Fade to Grey (SCP/Bloodborne SI)
- Thread starter Commissar_Exile
- Start date
- Crossover Horror
- Location
- In the twilight zone
oh shit, that was meant to be the m4 lol. fixed now
Not being a video game character does mean that things will go differently than canon. I'd be pretty surprised if he doesn't end up escorting a bunch of people that the canon hunter just lets go out and about by themselves.
Given his training he'll probably realize that something happened to Iosefka after a bit. I'm pretty sure that the imposter has a different voice actor, which sounds like someone as paranoid as an SCP solider would recognize.
Given his training he'll probably realize that something happened to Iosefka after a bit. I'm pretty sure that the imposter has a different voice actor, which sounds like someone as paranoid as an SCP solider would recognize.
- Location
- St Louis
Well this certainly is a nice find. I just started playing Bloodborne last week so its nice to find fics for it. Please grant me eyes!
The End is the Begining is the End is the Begining
- Location
- In the twilight zone
Holy shit.
Beyond the rather morbid fact that the clinic's entrance is inside a graveyard, the walls surrounding it gave way to massive victorian-like buildings and towers.
Taking a tentative step forward from the doorway, the first sense that hits me is the smell.
Putrid, with the accompanying with the smell of smoke.
Someone is burning bodies. What a welcome gift.
"The city has gone mad!" Iosefka's voice comes ringing out, only to fade as quickly as it came.
And I have two magazines of 5.56 left, with only three full magazines for the pistol.
"A proper melee weapon", the voice of Gherman rings out as quickly as the previous did, and left as soon after.
I need a moment to gather myself.
Taking a few steps left to lean against the stone wall, the countless procedures for what to do when you're not in kansas anymore come flooding back from my subconscious.
Establish a safe area, tentatively checked.
Establish stock and approximate combat readiness.
…
…
Results are shit and even shittier, done.
Fucking mad about the knife though.
Back on topic. Establish mental readiness.
My pistol smashing against the beast comes back vividly, as the strike occurs over and over and ov-
Absolutely fucked. Don't dwell on it.
Next.
Establish contact with comm-
Springing off the wall in sudden realization, my eyes narrow while looking over myself. Finding nothing, my eyes drift and fixate on my hands.
Parts of the gloves covering my hands have been brutally shredded, yet the now exposed skin has no blemish other than the blo-.
Stopping that train of thought is akin to halting a speeding car, as the beginnings of a headache begin to form. Taking a seat on the ground, my head falls back on the wall as I ponder again.
Guess that whole "immunity to mental attacks" thing is now up in the air.
Is this some sort of sarkic supermagic or some shit like that? To get a response that strong out of me… it's just a question that gets tossed onto the deepening pile of unanswered bullshit.
Lets try focusing on the previous topic then.
Bringing a hand to the SCRAMBLE gear, a quick button press floods the visor with diagnostic logs.
Anti-Memetics unit (Active)
GPS (Inactive, No signal detected)
'Course, that would obviously be far too easy now would it?
Scantron Reality Measuring unit (Active, Measuring 20 humes)
Contact briefly delayed, because what the fuck!
Twenty humes!?
Baseline reality usually sits around 55-60 humes. Pinewood-
I never got Pinewood's hume level, did I?
I'm bad. This is my job, why am I this bad at-
Regardless, I've only seen hume counts get this low while the cult is doing their evil summoning thing or one of those buildings that are significantly bigger on the inside.
For the ambient surroundings to hold that level is bad.
Really, really bad.
Getting up from sitting, my eyes scan quickly with a newfound determination across the diagnostics list.
Drone feed (Inactive, No input)
Battery Measurement unit (Active, reading 67%)
Skipping over a few, my eyes laid on the prize.
Comms Relay (Active)
Thank god for the small miracles.
Adjusting the radio feed, I find the mark on nominal channels.
Only to be greeted by not only no background static, but nothing.
Well shit.
Switching to emergency lines, I was greeted my the exact same thing.
Static, I understand. Anomalies may suppress radio waves, but that tends to just make it turn unintelligible. However, having nothing outside either means that I am very, very far away or something incredibly good at suppression, and by extension powerful and dangerous is reducing signals to zero.
Twenty humes.
The thought of having both sends a shiver down my spine.
Fuck this, I'm going to do the ol' slide across the channels to find something. Having the comms unit slide across the proverbial spectrum, silence and the odd crackle only continued to be the sole distributor of sound to my ears.
*B*
Stopping the slide as quick as possible, a bit of hope flashes before me as the sound of something means that I might be onto something. Sliding ever so slowly backwards, my heart begins beating rapidly in hope that-
*Be-Beep, Beep, Be-Be-Beep!*
Or just make the situation ten times worse. That's fine too. Out of all frequencies that I would find something, it's a damned distress beacon. One that's low on power for the fact that its switched from voice to beeping.
Twenty humes.
Having a low level of reality as well means that the beacon has been going off for a good long while more than usual as well.
Two magazines for the rifle, three for the pistol.
Distress beacon means that another MTF was here at some point in the past though. If nothing else, there's still a chance that stragglers are still alive.
Say you find them, what do you do next?
Thinking too far ahead. Lets try getting out of here first.
Looking ahead and to the left of me, there were two large iron gates. Going for the gate in front of me, it appeared what was behind it was the courtyard that went around to the back of the clinic.
Giving it a push resulted in nothing. Not even a little sway.
Heavy mother fuckers, aren't they?
Looking to the sides beyond the gate, a lever on the other side made itself known to my eyes.
'Course. I'll deal with you later.
Going to gate number two, no lever was either on my side or the other, lending to a tiny bit of confusion on my part. Beyond the gate as a cobbled pathway, which must be the street here. In the distance, an arched bridge connecting another two massive buildings could be seen in the distance.
It's too big. This place is too big to have gone unnoticed.
Putting the thought aside for now, another test push revealed that this one could in fact be moved.
Digging my feet into the ground and putting my arms on both gates, the first push yields a solid groaning of the gate as it's pushed back a few inches.
Come on!
Another push grants me a small opening. Putting with what's left in me, a final with the last of my ooph push grants one last groaning from the gate as it finally swings outwards.
Taking a tentative step outwards, a quick left to right check revealed a stairway going briefly down and a pathway to the city proper on my right. To the left was a dead end, facing a monumental drop down to a foggy below.
First thing's first though; not planning to get caught with my pants down again.
Doubling back once again and taking position beside the gate, a quick flick of the wrist sends the microdrone onto the pathway.
What do we have here?
Moving the drone down the stairs, a quick turn to the left revealed a closed coffin with a mile of chain wrapped around it and a corpse propped against the railing, one that lines the walkway against the fall down below.
Going a bit closer to the corpse, the cause of death was made clear when the telltale sign of something akin to a spear made its way through the chest.
Frozen like a deer facing headlights. No way to spur my body to move, to escape the oncoming attack rapidly advancing towards me. That smug bastard having a light chuckle throughout, with not a care in the world.
Involuntarily exiting the drone's view, I find myself pulling out my pistol quicker than ever, looking for the threat on my being.
Finding none, a hand goes off of my pistol and onto my chest, searching for a hole that HUR-
An involuntary breath stops the current train of thoughts from continuing.
Deep breaths, don't dwell on any one thing at the moment.
Putting the visor up, my gloved hands come up and begin to rub my face to dispel the stress from the current situation.
Feeling something warm coming from my left hand, a closer inspection revealed that I've somehow broken through to my palms with my nails, which at some point dug deep enough to draw blood.
More breaths Cyril. You need to keep yourself together.
Shakily getting up from my sitting position, a thought of finding whatever was gleaming from the poor soul helped me clear what was troubling my mind.
Walking past the gate and down the stairs, direct view of the surroundings showed no difference than what the drone saw. Looking towards the corpse, the gleam of whatever was in his jacket could now directly be seen. It looked like… a vial?
Walking towards the corpse and opening up it's victorian jacket, the vial that gleamed revealed that there were three others of the same type.
Namely, the content's of the vials were what appeared to be blood.
"The home of blood ministration", the man in front of my bed answered.
If nothing else, the vials could be a means to an end to find an answer. Maybe when I got out of here if I ever do- I can submit them for testing.
I quickly went through pocketing them where genades would nominally be placed. A quick turnaround to pick up the microdrone was interrupted when I saw feet behind the carriage pass above me.
Normally feet wouldn't be too cause for alarm, but the fact that the head of a very much bloody axe was dropped slightly in front of the feet told me enough in and of itself to piece together what happened here.
Silently pulling out my M4, a quick ammo check told me that I was ready for a fight. Training my gun to the carriage as I walked up the stairs, my head began racing once again.
How resilient is he?
Is… what happened with the oversized wolf fuck happening to that guy? Is that why he killed him?
Questions aside, I reached the turn from the carriage. A sway of the light on the wall tells me that the guy is wielding a torch in his other hand.
Taking the first peek to the right of the carriage, the person was revealed in his glory. He wore an extremely victorian getup, one that was really completed with a top hat. Dapper, if not for the blood.
Unfortunately he was facing me as well, and with an animalistic roar he readied his axe and began to charge me.
Solid no from me. That's why I've trained my rifle on ya, this whole time.
A triple round burst finds contact directly in is head, causing him to fall to the ground. With a few clangs, his axe skidded across the cobble path along with his torch.
That's it?
After that fucking beast in the clinic, this dude falls with only three bullets?
Putting my salt aside, I pick up the man's axe, inspecting it a bit closer.
The head's iron, as seen with specs of rust not covered by blood.
Its a wood axe.
One that's close to breaking as well. Stress fractures lined the wood handle, and the head looks like it's a strike or two away from breaking.
Better than nothing. Let's hope there's something better along the way. Tightening a strap on the 'nade belt made its storage possible, if a bit janky.
Immediately beside me was what appeared to be another iron gate. Past it lead was the main street, with what appeared to be a group of people similar to the corpse here going up on what I assume is patrol. Looking to the right side on the other side of the gate revealed yet another lever, which I could safely assume locks the gate from this side.
Another way it is then.
Looking past the corpse led to a dead end, with what appeared to be three more people sitting there.
Let's just assume that they are also like beasty boy over here.
Looking a bit closer at the end though revealed a lever that is placed beside the building's indented section covered by a large window. Looking up, my investigation was rewarded when what looked to be a massive ladder was being held up.
Yharnam really likes it's levers, huh?
Sneaking towards the lever, my eyes were transfixed on the tango's who were sitting at the end of the path. Luckily, none of them seemed like they were watching my direction giving me my first break in a long time.
Reaching the lever, the indent on the wall revealed that it was hiding yet another corpse. Instead of being stabbed through the chest, this one appeared to be nearly decapitated.
A quick glance of contempt at the corpse that said "burn in hell". Putting aside my reservations, the three seemed to still not be concerned with my actions.
A quick decision led me to put away my M4 for the moment to actually pull the lever. Giving it a good pull was rewarded with a loud clanking, followed my the sound of what I assume is the release mechanism. The ladder entered freefall for a few seconds before reaching the ground with a loud thump.
Oh boy, that's a good deal of sound.
Evidently the completely stealthy lever release had alerted the people at the end there, who at this point had finally heard me and started to get up.
Too late assholes!
Turning around to the ladder, I began to climb. A quarter way up the climb, a completely foreign sound came to my ears.
It was a wail, a wail of something very big, and something very much not human.
What the name of God. was. That?
You know what? Less thinking, more climbing.
------()------
Reaching the top of the several story tall ladder, I was greeted with yet another chained coffin, followed by two walkways, one blocked by a short gate.
What was most interesting was that there was a lamp in the dead center. Not a lamp for light, but one just like the lamp in the clinic. At the base of the lamp was 4 of those deformed baby things, each held up in prayer towards the lamp.
Hesitantly walking towards the lamp to observe it closer, one of the four thing's beckoned me to the lamp.
Something is telling me to light the lamp.
Not just the thing at the base of lamp, but it's as if a part of me intrinsically knows how to activate it.
Lets just see what happens.
Walking to within three feet of the lamp, I raise my hand towards the lamp through instincts that are surely not natural. With a snap of the finger, the light inside the lamp roars to life, with an otherworldly chime accompanying it.
The four things in prayer have yet to act further towards me. In fact, it seemed like they doubled down on their prayer towards the lamp, which did nothing but creep me the fuck out.
Now that… that is done, which way to go?
Before that though, I'm going to do a signal check on that distress beacon. Turning the frequency to that sweet spot, I was greeted by said signal.
*Be-Beep, Beep, Be-Be-Beep!*
It's a tiny bit stronger, huh? Must be going the right way. Returning to reality(or wherever here was), a physical choice now lays itself to me.
Going left to test the gate, a test push revealed that it too was locked, but not by a leaver. Instead, it appeared that a person would need to push some sort of plate on the other side to unlock it.
Huh.
Naturally, a person would want to go right because the gate blocks the left, but the fence surrounding the gate is not that high for a tall person like me…
Fuck it, let's go hop the fence.
Placing my hands on on of the few posts that have a sloped base below the spike, a quick jump showed nothing nefarious on the other side.
Looks like I'm ready to go.
Putting a bit of momentum into the proper jump, I easily made it over the spiked fence. Landing on the other side, I moved to press the plate to open the gate.
Its not opening.
Do I really need to push it open?
The gate, being an inanimate object, refused to answer.
Fine, keep your secrets. Still though…
Cyril 1, Defensive Architecture 0.
------(-)------
Heh, it took me a fortnight to write this. Pun aside, another chapter done! Cyril is beginning to pick up some of the pieces, but they only form a larger puzzle. I hope that this initial section was something you all liked, because its time to finally get into the meat of bloodborne.
Beyond the rather morbid fact that the clinic's entrance is inside a graveyard, the walls surrounding it gave way to massive victorian-like buildings and towers.
Taking a tentative step forward from the doorway, the first sense that hits me is the smell.
Putrid, with the accompanying with the smell of smoke.
Someone is burning bodies. What a welcome gift.
"The city has gone mad!" Iosefka's voice comes ringing out, only to fade as quickly as it came.
And I have two magazines of 5.56 left, with only three full magazines for the pistol.
"A proper melee weapon", the voice of Gherman rings out as quickly as the previous did, and left as soon after.
I need a moment to gather myself.
Taking a few steps left to lean against the stone wall, the countless procedures for what to do when you're not in kansas anymore come flooding back from my subconscious.
Establish a safe area, tentatively checked.
Establish stock and approximate combat readiness.
…
…
Results are shit and even shittier, done.
Fucking mad about the knife though.
Back on topic. Establish mental readiness.
My pistol smashing against the beast comes back vividly, as the strike occurs over and over and ov-
Absolutely fucked. Don't dwell on it.
Next.
Establish contact with comm-
Springing off the wall in sudden realization, my eyes narrow while looking over myself. Finding nothing, my eyes drift and fixate on my hands.
Parts of the gloves covering my hands have been brutally shredded, yet the now exposed skin has no blemish other than the blo-.
Stopping that train of thought is akin to halting a speeding car, as the beginnings of a headache begin to form. Taking a seat on the ground, my head falls back on the wall as I ponder again.
Guess that whole "immunity to mental attacks" thing is now up in the air.
Is this some sort of sarkic supermagic or some shit like that? To get a response that strong out of me… it's just a question that gets tossed onto the deepening pile of unanswered bullshit.
Lets try focusing on the previous topic then.
Bringing a hand to the SCRAMBLE gear, a quick button press floods the visor with diagnostic logs.
Anti-Memetics unit (Active)
GPS (Inactive, No signal detected)
'Course, that would obviously be far too easy now would it?
Scantron Reality Measuring unit (Active, Measuring 20 humes)
Contact briefly delayed, because what the fuck!
Twenty humes!?
Baseline reality usually sits around 55-60 humes. Pinewood-
I never got Pinewood's hume level, did I?
I'm bad. This is my job, why am I this bad at-
Regardless, I've only seen hume counts get this low while the cult is doing their evil summoning thing or one of those buildings that are significantly bigger on the inside.
For the ambient surroundings to hold that level is bad.
Really, really bad.
Getting up from sitting, my eyes scan quickly with a newfound determination across the diagnostics list.
Drone feed (Inactive, No input)
Battery Measurement unit (Active, reading 67%)
Skipping over a few, my eyes laid on the prize.
Comms Relay (Active)
Thank god for the small miracles.
Adjusting the radio feed, I find the mark on nominal channels.
Only to be greeted by not only no background static, but nothing.
Well shit.
Switching to emergency lines, I was greeted my the exact same thing.
Static, I understand. Anomalies may suppress radio waves, but that tends to just make it turn unintelligible. However, having nothing outside either means that I am very, very far away or something incredibly good at suppression, and by extension powerful and dangerous is reducing signals to zero.
Twenty humes.
The thought of having both sends a shiver down my spine.
Fuck this, I'm going to do the ol' slide across the channels to find something. Having the comms unit slide across the proverbial spectrum, silence and the odd crackle only continued to be the sole distributor of sound to my ears.
*B*
Stopping the slide as quick as possible, a bit of hope flashes before me as the sound of something means that I might be onto something. Sliding ever so slowly backwards, my heart begins beating rapidly in hope that-
*Be-Beep, Beep, Be-Be-Beep!*
Or just make the situation ten times worse. That's fine too. Out of all frequencies that I would find something, it's a damned distress beacon. One that's low on power for the fact that its switched from voice to beeping.
Twenty humes.
Having a low level of reality as well means that the beacon has been going off for a good long while more than usual as well.
Two magazines for the rifle, three for the pistol.
Distress beacon means that another MTF was here at some point in the past though. If nothing else, there's still a chance that stragglers are still alive.
Say you find them, what do you do next?
Thinking too far ahead. Lets try getting out of here first.
Looking ahead and to the left of me, there were two large iron gates. Going for the gate in front of me, it appeared what was behind it was the courtyard that went around to the back of the clinic.
Giving it a push resulted in nothing. Not even a little sway.
Heavy mother fuckers, aren't they?
Looking to the sides beyond the gate, a lever on the other side made itself known to my eyes.
'Course. I'll deal with you later.
Going to gate number two, no lever was either on my side or the other, lending to a tiny bit of confusion on my part. Beyond the gate as a cobbled pathway, which must be the street here. In the distance, an arched bridge connecting another two massive buildings could be seen in the distance.
It's too big. This place is too big to have gone unnoticed.
Putting the thought aside for now, another test push revealed that this one could in fact be moved.
Digging my feet into the ground and putting my arms on both gates, the first push yields a solid groaning of the gate as it's pushed back a few inches.
Come on!
Another push grants me a small opening. Putting with what's left in me, a final with the last of my ooph push grants one last groaning from the gate as it finally swings outwards.
Taking a tentative step outwards, a quick left to right check revealed a stairway going briefly down and a pathway to the city proper on my right. To the left was a dead end, facing a monumental drop down to a foggy below.
First thing's first though; not planning to get caught with my pants down again.
Doubling back once again and taking position beside the gate, a quick flick of the wrist sends the microdrone onto the pathway.
What do we have here?
Moving the drone down the stairs, a quick turn to the left revealed a closed coffin with a mile of chain wrapped around it and a corpse propped against the railing, one that lines the walkway against the fall down below.
Going a bit closer to the corpse, the cause of death was made clear when the telltale sign of something akin to a spear made its way through the chest.
Frozen like a deer facing headlights. No way to spur my body to move, to escape the oncoming attack rapidly advancing towards me. That smug bastard having a light chuckle throughout, with not a care in the world.
Involuntarily exiting the drone's view, I find myself pulling out my pistol quicker than ever, looking for the threat on my being.
Finding none, a hand goes off of my pistol and onto my chest, searching for a hole that HUR-
An involuntary breath stops the current train of thoughts from continuing.
Deep breaths, don't dwell on any one thing at the moment.
Putting the visor up, my gloved hands come up and begin to rub my face to dispel the stress from the current situation.
Feeling something warm coming from my left hand, a closer inspection revealed that I've somehow broken through to my palms with my nails, which at some point dug deep enough to draw blood.
More breaths Cyril. You need to keep yourself together.
Shakily getting up from my sitting position, a thought of finding whatever was gleaming from the poor soul helped me clear what was troubling my mind.
Walking past the gate and down the stairs, direct view of the surroundings showed no difference than what the drone saw. Looking towards the corpse, the gleam of whatever was in his jacket could now directly be seen. It looked like… a vial?
Walking towards the corpse and opening up it's victorian jacket, the vial that gleamed revealed that there were three others of the same type.
Namely, the content's of the vials were what appeared to be blood.
"The home of blood ministration", the man in front of my bed answered.
If nothing else, the vials could be a means to an end to find an answer. Maybe when I got out of here if I ever do- I can submit them for testing.
I quickly went through pocketing them where genades would nominally be placed. A quick turnaround to pick up the microdrone was interrupted when I saw feet behind the carriage pass above me.
Normally feet wouldn't be too cause for alarm, but the fact that the head of a very much bloody axe was dropped slightly in front of the feet told me enough in and of itself to piece together what happened here.
Silently pulling out my M4, a quick ammo check told me that I was ready for a fight. Training my gun to the carriage as I walked up the stairs, my head began racing once again.
How resilient is he?
Is… what happened with the oversized wolf fuck happening to that guy? Is that why he killed him?
Questions aside, I reached the turn from the carriage. A sway of the light on the wall tells me that the guy is wielding a torch in his other hand.
Taking the first peek to the right of the carriage, the person was revealed in his glory. He wore an extremely victorian getup, one that was really completed with a top hat. Dapper, if not for the blood.
Unfortunately he was facing me as well, and with an animalistic roar he readied his axe and began to charge me.
Solid no from me. That's why I've trained my rifle on ya, this whole time.
A triple round burst finds contact directly in is head, causing him to fall to the ground. With a few clangs, his axe skidded across the cobble path along with his torch.
That's it?
After that fucking beast in the clinic, this dude falls with only three bullets?
Putting my salt aside, I pick up the man's axe, inspecting it a bit closer.
The head's iron, as seen with specs of rust not covered by blood.
Its a wood axe.
One that's close to breaking as well. Stress fractures lined the wood handle, and the head looks like it's a strike or two away from breaking.
Better than nothing. Let's hope there's something better along the way. Tightening a strap on the 'nade belt made its storage possible, if a bit janky.
Immediately beside me was what appeared to be another iron gate. Past it lead was the main street, with what appeared to be a group of people similar to the corpse here going up on what I assume is patrol. Looking to the right side on the other side of the gate revealed yet another lever, which I could safely assume locks the gate from this side.
Another way it is then.
Looking past the corpse led to a dead end, with what appeared to be three more people sitting there.
Let's just assume that they are also like beasty boy over here.
Looking a bit closer at the end though revealed a lever that is placed beside the building's indented section covered by a large window. Looking up, my investigation was rewarded when what looked to be a massive ladder was being held up.
Yharnam really likes it's levers, huh?
Sneaking towards the lever, my eyes were transfixed on the tango's who were sitting at the end of the path. Luckily, none of them seemed like they were watching my direction giving me my first break in a long time.
Reaching the lever, the indent on the wall revealed that it was hiding yet another corpse. Instead of being stabbed through the chest, this one appeared to be nearly decapitated.
A quick glance of contempt at the corpse that said "burn in hell". Putting aside my reservations, the three seemed to still not be concerned with my actions.
A quick decision led me to put away my M4 for the moment to actually pull the lever. Giving it a good pull was rewarded with a loud clanking, followed my the sound of what I assume is the release mechanism. The ladder entered freefall for a few seconds before reaching the ground with a loud thump.
Oh boy, that's a good deal of sound.
Evidently the completely stealthy lever release had alerted the people at the end there, who at this point had finally heard me and started to get up.
Too late assholes!
Turning around to the ladder, I began to climb. A quarter way up the climb, a completely foreign sound came to my ears.
It was a wail, a wail of something very big, and something very much not human.
What the name of God. was. That?
You know what? Less thinking, more climbing.
------()------
Reaching the top of the several story tall ladder, I was greeted with yet another chained coffin, followed by two walkways, one blocked by a short gate.
What was most interesting was that there was a lamp in the dead center. Not a lamp for light, but one just like the lamp in the clinic. At the base of the lamp was 4 of those deformed baby things, each held up in prayer towards the lamp.
Hesitantly walking towards the lamp to observe it closer, one of the four thing's beckoned me to the lamp.
Something is telling me to light the lamp.
Not just the thing at the base of lamp, but it's as if a part of me intrinsically knows how to activate it.
Lets just see what happens.
Walking to within three feet of the lamp, I raise my hand towards the lamp through instincts that are surely not natural. With a snap of the finger, the light inside the lamp roars to life, with an otherworldly chime accompanying it.
The four things in prayer have yet to act further towards me. In fact, it seemed like they doubled down on their prayer towards the lamp, which did nothing but creep me the fuck out.
Now that… that is done, which way to go?
Before that though, I'm going to do a signal check on that distress beacon. Turning the frequency to that sweet spot, I was greeted by said signal.
*Be-Beep, Beep, Be-Be-Beep!*
It's a tiny bit stronger, huh? Must be going the right way. Returning to reality(or wherever here was), a physical choice now lays itself to me.
Going left to test the gate, a test push revealed that it too was locked, but not by a leaver. Instead, it appeared that a person would need to push some sort of plate on the other side to unlock it.
Huh.
Naturally, a person would want to go right because the gate blocks the left, but the fence surrounding the gate is not that high for a tall person like me…
Fuck it, let's go hop the fence.
Placing my hands on on of the few posts that have a sloped base below the spike, a quick jump showed nothing nefarious on the other side.
Looks like I'm ready to go.
Putting a bit of momentum into the proper jump, I easily made it over the spiked fence. Landing on the other side, I moved to press the plate to open the gate.
Its not opening.
Do I really need to push it open?
The gate, being an inanimate object, refused to answer.
Fine, keep your secrets. Still though…
Cyril 1, Defensive Architecture 0.
------(-)------
Heh, it took me a fortnight to write this. Pun aside, another chapter done! Cyril is beginning to pick up some of the pieces, but they only form a larger puzzle. I hope that this initial section was something you all liked, because its time to finally get into the meat of bloodborne.
I'm very intrigued by the premise and like your righting style. May you find the will to finish this story.
Hell, Ain't That a Kick in the Head?
- Location
- In the twilight zone
Glancing over the stairs leading down, my eyes land upon another man similar in stature as the last few.
...These guys are going to be everywhere, aren't they?
The city has gone mad!
Christ. If even a portion of that sentence continues to hold weight…
Then I'm in far deeper shit that I could have ever imagined.
Sneaking down the stairs, the decision to conserve ammo resulted in me pulling out the soon-to-be-firewood axe to end the fight in a single stroke.
Five Paces.
Three.
Now.
Winding up the slash, the axe soon finds itself buried in the man's head. Staggering back a few paces before going past the ledge, the man falls over and flops onto the ground with little fanfare.
All the while my axe is still finding a home deep into the man's skull.
Walking past the ledge and down another flight of steps, I reach the now-corpse to retrieve the axe. Grabbing it, the pull attempting to dislodge it fails.
The fuck? How hard did I smash him?
That aside, the weapon the man wielded was one again another axe, near identical to the previous person I took the axe from. Grabbing his axe, the same appraisal of an axe on the verge of splintering was discerned.
Opening up his coat, his only possession was two balls, made from what is most likely mercury.
If this is a victorian-esque society, why not use lead instead?
Another question for the pile I guess.
Getting up, a quick look up revealed two pathways; one stairway leading down under a bridge and a door that only exposed darkness inside.
Descending the stairs and taking option number one, the arrival to the base of the stairs brought a shock. Two massive hulking figures were walking back and forth, their faces for what little is exposed beyond their bandages reveal something horrific.
That's a solid no.
Turning tail to the latter option, a walk to the door to peer through the glass portion revealed nothing, as little sunlight made it through the only opening in the buildings exterior.
Second appraisal time.
Night Vision (Standby, powering)
Because the foundation likes stuffing their gear with anything that could be considered even remotely useful, night vision was a given. What they did however was to amp it up to eleven. Thaumathology, to sate their own boredom improved the fuck out of the night vision. The thing works in broad daylight without blinding the user, near perfect image quality and the power consumption is only slightly more than nominal use.
Reminds me, I really do need to find replacement batteries.
A self-depreciating chuckle leaves my lips.
Need to find a ton of things, just another one on the pile.
Taking a second look through the glass, the renewed look yielded results. Instead of pitch black, the building now sported a fairly opened first floor, with a stairway leading up right beside the door on the opposite side of the house.
Weird door placement, but I wont judge.
What caught my attention however was the humanoid shape standing behind the pillar closest to the second doorway.
...Do I really want to take the chance that he isn't hostile? He's standing there in pitch darkness, no real sane person does that. Taking a few steps to the right, I pull out the axe.
Only to promptly smash in the glass with the weapon. Instead of taking point, I take the microdrone and throw it into the building through the hole. Driving said drone, the humanoid shape became far more defined.
Yea that guy is holding a weapon. Instead of an axe however, he was holding onto a meat cleaver.
Variation. Neat.
Unknowing of the drone. The man nevertheless still took notice of his house being invaded, and moved closer towards the door.
"BEAST! A FOUL BEAST!"
Well that confirmed my suspicions at least. Following the man's declaration, the sound of two more sets of feet could be heard originating from upstairs.
Ah fuck. I was assuming that they would not be very proactive. Reap what you sow I guess.
Exiting drone view and holding in the ready with the axe, I was caught momentarily off guard when the guy burst through the damaged door like a certain beverage mascot, before falling with said door onto the ground.
Quicker than a blink of an eye, my axe was already swinging to deliver a fatal blow. Connecting with the man's head, a resonating thump cut any sound from the man short, confirming the kill. The attempt to dislodge the axe was successful this time, and with it I withdrew to the high ground.
Reaching there, a quick turnaround saw that the two opponents from upstairs had finally reached the forced open door, both armed with pitchforks.
Upon laying eyes on me, their apparent frenzy only grew. What was a brisk pace was quickened to an all out sprint.
"DEATH TO THE CROWS!"
Not happening. Regretfully switching to the handgun, a proper stance was achieved just as the first tango made his way to the base of the flight of stairs. A resounding crack of two shots found their mark on the leading man, who while climbing the stairs collapsed onto said stairs.
This sudden change in his forerunner tripped the second man, who tumbled back down to the base, his body spread across the cobblestone pathway. Bringing out the axe once again, an overhang swing connecting with his head resulted in his recovering body to collapse once again.
"You are curssssed." A pained whisper, nearly inaudible came through his lips as the life left his body and his muscles relaxed.
Honestly, at this point I don't really disagree.
Now, what are the chances that there are some stragglers in there?
…
…
Fairly high, let's do some-WHEELCHAIR MAN WITH A GUN!
At the doorway, the shadows gave way to a decrepit old man, one with a Gatling gun in his lap.
Hit the floor!
Immediately dropping to the ground, the effort was rewarded as the sound of bullets whizzing past where most of my body was came rearing into my ears. Listening closer, the sound of the man laughing could be heard.
Hearing the bulletstorm subside was my chance. Getting off the prone position, a return fire of several bullets is haphazardly shot. The first two miss, but the third appeared to have grazed his arm and the fourth hits the tango in the chest, stunting him.
The chest shot caused the man to let go of his ammunition box, which fell across the floor of the building and onto the pathway. Taking advantage of this, I pull out the axe and walk down the steps, the sudden Adrenalin already fading.
It's clear the man does not have more weapons, and with his gun now a glorified bat the man is effectively dead already.
Not for a lack of trying though. Frantically trying to grab his bullets from the ground, his misfortune only continued as in his desperation to reload his put himself off balance and fell forwards off his chair. A thud from the wood later, and the man is scrawled across the floor.
Coming upon him, his only reaction to my presence was one of giggling, not of fear.
Literal crazy bastard.
One overhang swing later, and his insanity was permanently ended.
------()------
On closer inspection, his weapon seemed to be built into the wheelchair, an eight barreled, crank shaft weapon that looks like it came straight out of the 1800's. The ammunition looks even older, as fairly large musket balls makes the weapon look like some sort of weird mashup of different era's.
Let's check out the house then.
Walking inside to examine, the first floor did not appear to contain anything significant, as in the back only bookshelves and an impromptu mess of furniture was present.
Second floor then. Reaching the base, I bega-oh sweet Jesus all my hair is standing on edge right now.
The shift to an inexplicable fear coursing through my body stopped me dead in my tracks. Momentarily stunned, the thoughts of any planning came to an immediate halt.
Reality scanner!
SRMU active. Reading 15 humes.
Oh shit, that ain't good.
Walking off the stairway, a second activation took place to verify.
Reading 19 humes.
A single step on the stairway again.
Reading 15 humes.
The measurement in reality is a fucking logarithmic scale, a drop of four in such a small distance is ridiculous!
Calm, let's see if the beacon is any stronger.
*Be-Beep, Beep, Be-Be-Beep!*
Correlation, meet causality.
The question is, do I really want to investigate this? In all likelihood, the beacon is coming from this area, but the drop in the hume level is probably how the beacon came to arise in the first place. To the immediate left is a door to another area, which definitely does not seem to be where this utter apprehension is coming from.
The house is empty now, so lets drone out the second floor.
Grabbing the drone and throwing it over the railing on the second floor, the drone feed took over. Looking around, nothing obvious could be seen, except for the fact that the feed is becoming slightly hazy. To the left-
What the fuck. Not in surprise, but in genuine confusion this time. To the left is a stairway to the outside. No door, hell on hinges could be seen.
Weird design choice, but okay. Going up the stairs a long, narrow bridge was what the stairway upwards merged to. In both directions, the area seemed clear of everything. To the right was a fairly large archway leading through to a gatehouse of some sort. To the left was another abandoned carriage. Even further down, the Victorian equivalent of a pile up could be seen.
Where is this reality level disturbance coming from?
Peering off the right hand side of the bridge, the answer became obvious.
The fairly narrow pathways opened to a fairly large plaza, but what was there explained so much.
A massive wooden stake was burning, surrounded by dozens of people just like the ones I've encountered. Hairless, yellow-green skinned dogs could be seen, and most importantly, some sort of blood circle streaking around the plaza.
A ritual I can't stop.
I need to pick and choose my fights, and the pace I'm using ammo is just not good. Most, if not all of my ammo would be needed to stop this, but what then? This city is massive, and not enough would come out of this.
Exiting drone view, a brisk pace was taken up the stairs. Facing the upper entrance, the smell of burned bodies was that much stronger.
Let's go through a view more area's before that big question there. Failing that, its most likely aftermath.
Exiting the building, a glance right confirmed that not of the people there were moving, as they were simply staring right into the fires of that ritual. Facing forward again, a brisk pace brought me to the top of the stairs.
*THUMP*
Oh shit. That came from my left.
The cause of the disturbance was made clear, as where the gatehouse stood empty it is now occupied by a massive beast. The fucker looked like he was 3 stories tall, with a malformed right arm and a towering left. Even at this distance, it's rib cage could be seen bright as day and a horned head completed this lovecraftian fuck.
The thing took a step.
And then it moved.
Entering a sprint, the thing took off towards me. While it was too far away to discern anything, a killing aura could be felt, directed at me.
Lets just-
What?
My back just felt like I hit a solid wall. That should not happen, because behind me should be a stairway. Risking a glance, the reason became obvious.
Where pain air once stood, an opaque, white wall now prevented me from falling back. Indeed, it seemed like the entire bridge length was covered in this weird mist.
I fucked up so badly.
Taking a step back, a sense of panic began overtaking me.
No, NO! Keep thinking!
The man in that dream-place, Gherman, said that death results in a return to the dream.
Deciding to buy myself some time, I bolted behind me, to approach the carriage jam a distance away. Looking behind me, my heart sank.
The monster continued its pace, one that took it through an archway that was far too small for its size.
Its going to go through it, isn't it?
As if answering my challenge, the beast not only broke through said arch, but acted as if the stone was actually drywall. Chunks of stone went flying, and through the dust cloud that was formed that thing continued on its path to kill me.
I don't want to die to that thing. This place is a fucking trap, and the only way out is death.
Stopping, a look back resulted in the knowledge that the thing was far outpacing me. Within seconds it would be upon me.
Putting the handgun at my head, a gulp forced my screaming emotions away.
My death isn't set in stone. Lets hope that holds out.
The monster lunged, but the trigger was pulled far faster. An enveloping darkness instantly overtook me.
------()------
A gasp for air is what brings me back. Taking a few deep breaths, a calming sensation washed over me.
Looking around, I found myself in a confusing predicament. Around me were white flowers, with pathways to an all so familiar cottage.
I'm back in the hunter's dream. At the same time though, I'm not.
The gravestone I heeded back to Yharnam was as dark as the headstones on my left, and glancing at the steps of the cottage no corpse could be seen. Getting up and walking tentatively forward, the confusion only intensified as no deformed things could be seen anywhere.
What the hell is up with this?
Walking up the stairs cautiously, a hand made its way to the open door. Taking a peek around it, the confusion gave way to apprehension.
Instead of Gherman and his distinctive wheelchair, the man was decidedly extremely out of place. A three piece business suit contrasted heavily with the surrounding environment. His face, to which could only be described as indescribable, was looking directly at the doorway I came from, expecting me to come from there.
Dream like entity appearing only in dreams, I know something about him…
"You look really out of place, Mr…" The leading question was a half hearted effort to obtain information.
"Richard, call me Richard." His voice breaks the short silence that fell between us. His voice sounded slightly hoarse, but otherwise conveyed a neutral tone.
I know I've read about this guy, he's an SCP.
A frown made its way on my face
What was his number…
"Unfortunately, this is not a trip for pleasure Cyril."
I remember!
"You're nine-ninety, aren't you?"
"It's what your foundation calls me, but again I prefer Richard." His utterly neutral tone did no wonders to cheer the situation up.
"Wouldn't be so lucky for you to tell me how to escape Yharnam?"
"Unfortunately not, because I have far too little time for extraneous information."
Extraneous!? Are you serious?
"You show up to foundation member's to describe how to stop the world from catastrophic damage, so tell me, what's going on? For example, what the fuck was that giant beast?"
Just-just keep calm. You need all the information you can get.
A chuckle emanates from his lips. "You already know the answer."
His mirth was contrasted by my frown. "Blood magic." The real question is, was it a summon or a transformation.
"Unfortunately, the latter."
Well shit. That ain't good.
As if answering my thought ironically, the feeling of something… otherworldly pulsing made itself known. It felt like a tremor, and the weapons hanging over the both of us rattled.
Double shit.
"The hell?"
"Not much time before it realizes the swindle." Taking a pack of cigarettes out of his suit pocket, and flick of his zippo lighter lights it. "The hunt needs to be transcended. Yharnam will always die with the ritual seal breaking, but you." Taking a seat on the table beside him, 990 drags a breath of the cigarette before puffing it out. The smell of it felt all too real for a dream.
"You are what's needed to prevent this madness from spreading." His voice, while still neutral took on a underlying sense of urgency. "When the blood moon rises, you will end this where you began it."
Yet Another pulse hits me. This one is far stronger, and in what could be described as killing intent was conveyed. Differing from the beast on the bridge, this killing intent was like an attack on my soul.
He's giving me the end pieces, but not what needs to lead to them.
"Wouldn't suppose the thing causing the pulses is the endgame, would it?."
In the largest display of emotion so far, the man's lips contorted into a faint smile.
"Yes."
*ThumpThumpThumpThump*
The logical progression of what said thing was on my lips. With the sense that time is running out though, what came out of my mouth was something less that ideal.
"Give me something in the middle."
The faintest of smiles reaches his face. "The only thing I can give you for now is your wake-up call."
Instant darkness overwhelmed me.
------()------
The troubling pattern of blacking out and walking in uncomfortable, unfamiliar places continued, as once my eyes opened they were greeted by the inside of the cottage. Instead of the businessman, Gherman was placed exactly where he was, and gazing at me with a keen eye.
"The dream has long since dulled most surprises in the hunters that come, yet I do not recall any waking inside the workshop." His voice, while displaying a keen sense of humour contained the faintest amounts of apprehension.
"Nice to see you too."
"The offerings of the messenger's are still on the steps to the workshop. You are free to use anything you see."
Dismissive, are we?
Before any retort could form, Gherman simply turned at left the cottage. Plagued by the newfound uncertainty, a thoughtful gaze around the workshop revealed much more that I missed the few times I've been in here.
The same weapons hanged from the roof as before, giving its best impression of a popcorn ceiling. In fact, it seemed like the weapon's multiplied before me getting here. Casting a glance forward, the alter on deeper glance felt wrong. Something that emanated that I would be fucking the fabric of reality by using it.
That's a solid no.
Doubling back and out the main entrance, the two things (messengers?) took the same spot as they did previously. On closer inspection, they were offering weapons. The first group was offering a pistol and a really beefed up musket, with a calibre so large that it looked like it would be used more to destroy material, not be used against people.
The city has gone mad!
Who am I kidding, it's probably specifically meant for people.
The second group was far more interesting, as they held several close quarter weapons.
With no way to resupply at the moment, I think that a weapon needs to be chosen. On closer inspection, there were three choices: a sword, an axe and what appeared to be a mix between a cane and a sword.
…
…
I have no clue how to use an axe or a cleaver, so cane-sword it is.
Taking the choice from the messenger's grip, they soon after withdrew into the ground and disappeared to wherever.
More pressing things to look at, like the cane.
Inspecting it, the thing looked flawless. A uniform sheen made the blade portion of the cane look like it was freshly forged. The handle looked elegant, and what could be best described as a lever was present on its left side.
What if I squeezed it?
Doing so, its function was revealed when the blade emanated a loud cracking noise before elongating.
Is this…
On closer inspection, the previously uniform blade became disjointed, with pieces of the blade being strung together by a metallic pseudo-rope. Looking closely, this not-rope looked as sharp as a razor blade.
It's a whip now. Neat. Now would depressing the lever do the reverse?
Acting out on the thought, another loud crack returned the blade to its original form.
Well… I kind of need to get used to the weapon then. Walking down the stairs, my eyes stop not at the gravestones, but at the very much standing doll dressed in a victorian outfit.
What in the Goddamn-
"Hello, good hunter."
"How?"
The doll turned (her?) head to the side, in apparent confusion. "How what?"
"How are you standing?" Forget my due actions, this is far more intriguing.
"I am not "alive" as you would think. I am a simple doll, and death holds little sway here."
Little, but not zero.
This place just left the uncanny valley and became a hell of a lot more creepy.
------(-)------
Holy hell this chapter was hard to write. My brain just refused to conceptualize several of those scenes. Anyways, yet another chapter done!
...These guys are going to be everywhere, aren't they?
The city has gone mad!
Christ. If even a portion of that sentence continues to hold weight…
Then I'm in far deeper shit that I could have ever imagined.
Sneaking down the stairs, the decision to conserve ammo resulted in me pulling out the soon-to-be-firewood axe to end the fight in a single stroke.
Five Paces.
Three.
Now.
Winding up the slash, the axe soon finds itself buried in the man's head. Staggering back a few paces before going past the ledge, the man falls over and flops onto the ground with little fanfare.
All the while my axe is still finding a home deep into the man's skull.
Walking past the ledge and down another flight of steps, I reach the now-corpse to retrieve the axe. Grabbing it, the pull attempting to dislodge it fails.
The fuck? How hard did I smash him?
That aside, the weapon the man wielded was one again another axe, near identical to the previous person I took the axe from. Grabbing his axe, the same appraisal of an axe on the verge of splintering was discerned.
Opening up his coat, his only possession was two balls, made from what is most likely mercury.
If this is a victorian-esque society, why not use lead instead?
Another question for the pile I guess.
Getting up, a quick look up revealed two pathways; one stairway leading down under a bridge and a door that only exposed darkness inside.
Descending the stairs and taking option number one, the arrival to the base of the stairs brought a shock. Two massive hulking figures were walking back and forth, their faces for what little is exposed beyond their bandages reveal something horrific.
That's a solid no.
Turning tail to the latter option, a walk to the door to peer through the glass portion revealed nothing, as little sunlight made it through the only opening in the buildings exterior.
Second appraisal time.
Night Vision (Standby, powering)
Because the foundation likes stuffing their gear with anything that could be considered even remotely useful, night vision was a given. What they did however was to amp it up to eleven. Thaumathology, to sate their own boredom improved the fuck out of the night vision. The thing works in broad daylight without blinding the user, near perfect image quality and the power consumption is only slightly more than nominal use.
Reminds me, I really do need to find replacement batteries.
A self-depreciating chuckle leaves my lips.
Need to find a ton of things, just another one on the pile.
Taking a second look through the glass, the renewed look yielded results. Instead of pitch black, the building now sported a fairly opened first floor, with a stairway leading up right beside the door on the opposite side of the house.
Weird door placement, but I wont judge.
What caught my attention however was the humanoid shape standing behind the pillar closest to the second doorway.
...Do I really want to take the chance that he isn't hostile? He's standing there in pitch darkness, no real sane person does that. Taking a few steps to the right, I pull out the axe.
Only to promptly smash in the glass with the weapon. Instead of taking point, I take the microdrone and throw it into the building through the hole. Driving said drone, the humanoid shape became far more defined.
Yea that guy is holding a weapon. Instead of an axe however, he was holding onto a meat cleaver.
Variation. Neat.
Unknowing of the drone. The man nevertheless still took notice of his house being invaded, and moved closer towards the door.
"BEAST! A FOUL BEAST!"
Well that confirmed my suspicions at least. Following the man's declaration, the sound of two more sets of feet could be heard originating from upstairs.
Ah fuck. I was assuming that they would not be very proactive. Reap what you sow I guess.
Exiting drone view and holding in the ready with the axe, I was caught momentarily off guard when the guy burst through the damaged door like a certain beverage mascot, before falling with said door onto the ground.
Quicker than a blink of an eye, my axe was already swinging to deliver a fatal blow. Connecting with the man's head, a resonating thump cut any sound from the man short, confirming the kill. The attempt to dislodge the axe was successful this time, and with it I withdrew to the high ground.
Reaching there, a quick turnaround saw that the two opponents from upstairs had finally reached the forced open door, both armed with pitchforks.
Upon laying eyes on me, their apparent frenzy only grew. What was a brisk pace was quickened to an all out sprint.
"DEATH TO THE CROWS!"
Not happening. Regretfully switching to the handgun, a proper stance was achieved just as the first tango made his way to the base of the flight of stairs. A resounding crack of two shots found their mark on the leading man, who while climbing the stairs collapsed onto said stairs.
This sudden change in his forerunner tripped the second man, who tumbled back down to the base, his body spread across the cobblestone pathway. Bringing out the axe once again, an overhang swing connecting with his head resulted in his recovering body to collapse once again.
"You are curssssed." A pained whisper, nearly inaudible came through his lips as the life left his body and his muscles relaxed.
Honestly, at this point I don't really disagree.
Now, what are the chances that there are some stragglers in there?
…
…
Fairly high, let's do some-WHEELCHAIR MAN WITH A GUN!
At the doorway, the shadows gave way to a decrepit old man, one with a Gatling gun in his lap.
Hit the floor!
Immediately dropping to the ground, the effort was rewarded as the sound of bullets whizzing past where most of my body was came rearing into my ears. Listening closer, the sound of the man laughing could be heard.
Hearing the bulletstorm subside was my chance. Getting off the prone position, a return fire of several bullets is haphazardly shot. The first two miss, but the third appeared to have grazed his arm and the fourth hits the tango in the chest, stunting him.
The chest shot caused the man to let go of his ammunition box, which fell across the floor of the building and onto the pathway. Taking advantage of this, I pull out the axe and walk down the steps, the sudden Adrenalin already fading.
It's clear the man does not have more weapons, and with his gun now a glorified bat the man is effectively dead already.
Not for a lack of trying though. Frantically trying to grab his bullets from the ground, his misfortune only continued as in his desperation to reload his put himself off balance and fell forwards off his chair. A thud from the wood later, and the man is scrawled across the floor.
Coming upon him, his only reaction to my presence was one of giggling, not of fear.
Literal crazy bastard.
One overhang swing later, and his insanity was permanently ended.
------()------
On closer inspection, his weapon seemed to be built into the wheelchair, an eight barreled, crank shaft weapon that looks like it came straight out of the 1800's. The ammunition looks even older, as fairly large musket balls makes the weapon look like some sort of weird mashup of different era's.
Let's check out the house then.
Walking inside to examine, the first floor did not appear to contain anything significant, as in the back only bookshelves and an impromptu mess of furniture was present.
Second floor then. Reaching the base, I bega-oh sweet Jesus all my hair is standing on edge right now.
The shift to an inexplicable fear coursing through my body stopped me dead in my tracks. Momentarily stunned, the thoughts of any planning came to an immediate halt.
Reality scanner!
SRMU active. Reading 15 humes.
Oh shit, that ain't good.
Walking off the stairway, a second activation took place to verify.
Reading 19 humes.
A single step on the stairway again.
Reading 15 humes.
The measurement in reality is a fucking logarithmic scale, a drop of four in such a small distance is ridiculous!
Calm, let's see if the beacon is any stronger.
*Be-Beep, Beep, Be-Be-Beep!*
Correlation, meet causality.
The question is, do I really want to investigate this? In all likelihood, the beacon is coming from this area, but the drop in the hume level is probably how the beacon came to arise in the first place. To the immediate left is a door to another area, which definitely does not seem to be where this utter apprehension is coming from.
The house is empty now, so lets drone out the second floor.
Grabbing the drone and throwing it over the railing on the second floor, the drone feed took over. Looking around, nothing obvious could be seen, except for the fact that the feed is becoming slightly hazy. To the left-
What the fuck. Not in surprise, but in genuine confusion this time. To the left is a stairway to the outside. No door, hell on hinges could be seen.
Weird design choice, but okay. Going up the stairs a long, narrow bridge was what the stairway upwards merged to. In both directions, the area seemed clear of everything. To the right was a fairly large archway leading through to a gatehouse of some sort. To the left was another abandoned carriage. Even further down, the Victorian equivalent of a pile up could be seen.
Where is this reality level disturbance coming from?
Peering off the right hand side of the bridge, the answer became obvious.
The fairly narrow pathways opened to a fairly large plaza, but what was there explained so much.
A massive wooden stake was burning, surrounded by dozens of people just like the ones I've encountered. Hairless, yellow-green skinned dogs could be seen, and most importantly, some sort of blood circle streaking around the plaza.
A ritual I can't stop.
I need to pick and choose my fights, and the pace I'm using ammo is just not good. Most, if not all of my ammo would be needed to stop this, but what then? This city is massive, and not enough would come out of this.
Exiting drone view, a brisk pace was taken up the stairs. Facing the upper entrance, the smell of burned bodies was that much stronger.
Let's go through a view more area's before that big question there. Failing that, its most likely aftermath.
Exiting the building, a glance right confirmed that not of the people there were moving, as they were simply staring right into the fires of that ritual. Facing forward again, a brisk pace brought me to the top of the stairs.
*THUMP*
Oh shit. That came from my left.
The cause of the disturbance was made clear, as where the gatehouse stood empty it is now occupied by a massive beast. The fucker looked like he was 3 stories tall, with a malformed right arm and a towering left. Even at this distance, it's rib cage could be seen bright as day and a horned head completed this lovecraftian fuck.
The thing took a step.
And then it moved.
Entering a sprint, the thing took off towards me. While it was too far away to discern anything, a killing aura could be felt, directed at me.
Lets just-
What?
My back just felt like I hit a solid wall. That should not happen, because behind me should be a stairway. Risking a glance, the reason became obvious.
Where pain air once stood, an opaque, white wall now prevented me from falling back. Indeed, it seemed like the entire bridge length was covered in this weird mist.
I fucked up so badly.
Taking a step back, a sense of panic began overtaking me.
No, NO! Keep thinking!
The man in that dream-place, Gherman, said that death results in a return to the dream.
Deciding to buy myself some time, I bolted behind me, to approach the carriage jam a distance away. Looking behind me, my heart sank.
The monster continued its pace, one that took it through an archway that was far too small for its size.
Its going to go through it, isn't it?
As if answering my challenge, the beast not only broke through said arch, but acted as if the stone was actually drywall. Chunks of stone went flying, and through the dust cloud that was formed that thing continued on its path to kill me.
I don't want to die to that thing. This place is a fucking trap, and the only way out is death.
Stopping, a look back resulted in the knowledge that the thing was far outpacing me. Within seconds it would be upon me.
Putting the handgun at my head, a gulp forced my screaming emotions away.
My death isn't set in stone. Lets hope that holds out.
The monster lunged, but the trigger was pulled far faster. An enveloping darkness instantly overtook me.
------()------
A gasp for air is what brings me back. Taking a few deep breaths, a calming sensation washed over me.
Looking around, I found myself in a confusing predicament. Around me were white flowers, with pathways to an all so familiar cottage.
I'm back in the hunter's dream. At the same time though, I'm not.
The gravestone I heeded back to Yharnam was as dark as the headstones on my left, and glancing at the steps of the cottage no corpse could be seen. Getting up and walking tentatively forward, the confusion only intensified as no deformed things could be seen anywhere.
What the hell is up with this?
Walking up the stairs cautiously, a hand made its way to the open door. Taking a peek around it, the confusion gave way to apprehension.
Instead of Gherman and his distinctive wheelchair, the man was decidedly extremely out of place. A three piece business suit contrasted heavily with the surrounding environment. His face, to which could only be described as indescribable, was looking directly at the doorway I came from, expecting me to come from there.
Dream like entity appearing only in dreams, I know something about him…
"You look really out of place, Mr…" The leading question was a half hearted effort to obtain information.
"Richard, call me Richard." His voice breaks the short silence that fell between us. His voice sounded slightly hoarse, but otherwise conveyed a neutral tone.
I know I've read about this guy, he's an SCP.
A frown made its way on my face
What was his number…
"Unfortunately, this is not a trip for pleasure Cyril."
I remember!
"You're nine-ninety, aren't you?"
"It's what your foundation calls me, but again I prefer Richard." His utterly neutral tone did no wonders to cheer the situation up.
"Wouldn't be so lucky for you to tell me how to escape Yharnam?"
"Unfortunately not, because I have far too little time for extraneous information."
Extraneous!? Are you serious?
"You show up to foundation member's to describe how to stop the world from catastrophic damage, so tell me, what's going on? For example, what the fuck was that giant beast?"
Just-just keep calm. You need all the information you can get.
A chuckle emanates from his lips. "You already know the answer."
His mirth was contrasted by my frown. "Blood magic." The real question is, was it a summon or a transformation.
"Unfortunately, the latter."
Well shit. That ain't good.
As if answering my thought ironically, the feeling of something… otherworldly pulsing made itself known. It felt like a tremor, and the weapons hanging over the both of us rattled.
Double shit.
"The hell?"
"Not much time before it realizes the swindle." Taking a pack of cigarettes out of his suit pocket, and flick of his zippo lighter lights it. "The hunt needs to be transcended. Yharnam will always die with the ritual seal breaking, but you." Taking a seat on the table beside him, 990 drags a breath of the cigarette before puffing it out. The smell of it felt all too real for a dream.
"You are what's needed to prevent this madness from spreading." His voice, while still neutral took on a underlying sense of urgency. "When the blood moon rises, you will end this where you began it."
Yet Another pulse hits me. This one is far stronger, and in what could be described as killing intent was conveyed. Differing from the beast on the bridge, this killing intent was like an attack on my soul.
He's giving me the end pieces, but not what needs to lead to them.
"Wouldn't suppose the thing causing the pulses is the endgame, would it?."
In the largest display of emotion so far, the man's lips contorted into a faint smile.
"Yes."
*ThumpThumpThumpThump*
The logical progression of what said thing was on my lips. With the sense that time is running out though, what came out of my mouth was something less that ideal.
"Give me something in the middle."
The faintest of smiles reaches his face. "The only thing I can give you for now is your wake-up call."
Instant darkness overwhelmed me.
------()------
The troubling pattern of blacking out and walking in uncomfortable, unfamiliar places continued, as once my eyes opened they were greeted by the inside of the cottage. Instead of the businessman, Gherman was placed exactly where he was, and gazing at me with a keen eye.
"The dream has long since dulled most surprises in the hunters that come, yet I do not recall any waking inside the workshop." His voice, while displaying a keen sense of humour contained the faintest amounts of apprehension.
"Nice to see you too."
"The offerings of the messenger's are still on the steps to the workshop. You are free to use anything you see."
Dismissive, are we?
Before any retort could form, Gherman simply turned at left the cottage. Plagued by the newfound uncertainty, a thoughtful gaze around the workshop revealed much more that I missed the few times I've been in here.
The same weapons hanged from the roof as before, giving its best impression of a popcorn ceiling. In fact, it seemed like the weapon's multiplied before me getting here. Casting a glance forward, the alter on deeper glance felt wrong. Something that emanated that I would be fucking the fabric of reality by using it.
That's a solid no.
Doubling back and out the main entrance, the two things (messengers?) took the same spot as they did previously. On closer inspection, they were offering weapons. The first group was offering a pistol and a really beefed up musket, with a calibre so large that it looked like it would be used more to destroy material, not be used against people.
The city has gone mad!
Who am I kidding, it's probably specifically meant for people.
The second group was far more interesting, as they held several close quarter weapons.
With no way to resupply at the moment, I think that a weapon needs to be chosen. On closer inspection, there were three choices: a sword, an axe and what appeared to be a mix between a cane and a sword.
…
…
I have no clue how to use an axe or a cleaver, so cane-sword it is.
Taking the choice from the messenger's grip, they soon after withdrew into the ground and disappeared to wherever.
More pressing things to look at, like the cane.
Inspecting it, the thing looked flawless. A uniform sheen made the blade portion of the cane look like it was freshly forged. The handle looked elegant, and what could be best described as a lever was present on its left side.
What if I squeezed it?
Doing so, its function was revealed when the blade emanated a loud cracking noise before elongating.
Is this…
On closer inspection, the previously uniform blade became disjointed, with pieces of the blade being strung together by a metallic pseudo-rope. Looking closely, this not-rope looked as sharp as a razor blade.
It's a whip now. Neat. Now would depressing the lever do the reverse?
Acting out on the thought, another loud crack returned the blade to its original form.
Well… I kind of need to get used to the weapon then. Walking down the stairs, my eyes stop not at the gravestones, but at the very much standing doll dressed in a victorian outfit.
What in the Goddamn-
"Hello, good hunter."
"How?"
The doll turned (her?) head to the side, in apparent confusion. "How what?"
"How are you standing?" Forget my due actions, this is far more intriguing.
"I am not "alive" as you would think. I am a simple doll, and death holds little sway here."
Little, but not zero.
This place just left the uncanny valley and became a hell of a lot more creepy.
------(-)------
Holy hell this chapter was hard to write. My brain just refused to conceptualize several of those scenes. Anyways, yet another chapter done!
I'm surprised he didn't pick the axe. One of the greatest advantages of the axe is how it takes very little skill to actually use not to mention its many other utilities such as breaking down doors and what not.
Enemy Unknown
- Location
- In the twilight zone
"Farewell, good hunter." The monotone yet uncanny voice came from the doll, ending the conversation as I walked towards the gravestone.
How did the doll come back to life?
It's a simple question, but one that has me relentlessly going over the possibilities. The most likely possibility is that Gherman brought her back, but mending the damage I gave should have taken longer to repair.
Regardless, I'll think about later. It's just another question in the growing metaphorical pile.
Reaching the gravestone once again, kneeling to return me was met with something new. Instead of the instant transport like it once was, the idea of choice was imprinted into my mind.
I could see two area's fairly clearly: the base of the stairs in the clinic and the forked path that led down or across the bridge. Both images were like live feeds of the area, but around their edges a sort of fuzziness was present, lowering the quality.
Huh. Magic video feeds. Lets try option two.
Instantly the familiar feeling of losing against an oncoming wave rushed over me, pulling me under and far away from the hunter's dream.
------()------
Not much point in using my gun anymore, because these fuckers are coming back from the dead.
Staring in front of me is an extremely familiar sight; a man with an axe and a torch between two stairways, originating from the gate that I hopped over not so long ago. Cursing, I pull out my newest weapon.
Might as well get started on using this thing.
Holding the cane in a sword posture, I made my way down the stairs. The noise alerted the man, who looked at me before letting off a scream and charging me.
Steadying my stance with the cane held out, the incoming attack was easily telegraphed as the man winded his swing. Moving to block, the force behind the man's swing momentarily caught me off guard once it finally made contact, ringing out.
Somewhat clumsily, I force the axe sideways by moving my canesword to the right, opening him up for an attack. Slashing across the exposed chest, the man let out a cry of pain as blood began to color his ragged white undershirt.
Taking a step back to resolve the uncertainty of my next course of action, the man let off a roar before leaping toward me with his torch, clearly intending to burn me this time.
Noting the awkward angle needed to block the attack, I instead sidestep towards the man's staircase going down, once again leaving him open with his arm far too over-extended. With a swipe upwards towards the armpit the man let go of his torch involuntarily as he howled in pain.
I'd prefer a knife to go for the artery in his neck, but I'll try it with the sword.
Bringing back the canesword for a finishing blow, the man gave one last effort to cleave me into two, with a swipe sideways to connect with my arm. Moving to parry instead, the effort was rewarded far more as the man staggered from his failure.
Taking the chance, I swung at head level. With a dull thunk, the man fell to the ground in pain. Taking it out with a bit of effort, the slight grovelling on the ground confirmed that he was still alive. In a single swipe, a strike to the head lead to an instant stop in any of his movements.
I only won because the fucker was acting more like a beast than a man. If I faced against someone who wasn't, it would put me in really hot water.
Regardless, I crouch down and open his jacket to look for anything valuable. Quickly combing over, the feeling of something long and metallic was felt in his jacket. Opening the pocket, a knife was revealed.
Ask and ye shall receive. The luckiest I've been in a fair while.
Stashing the lucky knife on my tac-vest, my eyes lay themselves once again on the house in front of me. The door to the inside was in pristine condition, neither broken glass or torn hinges providing a blemish.
This is some hardcore groundhog day shit.
Turning around to the lamp, my next objective became clear.
What are the rules here?
------()------
Coming back to the same location, A quick glance to the left revealed yet another tango in the exact same spot, and once again no corpse or bloodstain.
So death and suicide produce a "reset" in which people I've killed return from the grave. On top of that, using the lamp produces the same effect?
A frown made its way to my face at the thought.
Does that mean that the fucker at the clinic's back?
Well then, let's figure it out. Turning towards the lamp once more, I returned to the dream
------()------
Entering the open area in front of the lamp, a distinct sound of nothing was only broken from my footsteps rather than a growl from an inhuman beast. Slightly confused, my prize was located when I made eye contact with the pummelled corpse that I produced.
The smell of decomposing flesh had yet to take effect, but nonetheless the smell of blood was still quite fresh.
The feeling of ecstacy-
Brushing off the thoughts, my line of thinking took on an apollonian mindset.
I did a loop before killing steroid wolf, but what changed? I killed it of course-
That's it!
That was the first beast I killed, almost as if it was a milestone to accomplish.
But the doll revived and remembered what I did to it. Gherman said it was the first time someone "awakened" inside the workshop building, meaning he knows about the loops as well.
Wait a minute.
He said that he has not seen a person react so quickly against the doll, meaning that it's happened before. Bullet holes aren't something you could quickly fix, especially to make the work look flawless once again.
Spare parts?
Can't be, only thing I spotted in the workshop was weapons and workbenches to improve them, barring the altar.
Is Gherman actually in control of the dream?
Involuntarily, a shiver went down my spine at the thought.
Then who is?
The million dollar question. With near perfect timing, the thought of the massive beast on the bridge burned into my brain.
The city worships blood to a religious level, making this damn rabbit hole go far deeper than ever expected.
Turning around to make my way back to the lamp, thoughts continued to build to a crescendo.
Once I reached the lamp however, the pull to the deep end silenced them all.
------()------
"Welcome home, good hu-"
A shot from my pistol instantly silenced the doll. Collapsing onto the ground, I once again turned to the headstone to verify my thoughts.
Unlike last time, a small bit of pity crossed my mind.
I need to make sure.
------()------
Waking from lamp travel was a bit off putting, to be honest. Initially the feeling of being pulled under got under my skin.
Now however, a flip has been made; the re-awakening from the travel is whats beginning to really feel like a mindfuck. The best way to describe it…
The best way to describe it is that I feel like I'm in a perpetual dream. Irony aside, wakening on the "other side", be it the dream or Yharnam proper feels extremely off-putting.
In Yharnam, for example, I "awake" standing up, as if I were in a bizzare motionless state, as if I were on my merry way and blinked just in an instant moment. In that moment, I withdraw from the perpetual downward current to the waking world.
The dream is arguably worse, because my mind strain's by just being in said dream. Gherman says its a dream, yet I can carry objects to and fro from Yharnam, making it a reality. It's like an electron having light properties: its most certainly a dream, but at the same time it's a pocket dimension.
And now returning back to the dream, a quick glance at the base of the stairs revealed the doll sitting at a ledge beside the stairs, gazing out to the monumental pillars that surround this small island to as far as the eye can see.
Taking a few steps forward, the doll noticed the sound and faced towards me, its effeminate face showing no emotion.
"Welcome home, good hunter."
However, my focus wasn't towards the doll anymore. It was towards the man bounded in the wheelchair inside the cottage.
Taking the flight of stairs, my gaze immediately found its way towards the man inside. Evidently, he was expecting me as his vision was focused on the entrance I'm coming from.
"Gherman." The tone that came out was fairly neutral, betraying nothing of my intention.
"Cyril." He however greeted me like a re-acquainted friend.
"So…" God, I've came here a tad bit unprepared. "...I've got some questions."
"Inquisitive, aren't you?" He looked like he was remembering a distant memory.
"I… I have some questions about this hunt."
A short chuckle was immediately given off by Gherman. "I've told you what this line of work entails, but I am nothing if not patient."
Bit of a dick response, but okay.
"That's exactly it Gherman. You've told me what this entails but it ain't right." My voice was steadily rising.
"You tell me to slay the beasts plaguing Yharnam yet they rise every time I use the lamps. I would have dismissed it were it not for the fact that a door that was blasted off its hinges returned to its proper place without a scratch!"
Taking a deep breath to plateau my rising anger, I continued. "How does this hunt end when it just returns to its beginning if I die?"
A moment passed.
Gherman didn't seem to be that shocked though. Far from it though, it seemed like he expected this line of questioning to happen, as if it had happened before. "I'm going to tell you something. It's only two words, but I find that you need to let them sink in for you to understand the gravity of the situation."
Rolling towards me, he found his place just a few feet in front of me.
"You died."
I feel numb. A part of me wants to deny it, to say "hey bud, im standing right here". To say that I'm apart of an MTF, some of the best of the best.
But the revelation came to validate the darker thoughts in the back of my mind, the ones that said surviving the sarkic fuck known as Eric, the steroid wolf in the clinic and the fuckoff beast at the bridge was simplnot possible.
"Am I alive or dead?"
"Yes."
"Mind you, it's not the 'deaths' you experienced in Yharnam, although they definitely will not do you favor on you psyche. I'm talking about your first death."
The blazing pain in my chest as the hole kept on bleedingbleedingbleedingbleeDING-
The world was spinning for me at this point.
Shakily getting my bearings, any effort to calm myself was futile.
"By all accounts, you should be dead. Yet, you stand before me. Here, you're breathing and thinking. You're a walking contradiction. So, your next question is how?"
Turning his wheelchair towards the altar once again, a moment of thought was processed through his mind. "And it's an answer that you will find unsatisfying: I don't know. What I do know is that it is costly."
Taking a moment to let it sink in for me, he continued. "It's costly to bring that which is dead back to life. And when the new life keeps dying, that cost needs to be paid once again."
Well Cyril, you did it. You really fucked yourself over this time.
"The cost is more life then, is it not?"
A simple nod. "I hope this answers your question."
"It did." Turning around, I doubled back towards the headstone.
"And one more thing."
Freezing in place, my head found itself looking at the man once again.
"You're welcome to use any of the tools in the workshop. Many have traversed the dream, and some of their remnants might come to interest you...Even the doll, should it please you…" The last part came out a whisper, as if under duress.
There's something there. Besides the fairly off putting innuendo, that was far more cryptic than it needed to be. With the way he phrased it, there is something he wants to hide there.
Yet with it, more questions come to mind. Ultimately, I need to investigate the city far more. That should take precedence over the doll at the moment.
It ain't human, and I've learned to trust such things about as far as I can throw them.
------()------
Walking slowly up to the man, an overhang swing directly to the skull instantly killed him. Dropping his axe and his torch, he sprawled across the ground lifeless.
Looking towards the door, my mind began analyzing once again.
Four tango's, one on a wheelchair. Kill the first guy, then open the other door and run through.
Walking up, my thoughts were solidified when the door unlocked.
Go time.
Remembering the first man's placement from the drone, my first action is to deliver a death slash against the man while he's still confused.
Unfortunately, he recovered from a stranger opening his door a tad too soon, and with a swing the blow became a graze as his axe became engrossed in a deadlock.
Shit!
Putting more pressure onto the stalemate, the shuffling of footsteps upstairs increased the desperation in my attack. Luckily, the crazed man in front of me yielded, opening him up for an attack.
With a wild swing, it connected with the man's arm. Dropping his weapon involuntarily, a scream of pain echoed in the small building.
Running out of time!
With the foe subdued, I ran for the second door. Reaching it, the wild pulling swing caused the door to hit the man leading the charge down the stairs. Exiting with urgency, I closed the door and held.
The sound of the fuckers trying to barge through was heard, but because of their crazed state of mind they did not realize that the door swung inwards, not out effectively making it a wall.
Wait, Wait.
Click
There!
Diving to the right, the sound of an ancient gatling gun became known as shots turned the door into swiss cheese. Behind the sound, the screams of the three men could be heard as their comrade fired on them.
Fucking christ.
Waiting for the gun to finish firing, my chance became clear. Looking down the alley, I stood up and ran. Try as the wheelchair man might, he still needed to reload a multi-manned weapon by himself.
Reaching the next street area, I immediately went right to get out of the firing line.
Forward it is then.
Taking a breath to compose myself, I began walking to the stairway before the sound of growling made it to my ears.
Fuck!
Taking point on the right of the stairway, my hand went its way to my hip-
My drone isn't there.
I left it at the fuckoff bride-beast before I offed myself, didn't I?
Real smooth, me.
Switching to drone view in a vain attempt, the greeting of CONNECTION LOST caused me to grimace.
Big yikes.
Holding the canesword in a tight grip once again, I took a breath before going around the corner.
What greeted me was a hairless dog at the base of the steps.
Oh no.
Noticing a sudden change, the dog turned towards me. Letting off a few barks, the dog began zoning in towards me.
Just a bloodthirsty dog Cyril, this isn't the first time you've seen something like this.
A grimace formed on my face.
That mission wasn't fun.
Thrusting with the cane, the tip made contact just below the neck. Startled, the dog let off a whine before tumbling down the steps.
Oh no you don't.
Pursuing the dog, an overhang swing came down on the dog. Luckily for me, the swing connected with the throat. Embedding deep, I instantly knew that it punctured its windpipe.
Withdrawing the blade with some difficulty, my eyes scan the surroundings and found a dire situation. In front of me was a bridge to what appeared to be a gothic church. Bad news was that the place was lined with cages of dogs before the bridge, now agitated.
Get moving!
Starting a sprint, breakneck progression was made. Walking onto the bridge, two more things became obvious. First was the smell: it wasn't the entrance to a church, it was an entrance to a sewer.
The second was that there was a dog trying to bust down a door.
Now that wont do.
Hearing my loud approach, the dog turned from its task to face me.
No stairs this time.
Slowing to a stop on the dime, my canesword found itself on the ready. Not a moment too soon either, as the dog forwent the barking of its predecessor and simply charged me.
Going for a thrust like last time, the dog surpassed my expectations by hopping to the right, avoiding my strike in its entirety. I myself had the dodge as the dog leapt to bite my leg.
I swung clumsily. The strike grazed the dog's ear, but did nothing else. The dog responded in kind by charging me without leaping.
With a sidestep, the dog skidded past trying to slow down after missing its target. Here my opportunity was realized. With a swing a hind leg was cut cleanly off as it crossed all the way to the stone brick. Howling, the god attempted to get up but missing a leg resulted in the fucker doing so far slower than it would have liked.
With the opponent disabled I went for the killing blow. Once again going for the neck, the fury of the dog was cut silent with another swing to a neck.
Taking a breath of exhaustion, my eyes focused on what lay past the doorway. There were two choices: down stairs that had orange light dancing across the walls or a more hidden path obscured by some barrels.
Walking towards the entrance, the flickering of the orange light gave me pause.
That's a torch. Option two then.
Silently going over the barrels, what lay past is an overhanging platform presiding over a section of the sewer. All of it was made of wood, and my god the stink has gotten close to unbearable.
There are a ton of corpses down there, and I know it. Taking the path to the right, another entrance to the platform. Walking over to it, I gazed to the right.
Some sort of outlook to the outside was present, built with the same aging, decaying wood. The more important thing however was that it was not empty.
A figure stood at the guardrail, looking outward. A heavily feathered garb gave off the impression that he or she was attempting to give off an avian-like impression. Grabbing the canesword out of its improvised holster, I tentatively began to approach.
Reaching in short order and dozens of squeaks later any element of surprise was lost yet I somehow knew this person was not an enemy. The front of the figure could finally be seen; a crow mask serving to further complement the person's feather-garb.
Turning left to acknowledge my presence, the person took a breath.
"Oh, a hunter, are ya?"
------(-)------
With the initial chaos subsiding, Cyril begins to analyze the situation and he finds that it absolutely sucks. Once again, thank you to Travisplo for the beta, and here's to the hope that I will upload another chapter during this month. Until next time!
How did the doll come back to life?
It's a simple question, but one that has me relentlessly going over the possibilities. The most likely possibility is that Gherman brought her back, but mending the damage I gave should have taken longer to repair.
Regardless, I'll think about later. It's just another question in the growing metaphorical pile.
Reaching the gravestone once again, kneeling to return me was met with something new. Instead of the instant transport like it once was, the idea of choice was imprinted into my mind.
I could see two area's fairly clearly: the base of the stairs in the clinic and the forked path that led down or across the bridge. Both images were like live feeds of the area, but around their edges a sort of fuzziness was present, lowering the quality.
Huh. Magic video feeds. Lets try option two.
Instantly the familiar feeling of losing against an oncoming wave rushed over me, pulling me under and far away from the hunter's dream.
------()------
Not much point in using my gun anymore, because these fuckers are coming back from the dead.
Staring in front of me is an extremely familiar sight; a man with an axe and a torch between two stairways, originating from the gate that I hopped over not so long ago. Cursing, I pull out my newest weapon.
Might as well get started on using this thing.
Holding the cane in a sword posture, I made my way down the stairs. The noise alerted the man, who looked at me before letting off a scream and charging me.
Steadying my stance with the cane held out, the incoming attack was easily telegraphed as the man winded his swing. Moving to block, the force behind the man's swing momentarily caught me off guard once it finally made contact, ringing out.
Somewhat clumsily, I force the axe sideways by moving my canesword to the right, opening him up for an attack. Slashing across the exposed chest, the man let out a cry of pain as blood began to color his ragged white undershirt.
Taking a step back to resolve the uncertainty of my next course of action, the man let off a roar before leaping toward me with his torch, clearly intending to burn me this time.
Noting the awkward angle needed to block the attack, I instead sidestep towards the man's staircase going down, once again leaving him open with his arm far too over-extended. With a swipe upwards towards the armpit the man let go of his torch involuntarily as he howled in pain.
I'd prefer a knife to go for the artery in his neck, but I'll try it with the sword.
Bringing back the canesword for a finishing blow, the man gave one last effort to cleave me into two, with a swipe sideways to connect with my arm. Moving to parry instead, the effort was rewarded far more as the man staggered from his failure.
Taking the chance, I swung at head level. With a dull thunk, the man fell to the ground in pain. Taking it out with a bit of effort, the slight grovelling on the ground confirmed that he was still alive. In a single swipe, a strike to the head lead to an instant stop in any of his movements.
I only won because the fucker was acting more like a beast than a man. If I faced against someone who wasn't, it would put me in really hot water.
Regardless, I crouch down and open his jacket to look for anything valuable. Quickly combing over, the feeling of something long and metallic was felt in his jacket. Opening the pocket, a knife was revealed.
Ask and ye shall receive. The luckiest I've been in a fair while.
Stashing the lucky knife on my tac-vest, my eyes lay themselves once again on the house in front of me. The door to the inside was in pristine condition, neither broken glass or torn hinges providing a blemish.
This is some hardcore groundhog day shit.
Turning around to the lamp, my next objective became clear.
What are the rules here?
------()------
Coming back to the same location, A quick glance to the left revealed yet another tango in the exact same spot, and once again no corpse or bloodstain.
So death and suicide produce a "reset" in which people I've killed return from the grave. On top of that, using the lamp produces the same effect?
A frown made its way to my face at the thought.
Does that mean that the fucker at the clinic's back?
Well then, let's figure it out. Turning towards the lamp once more, I returned to the dream
------()------
Entering the open area in front of the lamp, a distinct sound of nothing was only broken from my footsteps rather than a growl from an inhuman beast. Slightly confused, my prize was located when I made eye contact with the pummelled corpse that I produced.
The smell of decomposing flesh had yet to take effect, but nonetheless the smell of blood was still quite fresh.
The feeling of ecstacy-
Brushing off the thoughts, my line of thinking took on an apollonian mindset.
I did a loop before killing steroid wolf, but what changed? I killed it of course-
That's it!
That was the first beast I killed, almost as if it was a milestone to accomplish.
But the doll revived and remembered what I did to it. Gherman said it was the first time someone "awakened" inside the workshop building, meaning he knows about the loops as well.
Wait a minute.
He said that he has not seen a person react so quickly against the doll, meaning that it's happened before. Bullet holes aren't something you could quickly fix, especially to make the work look flawless once again.
Spare parts?
Can't be, only thing I spotted in the workshop was weapons and workbenches to improve them, barring the altar.
Is Gherman actually in control of the dream?
Involuntarily, a shiver went down my spine at the thought.
Then who is?
The million dollar question. With near perfect timing, the thought of the massive beast on the bridge burned into my brain.
The city worships blood to a religious level, making this damn rabbit hole go far deeper than ever expected.
Turning around to make my way back to the lamp, thoughts continued to build to a crescendo.
Once I reached the lamp however, the pull to the deep end silenced them all.
------()------
"Welcome home, good hu-"
A shot from my pistol instantly silenced the doll. Collapsing onto the ground, I once again turned to the headstone to verify my thoughts.
Unlike last time, a small bit of pity crossed my mind.
I need to make sure.
------()------
Waking from lamp travel was a bit off putting, to be honest. Initially the feeling of being pulled under got under my skin.
Now however, a flip has been made; the re-awakening from the travel is whats beginning to really feel like a mindfuck. The best way to describe it…
The best way to describe it is that I feel like I'm in a perpetual dream. Irony aside, wakening on the "other side", be it the dream or Yharnam proper feels extremely off-putting.
In Yharnam, for example, I "awake" standing up, as if I were in a bizzare motionless state, as if I were on my merry way and blinked just in an instant moment. In that moment, I withdraw from the perpetual downward current to the waking world.
The dream is arguably worse, because my mind strain's by just being in said dream. Gherman says its a dream, yet I can carry objects to and fro from Yharnam, making it a reality. It's like an electron having light properties: its most certainly a dream, but at the same time it's a pocket dimension.
And now returning back to the dream, a quick glance at the base of the stairs revealed the doll sitting at a ledge beside the stairs, gazing out to the monumental pillars that surround this small island to as far as the eye can see.
Taking a few steps forward, the doll noticed the sound and faced towards me, its effeminate face showing no emotion.
"Welcome home, good hunter."
However, my focus wasn't towards the doll anymore. It was towards the man bounded in the wheelchair inside the cottage.
Taking the flight of stairs, my gaze immediately found its way towards the man inside. Evidently, he was expecting me as his vision was focused on the entrance I'm coming from.
"Gherman." The tone that came out was fairly neutral, betraying nothing of my intention.
"Cyril." He however greeted me like a re-acquainted friend.
"So…" God, I've came here a tad bit unprepared. "...I've got some questions."
"Inquisitive, aren't you?" He looked like he was remembering a distant memory.
"I… I have some questions about this hunt."
A short chuckle was immediately given off by Gherman. "I've told you what this line of work entails, but I am nothing if not patient."
Bit of a dick response, but okay.
"That's exactly it Gherman. You've told me what this entails but it ain't right." My voice was steadily rising.
"You tell me to slay the beasts plaguing Yharnam yet they rise every time I use the lamps. I would have dismissed it were it not for the fact that a door that was blasted off its hinges returned to its proper place without a scratch!"
Taking a deep breath to plateau my rising anger, I continued. "How does this hunt end when it just returns to its beginning if I die?"
A moment passed.
Gherman didn't seem to be that shocked though. Far from it though, it seemed like he expected this line of questioning to happen, as if it had happened before. "I'm going to tell you something. It's only two words, but I find that you need to let them sink in for you to understand the gravity of the situation."
Rolling towards me, he found his place just a few feet in front of me.
"You died."
I feel numb. A part of me wants to deny it, to say "hey bud, im standing right here". To say that I'm apart of an MTF, some of the best of the best.
But the revelation came to validate the darker thoughts in the back of my mind, the ones that said surviving the sarkic fuck known as Eric, the steroid wolf in the clinic and the fuckoff beast at the bridge was simplnot possible.
"Am I alive or dead?"
"Yes."
"Mind you, it's not the 'deaths' you experienced in Yharnam, although they definitely will not do you favor on you psyche. I'm talking about your first death."
The blazing pain in my chest as the hole kept on bleedingbleedingbleedingbleeDING-
The world was spinning for me at this point.
Shakily getting my bearings, any effort to calm myself was futile.
"By all accounts, you should be dead. Yet, you stand before me. Here, you're breathing and thinking. You're a walking contradiction. So, your next question is how?"
Turning his wheelchair towards the altar once again, a moment of thought was processed through his mind. "And it's an answer that you will find unsatisfying: I don't know. What I do know is that it is costly."
Taking a moment to let it sink in for me, he continued. "It's costly to bring that which is dead back to life. And when the new life keeps dying, that cost needs to be paid once again."
Well Cyril, you did it. You really fucked yourself over this time.
"The cost is more life then, is it not?"
A simple nod. "I hope this answers your question."
"It did." Turning around, I doubled back towards the headstone.
"And one more thing."
Freezing in place, my head found itself looking at the man once again.
"You're welcome to use any of the tools in the workshop. Many have traversed the dream, and some of their remnants might come to interest you...Even the doll, should it please you…" The last part came out a whisper, as if under duress.
There's something there. Besides the fairly off putting innuendo, that was far more cryptic than it needed to be. With the way he phrased it, there is something he wants to hide there.
Yet with it, more questions come to mind. Ultimately, I need to investigate the city far more. That should take precedence over the doll at the moment.
It ain't human, and I've learned to trust such things about as far as I can throw them.
------()------
Walking slowly up to the man, an overhang swing directly to the skull instantly killed him. Dropping his axe and his torch, he sprawled across the ground lifeless.
Looking towards the door, my mind began analyzing once again.
Four tango's, one on a wheelchair. Kill the first guy, then open the other door and run through.
Walking up, my thoughts were solidified when the door unlocked.
Go time.
Remembering the first man's placement from the drone, my first action is to deliver a death slash against the man while he's still confused.
Unfortunately, he recovered from a stranger opening his door a tad too soon, and with a swing the blow became a graze as his axe became engrossed in a deadlock.
Shit!
Putting more pressure onto the stalemate, the shuffling of footsteps upstairs increased the desperation in my attack. Luckily, the crazed man in front of me yielded, opening him up for an attack.
With a wild swing, it connected with the man's arm. Dropping his weapon involuntarily, a scream of pain echoed in the small building.
Running out of time!
With the foe subdued, I ran for the second door. Reaching it, the wild pulling swing caused the door to hit the man leading the charge down the stairs. Exiting with urgency, I closed the door and held.
The sound of the fuckers trying to barge through was heard, but because of their crazed state of mind they did not realize that the door swung inwards, not out effectively making it a wall.
Wait, Wait.
Click
There!
Diving to the right, the sound of an ancient gatling gun became known as shots turned the door into swiss cheese. Behind the sound, the screams of the three men could be heard as their comrade fired on them.
Fucking christ.
Waiting for the gun to finish firing, my chance became clear. Looking down the alley, I stood up and ran. Try as the wheelchair man might, he still needed to reload a multi-manned weapon by himself.
Reaching the next street area, I immediately went right to get out of the firing line.
Forward it is then.
Taking a breath to compose myself, I began walking to the stairway before the sound of growling made it to my ears.
Fuck!
Taking point on the right of the stairway, my hand went its way to my hip-
My drone isn't there.
I left it at the fuckoff bride-beast before I offed myself, didn't I?
Real smooth, me.
Switching to drone view in a vain attempt, the greeting of CONNECTION LOST caused me to grimace.
Big yikes.
Holding the canesword in a tight grip once again, I took a breath before going around the corner.
What greeted me was a hairless dog at the base of the steps.
Oh no.
Noticing a sudden change, the dog turned towards me. Letting off a few barks, the dog began zoning in towards me.
Just a bloodthirsty dog Cyril, this isn't the first time you've seen something like this.
A grimace formed on my face.
That mission wasn't fun.
Thrusting with the cane, the tip made contact just below the neck. Startled, the dog let off a whine before tumbling down the steps.
Oh no you don't.
Pursuing the dog, an overhang swing came down on the dog. Luckily for me, the swing connected with the throat. Embedding deep, I instantly knew that it punctured its windpipe.
Withdrawing the blade with some difficulty, my eyes scan the surroundings and found a dire situation. In front of me was a bridge to what appeared to be a gothic church. Bad news was that the place was lined with cages of dogs before the bridge, now agitated.
Get moving!
Starting a sprint, breakneck progression was made. Walking onto the bridge, two more things became obvious. First was the smell: it wasn't the entrance to a church, it was an entrance to a sewer.
The second was that there was a dog trying to bust down a door.
Now that wont do.
Hearing my loud approach, the dog turned from its task to face me.
No stairs this time.
Slowing to a stop on the dime, my canesword found itself on the ready. Not a moment too soon either, as the dog forwent the barking of its predecessor and simply charged me.
Going for a thrust like last time, the dog surpassed my expectations by hopping to the right, avoiding my strike in its entirety. I myself had the dodge as the dog leapt to bite my leg.
I swung clumsily. The strike grazed the dog's ear, but did nothing else. The dog responded in kind by charging me without leaping.
With a sidestep, the dog skidded past trying to slow down after missing its target. Here my opportunity was realized. With a swing a hind leg was cut cleanly off as it crossed all the way to the stone brick. Howling, the god attempted to get up but missing a leg resulted in the fucker doing so far slower than it would have liked.
With the opponent disabled I went for the killing blow. Once again going for the neck, the fury of the dog was cut silent with another swing to a neck.
Taking a breath of exhaustion, my eyes focused on what lay past the doorway. There were two choices: down stairs that had orange light dancing across the walls or a more hidden path obscured by some barrels.
Walking towards the entrance, the flickering of the orange light gave me pause.
That's a torch. Option two then.
Silently going over the barrels, what lay past is an overhanging platform presiding over a section of the sewer. All of it was made of wood, and my god the stink has gotten close to unbearable.
There are a ton of corpses down there, and I know it. Taking the path to the right, another entrance to the platform. Walking over to it, I gazed to the right.
Some sort of outlook to the outside was present, built with the same aging, decaying wood. The more important thing however was that it was not empty.
A figure stood at the guardrail, looking outward. A heavily feathered garb gave off the impression that he or she was attempting to give off an avian-like impression. Grabbing the canesword out of its improvised holster, I tentatively began to approach.
Reaching in short order and dozens of squeaks later any element of surprise was lost yet I somehow knew this person was not an enemy. The front of the figure could finally be seen; a crow mask serving to further complement the person's feather-garb.
Turning left to acknowledge my presence, the person took a breath.
"Oh, a hunter, are ya?"
------(-)------
With the initial chaos subsiding, Cyril begins to analyze the situation and he finds that it absolutely sucks. Once again, thank you to Travisplo for the beta, and here's to the hope that I will upload another chapter during this month. Until next time!
Quintessential Questioning
- Location
- In the twilight zone
Old. That's the first thing I notice, she sounds very old. Her voice comes out slowly, betraying no emotion. The plague doctor mask doesn't either, as she looks to what I assume is my face.
"Outsider as well. I have not seen clothing like that in a few years."
More confirmation that the foundation was here at one point. One member all but confirmed dead, rest missing; probably have to assume the worst and that they're all dead.
Fuck.
"You wouldn't happen to know what happened to them, would you?" Try as I might, the tone of uncertainty made itself present in my voice.
"How long have you been in Yharnam?" Well then. Answering a question with another, completely unrelated question. Still though, this is the friendliest person I've met so far, and keeping on her good side might just be what I need.
"I'll be completely honest with you miss, I didn't even know the city existed a few hours ago."
"I see." Taking a moment, the unnerving face mask bore a hole through me. "Can you turn the right side of your neck towards me?"
Weapon is still holstered on her body, looks like it's two daggers. I think it'll be fine if I comply.
Complying with her request, the thought of her slitting my throat came crashing down when I heard a quiet intake of air instead.
She's surprised.
"You dream."
And now I'm surprised as well. "How?" Despite my best intentions, my voice came out shaken.
"I dreamt once as well."
Now that is particularly interesting. This woman has my full attention now.
"Anything you would like to tell a new person like me?" Come on, what is this fuckfest I've placed myself in.
"What a mess you've been caught up in." She turned her head towards the outlook again, as she told me what I already knew. "There are no humans left, if you're wondering." The next part came out far more monotone, as if to hide her inner emotion. "Just flesh-hungry beasts."
"Kind of figured that one out." Opting to follow her lead, I turn my vision towards the outlook as well. "Also actual beasts. Ones that are thirty feet tall and can ram through arches like they were drywall."
"You've met the cleric beast?" The confusion in her voice is the most emotion I've gotten out of her so far.
"That's what it's called?"
"Best you stay away from that one."
"Planning to do so. Scratch that, have been doing so and will keep doing so." Taking a bit more of a casual stance, my arms find themselves crossed on the railing, seemingly content to rest there for a while.
"Eileen." The suddenness of the voice surprised me, though it was not unwelcome.
"Cyril." Through the introduction though, a question formed at the tip of my tongue. "What's beyond the sewers?"
"I assume you've come from the bridge?" I made a quick nod. "This section of sewer combines into the main line, where it will eventually feed into the far lower sections that aren't accessible. There are three ladders which lead to different sections above ground."
Interesting. "People down there?"
"Quite a few. Workers who have gone mad when blood started flowing down into the drains, and animals turned beasts, they roam in tandem." Her voice turned sour. "Make sure to be in the water as sparingly as possible. Ain't safe to stay in."
"I can smell the shit from here." The humor could not be held back. "But I don't think you're talking about the water itself, are you?"
"You would be correct. Lifeless corpses are re-animated by the plague, mindlessly roaming for their next meal in the infected waters they call home." Again, she took a moment, likely to sort out what she wanted to speak. "They roam in large packs, making them dangerous."
"I'll keep that in mind." Taking in the information, I continued to look at the surroundings, content to stay.
She's definitely experienced in and around this fucked city, and knows enough about the foes here. Yet, at the same time...
"I'd love to say 'hey, you're a cool person, why don't you tag along?' yet at the same time I have a sneaking suspicion that you would say no."
"You would be correct. Hunters, even those who dream like you are to hunt beasts. Leave the hunting of hunters to me."
Well shit, there's yet more things to worry about.
"I do have one more question though." Yeah, one question as to not annoy the friendliest person here. Pulling out a blood vial I stole from one of the assholes at the steps, my question was already on my lips. "I've seen a few people with these. What do they do?"
"For an outsider like you, the blood on this city my come across as strange. Yet here blood like that heals, literally. Say you take a shot." To emphasise her point, she pointed at her chest as to suggest that she was struck. "Take out the ball and drink a vial, or break it in your hand, either works. The end result is the same: the hole will close before your very eyes."
Bullshit healing item essentially. "Downsides?" Still though, this place didn't go insane from being able to have a magic IV bag on them at all times.
"Every time you take a vial, your thirst for blood grows."
Okay, scratch that, this place did go insane from having magic IV blood bottles on them at all times, got it.
"This city sucks."
"That I cannot disagree with."
Looking out once more, I feel as if my questions are satisfied for now. "I, uh, bid you farewell then."
"Just a moment." Pulling something from a hidden satchel, she hands it to me. It's four pieces of paper, each with a striking familiarity to something I cannot pinpoint.
"The bold marks." she stated to answer the unspoken question. "I no longer dream, so these would do you far more worth than if I held onto them." Putting them into my hand, she continued. "They let you return to your previous lamp at a moment's notice. Hunters may be more resilient, but there are situations where you need to fall back."
It's a 'get out of jail free card', basically. Putting them away, I thank her before turning around to head back into the belly of the beast.
"Thank you."
------()------
Dear god the smell is awful. With a loud creak my footsteps into the rafters of the sewers. Looking down, a few things became obvious. Namely, there are quite a few of these "workers" down there.
There are what I can see as two "types" of workers down here. The first is the ones in the dirty, faded white uniforms, running completely counter to the environment they would be working in. They have what appears to be muskets, and all they seem to be doing is holding point.
The other seems to be more active in patrolling. They have torches and a wicked looking pike, but are different in almost every other way. Even from this distance, one can tell that the proportions are wrong. A torso too small, arms far larger than they need to be and a nasty hunchback to top off their demeanor.
Probably who was at the base of the stairs.
So obviously, I really do not want to engage any of them, but because I lost my drone I'm in the fucking dark here.
Looking around, My eyes spot the various duffel bag-like items hung at my level here. Instantly, a plan began forming…
Walking towards the farthest bag with my blade being withdrawn, I look around to make sure this plan would work.
Cut the bag, attract attention there. Go to the end of the rafters where you make a big jump to what appears to be a gallow, where you jump again to the ground. Bank on the fact that I'm slightly more resilient to damage now to not break a bone when landing.
A flash of uncertainty crosses my mind. My legs are not gonna like this.
At once, my plan was set into motion. Swiping horizontally, the sound of freefall began and I started running.
Sparing a moment to glance behind me when a resounding thump could be heard, the hope of my plan working seamlessly was brought up as at least three of the tango's were investigating what the hell made that noise.
Reaching my destination, a brief moment of hesitation came over me.
I really do not want to fuck up my legs.
This or facing quite a few insane men in melee.
I'll take the chance with the jump.
Leaping off, the feeling of weightlessness took hold, and an involuntary tensing took hold.
Landing on top of the gallow wasn't much better because it wasn't a flat pad, instead looking far more barebones.
Surprisingly though, actually landing felt… dull. I definitely jumped a solid ten meters down, yet while my legs are in fact in pain, they are far from taking lasting injury.
The sound of someone moving brought me out of my thoughts.
Oh shit.
Spinning around to spot the source of the sound, a man with a musket was brought to the forefront. Namely, a man with a musket he is loading.
Fuck!
Jumping off the gallow with protest from my legs, I rolled with the first contact with the ground. The man fired, and my left arm began to scream with pain indicating a hit.
OW-OW-OW-MOTHERFUCKINGOWWW-
In desperation, I pulled the knife I had taken off the corpse before and roughly threw it. It seemed like luck had not yet left my side left as the wild swing of a decidedly not so great throwing knife connected with the man's thigh, causing him to collapse onto the ground.
Attempting to bring my bearings steady for a moment, my eyes ficked up to face the man across from me. He was still down on his knees like me, but seemed to be getting up quicker than I am.
Forcing myself up to match him with my left arm dangling useless and holding back a scream, I took out my canesword to close the distance.
Until the guy takes a pistol out of his coat pocket.
I'd like to say time slowed down or some shit like that, but the only thing going through my mind right now is to avoid the shot. With another thundercrack the man fired once again as I dodged to the left.
Luck had finally sided with me properly this time as the bullet missed me by a good distance. With his reaction shot gone, the man did the only thing left to him, which was to pull out a knife to defend himself.
Unfortunately for him, a sword has a far greater range than a knife. In a rage filled overhand swing, the sword connected with the man's shoulder causing him to pull back and hiss.
Letting off a hiss of my own to power through the burning feeling in my left arm, I continued the onslaught. In a pseudo fencing maneuver, I thrust with desperation to meet his throat.
Defying all logical reasoning, the man marched forward to meet the blade as he swiped with his knife. The man impales himself on my sword, and his dagger misses utterly. Gagging but not dead, he moves to pull the knife from his leg in a desperate bid to kill me.
Fuck no.
Pulling the blade back, the sudden change of momentum that the impaled weapon caused the man to fall forward towards the ground. Bringing the sword up once more to end it, a decisive thrust downwards connected in the man's eye before continuing down.
His dying movements instantly stopped.
Leaning down on the blade to keep balance, a quick check of the surroundings confirmed that the only tango's near are the ones who were attracted to the falling duffel-bag. Breathing a sigh of relief, my eyes then look at the injury I sustained.
What I saw was wrong. The man definitely hit me with a fucking musket shot with a big calliber, but the wound on my arm seemed to be sealing itself quickly.
I'm not leaving what's probably lead in my arm!
Glancing at the man below me, a preemptive wince went across my face. Searching his coat pocket, my hopes of a disinfectant were rewarded when a bottle of whiskey gleamed inside his coat.
Moving down to his leg, a forceful tug of the knife there dislodged it from his thigh. Haphazardly cutting a piece of cloth from his coat with one hand, I put it in my mouth to bite on hit.
Cleaning the knife only made my discomfort grow.
------()------
Dislodging the ball hurt like a bitch. Yet once it was out my confusion only grew. Instead of the stream of blood I expected when the lead poisoning bullet serving double duty as a clot, instead was a small trickle before stopping entirely.
That ball was a solid inch at the least, and that's it?
Before my eyes, the gruesome carving is already healing, slowly closing itself up. Taking a step-
*Crack*
It wasn't a gunshot, it was me breaking some glass. Looking down, I saw that I planted a foot on what seemed like a vial of blood.
The hell they come from?
Probably rolled from his body while I was roughly looting him.
Now, the problem isn't that I broke the vial, the problem is that I'm feeling giddly to the fucking blood as the wound seals itself up.
"Every time you take a vial, your thirst for blood grows."
The feeling of ecstasy-
I didn't even have direct contact with the vial, yet I was still healed because I broke it.
"Your thirst for blood grows."
The ship has sailed. Be glad you have function of your left arm and don't make the mistake again.
Looking to my left, a pathway could be seen to a greater canal. Walking forwards, the hopes of discretion were quashed when several more musketeers and frail brutes were spotted. Below the ledge, the smell became even more unbearable. There was a ladder in front of me, but the musketeer nearby quashed any idea of using it.
Taking a look to make sure I can do a quick peek, a confirmation allowed me to gaze down into the canal. The sewage water's smell only got worse, and I could make out corpses rotting down there.
Let's not take a chance with this.
Looking to my right for an option, a wooden barricade blocking the path greeted me. Luckily it seemed like it was made out of furniture more than anything else, allowing an easy way through, thanks to the fact that it did not extend out all the way to the ledge.
Insane people are bad at making barricades. In other news, water is wet. Thank you for making my job easy.
Sparing one last glance to make sure I'm not spotted, a confirmation leads me to walk forwards.
Crossing the barricade, my hopes for continued stealth were quashed when the sound of something chirping was heard a dozen or so feet ahead of me.
I refuse to believe that however many crows there are not supersized and hostile.
Taking the moment to bring out the canesword, a moment passed before my hand went to switch the sword into its whip form. Slowly walking forward, my mind was being overcome by the air of uncertainty, one that grew to a sense of dread that permeated the air like the waste in the sewer was giving off.
The crows were silent for a moment, before they shrieked and made themselves known. My guess that they would be supersized was correct, and an imminent claw to strike me proving my guess correct.
Step back!
Obliging my thoughts, the action came not a moment too soon as the crow lashed at the same moment, grazing my arm. His buddy was a bit farther back, and as a result settled down on the ground, awaiting his chance to strike.
Readying a swing with an overhand twirl, I attacked. Crow number one jumped up again to attack me, and his talon met the midsection of the whip. Wrapping around the fucker's leg as a result, I pulled back.
The result was instantaneous. The fucker's leg was cut off, and the crow shrieked in pain as it fell unceremoniously on the ground. Giving an overhang swing, it took a moment for the tip to catch up. On contact, the crow amplified it's screeching as it was lacerated across its body. Stepping on its head to quicken the kill, the next target was already in my mind.
The crow had no objections to its friend dying either as it leapt to attack me.
Honestly, words cannot describe how fast my anger about this city is rising.
------(-)------
What is this, an update within the month? Preposterous!
Anyways, the Gascoigne fight is slowly creeping up and man, I cannot wait for it to come. I got quite a few ideas on how to handle it. Finally reached the tenth chapter and again I just cannot wait for what is to come. Another chapter done, and another thank you to Travisplo for the beta.
Until next time!
"Outsider as well. I have not seen clothing like that in a few years."
More confirmation that the foundation was here at one point. One member all but confirmed dead, rest missing; probably have to assume the worst and that they're all dead.
Fuck.
"You wouldn't happen to know what happened to them, would you?" Try as I might, the tone of uncertainty made itself present in my voice.
"How long have you been in Yharnam?" Well then. Answering a question with another, completely unrelated question. Still though, this is the friendliest person I've met so far, and keeping on her good side might just be what I need.
"I'll be completely honest with you miss, I didn't even know the city existed a few hours ago."
"I see." Taking a moment, the unnerving face mask bore a hole through me. "Can you turn the right side of your neck towards me?"
Weapon is still holstered on her body, looks like it's two daggers. I think it'll be fine if I comply.
Complying with her request, the thought of her slitting my throat came crashing down when I heard a quiet intake of air instead.
She's surprised.
"You dream."
And now I'm surprised as well. "How?" Despite my best intentions, my voice came out shaken.
"I dreamt once as well."
Now that is particularly interesting. This woman has my full attention now.
"Anything you would like to tell a new person like me?" Come on, what is this fuckfest I've placed myself in.
"What a mess you've been caught up in." She turned her head towards the outlook again, as she told me what I already knew. "There are no humans left, if you're wondering." The next part came out far more monotone, as if to hide her inner emotion. "Just flesh-hungry beasts."
"Kind of figured that one out." Opting to follow her lead, I turn my vision towards the outlook as well. "Also actual beasts. Ones that are thirty feet tall and can ram through arches like they were drywall."
"You've met the cleric beast?" The confusion in her voice is the most emotion I've gotten out of her so far.
"That's what it's called?"
"Best you stay away from that one."
"Planning to do so. Scratch that, have been doing so and will keep doing so." Taking a bit more of a casual stance, my arms find themselves crossed on the railing, seemingly content to rest there for a while.
"Eileen." The suddenness of the voice surprised me, though it was not unwelcome.
"Cyril." Through the introduction though, a question formed at the tip of my tongue. "What's beyond the sewers?"
"I assume you've come from the bridge?" I made a quick nod. "This section of sewer combines into the main line, where it will eventually feed into the far lower sections that aren't accessible. There are three ladders which lead to different sections above ground."
Interesting. "People down there?"
"Quite a few. Workers who have gone mad when blood started flowing down into the drains, and animals turned beasts, they roam in tandem." Her voice turned sour. "Make sure to be in the water as sparingly as possible. Ain't safe to stay in."
"I can smell the shit from here." The humor could not be held back. "But I don't think you're talking about the water itself, are you?"
"You would be correct. Lifeless corpses are re-animated by the plague, mindlessly roaming for their next meal in the infected waters they call home." Again, she took a moment, likely to sort out what she wanted to speak. "They roam in large packs, making them dangerous."
"I'll keep that in mind." Taking in the information, I continued to look at the surroundings, content to stay.
She's definitely experienced in and around this fucked city, and knows enough about the foes here. Yet, at the same time...
"I'd love to say 'hey, you're a cool person, why don't you tag along?' yet at the same time I have a sneaking suspicion that you would say no."
"You would be correct. Hunters, even those who dream like you are to hunt beasts. Leave the hunting of hunters to me."
Well shit, there's yet more things to worry about.
"I do have one more question though." Yeah, one question as to not annoy the friendliest person here. Pulling out a blood vial I stole from one of the assholes at the steps, my question was already on my lips. "I've seen a few people with these. What do they do?"
"For an outsider like you, the blood on this city my come across as strange. Yet here blood like that heals, literally. Say you take a shot." To emphasise her point, she pointed at her chest as to suggest that she was struck. "Take out the ball and drink a vial, or break it in your hand, either works. The end result is the same: the hole will close before your very eyes."
Bullshit healing item essentially. "Downsides?" Still though, this place didn't go insane from being able to have a magic IV bag on them at all times.
"Every time you take a vial, your thirst for blood grows."
Okay, scratch that, this place did go insane from having magic IV blood bottles on them at all times, got it.
"This city sucks."
"That I cannot disagree with."
Looking out once more, I feel as if my questions are satisfied for now. "I, uh, bid you farewell then."
"Just a moment." Pulling something from a hidden satchel, she hands it to me. It's four pieces of paper, each with a striking familiarity to something I cannot pinpoint.
"The bold marks." she stated to answer the unspoken question. "I no longer dream, so these would do you far more worth than if I held onto them." Putting them into my hand, she continued. "They let you return to your previous lamp at a moment's notice. Hunters may be more resilient, but there are situations where you need to fall back."
It's a 'get out of jail free card', basically. Putting them away, I thank her before turning around to head back into the belly of the beast.
"Thank you."
------()------
Dear god the smell is awful. With a loud creak my footsteps into the rafters of the sewers. Looking down, a few things became obvious. Namely, there are quite a few of these "workers" down there.
There are what I can see as two "types" of workers down here. The first is the ones in the dirty, faded white uniforms, running completely counter to the environment they would be working in. They have what appears to be muskets, and all they seem to be doing is holding point.
The other seems to be more active in patrolling. They have torches and a wicked looking pike, but are different in almost every other way. Even from this distance, one can tell that the proportions are wrong. A torso too small, arms far larger than they need to be and a nasty hunchback to top off their demeanor.
Probably who was at the base of the stairs.
So obviously, I really do not want to engage any of them, but because I lost my drone I'm in the fucking dark here.
Looking around, My eyes spot the various duffel bag-like items hung at my level here. Instantly, a plan began forming…
Walking towards the farthest bag with my blade being withdrawn, I look around to make sure this plan would work.
Cut the bag, attract attention there. Go to the end of the rafters where you make a big jump to what appears to be a gallow, where you jump again to the ground. Bank on the fact that I'm slightly more resilient to damage now to not break a bone when landing.
A flash of uncertainty crosses my mind. My legs are not gonna like this.
At once, my plan was set into motion. Swiping horizontally, the sound of freefall began and I started running.
Sparing a moment to glance behind me when a resounding thump could be heard, the hope of my plan working seamlessly was brought up as at least three of the tango's were investigating what the hell made that noise.
Reaching my destination, a brief moment of hesitation came over me.
I really do not want to fuck up my legs.
This or facing quite a few insane men in melee.
I'll take the chance with the jump.
Leaping off, the feeling of weightlessness took hold, and an involuntary tensing took hold.
Landing on top of the gallow wasn't much better because it wasn't a flat pad, instead looking far more barebones.
Surprisingly though, actually landing felt… dull. I definitely jumped a solid ten meters down, yet while my legs are in fact in pain, they are far from taking lasting injury.
The sound of someone moving brought me out of my thoughts.
Oh shit.
Spinning around to spot the source of the sound, a man with a musket was brought to the forefront. Namely, a man with a musket he is loading.
Fuck!
Jumping off the gallow with protest from my legs, I rolled with the first contact with the ground. The man fired, and my left arm began to scream with pain indicating a hit.
OW-OW-OW-MOTHERFUCKINGOWWW-
In desperation, I pulled the knife I had taken off the corpse before and roughly threw it. It seemed like luck had not yet left my side left as the wild swing of a decidedly not so great throwing knife connected with the man's thigh, causing him to collapse onto the ground.
Attempting to bring my bearings steady for a moment, my eyes ficked up to face the man across from me. He was still down on his knees like me, but seemed to be getting up quicker than I am.
Forcing myself up to match him with my left arm dangling useless and holding back a scream, I took out my canesword to close the distance.
Until the guy takes a pistol out of his coat pocket.
I'd like to say time slowed down or some shit like that, but the only thing going through my mind right now is to avoid the shot. With another thundercrack the man fired once again as I dodged to the left.
Luck had finally sided with me properly this time as the bullet missed me by a good distance. With his reaction shot gone, the man did the only thing left to him, which was to pull out a knife to defend himself.
Unfortunately for him, a sword has a far greater range than a knife. In a rage filled overhand swing, the sword connected with the man's shoulder causing him to pull back and hiss.
Letting off a hiss of my own to power through the burning feeling in my left arm, I continued the onslaught. In a pseudo fencing maneuver, I thrust with desperation to meet his throat.
Defying all logical reasoning, the man marched forward to meet the blade as he swiped with his knife. The man impales himself on my sword, and his dagger misses utterly. Gagging but not dead, he moves to pull the knife from his leg in a desperate bid to kill me.
Fuck no.
Pulling the blade back, the sudden change of momentum that the impaled weapon caused the man to fall forward towards the ground. Bringing the sword up once more to end it, a decisive thrust downwards connected in the man's eye before continuing down.
His dying movements instantly stopped.
Leaning down on the blade to keep balance, a quick check of the surroundings confirmed that the only tango's near are the ones who were attracted to the falling duffel-bag. Breathing a sigh of relief, my eyes then look at the injury I sustained.
What I saw was wrong. The man definitely hit me with a fucking musket shot with a big calliber, but the wound on my arm seemed to be sealing itself quickly.
I'm not leaving what's probably lead in my arm!
Glancing at the man below me, a preemptive wince went across my face. Searching his coat pocket, my hopes of a disinfectant were rewarded when a bottle of whiskey gleamed inside his coat.
Moving down to his leg, a forceful tug of the knife there dislodged it from his thigh. Haphazardly cutting a piece of cloth from his coat with one hand, I put it in my mouth to bite on hit.
Cleaning the knife only made my discomfort grow.
------()------
Dislodging the ball hurt like a bitch. Yet once it was out my confusion only grew. Instead of the stream of blood I expected when the lead poisoning bullet serving double duty as a clot, instead was a small trickle before stopping entirely.
That ball was a solid inch at the least, and that's it?
Before my eyes, the gruesome carving is already healing, slowly closing itself up. Taking a step-
*Crack*
It wasn't a gunshot, it was me breaking some glass. Looking down, I saw that I planted a foot on what seemed like a vial of blood.
The hell they come from?
Probably rolled from his body while I was roughly looting him.
Now, the problem isn't that I broke the vial, the problem is that I'm feeling giddly to the fucking blood as the wound seals itself up.
"Every time you take a vial, your thirst for blood grows."
The feeling of ecstasy-
I didn't even have direct contact with the vial, yet I was still healed because I broke it.
"Your thirst for blood grows."
The ship has sailed. Be glad you have function of your left arm and don't make the mistake again.
Looking to my left, a pathway could be seen to a greater canal. Walking forwards, the hopes of discretion were quashed when several more musketeers and frail brutes were spotted. Below the ledge, the smell became even more unbearable. There was a ladder in front of me, but the musketeer nearby quashed any idea of using it.
Taking a look to make sure I can do a quick peek, a confirmation allowed me to gaze down into the canal. The sewage water's smell only got worse, and I could make out corpses rotting down there.
Let's not take a chance with this.
Looking to my right for an option, a wooden barricade blocking the path greeted me. Luckily it seemed like it was made out of furniture more than anything else, allowing an easy way through, thanks to the fact that it did not extend out all the way to the ledge.
Insane people are bad at making barricades. In other news, water is wet. Thank you for making my job easy.
Sparing one last glance to make sure I'm not spotted, a confirmation leads me to walk forwards.
Crossing the barricade, my hopes for continued stealth were quashed when the sound of something chirping was heard a dozen or so feet ahead of me.
I refuse to believe that however many crows there are not supersized and hostile.
Taking the moment to bring out the canesword, a moment passed before my hand went to switch the sword into its whip form. Slowly walking forward, my mind was being overcome by the air of uncertainty, one that grew to a sense of dread that permeated the air like the waste in the sewer was giving off.
The crows were silent for a moment, before they shrieked and made themselves known. My guess that they would be supersized was correct, and an imminent claw to strike me proving my guess correct.
Step back!
Obliging my thoughts, the action came not a moment too soon as the crow lashed at the same moment, grazing my arm. His buddy was a bit farther back, and as a result settled down on the ground, awaiting his chance to strike.
Readying a swing with an overhand twirl, I attacked. Crow number one jumped up again to attack me, and his talon met the midsection of the whip. Wrapping around the fucker's leg as a result, I pulled back.
The result was instantaneous. The fucker's leg was cut off, and the crow shrieked in pain as it fell unceremoniously on the ground. Giving an overhang swing, it took a moment for the tip to catch up. On contact, the crow amplified it's screeching as it was lacerated across its body. Stepping on its head to quicken the kill, the next target was already in my mind.
The crow had no objections to its friend dying either as it leapt to attack me.
Honestly, words cannot describe how fast my anger about this city is rising.
------(-)------
What is this, an update within the month? Preposterous!
Anyways, the Gascoigne fight is slowly creeping up and man, I cannot wait for it to come. I got quite a few ideas on how to handle it. Finally reached the tenth chapter and again I just cannot wait for what is to come. Another chapter done, and another thank you to Travisplo for the beta.
Until next time!
Utility Not Required
- Location
- In the twilight zone
Fuck these sewers!
Besides the awful smell of the sewage, being knee-deep in wastewater and having reanimated corpses in hot pursuit is somewhat terrifying.
The problem is that they're gaining on me. I feel like Eileen might have been off in thinking that these fuckers were simply reanimated.
The bigger problem is that these cunts seem to be trying to qualify for the Olympics because they really want me.
I really wanted to do anything but this path, but it seemed like this was the only path there was, and climbing around involved handholds ranging from crimps at best and mono's at worst, far exceeding my climbing ability.
Jumping to that other ladder might have worked, but failing means that resilience or no my legs would most certainly break if I failed said jump.
Bringing me back to my thoughts was the end of this raised section of the sewer, as the left half dropped off a good dozen feet and the right half appeared to lead to a wooded area.
Almost there!
The hope served to invigorate my quickly tiring legs with one last burst of adrenaline. I may have been physically refreshed, as off-putting as it is from bullshit-tier blood magic^TM but the mental fatigue from everything is just… getting to me.
Get out of sewers now, deal with this later.
Ending the thought as my foot finally left the knee-deep water and landed on a wooden surface my eyes scanned to the right.
Ladder up, ladder down.
Choosing to leave the sewers wasn't a hard choice. Jogging to the ladder, the sound of something smacking the filthy wood drew attention to the fact that the corpse-swimmer thing was still in hot pursuit. Grabbing the ladder with slightly excessive force and climbing a good dozen rungs, a glance backwards in relative safety let me see the pursuer in clearer terms.
And "reanimated corpse" rings exactly true. The fucker isn't limited to that though, as elongated limbs and a rotting torso give off the vibe that someone was trying to make an olympic swimmer but forgot what a human's proportion was.
Fuck that.
Shame that the access ladder is ridiculously long.
Reaching the top, my gaze searched the new environment. It was a simple T intersection, though one of the paths was blocked off from my line of sight, and the other lead…
Looking to my left, my unspoken question was answered. The bridge leads to a small area, one that seemed to me a dead end were it not for the fact that for one there was another ladder and two, it was not vacant. Another hulking figure like the two all the way back, beneath the bridge of the so called cleric beast.
Lets just call the fucker a bridge troll, because that's where I found them. Can't refer to everything as "fucker" if there's a growing list of things that want to end my existence.
Just dont fuck up, me.
Smirking at my own joke, a moment passed before ideas began to form about how to deal with the man.
First and foremost, let's find what's on the right beforehand.
Walking up half a dozen paces, looking right revealed a dead end, one filled with four oversized crows and a corpse that's both decaying and littered with puncture wounds.
That's a solid no.
Taking a one eighty, the plans to deal with the troll came back to the forefront. Walking forwards to the middle of the bridge, growling from the crows fading out lent to an air of relative safety from any attack.
Soo…barring the fact that I'm awful with a sword, I need something bigger. Unless nothing else moved in the troll's super growth from human, organs might be rearranged but bones would not move significantly. I'd say strike at the spine, and when the troll loses functionality in his legs and falls over I would finish with a meaty strike at the neck.
Problem is, I'm not sure if the same experience with the wolf would carry over to the troll here. Sure they're completely separate creatures but Yharnam's blood magic has been shown to be a particularly nasty strain, and ignoring crippling blows wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility.
So, something more in the realm of possibility; kidney strike. Bit harder because avoiding bone is going to be a tiny bit harder with the troll being so large, but the sword should compensate. Strike would probably stunt him for a few moments, allowing for another strike.
One troll, or dozens of decaying olympic swimmers?
A grimace formed on my face. The choice was obvious. Slowing my pace to quiet my noise profile, I made my way behind the troll. Reaching my destination, I readied a strike forwards.
When my hand thrust, I knew I had him. The strike took a split second to cause a reaction, but said reaction was what I wanted to happen: namely, the troll fell forward and roared in agony.
Readying another strike at the hulking figure, the attack rang true around the same area on the other side of the fucker's body. Unfortunately, the second attack did not get as much of a reaction as the last one, as the hulking figure stumbled forward slightly, making a loud thunk.
Scratch that, the sound came from the troll dropping what appears to be a large brick.
My musing was unfortunately cut short by the troll recovering and beginning to recover and turn around. Something within me screamed in danger, and as a result I hoped back as the troll made a swatting motion with his arm at the place I was.
Seeing it properly for the first time, I can safely say is quite disgusting. The fucker looks like someone forgot what human proportions were when making something so large. Actually, a lot of things here in Yharnam look like that... The figure was nearly completely exposed, with pants acting more like pieces of cloth serving to protect a bit of modestly.
Seemingly not content with a stare off, the troll brought his elbow out and letting off a combination of a groan and a scream, he charged at me. In surprise, I dodged left towards the fencing. The troll sailed past me towards the house behind me, and I found myself spread across the ground after doing such a lackluster dodge.
Holding my canesword in a deathgrip, my eyes never left my newfound enemy as I hurriedly got up. Seeing that it missed its mark, the troll almost comically tried slowing down like a cartoon show character before surprisingly marking light contact with the opposing wall, rather than just crashing into, and perhaps through it. Turning once again to face me, I readied myself for his next attack.
Walking forward instead, the troll took his time to get to me in a change-up of its previous strategy. Reaching a distance it deemed acceptable, it brought up it's hand to slam onto the ground space that I occupy. I hopped back once again, and as his arm made contact with the cobblestone path there was an audible cracking of stone as debris shot up. A piece of stone hit me square on the cheek, stunning me as my mouth filled with pain radiating from my teeth.
Holding back a scream, I moved to thrust again at the hulking asshole. The troll attempted to reciprocate but was forced to stumble a step when my thrust met it for the third time. Rather than lose the rest of any initiative the troll once had, it stepped forward and let loose an overhang punch.
Cursing, my feet leaped to the left to dodge. Unfortunately, that leap turned into an ungrateful landing on the ground as my right arm came alive with pain.
Involuntarily letting off a pained grunt, my canesword fell from my grasp as the pain was far too much. Quickly picking it back up with my left hand, the sound of footsteps going silent spurred me to roll, my right arm protesting even harder as a result.
It came just in time, as the sound of stone cracking once again filled the air, and once again debris flew upward and outward. Luckily the impromptu projectiles missed me the second time. Getting up came as fast as I could, but the reprieve of the troll recomposing myself gave me a brief moment to think.
The moment came and went, and as the troll leaned forward to charge again I couldn't help but get a bit angry.
"FUCKING DIE!" Switching to whip form, an overhang swing of my own met his charge. My blade made contact with the troll's neck, but the fucker made full body contact with me.
Launching me backward, any attempt to recover failed. Making contact with the ground again, my body was sent rolling, and my arm screamed.
A moment later, so did I.
------()------
As the pain faded to barely tolerable, I could finally think for myself once again. The unaccounted for enemy however broke me from my position as fear permeated my bones. Glancing back at the impromptu arena, my adversary was sprawled on the ground, apparently lifeless. Slowly getting up, a renewed pulse of pain spanning my chest and my arm threatened to take me down once again.
Fractured arm, likely a bruised ri-OW!
A wince instantly formed.
Least its not a broken rib.
Walking forward and taking short breaths, I made my way over to the downed opponent. I don't want to say killed yet, because playing dead is something that always needs to be accounted for.
Reaching him, I found what was the cause of the troll's downing. Small amounts of blood hide beneath the troll's neck, indicating that its throat was at least slightly cut. Bringing up my sword-
"Ishm sowrry." The troll mumbled. The tone seemed more like he was talking to himself, instead of talking to me directly. Without a doubt, the troll spoke in delirium, but it proved that underneath the hulking figure, some sort of thought still remained after all it's, no, his changes.
My breath hitched. A few emotions broke through to the forefront, shock and sorrow being the prime ones. All the while, a memory bubbled to the surface.
------()------
"Iosef, it's a bit silly, but I mean… the people here were just thralls, were they not?" My voice echoed in the auditorium of the midwestern university.
"It's Sig-Cap right now, Sig-4." Iosef's voice rang back, coming out just a tiny bit dismissive.
"Right, sorry Sig-Cap. The question still remains though?" The last bit delved into a questioning tone.
"Sarkic enthrallment..." Taking a moment to think about his next words, Iosef spoke again. "Sarkic enthrallment goes much deeper than what Mekane servetors or whatever they do to the unlucky fellows in the Hanged court."
A need to shudder came on strong. "The point?"
"I'm sure you've heard of the 'creation story' about the flesh and the machine?" The quotes around the phrase could somehow be heard. Considering the environment, I wouldn't actually be surprised that it would actually happen
"I mean, it was in orientation." The slightly annoyed tone contrasted heavily with the surrounding area, one filled with runes of Sarkic runes and the unconscious enthralled.
"I'd love to go on about how there's so much going on with what happens when civies get enthralled, but since I'm me, and it's not that hard to understand I'll give it to you short: it's not reversible."
"You're obviously fishing for me to say 'No! That's impossible!' or the fact that the master in this relationship is now dead." Finishing off the sentence, a quick glance at the podium revealed a corpse draped over it, courtesy of a .50 calibre bullet that's been sitting in a reality anchor for months. "But I'll bite. Why?"
"Their brains are slush, sometimes literally." The tone of disgust was made evident from Iosief's voice. "For people higher up the pecking order, their minds usually are damaged in just the right way to force them to believe with the leaders tell em'."
"Oh." Seconds passed as I digested the new information. "That's one way to kill the mood." Taking a moment to ponder, I spoke again. "One more question then."
"Last one." The hintings of a chuckle could be heard. "Or we're going to run out of air before you finish with this infinite chain of thought."
"Why not tell the taskforce grunts?."
"What's more demoralizing for a squadron? Telling them they're saving lives or being sent in to follow in Siad Barre's footsteps?"
"Fucking Christ that's exessively dark!" Recoiling as if physically cut by the edge, I calmed down somewhat to continue. "The hell, Io-Sig Cap?" The stumble thankfully went unnoticed by the other (alive) person in the room.
"To answer the question that's beyond your one time extension brewing in your mind, no we can't fix their brains and yes, the foundation has tried whatever you're thinking about."
The question died at my lips.
"The Sarkic creation story is useful to think about how beings are affected. Sure there's a physical part of a person's mind being reduced to the common animal." The malice in his voice sounded like it was personal. "But it also serves to make you think of the metaphysics behind the curtains. Sure you may fix a mind to a pristine condition, but the influence that's been implanted by the enthraller is still there."
"Time bombs." The words came out as a whisper. "They're time bombs waiting to explode if you fix their heads."
"In one, Sig-4." The cold gas mask seemed far too fitting on Iosef's face right now. "In one."
"I need a moment." Electing to lean on one of the cleaner seats, I contemplated this… thing.
"We saved people, Sig-4." Looking up, Iosef advanced towards me, standing a few paces from me. "Not this kind of 'saved'." To emphasize he gestured around. "But actually saved people. Nearly everyone in the west wing and a good chunk of the central wing are going to actually live their lives. That would have been zero without us."
"I guess." Despite my best intentions, my voice sounded hollow, defeated but accepting.
"Green's usually connect the dots later, but you're far too inquisitive to leave stone's unturned." A sigh was heard across the radio.
"How do they usually react?"
"Depends. Some accept, some lash out." He shrugged with the statement. "But in the end, I don't think anyone ever left. Even when they resort to scraping the barrel." That's a jab at me. "...The foundation chooses people who can see that there is something worth fighting for."
"How romantic." I delivered it in the best neutral tone I could muster at the moment.
"You're still new to this Sig-4, and we still need to finish mopping up here. How's your air..."
"I'm sorry too." Plunging the blade into the troll's skull, its breathing stopped. Pulling the blade out was significantly easier than it was before.
------(-)------
This chapter just was not fun to write, prolly because I've been spending a ton of time recently to actually replay bloodborne thoroughly to jog my mind. So, what I can say is that another chapter this month is definitely going to happen, at minimum with normal word count. Anyways, another chapter done, another thank you to Travisplo for the beta, and another farewell!
Besides the awful smell of the sewage, being knee-deep in wastewater and having reanimated corpses in hot pursuit is somewhat terrifying.
The problem is that they're gaining on me. I feel like Eileen might have been off in thinking that these fuckers were simply reanimated.
The bigger problem is that these cunts seem to be trying to qualify for the Olympics because they really want me.
I really wanted to do anything but this path, but it seemed like this was the only path there was, and climbing around involved handholds ranging from crimps at best and mono's at worst, far exceeding my climbing ability.
Jumping to that other ladder might have worked, but failing means that resilience or no my legs would most certainly break if I failed said jump.
Bringing me back to my thoughts was the end of this raised section of the sewer, as the left half dropped off a good dozen feet and the right half appeared to lead to a wooded area.
Almost there!
The hope served to invigorate my quickly tiring legs with one last burst of adrenaline. I may have been physically refreshed, as off-putting as it is from bullshit-tier blood magic^TM but the mental fatigue from everything is just… getting to me.
Get out of sewers now, deal with this later.
Ending the thought as my foot finally left the knee-deep water and landed on a wooden surface my eyes scanned to the right.
Ladder up, ladder down.
Choosing to leave the sewers wasn't a hard choice. Jogging to the ladder, the sound of something smacking the filthy wood drew attention to the fact that the corpse-swimmer thing was still in hot pursuit. Grabbing the ladder with slightly excessive force and climbing a good dozen rungs, a glance backwards in relative safety let me see the pursuer in clearer terms.
And "reanimated corpse" rings exactly true. The fucker isn't limited to that though, as elongated limbs and a rotting torso give off the vibe that someone was trying to make an olympic swimmer but forgot what a human's proportion was.
Fuck that.
Shame that the access ladder is ridiculously long.
Reaching the top, my gaze searched the new environment. It was a simple T intersection, though one of the paths was blocked off from my line of sight, and the other lead…
Looking to my left, my unspoken question was answered. The bridge leads to a small area, one that seemed to me a dead end were it not for the fact that for one there was another ladder and two, it was not vacant. Another hulking figure like the two all the way back, beneath the bridge of the so called cleric beast.
Lets just call the fucker a bridge troll, because that's where I found them. Can't refer to everything as "fucker" if there's a growing list of things that want to end my existence.
Just dont fuck up, me.
Smirking at my own joke, a moment passed before ideas began to form about how to deal with the man.
First and foremost, let's find what's on the right beforehand.
Walking up half a dozen paces, looking right revealed a dead end, one filled with four oversized crows and a corpse that's both decaying and littered with puncture wounds.
That's a solid no.
Taking a one eighty, the plans to deal with the troll came back to the forefront. Walking forwards to the middle of the bridge, growling from the crows fading out lent to an air of relative safety from any attack.
Soo…barring the fact that I'm awful with a sword, I need something bigger. Unless nothing else moved in the troll's super growth from human, organs might be rearranged but bones would not move significantly. I'd say strike at the spine, and when the troll loses functionality in his legs and falls over I would finish with a meaty strike at the neck.
Problem is, I'm not sure if the same experience with the wolf would carry over to the troll here. Sure they're completely separate creatures but Yharnam's blood magic has been shown to be a particularly nasty strain, and ignoring crippling blows wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility.
So, something more in the realm of possibility; kidney strike. Bit harder because avoiding bone is going to be a tiny bit harder with the troll being so large, but the sword should compensate. Strike would probably stunt him for a few moments, allowing for another strike.
One troll, or dozens of decaying olympic swimmers?
A grimace formed on my face. The choice was obvious. Slowing my pace to quiet my noise profile, I made my way behind the troll. Reaching my destination, I readied a strike forwards.
When my hand thrust, I knew I had him. The strike took a split second to cause a reaction, but said reaction was what I wanted to happen: namely, the troll fell forward and roared in agony.
Readying another strike at the hulking figure, the attack rang true around the same area on the other side of the fucker's body. Unfortunately, the second attack did not get as much of a reaction as the last one, as the hulking figure stumbled forward slightly, making a loud thunk.
Scratch that, the sound came from the troll dropping what appears to be a large brick.
My musing was unfortunately cut short by the troll recovering and beginning to recover and turn around. Something within me screamed in danger, and as a result I hoped back as the troll made a swatting motion with his arm at the place I was.
Seeing it properly for the first time, I can safely say is quite disgusting. The fucker looks like someone forgot what human proportions were when making something so large. Actually, a lot of things here in Yharnam look like that... The figure was nearly completely exposed, with pants acting more like pieces of cloth serving to protect a bit of modestly.
Seemingly not content with a stare off, the troll brought his elbow out and letting off a combination of a groan and a scream, he charged at me. In surprise, I dodged left towards the fencing. The troll sailed past me towards the house behind me, and I found myself spread across the ground after doing such a lackluster dodge.
Holding my canesword in a deathgrip, my eyes never left my newfound enemy as I hurriedly got up. Seeing that it missed its mark, the troll almost comically tried slowing down like a cartoon show character before surprisingly marking light contact with the opposing wall, rather than just crashing into, and perhaps through it. Turning once again to face me, I readied myself for his next attack.
Walking forward instead, the troll took his time to get to me in a change-up of its previous strategy. Reaching a distance it deemed acceptable, it brought up it's hand to slam onto the ground space that I occupy. I hopped back once again, and as his arm made contact with the cobblestone path there was an audible cracking of stone as debris shot up. A piece of stone hit me square on the cheek, stunning me as my mouth filled with pain radiating from my teeth.
Holding back a scream, I moved to thrust again at the hulking asshole. The troll attempted to reciprocate but was forced to stumble a step when my thrust met it for the third time. Rather than lose the rest of any initiative the troll once had, it stepped forward and let loose an overhang punch.
Cursing, my feet leaped to the left to dodge. Unfortunately, that leap turned into an ungrateful landing on the ground as my right arm came alive with pain.
Involuntarily letting off a pained grunt, my canesword fell from my grasp as the pain was far too much. Quickly picking it back up with my left hand, the sound of footsteps going silent spurred me to roll, my right arm protesting even harder as a result.
It came just in time, as the sound of stone cracking once again filled the air, and once again debris flew upward and outward. Luckily the impromptu projectiles missed me the second time. Getting up came as fast as I could, but the reprieve of the troll recomposing myself gave me a brief moment to think.
The moment came and went, and as the troll leaned forward to charge again I couldn't help but get a bit angry.
"FUCKING DIE!" Switching to whip form, an overhang swing of my own met his charge. My blade made contact with the troll's neck, but the fucker made full body contact with me.
Launching me backward, any attempt to recover failed. Making contact with the ground again, my body was sent rolling, and my arm screamed.
A moment later, so did I.
------()------
As the pain faded to barely tolerable, I could finally think for myself once again. The unaccounted for enemy however broke me from my position as fear permeated my bones. Glancing back at the impromptu arena, my adversary was sprawled on the ground, apparently lifeless. Slowly getting up, a renewed pulse of pain spanning my chest and my arm threatened to take me down once again.
Fractured arm, likely a bruised ri-OW!
A wince instantly formed.
Least its not a broken rib.
Walking forward and taking short breaths, I made my way over to the downed opponent. I don't want to say killed yet, because playing dead is something that always needs to be accounted for.
Reaching him, I found what was the cause of the troll's downing. Small amounts of blood hide beneath the troll's neck, indicating that its throat was at least slightly cut. Bringing up my sword-
"Ishm sowrry." The troll mumbled. The tone seemed more like he was talking to himself, instead of talking to me directly. Without a doubt, the troll spoke in delirium, but it proved that underneath the hulking figure, some sort of thought still remained after all it's, no, his changes.
My breath hitched. A few emotions broke through to the forefront, shock and sorrow being the prime ones. All the while, a memory bubbled to the surface.
------()------
"Iosef, it's a bit silly, but I mean… the people here were just thralls, were they not?" My voice echoed in the auditorium of the midwestern university.
"It's Sig-Cap right now, Sig-4." Iosef's voice rang back, coming out just a tiny bit dismissive.
"Right, sorry Sig-Cap. The question still remains though?" The last bit delved into a questioning tone.
"Sarkic enthrallment..." Taking a moment to think about his next words, Iosef spoke again. "Sarkic enthrallment goes much deeper than what Mekane servetors or whatever they do to the unlucky fellows in the Hanged court."
A need to shudder came on strong. "The point?"
"I'm sure you've heard of the 'creation story' about the flesh and the machine?" The quotes around the phrase could somehow be heard. Considering the environment, I wouldn't actually be surprised that it would actually happen
"I mean, it was in orientation." The slightly annoyed tone contrasted heavily with the surrounding area, one filled with runes of Sarkic runes and the unconscious enthralled.
"I'd love to go on about how there's so much going on with what happens when civies get enthralled, but since I'm me, and it's not that hard to understand I'll give it to you short: it's not reversible."
"You're obviously fishing for me to say 'No! That's impossible!' or the fact that the master in this relationship is now dead." Finishing off the sentence, a quick glance at the podium revealed a corpse draped over it, courtesy of a .50 calibre bullet that's been sitting in a reality anchor for months. "But I'll bite. Why?"
"Their brains are slush, sometimes literally." The tone of disgust was made evident from Iosief's voice. "For people higher up the pecking order, their minds usually are damaged in just the right way to force them to believe with the leaders tell em'."
"Oh." Seconds passed as I digested the new information. "That's one way to kill the mood." Taking a moment to ponder, I spoke again. "One more question then."
"Last one." The hintings of a chuckle could be heard. "Or we're going to run out of air before you finish with this infinite chain of thought."
"Why not tell the taskforce grunts?."
"What's more demoralizing for a squadron? Telling them they're saving lives or being sent in to follow in Siad Barre's footsteps?"
"Fucking Christ that's exessively dark!" Recoiling as if physically cut by the edge, I calmed down somewhat to continue. "The hell, Io-Sig Cap?" The stumble thankfully went unnoticed by the other (alive) person in the room.
"To answer the question that's beyond your one time extension brewing in your mind, no we can't fix their brains and yes, the foundation has tried whatever you're thinking about."
The question died at my lips.
"The Sarkic creation story is useful to think about how beings are affected. Sure there's a physical part of a person's mind being reduced to the common animal." The malice in his voice sounded like it was personal. "But it also serves to make you think of the metaphysics behind the curtains. Sure you may fix a mind to a pristine condition, but the influence that's been implanted by the enthraller is still there."
"Time bombs." The words came out as a whisper. "They're time bombs waiting to explode if you fix their heads."
"In one, Sig-4." The cold gas mask seemed far too fitting on Iosef's face right now. "In one."
"I need a moment." Electing to lean on one of the cleaner seats, I contemplated this… thing.
"We saved people, Sig-4." Looking up, Iosef advanced towards me, standing a few paces from me. "Not this kind of 'saved'." To emphasize he gestured around. "But actually saved people. Nearly everyone in the west wing and a good chunk of the central wing are going to actually live their lives. That would have been zero without us."
"I guess." Despite my best intentions, my voice sounded hollow, defeated but accepting.
"Green's usually connect the dots later, but you're far too inquisitive to leave stone's unturned." A sigh was heard across the radio.
"How do they usually react?"
"Depends. Some accept, some lash out." He shrugged with the statement. "But in the end, I don't think anyone ever left. Even when they resort to scraping the barrel." That's a jab at me. "...The foundation chooses people who can see that there is something worth fighting for."
"How romantic." I delivered it in the best neutral tone I could muster at the moment.
"You're still new to this Sig-4, and we still need to finish mopping up here. How's your air..."
"I'm sorry too." Plunging the blade into the troll's skull, its breathing stopped. Pulling the blade out was significantly easier than it was before.
------(-)------
This chapter just was not fun to write, prolly because I've been spending a ton of time recently to actually replay bloodborne thoroughly to jog my mind. So, what I can say is that another chapter this month is definitely going to happen, at minimum with normal word count. Anyways, another chapter done, another thank you to Travisplo for the beta, and another farewell!
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Eh, I Think I'm Beginning to get This Shit
- Location
- In the twilight zone
Making a splint from large splinters of wood from a pillar, cloth from the troll and the unique use of wiring on the fence was an experience, especially with one hand. At the very least however, it does work.
Climbing a ladder up with two legs and one arm had to be treated like a rock climb. Generally, you want to make two or more movements with your feet before you move an arm, in order to preserve your arm strength. Being a ladder, it would have been trivial were it not for the fact that a constant dull pain, the fading of adrenaline and the near non-stop action has taken a toll on my body. As a result, the pronged ladder felt like an inclined climb.
By the time I reached the top, seeing a gate facing me nearly made me scream in frustration. With another jolt of pain I properly got myself off of the ladder and onto the short ledge. Immediately spotting a lever, a sigh of relief was exhaled.
"Who… are you?" a voice immediately to my right served to activate my fried nerves.
"Jesus!" Taking a step back, the only thing stopping me from pulling my pistol was the fact that the voice seemed young. Taking a moment to compose myself, I chose a guarded stance to present: young sounding voice turning into a monster isn't the most outlandish thing to happen.
"Right, sorry." Letting out a pained grunt, I continued. "Not the best idea to greet strangers on the street."
"I don't know your voice, but I do know that smell." I could tell there was a hint of desperation in that voice. "Hunter, I know it's a hunt and all, but could you look for my mum?"
Now that I think about it, Gherman had an English accent as well. Victorian style buildings: am I in Britain then? Yharnam might be something like the Three Portlands, where the entrances on the mainland lead to another dimension.
"Where is your dad, then?" Deciding to continue fishing for information, I continued. "Is he a hunter too?"
"Yeah!" Huh, she's quite excited about that. "My Dad's on the hunt right now, but he hasn't come home…" with the trailing of her voice, her enthusiasm dropped just as fast. "But my mom hasn't come back after looking for him, so can you please help? I'm getting quite lonely."
Oh. Oh fuck no.
"There are plenty of people roaming around here, what does your mom look like?" Trying to hide any hints in my voice, I was glad that there was a curtain between us.
"Really, thank you! M-my mom wears a red jewelled brooch. You won't miss it, you could spot it from miles away." The young girl was once again excited, with the childish innocence protecting her from the truth. "Before you go find her, you need to give her this music box. It'll help to calm down daddy."
There was movement in the shadows, and the girl swiped the curtain open. Luckily, she looked like she wasn't anything bad: looking to be about six years old, oblivious to the world as it is. Her complexion matches it, with black hair and brown eyes.
She, on the other hand looked a tad bit surprised looking at me. Maybe it's the weird clothing, or maybe the ragged splint. Either way, she is definitely surprised.
"You're hurt." Her voice is more concerned than shocked.
Not surprised, her father probably made her used to it.
"Correct." My voice came out just a tiny bit condescending.
"Use some blood! My dad always said that a hunter brought blood to aid them in hunting the beasts!" While she continued, I began contemplating.
"I ran out." The lie came out easy, as she already saw me as a hunter. Doing anything to dissuade that notion isn't going to do me any favors.
"Daddy always kept some at home, in case of emergencies. I'd invite you in, but it's a hunt, and he said to never open the door to anyone."
"You say, as you tell a stranger on the street to search for your dad." Back-talking a kid isn't the best idea to do, but I'm feeling a bit vindictive at the moment.
"Meanie." Ah, the classic comeback. Turning around to go deeper into the house, a tiny smirk formed on my face as she left. Looking back towards the lever, I decided to open the gate. Before I could, the young girl came back bearing gifts. In her right hand, she had a music box and in her left, several red vials quite similar to the ones I pilfered from the man at the steps so long ago.
"Just a moment, hunter." Setting what she brought back on the window still she opened the window wide. Before she could hand me what she got, a loud shriek emanated to my right.
A very familiar shriek.
My head could not have snapped faster. Taking a good moment to observe what lay beyond the fence, my eyes widened when I realized a familiar bridge. "Fuckin…" taking a moment to remember the name Eileen gave it, the rest spilled out easily; "Cleric Beast."
"Hey, language." Taking a moment to glare at me, she stood unamused at the window with a slight frown on her face.
"...Right, sorry." Glancing back at the ladder I came from, an internal scream roared in dismay at the possibility of having to go back to the sewers.
Realistically though, having gone all this way for a path to that monster again seemed significantly less appealing. That being said however, an idea popped into my mind: if traversing to the dream seemed to reverse the clock, why not go and use it to get myself up and running again? With it, I could bypass the need for the use of vials.
"Hey stranger, you okay there?" Realizing that I drifted off, I renewed my view at the girl, her face had changed from a frown to a look of concern.
"Just thinking about where I'm going next." Half truth it is then, still might get an interesting tidbit of info.
"For my dad, right?" Before I could answer in any meaningful way, she continued. "My mum said that she like hunting around Oedon chapel. If you follow the sewers, you can find a ladder that goes up across the bridge." Seemingly content with what she said, she looked down to the items placed on her window still, she remembered what the point of the conversation was. "Here you go, hunter."
While she handed me the items, my mind whirled.
So, little girl goes down to the sewers and knows her way around down there. Fairly disgusting to want to go down there, but I digress. I'd assume keep going straight until I find a side entrance or something, but then what? Go up to the chapel?
"Thanks, miss…" might as well get her name, get on her good side.
"Emmy!" It appeared that calling her a 'miss' made her proud. "I should be thanking you, hunter."
"You're welcome." Almost as sudden as her greeting me, she closed the blinds once again, leaving me by myself with only my thoughts as company.
I'm probably going to find her parents dead.
I'm not trying to be so defeatist, but I feel like I've become the butt of quite a few cosmic jokes that are finally culminating in parallel. What the hell am I even doing here? Oh, you got absolutely destroyed by a cultist, lets magically put him into a city that's fucking revolving around a blood cult.
What's that, he's part of the foundation, a place he thought was fiction until he landed in the middle of a fucking firefight between a blood cult's feud? Heh, let's put him in an environment where he has nothing to base any semblance of his knowledge.
Realistically, the place made no sense to me: it contradicts set constants that I've honestly grown complacent too. Blood cults have such a wide variety, ranging from being a luddite to "desire good, critical thinking bad society needs to end." There's a constant though, and there's that Yaldabitch or Ion being somewhat mentioned.
Victorian skyscrapers are not something they do, ever. Somehow, someway, this sect managed to hide in secrecy for hundreds of years, which isn't too far out of the realm of possibility in all honesty. However, this nearly casual level of blood use would usually mean that most people in the system are thralls, and that's not really what's happened here.
Usually. The more terrifying, and more than likely option is that this place isn't related to Sarkism.
Either way, I'm fucked.
------()------
The wood below me creaks as I step off the ladder with a grunt of effort. Looking around, nothing down here in the sewers had changed since the last time I was here, sans a corpse not chasing me around.
Not yet at least. Creaking my way along to the next ladder, my suspicions were confirmed when a corpse pile became visible below me. Through the gore however, the occasional sound of a grunt or a moan could be faintly heard.
God I'm so stupid for leaving the drone on the bridge.
Looking to my right, the visual confirmation of several more beasts; some laying on the ground and a few on the beams spanning the walls of the sewer.
I don't have the stamina to engage even half of them.
It leaves me with one plan. Luckily, said plan only involved using my legs.
The plan would work were it not for the fact that bruised rib is severely hampering my mobility, anything prolonged would just result in me entering a coughing, wheezing fit.
A rebellious part of my mind said "hey, just use a blood vial. One more won't hurt." It would be perfectly valid, after all you threw away years of experience telling you not to do something in order to live just a bit longer. Sure, the vials slowly turn you into a monster but using only two isn't going to change much.
It scares me. I've crossed a personal line here, but that doesn't justify continuing the act.
'Yet you're more than likely not completely human anymore.'
The thought stopped me a bit. Accepting that contract changed me. A bit more resistant to damage and a sense of blood-lust is probably not the only thing that's changed about me.
Before I could continue thinking, a hand slammed the wooden platform, coming from the sewer canal to my left. Unfortunately, it seems like my little drop here did not go unnoticed.
I can't go through here with a broken arm.
Cursing up a storm, I shoved my left hand in my utility belt for one of vials. Finding one, I crushed it in my hand.
The result was instantaneous. As the vial broke in my hand, and instead of a mist of glass shards and a bloody mist being created it was almost like a fire briefly being created in my hand. A certain type of vigor filled me, and the throbbing in my right arm faded into nearly nothing. The physical and mental exhaustion was replaced with a rising sense of refreshment.
Above all though, a desire to bring out my weapon was like the beating of a drum that was slowly picking up in pace.
Unfortunately for that portion of my head, my plan was already set in motion. All of it took less than a few seconds, and I moved to my right and jumped.
The height was a bit high, and as I made contact with the ground I stumbled before getting up once again. The corpse pile was beginning to disperse; a response to my disturbance.
Turning right once more I began to run. Despite the newfound encouragement to fight, I paid it no heed. There were places to fight, and this sewer was not one of them.
Corpse-Swimmers littered the way, and as crows descended from their nesting spots I spotted a straight section of the tunnel, beside it another ladder.
Barely dodging a peck from an overgrown crow, I continued to run through the straightaway.
Halfway through, a figure came clear; an incredibly large pig blocked the path.
Shit.
Looking behind me, I could see that the corpses were blocking the path back out of the straight-away, forcing me forward. There were half a dozen too many for me to break through to scale the ladder beside.
Then the pig roared. Focusing my view back, the pig spotted me. In a moment, the pig began charging forward.
Double shit.
The saving grace was that the pig was just smaller than the section of sewer that I found myself in. Bracing wasn't an option, that just was too much pig with far too much momentum for someone like me to ever stop.
So I waited. Readying my legs, my side hop left came a touch too late. The tip of my leg brushed the pigs fettered hide, but luckily that was all it could do.
With the way forward open, I broke into a sprint once again. I didn't want to find out if the pig got extra maneuverability on top of his supersizing.
I entered the area where the pig roared; it was an enlarged area, acting more like a staging area for any workers. Three corpses were littered around, but I simply did not have the time to check them. I could feel a light breeze, meaning that there was an exit extremely close by.
Slowing to a jog but still moving, the arched exit made itself visible. Breathing a sigh of relief, I walked through and scanned once again, my weapon at the ready.
Nothing. Nothing except a stone fence and a ladder.
Bingo.
My hand was shaking when I grabbed the rung of the ladder.
------()------
Fucking Christ these ladders are getting ridiculous.
Peeking up over the ladder to see the surroundings, two enemies became clear in my line of sight: a bridge troll was standing in front of a massive ball of… assorted stuff. To the troll's right was a man with a torch and a shield.
On an unseen cue, the duo sprang into action. Bringing his torch to the ball, the fire caught and spread near instantaneously. The troll, on the other hand swung with as much force as he could muster, which normally would have caused the ball to rocket forwards. What actually happened were two things that happened extremely close to one another: the troll launched backwards like a sack. The second was a loud boom that sent the ball of fire and death forwards in some sort of karmic version of Newton's third law.
It took a second, but the pieces quickly put themselves together.
Congratulations, you played yourself with explosives.
Launching myself off the ladder and pulling out the cane sword, the shield guy turned to stare at me in complete shock. Evidently, he didn't even ponder the possibility that someone would go through the sewers and up the ladder.
To be fair, he did have a giant pig to ease his worry.
For him though, shock was the last thing to register for him, as a thrust directly into his face landed squarely in his eye. As my blade inched deeper in, the man quickly collapsed onto the floor, lifeless.
Looking at his buddy, the troll wasn't having a good time either. Setting explosives off while you are directly staring at it was such a bad idea that the troll was yet to get up, not for a lack of trying though.
Do I really need to go for the kill on him?
Honestly? Not really. Spotting a stairway, I sprang to get there before the troll could properly face me. Ascending the stairs, the light from a torch to my right immediately crossed out the possibility of going in that direction. To the left, however, was another set of stairs.
The choice was obvious. Reaching the top of the second flight of stairs in short order, a graveyard meets me. Clustered tombstones litter the area, and the place is dark enough to be mistaken for a night with the full moon out. Above all though, there's a figure standing-
Scratch that, said figure is hacking away at what appears to be a corpse with his axe.
"Beasts all over the shop…" the voice reverberated, a dull, coarse tone told me more about his mental state than anything ever could.
I think I just found Gascoigne.
God, I'm the worst at jinxing myself.
------(-)------
Been a while since I've uploaded this soon after the previous chapter. I'm feeling a bit inspired with this story, maybe because we get Gascogne next chapter. Who knows, maybe I'll write a third chapter this month as well. Until next time!
Climbing a ladder up with two legs and one arm had to be treated like a rock climb. Generally, you want to make two or more movements with your feet before you move an arm, in order to preserve your arm strength. Being a ladder, it would have been trivial were it not for the fact that a constant dull pain, the fading of adrenaline and the near non-stop action has taken a toll on my body. As a result, the pronged ladder felt like an inclined climb.
By the time I reached the top, seeing a gate facing me nearly made me scream in frustration. With another jolt of pain I properly got myself off of the ladder and onto the short ledge. Immediately spotting a lever, a sigh of relief was exhaled.
"Who… are you?" a voice immediately to my right served to activate my fried nerves.
"Jesus!" Taking a step back, the only thing stopping me from pulling my pistol was the fact that the voice seemed young. Taking a moment to compose myself, I chose a guarded stance to present: young sounding voice turning into a monster isn't the most outlandish thing to happen.
"Right, sorry." Letting out a pained grunt, I continued. "Not the best idea to greet strangers on the street."
"I don't know your voice, but I do know that smell." I could tell there was a hint of desperation in that voice. "Hunter, I know it's a hunt and all, but could you look for my mum?"
Now that I think about it, Gherman had an English accent as well. Victorian style buildings: am I in Britain then? Yharnam might be something like the Three Portlands, where the entrances on the mainland lead to another dimension.
"Where is your dad, then?" Deciding to continue fishing for information, I continued. "Is he a hunter too?"
"Yeah!" Huh, she's quite excited about that. "My Dad's on the hunt right now, but he hasn't come home…" with the trailing of her voice, her enthusiasm dropped just as fast. "But my mom hasn't come back after looking for him, so can you please help? I'm getting quite lonely."
Oh. Oh fuck no.
"There are plenty of people roaming around here, what does your mom look like?" Trying to hide any hints in my voice, I was glad that there was a curtain between us.
"Really, thank you! M-my mom wears a red jewelled brooch. You won't miss it, you could spot it from miles away." The young girl was once again excited, with the childish innocence protecting her from the truth. "Before you go find her, you need to give her this music box. It'll help to calm down daddy."
There was movement in the shadows, and the girl swiped the curtain open. Luckily, she looked like she wasn't anything bad: looking to be about six years old, oblivious to the world as it is. Her complexion matches it, with black hair and brown eyes.
She, on the other hand looked a tad bit surprised looking at me. Maybe it's the weird clothing, or maybe the ragged splint. Either way, she is definitely surprised.
"You're hurt." Her voice is more concerned than shocked.
Not surprised, her father probably made her used to it.
"Correct." My voice came out just a tiny bit condescending.
"Use some blood! My dad always said that a hunter brought blood to aid them in hunting the beasts!" While she continued, I began contemplating.
"I ran out." The lie came out easy, as she already saw me as a hunter. Doing anything to dissuade that notion isn't going to do me any favors.
"Daddy always kept some at home, in case of emergencies. I'd invite you in, but it's a hunt, and he said to never open the door to anyone."
"You say, as you tell a stranger on the street to search for your dad." Back-talking a kid isn't the best idea to do, but I'm feeling a bit vindictive at the moment.
"Meanie." Ah, the classic comeback. Turning around to go deeper into the house, a tiny smirk formed on my face as she left. Looking back towards the lever, I decided to open the gate. Before I could, the young girl came back bearing gifts. In her right hand, she had a music box and in her left, several red vials quite similar to the ones I pilfered from the man at the steps so long ago.
"Just a moment, hunter." Setting what she brought back on the window still she opened the window wide. Before she could hand me what she got, a loud shriek emanated to my right.
A very familiar shriek.
My head could not have snapped faster. Taking a good moment to observe what lay beyond the fence, my eyes widened when I realized a familiar bridge. "Fuckin…" taking a moment to remember the name Eileen gave it, the rest spilled out easily; "Cleric Beast."
"Hey, language." Taking a moment to glare at me, she stood unamused at the window with a slight frown on her face.
"...Right, sorry." Glancing back at the ladder I came from, an internal scream roared in dismay at the possibility of having to go back to the sewers.
Realistically though, having gone all this way for a path to that monster again seemed significantly less appealing. That being said however, an idea popped into my mind: if traversing to the dream seemed to reverse the clock, why not go and use it to get myself up and running again? With it, I could bypass the need for the use of vials.
"Hey stranger, you okay there?" Realizing that I drifted off, I renewed my view at the girl, her face had changed from a frown to a look of concern.
"Just thinking about where I'm going next." Half truth it is then, still might get an interesting tidbit of info.
"For my dad, right?" Before I could answer in any meaningful way, she continued. "My mum said that she like hunting around Oedon chapel. If you follow the sewers, you can find a ladder that goes up across the bridge." Seemingly content with what she said, she looked down to the items placed on her window still, she remembered what the point of the conversation was. "Here you go, hunter."
While she handed me the items, my mind whirled.
So, little girl goes down to the sewers and knows her way around down there. Fairly disgusting to want to go down there, but I digress. I'd assume keep going straight until I find a side entrance or something, but then what? Go up to the chapel?
"Thanks, miss…" might as well get her name, get on her good side.
"Emmy!" It appeared that calling her a 'miss' made her proud. "I should be thanking you, hunter."
"You're welcome." Almost as sudden as her greeting me, she closed the blinds once again, leaving me by myself with only my thoughts as company.
I'm probably going to find her parents dead.
I'm not trying to be so defeatist, but I feel like I've become the butt of quite a few cosmic jokes that are finally culminating in parallel. What the hell am I even doing here? Oh, you got absolutely destroyed by a cultist, lets magically put him into a city that's fucking revolving around a blood cult.
What's that, he's part of the foundation, a place he thought was fiction until he landed in the middle of a fucking firefight between a blood cult's feud? Heh, let's put him in an environment where he has nothing to base any semblance of his knowledge.
Realistically, the place made no sense to me: it contradicts set constants that I've honestly grown complacent too. Blood cults have such a wide variety, ranging from being a luddite to "desire good, critical thinking bad society needs to end." There's a constant though, and there's that Yaldabitch or Ion being somewhat mentioned.
Victorian skyscrapers are not something they do, ever. Somehow, someway, this sect managed to hide in secrecy for hundreds of years, which isn't too far out of the realm of possibility in all honesty. However, this nearly casual level of blood use would usually mean that most people in the system are thralls, and that's not really what's happened here.
Usually. The more terrifying, and more than likely option is that this place isn't related to Sarkism.
Either way, I'm fucked.
------()------
The wood below me creaks as I step off the ladder with a grunt of effort. Looking around, nothing down here in the sewers had changed since the last time I was here, sans a corpse not chasing me around.
Not yet at least. Creaking my way along to the next ladder, my suspicions were confirmed when a corpse pile became visible below me. Through the gore however, the occasional sound of a grunt or a moan could be faintly heard.
God I'm so stupid for leaving the drone on the bridge.
Looking to my right, the visual confirmation of several more beasts; some laying on the ground and a few on the beams spanning the walls of the sewer.
I don't have the stamina to engage even half of them.
It leaves me with one plan. Luckily, said plan only involved using my legs.
The plan would work were it not for the fact that bruised rib is severely hampering my mobility, anything prolonged would just result in me entering a coughing, wheezing fit.
A rebellious part of my mind said "hey, just use a blood vial. One more won't hurt." It would be perfectly valid, after all you threw away years of experience telling you not to do something in order to live just a bit longer. Sure, the vials slowly turn you into a monster but using only two isn't going to change much.
It scares me. I've crossed a personal line here, but that doesn't justify continuing the act.
'Yet you're more than likely not completely human anymore.'
The thought stopped me a bit. Accepting that contract changed me. A bit more resistant to damage and a sense of blood-lust is probably not the only thing that's changed about me.
Before I could continue thinking, a hand slammed the wooden platform, coming from the sewer canal to my left. Unfortunately, it seems like my little drop here did not go unnoticed.
I can't go through here with a broken arm.
Cursing up a storm, I shoved my left hand in my utility belt for one of vials. Finding one, I crushed it in my hand.
The result was instantaneous. As the vial broke in my hand, and instead of a mist of glass shards and a bloody mist being created it was almost like a fire briefly being created in my hand. A certain type of vigor filled me, and the throbbing in my right arm faded into nearly nothing. The physical and mental exhaustion was replaced with a rising sense of refreshment.
Above all though, a desire to bring out my weapon was like the beating of a drum that was slowly picking up in pace.
Unfortunately for that portion of my head, my plan was already set in motion. All of it took less than a few seconds, and I moved to my right and jumped.
The height was a bit high, and as I made contact with the ground I stumbled before getting up once again. The corpse pile was beginning to disperse; a response to my disturbance.
Turning right once more I began to run. Despite the newfound encouragement to fight, I paid it no heed. There were places to fight, and this sewer was not one of them.
Corpse-Swimmers littered the way, and as crows descended from their nesting spots I spotted a straight section of the tunnel, beside it another ladder.
Barely dodging a peck from an overgrown crow, I continued to run through the straightaway.
Halfway through, a figure came clear; an incredibly large pig blocked the path.
Shit.
Looking behind me, I could see that the corpses were blocking the path back out of the straight-away, forcing me forward. There were half a dozen too many for me to break through to scale the ladder beside.
Then the pig roared. Focusing my view back, the pig spotted me. In a moment, the pig began charging forward.
Double shit.
The saving grace was that the pig was just smaller than the section of sewer that I found myself in. Bracing wasn't an option, that just was too much pig with far too much momentum for someone like me to ever stop.
So I waited. Readying my legs, my side hop left came a touch too late. The tip of my leg brushed the pigs fettered hide, but luckily that was all it could do.
With the way forward open, I broke into a sprint once again. I didn't want to find out if the pig got extra maneuverability on top of his supersizing.
I entered the area where the pig roared; it was an enlarged area, acting more like a staging area for any workers. Three corpses were littered around, but I simply did not have the time to check them. I could feel a light breeze, meaning that there was an exit extremely close by.
Slowing to a jog but still moving, the arched exit made itself visible. Breathing a sigh of relief, I walked through and scanned once again, my weapon at the ready.
Nothing. Nothing except a stone fence and a ladder.
Bingo.
My hand was shaking when I grabbed the rung of the ladder.
------()------
Fucking Christ these ladders are getting ridiculous.
Peeking up over the ladder to see the surroundings, two enemies became clear in my line of sight: a bridge troll was standing in front of a massive ball of… assorted stuff. To the troll's right was a man with a torch and a shield.
On an unseen cue, the duo sprang into action. Bringing his torch to the ball, the fire caught and spread near instantaneously. The troll, on the other hand swung with as much force as he could muster, which normally would have caused the ball to rocket forwards. What actually happened were two things that happened extremely close to one another: the troll launched backwards like a sack. The second was a loud boom that sent the ball of fire and death forwards in some sort of karmic version of Newton's third law.
It took a second, but the pieces quickly put themselves together.
Congratulations, you played yourself with explosives.
Launching myself off the ladder and pulling out the cane sword, the shield guy turned to stare at me in complete shock. Evidently, he didn't even ponder the possibility that someone would go through the sewers and up the ladder.
To be fair, he did have a giant pig to ease his worry.
For him though, shock was the last thing to register for him, as a thrust directly into his face landed squarely in his eye. As my blade inched deeper in, the man quickly collapsed onto the floor, lifeless.
Looking at his buddy, the troll wasn't having a good time either. Setting explosives off while you are directly staring at it was such a bad idea that the troll was yet to get up, not for a lack of trying though.
Do I really need to go for the kill on him?
Honestly? Not really. Spotting a stairway, I sprang to get there before the troll could properly face me. Ascending the stairs, the light from a torch to my right immediately crossed out the possibility of going in that direction. To the left, however, was another set of stairs.
The choice was obvious. Reaching the top of the second flight of stairs in short order, a graveyard meets me. Clustered tombstones litter the area, and the place is dark enough to be mistaken for a night with the full moon out. Above all though, there's a figure standing-
Scratch that, said figure is hacking away at what appears to be a corpse with his axe.
"Beasts all over the shop…" the voice reverberated, a dull, coarse tone told me more about his mental state than anything ever could.
I think I just found Gascoigne.
God, I'm the worst at jinxing myself.
------(-)------
Been a while since I've uploaded this soon after the previous chapter. I'm feeling a bit inspired with this story, maybe because we get Gascogne next chapter. Who knows, maybe I'll write a third chapter this month as well. Until next time!
Scheiße
- Location
- In the twilight zone
"You'll be one of them, sooner or later…"
Because having nice things in this goddamn city is really just another setup for more pain.
With his sentence completed, he turned around from the poor soul being horrendously brutalized across the graveyard and began moving towards me. His stride struck the image of a predator, one that called up something primal from within me to take action in turn to match him.
The problem, however, was the graveyard could not have been worse if a city planner decided to say 'fuck it'. The gravestones served to funnel in highly irregular patterns while being sparse enough to give the illusion of free movement. Use of the whip would be mostly hindered for lack of space, leaving only my blade verses his vaguely familiar axe. I've only been using the whip with enough energy to reconnect the blade after its swing, and letting it go limp against a headstone seemed like a really bad idea.
Which forces me to use a gun.
Fuckin christ.
Gascoigne was halfway towards me, weaving between the headstones with little grace. Taking the initiative with a muttered curse a quickdraw of my pistol was followed quickly by a double tap. The first bullet hit him in the neck, causing a slight stumble in his swaggered step.
The second bullet hit him squarely in his forehead. Gascoigne fell ungracefully on the ground, his axe scattering a few feet away from him.
Utterly unconvinced at him being killed so quickly another shot rang out in the graveyard, finding its mark on his head once again. For a moment nothing happened, and despite my best efforts a well of hope swept across me, followed by a sense of shame that I so callously made someone an orphan.
Said emotional turmoil dried up when three separate events occurred: the first was a noise emanating from the man, being somewhere between a laugh and a groan. The second was him pulling a shotgun out of nowhere and shooting me.
The sudden abruptness of his attack completely blindsided me, and pain worked across my body in a crescendo as a dozen pellets logged both in the ballistic weave still present on my limbs and dug into my body where a certain asshole made me a donut. The effect was instantaneous; it made me stagger backwards.
The third event was farther along than the other two but no less trivial. In a flash the man had already reclaimed his weapon and became a blur towards his target. Me.
Willing my agonized legs to move, I slowly dodged to the left. Gascoigne's strike was practically a razor's edge from cleaving my chest open. The end result is that it left the two of us in a weird position where neither could attack the other.
Motherfucker!
"For shame, I wonder what Violet would say, attacking strangers for no reason." The taunt was a risk, one that could go in one of two directions.
Gascoigne hesitating for a brief second was what I needed to recover enough to be prepared for his next attack.
Music Box! I could use that as well! Maybe I don't have to make someone an orphan.
The musing was cut short when something in my gut dropped, and I moved instinctively to the right. The precognitive thought rang true as Gascoigne pulled out his shotgun and fired again. This time I had avoided the blast entirely and the pellets dug into the gravestones and the dirt below. I blinked, and I nearly missed him reloading his shotgun.
What the fuck man.
Gascoigne still seemed content to continue the fight in melee, because soon after he lunged to swing his axe and chop off my head. Backing up as fast as I could, the only thing the axe made contact with was a few stray strands of fabric.
I need time to grab the damn box though.
I began to run. Again, he seemed like my antics are throwing him off of what is likely his usual enemies.
I did have an idea though. I ran towards the stairs at the opposite side of the graveyard, Gascoigne following in hot pursuit. Since he was now running, his third shot with his gun simply hit the dirt behind me.
Got it.
I smiled as I pulled out the box. Climbing the stairs two at a time I quickly re-examined the thing in a rush.
Just spin the crank and go.
And that is exactly what I did. What came out was… interesting. I was expecting something close to a simple melody. What I got from the bow felt alien. Eight notes on repeat, yet they felt as if they were the start of something far longer and greater.
I no longer heard the footfalls behind me. Reaching the top of the flight of stairs I turned around to witness the effects. Gascoigne was halfway up himself, yet instead of continuing he was clawing his head with one of his hands.
"My mum uses this to calm daddy down."
Nevertheless, I began walking back in case.
Gascoigne stopped clawing at himself. He looked at me again, and even with most of his face covered in bandages I could still see the bottom half of his face unobscured.
He was smiling.
Because getting the happy ending was far too much to ask for.
My fourth (or is it third? Did the time running count?) dodging the blast was at the very least far more successful than the second time. The damned shotgun fired so many pellets and spread in such a wide cone it made dodging completely incredibly unlikely. Feeling my right arm get hit again was evidence enough of that fact.
I started running away from the stairs. There was a gate to what I presume the entrance to the chapel. Locked of course, meaning the exit i would have to take would be the roof of the gravekeepers house back into the graveyard again. There was a corpse on top-
"-She wears a bright red brooch-"
I guess I now know why the Music Box only made him confused. Rapidly appearing to my right was what was most likely Gascoigne's wife and the girl's mother.
I want to fucking scream! I want to lambast the joke that is Yharnam and its self-perpetuating grimdark production!
I jumped off the roof and back into the graveyard. For a moment I thought that I would land on one of the headstones, but I cleared it and merely landed on the dirt between two clusters. My legs didn't like the idea, but I stood up quickly and ran back towards the exit-
Its covered in the same mist that the Cleric's bridge was.
Fuck.
Me.
Plan B then: just win then. If Yharnam wants a fight, I'll win a fucking fight.
I reached what appeared to be an oak log and turned around. Gascoigne seemed to have dropped with me but in the moment I did not hear the drop.
He did not fire his shotgun either, which was also suspect. Was he out, or was he playing mind games?
Regardless, the man was still coming at me. I pulled out the music box and played the tune again.
Once again, Gascoigne began clawing at his head again.
That's right, remember that you're a bad person asshole.
I put away the box and pulled out both my sword and pistol. Firing a single shot, his self-conflict was cut short as he took a step back to recompose his stature.
And I moved forward to match him. The sword was meant for quick stabs and slices and I attempted the latter. Going for his torso the cane-sword made quick work of the fabric and cut into his skin below. A sizable diagonal slash went across his chest.
Gascoigne recovered nearly as quickly as my strike however. In fact, it seemed like he was more invigorated than ever.
So invigorated in fact that he struck me with his axe as I tried to pull away. The axe struck me right on my left shoulder and I screamed as I fell back.
Gascoigne decided it was a good time to try and cleave my head into two. I decided in a judgment clouded by pain and adrenaline that I should meet him head on.
As such, I stepped forward to match and thrust. The head of his axe missed me, but the handle still hit me squarely in the same shoulder he struck with his axe. On the other hand my cane-sword dug deep within his abdomen. It wasn't enough to stop his momentum and the both of us went tumbling onto the dirt ground, our weapons scattering aside.
All the while, my shoulder screamed in white hot agony. Through the ordeal however, I realized that my opponent wasn't down for the count.
I grabbed my pistol with my right hand once again and I fired two shots into his head. Both rang out as they broke bone and sent a faint mist of viscera and blood into the air.
Mag is out.
Looking to my right, my eyes lay claimed on my dropped cane-sword. Standing up with some trouble, I made a grab for my weapon.
"Ohhhhh, what's that smell?"
I knew it.
His voice reverberated around the graveyard, giving me goosebumps. Before I could continue any line of thought, he continued.
"The sweet blood, oh how it sings to me…" Gascoigne was getting up. His skull was partially visible at this point yet he acted no worse for wear.
And it terrified the living shit out of me. Whereas I had an intermittent edge on him, something was telling me that things were about to go south and fast.
"Its enough to make a man sick!" Gascoigne transformed his axe. Whereas previously his weapon resembed an oversized version of a cleaver, the staff extended out by at minimum a factor of five. It was a simple change, yet now he wielded an engorged halberd.
Time for plan C: plan B again but better. The gravestones seemed more like a blessing now.
I hopped over a grave cluster. Gascoigne seemed to dislike the idea because he decided to take another shot at me. Thankfully, wielding a two handed weapon meant that he was slower on the draw meaning that by the time he fired his shotgun only found cold stone. The fact that I could hear sizable chunks of stone falling off my new cover however was not so good.
I could hear him running by the time the sound of his shotgun stopped reverberating. I tried backpedaling.
Tried being the keyword.
It seemed like the asshole was sandbagging the whole time, as his axe split through fucking stone intent to wreck my body.
He caught me in the leg before I could completely dodge. I really wish I could say something quippy but all that came out was an involuntary scream.
I fell onto the ground. I pulled out my pistol desperately, wildly trying to aim at the man. Gascoigne, bloodcrazed as he was, decided to savor his victory my slowly walking forwards.
You fool.
A part of me was chastising myself for pointing an empty gun at someone who decidedly didn't care all too much for being on the opposite side of a barrel. That part of me was completely and utterly overwhelmed by a burning desire to not become mincemeat.
I pulled the trigger anyways. To the rational side of me, what happened next was impossible: my pistol ignored reality and fired anyways. The recoil felt a good deal stronger but the results were immediate as Gascoigne staggered himself.
I fired four more "bullets". Wherever the bullets came from they allowed me to send Gascoigne sprawling across the dirt ground near me.
Misery loves company.
All was still for a dozen seconds. It seemed like nothing moved besides my breathing and the blood from both of our wounds.
Then he started getting up.
Something between dread and fright should have motivated me to get as far away as humanly possible, to crawl away from the beast in human skin.
I tried to get up myself. Despite having my leg absolutely wrecked by an axe, I could tentatively get up with a limp.
Considering that the best case scenario was not losing, I wasn't feeling to hot about the situation.
Gascoigne pulled out his shotgun.
FUC-
There was no chance for me to dodge with my leg as it is. As quickly as I got up, I fell just as fast.
He was walking towards me again. I got irrationally angry in response. This city, the fucking branding thats binding me, Gascoigne and every fucking monster I've encountered.
"Why don't you fucking die!" I knew it was useless to state something like it, but all of my anger just… needed to be released. It came out hoarse, for my pained screams started wearing out my voice.
For his part Gascoigne did not respond, being either that he did not care or he did not understand. Instead he simply picked up his axe and continued on his way towards me.
"Fuck you" He was upon me. I wanted to do something, anything to avoid this but I was just in too much pain to move at all.
"Too proud to show your true face, eh?"
He swung down. Instead of an encroaching darkness I felt as if I was falling through a great lake.
------(-)--—-
So, been a while.
Writing the fight was fuckin hard. It was my first real experience of writing an extended fight scene, and because of that it became a slog, and because of that I procrastinated a ton. Now that it's done however I can finally move forward and enter the second stage of the story, and I cannot wait. No promises on the next release, but im hopeful for a quick turnaround.
Until next time!
Because having nice things in this goddamn city is really just another setup for more pain.
With his sentence completed, he turned around from the poor soul being horrendously brutalized across the graveyard and began moving towards me. His stride struck the image of a predator, one that called up something primal from within me to take action in turn to match him.
The problem, however, was the graveyard could not have been worse if a city planner decided to say 'fuck it'. The gravestones served to funnel in highly irregular patterns while being sparse enough to give the illusion of free movement. Use of the whip would be mostly hindered for lack of space, leaving only my blade verses his vaguely familiar axe. I've only been using the whip with enough energy to reconnect the blade after its swing, and letting it go limp against a headstone seemed like a really bad idea.
Which forces me to use a gun.
Fuckin christ.
Gascoigne was halfway towards me, weaving between the headstones with little grace. Taking the initiative with a muttered curse a quickdraw of my pistol was followed quickly by a double tap. The first bullet hit him in the neck, causing a slight stumble in his swaggered step.
The second bullet hit him squarely in his forehead. Gascoigne fell ungracefully on the ground, his axe scattering a few feet away from him.
Utterly unconvinced at him being killed so quickly another shot rang out in the graveyard, finding its mark on his head once again. For a moment nothing happened, and despite my best efforts a well of hope swept across me, followed by a sense of shame that I so callously made someone an orphan.
Said emotional turmoil dried up when three separate events occurred: the first was a noise emanating from the man, being somewhere between a laugh and a groan. The second was him pulling a shotgun out of nowhere and shooting me.
The sudden abruptness of his attack completely blindsided me, and pain worked across my body in a crescendo as a dozen pellets logged both in the ballistic weave still present on my limbs and dug into my body where a certain asshole made me a donut. The effect was instantaneous; it made me stagger backwards.
The third event was farther along than the other two but no less trivial. In a flash the man had already reclaimed his weapon and became a blur towards his target. Me.
Willing my agonized legs to move, I slowly dodged to the left. Gascoigne's strike was practically a razor's edge from cleaving my chest open. The end result is that it left the two of us in a weird position where neither could attack the other.
Motherfucker!
"For shame, I wonder what Violet would say, attacking strangers for no reason." The taunt was a risk, one that could go in one of two directions.
Gascoigne hesitating for a brief second was what I needed to recover enough to be prepared for his next attack.
Music Box! I could use that as well! Maybe I don't have to make someone an orphan.
The musing was cut short when something in my gut dropped, and I moved instinctively to the right. The precognitive thought rang true as Gascoigne pulled out his shotgun and fired again. This time I had avoided the blast entirely and the pellets dug into the gravestones and the dirt below. I blinked, and I nearly missed him reloading his shotgun.
What the fuck man.
Gascoigne still seemed content to continue the fight in melee, because soon after he lunged to swing his axe and chop off my head. Backing up as fast as I could, the only thing the axe made contact with was a few stray strands of fabric.
I need time to grab the damn box though.
I began to run. Again, he seemed like my antics are throwing him off of what is likely his usual enemies.
I did have an idea though. I ran towards the stairs at the opposite side of the graveyard, Gascoigne following in hot pursuit. Since he was now running, his third shot with his gun simply hit the dirt behind me.
Got it.
I smiled as I pulled out the box. Climbing the stairs two at a time I quickly re-examined the thing in a rush.
Just spin the crank and go.
And that is exactly what I did. What came out was… interesting. I was expecting something close to a simple melody. What I got from the bow felt alien. Eight notes on repeat, yet they felt as if they were the start of something far longer and greater.
I no longer heard the footfalls behind me. Reaching the top of the flight of stairs I turned around to witness the effects. Gascoigne was halfway up himself, yet instead of continuing he was clawing his head with one of his hands.
"My mum uses this to calm daddy down."
Nevertheless, I began walking back in case.
Gascoigne stopped clawing at himself. He looked at me again, and even with most of his face covered in bandages I could still see the bottom half of his face unobscured.
He was smiling.
Because getting the happy ending was far too much to ask for.
My fourth (or is it third? Did the time running count?) dodging the blast was at the very least far more successful than the second time. The damned shotgun fired so many pellets and spread in such a wide cone it made dodging completely incredibly unlikely. Feeling my right arm get hit again was evidence enough of that fact.
I started running away from the stairs. There was a gate to what I presume the entrance to the chapel. Locked of course, meaning the exit i would have to take would be the roof of the gravekeepers house back into the graveyard again. There was a corpse on top-
"-She wears a bright red brooch-"
I guess I now know why the Music Box only made him confused. Rapidly appearing to my right was what was most likely Gascoigne's wife and the girl's mother.
I want to fucking scream! I want to lambast the joke that is Yharnam and its self-perpetuating grimdark production!
I jumped off the roof and back into the graveyard. For a moment I thought that I would land on one of the headstones, but I cleared it and merely landed on the dirt between two clusters. My legs didn't like the idea, but I stood up quickly and ran back towards the exit-
Its covered in the same mist that the Cleric's bridge was.
Fuck.
Me.
Plan B then: just win then. If Yharnam wants a fight, I'll win a fucking fight.
I reached what appeared to be an oak log and turned around. Gascoigne seemed to have dropped with me but in the moment I did not hear the drop.
He did not fire his shotgun either, which was also suspect. Was he out, or was he playing mind games?
Regardless, the man was still coming at me. I pulled out the music box and played the tune again.
Once again, Gascoigne began clawing at his head again.
That's right, remember that you're a bad person asshole.
I put away the box and pulled out both my sword and pistol. Firing a single shot, his self-conflict was cut short as he took a step back to recompose his stature.
And I moved forward to match him. The sword was meant for quick stabs and slices and I attempted the latter. Going for his torso the cane-sword made quick work of the fabric and cut into his skin below. A sizable diagonal slash went across his chest.
Gascoigne recovered nearly as quickly as my strike however. In fact, it seemed like he was more invigorated than ever.
So invigorated in fact that he struck me with his axe as I tried to pull away. The axe struck me right on my left shoulder and I screamed as I fell back.
Gascoigne decided it was a good time to try and cleave my head into two. I decided in a judgment clouded by pain and adrenaline that I should meet him head on.
As such, I stepped forward to match and thrust. The head of his axe missed me, but the handle still hit me squarely in the same shoulder he struck with his axe. On the other hand my cane-sword dug deep within his abdomen. It wasn't enough to stop his momentum and the both of us went tumbling onto the dirt ground, our weapons scattering aside.
All the while, my shoulder screamed in white hot agony. Through the ordeal however, I realized that my opponent wasn't down for the count.
I grabbed my pistol with my right hand once again and I fired two shots into his head. Both rang out as they broke bone and sent a faint mist of viscera and blood into the air.
Mag is out.
Looking to my right, my eyes lay claimed on my dropped cane-sword. Standing up with some trouble, I made a grab for my weapon.
"Ohhhhh, what's that smell?"
I knew it.
His voice reverberated around the graveyard, giving me goosebumps. Before I could continue any line of thought, he continued.
"The sweet blood, oh how it sings to me…" Gascoigne was getting up. His skull was partially visible at this point yet he acted no worse for wear.
And it terrified the living shit out of me. Whereas I had an intermittent edge on him, something was telling me that things were about to go south and fast.
"Its enough to make a man sick!" Gascoigne transformed his axe. Whereas previously his weapon resembed an oversized version of a cleaver, the staff extended out by at minimum a factor of five. It was a simple change, yet now he wielded an engorged halberd.
Time for plan C: plan B again but better. The gravestones seemed more like a blessing now.
I hopped over a grave cluster. Gascoigne seemed to dislike the idea because he decided to take another shot at me. Thankfully, wielding a two handed weapon meant that he was slower on the draw meaning that by the time he fired his shotgun only found cold stone. The fact that I could hear sizable chunks of stone falling off my new cover however was not so good.
I could hear him running by the time the sound of his shotgun stopped reverberating. I tried backpedaling.
Tried being the keyword.
It seemed like the asshole was sandbagging the whole time, as his axe split through fucking stone intent to wreck my body.
He caught me in the leg before I could completely dodge. I really wish I could say something quippy but all that came out was an involuntary scream.
I fell onto the ground. I pulled out my pistol desperately, wildly trying to aim at the man. Gascoigne, bloodcrazed as he was, decided to savor his victory my slowly walking forwards.
You fool.
A part of me was chastising myself for pointing an empty gun at someone who decidedly didn't care all too much for being on the opposite side of a barrel. That part of me was completely and utterly overwhelmed by a burning desire to not become mincemeat.
I pulled the trigger anyways. To the rational side of me, what happened next was impossible: my pistol ignored reality and fired anyways. The recoil felt a good deal stronger but the results were immediate as Gascoigne staggered himself.
I fired four more "bullets". Wherever the bullets came from they allowed me to send Gascoigne sprawling across the dirt ground near me.
Misery loves company.
All was still for a dozen seconds. It seemed like nothing moved besides my breathing and the blood from both of our wounds.
Then he started getting up.
Something between dread and fright should have motivated me to get as far away as humanly possible, to crawl away from the beast in human skin.
I tried to get up myself. Despite having my leg absolutely wrecked by an axe, I could tentatively get up with a limp.
Considering that the best case scenario was not losing, I wasn't feeling to hot about the situation.
Gascoigne pulled out his shotgun.
FUC-
There was no chance for me to dodge with my leg as it is. As quickly as I got up, I fell just as fast.
He was walking towards me again. I got irrationally angry in response. This city, the fucking branding thats binding me, Gascoigne and every fucking monster I've encountered.
"Why don't you fucking die!" I knew it was useless to state something like it, but all of my anger just… needed to be released. It came out hoarse, for my pained screams started wearing out my voice.
For his part Gascoigne did not respond, being either that he did not care or he did not understand. Instead he simply picked up his axe and continued on his way towards me.
"Fuck you" He was upon me. I wanted to do something, anything to avoid this but I was just in too much pain to move at all.
"Too proud to show your true face, eh?"
He swung down. Instead of an encroaching darkness I felt as if I was falling through a great lake.
------(-)--—-
So, been a while.
Writing the fight was fuckin hard. It was my first real experience of writing an extended fight scene, and because of that it became a slog, and because of that I procrastinated a ton. Now that it's done however I can finally move forward and enter the second stage of the story, and I cannot wait. No promises on the next release, but im hopeful for a quick turnaround.
Until next time!
The Toll
- Location
- In the twilight zone
When I studied computer science in university, one of the first things that was taught was something called Polya's Four Steps.
------()------
I dodged to the left, but Gascoigne was anticipating that reaction. He moved at lightning speeds, stabbing forwards with his halberd.
I tried in vain to block the strike, but I was just too slow. He impaled my chest, and I collapsed onto the ground.
------()------
The first step was to understand the problem. In this case it was Yharnam and the greater city at large. The city had obviously gone at least one step too far at some point and as a result was this situation with monsters and blood crazed people sprouted.
------()------
All that his shotgun hit was the stone that used to be directly behind me. I thrust forward, landing a hard hit on his right pec.
Gascoigne twirled to meet me. I pulled out my canesword to block his next attack, and so it did. Even with just one arm on his axe, it took me dual wielding the sword just to properly block.
He pulled out his shotgun with his left hand. My body screamed in agony as I fell to the ground, lifeless.
------()------
The second step was to devise a plan. My favourite utilization of this was by splitting the problem into the smallest possible chunks, as consequently it allowed for me to effectively divide and conquer.
Gascoigne, as much of a problem as he is, falls in line with the greater Yharnish picture. Evaluating between Cleric beast, him and the "hunters" in the city, a common line can be established; something about blood ministration caused this whole situation to come about.
The situation I found myself in while part of an MTF were interesting in the sense that fiction became non-fiction. Yet, despite that fact, the nature of the foundation as a writing project still shone through. The infamous joke of 12 squads going into a spooky^(TM) building and failing to exit the elevator is a prime example.
The grimderp phase largely evolved into an existential dread orientated articles. Why kill the MTF at the elevator when you can break them from some sort of anomalous truth?
Which now brings us to the catch twenty two: is digging down to the secrets here also an intended part of the meta-narrative? It happened that one media deletion anomaly with its "appendix B" and again in site-13.
The evidence seems to lean to it. Only a select few people here are not… quite literally out for blood. It seems like every corner includes some monster: be it human or literal.
Then the elephant in the room comes in: nine ninety. As absurd as it is, my thoughts of somehow jumping universes again were quickly and thankfully dispelled. Even with every death to Gascoigne I have a new sense of hope in which at bare minimum I know one thing: subversion should be expected.
And if I can expect parts of a narrative to form, then I can start breaking the problem down.
------()------
Due to this groundhog day-espue loop, my opener looked fairly similar each time. Walk up a few paces, dodge left to avoid the initial shotgun blast, backpedal to avoid the jumping overhang that Gascoigne seemed extremely fond of.
After the beginning of this bloody dance finished, things opened up significantly. Gascoigne always changed his tactics from this point on.
What he never did was transform his weapon until he decided to stop sandbagging.
So began the dance of death between the two of us. I weave in and out as best I can, scoring light hits along the way. In comparison Gascoigne hit like a truck, yet was slow to my newfound lightning reflexes,
I moved to the left, and he matched.
So the fight continued.
------()------
The third step is carrying out the plan. My typical plan runs one rung, but it's incredibly effective.
Tamper the living shit out of the meta-narrative.
------()------
It was falling into place. Gascoigne had already transformed into his halberd, yet it seemed that luck was siding with me. Everything was lining up perfectly.
As I was using the music box once again, I fell into complacency as Gascoigne retreated within himself to face his own horrors.
And I sprung once more. Something was different with this attack, as if the stars aligned an I simply knew it struck deep.
Gascoigne started glowing yellow.
What.
I backed the fuck up. My caution was justified, as Gascoigne turned.
Where there was once a man, a concussive force heralded something new.
I blinked.
Gascoigne was himself no longer. In its place, a literal monster took the spotlight. At least 15 feet tall and with a frame to make a body lifter jealous, is appearance was covered modestly by his clothing. It seemed like they mostly upscaled to match him.
True face my ass.
The monster jumped up into the air. I stood frozen for a moment, utterly baffled at the sight before me.
Realizing what in fact I'm seeing is real, I moved for the sake of moving.
It still was not enough.
As a ton of flesh and hate crashed into me and forced unto the ground. My body died right there, yet I felt a second death as I drowned in an invisible sea.
------()------
The strategy is the definition of glass cannon. If my meddling turns out to be, in fact, a part of the narrative then things go downhill fast.
Take for example, a reality anchor "grenade". It serves only a single purpose: force reality around it to work overtime, thereby nullifying memetics.
By that logic, it makes no sense for a reality anchor to continue a narrative, because it forces reality to be real again, not to act off of story logic. Right?
The problem is that it's the foundation-verse. I really have no clue which god they pissed off, because they're so many problems that the masquerade faces that its not even funny.
So when a reality anchor goes off, it may "correct reality", but in the end it's still stuck inside the meta-narrative, because the reality is part of said narrative. On the opposite side, reality anchors can "correct" reality in a way you don't want because it can't anchor to one reality. How do you "fix" something that's still fundamentally not broken in the eyes of the universe?
Its where I come in. As far as I can tell, I can weave in and out of the meta-narrative because I'm a living, breathing outside context problem.
One time there was a mission on the outskirts of Banff, where some new age cult successfully did a ritual. The result was that the leader of the cult could set up a scenario up to 12 hours in advance and perform steps to reach his objective.
So when we came knocking, he set himself a scenario where he was outside the country within the next six hours. I don't know what the steps were, but by the time we dealt with the guards he came forward and started weaving through the stragglers like wet paper, myself included.
So when I took a step back instead of him expecting something else via his new shiny power, I saw shock and fear cross his face. He screamed "abomination!" as he pulled out his pistol. Unfortunately, I already had my M4 out.
He did get his wish though, just that he went straight into the states in a bodybag. I don't know how they figured out his power, but man did it make me ponder when they came back to us with it.
My "power", if you can call it that allows me to scirt the meta-narratives. I may be a blind spot, but if I get stuck in a narrative, then my "glass cannon" shatters.
------()------
"Welcome home, good hunter." The doll spoke in its unsettling monotone.
"...Hi." I still was not warmed up on the idea of the doll. Of course, I did shoot it a few times at the beginning but it's non-hostility coupled with a lack of a permanent death made me significantly more tolerant of it than before.
Still though, hostility had only turned to the fairly large feeling of unsettlement. Sure it was a… human size porcelain doll given life, but it felt as if I was missing the whole picture of her.
My objective wasn't her however.
I took a different path up to the workshop. Instead of the stairs up the front entrance I decided to go up the hill ramp to the left. Save for the headstones to my left, there was nothing remarkable about the dirt ramp. My real target wassss…
The man ain't in the workshop.
------()------
As generic as it was, the fourth step was reflecting on your work. Is it possible to make the solution be shorter, and take less steps.
When I learned the four steps, the last one was the one I most neglected. Maybe it was because I felt like I was hot shit, and my coding was always the pinnacle.
Yet over time my opinion on the last step had changed. Whereas I used to neglect it, this final step had slowly turned to become one among equals with the other three steps.
------()------
There was a slightly hidden back area I was not aware of.
Said area also contained creepy wheelchair man, who was gazing out the white horizon only interrupted by evenly spaced pillars.
Even in his heavy age, he still turned around to greet me after hearing my footfalls on the grass below.
He spoke first.
"Good hunter, what is it you require?"
"What does the workshop have in terms of flammables and explosives?"
A smile went across his face, as if regarding a fond memory, pure nostalgia spreading across the old man's face, in a way that surprisingly wasn't dread inspiring. To me, anyways. "Now you're getting it."
------()------
It doesn't matter if it takes one, ten, or a thousand "deaths" if the end result is getting the fuck out of dodge as far from this city as possible.
Its because every death gives a new piece of insight. A more effective thrust here, better use of my canesword's range of function or even just using better footwork. In particular, maybe a new insight via seeing or hearing someone do something else.
Step four allows me to head straight back to step two with a wider appreciation of what can be done.
And in a city where something has obviously gone wrong?
It lets me dive into what's hidden underneath that much better.
------()------
It's becoming an elaborate dance between the two of us now. Gascoigne was still the predator, the one who moves forward based on the reasoning that he can.
I am the David to his Goliath. I simply cannot match him in raw strength so I do the next best thing: hit and run tactics.
My secret weapon isn't a sling, though it is kind of ironic that I have two weapons that can shatter the sound barrier.
No, it's the humble music box.
As far as I can tell, the death "loops" appear to be genuine as the people I've killed and the blood that's been shed simply revert on death or when I use a lamp.
It means that those seven notes never truly lose their potency. When they play, the battle is stopped, as Gascoigne retreats into himself and tries to tear the pain in his head out and I ready my next attack.
And so the dance continues, until the asshole decides that it's time to get serious.
By the time my eyes registered yellow light emanating from Gascoigne, I was already dodging. In particular however, my hand was already grasping something.
There was a concussive blast outward as Gascoigne became a beast, and there was a primitive molotov cocktail answering in kind.
Gascoigne screeched as the glass broke and set both his clothing and flesh ablaze.
Dodge.
My mental command was followed by my body, allowing a near miss as Gacoigne went sailing past my left side straight into an oak tree. One ton monster beat out wood, and he went through the tree like an armor piercing round.
I set another molotov's rag on fire as monster man slowly got off the dirt ground. Just as he overcame the crest of his recovery flames consumed him once again.
Gascoigne decided that it was time to go sky high, and he jumped.
Now it gets incredibly hard. I strained my eyes upward, only to see him already coming down towards me. My legs were already starting to strain under the duress of the fight but I willed them to move and get away from his landing site.
Gascoigne crashed into the ground and sent chunks of dirt, gravel and headstone upwards and outwards. With the press of the lever, my canesword became an iron whip.
And I thrashed it against his monstrous form. Even in his new form he howled in pain as the whip made short work of his singed clothing and began lacerating his back.
In response he spun around, a clawed hand making intercept velocity with my body.
Motherfucker!
Try as I could, that swipe came out too fast for me to dodge properly. In taking a backstep, I instead took the brunt of the attack as deep gashes on my arm.
Suppressing a scream of pain, I tried focusing on the next portion of his attack. The flurry of swipes and punches that spelt death if I got caught up in it once again.
He started with a punch.
I moved behind a headstone and ran.
In his frustration, he took it out on the poor headstone. Satisfied with his work soon after, a heavy displacement of air indicated that he lept into the air again.
Fuck!
I stopped and made a one eighty. Leaping out of the way proved useful, as not a moment later Gascoigne obliterated the gravestones that marked the way forward blocked. Unfortunately for me, a big chunk of stone nailed me in the leg.
With a yelp, I tripped and fell. I knew that the position was dangerous, and rolled to my right as Gascoigne came crashing down with some wrestlemania-type move to crush me into a gore-y pancake.
I got up as fast as I could and hop-stepped a few paces back. I grabbed the last molotov but nearly dropped it as I just kept shaking-
Gascoigne swiped again. It missed me by a good meter but it startled me enough to drop the molotov onto the ground. Glass broke, and my legs from the knees down were coated in pseudo-gasoline.
Nonononono!-
Gascoigne fucking punted me across the graveyard. I'd love to say I had anything but a graceful landing but in reality I landed like a damn ragdoll.
I coughed up blood. Scrambling for my pistol my chest was set alight with bright white pain with every movement. Unholstering the gun, I looked up just in time to see Gascoigne roaring as he charged forward for the kill.
I let off a pained whimper as I tapped five bullets out. It rang out, and Gascoigne fell face first to eat dirt.
I tested getting up. To my surprise, my leg was good enough to stand after the ordeal. The same could not be said about my chest however. Every breath felt like a hot iron pressed inside my chest.
Still though, I walked forward and switched the whip back into the sword. For whatever reason, Gacoigne did not get up immediately.
Not like I was going to let him either.
I stabbed straight down. The canesword may have been primarily a slashing weapon but it felt like there was no resistance when I pierced through his skull.
Gascoigne stopped breathing, but the sound of rattling took its place. Confused for a moment, I saw that I was the one producing the sound.
I didn't even know how to feel anymore. Surprise, shame, terror and relief came together and formed a maelstrom inside my head.
Naturally, I took the best course of action and collapsed unto the ground myself. Curling up on myself, I began to sob uncontrollably.
------()------
There was a key on his body. My best guess is that it was for the gate ahead over the stairs.
Slowly, I got up. Walking towards the gate, the sound of a mushy ground running with blood and gore gave way to the hard and dry cobble path.
Facing the gate, I simply tried to open it.
For once a relatively good thing occurred and the gate unlocked. With a loud creak reverberating throughout the area the gate opened.
Yet I knew that there was something deeper to uncover in this 'Cathedral Ward'.
------(-)------
I wanted to try something different to start act two of the story. I hope it's something you would all enjoy, and for the first time in a while I'm really feeling in the mood to delve into this story like I did when I started it in January.
A thanks to my beta Travisplo, and farewell till' next time.
------()------
I dodged to the left, but Gascoigne was anticipating that reaction. He moved at lightning speeds, stabbing forwards with his halberd.
I tried in vain to block the strike, but I was just too slow. He impaled my chest, and I collapsed onto the ground.
------()------
The first step was to understand the problem. In this case it was Yharnam and the greater city at large. The city had obviously gone at least one step too far at some point and as a result was this situation with monsters and blood crazed people sprouted.
------()------
All that his shotgun hit was the stone that used to be directly behind me. I thrust forward, landing a hard hit on his right pec.
Gascoigne twirled to meet me. I pulled out my canesword to block his next attack, and so it did. Even with just one arm on his axe, it took me dual wielding the sword just to properly block.
He pulled out his shotgun with his left hand. My body screamed in agony as I fell to the ground, lifeless.
------()------
The second step was to devise a plan. My favourite utilization of this was by splitting the problem into the smallest possible chunks, as consequently it allowed for me to effectively divide and conquer.
Gascoigne, as much of a problem as he is, falls in line with the greater Yharnish picture. Evaluating between Cleric beast, him and the "hunters" in the city, a common line can be established; something about blood ministration caused this whole situation to come about.
The situation I found myself in while part of an MTF were interesting in the sense that fiction became non-fiction. Yet, despite that fact, the nature of the foundation as a writing project still shone through. The infamous joke of 12 squads going into a spooky^(TM) building and failing to exit the elevator is a prime example.
The grimderp phase largely evolved into an existential dread orientated articles. Why kill the MTF at the elevator when you can break them from some sort of anomalous truth?
Which now brings us to the catch twenty two: is digging down to the secrets here also an intended part of the meta-narrative? It happened that one media deletion anomaly with its "appendix B" and again in site-13.
The evidence seems to lean to it. Only a select few people here are not… quite literally out for blood. It seems like every corner includes some monster: be it human or literal.
Then the elephant in the room comes in: nine ninety. As absurd as it is, my thoughts of somehow jumping universes again were quickly and thankfully dispelled. Even with every death to Gascoigne I have a new sense of hope in which at bare minimum I know one thing: subversion should be expected.
And if I can expect parts of a narrative to form, then I can start breaking the problem down.
------()------
Due to this groundhog day-espue loop, my opener looked fairly similar each time. Walk up a few paces, dodge left to avoid the initial shotgun blast, backpedal to avoid the jumping overhang that Gascoigne seemed extremely fond of.
After the beginning of this bloody dance finished, things opened up significantly. Gascoigne always changed his tactics from this point on.
What he never did was transform his weapon until he decided to stop sandbagging.
So began the dance of death between the two of us. I weave in and out as best I can, scoring light hits along the way. In comparison Gascoigne hit like a truck, yet was slow to my newfound lightning reflexes,
I moved to the left, and he matched.
So the fight continued.
------()------
The third step is carrying out the plan. My typical plan runs one rung, but it's incredibly effective.
Tamper the living shit out of the meta-narrative.
------()------
It was falling into place. Gascoigne had already transformed into his halberd, yet it seemed that luck was siding with me. Everything was lining up perfectly.
As I was using the music box once again, I fell into complacency as Gascoigne retreated within himself to face his own horrors.
And I sprung once more. Something was different with this attack, as if the stars aligned an I simply knew it struck deep.
Gascoigne started glowing yellow.
What.
I backed the fuck up. My caution was justified, as Gascoigne turned.
Where there was once a man, a concussive force heralded something new.
I blinked.
Gascoigne was himself no longer. In its place, a literal monster took the spotlight. At least 15 feet tall and with a frame to make a body lifter jealous, is appearance was covered modestly by his clothing. It seemed like they mostly upscaled to match him.
True face my ass.
The monster jumped up into the air. I stood frozen for a moment, utterly baffled at the sight before me.
Realizing what in fact I'm seeing is real, I moved for the sake of moving.
It still was not enough.
As a ton of flesh and hate crashed into me and forced unto the ground. My body died right there, yet I felt a second death as I drowned in an invisible sea.
------()------
The strategy is the definition of glass cannon. If my meddling turns out to be, in fact, a part of the narrative then things go downhill fast.
Take for example, a reality anchor "grenade". It serves only a single purpose: force reality around it to work overtime, thereby nullifying memetics.
By that logic, it makes no sense for a reality anchor to continue a narrative, because it forces reality to be real again, not to act off of story logic. Right?
The problem is that it's the foundation-verse. I really have no clue which god they pissed off, because they're so many problems that the masquerade faces that its not even funny.
So when a reality anchor goes off, it may "correct reality", but in the end it's still stuck inside the meta-narrative, because the reality is part of said narrative. On the opposite side, reality anchors can "correct" reality in a way you don't want because it can't anchor to one reality. How do you "fix" something that's still fundamentally not broken in the eyes of the universe?
Its where I come in. As far as I can tell, I can weave in and out of the meta-narrative because I'm a living, breathing outside context problem.
One time there was a mission on the outskirts of Banff, where some new age cult successfully did a ritual. The result was that the leader of the cult could set up a scenario up to 12 hours in advance and perform steps to reach his objective.
So when we came knocking, he set himself a scenario where he was outside the country within the next six hours. I don't know what the steps were, but by the time we dealt with the guards he came forward and started weaving through the stragglers like wet paper, myself included.
So when I took a step back instead of him expecting something else via his new shiny power, I saw shock and fear cross his face. He screamed "abomination!" as he pulled out his pistol. Unfortunately, I already had my M4 out.
He did get his wish though, just that he went straight into the states in a bodybag. I don't know how they figured out his power, but man did it make me ponder when they came back to us with it.
My "power", if you can call it that allows me to scirt the meta-narratives. I may be a blind spot, but if I get stuck in a narrative, then my "glass cannon" shatters.
------()------
"Welcome home, good hunter." The doll spoke in its unsettling monotone.
"...Hi." I still was not warmed up on the idea of the doll. Of course, I did shoot it a few times at the beginning but it's non-hostility coupled with a lack of a permanent death made me significantly more tolerant of it than before.
Still though, hostility had only turned to the fairly large feeling of unsettlement. Sure it was a… human size porcelain doll given life, but it felt as if I was missing the whole picture of her.
My objective wasn't her however.
I took a different path up to the workshop. Instead of the stairs up the front entrance I decided to go up the hill ramp to the left. Save for the headstones to my left, there was nothing remarkable about the dirt ramp. My real target wassss…
The man ain't in the workshop.
------()------
As generic as it was, the fourth step was reflecting on your work. Is it possible to make the solution be shorter, and take less steps.
When I learned the four steps, the last one was the one I most neglected. Maybe it was because I felt like I was hot shit, and my coding was always the pinnacle.
Yet over time my opinion on the last step had changed. Whereas I used to neglect it, this final step had slowly turned to become one among equals with the other three steps.
------()------
There was a slightly hidden back area I was not aware of.
Said area also contained creepy wheelchair man, who was gazing out the white horizon only interrupted by evenly spaced pillars.
Even in his heavy age, he still turned around to greet me after hearing my footfalls on the grass below.
He spoke first.
"Good hunter, what is it you require?"
"What does the workshop have in terms of flammables and explosives?"
A smile went across his face, as if regarding a fond memory, pure nostalgia spreading across the old man's face, in a way that surprisingly wasn't dread inspiring. To me, anyways. "Now you're getting it."
------()------
It doesn't matter if it takes one, ten, or a thousand "deaths" if the end result is getting the fuck out of dodge as far from this city as possible.
Its because every death gives a new piece of insight. A more effective thrust here, better use of my canesword's range of function or even just using better footwork. In particular, maybe a new insight via seeing or hearing someone do something else.
Step four allows me to head straight back to step two with a wider appreciation of what can be done.
And in a city where something has obviously gone wrong?
It lets me dive into what's hidden underneath that much better.
------()------
It's becoming an elaborate dance between the two of us now. Gascoigne was still the predator, the one who moves forward based on the reasoning that he can.
I am the David to his Goliath. I simply cannot match him in raw strength so I do the next best thing: hit and run tactics.
My secret weapon isn't a sling, though it is kind of ironic that I have two weapons that can shatter the sound barrier.
No, it's the humble music box.
As far as I can tell, the death "loops" appear to be genuine as the people I've killed and the blood that's been shed simply revert on death or when I use a lamp.
It means that those seven notes never truly lose their potency. When they play, the battle is stopped, as Gascoigne retreats into himself and tries to tear the pain in his head out and I ready my next attack.
And so the dance continues, until the asshole decides that it's time to get serious.
By the time my eyes registered yellow light emanating from Gascoigne, I was already dodging. In particular however, my hand was already grasping something.
There was a concussive blast outward as Gascoigne became a beast, and there was a primitive molotov cocktail answering in kind.
Gascoigne screeched as the glass broke and set both his clothing and flesh ablaze.
Dodge.
My mental command was followed by my body, allowing a near miss as Gacoigne went sailing past my left side straight into an oak tree. One ton monster beat out wood, and he went through the tree like an armor piercing round.
I set another molotov's rag on fire as monster man slowly got off the dirt ground. Just as he overcame the crest of his recovery flames consumed him once again.
Gascoigne decided that it was time to go sky high, and he jumped.
Now it gets incredibly hard. I strained my eyes upward, only to see him already coming down towards me. My legs were already starting to strain under the duress of the fight but I willed them to move and get away from his landing site.
Gascoigne crashed into the ground and sent chunks of dirt, gravel and headstone upwards and outwards. With the press of the lever, my canesword became an iron whip.
And I thrashed it against his monstrous form. Even in his new form he howled in pain as the whip made short work of his singed clothing and began lacerating his back.
In response he spun around, a clawed hand making intercept velocity with my body.
Motherfucker!
Try as I could, that swipe came out too fast for me to dodge properly. In taking a backstep, I instead took the brunt of the attack as deep gashes on my arm.
Suppressing a scream of pain, I tried focusing on the next portion of his attack. The flurry of swipes and punches that spelt death if I got caught up in it once again.
He started with a punch.
I moved behind a headstone and ran.
In his frustration, he took it out on the poor headstone. Satisfied with his work soon after, a heavy displacement of air indicated that he lept into the air again.
Fuck!
I stopped and made a one eighty. Leaping out of the way proved useful, as not a moment later Gascoigne obliterated the gravestones that marked the way forward blocked. Unfortunately for me, a big chunk of stone nailed me in the leg.
With a yelp, I tripped and fell. I knew that the position was dangerous, and rolled to my right as Gascoigne came crashing down with some wrestlemania-type move to crush me into a gore-y pancake.
I got up as fast as I could and hop-stepped a few paces back. I grabbed the last molotov but nearly dropped it as I just kept shaking-
Gascoigne swiped again. It missed me by a good meter but it startled me enough to drop the molotov onto the ground. Glass broke, and my legs from the knees down were coated in pseudo-gasoline.
Nonononono!-
Gascoigne fucking punted me across the graveyard. I'd love to say I had anything but a graceful landing but in reality I landed like a damn ragdoll.
I coughed up blood. Scrambling for my pistol my chest was set alight with bright white pain with every movement. Unholstering the gun, I looked up just in time to see Gascoigne roaring as he charged forward for the kill.
I let off a pained whimper as I tapped five bullets out. It rang out, and Gascoigne fell face first to eat dirt.
I tested getting up. To my surprise, my leg was good enough to stand after the ordeal. The same could not be said about my chest however. Every breath felt like a hot iron pressed inside my chest.
Still though, I walked forward and switched the whip back into the sword. For whatever reason, Gacoigne did not get up immediately.
Not like I was going to let him either.
I stabbed straight down. The canesword may have been primarily a slashing weapon but it felt like there was no resistance when I pierced through his skull.
Gascoigne stopped breathing, but the sound of rattling took its place. Confused for a moment, I saw that I was the one producing the sound.
I didn't even know how to feel anymore. Surprise, shame, terror and relief came together and formed a maelstrom inside my head.
Naturally, I took the best course of action and collapsed unto the ground myself. Curling up on myself, I began to sob uncontrollably.
------()------
There was a key on his body. My best guess is that it was for the gate ahead over the stairs.
Slowly, I got up. Walking towards the gate, the sound of a mushy ground running with blood and gore gave way to the hard and dry cobble path.
Facing the gate, I simply tried to open it.
For once a relatively good thing occurred and the gate unlocked. With a loud creak reverberating throughout the area the gate opened.
Yet I knew that there was something deeper to uncover in this 'Cathedral Ward'.
------(-)------
I wanted to try something different to start act two of the story. I hope it's something you would all enjoy, and for the first time in a while I'm really feeling in the mood to delve into this story like I did when I started it in January.
A thanks to my beta Travisplo, and farewell till' next time.
- Location
- Dark side of the sun
I really like the emphasis on the concepts of narratives and how to avoid and weave them.
you know its funny first time I read this I didn't get it and was super rude to the writer so sorry about that though I think I did that on another site but now that I know a bit more about SCP I can honestly say this is really good but here's a question what are you going to do bout the cleric beast in cathedral ward cause if there's one thing that didn't make sense to me in-game it was that you skip it but then in cathedral ward you see where it jumps down from and all I can think is if it was a story the hunter who skipped the cleric beast on the bridge would instead fight it where all the brick trolls and morningstar wielding church giant sit around at and to be honest that would be a tough fight compared to the bridge at least on the bridge you have more ability to get out of the way so again commissar apologies for freaking out on you when you killed the doll those couple of times.
- Location
- In the twilight zone
Someone figured out my cleric beast plan.
Im impressed, ngl.
Honestly though, I feel like I've only really been hitting a good stride since gascoignes daughter. Idk if it is recent bias but again I feel like these latest chapters have actually dsiplayed what I wanted from the outset.
Invalid
- Location
- In the twilight zone
Man, this city's urban planner really was high on crack.
Saying that, poking my head over yet another ladder, into some sort of basement room that looked really well furnished compared to the open entrance to a sewer quite literally below me. Getting off, my eyes scanned and laid rest upon the chest in the far left just before the stairs.
I don't know why someone would furnish like this.
Ignoring the Yharnites (would that be a proper term?) lack of sense for proper planning, I crossed the room and started to climb the stairs. A stray thought off looting the chest was quashed as quickly as it came.
The staircase became a partial spiral and continued for a bit until straightening out and leading up to a fancy double door.
I swear to god if it is locked…
Pushing the doors however yielded a creaking noise before giving way to view the chapel.
Yay, door.
The chapel had an… interesting layout a combination of Gothic and Victorian styles, with a byzantine-like flooring comprised of a ton of tiles. Not to mention the smell as well, the thick scent of an unknown incense-like substance permeating the air in a very light haze.
"Oh, hi there." A voice to my immediate right-
"Fuck!" For the second time in this extremely groundhog-day'd night, I was spooked by an unexpected voice.
Fuck's sake, how many times am I going to be spooked by someone like that.
Looking at him, I was set on edge. A red cloak covered his body, eventually turning black from soot or dirt. What left exposed at me was an incredible emancipated figure, one that had extremely long arms. Dark skinned, be it natural or from dirt contrasted heavily with his pure white eyes.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you, good hunter…" He sounded fearful saying it, as if he were expecting to be physically hurt very soon.
Creepy ceramic dolls that are alive, victorian skyscrapers and magic blood that heals. Yharnam has a fucked up sense of status quo, don't fuck yourself by imposing your normal.
"Sorry, tonight has just been the absolute worst." There, fried nerves and a fucked up headspace can still do something okay.
Shot-Stabbed-Behead-
"I understand what you mean, good hunter." His voice cracked at the 'good'. "My eyesight may be a bit poor, but there's something about this night to come."
An endless horizon, where the ground was an endless stretch of water and the moon was everything-
"Something's wrong." Despite my best efforts, the last word came out as barely a whimper. Too many things were trying to be processed at the same time, and too much was going far above my head.
There was a lamp in front of me. The only other occupant in the chapel paid no heed to it, but to me it seemed like a lifesaver. The baby things (weren't they called messengers?) surrounded the otherworldly lamp, and it gave off an aura of something I could only caress at most.
"People are holding up in their houses like they always do during a hunt, but I'm worried." I don't know what he was trying to accomplish with his words, but the emphasis on the end was simply fucking creepy.
Ba-dump-
"The minister headed down to Iosefka's clinic, I apologize if you wanted to see him." Unaware of my spiralling emotional rollercoaster, he continued unabated. "But what he said… it scares me. He pursued his astrology relentlessly recently, and he's been muttering about the stars being wrong…"
He tapered off, realizing his talking point had become a tangent that was moving very far along. I took the time to recompose myself, but a persistent shake in my left arm failed to go away.
"Could you… bring some people here? These vases are filled with incense." He gestured around himself, pointing to said vases. "People coming here would be safe for the rest of the hunt, hehehe…" Again, he tapered off. His nervous laugh came off unsettling and my confusion over him only grew.
"Yeah." My voice felt dry. It came out broken, and an idea took hold of me. I walked towards the lamp, lighting it.
"Thank you, good hunter!" The man was enthusiastic, happy that this solemn hunter was going to help him.
In reality, doubt in myself had almost brought me to tears as I was dragged away by the proverbial currents by entering the lamp.
------()------
The sounds of a wheelchair creaking towards me became known as I continued to stare away at the unbreaking pattern of white interrupted by grey pillars that surround this limbo-land of an island.
"You are troubled." Gehrman spoke quietly, analyzing the situation for what it is.
"No shit." Although it came out deadpan, my true feelings were far more conflicted.
"Go on then, lay out your troubles." He was curt, as if he were moving through the motions for a practised dance.
A retort came to my lipt died as the memories of half a dozen mental health seminars came back from the recesses of my mind.
Instead, I looked to the right of me to the cluster of white flowers surrounding the small group of trees surrounding me. Deciding to pluck one and I came to look at it closely. I couldn't identify the species as I wasn't some sort of botanist but it… fit this place's MO of being otherworldly.
"I wasn't a clean guy when I came here." Deciding to open up to what was likely my only good source of anything at the moment, the rest came out like a torrent.
"But I feel like I'm trudging through a sewer constantly at this point."
Gehrman for his part did nothing to respond.
"But I always compartmentalized it, just always falling in line with the doctrine of 'saving the many' but…" as I trailed I pulled out the music box.
"How the hell do you tell a little kid that you brutally killed their father?"
"Ah." His 'h' came out like he was getting rid of a clogged throat. "A hard proposition indeed."
Despite that, he remained stationary in his wheelchair.
"A part of me is just saying that it was the straw that broke the camel's back." A short chuckle escaped my lips. "I've killed myself, been beheaded, I've been crush-"
"Stop." Instead of his previous laissez-faire attitude, he came in full force here. It surprised me, enough to look and scrutinize him once again. His aged, nearly leather-like skin remained passive yet his demeanour changed as if he was trying to emulate the throes of his youth. "You will only hurt yourself with this line of thought."
"Hurt myself? Dude, I've been getting assaulted with entities and visions that boil down to or describe a situation that's 'Yeah, things are going to get worse' ever since that Yaldabaoth cultist asshole sent me to a personal hell." My throat got the tiniest bit dryer after saying that, but oh well. Names might have power but I simply stopped giving a shit at this point.
"And. To. Top. It. All. Off!", every pause became more pronounced, my sanity slowly reaching a breaking point.
"You dream here." Gehrman finished my line of thought before I could articulate the thought properly.
"We have a winner!" My sarcasm was thick. "Don't look at the losers face down in the lake though, we don't recognize them anyway."
"Stop hiding behind a torrent of verbal abuse, Antov." Gehrman, for his part, seemed done with my shit. His comment however cut deep.
"Hey, I'm not the one with a life-sized, ceramic fleshlight to keep me company." Even as I spoke, it was clear to both me and him that he robbed me of my wind.
"Disregarding the term 'fleshlight' to which I can only infer that it is disparaging." Gehrman was quick on the rebuttal, but his tone carried an element of uncertainty to it. "Lashing out on me is not going to help you through the night."
"Yeah, well…" Words came and went, yet nothing came out. A sense of defeat took hold, and my next words came unbidden. "I know." A sight escaped my mouth. "I know." In stark contrast to just a moment ago, my voice came out feeble.
"You're missing the point, I think."
"I mean… the city is fucked. Like, you do realize that you have like 30 foot monsters roaming around the city, right?"
"You view this as a punishment."
I am so confused as to what you mean.
"I mean yeah, dying a few dozen times isn't very good for ones mental health. Doubly so with you have to confront peoples' loved ones and say 'Hey, I mercilessly slaughtered your dad'."
"Contort the truth then." The reply was immediate, as if practised.
I think he could tell by my wince that it left a bad taste in my mouth to do so.
"Look." He took a moment. "The last thing I want to cause to a hunter is loathing and self hatred." Despite his previously stoic, nearly bored like tone he had then tiniest shift to something else. Maybe it was fear, maybe it was regret, but as fast as it came it disappeared as quickly as it came.
"You need to accept your death." Gehrman spoke with significant finality.
There it was, the elephant in the room. The one thing that laid the foundation for my current emotional turmoil. The one thing that completely paradoxically keeps on happening.
"I'll be honest with you Gehrman. I just… its stress and fatigue piling up so fast-"
"No need to work yourself up, take your time."
My god, I'm getting counselling in a pseudo-dream.
"God, this conversation has taken a weird tone."
"Interesting usage of the word, but do carry on." His eyes told me that he had another thought on his mind but it did not come forth.
------()------
"H-Hello? Are you that hunter from before?"
"Progress" through the night seems to be tied to achieving something of note. Killing something noteworthy, opening a door…
"Yeah." While the talk with Gehrman was rather enlightening, yet the dark corners of my thoughts continued to linger.
"Have you found my dad?"
God she sounds so timid.
The persistent whiff of viscera on my nostrils did wonders to solve that line of thought.
"No."
"My mom?"
"No."
A choking sound emanated from her.
"I did however enter the chapel." Please work please work-
"Y-You did?" She seemed just a tiny bit hopeful.
"The man there said Gascoigne entered cathedral ward."
------()------
"I need your help."
The dweller looked at me, cautiously yet offsettingly eager.
"Anything, good hunter. Heh heh heh…" His awkward laugh continued, but immediately stopped when he realized I was far more serious.
"There's an orphan that would probably like to be safe during the hunt."
"That's great!" His enthusiasm was palpable. "Though, excuse me for asking of course…" It seemed like he was working up the courage to speak.
"Why I'm telling you this?" Despite myself, the tiniest bit of emotion came through my voice. The dweller, for his part, picked it up.
"Well, yes."
God, it felt like I took a shot of whiskey. "She doesn't know that she's an orphan at the moment."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
It was a prolonged, awkward pause before one of us chose to speak again.
"I can… I can help her, if that's what you mean." It felt like the two of us were switching positions; I was becoming more and more sheepish and he became a bit more sure about himself.
"I just need you…"
Yeah my luck is not going to hold here.
"...to say that you last saw Gascoigne walk past over yonder." To emphasize, I pointed at the exit directly behind and to the left.
"Gascoigne? He went down through the Odeon graveyard, where you… came from..."
I think he looked closely at me. I say 'think' because I looked away in shame.
"Why? How…" He seemed confused until a proverbial lightbulb lit in his head. "He-He went mad? Gascoigne went mad?"
"He killed his entourage and uh, his wife." It was a meek defence, one that did nothing to absolve me of the current problem.
In a stunning display, the dweller cursed under his breath. I couldn't catch it, but the meaning was obvious.
"Had to be done, had to be done…" He repeated the words a few times, as if to grapple with their significance. "Okay. 'Hi Em's, your daddy came and went but he was taking a while to come back so I asked the good hunter here to bring you here for safety.'" He shook himself quickly before looking up again. "That good?"
Oh my god he knows her name. Oh god, he knows her and her family-
"Good enough." God damn it.
I slowly cracked my knuckles to relieve the stress. Once my left hand was finished I spoke again. "I'll be heading out then."
"See you again, good hunter…" As I was walking down the stairs, a prayer could be heard asking for forgiveness.
------()------
"...He said that the place would be safe for the rest of the night, so…" It was a bit leading, but I hope she caught my drift.
"Really?" She seemed a bit perked up from that, as if she got some good news.
"Yeah, but we probably gotta hurry. Not exactly a clean way to the chapel, you know."
"That's true…"
Appears that she is leaning on joining me.
"...I just don't want to worry my sister when she comes back."
Are you fucking kidding me? Why God, why?
"Just write her a note." Real smooth asshole. Real smooth.
"I can't write well, good hunter." Oh my god, how can I forget that a Victorian environment has Victorian literacy rates for the 'working class'?
Fucking Christ, this is some weird first world problems.
My brooding did not go unnoticed, as she frowned. "I'm sorry, I know you work hard good hunt-"
"It's fine!" Bit too quick, but still. "Just try. Please."
She withdrew from the window, and I was left alone to dwell.
------()------
With some groaning the gate opened up. On the other side was the girl. She dressed a bit on the heavy side as she brought what appeared to be a small sack and a bible-equivalent.
"Right, so." I clapped my hands together. "We are going through the unofficial path to the church."
"Are we going through the sewers?" Even though it was just a question, there was just a bit too much excitement in her voice.
"Kid, you are far too enthusiastic about a trip through the place."
"Meanie. My mum never lets me go past the first ladder." Wow. That is a lot of petty annoyance pent up right there.
I knew it probably was not the best idea to have kids being in this modicum of danger, but it was either this or far more trouble than it was worth.
As I climbed down, carefully moderating the pace as to not encourage her to something stupid a glance at the lifeless corpse of the troll affirmed my hope that I save someone from this fucking place.
"Forgot to say this, but you are really tall!"
Truely, my suffering knows no end.
------()------
Stepping out of the greywater onto worn bricks was a nice change of pace. Following close behind me, the girl did not appear troubled by going through said water.
Hey, it also helps that anything that could harm he is dealt with and not lying in the open but hey, that was just my over-abundance of caution.
"Weird question, but what's with the ladders here?" I know asking a six year old probably is not the best source of info but trying to make myself look more casual is for the better."
"I'dunno." I looked behind me, and she shrugged. "Dad doesn't like them."
"Neither do I." Hiding a grimace, I started to climb the last ladder of our trek before looking behind me again. "You good for one more?"
"Yeah." Her enthusiasm was gone. Don't blame her either: who uses ladders meant to scale a cliff?
So we climbed. My worry for her getting tired was unfounded as she took it in stride. Reaching the top, I leaned against the edge while she climbed herself up. With a huff, she took herself over the last rung of the ladder.
Incredibly bad Idea Cyril, don't do it again.
Looking towards the stairs, I began walking. She seemed like she wanted to match me, so she took her place right beside me.
Climbing the first set of stairs, I directed her view away from the right where two spear-monster things lay brutalized and continued to the second, more brutal flight.
Reaching the top, Emmy seemed to be a bit winded from the short journey. Making one last check, I looked around the graveyard for any disturbance.
The sound of a pistol going off and and the sight of someone dressed in crowfeather's fighting someone else in yellow welcomed me back.
------(-)------
Turns out that the more things change, the more things stay the same. I really don't have too much to add and overall this chapter really is just a segway into what I have in plan to shake up Yharnam.
Thanks to Travisplo for the beta. Other than that, I bid you farewell.
Saying that, poking my head over yet another ladder, into some sort of basement room that looked really well furnished compared to the open entrance to a sewer quite literally below me. Getting off, my eyes scanned and laid rest upon the chest in the far left just before the stairs.
I don't know why someone would furnish like this.
Ignoring the Yharnites (would that be a proper term?) lack of sense for proper planning, I crossed the room and started to climb the stairs. A stray thought off looting the chest was quashed as quickly as it came.
The staircase became a partial spiral and continued for a bit until straightening out and leading up to a fancy double door.
I swear to god if it is locked…
Pushing the doors however yielded a creaking noise before giving way to view the chapel.
Yay, door.
The chapel had an… interesting layout a combination of Gothic and Victorian styles, with a byzantine-like flooring comprised of a ton of tiles. Not to mention the smell as well, the thick scent of an unknown incense-like substance permeating the air in a very light haze.
"Oh, hi there." A voice to my immediate right-
"Fuck!" For the second time in this extremely groundhog-day'd night, I was spooked by an unexpected voice.
Fuck's sake, how many times am I going to be spooked by someone like that.
Looking at him, I was set on edge. A red cloak covered his body, eventually turning black from soot or dirt. What left exposed at me was an incredible emancipated figure, one that had extremely long arms. Dark skinned, be it natural or from dirt contrasted heavily with his pure white eyes.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you, good hunter…" He sounded fearful saying it, as if he were expecting to be physically hurt very soon.
Creepy ceramic dolls that are alive, victorian skyscrapers and magic blood that heals. Yharnam has a fucked up sense of status quo, don't fuck yourself by imposing your normal.
"Sorry, tonight has just been the absolute worst." There, fried nerves and a fucked up headspace can still do something okay.
Shot-Stabbed-Behead-
"I understand what you mean, good hunter." His voice cracked at the 'good'. "My eyesight may be a bit poor, but there's something about this night to come."
An endless horizon, where the ground was an endless stretch of water and the moon was everything-
"Something's wrong." Despite my best efforts, the last word came out as barely a whimper. Too many things were trying to be processed at the same time, and too much was going far above my head.
There was a lamp in front of me. The only other occupant in the chapel paid no heed to it, but to me it seemed like a lifesaver. The baby things (weren't they called messengers?) surrounded the otherworldly lamp, and it gave off an aura of something I could only caress at most.
"People are holding up in their houses like they always do during a hunt, but I'm worried." I don't know what he was trying to accomplish with his words, but the emphasis on the end was simply fucking creepy.
Ba-dump-
"The minister headed down to Iosefka's clinic, I apologize if you wanted to see him." Unaware of my spiralling emotional rollercoaster, he continued unabated. "But what he said… it scares me. He pursued his astrology relentlessly recently, and he's been muttering about the stars being wrong…"
He tapered off, realizing his talking point had become a tangent that was moving very far along. I took the time to recompose myself, but a persistent shake in my left arm failed to go away.
"Could you… bring some people here? These vases are filled with incense." He gestured around himself, pointing to said vases. "People coming here would be safe for the rest of the hunt, hehehe…" Again, he tapered off. His nervous laugh came off unsettling and my confusion over him only grew.
"Yeah." My voice felt dry. It came out broken, and an idea took hold of me. I walked towards the lamp, lighting it.
"Thank you, good hunter!" The man was enthusiastic, happy that this solemn hunter was going to help him.
In reality, doubt in myself had almost brought me to tears as I was dragged away by the proverbial currents by entering the lamp.
------()------
The sounds of a wheelchair creaking towards me became known as I continued to stare away at the unbreaking pattern of white interrupted by grey pillars that surround this limbo-land of an island.
"You are troubled." Gehrman spoke quietly, analyzing the situation for what it is.
"No shit." Although it came out deadpan, my true feelings were far more conflicted.
"Go on then, lay out your troubles." He was curt, as if he were moving through the motions for a practised dance.
A retort came to my lipt died as the memories of half a dozen mental health seminars came back from the recesses of my mind.
Instead, I looked to the right of me to the cluster of white flowers surrounding the small group of trees surrounding me. Deciding to pluck one and I came to look at it closely. I couldn't identify the species as I wasn't some sort of botanist but it… fit this place's MO of being otherworldly.
"I wasn't a clean guy when I came here." Deciding to open up to what was likely my only good source of anything at the moment, the rest came out like a torrent.
"But I feel like I'm trudging through a sewer constantly at this point."
Gehrman for his part did nothing to respond.
"But I always compartmentalized it, just always falling in line with the doctrine of 'saving the many' but…" as I trailed I pulled out the music box.
"How the hell do you tell a little kid that you brutally killed their father?"
"Ah." His 'h' came out like he was getting rid of a clogged throat. "A hard proposition indeed."
Despite that, he remained stationary in his wheelchair.
"A part of me is just saying that it was the straw that broke the camel's back." A short chuckle escaped my lips. "I've killed myself, been beheaded, I've been crush-"
"Stop." Instead of his previous laissez-faire attitude, he came in full force here. It surprised me, enough to look and scrutinize him once again. His aged, nearly leather-like skin remained passive yet his demeanour changed as if he was trying to emulate the throes of his youth. "You will only hurt yourself with this line of thought."
"Hurt myself? Dude, I've been getting assaulted with entities and visions that boil down to or describe a situation that's 'Yeah, things are going to get worse' ever since that Yaldabaoth cultist asshole sent me to a personal hell." My throat got the tiniest bit dryer after saying that, but oh well. Names might have power but I simply stopped giving a shit at this point.
"And. To. Top. It. All. Off!", every pause became more pronounced, my sanity slowly reaching a breaking point.
"You dream here." Gehrman finished my line of thought before I could articulate the thought properly.
"We have a winner!" My sarcasm was thick. "Don't look at the losers face down in the lake though, we don't recognize them anyway."
"Stop hiding behind a torrent of verbal abuse, Antov." Gehrman, for his part, seemed done with my shit. His comment however cut deep.
"Hey, I'm not the one with a life-sized, ceramic fleshlight to keep me company." Even as I spoke, it was clear to both me and him that he robbed me of my wind.
"Disregarding the term 'fleshlight' to which I can only infer that it is disparaging." Gehrman was quick on the rebuttal, but his tone carried an element of uncertainty to it. "Lashing out on me is not going to help you through the night."
"Yeah, well…" Words came and went, yet nothing came out. A sense of defeat took hold, and my next words came unbidden. "I know." A sight escaped my mouth. "I know." In stark contrast to just a moment ago, my voice came out feeble.
"You're missing the point, I think."
"I mean… the city is fucked. Like, you do realize that you have like 30 foot monsters roaming around the city, right?"
"You view this as a punishment."
I am so confused as to what you mean.
"I mean yeah, dying a few dozen times isn't very good for ones mental health. Doubly so with you have to confront peoples' loved ones and say 'Hey, I mercilessly slaughtered your dad'."
"Contort the truth then." The reply was immediate, as if practised.
I think he could tell by my wince that it left a bad taste in my mouth to do so.
"Look." He took a moment. "The last thing I want to cause to a hunter is loathing and self hatred." Despite his previously stoic, nearly bored like tone he had then tiniest shift to something else. Maybe it was fear, maybe it was regret, but as fast as it came it disappeared as quickly as it came.
"You need to accept your death." Gehrman spoke with significant finality.
There it was, the elephant in the room. The one thing that laid the foundation for my current emotional turmoil. The one thing that completely paradoxically keeps on happening.
"I'll be honest with you Gehrman. I just… its stress and fatigue piling up so fast-"
"No need to work yourself up, take your time."
My god, I'm getting counselling in a pseudo-dream.
"God, this conversation has taken a weird tone."
"Interesting usage of the word, but do carry on." His eyes told me that he had another thought on his mind but it did not come forth.
------()------
"H-Hello? Are you that hunter from before?"
"Progress" through the night seems to be tied to achieving something of note. Killing something noteworthy, opening a door…
"Yeah." While the talk with Gehrman was rather enlightening, yet the dark corners of my thoughts continued to linger.
"Have you found my dad?"
God she sounds so timid.
The persistent whiff of viscera on my nostrils did wonders to solve that line of thought.
"No."
"My mom?"
"No."
A choking sound emanated from her.
"I did however enter the chapel." Please work please work-
"Y-You did?" She seemed just a tiny bit hopeful.
"The man there said Gascoigne entered cathedral ward."
------()------
"I need your help."
The dweller looked at me, cautiously yet offsettingly eager.
"Anything, good hunter. Heh heh heh…" His awkward laugh continued, but immediately stopped when he realized I was far more serious.
"There's an orphan that would probably like to be safe during the hunt."
"That's great!" His enthusiasm was palpable. "Though, excuse me for asking of course…" It seemed like he was working up the courage to speak.
"Why I'm telling you this?" Despite myself, the tiniest bit of emotion came through my voice. The dweller, for his part, picked it up.
"Well, yes."
God, it felt like I took a shot of whiskey. "She doesn't know that she's an orphan at the moment."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
It was a prolonged, awkward pause before one of us chose to speak again.
"I can… I can help her, if that's what you mean." It felt like the two of us were switching positions; I was becoming more and more sheepish and he became a bit more sure about himself.
"I just need you…"
Yeah my luck is not going to hold here.
"...to say that you last saw Gascoigne walk past over yonder." To emphasize, I pointed at the exit directly behind and to the left.
"Gascoigne? He went down through the Odeon graveyard, where you… came from..."
I think he looked closely at me. I say 'think' because I looked away in shame.
"Why? How…" He seemed confused until a proverbial lightbulb lit in his head. "He-He went mad? Gascoigne went mad?"
"He killed his entourage and uh, his wife." It was a meek defence, one that did nothing to absolve me of the current problem.
In a stunning display, the dweller cursed under his breath. I couldn't catch it, but the meaning was obvious.
"Had to be done, had to be done…" He repeated the words a few times, as if to grapple with their significance. "Okay. 'Hi Em's, your daddy came and went but he was taking a while to come back so I asked the good hunter here to bring you here for safety.'" He shook himself quickly before looking up again. "That good?"
Oh my god he knows her name. Oh god, he knows her and her family-
"Good enough." God damn it.
I slowly cracked my knuckles to relieve the stress. Once my left hand was finished I spoke again. "I'll be heading out then."
"See you again, good hunter…" As I was walking down the stairs, a prayer could be heard asking for forgiveness.
------()------
"...He said that the place would be safe for the rest of the night, so…" It was a bit leading, but I hope she caught my drift.
"Really?" She seemed a bit perked up from that, as if she got some good news.
"Yeah, but we probably gotta hurry. Not exactly a clean way to the chapel, you know."
"That's true…"
Appears that she is leaning on joining me.
"...I just don't want to worry my sister when she comes back."
Are you fucking kidding me? Why God, why?
"Just write her a note." Real smooth asshole. Real smooth.
"I can't write well, good hunter." Oh my god, how can I forget that a Victorian environment has Victorian literacy rates for the 'working class'?
Fucking Christ, this is some weird first world problems.
My brooding did not go unnoticed, as she frowned. "I'm sorry, I know you work hard good hunt-"
"It's fine!" Bit too quick, but still. "Just try. Please."
She withdrew from the window, and I was left alone to dwell.
------()------
With some groaning the gate opened up. On the other side was the girl. She dressed a bit on the heavy side as she brought what appeared to be a small sack and a bible-equivalent.
"Right, so." I clapped my hands together. "We are going through the unofficial path to the church."
"Are we going through the sewers?" Even though it was just a question, there was just a bit too much excitement in her voice.
"Kid, you are far too enthusiastic about a trip through the place."
"Meanie. My mum never lets me go past the first ladder." Wow. That is a lot of petty annoyance pent up right there.
I knew it probably was not the best idea to have kids being in this modicum of danger, but it was either this or far more trouble than it was worth.
As I climbed down, carefully moderating the pace as to not encourage her to something stupid a glance at the lifeless corpse of the troll affirmed my hope that I save someone from this fucking place.
"Forgot to say this, but you are really tall!"
Truely, my suffering knows no end.
------()------
Stepping out of the greywater onto worn bricks was a nice change of pace. Following close behind me, the girl did not appear troubled by going through said water.
Hey, it also helps that anything that could harm he is dealt with and not lying in the open but hey, that was just my over-abundance of caution.
"Weird question, but what's with the ladders here?" I know asking a six year old probably is not the best source of info but trying to make myself look more casual is for the better."
"I'dunno." I looked behind me, and she shrugged. "Dad doesn't like them."
"Neither do I." Hiding a grimace, I started to climb the last ladder of our trek before looking behind me again. "You good for one more?"
"Yeah." Her enthusiasm was gone. Don't blame her either: who uses ladders meant to scale a cliff?
So we climbed. My worry for her getting tired was unfounded as she took it in stride. Reaching the top, I leaned against the edge while she climbed herself up. With a huff, she took herself over the last rung of the ladder.
Incredibly bad Idea Cyril, don't do it again.
Looking towards the stairs, I began walking. She seemed like she wanted to match me, so she took her place right beside me.
Climbing the first set of stairs, I directed her view away from the right where two spear-monster things lay brutalized and continued to the second, more brutal flight.
Reaching the top, Emmy seemed to be a bit winded from the short journey. Making one last check, I looked around the graveyard for any disturbance.
The sound of a pistol going off and and the sight of someone dressed in crowfeather's fighting someone else in yellow welcomed me back.
------(-)------
Turns out that the more things change, the more things stay the same. I really don't have too much to add and overall this chapter really is just a segway into what I have in plan to shake up Yharnam.
Thanks to Travisplo for the beta. Other than that, I bid you farewell.
On Again, Off Again
- Location
- In the twilight zone
Cursing myself and my horrible luck while looking over the scene before me, a quick scan of the fight reveals two things.
The first is that Eileen is one of the hunters fighting.
The second is that some dude in yellowish-red is fighting her, and seemed to be matching her in the fight fairly well.
Turning towards the kid, I saw her gaze transfixed upon the battle in front of her. "Look away." Giving her a death glare, she picked up the cue and descended the stairs away from the fight. Taking the dumber option, I advanced towards it.
Neither have noticed me.
Which is perfect, because I'm about to do something really fucking stupid. Walking towards the fight, I put away my weapon as quietly as I could and get ready to grab the yellow man. Elieen caught a glimpse of me, giving me a death glare of her own.
She barely managed to parry yellowman's next attack because of it, barely deflecting it over her shoulder, sending a bit of her hair falling to the ground.
While the yellow guy was trying to take advantage of Elieen's distraction, I did the sensible thing, rushing forward and grapple the guy, arms wrapping around his upper arms and pinning them to his sides suddenly. He let out a surprised yelp and I took that time to force him to lose his footing, dragging him backwards onto the ground. As a result, he dropped his fairly familiar weapon while trying to pry my arms away.
Not like I was going to let him do anything with it anyways. My arms moving upwards, forcing him into a chokehold as my arm wrapped around his neck, yellowman's nails began swiping at my arm to release my hold as I put pressure on his throat. Maybe it was yet another release of adrenaline, maybe the whole fucking blood or hunter thing, but I barely felt anything as his nails began to start clawing through my sleeve to well up blood.
Unfortunately for him, Eileen took the gift horse for what it was, and stabbed him through the eye. His struggling went immediately limp and I released the chokehold, before rolling him off the top of myself. His now lifeless body fell into a limp pile onto the grassy graveyard, joining the masses six feet under in their rest.
Compared to Gascoigne, that was far less harmful for my health. Probably because I got him by surprise, and probably because he didn't turn into a tumor to my eyesight.
The sounds of labored breathing as I slowly got up off the ground I had dragged yellowman down to reminded me that this was not a solo act. Looking at Eileen, she had taken a beating. The crowfeather garb did wonders to present the front of an unstoppable force, but even the dark garb could not hide its numerous cuts and the rather insane amount of blood on her, dripping off feathers as it soaked the cloth and leather.
"Yo-You didn't need ta help, but you have my thanks for it." Similar to her breathing, her words seemed just as laboured. The stutter and the slight slurring did not do any favors to counter that idea.
"I'd say something witty or smartassed, but I'm just sick of this shit." Tentatively rubbing on my bloodied arm, the feeling of the gashes left in the brief scuffle made me wince. "Who was yellowman?"
Elieen pulled something from inside the crowfeather garb. For the briefest moments I tensed, ready to move once again. That moment passed, and Elieen pulled out a blood vial. Similar to how I had once done it, she broke it in her hands, glass lightly tinkling as shards slipped out from between her fingers to fall to the graveyard soil. A brief glow appeared as the blood soaked in, illuminating just far enough to give more fine details on her mask.
Note to self, other hunters can do shit like that. I suppose that's why there's bottled blood in the first pla-
My musing was interrupted when a glow emanated from the corpse between the two of us. Jumping at the sight, I watched as… yellowman disappeared, a glowing pattern like an invisible flame eating him up as he disappeared into nothing.
What the fuck?
Its as if he had been swallowed by gray and black light, and as it consumed him he faded. As he disappeared, I looked up at Eileen, who was simply staring at me.
"I am so confused right now, not gonna lie."
"Hunters don't die normally." Though she took a vial, she spoke in a low voice; emphasizing the gravel-y sound. "Never a corpse, just a disappearing act. If you haven't picked it up, it's similar to going to that dream."
Oh. Oh.
"That implies that they might be taken somewhere." As if on cue, a shiver found its way down my spine. "The question then becomes-"
Something sneezed. Both Eileen and me pivoted towards the sound, ready for yet another foe.
We came face to face with Emma at the top of the stairs, face pale and eyes wide.
Well fuck. I'd chalk this up to narrative Drama-SpicingTM, but at the same time it's a damn kid. Hell, I remember doing things that other people implied to not do. The memory of breaking my arm comes to mind, but went just as fast.
"Oh, you silly fresh blood." Oh yeah, she understood the situation, that was clear from the way she was mumbling under her breath at me, shaking her head. Turning back from me to the girl again, she yelled for Emma to come over.
Her cautious walk over went entirely unblamed. Hell, I'd probably do the exact same thing if I were in her shoes.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous a hunt is?" Wow, she's actually giving both of us a lecture at the same time.
"So, I'm not going to waste your time, my time or her time." I pointed at Emma. "Hunt bad, lunatics everywhere and everything is trying to kill you." Evidently, Eileen was not amused by my antics. "Can we do this talk after we get to the chapel?" That seemed to perk her up a bit, and make her realize that no, a place where she got into a fight just minutes prior, and where I'd killed the girl's father after he killed her mother wasn't the best place for this.
------()------
Even though the exits were wide open, this was the first time I had crossed either one of them. Eileen and I crossed straight through the church while Emma chilled with the dweller, and I was not looking forward to this at all.
"Why did you take that risk?" Yeah, she's playing lecture teacher at the moment.
"She said she was running low on incense."
"Why did you take that risk?" As if undisturbed by my response, she repeated her question again.
"I'm not going to be responsible for the deaths of Gascoigne's daughter as well. Or daughters, as I recently learned." Looking towards Eileen again, a white mask stared right back at me, unmoving.
"You should have left the hunting of hunters to me."
"Believe me, I would were it not for the fact that Gascoigne transforms halfway through the fucking fight into a 20 foot monster. I did it because I'm the one stuck in a death loop, and I don't think you brought as many molotovs as I did."
That outburst silenced the both of us. I waited a moment, thinking of what to say.
"The monsters are people. I got a big clue when one of the bridge trolls whispered sorry as he bled to death. Gascoigne was the confirmation."
Eileen mumered a curse under her breath.
"I wholeheartedly agree." The both of us continued to look out towards the sky. The sun was setting for god knows how long from my perspective, yet it continued its teasing of falling under the horizon. The moon was full, and for the briefest of moments the memory of a blood moon overlapped with what I was seeing.
"Don't lose yourself." I looked back at Eileen, only to fund her still looking at the horizon. "This could just as easily have gone horribly wrong. Nothing befalls a hunter quite like tragedy."
I imagined the music box again.
"I know." It came out barely a whisper. "But this city won't give up, as much as we'd wish it would."
------()------
Giving a farewell to the three assembled in the chapel, I headed into the hunter's dream. Rather than engaging in conversation with either inhabitant I simply sat beneath the branches of the lesser tree beside where I came to.
Letting out a sigh, I pulled out my pistol. For anything else, I'm glad that the thing cleaned itself after going here. Releasing the magazine and clearing the chamber, another inquiry was about to be explored.
Five bullets do not come from nowhere. Now, last time it happened was during the bloody as hell fight between Gascoigne and me.
Keyword being bloody.
Wincing as I bit my thumb, I wiped the resulting stream of blood across the side of the pistol. The wound felt a bit more numb then it should have been, but oh well. Taking a breath, I pointed the barrel towards the seemingly infinite nothing surrounding the rather literal island and pulled the trigger.
A shot rang out and a frown made itself known.
This is some next level irony. Man who hunts cultists known for flesh and blood magic bullshit is apparently good at least half of that.
A moment passed.
Lets hope its not the full thing.
Switching out the pistol, a similar experiment was conducted with the M4. The shot had a noticeably harder kick than normal, and some of the sigils left courtesy of Thamathology were visible now.
It also feels more draining than the pistol shot. I basically lathered the guns with the same amount of blood, yet the latter felt more demanding.
Well that partially solves the ammo problem for now. Instead of actual lead, the brand new guns run off of literal blood and sweat. At least it isn't fleshcrafting or whatever they call it.
"Is something the matter, good hunter?" Looking up, the visage of the doll greeted me. At some point she must have moved from the base of the stairs to the workshop towards me. Despite some nagging feeling telling me that the artificial body and utterly dead neutral voice is bad news her… its actions have been utterly pacifist.
Scores a perfect ten in creepiness though.
"Just trying something out." I replied, which was true. What was left was the oncoming identity crisis.
"That is well, good hunter." The doll drolled, continuing to be the doll. "Would you mayhaps consider channelling your blood echoes to assist yourself."
Hold on, what the fuck?
"Pardon?" Yeah, the bafflement made its way into my single word question. I was left genuinely off guard.
"Good hunter." Yeah, that honorific is really getting on my nerves. "You may pursue the echoes of blood that you acquire. I will channel them into your strength." She concluded her sentence with raising her right arm towards me. In her palm, an otherworldly light formed in a pulsing sphere.
"Yeah, sorry but uhh.." A stutter formed, and I took a breath to recompose myself. "Not at the moment."
"As you wish." On cue, she dissipated the light from her hand. Performing a short bow the doll then turned around and walked up the earthly ramp. Not that it mattered, because my mind was racing at a million miles a minute.
-I can't truly die anymore-
-The mysterious fog that prevented me from leaving head honcho monsters-
-Improving myself through the use of a metaphysical concept gained from fighting foes-
Abruptly, my thoughts came to an end. A thought was reached, one that was staring me right in the face.
I'm in a fucking video game.
A mix between a laugh and a sob came out of my mouth.
But what about the unlucky MTF's that were here? I was getting a signal from a distress beacon!
That thought stopped me short. MTF's were here.
MTF's are from a written narrative, meant to explore/deal with anomalous shit, and die horribly. Even if this were a video game, this should mean that this would actually be some sort of 'spooky abrupt exploration log continuation'.
I calmed myself down for the moment, mostly because I was putting the pieces into place.
I need to get this down.
I went for the helmet of my SCRAMBLE gear. What I found was short, scraggly hair. A pit formed in my stomach.
How… how the fuck did I forget that I lost the magguffin? The one thing that was universally useful?
I thumped my head against the tree behind me. A moment passed, and I did it again. Percussive maintenance always did the trick.
Gascoigne must have hacked it off from my head at some point.
"Fuck." The curse escaped my lips. "Damnit."
Can't catch a damn break.
------()------
Dealing with the courtyard outside the church 'safehouse' was not fun. The plague doctor outfits were a bit much, but having a damn scythe really pulled together the whole 'death doctor' vibe.
Walking down two flights of stairs to find an even bigger courtyard and and a damn cathedral was something else. The fact that the place was littered with patrols was also a big yikes. I didn't want to continue my "talent" in blood bullets, so it was a slog of melee getting through more crazed patrols.
And dogs. Fuck the dogs here. Practically damn horses at that point and probably littered with every sort of disease possible.
Then there was a dude at the top of the stairs I was climbing with a gun. He telegraphed harder than my hatred of Yharnam so dodging his bullet was a simple task. The two dogs coming out of nowhere blindsided me.
Blindsided as in literally tackled down a giant flight of stairs. It became a haze, and I wasn't sure if the fall caved in my skull or that the dog got me afterwards.
The second time through worked out significantly better. Again, I dodged the line of fire from the musketeer and was left with dealing with the two dogs while the guy was reloaded what appeared to be a smooth-bore musket.
Semantics, but I digress.
Stairs were an awful place to fight, but moving laterally to the right to avoid the lunging dogs resulted in the two colliding into each other and rolling down the stairs. Speeding up my pace, I brought out my canesword as the man pulled out a knife.
Man, a pike would be pretty useful.
I slashed at his chest, and the deceptive blade dug deep into the man. He let out a scream that became a quieting moan of pain before collapsing onto the base of the stairs. Reaching the top myself, I pushed the corpse down the stairs. The dogs might be rabid, but I think they would value free food over something running away bravely.
Can't wait for the obligatory upsized horses and spiders. We're running through animals damn quickly. Can't wait for that thought to come back and bite me in the ass, but oh well.
The top of the stairs was a sparse area, with its only notable feature being wood tree that's groaning to my leand a wooden door to my left. Opening the door revealed a three way corridor, one exit going to the other small yard on the right of the church and a grander door leading towards the interior of the church.
I choose straight first. Similar to what was on top of stairs, there was another small courtyard. Unlike the left side, the path down lead down to a statue. More specifically, a statue that had someone in front of it.
Yeah, fuck that. "Hey!"
My shout got the person's attention. He stopped what I assume was his praying and turned around to look at me.
"I'm sick of fighting literally everything, so are you scuffed in the head too or not?" Prolly should have snuck up on him, but at this point I was not on my A-game.
"My my, quite a rude hunter." His casual tone gave me hope, enough to drop my guard. "But it is the hunt, so I understand the caution." With the distant shrug, he walked towards me. I matched him, all the way until he got closer and stopped staring at my uniform.
The fairly damaged uniform, I might add. It seemed like he recognized the uniform. He looked up at me, narrowing his eyes.
Oh you got to be fucking kidding me.
"Dude, I'm not looking for a fight." Preemptively, I began to defuse the situation.
"I wouldn't be too sure about that, jailer."
------(-)------
So, Alfred is dead. Long live Alfred. I'm hoping that I can do more changes, as I feel that I can spice up what I think is the weakest area in the game. I'm feeling good enough to write another chapter within a week, so keep your eyes on that to drop.
Until next time!
The first is that Eileen is one of the hunters fighting.
The second is that some dude in yellowish-red is fighting her, and seemed to be matching her in the fight fairly well.
Turning towards the kid, I saw her gaze transfixed upon the battle in front of her. "Look away." Giving her a death glare, she picked up the cue and descended the stairs away from the fight. Taking the dumber option, I advanced towards it.
Neither have noticed me.
Which is perfect, because I'm about to do something really fucking stupid. Walking towards the fight, I put away my weapon as quietly as I could and get ready to grab the yellow man. Elieen caught a glimpse of me, giving me a death glare of her own.
She barely managed to parry yellowman's next attack because of it, barely deflecting it over her shoulder, sending a bit of her hair falling to the ground.
While the yellow guy was trying to take advantage of Elieen's distraction, I did the sensible thing, rushing forward and grapple the guy, arms wrapping around his upper arms and pinning them to his sides suddenly. He let out a surprised yelp and I took that time to force him to lose his footing, dragging him backwards onto the ground. As a result, he dropped his fairly familiar weapon while trying to pry my arms away.
Not like I was going to let him do anything with it anyways. My arms moving upwards, forcing him into a chokehold as my arm wrapped around his neck, yellowman's nails began swiping at my arm to release my hold as I put pressure on his throat. Maybe it was yet another release of adrenaline, maybe the whole fucking blood or hunter thing, but I barely felt anything as his nails began to start clawing through my sleeve to well up blood.
Unfortunately for him, Eileen took the gift horse for what it was, and stabbed him through the eye. His struggling went immediately limp and I released the chokehold, before rolling him off the top of myself. His now lifeless body fell into a limp pile onto the grassy graveyard, joining the masses six feet under in their rest.
Compared to Gascoigne, that was far less harmful for my health. Probably because I got him by surprise, and probably because he didn't turn into a tumor to my eyesight.
The sounds of labored breathing as I slowly got up off the ground I had dragged yellowman down to reminded me that this was not a solo act. Looking at Eileen, she had taken a beating. The crowfeather garb did wonders to present the front of an unstoppable force, but even the dark garb could not hide its numerous cuts and the rather insane amount of blood on her, dripping off feathers as it soaked the cloth and leather.
"Yo-You didn't need ta help, but you have my thanks for it." Similar to her breathing, her words seemed just as laboured. The stutter and the slight slurring did not do any favors to counter that idea.
"I'd say something witty or smartassed, but I'm just sick of this shit." Tentatively rubbing on my bloodied arm, the feeling of the gashes left in the brief scuffle made me wince. "Who was yellowman?"
Elieen pulled something from inside the crowfeather garb. For the briefest moments I tensed, ready to move once again. That moment passed, and Elieen pulled out a blood vial. Similar to how I had once done it, she broke it in her hands, glass lightly tinkling as shards slipped out from between her fingers to fall to the graveyard soil. A brief glow appeared as the blood soaked in, illuminating just far enough to give more fine details on her mask.
Note to self, other hunters can do shit like that. I suppose that's why there's bottled blood in the first pla-
My musing was interrupted when a glow emanated from the corpse between the two of us. Jumping at the sight, I watched as… yellowman disappeared, a glowing pattern like an invisible flame eating him up as he disappeared into nothing.
What the fuck?
Its as if he had been swallowed by gray and black light, and as it consumed him he faded. As he disappeared, I looked up at Eileen, who was simply staring at me.
"I am so confused right now, not gonna lie."
"Hunters don't die normally." Though she took a vial, she spoke in a low voice; emphasizing the gravel-y sound. "Never a corpse, just a disappearing act. If you haven't picked it up, it's similar to going to that dream."
Oh. Oh.
"That implies that they might be taken somewhere." As if on cue, a shiver found its way down my spine. "The question then becomes-"
Something sneezed. Both Eileen and me pivoted towards the sound, ready for yet another foe.
We came face to face with Emma at the top of the stairs, face pale and eyes wide.
Well fuck. I'd chalk this up to narrative Drama-SpicingTM, but at the same time it's a damn kid. Hell, I remember doing things that other people implied to not do. The memory of breaking my arm comes to mind, but went just as fast.
"Oh, you silly fresh blood." Oh yeah, she understood the situation, that was clear from the way she was mumbling under her breath at me, shaking her head. Turning back from me to the girl again, she yelled for Emma to come over.
Her cautious walk over went entirely unblamed. Hell, I'd probably do the exact same thing if I were in her shoes.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous a hunt is?" Wow, she's actually giving both of us a lecture at the same time.
"So, I'm not going to waste your time, my time or her time." I pointed at Emma. "Hunt bad, lunatics everywhere and everything is trying to kill you." Evidently, Eileen was not amused by my antics. "Can we do this talk after we get to the chapel?" That seemed to perk her up a bit, and make her realize that no, a place where she got into a fight just minutes prior, and where I'd killed the girl's father after he killed her mother wasn't the best place for this.
------()------
Even though the exits were wide open, this was the first time I had crossed either one of them. Eileen and I crossed straight through the church while Emma chilled with the dweller, and I was not looking forward to this at all.
"Why did you take that risk?" Yeah, she's playing lecture teacher at the moment.
"She said she was running low on incense."
"Why did you take that risk?" As if undisturbed by my response, she repeated her question again.
"I'm not going to be responsible for the deaths of Gascoigne's daughter as well. Or daughters, as I recently learned." Looking towards Eileen again, a white mask stared right back at me, unmoving.
"You should have left the hunting of hunters to me."
"Believe me, I would were it not for the fact that Gascoigne transforms halfway through the fucking fight into a 20 foot monster. I did it because I'm the one stuck in a death loop, and I don't think you brought as many molotovs as I did."
That outburst silenced the both of us. I waited a moment, thinking of what to say.
"The monsters are people. I got a big clue when one of the bridge trolls whispered sorry as he bled to death. Gascoigne was the confirmation."
Eileen mumered a curse under her breath.
"I wholeheartedly agree." The both of us continued to look out towards the sky. The sun was setting for god knows how long from my perspective, yet it continued its teasing of falling under the horizon. The moon was full, and for the briefest of moments the memory of a blood moon overlapped with what I was seeing.
"Don't lose yourself." I looked back at Eileen, only to fund her still looking at the horizon. "This could just as easily have gone horribly wrong. Nothing befalls a hunter quite like tragedy."
I imagined the music box again.
"I know." It came out barely a whisper. "But this city won't give up, as much as we'd wish it would."
------()------
Giving a farewell to the three assembled in the chapel, I headed into the hunter's dream. Rather than engaging in conversation with either inhabitant I simply sat beneath the branches of the lesser tree beside where I came to.
Letting out a sigh, I pulled out my pistol. For anything else, I'm glad that the thing cleaned itself after going here. Releasing the magazine and clearing the chamber, another inquiry was about to be explored.
Five bullets do not come from nowhere. Now, last time it happened was during the bloody as hell fight between Gascoigne and me.
Keyword being bloody.
Wincing as I bit my thumb, I wiped the resulting stream of blood across the side of the pistol. The wound felt a bit more numb then it should have been, but oh well. Taking a breath, I pointed the barrel towards the seemingly infinite nothing surrounding the rather literal island and pulled the trigger.
A shot rang out and a frown made itself known.
This is some next level irony. Man who hunts cultists known for flesh and blood magic bullshit is apparently good at least half of that.
A moment passed.
Lets hope its not the full thing.
Switching out the pistol, a similar experiment was conducted with the M4. The shot had a noticeably harder kick than normal, and some of the sigils left courtesy of Thamathology were visible now.
It also feels more draining than the pistol shot. I basically lathered the guns with the same amount of blood, yet the latter felt more demanding.
Well that partially solves the ammo problem for now. Instead of actual lead, the brand new guns run off of literal blood and sweat. At least it isn't fleshcrafting or whatever they call it.
"Is something the matter, good hunter?" Looking up, the visage of the doll greeted me. At some point she must have moved from the base of the stairs to the workshop towards me. Despite some nagging feeling telling me that the artificial body and utterly dead neutral voice is bad news her… its actions have been utterly pacifist.
Scores a perfect ten in creepiness though.
"Just trying something out." I replied, which was true. What was left was the oncoming identity crisis.
"That is well, good hunter." The doll drolled, continuing to be the doll. "Would you mayhaps consider channelling your blood echoes to assist yourself."
Hold on, what the fuck?
"Pardon?" Yeah, the bafflement made its way into my single word question. I was left genuinely off guard.
"Good hunter." Yeah, that honorific is really getting on my nerves. "You may pursue the echoes of blood that you acquire. I will channel them into your strength." She concluded her sentence with raising her right arm towards me. In her palm, an otherworldly light formed in a pulsing sphere.
"Yeah, sorry but uhh.." A stutter formed, and I took a breath to recompose myself. "Not at the moment."
"As you wish." On cue, she dissipated the light from her hand. Performing a short bow the doll then turned around and walked up the earthly ramp. Not that it mattered, because my mind was racing at a million miles a minute.
-I can't truly die anymore-
-The mysterious fog that prevented me from leaving head honcho monsters-
-Improving myself through the use of a metaphysical concept gained from fighting foes-
Abruptly, my thoughts came to an end. A thought was reached, one that was staring me right in the face.
I'm in a fucking video game.
A mix between a laugh and a sob came out of my mouth.
But what about the unlucky MTF's that were here? I was getting a signal from a distress beacon!
That thought stopped me short. MTF's were here.
MTF's are from a written narrative, meant to explore/deal with anomalous shit
I calmed myself down for the moment, mostly because I was putting the pieces into place.
I need to get this down.
I went for the helmet of my SCRAMBLE gear. What I found was short, scraggly hair. A pit formed in my stomach.
How… how the fuck did I forget that I lost the magguffin? The one thing that was universally useful?
I thumped my head against the tree behind me. A moment passed, and I did it again. Percussive maintenance always did the trick.
Gascoigne must have hacked it off from my head at some point.
"Fuck." The curse escaped my lips. "Damnit."
Can't catch a damn break.
------()------
Dealing with the courtyard outside the church 'safehouse' was not fun. The plague doctor outfits were a bit much, but having a damn scythe really pulled together the whole 'death doctor' vibe.
Walking down two flights of stairs to find an even bigger courtyard and and a damn cathedral was something else. The fact that the place was littered with patrols was also a big yikes. I didn't want to continue my "talent" in blood bullets, so it was a slog of melee getting through more crazed patrols.
And dogs. Fuck the dogs here. Practically damn horses at that point and probably littered with every sort of disease possible.
Then there was a dude at the top of the stairs I was climbing with a gun. He telegraphed harder than my hatred of Yharnam so dodging his bullet was a simple task. The two dogs coming out of nowhere blindsided me.
Blindsided as in literally tackled down a giant flight of stairs. It became a haze, and I wasn't sure if the fall caved in my skull or that the dog got me afterwards.
The second time through worked out significantly better. Again, I dodged the line of fire from the musketeer and was left with dealing with the two dogs while the guy was reloaded what appeared to be a smooth-bore musket.
Semantics, but I digress.
Stairs were an awful place to fight, but moving laterally to the right to avoid the lunging dogs resulted in the two colliding into each other and rolling down the stairs. Speeding up my pace, I brought out my canesword as the man pulled out a knife.
Man, a pike would be pretty useful.
I slashed at his chest, and the deceptive blade dug deep into the man. He let out a scream that became a quieting moan of pain before collapsing onto the base of the stairs. Reaching the top myself, I pushed the corpse down the stairs. The dogs might be rabid, but I think they would value free food over something running away bravely.
Can't wait for the obligatory upsized horses and spiders. We're running through animals damn quickly. Can't wait for that thought to come back and bite me in the ass, but oh well.
The top of the stairs was a sparse area, with its only notable feature being wood tree that's groaning to my leand a wooden door to my left. Opening the door revealed a three way corridor, one exit going to the other small yard on the right of the church and a grander door leading towards the interior of the church.
I choose straight first. Similar to what was on top of stairs, there was another small courtyard. Unlike the left side, the path down lead down to a statue. More specifically, a statue that had someone in front of it.
Yeah, fuck that. "Hey!"
My shout got the person's attention. He stopped what I assume was his praying and turned around to look at me.
"I'm sick of fighting literally everything, so are you scuffed in the head too or not?" Prolly should have snuck up on him, but at this point I was not on my A-game.
"My my, quite a rude hunter." His casual tone gave me hope, enough to drop my guard. "But it is the hunt, so I understand the caution." With the distant shrug, he walked towards me. I matched him, all the way until he got closer and stopped staring at my uniform.
The fairly damaged uniform, I might add. It seemed like he recognized the uniform. He looked up at me, narrowing his eyes.
Oh you got to be fucking kidding me.
"Dude, I'm not looking for a fight." Preemptively, I began to defuse the situation.
"I wouldn't be too sure about that, jailer."
------(-)------
So, Alfred is dead. Long live Alfred. I'm hoping that I can do more changes, as I feel that I can spice up what I think is the weakest area in the game. I'm feeling good enough to write another chapter within a week, so keep your eyes on that to drop.
Until next time!