Hunters Dream

The Path of Byrgenwerth

"Fear the old blood." This is the password which grants you access, spoken to a man behind a large door in the Cathedral Ward. When this door opens, however, the only one on the other side is a corpse, long dead.
This path leads you through the Forbidden Woods. This forest was off-limits to the inhabitants of Yharnam, though now they roam here too, some half-turned from the plague, but all clearly mad. One inhabitant who doesn't seem to be cursed with the plague yet offers you a gift, a strange item called the "Tonsil Stone," which is porous and blue, perhaps a meteorite of some sort. He tells you to take it to the right of the Grand Cathedral, to receive a boon of the gods.

As you progress further down into the forest, into a canyon at its base, you see creatures unlike those before. Some of these may be just another form of the beast plague, twisting men's flesh into writhing snake-men. Others, however, seem far more bizarre. A small group of bulbous blue men can be found at the lowest point of the canyon. Is this another distortion of flesh caused by the beast plague? These blue creatures seem to have an affinity for the arcane, able to cast some sort of spell from tentacles which writhe out of their heads.

Past these creatures lies the Shadow of Yharnam, which takes the form of three cloaked men. This shadow guards the entrance of Byrgenwerth College, a very old institution of learning. Byrgenwerth has long since been a forgotten, and forbidden place, though. The discovery that took place there changed the course of Yharnam's history, and it is a secret which, so it is said, lies buried with the lake.

As you now walk through Byrgenwerth, you find the college desolate, and abandoned, save for the twisted creatures which now walk there. In the college's courtyard lie monsters who were also, perhaps, once men, but now seem more like flies, or spiders. Further along the path waits a squid-faced being, who craves nothing more than knowledge, and will devour the insight you've gained, should it be given the chance.

After fighting your way through the courtyard, you reach the inside of the college. It is here where you will have your first encounter with a member of the choir.