Something was present there that is absent here. She misses it already, whatever it is.

She moves all her limbs experimentally, practices focusing and unfocusing her eyes. It's what she expects, body and soul.

The foreign blood is quietly singing. It reminds her of a cool autumn night under the moon with her sister. The wind blew beneath the purple sky, and they were free to do anything in that moment. She can't remember the face of her sister.

It's dim here. She sits up slowly, catching the note as it slips. A note from her sister, she hopes for some reason, though the memory of a sister is a pointed absence.

She hops to the floor, testing her human legs. Graceful as ever, it would seem. Now, to read this note.

Seek paleblood. 

That half of the note is short. There is no clarification as to what paleblood is, but she might get the sense that it's kin to the strange blood singing in her veins. 

(That song sounds, suspiciously, like a lullaby.)

The other half is a contract she has apparently signed, with a name that is definitely hers at the bottom. She remembers the man in the hat is the one who said she would get the new blood in exchange. 

She must seek paleblood and take part in the hunt. Apparently this is a town plagued by beasts, and the only way they get hunters anymore is by trucking outsiders. 

(It's a bit of a raw deal, all things considered, but it could be worse. That grace she feels is part her nature, part a gift for someone else that now thrums within her.)

There is one door out of the clinic. There is a window on the opposite wall, seemingly impossible to open. 

Seek paleblood, indeed. Sounds familiar, but she's not about to trust that familiarity.

Ariadne wasn't a spider in the myths, but her old trick should apply. She'll spin a thin thread of darkness, invisible, to trace her path in this unfamiliar place. No need to wear a spider's form; this action has more of the metaphorical than the physical to it.

(Why does she remember Greek myth? Her memory provides no clues, no sudden insight.)

Out the door, then.

The door shuts behind her. The staircase is a strange oasis in the storm of clutter, but it begins anew in this next room.

If the place where she woke up was messy, this place is trashed. Half empty glass bottles lie shattered on their side, disgorging thick globs of blood onto the bare floor. 

On the other side of the room, in a pool of this blood, stalks a thing that is not a wolf. It is weak, it is hurt, it is hungry, it is afraid. 

It does not see or smell her yet. It is blocking the only door out. 

Nearby, if she reaches out those tendril senses, she hears the faint sound of crying. 

Caution in the face of the unknown is prudent. The humanoid unfolds her soul into a spider of shadow, material substrate tucked safely inside her abdomen, already spinning more tangible threads of darkness. Up the wall to higher ground, to the ceiling even, to see if she can observe more closely without being spotted.

What little light there is dims before the spider, but she has no need to feed on scraps. She remembers, inchoately, that she can, but doesn't for some reason. The blood will clearly sustain her body and soul indefinitely, at any rate.

No way out except through, it seems; the beast's head is practically in the doorframe. She could easily descend from above, ensnare it in web and bite it, and most of her wants to. But just in case, she'll give this one try.

She descends to perch above the doorway.

"Stand back," she orders in the fearsome voice of the spider, not the pleasant deep voice of the girl, web and fang held in reserve.

The wolf is incomprehending. It rises up out of the bloody puddle that it was either bathing in or made from, it's hard to tell, it's shaggy snout twisted into a snarl. 

There is an idea of a human shape to this beast, the suggestion that front paws are broken fingers, a spine is built to carry a body upright. It is, unfortunately, only an idea, a whisper fading rapidly. 

It leaps up onto its hind legs and snaps at the spider. There is a thing in the place it considers familiar, and it is hungry, and lost, and afraid. 

Or, perhaps, it sees a beast, and remembers that beasts must die, failing to recognize what it has itself become. 

(This one, at least, seems weak; it would grow to full strength with a meal, but alas it seems it will not feast tonight.)

Pitiable, but there doesn't seem to be a working mind in evidence. She doesn't really want to kill it. Being pathetic and starving is too familiar, somehow. But there's no saving it. Perhaps the Halls of Mandos will be kinder, though from what little she remembers she suspects those may be too far from here.

(Is she only allowed to remember myths? That doesn't seem right. It's more like everything personal is hidden. Her sister named her. She can remember that. Maybe her sister could save a mindless beast.)

She leaps down, to ensnare it in thread and finish it with a bite.

The wolf dies, and returns to the puddle of blood, fur and flesh returning to a less solid state. At the core of it pulses a dark red orb that would be wet to the touch, but certainly possible to take. 

As she bites down, some of that blood enters her body. It confirms that this was a man once. It confirms that he failed some test she somehow passed. It also confirms that the blood is changing her somehow. 

(She can remember stories, but it seems that forgetting is a theme here. She is already something else, and this may be what gives her some protection from the wrongness that hangs over this place like the moon.)

Through the door near where this monster now no longer exists, there is a small room and then a set of stairs heading down. If she has any familiarity with mudrooms, this seems to be one. If she goes this way, she will no longer be in the clinic. 

The low weeping has not stopped, but it does not seem to have a source. 

She feels like she's in an uneasy accord with the blood for now. May as well collect whatever the beast has left in its remains; she can web it slightly outside physical space, like when she collected interesting jewels and trinkets from that ruined city, whenever that happened.

Spinning her path-marking thread, and in humanoid form, she walks outside.

The clotted blood contains within it the possibility of something called echoes. There's an idea of currency to it, but not currency that will do her any good for the moment. Essentially, this blood will be useful eventually, but she can safely tuck it away for now, and someone else will explain its use at another time.

Outside she finds the remains of grandeur. The building itself--a meticulously hand-painted sign declares it Iosefka's Clinic--bears signs of if not neglect, then at least exhaustion, a dwindling staff no longer able to stave off the depredations of nature. What she might not have expected is that this clinic has been built on the grounds of a cemetery, or perhaps the other way around. Any order to the tombstones there once was has been completely lost, however, the stone crumbling or fallen over. There is no malice here, however, merely neglect. 

She has never felt farther from Mandos, if she's ever felt close to him. Where ever these dead lie--if indeed they lie anywhere--it is not there. 

There are gates on either side of the cemetery. She can see dim street lights on the other side of the gate closest to her, while the one farther to her right leads somewhere less clearly defined. 

The weeping has quieted, at least, but there are no other, kinder noises to replace it. This is clearly a crowded city, tall buildings tower over the walls that circle the clinic.

A city is a welcome sight. She's strode high with their masters, and crawled with the vermin underneath.

She'll try the gate to the street. Maybe she can ask for directions? (Carefully, with known ground at her back, anyway.)

The gate creeks open easily, and the city opens it. 

It's old, then, and built on top of itself, but this layer where she stands shows one path forwards; up the hill and towards a gate, the source of the broken sound of metal on stone. 

Any hopes of asking for directions are dashed when she runs into the first living being she's seen all night. A man in a broad-brimmed hat, dragging an axe behind him, smelling of death and beer and blood. 

"Begone!" he shouts, and pushes his torch in her direction. 

(There is a locked gate to her immediate right; beyond, a ladder reaches half way to the ground)

This drunk seems unlikely to be helpful; she smiles sweetly at him as she steps backward, invisibly leaving sticky webs of darkness in her wake to cover the ground between them. Drunks stumble, no one will notice anything amiss if he falls.

The bloody axe is worrying, however. This beast hunt may not in fact be a detective thriller with some supernatural violence at the climax.

She gracefully makes her exit towards the gate, finding it locked. Maybe that hospital was under quarantine? Not a very good one, if there's drunks but no doctors.

The man with the axe and torch pursues her, and stumbling doesn't seem to... stop that. If she turns to look back at him, she'll see that he's trying to crawl, torch and axe abandoned, towards her. 

Beyond the locked gate is more cobblestone road, and the distant scent of fire. 

Less distantly, two voices join the first man in screaming, though they're farther off. A man with a scythe, and another in make shift clothes with a cleaver. They also look less than human, fur coating the visible parts of their skin in patches. 

One of the two men rushing to catch up with their friend crashes straight through the wreckage of a carriage, ignoring both it and whatever injuries it causes in his rush to get closer. 

(Is the webbing flammable?) 

The drunks(?) will find that the webs of darkness, at least, will eat any fire that lands on them; they will catch a flame, but it will slowly die down as it is consumed. They're not that easy to notice if one doesn't already know they're present, either.

Three violent drunks (or whatever they are. Beasts?) are a bit more worrying than one. She doesn't think she can talk her way out of this, whether they're drunks or something worse.

So she'll be a spider instead, and leap onto the wall of a building. Probably the worst they can do is throw their weapons up at her.

One "drunk" scrapes his axe against the cobblestones but otherwise they cannot follow. They're too bad off to even climb ladders, it seems.  

From up here she can see that the ladder actually leads to a street that actually cuts off abruptly before a sharp drop; this isn't a way citizens of Yarnham are supposed to go normally, the ladder is "recent." 

That or someone's been layering parts of the city on top of itself, it's hard to tell. 

The scent of fire is stronger, though still distant. She can also now hear the same faint crying she heard in the clinic. It's coming from many small mouths. 

It's a quick trip to the top of the wall,

and she'll be humanoid again at the top.

This city's architecture is somewhat strange; it doesn't make zero sense as a city people would live in, but many things about it are perplexing.

She looks around.

The cobblestone path splits around a large, narrow house. Like all the others, it has been clearly locked, and bars have been bolted over the windows, leaving the interior obscure. A few steps in front of its door is a small lantern hanging from an iron hook driven into the ground beneath the cobbles. This is the source of the weeping, or more specifically, the white, grasping creatures gathered around the base of the lantern are the source of the weeping. 

The road splits. To the left is a wrought iron gate, locked. To the right is an open path that curves sharply to the right. 

She kneels to examine the creatures around the lantern.

"Hello," she says experimentally in a soft contralto. What are they... they seem familiar, but she doesn't remember.

The lantern itself is out of place. She regards it warily. It looks placed, and it seems to have attracted the small white creatures. It wouldn't do to make assumptions, however.

They don't respond with speech, but their small, stunted arms reach out to her. If she's ever seen a human infant, they will remind her of one, but shrunken and made from/into something else. 

The lantern pulses as she kneels, flaring into white brilliance. 

This is... an invitation? 

"Will you walk into my parlour?" said a fly to a spider, she quotes to herself. All the memories are depersonalized, but she does remember reading about spiders with her sister, whoever that may be.

That's not quite a fair thought, she decides. There are many possible dangers here. At least this lantern is polite.

There are lanterns that are lures, and lanterns that are signposts, and lanterns that welcome travelers home. Her feeling is that this is of the second kind.

Will feeding it some light count as accepting its invitation? She touches it gently and does so.

The lantern does not seem to expect this, but takes the gift as a signal regardless. 

She has unknowingly fulfilled an old agreement, though not in the way it is usually followed.

She... wakes up? Emerges? on a cobbled garden path leading up to a small house. The moon is bigger, fuller here, and the air is bright. 

This might remind her of realms below realms, of what happens when dream and real blur together. 

A doll sits (empty?) on the stone wall lining the path. She can hear the weeping she now associates with the little mouth things.