Considering how many locks Fiddle had to undo just to open the door and the frankly gratuitous chains and locks on the window bars, this place is probably pretty safe. Still, better safe than mauled and/or experimented on by amoral lunatics with a god complex. You walk up to the door.
"Doctor?"
"Yes, Father Anderson?"
"Eileen and I are off ta look for Gascoigne. I'm gonna place a ward on the house to keep any arseholes out. This one's gonna be a doozy, so try not ta go outside too much."
"Al...right?"
"Just warnin' ye. And if ye hear somethin' that sounds like someone spontaneously combustin' outside the door, that means it's workin'."
She doesn't have a chance to respond to that before the door opens once more and a little blonde head peeks out.
"Father Anderson? When you find my mum, please give her this. It plays Daddy's favorite song. It helps him remember us." She offers you a small box with a crank, which you recognize as an old-fashioned music box. You take it gently from her hands.
"I will, lass. Thank ye."
She smiles and scurries back inside. This time, you hear the locks re-engage. Overcome by curiosity, you turn the handle as she secures the house.
The tune is soft and haunting. Perhaps to a child it would be soothing, but like a too-human doll, there is an uncanny eeriness to it.
"It's an old Yharnam lullaby," Eileen tells you. "Gascoigne always loved it. When Viola was in labor, he'd sit by her bed and just turn the handle for hours."
Carefully, you inter the box in the bottomless confines of your sleeves and straighten up, looking over the house.
"What did you mean by a 'ward,' Father?"
"Just a little trick I've got. Ye'll want ta stand back."
The pages and nails once more swarm from your sleeves, but rather than immediately planting themselves in the thick stone, they instead swirl above you with waxing fervor.
"Let those who approach this home be judged by the LORD, and if they be found wanting, let them burn beneath the righteousness of His gaze. Let none with sin in their hearts profane this holy barrier, and let His grace stand against the tides o' darkness that so drown this city.
AMEN!"
The nails pierce the stone with such force that not only the shanks but the heads themselves bury their way a good three inches into it. There's an almost palpable energy in the air and you can nearly hear the thrumming of holy might. Eileen, who you assume is curious but can't quite read what with the mask, tentatively reaches towards it.
"Don't."
"How did you do this?" she asks as she backs away.
"I have the LORD in my heart and bear the fruits of his blessing." You unconsciously pat your chest, remembering the recent time when the former statement was literal.
"You'll have to tell me more of this on the way," she says as she approaches the gate. With a motion you can't make out, she releases the lock and it slowly creaks open. She beckons you to follow before disappearing down the hanging ladder.
When you reach the cobbles at the bottom, still a level above the aqueducts, you see her standing face-to-face with another of the massive hunchbacks. Rather than a brick, this one's wielding what looks like an entire stone statue with one hand. Eileen, unimpressed, is twirling her blade in her right hand, looking for openings.
"I showed ye mine," you call to her. "Only fair that ye show me yers."
"I'm afraid you'll have to watch closely."
The hunchback thunders forward. There's a black blur, the whistle of steel, and suddenly Eileen is behind him, walking away. The big man doesn't have time to register this development before his legs give out, his momentum carrying him a respectably distance before his dead bulk skids to a halt. There's the faintest hint of fresh blood in the air, though his body appears unmarked.
Eileen doesn't say a word. She just watches as you step over to the corpse and, with a grunt, flip it over. Two distinct wounds: one in the heart, one in the lungs. Both between the ribs with the kind of precision a surgeon could only dream of.
"That's art right there," you say.
You know she's smiling behind that beak.
The two of you walk across the narrow expanse, pausing only to knock on a lit door and get cursed out with such intensity and creativity that you have to ask Eileen what half of the words meant.
"I'll tell you when you're older," she says. Another pair of ladders take you down to the aqueduct itself. The water instantly seeps into your shoes; if it wasn't for the Dream's apparent instant laundry service, you'd be mighty peeved at your best pair of heathen-stompin' socks getting ruined.
Despite the gate's best efforts, it seems Yharnam's litterbugs will not be denied. The narrow passage is choked with debris and mangled corpses, while bloated crows perch contentedly on wooden beams some meters up and shit contentedly into the muddy water.
"How is this city not already dead from drinkin' this shit?"
"Most people prefer blood to water these days. Still, I'll admit it's a mystery to me as well."
The two of you slosh forward, Eileen in front and you keeping watch from the rear. The crows simply warble to one another and watch you intently as you pass. Their bellies are so full you're pretty sure they'd burst if they tried to hop down from there.
There's a splash behind you. When you turn, blades drawn, there is only a legless corpse sitting waterlogged and putrid some distance away. You throw a bayonet through its head anyway and are only mildly surprised when the thing thrashes for an instant before going still.
"Fuck off, Jason."
Eileen looks at you oddly.
"Story from back home."
She looks over toward the body, then back towards your path. More of them, in various states of dismemberment, line the way.
"Should have remembered what these were. I've been away from the city for too long."
"And what are they?"
"I'm not actually sure if they're undead or just infected townsfolk who fell down here and ran afoul of rats. Either way, you've already found the solution for them. It would save us some time if you did the same to the ones up ahead."
You nod, produce some more bayonets, and get to work with target practice. After the first couple get ventilated, the rest start pulling themselves toward you. It might be intimidating if they weren't slower than Michael Myers with his shoelaces tied together.
"If you don't mind my asking, who is this "Lord" you've been referring to?" she asks.
"The LORD is God, who created this world and whose Word I carry into its dark corners," you reply as you plug another one between the eyes. "I am His champion, and through me He shall guide the faithful into paradise." You pause your onslaught to pull a Bible out from your sleeves. "You a religious woman?"
"I confess I'm not."
"Well, I'll loan ye one of these when we're done. Here, watch this." You replace the Bible, aim carefully, and fire off a bayonet at an angle. It ricochets off one wall before spearing two of them through the head. She gives a little golf clap and you bow just low enough to smell the water and regret your decision.
You continue on towards a large arch, beside which sits another ladder. Before you can decide on a climbing order, a shrill cry booms from the tunnel. Both of you stop and try to puzzle out the indistinct shape approaching from it.
That.
That is a big fuckin' pig.
[] Leave it be, go up the ladder
[] Make some bacon
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