This was rather a small chapter in comparison to most. But it's something. Besides, I'm saving up more of the juicy stuff for next chapter. Hopefully I finish it soon...
Chapter 7
I looked around myself, and I saw an elevator shaft and I ran straight for it. If remember correctly this elevator should lead me back to Central Yharnam. Unfortunately the lever was cranked backwards, so I guess I have to put it forward for it to start working?
I pulled the lever back and next I heard gears cranking. And the door to the elevator opened. I guess it works now. Now at least I won't have to run all the way through the sewers to get back here. That would be dreadful. And with that thought in mind, I rushed out of the shaft and right into the small bridge on my left.
Now, up ahead should be the Tomb of Oedon, and then it's Cathedral Ward. I'm near my goal and hopefully all of my questions will be answered and this god forsaken hunt can end….
I stopped halfway through my thoughts as I picked up the familiar scent of Yharnamites. I looked up to see a crowd of them charging towards me, armed with pitchforks, torches, hatchets and swords, though something didn't seem right, though I dismissed that feeling of weirdness and focused. I readied my cleaver once again and charged towards the crowd.
One Yharnamite attempted to impale me with his pitchfork, but I quickly stepped aside and decapitated him with one swift swipe. One tried to wave his torch around me in an attempt to scare me away. I guess that they truly do see me as a beast, thinking that I would cower in fear from a mere torch. I quickly dismembered the poor fool. Leaving him without an arm and screaming in pain on the floor.
Another one came behind him and swung his sword at me like a madman at all directions, no coordination or thought put into it. I parried each one with my cleaver and countered by kicking him towards the crowd behind him, momentarily putting most of them off balance. I used that moment to equip my blunderbuss and aim it straight at them. In this range it should take out most of them out and send the rest skidding across the bridge.
As I prepared to pull the trigger, I felt the bridge shake and rumble. Worriedly I looked forward to see the cause of said rumbling, only to see a giant boulder coming towards me.
It doesn't take a brilliant tactician to figure out that it was a trap, a good one I must say. Narrow bridge with a large boulder with the length that covers most of the bridge. I guess they only considered beasts in this. There's an easy way I could make their little trap pointless.
I jumped over the railing on my left and hanged, waiting for the boulder to pass by. As I did so I heard the screams of Yharnamites as they were crushed by the boulder's massive weight, bones organs were splattered and turned to mush. I waited a bit longer till the rumbling had stopped and I pulled myself up.
I take a look of the surroundings to see the boulder's handiwork. Yharnamites flattened on the pavement. Blood, guts and bones splattered all over the place. This just solidifies how stupid the scourge can make you. The victim somehow has enough of his or hers intelligence intact to form an ambush, but they don't have any form of self preservation instinct. If they did, they would have tried to jump out of the way or at least escape from that boulder. Or maybe not even attack me at all…Come to think of it I should add that to my journal. I'm practically researching on these new beasts. Best to write down everything I can about the scourge to share with other hunters. I'll call it, "The Bestiary" or "The Beast Encyclopedia". Something memorable…
Just when I was getting relaxed I hear mumbling and moaning again and right at left corner of my eye I see a troll swinging his brick and I backed away right on time, narrowly missing my head. But I didn't stop there; I used my momentum and jumped towards the brute aiming right for his neck. I swung my cleaver as hard as I could, and luckily for me it connected.
When I landed the body fell. I looked behind to see the head missing from the corpse, I smirked in satisfaction. I'm getting better at this. Those echoes do quite the trick; I'm trivializing these things now.
I ran forward and up the set of stairs. A shield wielding Yharnamite tried to surprise me by attempting to bash me with his shield. But I caught it and took it away from him. He barely held on to it as it didn't take much effort. Before he could react I swung the wooden shield aiming straight for his head. I ended up turning the shield to splinters. But his head had large gush and he was out cold. So that's a bonus, though I couldn't leave him that way. I threw his body off the ledge into the sewers below. The fall should definitely kill him. Hopefully it does.
I ran up the set of stairs only to stop once again as I heard beastly snarls up ahead. I slowed my speed and walked up the stairs, to see two beast huntsmen on my right side. One was shirtless and wielding this giant rod, while the other had a saw. Though on the left side was another staircase, on top would definitely be the Tomb of Oedon. It's easy, I could probably sneak by them and be on my way, they're backs are turned and my garb is hiding my scent. Though the problem is….there's a blood stone shard right around them. And I need that for my Saw Spear and for other weapons as well. I could just throw a Molotov cocktail and be done with it; unfortunately I don't have any… It's better if I split them up first. Take them one by one.
I reached into my pouch and threw a pebble at the shirtless one, hitting it right in the dome forcing the beast to fall on its back. It looked up and stared at me and I simply waved at it with a smile.
Obviously enraged the beast snarled and got back up and trudged towards me. I ran back down to separate it from the other beast huntsmen and I waited for it to come closer. When it was close enough I swung my cleaver aiming for its head. Unfortunately the beast was a bit more erratic than I expected it to be and I missed.
It swung it's rod with the power ten men in attempts to cleave me in half, but I managed to back away in time and I went back into the offensive.
I swung down my cleaver, tearing through its chest, but the beast didn't go down. In fact, it didn't even register the wound I inflicted upon it, allowing to retaliate. It swung its rod once again with such speed that I could only see as a blur. My instincts told me to back off but I was to slow to respond. The rod managed to impale me right in the gut, lifting me up and sending me soaring into the air. A weird feeling of déjà vu was brought onto me, this happened to me before, though the difference was, that from what I could remember, my jaw was broken. And that beast huntsman was definitely not as strong as this one was.
I was taken out of my thoughts when I hit the floor. Weirdly enough, having a hole through your stomach doesn't really seem that painful in comparison to having most of your jaw broken and your tongue bitten off. I'm barely bothered by it.
I got back up, to see the beast preparing for another attack, this time swinging the rod with both arms all its might to impale my skull, this time I could barely perceive it, it almost seemed invisible. But I rolled to my life and hoped back several times to get away from its range.
I managed to inject myself with a blood vial to seal the hole in my stomach, which probably should have killed me. But it doesn't matter now.
I tried to attack again, but the beast was fast to respond, I ended up missing another decapitation attempt but I rolled under the beast on that instant, avoid getting my head taken off by another swing.
Now on its vulnerable spot I impaled with my cleaver, though to my surprise it didn't go all the way through. It got wedged for some reason, before I had the chance to pull it out the beast swung its arm backwards in an attempt to get me off its back. I had not time to get out of the way, so I brought both my arms up to catch it.
I managed to stop the attack at its tracks, but I felt something, pain, great pain. As if my arms almost ruptured from that blow. I can barely feel them now.
Before the beast had a chance to retaliate I kicked myself away from it, using its back as a launch pad.
I looked at my arms, to see them bleeding through my sleeves. Several parts of my arm's skin were burst open to reveal my raw muscles along with a few fractured bones.
I immediately forced my arms to inject myself with another blood vial. Despite the intense pain caused by it I pushed through and managed to get one in. Making my arms look almost as good as new.
I need to keep distance. It's stronger and faster than I anticipated, though that means that I have no way to attack it. Wait...I drew out my blunderbuss and waited for the beast to come closer. Why didn't I do this first? I could have saved myself a lot of trouble. I aimed my blunderbuss directly at its face and waited.
As predicted, once it got close it attempted to swing it the rod at me. Myself being wary of the beast's speed, I shoot the pellets a little bit sooner than I should have, though nonetheless it achieved the result I had expected, most of its face was blown off, though the pellets at such close range should have gone completely through the head, turning it to mush.
I felt the echoes flow through me and I almost lost my sense of balance. For a split second I swear I felt my muscles swell a bit. That beast was definitely a lot stronger than it should have been, much, much stronger. It almost feels like I killed about 19, no 20 Yharnamites at once, probably even more. I have so much now. I should probably return to the Hunter's Dream and let the Doll strengthen me. Or I could just go forward. The tomb is right up ahead. But I get this feeling that something bad is ahead….
It's better if I move forward. The quicker I end this, the better.
I ran up the set of stairs once again and stopped as soon as I heard the snarls of a beast once again.
Almost forgot about this one. Maybe I could try something with this one. I remember back in the Hunter's dream I purchased several throwing knives from the messengers, filled with silver for good measure. Reason for it being that it was Henryk's favorite weapons to dispatch beasts. Though they weren't exactly as damaging as a quicksilver bullet, they allowed some Hunters to take care of beasts without wasting bullets. It can be very deadly under the use of an accurate Hunter. Am I accurate enough to make great use of this? That's what I'm going to find out.
I reached into my pouch and I took out a throwing knife. I took aim at the beast. As it was the least aware of what was going on behind him.
With one swift flick of my wrist I threw the knife. And I almost jumped at the result.
The knife was firmly planted right in the back of the beast's skull. Only half of it didn't manage to go completely through. As I stood there admiring my accuracy, I couldn't help but ask myself. Why isn't the beast on the floor, you know…dead?
I threw another knife to make sure it went down, almost hitting in the exact same place as the last knife. Though only a few inches to the right. But it stood there, completely unfazed. Annoyed, I gritted my teeth and threw a couple of more knives at it, all hitting the beast's skull. I waited a few more seconds to see if the knives had any effect.
After a few moments the beast finally fell to the floor. Guess it takes quite a bit more knives for them to die from that. Normally any human would have died right on the spot from a single knife, the knife having pierced the brain. But then again, that wasn't a man.
I ran past the beast's corpse to collect the bloodstone shard. And I ran back even further up. The tomb of Oedon should be right ahead. Though why is it called Oedon? That's another question I might have to ask Amelia when I get to her.
I stopped right at the entrance. For a tomb the place is pretty small, smaller than a tomb should be. Most graves and tombstones were mixed and clustered together, making it very hard to tell who or what was buried here. The building around the place blocked the sun, making the place look like its nighttime. Another weird thing I find or more specifically smell is blood, fresh blood. And then I hear the sound of chopping and bones crunching. I tense up, and draw my cleaver. It can only be a beast.
I walked slowly towards the source. It slowly became apparent to me that it wasn't the sound of a beast tearing someone apart or chewing; it sounds more like an axe going through flesh than anything else. Another Yharnamite? No. It's a hunter. Not any hunter. It's Father Gascoigne.
He is instantly recognizable. He's six foot tall, he wears his own version of the black church set and he wears a reverent hat over his head. Not to mention he looks like he's within his mid fifties to early sixties.
Father Gascoine is a part of the Black Church Hunters. They're known to be quite the most extreme amongst the Healing church ranks. They understand the importance of early prevention of the scourge. It's achieved by disposing of potential victims, even before signs of sickness manifest themselves. Their black attire is synonymous with fear, those who see it though their best to avoid them, as it could mean certain demise.
The title "father" is a foreign title for clergymen not present within the healing church's ranks as far as I'm aware, suggesting that he's not from Yharnam. Maybe that's the case, I'll ask him.
I approach him, only to stop as I realize that something wasn't quite right with him. He was cutting down the Yharnamites, over and over again, despite the fact that they are already dead. And I also got this familiar and unpleasant stench coming from him, but I can't exactly put my finger on what it is. And my body, I swear. I could hear whispers telling me to get away from him. I ignored them. I've been hearing quite a lot of whispers in my head lately, ever since I grabbed that weird looking skull… I should probably ask the Doll about that, but back to the matter at hand.
"Father Gascoigne?" I called out to him.
That's when he stopped. Even though that should be a good sign, it felt bad, really bad.
"…Beasts all over the shop…You'll be one of them, sooner or later…" He muttered.
"Me? Turning into a beast? You must be confused, father I'm-"Before I could finish my sentence he slowly turned around, and he breathed, a cold breathe that sent chills down my spine. And I noticed two things.
One, he has a blindfold. So is he blind? If that's the case then how does he know that I'm here? Or that he's aware of pretty much anything around him?
And two, the canine teeth of his were longer, like fangs, one of the common symptoms of the plague on humans other than an increased growth in hair. And that can only mean one thing…He's infected.
Like it was on cue, Father Gascoigne charged towards me, axe first. And in during said charge I couldn't help but say:
Oh shit.
End of Chapter 7
