A cocktail of confusion and anger shoves your exhaustion aside and plops itself down in the hole left behind by your adrenaline dump. Your legs lock and your fists clench, soreness kept at bay through sheer moxie.
"What? No. Fuck that and fuck you." You straighten up to your full height, looming as hard as possible. "Ye
know me. Ye really think I want peace? I've still got work ta do, ye one-legged git."
His smile crumbles, replaced by the purest agitation you've ever seen on his face. Every part of the tableau, from his crumpled hat to his peg leg, says that this should be amusing. Instead, it's inching towards terrifying.
"You've done your job, Anderson. The Nightmare's gone and your disciples can lead Yharnam through whatever comes after. I am giving you the opportunity to rest."
"Like Hell. I ain't restin' 'til the LORD Himself comes down and tucks my arse in." You turn around and storm back towards the gate. "I'm takin' Ebrietas and goin' ta the Chapel. We'll come back when ye're ready ta cut the bullshit and just talk ta me like a normal Goddamn human being."
As you march down the slope, grumbling about the old man's AARP Morpheus routine, a heavy chime stops you in your tracks. You look back, half-expecting Hope to be standing next to him for a musical number about the desirability of death, and your eyes widen.
Gehrman's on his feet. Foot. In his hand sits the most twisted, overcomplicated bell you've ever seen, the sort of thing you'd get if St. Paul's Cathedral got hit with a mortar and five drunkards tried to twist the debris together into a single bell with their bare hands. You can't even pinpoint the note; it seems to run through the entire spectrum of hearing, plus a few frequencies reserved for bats and sound technicians with delusions of grandeur.
"Do you recognize this, Anderson?"
"No, but I think the more pressin' issue is the fact that
ye're fuckin' standin'."
"You should," he says, crushing your attempted aside beneath his oratory heel. "It's how I brought you here.
You think you may have heard a bell of some kind before you died but that could easily have been the sound of the butler's heel shattering your face.
You walk back through the doorway as Gehrman begins organizing the dresser, rearranging a few vials and bells.
He returns the black blade to a shelf alongside a trio of small ornamental bells.
He stretches to place a trio of bells and some tools back on the upper shelves.
The man in question wheels himself around at your approach, placing the streamlined chunk of Amygdala he was tweaking on a shelf beside some bells.
Your mouth bobs up and down. The portions of your brain dedicated to quips and one-liners put up "Back in 15 Minutes" signs and run for the liquor cabinet.
"You've been useful," Gehrman continues. "And you have one last chance to keep being useful."
You pull out your bayonets and take a fighting stance. "I don't want ta do this."
"It doesn't matter what we want. Only what's required of us." He raises his beloved black blade and connects it to the wooden handle on his back, resulting in a massive scythe that he holds with the ease and care of a lifelong violinist. "Tonight, Gehrman joins the Hunt."
[] Write in...
