Y/N POV

Both me and Ethan came to a stop as the figure of Bela Dimitrescu formed in front of us. At first she seemed angry as she gritted her teeth and spat "I can't believe Cassandra caused all this mess." I muttered under my breath "Crap." As we both ran through the gate to the right, trying to avoid Bela as best we could.

She turned to us and with a gesture of her hand, a cascade of insects flew in our direction, bombarding us. I just shielded my face with my arms as Ethan began swatting away at the attacking swarm. Bela could be heard laughing before asking in an eerily calm voice that echoed throughout the room, "Which tools do you prefer?"

We managed to get out of the barred maze, up another flight of stairs. We arrived on a corridor, running down it we came to the doorway to another room. However, the entrance itself was blocked with wooden boards. We'd already dealt with this before so we began pulling away at them.

That's when we heard the voice behind us asking "Where are you going little ones?" Turning around, we found Bela right behind us. With a grin, she pushed Ethan through the wooden boards, smashing them in an instant.

She gave a glance to me, saying "I'll deal with you next." Before she descended down on Ethan. I began looking around for some way to help him, when I noticed the window, I remembered our last encounter, how she'd reacted to the cold when the window broke.

Ethan shot at her however the bullets just went right through her as she laughed "Your bullets cannot harm-!" I got her attention when I shot at the window twice, causing it to crack open before shattering.

A wave of cold air swept in from outside, Bela screamed in pain, getting off Ethan and staggering back. She looked at me and screamed with rage "YOU STUPID MANTHING!" She stepped towards me, I instinctively opened fire.

Too my surprise, it seemed the cold did MORE than just harm her, it actually rendered her vulnerable to gunshots. She flinched back from the repeated shots to the head before trying to recover herself and declared "I feel no pain!"

Ethan raised his shotgun and fired as well, Bela was rendered a sitting duck as she attempted to violently swipe at us with the sickle in her hand. We just kept are distance and kept shooting. It seemed the tables had completely turned on Bela, without her immunity to gunshots and the ability to disburse, she not much tougher than those creatures in the dungeon.

She lunged at Ethan and managed to lodge her sickle in his shoulder as she yelled "How dare you bare your teeth at us?!" I noticed another window in the room so I raised my gun and shot at that one as well until it cracked and shattered completely.

A second gust of cold came in, causing Bela to let out another cry as she screamed "I won't forgive you, bastards!" She lunged at me, narrowly missing me with her sickle. "It's not so fun is it when your food fights back is it?" I retorted.

She just screamed before exclaiming "This can't be!" I raised my handgun as Ethan raised the shotgun. I contemplated saying something but decided against it. Instead I just pulled the trigger, the last shot was fired as Ethan fired one of his own.

Bela let out another ear-piercing scream as she frantically flailed her sickle around. As she raised it over her head though, her body began to solidify, similar to what happened to Marguerite and Jack at the Baker house, this caught my attention.

During my research over the last three years into the Mold, I'd come to identify some of its properties. I knew that whatever this was, it was linked to the Mold. But how? That much was a mystery that now I wanted the answer to.

As Bela's body crumbled away I noticed something among the ash that interested me. Picking it up it seemed like a statuette of sorts, however upon picking it up I realized it resembled a torso, made of a strange calcified crystal-like substance, again, similar to that of the Mold which I'd seen first-hand three years ago.

Image of the Crystal Torso:

I knelt down and picked the strange statuette up, holding it closer to my face to get a look at it. Ethan approached behind me, asking "You okay?" Snapping out of my focus, I looked up and said "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. Lets go."

We heard the sound of a gate opening, allowing us to head into the next room. It appeared we'd arrived in some form of kitchen area. There was plenty of meat all over the place even some handgun rounds which served as a handy resupply following our battle with Bela.

In the centre of the room though was a large metal pan or pot containing a murky red liquid which I sure hoped was wine and not something else. Placed inside the pan was an antique looking bottle.

I picked it up, again I didn't know if it was wine or blood inside, judging by what I'd seen of the Dimitrescu family up to now, it could have been either. I held up the red and gold bottle, on the side it read 'Sanguis Virginis'.

Image of Sanguis Virginis:

I already had a hunch as to where this may be useful. I remembered in the wine room off the main hall there was a bottle stand that looked like a pressure plate of sorts. Perhaps this was what I'd need for that.

With the bottle in hand, that was all we'd need from this area. We left the kitchen, entering one of the nearby corridors. Following that along lead us into a dining room and opening one door caused us to be right back to the main hall, it seems we had managed to come full circle on ourselves.

I turned to Ethan and said "Follow me, I think I know what this bottle could be used for." He just nodded, we made our way back up the winding staircase like before, back to the wine room. Once there I instantly went over to the stand.

Placing the bottle we'd found in the kitchen there, sure enough it lowered down, disappearing into the table beneath it. Just then, the wall behind it opened up revealing a secret room of sorts, even more bottles decorating the place. 

We found some more lei here which I took. Ethan's focus appeared to be on the far end of the room. A small chest of sorts, he went over to it and opened it up. I couldn't see what was inside it however Ethan turned around and said "A key?"

Image of the Courtyard Key:

I explained my theory "Wasn't there a door in the dining room? Maybe it unlocks that?" That was our best bet, we returned back to the dining room and went over to the double doors on the far-end of it.

Just as Ethan placed the key in the lock and a click was heard. Just as we were about to unlock it, we heard a familiar buzzing sound, turning we saw the insects form together as Cassandra manifested. Asking "Shall I give you the tour?"

I instructed "Through the door, now!" We both raced through the door, knowing full-well Cassandra wouldn't dare follow us outside. Sure enough she didn't and we managed to close the door behind us with no further trouble.

Turning back around, my eyes widened when we were faced with a large courtyard, snow was still gently falling. An assortment of plants surrounded the borders, a gazebo in the centre. We took in our surroundings before returning to the matter at hand.

We began studying the various potential exits off the courtyard. There were two different doors we could go off. One single door to the left, and a set of white double doors to the right. We tried the single door first however it was locked even with the courtyard key we still had.

Next was the double doors across the yard, we approached and gave it a push, fortunately, they seemed to be unlocked already. We continued to push them however as we did so, my blood ran cold for a moment.

For a brief second, we could see the bottom half of Lady Dimitrescu's dress ascending the stairs out of sight. Just like in the dungeon, she didn't seem to notice us causing me to sigh in relief. We continued to push the door open revealing a tall staircase leading to the next level.

Even if that was the way Dimitrescu went, it seemed to be our only route. We ascended as well, arriving at a doorway leading onto a long corridor. Running low on shotgun shells, Ethan raised his handgun, I did the same and we slowly made our way down the corridor.

That's when we heard Lady Dimitrescu's outraged yell bellowing down the corridor. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY DAUGHTER?!" She was out for blood now. We would have to tread lightly...

Author's Note: And that's it for this chapter, in the next chapter we will have Y/N and Ethan split up again, I plan for them to face Dimitrescu together with Y/N using his sniper prominently, but I think we're still a ways off from that yet, I'm finding it difficult to plan since chapters are turning out longer than I'd thought. I really hope you're enjoying it though and as always, thank you for reading.