Anderson Quest: Killing Vampires and Werewolves and Leprechauns (Hellsing/Bloodborne)

[Tricia]

"And I," you say with an unnecessary straightening of your collar, "have answers. The name's Paladin Father Alexander Anderson, God's Assassin, the Bayonet Priest, Saint Guillotine, the Killing Judge..."

"That's all well and-" she tries to interject.

"...Exorcist, Crusader, Punisher, Executioner..."

"Look, could you-"

"...Purifier, Ripper, Dust to Dust..."

Simon's got his head in his hand and Ebrietas looks embarrassed. You soldier on.

"...and Iscariot's Trump Card. Also, this is Simon and that's Ebrietas. How d'ye do?"

"Micolash would have loved you," she mumbles, frustrated glare clearly visible despite the blindfold. "I am Yurie, scholar of Byrgenwerth. How did you convince a Great One to be your personal transport?"

You shrug. "Asked nicely."

He did!

To her credit, Yurie doesn't flinch, yelp, gasp, faint, or give any other outward sign of surprise. She merely glances over at Ebrietas, who waves a tentacle in response, and sighs.

"Come inside." She leads you towards the front doors and waves you through, obviously wowed by your diplomatic skills. Or she might just be trying to ensure more favorable fight conditions against ranged specialists and take Ebrietas out of play. Either way, you're cool with it.

Byrgenwerth's interior looks a bit better than its exterior, although that's an admittedly low bar. Heavy bookshelves line the walls, interspersed here and there with portraits, busts, or other curios. A spiral staircase leads to the second floor and you can see where lichen and ivy are struggling to reclaim the structure from within.

As you pass the busts, you note that several are either broken or outright missing, their inscriptions scuffed beyond legibility. You do manage to make out a few, however, that have survived both time and this visceral critique.

MASTER WILLEM
PROVOST

PROFESSOR GAETHJE
DEAN OF ASTRONOMY

BERGHOLT STUTTLEY JOHNSON
CHIEF ARCHITECT

"Take a seat," says Yurie, interrupting your appraisal. The wooden chairs she offers look as though they're losing wars of attrition with the local termite population, but manage to support your weight with only some mild shrieks of protest. You note with some respect that she's got you seated in a corner and is herself seated where Ebrietas, plopped patiently at the door, can't see her.

"You sound like a preacher," she says. "I killed the last man who tried to preach to me with my bare hands. Speak clearly and speak honestly. How did you meet Ebrietas and why is she allied with you? How can she communicate."

"Bit of a long story, that," you say. "Sure ye don't want a bit o' preachin' before we get inta it? Got some good stuff about Jesus Christ and eternal salvation and all that good stuff."

She turns towards your companion. "Simon, was it?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Do you mind if I injure your friend?"

"Go ahead; he regenerates, anyway."

"Ye traitorous fuckbag-"

Thankfully, she only goes for your knee. You grumble as the myriad bits and pieces knit themselves back together, glancing over at Ebrietas. "Ye could've interjected, ye know."

She did ask permission.

"Fine, fine. So, our story begins at the Grand Cathedral, where me and my mate Eileen were slaughterin' the shit out o' the Choir..."

Heedless of the splinters digging their way ever deeper into your ass, you regale your impassive host with your tale of friendship and catastrophic violence, from your first meeting with Ebrietas to her throwdown with the Lesser Amygdala. Simon chimes in with further details of the last part, which by his telling featured some impressive headbutts from the big lass. Apparently that dome isn't as squishy as it looks.

"So why are you here?" Yurie asks as you and Simon finish arguing over how many arms the Amygdalae had. "There's nothing left but those creatures outside."

"See, the thing is, there's some kinda fuckery goin' on with the School o' Mensis, some kinda nightmare dimension. Thing is, we can't get there and unfuck that fuckery 'cause of somethin' here in Byrgenwerth. Any ideas what that might be?"

"It's Rom," she says without hesitation. "She was before my time, but the college performed extensive studies and I've done my own research. Rom is a barrier, limiting the influence of beasthood on the waking world. Provost Willem theorized that there was a direct connection between the Old Blood and a specific dreamscape and my findings support that."

"Wait, ye're sayin' this what it's like when somethin's limitin' the influence? What the Hell would it be like without her?"

"Madness."

Damn, girl put some serious gravitas in that word.

"So what exactly is Rom?" asks Simon. "A Great One?"

"One who was formerly human. A student here, one of Willem's most beloved pupils. She and I are all that's left of the student body." She gives a humorless smile. "And between us, the mindless creature is doing more good."

[] Ask about
-[] Byrgenwerth alumni
--[] Who?
-[] The School of Mensis
-[] Yurie
-[] Rom

[] Ask Ebrietas about Rom

[] Write in...

 

[Tricia]

You lean back in your seat, conflicted. One part of you wants to grill Yurie immediately, learn more about this creature that somehow managed to make the leap from squishy pink ape to spacemurderspider. The other part, which just realized he significance of one of the busts, wants catharsis.

"Hold on a sec." You hop to your feet, feeling serious raised-eyebrow vibes from behind Yurie's blindfold, and stroll over to Johnson's bust with permanent marker in hand. If you can't impale him on one of his own bullshit levers, at least you can profane his legacy.

"I wouldn't," she chimes in.

"I would," you reply, looking over your target. Phrenology appears to have failed once again; he's not terribly bad-looking, strong cheekbones and muttonchops compensating for a rather weak chin. Nothing some unflattering facial hair can't fix; you pause in front of it, inwardly debating the relative merits of Hitler moustaches and Fu Manchus, when something occurs to you.

It wasn't facing this way when you came in.

Confused, you circle it. The face follows you no matter where you go, though you can neither see nor hear any hint that it's actually rotating. You move about until the thing is at a ninety-degree angle between you and Simon and put a finger on its nose.

"Simon, what part o' this thing am I touchin'?"

He quirks his own eyebrow before replying. "The cheek. Why?"

"What."

Yurie snorts. "Johnson got enamored with those paintings whose eyes seem to follow you and decided to try his own 'illusory optic.' Don't bother trying to draw on it, it'll just make the migraine worse."

"But," you sputter, "that doesn't make any sense."

"Neither does most of what we've run into," says Simon.

"Yeah, but that shit was sensibly nonsensical. Oy, Ebrietas."

Yes?

"Can ye see this from the door?"

Hang on. You hear some bumping as she tries to slip part of her sizable head through the frame. One green eye settles into view. Okay, I...

A wince visibly ripples across her features. Ow. Ow, that makes my head hurt. She shuffles back onto the porch, tubules wriggling as she tries to shake off the sight, while Simon apparently thinks better of getting up to check it himself.

"Sorry 'bout that," you call to her. You consider rearing back and smashing the thing, but you're afraid that'd collapse the waveform or something and blow you all to bits. A small, bitter part of you gives the man props for successfully defending his work using only a reputation for cataclysmic buffoonery.

You return to your seat with a grumble before the throbbing behind your eyes can get any worse. "So what kinda dark ritual'd he use ta pull that off? He sacrifice two art critics and a postmodernist goat?"

"Just a hammer, chisel, and his own unique brand of transcendental anti-competence," says Yurie. "Three of my classmates wrote their theses on Johnson and at least one was convinced that he was the key to learning higher truths by virtue of being the opposite of enlightened. I think he described Johnson as 'the shadow through which we find the light'."

"Poetic. Anyway, movin' on from the hazards o' pushin' the limits o' human ingenuity to uncharted territory, what's yer story?"

Her newly-unearthed levity slips away in a heartbeat. "I am the last surviving student of Byrgenwerth. The Forest's parasite infestation and those three men isolated the campus from Yharnam and supplies ran low. Most of the faculty grouped up and tried to make a push through the wilds to civilization. None came back; I've been alone with what's left of Master Willem for years, living off of lakewater and what little I can grow from the soil." She coughs and slips around the corner, coming back soon after with glasses of water. "At least I still have everyone's research material."

"Yeah, heard about the snakes," you say after a sip. Doesn't taste too bad, all things considered. "Nasty shite. Ye tried makin' yer way out yerself?"

"No; Byrgenwerth is my home."

"Fair enough. What's with the pricks in the hoods?"

"I don't know; I've killed them more times than I can count. It takes them some time to return, at least."

"Is Master Willem still alive?" says Simon. "He was well into his sixties when I first heard of him and that was shortly after the founding of the Healing Church."

"He is, by a certain definition of the term." She seems unfazed by Simon's anachronistic shenanigans. "When one delves as deeply into the nature of the cosmos as he did, one's mind isn't the only thing affected."

"I've certainly seen stranger," he replies with a nod. "You've been an excellent host, I must say."

She smiles a bit at that. "It's...it's nice to have an actual conversation for once."

"Glad ta provide," you say. "Ebrietas, want some water?"

I can get some from the lake, but thank you!

"Right, then." You swirl the water in your glass for procrastination's sake. "What's Rom's deal?"

"Besides being an interdimensional roadblock?"

"Yeah; how's a human turn into a Great One?"

"Willem never revealed the process; all he ever shared was that her mind didn't survive the transformation. She hasn't moved from somewhere beneath the lake in all the time I've been here. I don't believe she knows how to do anything but exist."

"There any way ta get ta what she's blockin' without botherin' her?"

"I've spent quite a bit of time on that topic and the only answer I can find is no. Her only function as a living creature is to serve as a barrier; it's fundamentally tied into her very being. She's like a mountain in the middle of a road, impossible to go around." She shakes her head. "I've looked for a way around or through or over, brought all of Byrgenwerth's history and resources to bear. Nothing. And I can't kill her. Can't unleash what she's protecting us from."

"Even if we found the door?" says Simon. "We have the means to get to that plane if we take Rom out of the equation."

Yurie bristles slightly and doesn't speak for several moments.

Um, Ebrietas interjects, I can try to help Yurie with her work. Maybe I can talk to Rom and she can be our friend?

[] Let Ebrietas try to assist

[] Go after Rom

[] Go to
-[] Where?

[] Write in...

 

[Tricia]

"Couldn't hurt. So long as Yurie's fine with it, go right ahead."

Yurie hesitates for a moment before nodding. "I would be happy for the help. I'll be out in a second."

Okay!

"In the meantime," you say with an unnecessary crack of your fingers, "I've got me an idea."

Simon winces.

You walk over to the bust, doing your best to squint, and lift it from its pedestal. As you stuff it into your sleeves, you see Simon dive for cover behind a bookshelf, dragging a very confused Yurie behind him. Ebrietas shrinks back from the doorframe.

There's a tense few seconds before you disguise a sigh of relief as a chuckle. "What're ye lot worried about? It's fine. Figured I'd just lug this along and see what it'd do ta-"

A bible erupts from your sleeves at a vicious speed, embedding itself in the nearest wall. You turn, startled, and watch a ballistic cross leave a perfectly cross-shaped hole in the bookshelf above Simon's head. You desperately try to get your sleeves under control as more and more objects cannon out, from top-secret Iscariot intel to the truncheon you confiscated from one of the rowdier orphans.

"TAKE IT OUT!" Simon bellows as an engraved whetstone you meant to give back to Yumie ages ago careens through the open doorway and manages eight skips along the lake's surface. Ebrietas scurries to safety as well after taking Maxwell's favorite mug upside the head, thankfully avoiding the desk that comes screaming after it.

"Huh. Could've sworn I put that thing back."

With a mighty effort, you reach into the depths of your sleeves and withdraw the bust. After putting it back on the pedestal, you look around to survey the considerable damage and get to work putting everything you can find back before Yurie can yell at you.

"What the FUCK was that?!"

Dammit.

"He's got these weird infinite sleeves," Simon supplies. "And he thought it would be a good idea to see what would happen if he put that horrible thing inside them. And before you ask, you are more than welcome to injure him again."

"It would be great against Great Ones; those things've got eyes for days. Can't blame me for bein' pragmatic."

"Yes, I can," Yurie replies before hitting you over the head hard enough to leave a dent. "Clean that up. Now."

Once your skull's reformed enough to handle sapient thought, you call out an apology to Ebrietas and look hopefully at Simon, who gives you a deeply pitying look before following the ladies out the door. You grab a broom and get to work.

Thankfully, being superhumanly fast helps both in combat and in cleaning up the collateral damage of your own genius. With only a smattering of cheating via sleeves, you've soon got the place in decent shape and most of your items back in their proper spot. You figure you'll have to ask Rom permission to grab the ones that wound up at the bottom of the lake.

Simon wanders in as you're struggling to re-alphabetize the stricken bookshelves.

"They're getting along quite well, but it's slow going. They're using the scientific method."

"Good on 'em," you reply, mentally cursing that rat bastard Melvil Dewey. "Need anythin'? Gettin' close to done."

"No, just thought I'd sit inside for a few minutes. Bit muggy this close to the lake." He watches your struggles, stone-faced, before ultimately sighing. "Look, they're probably going to be at this for a bit. I'll finish tidying and you can go check how everyone is at the chapel."

You narrow your eyes. "Awful generous o' ye. What's the catch?"

"First dibs on the next three unique weapons we find."

[] Take the deal, go back to the chapel

[] Stay and see how it goes

[] Write in...

 

[Tricia]

You frown. "I'll give ye the first one. Otherwise, I'll deal with this myself."

"Next two," he replies.

"One."

"One, plus the next bow. Come on, you don't even use them," he continues as your frown deepens.

"Ahh, fine," you say, tossing him the start of the Ws. He catches the books with a grin and takes your place at the foot of the bookshelf.

"Expected ye ta make a tougher offer," you say as you make your way towards the door.

"I was bored anyway," he replies. "Everything those two are talking about goes over my head. Don't want to throw them off by asking for clarification."

"Don't like not bein' the smartest person in the room?" you grin.

"Get out of here and make sure Djura hasn't bitten through his bed."

You take a slight detour towards that most accursed of art pieces, only to stop cold when an arrow nearly pins your hand to the wall.

"You've lost your bust privileges," Simon calls. There is no levity in his statement.

You rip the arrow out and toss it back to him, aborting a middle finger on the grounds that you deserve this, and stroll into the crisp lakeside air. The ladies are hunched over some doodad or another near the moon's overlarge reflection and you take a moment to wave.

"Simon said he'd take over, so I'm headin' back ta the Chapel ta check on everyone. Either o' ye need anythin'?"

No, thank you!

"I'd love some food, if you can spare it. I've eaten enough potatoes for one lifetime."

You nod and walk the grounds for a moment in search of a lantern, figuring that their historical convenience means one must be nearby. You're proven right in short order and, after stomping the weird eye monster that tried to jump you into the dirt, take a knee and vanish.

Hope is once again asleep, heedless of the various crating noises emanating from Gehrman's workshop. You still tread lightly on the way to the grave, where a handful of half-dozing Messengers welcome you with a tired wave. You dissolve right as what sounds like the unholy-but-awesome spawn of a chainsaw and a blowtorch revs up from inside.

A handful of Churchmen are out of bed when you arrive, helped along in their shuffling by Iosefka, her assistants, and a conscripted Liam. Somehow, his hugeness doesn't prevent him from being rather gentle with his charges. He holds Alexandria steady as she waves hello.

"Everythin' still fine here?"

"As far as I can tell," Iosefka replies after telling her patient his heart rate. "Djura's calmed down enough for us to take off the straps and Steffon's promised to hit him with his crutch if he tries anything."

"How's Steffon takin' the whole leg thing?"

"Fairly well, actually. He's an upbeat man to begin with and he says he was planning to put down his weapons after tonight anyway. There is something I need to show you, though." She passes her charge, whom you think is Andrew, to Emma before leading you outside.

Right next to the entryway that faces the Grand Cathedral lies the smoking corpse of a thin, gargoyle-like creature. You nudge it a few times with your foot to no effect.

"So where'd he come from?"

"Ellis spotted it flying in from somewhere past the Cathedral, but couldn't get a bead on it before it tried to land on the roof and wound up frying itself on your ward. "

Huh. You'll have to remember to take it down once this is over so you don't hurt Yharnam's less-awful birds.

"It also," Iosefka continues, "had an envelope in its hand. Addressed to you."

She reaches into the depths of her robes and produces said envelope, somewhat yellowed and adorned with your name in stylish writing. You're pretty sure it's not ink.

"Loved the delivery on that line, by the way," you say with a smile.

She smiles as well, tinged with a slight blush. "Thought I'd try being dramatic. You seem to enjoy it."

You pop a bayonet from your sleeves and carefully break the red wax seal holding it closed. The letter within crinkles audibly as you pull it free.

Father Alexander Anderson,

On behalf of Her Highness, Queen Annalise, you are cordially invited to Castle Cainhurst.

The Queen wishes to speak with you immediately on the topic of your actions this night.

Do not hesitate; the stagecoach leaves from Hemwick crossing.

There's no name at the bottom, not even a "with regards" or other fancy thing. The least they could have done is include a few of your titles; nothing spices up a letter like three paragraphs of noms de guerre, in your experience.

"Huh. I need ta find Alfred again so I can wave this in his face. Teach him ta fuckin' ditch the team."

[] Go back to Byrgenwerth
-[] Go to Hemwick

-[] Go straight to Hemwick

[] Talk to
-[] Steffon
-[] Djura
-[] Who?

[] Write in...

 

[Tricia]

After showing the letter to Iosefka, you carefully put it back in its envelope before condemning it to the depths of your sleeves. "Well, can't rightly say no ta that."

"Looks like a trap," she says.

You shrug. "Eh, I ain't lookin' a gift horse in the mouth. Never gotten ta kill a vampire queen before and this one was nice enough ta give me directions." You've killed a vampire empress, two vampire tsarinas, and a vampire president, but the archetypal monarch has always eluded you. Shame about President Donaire; she had some great economic policies.

"If you're certain. The girls and I will keep up with everyone's physical therapy while you're gone."

"Ye've done great work tonight, Doc. Thank ye."

"It was my pleasure. Also, Hemwick Lane is to the left of the Grand Cathedral's entrance."

"Much appreciated."

You follow her back indoors and gather up some vittles for Yurie before heading back outside. You turn to fetch Alfred before realizing that you have no fucking clue where he is; a lot's happened since he bitched out and Yharnam's a big city. A trip to the entrance of Old Yharnam reveals nothing and, while the idea has merit, you elect not to have Ebrietas throw you as high as possible to signal him. Wait, maybe if you had a flare gun in your hand and fired it right as you reached your apex...

No, no, you promised not to abuse your regeneration anymore. Another brilliant idea killed before its time.

Simon's made excellent progress when you arrive, halfway through the bookshelf after the one you were struggling with. He waves at your approach, not taking his eyes off his work as you deposit Yuria's lunch in a corner.

"Everyone doing well?"

"Looks like; they don't have to keep Djura strapped down anymore, so that's a plus."

"Good to hear. What are you up to now?"

"Got a letter from the Vileblood Queen invitin' me ta Cainhurst, actually."

Simon puts down the current stack of books and looks over his shoulder at you, eyebrow quirked.

"What prompted that?"

"Somethin' about my 'actions on this night.' Not sure what specifically she's referrin' to."

"You have done quite a bit. My money'd be on destroying the Healing Church; they didn't have a great relationship with the Vilebloods."

"Ye're probably right; think she'll give me a medal?"

"Don't get your hopes up. What's the plan?"

"Go there, say hi, thank her for her consideration, then kill the shit out o' her."

Simon nods. "What if she actually does give you a medal?"

"Same thing but I'll probably feel a wee bit shittier about it."

"Fair enough. I'll stay with the women, help them out."

"Ye don't wanna come along?" you say.

"And slow you down? Besides, the invitation was only for you and if there's one thing I learned about aristocrats from my time in Intelligence, it's that they don't approve of plus-ones."

"Works for me. I'll go tell the lasses goodbye and be off, then."

"They're pretty focused right now; I'll let them know where you've gone when they take a break. Have fun storming the castle."

You teleport back to Cathedral Ward and, with the sort of spring in your step only impending slaughter can bring, stroll towards your destination. From the great doors, a staircase leads down into a grassy passage that swiftly opens into a section of woods. The place is utterly choked with massive trees, many ringed with clusters of graves to maintain the classic Yharnam aesthetic.

Unusually spiky dogs rush you as you begin your hike, backed up by a handful of gunmen. All of them utterly fail to break your stride or your good spirits. In fact, they actually manage to improve said spirits when you hit one of the dogs so hard it impales itself on a tree and dangles thirty feet in the air.

Before long, you find a pair of tall wooden gates that you boot open with a whistle. A small settlements squats at the base of the slope, stone and wooden structures scattered throughout and the stench of death near-choking in the evening air. You flick the waiting lantern and look the place over, noting the continued abundance of graves.

Man, the stonemasons here must make a fucking mint.

[] Head straight for the crossing

[] Explore thoroughly

[] Write in...

 

[Tricia]

You know what? You've had a busy, productive day. Why not take your time and smell the roses on your way to the crossing? Keeping royalty waiting may be a faux pas, but so is stabbing them repeatedly in the face. Might as well go all the way.

As you stroll your way down the incline towards what looks like the center of activity, you chuckle to yourself at Simon's blown opportunity for loot scroungin'. His loss.

What structures you see can charitably be described as ramshackle, wood and stone smashed together into asymmetrical shapes that look poised to collapse at the slightest provocation. Carts piled high with bodies dot the center of activity as women mill about, inhuming and dissecting and doing all the things with corpses that general society finds acceptable. It strikes you as a sort of boomtown, only with Yharnam's surplus of dead people instead of oil.

Fair play to them, they found a niche and they've taken advantage.

"Evenin'!" you call as you step into the plaza. "I'm new in town and was wonderin' if any of ye fine ladies would mind givin' me a tour."

Things stop dead for a moment, after which the fine ladies in question shriek and charge you in entirely predictable fashion. You suppose that if they want to make more work for their friends, that's their business.

Once you've finished thrashing them, you toss aside the limp body you utilized in said thrashing and try to pick out which buildings are homes. The majority span the funereal continuum, crematorium belching smoke and organ storage reeking of overused formaldehyde, but you do find a few that sport the familiar incense burner. It's not until the third one you knock on that you get a response.

"Oh ho ho, does the beast expect charity? Lie among the bones and accept your fate," a voice rasps before launching into mocking laughter.

"Well that's rude," you say. "I was just lookin' for directions ta the crossin'."

"Oh," the voice replies, much more chipper than before, "why didn't you just say so? Just keep heading uphill; it's past the gate. Can't miss it."

"Mighty kind, thanks."

"Of course! Sorry about the monologue, it's kind of a tradition around here."

"Nah, I getcha. Have a good evenin'."

"You, too!"

What a nice man.

You trudge your way up the slope, short-circuiting a couple of well-placed ambushes by way of excessive force. A firebomb manages to set your pants on fire and you trip over a very tasteful plaque at one point, but the journey is fairly relaxing overall.

Partway there, a wispy, lanky figure bears down on you with a languid stride. Its empty eyes track your movements and when it gets within a handful of meters, it launches itself at you with furious abandon. You trade hits, its sickles burying themselves in the meat of your shoulders as you impale it through the belly, and it dissolves in the rank breeze. When no sneak attacks are forthcoming, you continue your climb until you reach said gate and pummel the Igor guarding it.

There's a lever behind it. You teleport through the bars and kick it relentlessly for about a minute.

While cathartic, your episode draws the attention of two hulking axemen and a veritable conga line of pissed-off biddies with farming implements. The one in the lead, wielding what looks like a red-hot trowel on a stick. screeches as she charges in. You back up into the gate, limiting their avenues of approach, and smile as the trailing women hang back so as not to crowd their teammates.

This makes it quite simple for you to smack them into next week with your club. You even manage to belt a line drive directly into one of the axemen, who staggers back a couple of steps before re-establishing his footing. With a grin, you store the club back in your sleeves and wave the pair on.

"I'm in a good mood, so I'm gonna make this a little easier for ye. Come an' get it."

They have slightly better coordination than their fellows, as it turns out. One surges forward from the right with an overhead swing, herding you into the other's diagonal chop. Lefty's reach works against him, though, as you step inside and drive your fist into his unarmored face. Several important things crack, loosening his grip on the axe, and you yank it from his hands with a flourish that buries the blade halfway through his neck. A quick pivot puts the corpse between you and Righty's next swing, which leaves his axe lodged in the dead man's belly.

He takes his eyes off of you for a moment to try to wrench it free and you bulldoze him to the ground with a double leg takedown. A quick hop puts you in full mount, where you slam home elbows until he runs out of face for you to break.

Once you've wiped the viscera from your sleeves, you spot the signpost that seems to signify the crossing. Before you go there, though, you take the time to scale a nearby rock face and explore a set of stables. Sadly, they seem to contain no live horses, and neither the angry women or the spiky dogs within seem keen on being ridden. At least the roof gives a lovely view of the lake.

Hang on, shouldn't the horses get their own graves? It's not like there's a fucking shortage of them.

[] Wait at the crossing

[] Check out that building at the top of the hill

[] Write in...

 

[Tricia]

From your vantage point, the only other paths you see lead to a wide stone structure and a sheer drop into the lake, respectively. Seeing as you left your trunks in your other sleeves, your path is clear. You walk across the clearing, pausing only to grab another wispy sickle-wielder that decided to accost you and smash its face into the ground a couple dozen times to the tune of "Whiskey in the Jar."

The Dubliners' version, obviously.

The massive doorway opens into a room filled with mummified bodies, strewn about haphazardly on the floor and on broken bed frames. Since you see no tools, chemicals, or any other object the mummification process involves, you're forced to assume this is either a storage warehouse, the world's shittiest pyramid, or the home of someone with a bizarrely specific hoarding issue. A steep stairway carves its way through the earth and you mosey on down it with blades in hand. You've spent way too much time in Yharnam not to recognize the scent of impending violence.

The room below lends credence to the warehouse hypothesis. Cavernous and oblong, it features a pair of wooden ramps that hug the left and right walls, nearly joined by a broken arch. Barrels litter the arena, empty if the sounds of your knocking are to be trusted, and more mummies dangle from roof on chains like fucked-up cocoons. The well-made statues that dot the upper portions of the walls stand at odds with the ramshackle aesthetic.

"Come on, come on," you say, scraping your bayonets together. "You and I both know somethin's gonna pop out the second I let my guard down. I ain't lettin' it down anytime soon, so let's just get on with it."

You can almost swear you hear a series of hushed whispers, after which a swirling mass of blood-red light rises from the center of the room and coalesces into a sicklebitch. Unlike the others, this one meanders towards you at a sedate pace. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, you hurl a bayonet at its face, anticipating the inevitable dodge or unexpected resistance to high-speed impalement.

It takes the blade flush to the noggin and goes down in a heap before dissolving. You wait a few moments for it to rise more powerful than ever, but there's just silence.

"So what's the gimmick?" you ask the air. "There gonna be more of them? Steadily fillin' the room until I'm overwhelmed by numbers or some shit?"

You definitely hear an embarrassed cough this time, although you can't quite pinpoint the location. The acoustics in here are surprisingly good.

Three more of the lanky fucks shine into being and you crack your neck. If that's how they want to play it, you're more than happy to oblige.

BOSS BATTLE: THE WITCHES OF HEMWICK
​

As the light fades away, you catch sight of a glint on the left-hand ramp that fades along with it. Now that you're paying attention, you can make out the sound of someone trying very hard to breathe very quietly. You dispatch the trio with casual throws and leap towards the spot with knee extended.

A lumpy form slides into the visible spectrum as soon as your flying knee makes an utter mess of its ribcage. The thing is preposterously stooped, what appears to be the world's gnarliest case of scoliosis giving it a near-ninety-degree angle between hipbone and backbone. Its robe is crusted with eyes, clustered together like barnacles, and hair so filthy and matted it probably has its own ecosystem covers its face. All in all, the thing comes up to about your belly button and, judging by how fast it made the voyage from the tip of your knee to a dent in the wall, weighs about thirty-five kilos soaking wet.

You pick up the twitching heap, thankful for your gloves, and dangle it in front of you by the collar.

"Ye summonin' these things?"

Nod.

"They've been tryin' ta kill me, ye know."

Nod.

"Can't say I appreciate that."

Sad nod.

"Now I'm gonna have ta squish ye."

Frantic, ultimately futile shakes of the head.

As you scrape bits of old lady off your club, you're mildly surprised to see another handful of sicklethings sauntering towards you in vaguely menacing fashion. You're less surprised when, after you smash them to bits and the next group queues up, you see another glint on the far wall. This one actually tries to scramble away before you lift its newly-visible body into the air with one hand. Identical to its sibling, it attempts to cast some sort of spell that, to its misfortune, is slower than your uppercut.

As you wind up to club it into paste, you pause.

"Hang on. Mind if I ask ye a question?"

Dazed shrug.

"You two summoned these things."

Nod.

"And ye can summon a bunch."

Nod.

"Why didja stay in here with 'em? Why didn't ye just sit upstairs, wait for me to go down 'em, then block the doorway and summon a billion of 'em ta kill me at yer leisure?"

Raised finger, lowered finger, pondering pose, slump of defeat.

You almost feel bad when you toss the thing up, rear back, and smear it across the opposite wall.

PREY SLAUGHTERED​

After lighting the commemorative lantern that just cropped up, you walk through the opposite door into a small office. A man sits slumped on a chair, long dead but well-preserved by your estimation. On his lap sits a curious metal brand that you pocket. Gehrman'll probably want to take a look at it at some point.

It's a dead end beyond that. Simon really didn't miss out on much loot, all things considered.

[] Go to the crossing

[] Find some other way to procrastinate on that

[] Write in...

 

[Tricia]

You figure that's about all the fun you'll be able to wring out of this shithole. You turn and head back the way you came, careful not to slip on any loose bitch giblets.

In proper mysterious fashion, the stagecoach is waiting for you when you step outside. Two massive, emaciated black horses stand in the middle of the crossing, still as death in the twilight. The carriage they haul is wooden, stately, and rather tasteful, bearing on its door what looks like a pair of griffons.

Then again, you are terrible at recognizing heraldry. You don't think that Romanian ambassador ever forgave you for that "badass chicken" comment.

The door opens on its own at your approach because of course it does. You stick an arm in, just in case, then climb aboard when nothing impales it or sets it on fire. The down cushions are a delight, luxuriously soft and so comfortable that you're almost tempted to put aside your regicidal rampage. At least until you can poach Annalise's upholsterers.

The door creaks shut once you're settled and its collection of lanterns jingle as the horses rumble into motion. You sink into the seat and watch the word slip by through the wooden bars of the windows.

The beasts' gait is steady and powerful, chewing up the rough terrain without issue. Once you get bored of watching trees, you take out a Bible and flip to a random section under the moonlight. There's no better pump-up material for a proper castle-storming than the classic.

You're so engrossed in Samson's myriad beatdowns that you don't know whether minutes or hours have passed by the time the coach slows to a halt. The door opens, once again on its own, and a biting wind digs into your face as you exit. Snow crunches under your feet and piles itself along your shoulders as you look up at the tremendous structure.

This is straight-up, O.G. vampire aristocrat chic. A few impaled Turks on the lawn and it'd be just like home.

The fortress, lit by row upon row of lanterns, outsizes any of Yharnam's buildings several times over. Its tiered towers stretch into the ice-cold frost and the wooden gate before looks like the remains of half a forest. Snow sits heavy on the structure, turning it into a hoary colossus that utterly dominates the horizon.

You look behind you, wrapping one of your sleeves' backup outfits around your neck as a scarf, and see that the bridge you just crossed is broken in the middle. The horses lie frozen at your feet, by all indications long dead.

Man, fair play to that overgrown mosquito, she has an incredible flair for the dramatic.

You trudge up the massive stairway and, right on cue, the gate's mechanisms moan to life and drag it open to reveal a snowed-in plaza. Grass pokes through the white at odd intervals, gnarled trees cling to life, and regal statues stand untouched by time. Men, women, kings, and queens survey their domain, heedless of the snow piling ever higher on their crowned heads. There's even a frozen fountain on the left-hand side of the two-pronged path, midway to a lantern-lit door.

Were these guys the originators of Yharnam's unstoppable candles or did they just have the same supplier?

In any case, you flick the nearby Dream lantern and rub some life back into your limbs. You guess you'll have to make your own welcome party.

[] Go straight to the lit door

[] Look around first

[] Write in...

 

[Tricia]

Meandering about is a lot more fun when you're not freezing your tits off. You make a beeline towards the lit door, pausing only to wrap additional bits of clothing around your extremities.

Oh, hey, it's the scarf Heinkel knitted for you for Christmas that one year. The little Walther PPs on it are adorable.

You're drawn from your nostalgia by the crunching of snow all around. Bloodlickers, leaner than their brethren in the Nightmare, pull themselves out of the great depression in the middle of the clearing and scuttle into view from behind the arrayed statues. You put your accouterments back in the sleeves, vowing to actually organize the things one of these days, and leap into the fray.

They're meaner than the ones you're used to, which makes sense considering they don't have an infinite blood river to gorge on. Still, you carve through them without too much effort, watching the snow crackle beneath the warm blood in their bellies.

Where did they even find fresh blood in this hellhole? Have they been eating each other? It's either that or the Queen has a blood cellar filled with aged vintages that these fat fucks have been partaking of. The trick is using chestnut casks.

With only a modicum of fresh stains on your coat, you finish the trek to the doors, which follow the trend of everything else in this place by opening on their own. The toasty, torchlit entryway opens into an expansive foyer. A tasteful red-and-orange carpet runs from the center to the top of the stairs, which are flanked by a pair of golden statues similar to the ones outside. The haphazard assortment of candles strewn about are the only nod to the castle's age; the marble tile floor is spotless and even the chandelier above looks as good as new.

Definitely not what you'd expect after a genocidal purge. If Alfred's any indication, the Executioners don't seem the type to clean up after themselves.

You hear a reedy whine and look up to see a hunched man in a robe launching himself towards you. You barely stop yourself from kicking him through the ceiling, noticing the rag in his hand and the angle of his flight. Instead of landing on you, he comes down behind you and starts furiously scrubbing at the wet footprints you left behind.

Once that's done, he motions for you to lift your left boot and wipes it clean, then does the same for the other one. You think you hear an offended harrumph as he goes back to the corner you didn't realize he was sitting in.

With that done, you flip him a euro from the depths of your sleeves and make way towards the stairs. Three steps away from the base, a veiled woman materializes next to you and drives a knife into your chest.

And you'd thought so highly of their hospitality.

You grab the handle and watch as she struggles to pull it free. After a few seconds of straining, you stop resisting and watch her stumble back. You don't give her a chance to regain her dignity before you cut her head off and she vanishes. The cleaner grumbles his way to your feet and cleans up the few drops of your blood she managed to draw.

You give him another euro for the trouble.

Looking around, you see more of the women milling about at the edge of visibility. Looks like a textbook case of Stabbing Ghosts, named both for their primary activity and most efficient method of disposal. A couple more accost you as you ascend the staircase, though they also suffer from the traditional Stabbing Ghost weakness of being terrible at knife fighting.

Turns out most people who die and become ghosts didn't invest in lessons.

You take a left at the top and find yourself in a dining room crammed with statues, just piled up willy-nilly. You're a patron of the arts, but this is entirely too many statues. Say what you will about the Healing Church and their love of stonemasonry, at least they knew how to arrange them. This place is probably on an isolated peak because they mined the rest of the mountain to make their eighty fuckbillion statues. The least Annalise could have done is make them the creepy type that move when you're not looking.

You take out your annoyance on the ghost ambush that awaits you in the center. You keep a lookout in case one of them has a hammer and chisel, but it looks like it's knives all the way down.

Yet more statues await you on the balcony outside. At least there's a lovely view from the battlements, the lake stretching into the distance.

You see a pair of gargoyles, standard-issue instead of the Extra Crispy from before, hiding among the statues. It would be a much more effective ruse if the things weren't swatting angrily at the black lumps trying to sit on their heads. You put them out of their misery and keep walking so as not to ponder the many, many questions you have.

A third gargoyle lunges out on your way to the adjacent tower and takes a swing at you. You knock it onto its back and let it flail for a bit before breaking a wing and booting it off the edge. It's quite a while before you hear the crunch.

The tower's entrance hall features another hunched man, this one with a rapier. He tries some fencing techniques on you, then learns in very abrupt fashion how the noble sport of fencing was not built to accommodate clinch knees.

Another brief trip outside and you find yourself in what looks like a library. What books you see are in solid shape and they even have those little rolling stairways to let you grab the ones higher up. Very fancy, even if there are a bunch of ghosts trying to spoil your perusal. You make sure to beat the snot out of them as quietly as possible.

[] Browse the shelves

[] Just keep going

[] Write in...

 

[Tricia]

It's quite an impressive collection, row upon row of books towering above you. It would take you years to get through them. Decades, even.

Luckily, you have a solution.

Stretching your sleeve, you run along the shelves and hoover up everything within arm's reach. Your merry jaunt, interrupted at one point by a little man with a blowgun who reacts rather poorly to having it shoved down his throat, takes you over tables, up the little stairways, and deep into musty corners where unwanted tomes have piled up. There's some you can't reach without a ladder or unfeasible amounts of parkour, but it won't hurt to save them for later. Not like you can do the usual thing and burn the castle down when you're done.

Although the Powder Kegs could probably whip up something that melts stone with a little time and no supervision.

You find an unlocked chest near the end of your journey around the room. Opening it reveals a red leatherbound book adorned with the same sigil you saw on the carriage. You crack it open; perhaps it contains secret information, left here during Logarius' purge so as to escape the slaughter.

You flip through a few more pages, squinting.

These people had terrible handwriting.

Giving up, you shove it in with the rest of the bunch. You'll come up with a cipher or something eventually.

Beside the chest is a pressure plate elevator, which takes you back to ground level. It opens up within spitting distance of the entrance and you take a moment to admire the pile of Bloodlicker bodies you left behind before heading back up. Stairs take you to the next level of the library, where narrow footbridges span the gaps in a rather lovely but terribly hazardous arrangement. Health and safety guidelines are powerless before vampiric might, apparently, just like their beloved book collection is powerless before your sleeve-based thievery.

After pummeling a few more hunched men, save for another team player who simply ignores the hubbub and diligently restocks the shelves, you take an appreciative stroll around the room. The filing system remains alien to your eyes, but every book you can find is in excellent condition. It's always nice when evil aristocrats cultivate proper respect for the written word.

What they didn't cultivate proper respect for, apparently, is reasonable architectural connectivity. You have to leap up to the third level, as there's no nearby ladder or stairway to bridge the gap. They were vampires, to be fair; probably set it up like this so they could feel badass jumping around to get to different books. It does, however, beg the question of how the servants got up here. Maybe the Vilebloods threw them up to their posts at the start of every workday.

Following another book-scooping run, you take a spiraling stairway through an archway and into the blistering air. As it winds around the outside of the tower, the stone transitions into wood, soaked and creaking beneath your footsteps. That, in turn, deposits you on a gently-sloped rooftop covered in slick tiles just aching to send you plummeting to your death.

Well, not your death. Your massive annoyance, maybe.

With the treacherous footing, you elect to just snipe the gargoyles waiting in ambush. You then spend a few minutes looking for where to go next before noticing a set of fenced walkways between the towers. To actually get to them, someone would have to walk along the edges of the towers' conical roofs and jump down, which would be ill-advised on a good day and absolutely suicidal on one like this. Tuning your brain to the uniquely deformed wavelength of Yharnam architecture, you concede that there are worse ways to stave off an invasion than forcing eighty percent of the invaders to fall hundreds of feet onto pointy rocks.

You remember Djura's comments about a certain individual building "a few bigwigs' mansions" and things make more sense.

You make the journey with only a couple of near-misses, helped along by the bayonets you use to anchor yourself on the rougher patches. The path culminates in a ladder, which in turn leads to a snowbound slope with a torchlit arch at its peak. As with your recent tussle with the Witches, you can smell the impending showdown from a mile away. You also feel your bell burning a metaphorical hole in your sleeves.

At least you hope it's metaphorical. There's a lot of flammable material in there and you would not put it past anything from Yharnam to burn in a vacuum.

[] Summon Maria

[] Go in alone

[] Write in...