Accursed Citrine - Yet another Dark Soul/Madoka Magica Crossover

[x] Go through the sewer bridge thing



"Great…" You mutter with a sigh "sewer bridging thing it is, then. Let's get this over with."

Oscar follows behind you as you lead the way along the cliff path around to the bridge. He gives the dead Hollows scattered about a curious glance as you pass them and climb the stairs.

He pauses at the little arch leading inside. Drawing his sword, he peaks in and looks each way. "Kirkia," he says flatly "this isn't a sewer. It's an aqueduct."

"A what? What's the difference?"

"It carries clean water through the city. A sewer carries… more than that." He replies.

You cross your arms, turning up your nose. "Then what's that smell then? Are arkaducks or whatever you said meant to smell like that?"

He nods his head at the entrance. "That large rat you mentioned seems plague-ridden. The rot coming off of it is likely the source of the stench."

"Look, does it really matter? Let's just kill the thing and move on then." You say, summoning one of your claws. You push past him and step into the akra- aquerrr- into the not-sewer and turn to face the sound of squeaking.

A pair of orbs shine in the darkness, reflecting the faint glow of your claws as the rat turns at your arrival. You take a step forward and hold your claw hand up across your chest. With a squeak, the eyes start to move closer along side the splash-splash of the rat splashing up water.

With a slash of your arm, you launch your claw through the air. A sharp, fleshy squish sounds, then the rat drops to the water.

"You're rather quick with those claws." Oscar comments, entering into the tunnel behind you. "How did a young lady of your age become so proficient with such peculiar weapons?"

You turn and shrug, squeezing past him to head for what looks like another exit. "I dunno, never thought about it. These claws were what I got when I became a magical girl and I just kinda already knew how to use them."

You spot an iron grate a little bit past the exit, but seeing as it's too dark to see anything beyond it, and you're not very interested in standing in this ankle-deep water any longer than you have to, you decide it's probably not worth investigating.

"Curious… And you can summon any amount of them endlessly?" Oscar continues to ask as the two of you step up onto the dry-ish brick and out into a little alley-stairway. "Do they have any kind of special properties beyond their summoning?"

Casually summoning another of your claws, you hold it up and admire it. "Hmm, I guess they can cut through pretty much anything I want them too, so long as I try hard enough. I can throw them and chain them together for extra range, too."

"Convenient things, it would seem then. And you're saying you just… knew how to use them in such ways?" He asks, watching the faint glow of your weapon.

You shrug again and begin making your way up the long stairway. "Yeah. Maybe it's something to do with the whole soul gem thing. The thing that gave me magic said it was where my magic comes from, so I guess that means the weapons are from my soul or something like that?"

"Perhaps something akin to Soul Arts, then… I wonder- ah, wait." Oscar holds up his hand as you near the top of the stairs. He slips past you and peaks his head over the wall. "Hollows. Two of them, from what I can see."

"Those ones I took out before weren't that big of a deal. I doubt these ones will be much worse."

Oscar shakes his head, drawing his sword. "Still, it's best not to recklessly charge into a conflict. These Hollows may appear mindless, but they still maintain the capacity for basic ambushes. Stay behind me."

As he finishes speaking, he raises his shield and steps up the stairs. The two Hollows turn their heads lazily towards him, grumbling some nonsense. They both suddenly spring into action when Oscar takes another step towards them, charging him with sword and axe raised.

Oscar catches the swing of the one with the sword using his shield, then kicks the thing to the side, sending it tumbling over a small wall and down a long drop. Meanwhile, seeing the axe Hollow angling to swing his weapon down around Oscar's shield, you leap up onto the wall of the building next to the fight, propelling off of it to bring your claws down through the Hollow's tattered armour and skin.

Oscar gives you a thankful nod before advancing towards a little wooden bridge across a gap. A little black bomb shatters against his shield when he reaches the crossing, fire exploding out to half-engulf him. You hear him grunt in pain before stepping back behind the corner from whoever threw the bomb.

"Didn't you just say to watch out for ambushes?" You snicker, stepping up behind him. Out of the corner of your eye, you spot movement through the window of the little stone tower you're both standing behind. "Ah, there's another one in there."

Oscar nods and reaches down to a little pouch hanging from his hip. Taking out one of those little bombs, his tosses it around the corner. You hear it shatter and a pained shriek. Oscar then raises his shield again and steps around onto the crossing, facing the open doorway into the tower. You hear the thunk of a sword hitting his shield, then the fleshy tearing of his sword cutting the Hollow down.

He takes a moment to peak into the tower before turning to enter another opposite it. You hear him let out a sigh upon finding no more Hollows and go through the doorway after him.

You find him standing over a shrivelled up corpse sat in the corner, beneath a small flight of stairs leading up to a second floor. Faint white wisps float about the body, reminding you of when you killed that big demon.

"What is that white smoke stuff?" You ask, coming up to stand beside him. "I've seen it a few times, I think."

"Souls." He replies, crouching down and holding his hand out to the corpse. The faint whips twist and begin rising up into his hand. They spiral around his arm before disappearing into his body. "Coins have become pointless in the chaos that the Undead Curse has caused throughout the land. Souls are the only currency accepted everywhere in the world."

"And that's normal here?" You ask. They use people's souls as money here? Even for you, that's a bit… morbid.

Oscar nods as he stands up. "Unfortunately, yes. I don't believe they're a being's actual thoughts and consciousness, mind you. Just a representation of the flicker of the Flame each living creature holds. Now, there doesn't seem to be anything else of value here, so let's move on."

Oscar picks up his sword from where it was resting against the wall beside the corpse and steps backs you to the stairs. You follow behind him and as you reach the top, you start to hear a thump, thump of giant wings.

"What's that?" You ask, climbing another short set of stairs up onto a castle wall. "Another one of those giant crows-?"

You nearly jump out of your skin when a giant red DRAGON flies down to land on the wall in front of you. It beats its wings a few times, then takes off again, flying up over the distant city structures.

"Was that a fucking dragon?!"

"A Fire Drake, technically, I believe."

You give Oscar a nasty look. "Are you going to correct everything I say?"

He shrugs and carries on along the wall as if nothing ever happened. As if a FREAKING DRAGON didn't just appear out of nowhere and fly away!

You don't get much time to grumble, however, as another Hollow has wander over from further down the wall while the two of you were discussing the dragon, also seemingly unphased by the giant winged lizard.

Oscar easily dispatches the lone swordsman, a few small wisps moving from its body to his.

Suddenly, something hits the bricks at your feet at a somewhat high speed. You look up to see a whole group of Hollows gathered around wooden barricades. A Hollow in some metal armour stands up on a raised area in the back, fumbling with a crossbow.

"They can use crossbows too?" You ask, summoning more claws.

Oscar nods, raising his shield. "They still have the basic ability to use whatever they- hey what are you doing?!"

Not bothering to listen to his full explanation, nor to wait around for his slow and boring tactics, you rush past him and into the group of Hollows. The first two charge you from different directions at the same time. A bit more clever than the ones so far, but still not exactly the most impressive use of their probably rotting brains.

You duck under the first one's swing and spin on your heel, holding your claws out to sweep through their legs and lower bodies, almost like a spinning top of death. A third one charges you with a sickly warcry just as you come to a stop and you just manage to catch his swing with your claws. While you're surprised he has the strength to somewhat hold out, your magical girl strength has no problem with pushing back up to your feet despite the Hollow pushing down on your claws.

While you're smugly smirking over your claws at the seemingly confused Hollow, you feel a sharp pain in your right shoulder. A sword suddenly swings down from your left and takes off the Hollows head, and Oscar steps in front of you, raising his shield high.

"I told you not to charge in recklessly!" He growls alongside the thunk of another bolt hitting his shield.

Right, forgot about the crossbow guy. Grabbing the little wooden stick embedded in your shoulder, you pull it out with a grunt and toss it to the ground. You chuckle, licking your blood off of your hand. "And I told you that I can take pretty much any hit and walk away feeling fine."

As you say this, you step out from behind Oscar and toss a claw up at the crossbow Hollow, cleaving through the metal helmet and destroying half of its head. Oscar sighs at your stubbornness and turns to face the last two Hollows, which are standing across another small bridge.

Unlike the others, these two didn't charge you. Instead, they're holding their shields up and spears ready as if defending their side of the crossing. When you testingly step onto the bridge, they both shift to block you at the other end. Huh, are they protecting something?

"Here, take this and throw it at their feet." Oscar says, handing you one of the bombs. Next, he steps out in front and begins crossing the bridge, his shield once again up to defend against an attack.

Not really sure what timing he was going for, you decide to just lob the bomb now and leap across the gap to the section on the other side. The bomb explodes at their feet exactly where you were aiming, the fire reaching up at the Hollows and sending them stumbling.

Oscar takes this chance to thrust out at one of them, piercing its throat with a loud crunch. Meanwhile, you slash through the other Hollow's body from behind, coating your claws in a thick, sickly black goop that you assume is the thing's blood.

Oscar kicks his now dead (un-undead?) foe off of his sword and it smashes through some wooden boxes set up behind it. Curiously, it doesn't just fall to the ground, but through it, tumbling down some hidden stairs.

"That was better." Oscar says, wiping his sword on the tattered fur worn around your victim's waist. "Being aggressive is fine, but you need to take your surroundings and foes into account. Even with your rapid healing powers and the power of the Estus, you shouldn't be so reckless."

"Yeah, yeah. I get it. What are you, my mother?" You say, waving him off. "So, which way do we go now?"

He looks around at the stairs in front of you and the path along the wall behind you. "Well, There's two ways to go. Along the wall looks like it will take us over to the upper wall and hopefully across into the upper city. That said, these Hollows appear to have been trying to guard this staircase, so there may be something of value down there."

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[] Continue along the wall

[] Take a look down the stairs

[] Write in

[x] Take a look down the stairs



You wander over to the stairs and peak your head down over the floor. You spot a few boxes and two doorways, but it's otherwise a pretty small room. "Well, it doesn't look like it's a long detour anyway. Oh, and there might be a clue about Oriko!"

"Uh, indeed…" Oscar mutters, watching you. "If you think that's what these fellows were defending, then very well."

With his shield once again raised and sword at the ready, he slowly begins descending down the stairs into the little room below. His tense and cautious approach is met with an almost disappointing lack of angry zombie people, so you follow down after him.

Despite the small size of the room, there's a pretty large fireplace or something built into the stairs. Strangely, there's no chimney leading up from it, since it's, you know… built into the stairs. That's kind of stupid, right? Wouldn't the smoke just get stuck inside? Maybe that's why there's no glass in the windows and no doors in the doorways.

Speaking of doorways, since there's two of them, you each head for one each. While Oscar slowly approaches the one on the opposite side of the fireplace thingy, you take a peak through the one at the foot of the stairs.

Sitting amongst a pile of boxes and random trash is a skinny Hollow with glowing red eyes. He's wearing baggy clothes that seem in at least a bit better condition than the others you've seen around here, although the top of his head is only covered by thin grey hair in little clumps. Strangely, he's stroking the air above a big basket made from a broken barrel, almost as if patting some kind of pet.

He looks up from patting his apparent imaginary friend and gives you a toothy grin that probably wouldn't have been so bad if he still had lips. "Well now, hello there girly. No need to be afraid, now. I'm perfectly sane."

"Huh, you things can talk?" You ask, stepping out fully.

"Humph, how rude! I still have my wits about me yet, girl!" He grin grows to reveal even more black rotten teeth and he rubs his hands together. "I'd be more than happy to forgive you if you want to buy something, though. Nee, hee, hee, hee! Everything's for sale!"

"Uh… right. Just give me one sec." You reply before popping back inside. "Hey, Oscar. I found some zombie guy (you hear said guy scoff again at that) who says he's selling stuff."

Oscar, who's just reaching the other doorway, turns at your voice. "A merchant? Good, then it seems not everyone has gone-"

He's cut off by a loud crash beside him. A shelf to his left suddenly smashes outwards and a Hollow with a big axe lunges through the debris, swinging his weapon at Oscar.

Your knight friend manages to just catch the attack with his sword, but the force and angle of the swing sends the blade flying from his hand to the other side of the room. Oscar curses and smashes the Hollow in the face his shield before backstepping away from the thing.

You summon a claw and use this opening to rush forward and slice the Hollow up with a single swing. It lets out a low wail before crumbling to the floor.

You turn to Oscar as he retrieves his sword, clearing your throat and mimicking a grumpy teacher. "'You need to take your surroundings and foes into account.'"

Oscar sighs and shakes his head. "Yes, I know. Let's… see this merchant of yours." He says hurriedly. You snicker at his clear attempt to brush over the whole incident and follow him out to the undead merchant.

"Those fellows can be pretty sneaky, ey, sir knight?" The merchant says with a chuckle. "I'm sure someone as 'capable' as yourself has collected plenty of souls to trade, right? Nee, hee, hee!"

Oscar stands in front of the odd undead, looking over the junk laid out around him. "These items… are they…?"

The merchant chuckles. "Stolen? Of course they are! And when you two get offed and lose your heads, I'll pick you clean too!" He turns to the empty barrel-basket and pats his imaginary pet. "Isn't that right, Yulia?"

You lean over to Oscar and whisper "Is he actually loopy or are invisible animals a thing around here?"

"While I believe some creatures are capable of hiding their appearance, I suspect this is more of him losing his mind…" Oscar replies. "Let's indulge him nonetheless. We may find something of worth if he's been looting bodies."

"Are you two going to buy something or not?!" The merchant grumbles, frowning at you impatiently.

"Indeed. Please allow ups to take a look at your wares, friend." Oscar replies, resulting in a chuckle from the merchant.

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You and Oscar have 3356 souls between the two of you.


Items:
Repair powder (10) – 500 souls
Throwing knifes (40) – 10 souls
firebombs (20) – 50 souls
Lloyd's Talismans (5) – 500 souls
Orange Guidance Soapstone (2) – 100 souls
Dried Finger – 2000 souls

Keys and Tools:
Residence Key – 1000 souls
Repairbox – 3000 souls
Bottomless Box – 1000 souls

Weapons:
Dagger – 300 souls
Shortsword 600 souls
Scimitar – 600 souls
Rapier – 600 souls
Hand Axe – 450 souls
Club – 150 souls
Reinforced Club – 350 souls
Spear – 600 souls
Short Bow – 1000 souls

Shields:
East-West Shield – 400 souls
Small Leather Shield – 600 souls
Buckler – 800 souls
Leather Shield – 800 souls
Heater Shield – 1000 souls
Warrior's Round Shield – 800 souls

Ammunition:
Wooden Arrows (50) – 3 souls
Standard Arrows (25) – 10 souls
Large Arrows (15) – 50 souls
Standard Bolts (25) – 30 souls

Armour:
Chain Helm – 500 souls
Chain Armour – 800 souls
Leather Gauntlets – 500 souls
Chain Leggings – 500 souls

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[] Shopping time

[] Write in

[x] Shopping time
-[x] Bottomless Box - 1000 souls
-[x] Firebombs x10 - 500 souls
-[x] Throwing Knives x20 - 200 souls
-[x] Lloyd's talisman x1 - 500 souls



Most of the guy's wares consist of weapons and shields, which are apparently just as uninteresting to Oscar as they are to you. The weapons aren't even all that cool, just some standard swords and stuff. Oscar glances over at you while looking at a set of that chain armour the guy at the bonfire had, but he shakes his head and puts it down.

"Ah, are these talismans of Allfather Llyod?" He asks the merchant, picking up a little mirror with some tiny chains hung across it. "Where did you get these?"

The merchant chuckles. "Clerics die and go Hollow just as easily as the rest of us. Those fools think they're some big shots and get overwhelmed by simple ambushes."

Oscar nods grimly and puts the little mirror aside. "We'll take a bag of firebombs as well. What of you, Kirika? Is there anything you would like?"

You give the assortment of stuff laid out before you a second look. It's still mostly just random junk that doesn't really have any use for you. Wait… a pile of little knives catches your eye. They're pretty small and clearly aren't meant for cutting. Considering the majority of this stuff is weapons and that this world is some weird fantasy place, that can only mean one thing…

"Whoa, are these throwing knives?!" You exclaim, reaching down to grab a bunch of the little blades. "I'll take some of these!"

"Can't you already throw those claws of yours?" Oscar asks, giving you a sidelong look. "Isn't it more practical to use the weapons that you can perpetually recreate?"

You give him disappointed look and sigh. "But throwing knives are cool! Haven't you ever read stories where the badass hero takes out a crowd of people with a handful of them?"

"Again, they don't seem all that practical for you to use, though." He repeats. "Especially against Undead foes that can withstand more injury than the living."

"Ah, you're no fun at all." You say, waving Oscar off and turning back to the merchant. "I'll take a whole bunch of these!"

The merchant rubs his hands together with a big grin. "Nee, hee, hee! This girl knows good wares when she sees them, sir knight. So, miss. Is there anything else that takes your fancy?"

"Nah, not really. It's mostly all just junk to me." You reply blankly. "Oh, what about this box? I'll probably need somewhere to put all these knives." You add, picking up a simple wooden box.

"H-Hey, now! Don't just go picking up valuable wares like that!" The he exclaims, waving at you to put it down. "You break it, you buy it!"

"But… it's just a box." You say, turning it over a few times to try to figure out why he's making such a fuss over the thing.

"It's a bottomless box! It'll never fill up no matter how much you put in it!"

Oscar leans in to look at the box. "If that's true, it would be quite a useful item for travelling. But it seems to me like just an ordinary box."

"No, no! Give it here, I'll prove it!" The merchant demands, snatching the box from your hands and grabbing one of the swords. He puts the sword into the box blade first and it disappears into a faintly golden glow. "It can hold however much stuff you want. And when you want to take something out, just think about what you want and…" He reaches into the box, the faint glow shining again, and pulls the sword back out.

Huh, didn't one of the girls you fought with Oriko have something like that? Kept pulling guns and stuff out of her shield.

"Incredible! We'll take it." Oscar says, taking the magic box and placing it aside with his mirror and bag of bombs.

The merchant grins widely. "Good, good. That'll all be twenty-two hundred souls then, sir knight."

"Okay, so how does this work?" You ask, looking between the two men. "You said you use souls to pay for things, but how do you actually do that?"

"Have you been living under a rock your whole life, girly? Nee, hee, hee!"

Oscar ignores the undead merchant's jab at you and holds his hand to his chest in a fist. "You merely need to will them into your hand and to the recipient. Like so."

A faint white mist of souls seeps out from his chest and swirl around his fist. He holds it out to the outstretched hands of the merchant and the souls reach across to the undead guy. From there, they climb up his arm and disappear into his chest.

Okay, that doesn't look too hard. Kinda like how you summon your claws.

Unfortunately, it apparently isn't as easy as summoning your claws after all. You try a few times, focusing harder each time, but still nothing comes out. What the hell? How come some stupid knight can do it, but a magical girl can't?! Wait, a magical girl…

Raising your hand, you summon your soul gem in a flash. If you look closely, you can faintly make out little white wisps within the citrine glow.

Holding out the gem and focusing your will on it this time, the light glows brighter and the little wisps begin to float out in the same way corruption would when cleansing it.

"Nee, hee, hee! Thank you kindly, sir knight and little girly." The merchant says, eyeing your soul gem with a greedy eye. "Be careful, now. Wouldn't want to go off the deep end and have that pretty little gem go missing, now. Nee, hee, hee!"

"Right…" You mutter, squeezing as many knives as you can into places on your body, storing the rest in the magic box. "Well, let's get back to looking for Oriko, then."

Oscar nods and the two of you leave the leave the undead merchant behind, returning to the room with the stairs.

"It looked as if the other path is just a way to a roof access full of hollows. Our best bet is likely returning to the wall." Oscar says, gesturing to the other doorway.

You can't see any fault in that if it really does just lead up to a roof. Back up the stair it is then!

Returning to where you had your little battle with the Hollows, you and Oscar head up another small set of stairs up to the spot that Hollow with the crossbow was. You stop upon reaching the top. Across a short makeshift bridge, in the big tower pillar of a giant bridge reaching above you, is one of those bonfires.

"Oscar, are these bonfire things actually really common here?" You ask, alerting him to the sword-in-a-pile-of-burning-bones.

"Hmm, I suppose this is the centre of the kingdom, so it would make sense if people here had access to the coiled swords." He replies, heading over to the faintly flickering fire. "There's… certainly no shortage of bones to use as kindling, at the very least."

The embers reach out and cleans the burns on Oscars armour when you both sit down. You've already healed from the crossbow bolt, but your clothes were in bad enough shape that the embers mend that too.

"Here." Oscar says, reaching into the new bag of bombs and picking out two. He places them into the sack hanging at his waist, then hands you the rest. "These are sure to come in handy at some point."

"Thanks." You accept the sack and tie it at your hip. "Hey, speaking of coming in handy, what's the deal with that little mirror you bought? That talisman or whatever you called it."

"Ah, you mean the Llyod's Talisman?" He asks, retrieving it from his bag. "It's a talisman utilized by clerics who hunt down the undead. They block the healing effects of Estus when used."

You give him a blank stare. "Oscar, don't you use Estus?"

"Indeed, but this is for the possible situation of encountering any hostile undead. They're very useful tools if used properly."

"Oh, I see." You say, nodding thoughtfully. "You use it when you're in a better position and your opponent is injured."

Oscar nods, seemingly happy with your response. "That's right. As I said, it's useful if used properly. Timing is an important factor in it."

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