Accursed Citrine - Yet another Dark Soul/Madoka Magica Crossover

[X] Press onwards
-[X] Into the cathedral
-[X] Let Oscar take the lead.






You close your fist around your soul gem and return it to your back. Maybe you're not thinking right because of how corrupted your gem is, but you decide you need to push on. You need to find out what's causing the same reaction you get from a witch and whether it holds some kind of clue to finding Oriko. Besides, if it is somehow a witch, you could definitely use the grief seed.

"I want to check something out." You say, turning to Oscar with what you hope is a serious expression. "Just inside the cathedral. It's really important."

Oscar's quiet for a moment and you can picture the man frowning as he thinks (well, you can't since you don't know what he looks like under the helmet, but still.) "Fine." He finally replies. "But we're low on Estus, so we'll need to retreat if we encounter anything beyond what we can manage."

"Yeah, sounds good." You reply, stepping to the side to let Oscar take the lead. While you still aren't fond of the slow and cautious approach, your soul gem is too corrupted to be throwing yourself at enemies, and Oscar seems to at least understand you want him to go ahead.

The two of you move up the stairs and through the big open doors of the cathedral, Oscar moving in front of you with his shield raised. The room immediately beyond is mostly empty besides some pillars and a few pews up against the walls.

You and Oscar spot the first corpse at the same time – a knight with a big red cape and a small shield strapped around his arm – and stop. The first corpse is slouched up against the other side of one of the pillars, while a second has been flung over one of the pews against the wall. A third knight is halfway through a window… and his lower half is laying on the floor at the other side of the room. Black splotches of blood paint the walls and floor and ceiling.

You summon your claws and continue even slower than before, keeping your eyes and ears out for any threats.

Upon entering into the next room, you at first assume the tall, heavily armoured figure standing before a statue at the other end of a ton of shattered pews to be the culprit. As you get closer, however, you see that the large knight is only kept upright because he died leaning against his massive rectangular shield.

The two of you take in the room, but see no source of the deaths of these knights. Did they kill each other and the last one died of their wounds? But that doesn't explain your soul gem's reaction.

You freeze as you reach back to grab your gem and take another look. The faint clatter of metal clinking against each other reaches your ears from above and you just barely have time to jump to the side before a bolt of blue energy slams into the ground you were just standing on. Oscar managed to dodge as well, and you both look up at your ambusher.

A tall figure in long black, blue and silver robes stands up on a balcony, looking down at you. In his hand is a large trident-looking thing and bits of round metal hang down off his robes. The strange (and honestly kind of funny-looking) thing about him is his tall helmet containing three sets of eyes.

"Damn, a channeler!" Oscar curses. "Kirika, quick! We have to-!"

A loud shriek echoed through the cathedral and you both once again have to jump further away to avoid a large mass that slams down from the ceiling, hard enough to crack the ground beneath it. The mass begins to rise, hissing and clicking in some unsettlingly inhuman manner.

First, a dozen long tentacles curl out and twitch about. Two long, thin limbs extend from the writhing mass, each ending in warped and twisted claw-like hands. The creature rises further to reveal a somewhat humanoid body and legs similarly long and twisted as the arms. From its back sprouts two clumps of large crystals, which glow and pulse between bright blue and a sickly black. The face, if it has one, is obscured by the tentacles, but it continues to chitter and hiss. The thing is in general coloured a deep ocean blue and covered in a thick slime.

Oscar takes more than a few cautious steps back, staring at the creature before him. You're not put off by the thing at all, however. You don't know how it's in this world or what it's doing in this cathedral, but you do know what it is.

Above, the figure with the funny-looking helmet chuckles loudly and raises his trident. You expect another attack, but instead he begins shaking it up and down and kicking his legs out as if in some kind of dorky dance. Light starts to spiral around him, and a golden ring appears beneath the witch. The light rises up from the ring and into the witch, which lets out a loud shriek. It rises up onto its legs, then slams down again, seeming angrier than before.

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[] Split up
-[] Go after six-eyes above while Oscar distracts the witch
-[] Distract the witch while Oscar goes after six-eyes
-[] Write in

[] Stick together
-[] Focus on the witch
--[] Write in
-[] focus on six-eyes up on the balcony
--[] Write in

[] Write in

[X] Stick together
-[X] focus on six-eyes up on the balcony






At first, you contemplate splitting up. It'd be pretty simple for a magical girl like you to leap up to the balcony where Six-Eyes is and cleave through his robes. On the other hand, you've slaughtered plenty of witches and don't exactly trust in Oscar's odds against their weirdness. Quickly, however, you realise neither option is a good idea.

Until now, you've only seen Oscar face Hollows and demons (well, he got smashed through a roof by one and thrown off a wall by another) so you have no idea if he's capable of fighting someone with any kind of magic. You're also not overly confident in your luck against the witch with how badly corrupted your soul gem is. You wouldn't be able to use much magic and any kind of injury could be your last.

Fight together then, one enemy at a time. The witch is the most immediate target, so that'll come first.

Baring your teeth, you growl at the witch. You and the monster begin circling each other like two predators ready to pounce. This is what you're used to. Hollows and demons are nothing but brute force, and event other magical girls go down far easier than they should.

You circle all the way around to the front of the cathedral, right in front of that big knight's corpse. A staircase leads up to your right, presumedly to the balcony. Something to note for later, so that Oscar can get up there after you deal with the-

You just barely manage to sidestep another one of Six-Eyes' bolts of magic. The blue energy slams into the dead knight's armour, burning a hole in the metal and creating a nasty stench of burnt flesh.

"Kirika, we should focus on the Channeler!"

You snarl at Oscar's shout. Why do others have to get in your way when you finally get to do what you're good at? Why did you have to encounter the witch after getting your gem so corrupted? Why-

You feel the strands of your hair burn and melt as yet another bolt of magic passes by close enough to make your eyes sting from the light.

-why does everything have to keep shooting at you?!

With a growl, you leap back and to the side, landing beside the stairs. Oscar's already waiting for you and begins running up to the next floor the moment he sees you follow.

The witch seems to choose this moment to finally make its move and lunges forward with a loud shriek. Its long arms and face-tentacles reach out for you as it pounces. You back up onto the stairs and slash your claws at the witch, cleaving through a few of the tenacles. The witch reels back with another, more pained shriek, and you use the chance to bound up after Oscar.

You pass another of those knights slumped in the corner of a short corridor and, while you've seen enough blood to long stop being squeamish, you're glad the cape is pulled up over the very not-head shape where the head should be.

You find Oscar around the next corner, holding his ground in a doorway with a bunch of basically naked Hollows grab and claw at his raised shield. He tries to raise his sword to slash at them, but the doorway isn't wide enough to swing in and the Hollows would clearly swarm around if he moved back. Luckily, the doorway is needlessly high, with plenty of space for someone your size.

Dropping into a sprint, you charge down the corridor towards Oscar and the hollows. Past the mess of shrivelled Hollow arms and heads you spot Six-Eyes watching the scramble. He seems to see spot you too and slams the bottom of his trident down on the ground. The echo rings over the Hollows' senseless noises.

You think, for a moment, that nothing happens. There's no big flash of magic, no sudden pain of something shooting through your body. Nothing at all happens until the moment you jump up to a part of the wall between two glassless windows into the main cathedral, planning to push off it and squeeze through the gap over Oscar's head.

Your feet touch the wall and you push off in the direction of the doorway, but you don't get far. Another shriek fills the cathedral and you feel something wrap around your leg. You don't even have time to realise what's happening before you're pulled hard into the window and feel yourself slam into the sides when you don't quite fit.

The witch, having jumped up and now clinging to the other side of the wall, clicks angrily and reaches out with its tentacles. The slimy appendages wrap around you and begin pulling. When it finds you're unreasonable enough to not horizontally fit through a vertical window, it begins to tighten its grip and crush you with its writhing mass of tentacles.

You feel your bones strain and bend under the tightening hold, but, while it's gross, the slime coating the tenacles gives you a chance to just barely move your arms. You manage to angle your right arm towards the witch and push all the strength you can muster into a thrust. You feel your shoulder pop and dislocate, and your whole body hurts from twisting with the sudden movement, but it works.

Your claws punches through the witch's flesh and it lets out a scream of pain. The tentacles suddenly loosen and drop you to the ground as the witch jumps away from the window. You're soaked in slime and witch blood (witches bleed normally here, apparently), your arm is dislocated and bent at a strange angle, and your whole body is screaming with every move, but you managed to avoid being crushed.

You try to pull yourself up, but you're suddenly hit by an intense dizziness and stumble back to the ground. Gasping for air, you drag yourself over to the opposite wall and pull yourself up to slump against it.

You can just make out the gargled whining of the witch downstairs and the Hollows are making animalistic screaming sounds as they try to push past Oscar to your right. Above it all, you can hear the mocking chuckle of Six-Eyes somewhere beyond the doorway. The sounds ring and echo in your skull. Your head's spinning and the edges of your vision are going blurry.

Shit, is this what you get for relying so much on your magic in fights? Are you really so useless without being able to slow your enemy's movements or ambush them? You reach back and detach your soul gem to look at. Still dark, still pathetically faded.

But maybe not so much that you can't keep going with the sparks that are left.

Returning your soul gem to its place, you once again try to stand. You grind your teeth against the pain and force yourself through the dizziness until you're on shaky feet. Next, you lean your disformed shoulder against the wall and hold your breath.

You slam your other hand into the shoulder and it slips back into roughly where it should be with a nasty pop and a lot of pain. To finish up, you focus a small amount of magic into healing your broken arm before pushing off the wall. You stumble at the throbbing pain still throughout your body, and curse yourself at the realisation that you could've shut off your pain this whole time. Maybe the corruption of your soul really is stopping you from thinking straight?

Once you slip into the numbness of feeling nothing, you have a much easier time moving and don't have your mind distracted by the pain. With your returned focus, you bring your attention back to Oscar's struggle against the Hollows. He shouts something back at you, but the words are impossible to understand beneath the sounds of the Hollows.

Deciding on the same plan as before, you summon your claws and take a few steps back. After a short moment for a deep breath, you drop into another sprint and leap up onto the wall to use as a springboard (this time using the outer wall, so there's no witch ambushes waiting for you.) Your feet touch the bricks and you push off, aiming for the open space in the doorway.

There's no sudden interruptions this time, and you shoot through the air with ease. Six-Eyes throws a bolt of magic at you and a few Hollows claw up at you as you pass above them, but both are easily avoided with a mid-air spin. As you do so, you reach out one of your arms and cleave through some of the Hollows with your claws.

You come to a sliding landing in the room beyond and turn your attention to Six-Eyes. The surprisingly tall guy lets out a wry chuckle at your acrobatics and holds out his trident. Magic shoots out from the weapon, and this close you just barely have time to roll out of the way. You hear a Hollow screech in pain behind you paired with the smell of melting flesh, but don't get a chance to look back. Six-Eyes follows the spell up by thrusting his trident out to impale you on its prongs.

You throw your claws up in time to knock the thrust up and away from you, then spin and kick out at Six-Eye's legs. He stumbles at the blow but doesn't fall. Even so, it gives you a chance to scramble to your feet.

Behind you, you hear the death cry of a Hollow, then Oscar steps up beside you, breathing heavily.

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[] Rush Six-Eyes head on

[] Attack Six-Eyes from the sides

[] Write in

[X] Attack Six-Eyes from the sides



You open your mouth to suggest some basic strategy, but Oscar suddenly takes a deep breath, growls and charges before you can. Six-Eyes jumps back from the heavy slash and shoots a bolt of magic in return. Oscar manages to block it with his shield, but wisps of the spell reach around it and flicker against his armour. The metal of the shield blackens where the magic burned, and wisps of smoke rise up from the impact.

While Oscar's sudden charge is unexpected, it's basically what you were going to suggest anyway, so you go about moving around to flank six-Eyes while he's distracted with Oscar. The room is reasonably sized, so you have no trouble giving the two of them a wide birth to get behind your foe.

After gaining some space after Oscar's initial charge, Six-Eyes has no trouble keeping your companion well out of reach with his long trident. Every time Oscar attempts to move forward for a strike, he's met with a thrust or swing of Six-Eye's trident, forcing him to keep back and his shield up. With Six-Eyes so caught up with keeping Oscar in check, however, has left him completely open from behind.

Having gotten right behind him in the time Oscar's bought you, you get ready to shove your claws right through Six-Eye's guts. He turns his head slightly at your sudden appearance and attempts to jump to the side. He sweeps his trident out as he does so, making you duck back. While this means you don't get your claws into his gut, you do take advantage of the kindly offered arm.

The robes and bits of dangling metal do little to stop your claws from cleaving through Six-Eye's arm and sending it flying to the other end of the room, along with his trident. You spin to bring your other claws around for the killing blow, but Six-Eyes suddenly gasps in pain. A sword has appeared in his chest and he goes limp. Oscar gives the corpse a solid kick, sending it off his blade and to the floor in a quickly growing pool of blood.

Your companion is breathing heavily and doesn't move for a few moments, only stares down at Six-Eye's corpse. After a couple of seconds, he glances at his sword and raises it before plunging it down into the body.

You shoot him a look when he looks up and he haggardly shrugs. "What? Channelers are servants of the Dragon Duke. They're abnormally hard to kill."

Neither of you have a chance to celebrate your victory over the Six-Eyes the channeler. A loud, very angry, shriek booms out through the cathedral, reminding the both of you of the presence of a witch.

Said witch leaps up from the ground floor and just about manages to squeeze through the balcony gap to reach the second floor the two of you are on. It shrieks and clicks in an almost despairing tone, wailing like some creepy sea creature.

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[] Combat strategies go! (Write in)

[X] Combat strategies go!
-[X] Throw a firebomb at it: Burn the witch!
--[X] If the firebomb looks effective, keeping throwing them. Particularly at it face.
-[X] Slash-and-dash: dart in, strike at the witch, and dart away again as quickly as possible.
-[X] Remember to dodge this time!



Keenly aware of just how corrupted your soul gem is, you decide not to just charge at the witch like you normally would. Extending or throwing your claws, while not much, still spends a bit of magic too. In other words, you're actually going to have to fight this thing fairly.

You take a step back as the witch rises to half the height of the room, and notice the clinking of the bag of firebombs tied to your hip.

Maybe you won't have to fight entirely fairly.

Reaching down into the bag, you take out one of the little bombs and eye the witch. Oscar must notice you, because he steps around to the witch's side and starts banging his sword against his shield and shouting at it to draw its attention.

The witch seems to take the bait and its tentacle-draped head snaps to Oscar's direction. Its hissing grows louder and angrier, and it begins slowly creeping forward. You use the time gained by the distraction to properly aim your throw instead of just lobbing it in the witch's general direction. The head's probably a good place, so you pick that as your target.

Winding up, you toss the firebomb just as the witch looks to be getting ready to pounce on Oscar. The bomb shatters right on the witch's head and it reels back with a surprised shriek. Despite the reaction, it calms down immediately and shakes its head, the flickers of fire splattering off along with the clumps of slime. It then turns towards you and lets out a low, dangerous chittering sound and lowers its head threateningly.

Okay, something to note: firebombs don't work well against things covered in slime.

The witch's chittering grows faster and louder before becoming a furious shriek. As it does, the witch reaches out one of its long, thin arms and sweeps it at you. The size of the room doesn't give you room to jump back, so you instead go over the attack.

You hit the ground running. The moment your feet touch down, you bolt forward towards the witch. You'd hoped with its arm so far out, you'd have an easy time cutting up the thing's soft fleshy body, but you unfortunately forgot that it can move its tentacles. Said tentacles strike out, stabbing and swinging and generally trying to hit or catch you.

You drop forward, using your momentum to role under the flailing appendages and slash out with your claws. Your weapon manages to dig into and almost sever the point where the witch's connects to its body, but the tentacles force you to retreat before you manage to remove the limb entirely.

The witch shrieks in both pain and fury at the wound, its face tentacles flails and spasm for a moment as it backs up and grasps at the injury with its other hand. After the initial reaction, however, it begins clicking and rubs its tentacles against the torn flesh and muscles. A thick coat of slime fills the wound when they move away, and the witch returns its focus to you.

At first it seems like the witch has completely recovered, but you quickly notice that it's started favouring its injured left side.

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[] Keep up the hit-and-run attacks

[] Try the firebombs again

[] Try something else… (write in)