Oedon Chapel Dweller

After coming back to Karla, Surgit gave a short account of the fight he had to have with Gascoigne. "I found the key in his trousers' pocket. We can now access the Cathedral Ward." He said as Karla observed him with wary eyes. They observed each other for until it became apparent that one of them had to say something. Karla spoke:" God you look scary!"

After the fight, Surgit was drenched in blood from head to toe. "Didn't I just tell you that I had to fight a horrific beast?" He asked. Karla shrugged and continued: "with your new attire, seeing you bathed with blood gives me the creeps." Surgit gave her a look that suggested he was offended. The only thing Karla could see was a bloody face making grimaces. "Would you stop making faces please? That only accentuates your horrific look! If you could see yourself in a mirror, I bet you would scare yourself with those grimaces." Surgit turned around and said: "would it be better if I spoke to you like this?" Karla laughed and retorted: "It's alright. We are in a city filled with blood and beasts after all. I must get used to seeing your bloody face."

Karla was making jokes and that surprised Surgit. He always took her for the serious type. He never expected her to be making any jokes except when she wanted to demean a person. He hated past Karla but liked the present one. He couldn't help but smile. "Oh you're just testing my limits here Surgit. Please do not make any more faces I beg of you."

Disheartened at the misunderstanding his appearance caused, Surgit kept a stern face and announced that they should get moving. They moved through empty streets and Karla whistled as she saw the pile of corpses lying on the road that led to the graveyard. "Was this your doing mister hunter?" she asked in apparent sarcasm. "Oh miss deadly thinks she's witty." He retorted and kept moving. Although he liked Karla's witticism, he disliked the fact that it was aimed at him. They took the stairs up towards the graveyard. "This is where I fought the hunter before," he announced to Karla.

Karla looked around her. She saw smashed tombstones and traces of claws on the floor everywhere. 'What is it that he fought?' she thought to herself. Surgit had told her that he'd fought a man, not a beast. But from what she observed, it looked like a beast had been in the graveyard. Realizing Karla's acute observational skills, he commented:

- "The man was a hunter who had gone mad apparently. He even transformed into a hideous beast halfway through the fight."

- "And you don't find this alarming at all?" Karla answered with a raised eyebrow.

- "What do you mean by that?" He knew what she meant but he hoped his question would delay the talk about the transformation a bit longer.

- "You know exactly what I mean. Don't you think that this might happen to you too?"

- "I honestly don't know. All I know is that the man attacked everything that moved, even his poor wife. I'm still capable of separating beast from human. That's what matters to me at the moment."

- Karla considered what Surgit said for a moment then said: "That's reasonable enough. So how do you know that he killed his wife?"

Surgit reiterated the story of the little girl to Karla. He could see it in her eyes. She wanted to make a comment on how he managed to deprive a helpless girl from her parents but couldn't. Or possibly it was just his paranoia talking. Karla looked away from Surgit, she obviously felt bad for the little orphan. Yharnam was indeed a cruel place. But the same could happen to anyone, anywhere and anytime. War could ravage a country and bring misery and despair upon the homes of so many innocent people. What happened in Yharnam was tragic just in a different manner. Instead of blood thirsty warriors, there were blood starved monsters.

- "What do you think that is?" Surgit had brought her back from her daydreams.

- "What is that hideous thing?" she looked at what Surgit pointed at and she didn't know what to make of it.

A statue of an old man, wrapped in some kind of cloth from shoulders to toes, stood in the middle of the graveyard. It looked like a mummified corpse. The corpse's head looked peculiar though. The old man had a long beard but instead of having hair, he had tentacles. "It's either bad art, or a messed up imagination on Yharnamites' part," Karla was still looking at the statue as she commented. "In some civilizations, people erected statues of saints, angels or even gods. Maybe this statue signifies one of these to the people of Yharnam." Surgit suggested. "If this one is a saint," started Karla before she pointed to another statue. "Then what do you think this one is?"

Surgit looked at the statue she pointed at. A veiled person held both hands in a prayer position. The person looked towards the sky. The face was covered and the feet were merged to stone. The whole sculpture looked strange and scary. "I'm chilled to the bone standing in this graveyard. Shall we move and get to the next place please?" Karla pleaded. Surgit nodded and they took the stairs towards the gate. One thing puzzled him though. On the second statue, where the feet were merged to stone, messengers from the dream were sculpted. Did Yharnamites know of the existence of the messengers as well? Or was this done by some aspiring hunter artist?

They went through the gate and found themselves in the basement of some building. Barrels and sacks were scattered all around. One ladder took upstairs so they took it. As Surgit opened the trap door at the end of the ladder, he found himself in a library. He inspected the place with Karla. They were looking for clues regarding Francis' survival as he hadn't found any corpse during his exploration of Central Yharnam.

"The Byrgenwerth spider hides all manner of rituals, and keeps our lost master from us. A terrible shame, it makes my head shudder uncontrollably." Karla read out loud a note she had found on a table. "That sounds extremely cryptic, what do you think it means?" she said as she faced Surgit. "I have no idea to be honest. This city has so many secrets that I get the feeling that it will take us ages to just scratch its surface. I don't think we'll find anything in here, let's go upstairs."

The pair took the stairs to the upper floor and found a closed door. Upon opening it, they were welcomed with a wonderful scene. They were inside a tall building. The ceiling was almost impossible to see as it was too high up. Surgit could see spherical lanterns hanging from it and pieces of long red cloth encircled them all. Smoke was emitted from the lanterns. Some of the cloths extended to encircle even other lanterns.

On the ground, they were standing on a circular area. Jars were aligned around them and they could sense a sweet scent coming from them. They were like gigantic candles burning and letting off a sweet scent all at the same time. They both felt extremely safe in that place. Karla and Surgit moved around to have a better look at the place and understand where they were. They saw two doors leading outside and another one on their right, locked. Karla tried to push the door open but to no avail. Surgit in the meantime was inspecting the jars from which incense burned. He jumped back as he saw a creature wearing red sitting amidst the jars, not moving or making a noise. In his surprise, Surgit broke one of the jars. Karla turned at him and saw that he looked troubled. She joined him to look at the creature that sat in front of them.