing around with the trinket that hung around her neck. "Yes, that. From the bastards of the Badlands to the bandits that roam Limgrave, I have yet to see such weapons."

Orion hummed in a tone of mild amusement. He flicked the switch of his weapon, making the cleaver unlock and reach its long form, the quick swap making the tarnished woman flinch at the speed of the transformation.

"These – my dear – are trick weapons. They were created to aid in the Hunt, and they all serve a purpose." The Hunter began his spiel, sinking the blade into the ground beside him. "Normally people would use whatever they could get their hands into, but proper equipment cannot be bested when it comes to its purpose. Which was to hunt."

Audrey was about to interrupt and ask a few questions, but Orion put a hand up, cutting her off before she could do so.

"Yharnam, the land where I come from, has a rather strong religious belief and isn't too fond of accepting outsiders. Thus, that influenced the culture. Everything has a purpose in Yharnam, and our garbs and weapons tell our story. One that is bathed in blood." Orion finished ominously, head tilting upwards to gaze at the night sky. Audrey felt her body shiver as he whispered something, the noise grating and incomprehensible in her ears.

"That is interesting and all," she said, stripping one of her gauntlets off and bringing said bare hand to nurse her right-side ear. "But my question was why are your weapons so focused on laceration? You really seem keen on bathing on your enemies' blood."

"He he, sorry about that, got a bit side-tracked there on my own." Orion blinked, not holding back an amused chuckle. "Well, if you must know about it, blood is a bit of a big deal for us in Yharnam."

Audrey nodded along. "There are some cults around that also worship blood, but I don't understand the reasons behind it."

Orion leaned back, taking a deep breath. "Blood is a rather important thing for all living beings, wouldn't you agree? It flows through our veins and is the proof that we are alive. If one is to pray in fervor to something, blood is not the strangest option out there." The Hunter sagely stated.

"Really?" Questioned the tarnished woman.

The Hunter cocked a brow up and then pointed to the golden tree far off in the distance.

Audrey raised a hand and almost interjected, but then lowered the limb. "Good point."

Orion chuckled once more. "Alright, that's enough philosophical rambling for one night. You go on and take a rest; I'll take over the first shift."

The woman nodded, opting to take the brief respite. Her teacher was a rather demanding taskmaster and any opportunity to rest should be taken rather immediately.

The next morning the duo woke up early. Well, it was fairer to say that Orion woke up first and then got the female knight to wake up. Surprisingly, the Hunter opted to avoid any morning pranks and merely shook the woman by her shoulders until she was released from her slumber.

"For a knight you sure are a heavy sleeper, you know."

Though it seemed that he could never miss the chance to take a dig at her.

Audrey washed her face with some of the water, still a bit groggy after having to rough it up on the grass outside. They could have asked to sleep alongside the blonde maiden inside the shack, but the hunter opted to avoid her for the moment. She would need more time to ponder on her own about her life, and that meant a bit of solitude with her thoughts.

Besides, there was a special type of novelty about sleeping under the stars. For someone such as him, the long night of the hunt had left him appreciative of small things; being a great one also had mostly dulled his human emotions, so for the time being in human flesh he would appreciate his human feelings for now.

There was also the issue of their travels. Orion wasn't fully knowledgeable about the Lands Between, but he was sure that not every place he and Audrey would visit might have an inn (or a proper place to sleep after all) and that many nights they would be sleeping under the weather. It was better for the vagabond ex-knight to get used to roughing it up.

After she managed to banish the last remaining dregs of sleep from her countenance, the red-haired tarnished packed whatever gear she had around. She pulled a map from her rucksack and began staring at it.

Orion moved closer, standing at her side to better look at the piece of parchment. The course yellow paper was a bit faded, but still in good shape that they could get their bearings. Limgrave was large-sized, but there was a smaller section of land south of their location that piqued the Hunter's interest.

"What is this place?" Orion asked while pointing to the smaller landmass, the drawings of a few fortifications being the thing that most called his attention.

Audrey followed along with his finger. "Oh, that's the Weeping Peninsula." She spoke as if that would have solved all of the Hunter's questions. Once she realized her mistake, the tarnished warrior began explaining in more dept about the land.

"As the name would imply, the Weeping Peninsula is a place that is named after the incessant rain fall, as if the heavens themselves are crying in lament over the land. That fortification you can see there at the very end is the fabled Castle Mourn. It has a bit of a…messy history." Audrey explained, her voice carrying a somewhat regretful tone, the one a person has when speaking of a tragedy they longed to forget.

"You are quite knowledgeable about the Lands Between." Orion commented, seeing that the trek over wouldn't take awfully long. It might allow him to properly prepare the tarnished woman for the incoming challenges they would be bound to face when entering the Stormhill Castle. If the scents that had reached his nose yesterday were anything to go by, the Hunter would need his companion to toughen up fast.

"Being a knight is much more than just swinging a sword around." She let the commentary slip out, the sarcasm being brushed off by the experienced hunter.

"It was official annexed after the War of the Shattering and technically is considered to be under Godrick's domain, though he certainly hasn't been able to manage much of it." The coined term did bring some curiosity to the Ascended Hunter, but he held his curiosity at bay for the moment. Maybe once Audrey could be left to her devices he could spend a few days holed up inside the All-Knowing's library to study a bit on the history of the lands.

Though he would take any acquired knowledge with a grain of salt. He had seen in Byrgenworth and the Nightmare of Memphis the effects of blindly trusting the written "knowledge" of maddened individuals. He still hated Nico-shit with a passion and any memories that held even a tiny remembrance of the man were suppressed; running through those fog-filled corridors trying to hunt down that fleeting bastard had been too troublesome.

…A hunter is a hunter, even in a dream…

Thankfully he had saved up on poison knives. Blood-only knows how long the chase would have been had he decided to follow along with the antics of the maddened scholar. Still, burying the memory in the deep recesses of his mind for now, Orion did his own usual check on his gear. That done, he patted off his robes and placed his distinctive hat atop his head.

"Shall we?"

Audrey nodded along.

[XXX]

[XXX]

Taking the dirt roads to the Weeping Peninsula was less troubling than the Hunter expected. Two days had gone by, and they hadn't faced anything harder than the occasional soldier patrol. Audrey had the benefit of her spectral steed, so the tarnished warrior was sent to scout ahead a few times while Orion followed behind. He wondered if Lady Melina didn't have another mount like that that she would be willing to lend to him. Don't get him wrong, walking was fine as it was, but it certainly would eat plenty of time that they could be using in training. And that damn Torrent seemingly hated the Ascended Hunter.

Orion had nothing against the steed, but the spectral mount would do everything in its power to dodge the Hunter when summoned by Audrey. Meaning that hitching a ride atop the horse was rather impossible.

It wasn't something that would stress Orion out; the Hunter was – in fact – quite amused at the shenanigans that had occurred so far. He would take a bratty and slightly uncooperative horse any day of the week over a Clerical Beast or any of the man-turned-monster beasts that resulted from the experiments of the Church and its Scholars.

"Heh, a few days away from Yharnam and my mind turns this whimsical. If Lady Maria were to see me, she would throw a fit." He joked to himself, tossing a small fruit into his mouth and enjoying the lightly bitter taste.

They were close to a forest area, the mist containing traces of arcana in its composition. The Hunter also could sense a presence deep within the woods, his nose managing to capture the familiar scent of wet canine fur; though this time it did not carry the fetid rot of death or the pungent blood-soaked smell that he was used to due to the hunt. If anything, the smell of this unknown creature carried together with it a soothing lumen scent.

Orion wanted to meet whoever it was that was in there, but his priority was leading Audrey into the Weeping Peninsula. They were still a few days' worth of walking until they properly reached the area, but Orion could already sense the changes in climate and how the landmass had received its moniker. The air humidity had increased almost ten-fold, and he could see the dark clouds on the horizon that covered the land in an almost ever-lasting cover of rainfall. And he while he had received the explanation from his younger counterpart, he quoted a famous folk saying in his mind: "Seeing is believing."

Still, the constant rain was good for hiding scent tracks, though he had yet to meet anyone with a bloodhound's nose such as his. There were lots of ways of tracking someone down, but scent usually was the fastest and most reliable.

Paranoia really was a constant companion to hunters, though it was hard to blame them considering the nature of the cosmos. Most people lacked the insight to see things beyond the veil to grasp the Eldritch Truth.

Such thing reminded him of the small creature they met on their way here.

Audrey had been confused when during one of her scouting runs she had been called a few times by something soft spoken. She relayed the information to him as they were passing by a primitive telescope.

When they passed by the location, the tarnished warrior kept complaining to him about being called from somewhere, but she had been unable to locate the source of the voice. This time the Hunter did not mock her for failing to see what was quite well hidden from the common sight. He simply walked to one of the various shrubs that dotted the roadside and lightly swatted the spell-cloaked being.

Though after that he almost took its head off with one swing of his Saw Cleaver, barely managing to redirect his blade once he ascertained that the creature was not hostile. Still gave the creature one heck of a scare though.

The rat-look-alike identified itself (once he stopped trembling from fear) as Boc, a seamstress. Though the lack of any tools did put some doubt to his claim, the ratling (as Orion opted to identify him as) explained that it had been kicked out of its cave by its kin and had all its possessions stolen.

Audrey didn't want to listen much to Boc's plight, trying to reach the peninsula as fast as possible to complete the next step of her training, but Orion waved her rush off. He also was trying to get used to these mixed-humans, their scent resembling both that of man and beast alike. It was somewhat strange to the Hunter, since he'd long grown to content with maddened folk and aberrations before, it took a fair bit of effort to restrain himself from lopping off the heads of creatures that should – by all means – be nothing more than crazed beasts.

Nonetheless, after a few minutes of chat with the ratling, a promise of later usefulness and some gifted mushrooms for their troubles, Orion and Audrey were free to explore once again the Lands Between.

Which led the Hunter to be waiting for the woman's latest exploration run. He was resting close to a few ruins, the place giving him a privileged vision to an enemy caravan of Godrick's men. Audrey should be capable of dealing with the men, so the Hunter was tempted to let her solo them as he delved inside the ruins that were rather appealing to him. He did explore his fair share of dungeons, so his sense of wanderlust and treasure plundering were being enticed by the rich arcana that dwelled in there.

He decided to wait for his apprentice, taking the time to relax and tug a bit at the connection between his selves. There was still a terrible delay and muted communication, but the Hunter could reach the Hunter's dream and call upon his lovely doll. It took a fair bit of focus, but he managed to touch the veil between the two worlds.

"Oh, Good Hunter!" The soft and motherly tone of the doll echoed nearby, Orion feeling himself soothed by the melodious echo of her voice. "What is your desire?"

"I'm in need of new attire." He was direct with his request, unsure if the connection would be discovered and incur the curiosity of one of the so-called Outer Gods of this realm. His Great One-self should be obscuring their meddling, but caution was always warranted. "Give me the father's robes and weapons."

"Very well. Please bring these to the Good Hunter, little ones." Though Orion could not see what was going on in the Hunter's Dream, he had seen the actions of the dream messengers for so long that they were engraved into his mind. They would emerge from the fountain with the required items, and he would feel the power of the blood echoes leave his body. This time – however – nothing was taken from him as he had long paid the price for the priestly robes. Orion opted to keep rotating between outfits as it gave him another layer of deception against unknown enemies, and it also served as an unspoken lesson to Audrey. Hunters relied greatly on outmaneuvering their prey and though he did not expect her to suddenly change her style, he could impart some lessons like this on her.

Besides, it wasn't like Hunters had no protection whatsoever. Protective gear had its uses, but cowering behind a shield wasn't something any Hunter worth anything should do. Tactical usage of equipment was a must; the right tool for the right job.

He was quick to change from his Hunter's robes to dress in the thicker battle attire of Father Gascoigne's clerical coat. It still had a beastly scent, though it was Orion's scent instead of the previous man's smell. He even swapped his hat, preferring the wider brim of keep the rain away from his eyes.

If seen from other people's eyes the sight would be rather strange. The items suddenly appeared as if from empty air, though those with some measure of insight would see the slight specter of a bronze lantern surrounded by a few emaciated humanoid creatures.

The Ascended Hunter offered his current weapons, the serrated blade and the hidden curved one being swapped by a large axe. His two pistols also were gone, replaced by the large Hunter's Blunderbuss. After a quick check to make sure his gear was in proper shape, the hunter propped the heavy weapon on his shoulder, grabbing his firearm and staying alert.

Audrey seemed to be taking a while to deal with the caravan, so Orion had little options except waiting. Though after the first hour, he grew bored of it. Don't take him wrong, he was patient alright, but he'd always prefer to be doing something worthwhile instead of simply loitering around.

Seeing as his apprentice was taking her sweet time, the Hunter opted to do his own business. He was quick to rip a page out of his notebook and write a message to Audrey, leaving the yellow paper stuck on an easy-to-notice stone pillar. The knife pinning it between the cracks should also aid in its discovery.

That done, the Hunter wolfishly smiled as he stared at the entrance of this underground dungeon.

"This should prove adequate." He grinned, tightening his grip on the handle of the Hunter's axe.

[XXX]

[To be continued]

AU END NOTES

Well, nothing much to add here. Give me your opinions on where our Ascended Hunter and plucky Tarnished should go next! Though I plan to separate them in the future, for now our duo shall remain together. Maybe until they face Radamn? Well, let's see.

Ryujin Maou out!