Surgit found himself in an impasse. Did Gehrman ask him to ascend the tower only to find this badge? He doubted that and he started looking for a way to unlock the closed door. He looked around the three floors in search of a hidden chest or some hiding spot for a key. He went outside towards the balcony on the third floor, looking around some crates that were stacked near the ladder.

Nailed to one of the wooden crates, a note written on a small piece of paper was dangling. He snatched it out and read the content: ‘The sky and the cosmos are one. The choir.’ The message seemed cryptic and unclear to Surgit. The choir must have been some code name for someone or even a real choir. ‘If there’s a church in this city, there has to be a choir too wouldn’t it?’ he thought to himself as he climbed the ladder down towards the second floor.

He couldn’t find anything and decided to give up on the search. He was on the first floor where he was stupidly ambushed by the huntsmen earlier. He walked outside towards the bridge and realized that he hadn’t checked the balcony on that floor. The balcony was similar to the ones above him, circular and hugging the whole tower.

As he reached the back of the building, he saw that the balcony had been destroyed and the debris had perfectly fallen below, allowing him access to the lower floor. Jumping down there would mean trapping himself on the lower floors with no way to get back up. There was no ladder leading back to the upper floors nor were there any stairs.

He pondered for a moment the implications of jumping down there. Going down would mean that he’d get to explore more of the tower. Gehrman had asked him to ascend, not descend the tower.

However, by going up, the only things he found were a locked door and a radiant badge. In the Cathedral Ward, all gates leading further towards the great cathedral were closed and he wasn’t as skinny as Karla to be able to squeeze between the metallic bars.

Furthermore, climbing on top the gates and jumping down in order to open them from the other side would inevitably mean his death. The gates were too high for him to jump down without getting hurt. Dying before opening the gates would also be pointless. He sighed at the inevitability of the choice presented to him. He had no other choice but to descend the tower.

He jumped down and reached the balcony below. As he walked around it, he found a door giving access inside the tower. The inside was dark with no windows on that lower part. Not even the faint light emanating from the rising moon could get inside. He took his torch and lit it using a lighter he had found in the dream’s workshop.

He stood at the door and extended the arm which was carrying the torch. The light emanating from it showed him a decrepit building, falling apart and dangerous to walk around. He looked around him and saw that the tower and all its lower floors had been destroyed before.

Only few platforms remained intact and horizontal wooden pillars which used to support the floors before stood as a reminder of an old sophisticated tower. Some were big enough to look like wooden bridges, linking the walls of the tower. Others, beneath him, looked small enough for both his feet to stand on if they were squeezed together.

Surgit used the pillars as cat walks and treaded carefully on top of them. His torch offered limited visibility, enough for him to be able to jump down towards visible platforms or other thin wooden pillars. As he walked on top of the wooden catwalk, he felt nervous and tense. Any false movement would mean his fall to death and he definitely didn’t want to die free falling towards darkness.

Surgit took his time scanning the area, squinting and looking into the visible platforms in order to assess their sturdiness. As soon as he’d see a platform deemed strong enough to support his weight, he would jump and brace for impact. He hated being in that place. It looked old and decrepit. ‘Why did I even get here? I should’ve gone back to the chapel. Or even better, I should’ve gone to the dream and accessed those Chalice Dungeons…’

He wondered how the upper floors managed to remain intact while the lower ones had been almost completely wiped out. What had happened in this floor? Was it a big battle, or was it deliberately destroyed in order to bar access to something supposed to remain in the shadows?

He must have jumped down four floors. He was standing on what remained of that floor’s ground and held his flickering torch to scan the place again. Two floors below him, he saw a door linked to a small wooden board enough for only one person to stand on. The door was closed.

From where he stood, Surgit could only see its contours. They looked like they were nicely decorated. Surgit felt the urge to jump towards that door and open it. He was always a curious person. ‘That’s what lead me to this dark place! Curse my stupid curiosity!’

If something was worth investigating, his soul would urge him to run as fast as possible towards it and find out its secret. He hated this character trait of his. It was his curiosity that led him to investigate Yharnam. It was his curiosity that converted him into a beast hunter. It was his curiosity that led him to be trapped in this city.

For some reason, he felt that the door concealed something important behind it. The jump towards the door seemed improbable, especially from where he stood. ‘If only I could climb back up.’

He saw a way to jump to it from two floors above. The landing could be dangerous but his mind urged him to go look into the matter. He tried to find a way to climb back up and attempt the dangerous jump but to no avail. ‘I guess I’ll have to return to the tower from above and jump down towards this door.’

He gave up on the idea of jumping towards the door at that moment. From where he stood, he needed to run and jump a long distance, almost twenty feet by his calculation. He needed to have some momentum for that and the small platforms he had jumped over didn’t allow such a feat.

He looked at his torch. The flames were swaying and flickering. ‘Wind, I must be close to some exit. There are no windows around here that would allow wind to get through.’ He looked below him and saw a wooden plank on top of two wooden pillars protruding from the wall. From there, he would be able to jump further down and reach the source of the wind.

He jumped down and landed on the platform that emitted a loud crack. The old plank gave way under his weight and shattered. The whole thing happened too fast for Surgit to react in any way. His torch slipped from his fingers as he tried to regain his balance and find something to latch onto.

His body went through the plank and dove down in free fall. He felt his legs, on which he had no control anymore while free falling, hit a wooden pillar and crack. That was enough to flip his body around for him to hit another solid object with the back of his head. The impact sent his body rotating the other way and Surgit landed on his face, on a bunch of sacks and crates that were stacked on the floor.

Bloody and dizzy, Surgit tried to stand up and searched around him for his torch. Perhaps it had fallen to the ground with him. His eyes emitted red sparks and the whole place was turning around him at a dangerous speed.

His right leg hurt and he could feel that he broke at least two ribs. He sat on top of the pile on which he abruptly landed and tried to catch his breath. Slowly, his vision started to get back to normal and his breathing became steadier. He took out a blood vial and injected himself with it.

His bones went back into place and muscle tissues reconstructed. His breathing though hadn’t slowed down. It seemed to have grown louder and heavier. He put a hand on his chest to inspect it and found that his lungs were inflating and deflating at a steady rate. Why was his breathing so loud then?

He understood what was happening when he looked around him. The pile on which he landed was stacked on what appeared to be the ground floor of the tower. The ground was intact and circular.

In the distance, he saw a tall dark shape coming closer to him. He had gotten used to being alone that the idea of another breathing living being didn’t even occur to him. He took his saw from the sheath he had on his back and squinted to have a better idea of what was coming towards him. He descended the pile of sacks carefully and stood in front of it waiting for his incoming enemy.