As you reach the gate, a thought occurs to you. It's not that you don't trust Iosefka, it's that you don't trust everything else.
Can't hurt to be safe.
Pages flutter from your Bible in a miniature storm. You cast your hand forward and nails drive them into the stout walls of the clinic. You will the Word to deny entry to all those that would do harm to the building or its inhabitants. You considered making the cross a key to get in or out, but the idea of some poor sod looking for healing accidentally getting a faceful of holy vengeance isn't very Christianlike.
With that taken care of, you force the protesting gate open and step onto the cracking cobbles of Yharnam, being sure to shut it behind you. The sun seems to be on the way down, but there's still enough light for you to take in the impressive Gothic sprawl. A carriage rusts nearby, its horse long since rotted and pooling. It strikes you rather unsanitary, considering it's right outside a medical clinic.
Another carriage sits atop a nearby slope alongside another large gate. You can hear scraping in that direction and the telltale whisps of a torch being held aloft. You adjust your collar and step forward confidently; you only get one chance at a first impression, after all.
You catch a glimpse of your first Yharnamite in his natural habitat when he comes around the carriage to investigate your footsteps. He's incredibly lanky and uncomfortably hairy, steadying the torch in his right hand and dragging along an enormous axe with his left. His clothing is as disheveled as his hair, overlong and with the telltale patchwork of someone without the budget for an extended wardrobe. Nice hat, though. You put on your best smile and offer a hand in greeting.
"Afternoon, my good man! Wouldja mind tellin' me how t'get ta the Grand Cathedral? I'm from out of town, y'see."
He stares at you as though you've grown an extra head, then moves to cut off the original to compensate. For all his size, though, it's obvious the axe is too heavy for him and you duck his labored swing with ease. On the way up, you drive a fist into his liver and watch him fall to his knees in agony, clutching his stomach and dry heaving.
"Well tha's not very neighbourly of ye."
He scrambles forward in an attempt to grab his fallen axe, an attempt that's abruptly curtailed by your driving a pair of bayonets into his back. Once he stops twitching, you pluck a pair of blood vials from his coat, remembering Iosefka's request.
As you finish looting (for a good cause), you hear some hurried footsteps approaching from behind, apparently drawn by the commotion. You round on them, yanking your bayonets out in a satisfying spray and kicking the body aside. These two aren't as big as the one you just put away, but are more obviously beastial, with furred faces and distended arms that reach down to their knees. They hold sickles in clawed hands, raising them quickly to eye level as though desperate to have anything at all between you and them.
Looks like this place is going for the classic Frankensteinian mob aesthetic. You can respect that.
"Don't suppose you lot'd be more amenable to a friendly chat?"
They don't even hesitate before charging you, calling you a "foul beast" and something else you don't quite catch because the guy saying it now has a bayonet where his larynx used to be.
"I'm not the bloody beast here, ye fuzzy bastards! Don't give me that I Am Legend bullshit!"
You hope he managed to hear you before his brain stopped working. You can't remember how long it takes the head to die once you've cut it off.
With a few more blood vials in tow, you turn to find...a lever. Just a big honking lever, here in the middle of the street. With a locked gate on one side and a dead end on the other, though, it doesn't seem like you have much choice but to give it a yank. It wouldn't be here if it didn't do something important, would it?
Your curiosity is rewarded when a ladder crashes to the ground beside you with a weighty thud. Making sure to fleece the other dead guy you find around the corner, you make the climb.
Only to find half a dozen of the bastards waiting for you at the top. That ladder was pretty loud, after all. It looks like they were poised to knock you off the ladder before seeing your size and wussing out.
They're an interesting motley, a couple with that big axe, one with a wooden plank hiding behind the others, and even one with an old-school pitchfork. You spread your arms, noting with amusement that both Plank and Pitchfork Guy back away, and begin your sermon.
"When I raise my flashing sword, and my hand takes hold on judgment, I will take vengeance upon mine enemies, and I will repay those who hate me."
In Yharnam, nobody knows you're quoting Boondock Saints.
Pitchfork Guy rushes you, only for you to grab the weapon's shaft and flip him over the edge with it. The rest realize that they've crowded themselves in too tightly right about the time you lay into them. They're in pieces before Pitchfork Guy hits the ground.
Plank Guy is the only one left, backing away from you on trembling legs. To his credit, he does manage to steel himself and try to bash you with it, but it doesn't do him terribly much good when you've shoved a bayonet through the plank, his arm, and his chest.
"Come on, ye heathen shits. Is that all ye've got?"
The pile of bodies' lack of movement suggests that is, in fact, all they've got.
Just beyond the carnage sits a lantern, identical to the one in the clinic. When you reach towards it, it bursts to life and an image of the Dream floats through your mind, much in the way the clinic did when you messed with the grave.
Convenient.
To your left you see a thick, sturdy metal gate, while the right path appears to lead you further into the city. An incense lantern burns on a barred window, lit from within.
[] Return to the Dream
[] Inspect the lit window
[] Make your way down the path on the right
[] Write in...
