.
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"First of all, i'd like to ask about Byrgenwerth, then a bit about the church inner workings, is that okay?"
"But of course, we are cooperating on the hunt it's important to share your information, first of all, Byrgenwerth is the origin of the church, from there Laurence the first vicar started the church, in a way everything sacred to us can be traced back to Byrgenwerth... as for how the church operates... even i am in the dark, still i hope this helps hunter."
"Thank you, it does." Bell could breathe a bit more easily, now that he cleared Alfred as part of the church's experiments.
"So, any news on those vile bloods?"
"No, those nobles are as stealthy as they are pompous... at this rate i'll be dead before master Logarius ever becomes a martyr..."
"Don't stress it Alfred, there can't be that many places an entire castle could be hidden..." Bell, for all his politeness almost did not managed to supress the chuckle that almost escaped his lips.
Bell could go on listening to the church hunter's increasingly repetitive rant about the vile bloods but he decided to bid him farewell and explore more.
The night sky was covering the landscape, moonlit towers and buildings looming in the horizon, furthermore, the streets were dark with filth soot and blood, as Bell continued on his way he found a bag, sitting on a pile of blood, the bag itself ondulated with the breeze that swept the district... an image awfully close to the experiments of the church... were patient's heads are reduced to nothing but bags of disfigured flesh, allowed only to listen the sound of their own fluids swirling around their body... in a feeble and far fetched attempt to received some sort of cosmic message...
Bell kept staring at the bag for what felt like eons... and considering the weird way time works here it might as well have been... heart beating faster than he could fathom and his sense of dread going into overdrive, if he could curl up into a ball like an armadillo he would, that is if he could even move... it took a while and his body's natural instinct for him to even breath again. Remembering some of the dolls advice he tried to calm himself down. It worked to an extent, at least enough for him to walk away from the bag of rancid flesh.
He was worried about the incident to say the least...a hunter that freezes up whenever he finds something unsettling is no hunter at all. The crippling feeling of inadequacy crawling on his back, he choose to ignore it and continue on his way descending a flight of stairs when he found a locked gate. There was someone in the other side, just rambling about how you need the password to get in, the adage of the healing church...
"Fear the old blood." Bell responded, with what he had seen at the halls and the beastly skull of Laurence, he had a pretty clear memory of the entire phrase, but it was not as important as the last part.
The instant he said it the gate opened and he was welcomed by the owner of the voice, a corpse long dead and decomposed... not the worst thing he saw but still nightmare fuel. He continued down the path of a ruined staircase untill he saw where it led him... the forbidden woods who house the college of Byrgenwerth.
From creaks to massive fallen trees, all familiar sights of the mountains he grew up in, littered the way throught the woods, sometimes the he found the lone beast, but few could survive a cleave of the moonlight sword, even fewer would last against the abyssal beams that Bell sometimes used for the smallest of funs that he allowed himself, if he is gonna slaughter beasts he might as well do it in style.
He passed through a bridge next to a locked abandoned mill, quickly spotting two Yarnhamites ahead, Bell had long realised that the common folk were gone, so cleaving their heads was not a problem, what was a problem however, was the trap that had been laid, probably trying to catch a beast.
Stepping on a pressure plate, the hunter realised that he was way too careless as a spike covered log, fell into his way, rolling towards the poor bunny, Oh no no no, running for his life, the hunter jumps to the ground beside him, out of the path of the log, just to see it detaching from the chains that held it and flying towards him again.
Rolling on the mud, to the relative safety of a hole in the ground.
"Not one of my proudest moments..." he wondered aloud.
Scrapping off bits of mud from his coat, it was better than cleaning blood, which is something he was getting suspicously better at. Unfortunately, as he inspected his weapons he noticed that his saw cleaver had jammed, probably a result of his quick movements when evading the spiky log of death. Instead of going back to the dream, he put the cleaver on the ground and just called for the messengers, he had began talking with the doll about then and learn some uses they had, mainly transporting weapons and leaving actual messages.
"Can you bring me another weapon?, the saif or the spear should be fine." he gave his command for the messengers to fetch him another one of his weapons from his ever expanding arsenal.
The little white heads bubbling from the ground had nodded and dissapeared into the night, leaving not even a shadow of their presence there, their obssesion with serving the hunters was always pulling them towards new ways to help their masters.
The white creatures then reappeared with a saw spear on their hands. The now properly armed hunter continues on his way towards the unknown. It wasn't long untill he found a small village, but it was empty of the happy and carefree atmosphere Bell grew up with, in it's stead, there was only decay, the stench of blood and beast, the sound of snarls and roars, and lastly... the familiar insanity that clung to place and man alike.
Just as he entered the village's square he found himself surrounded by enemies, fighting for a survival which seemed more meaningless at every death. As a villager tried to burn him with a torch, he skillfully backstepped away leading the torch towards another mad man, after that, he swung his moonlight sword to push back the crowd, after that, he parries a clumsy attack by another villager with his gun, plunging his arm inside his body, but instead of retracting it, he threw him around knocking out nearby villagers.
But instead of backing away, disengaging or running, a beast did the borderline unthinkable, he ran at Bell at top speeds while he was distracted and tackled him to the wooden covering of a giant hidden pit, full of beastly crows. Overwhelmed by the endless amount of beasts and villagers, his desperation led him to using an especific blood vial that was given to him by a certain whore...
Hia vision went red, he could feel a burning sensation on his veins, he could feel his muscles and body almost bursting with energy and most importantly, he felt an unnerving bloodlust, not for the sake of battle but to see his enemies bleed, that scared him, but he quickly gave himself to his hunter's instincts...
Carnage, enough blood and guts to make a veteran in the dungeon cry, he had outburst of anger when fighting before but never one this bad, it wasn't about how many beasts there were, but what they had become, gruesome masses of bodies cleaved and slashed beyond recognition, the bloodied fur of the beasts littered the pit who was already a horrific sight. The blade on the moonlight sword was not damaged but stained in a dark crimson hue which would not be cleaned easily, his saw spear was not much better, a pierced organ so disfigured it could not be recognised, was still attached to the tip.
Sliding the pieces of pierced tissue off the blade, Bell began to get out of the pit, a weird sense of emptiness took over him, he should feel scared, desperate, but instead he felt nothing. Getting ready to continue the hunt, with an unnerving efficiency.
Eventually, he found a creek, it's waters were brown and clearly not safe for consumption, and there were half rotting beasts all over it, following the creek, he found a hill where more beasts took refuge. He soon discovered however, about cannons and the heavier uses of gunpowder. Taking cover in piles of wood that once hit would explode in thousands of splinters, piercing the hunters body, who needed to preserve his vials... few were left after the pit, still he fought the uphill battle, having to time his advances to the reloading of the cannon, and even then having to put up with the many splinters in his body.
1.. 2... 3... Go! doing his best to dodge the cannon balls, Bell timed his last advance, running straight at the beast operating the deadly machinery, jumping over the cannon and, in one swift motion, decaptating the man with a cleaving move of the Moonlight sword, ending the bombardment on his own person and giving him the time to heal himself safely. But as he saw the path forward he saw a weird structure, it looked like a mill, even had the machinery, but something was missing, maybe it was the fact that the gears no longer worked and could not grind anything.
Entering it, he found a man, whose face was covered in cloth and a hat, standing menacingly, approaching it with the needed caution, the man sensed his presence, not because of a failed attempt at being stealthy, but because in order to scout if he was friend or foe he needed to make contact, as the man turned around bell spoke:
"Hello... sir?" With obvious distrust and suspicion.
The man said nothing but started clutching his head and shaking violently. Bell, alarmed by the sudden action pointed his pistol at the man and tried again:
"Sir are you man or beast?" but again he was not met with an answer.
Instead, the man's head coverings burst, revealing the truth about his nature, snakes hissing and attaking out of his head, his eyes were the ones of a beast but clearly not in control of it's body.
"You gotta be kidding me... aye not the biggest thing i fought but still, why snakes..."
He remember one time, he was camping with his grandpa, he was really young back then so maybe that's the reason the memory was foggy.
"Bell, i'm sorry you can't camp with the other kids in the village, but hey! the backyard is still cool right?"
"I *cough* think so." He remember that he was ill, perhaps he had caught a cold? Bell thought about it for a second.
Hiisssssss* A small snake found it's way betwen the boy and his grandfather, lunging forward to bite the boy who was distracted by their small campfire... However, before the snake could attack the boy, his grandpa had struck it with his old wooden jog stick, he didn't need but thought it made look wiser...
"Waaaah!" The poor boy hadn't even realised what had happened and hurried over to his grandpa in fear.
"Ohoho, what's that Bell? scared of a little snake?"
"Ye-yeah! *snif*" The boy looked and acted nothing like the ruthless hunter he would become. However, his trip through memory lane would be interrupted by a snake clumsly tgrowing it's body around.
Bell, now slightly motivated by petty childhood vengeance sliced it cleanly off the head it was attached to, following it up by bashing his pistol's barrel in the beast's torso and once at safer distance for an almost point blank shot, he pulled the trigger. the creature stumbled back as he changed his arms and stabbed it with the saw spear, and right after that extending the lethal combo by sidestepping past the beast, and driving his foot right in the hollow of the beast's knees, then finally beheading the man and with it, the snakes from his head.
Brutality and style in the name of efficiency for sure but atleast he can get some enjoyment out of the vanquishing of beasts. Yet that little happiness he felt suddenly dissapeared as he remembered his mission and his current objective, to find out more about Byrgenwerth. Wandering around the mill he found another exit towards an old forest path and decided to follow it, finding more beasts with snakes on their heads.
The path was littered with small statues of creatures of unindentifable origin, they did have an uncanny resemblemce to the messengers, or little ones as the doll called them, more important or atleast eye-catching however, were the giant tombstones that appeared along the trail.
That's kind of ridiculous, why are there so many tombstones, i mean, the dream gets one for every hunter as Gehrman told me... but who are these for...
He would never get a clear answer, as the decoration taste of yarnhamites are as insane as their town's history.
He was deep in the forest now, when he found another water feature, a pond, however, what made him see red at the very same place was the beast drinking from it, a man-eating boar, the same kind that took that poor girl's life. With his memories serving as fuel, Bell launched himself at the boar with speeds a level three would have difficulty seeing, delivering a well placed kick in the boar's jaw, afterwards he sent the pommel of his sword straight through the beast's skull, finally ending the beast suffering with a cruel blow to the head, then he just went on with his hunt.
Eventually, he found a long stone wall, following it untill he found it's entrance, however the moment he stepped in the fog came, closing the path behind him, he knew what this meant, a terrible foe approaches, and he was met with three shadows.
Who are these guys... Bell wondered before getting ready to fight. One shadow, went at him with a slightly curved far eastern blade while the others circled him, Bell bent his knees and curved him self backwards to evade the attack, after repositioning himself, he quickstepped towards the shadow holding the sword, hitting him with his elbow before shooting him in the stomach, the others tried to help by throwing flames at him and hitting him with a blunt object, yet the hunter evaded their attacks, they were good, but not as good as Ludwig, in fact, he was pretty sure that Old father Gascoigne could win against these trio.
Bell eventually managed to send one back with a strike of the sword, quickly switching to his spear he impaled the shadow, who started to fade on the spot, as the other shadows saw this they started to shake, violently, Bell at this point expected the snakes, so he used the chance to use one of the few vials left on his person, and healed up.
The ground shook as one of the two remaining shadows touched it, and while Bell braced himself for a special attack, he was quickly dissapointed, for nothing had happened. Untill he looked at the ground and saw a real shadow, towering over him, his instincts went into overdrive and he dodge a massive slam at the last second.
A giant black snake came from the ground, but the hunter had not seen it before the attack, and dissapeared just as quickly, the white haired young man decided to never let them touch the ground or do a similar motion.
The shadows that remained had a plan, to exchange places when summoning the snakes, that applied extra pressure to the hunter who had to now switch stances with each time a the enemy switched places. As Bell failed to stop a summon, the snake appeared right in front of him this time, dodging the bite he had an ideia, inspired by one of his hero stories, Heracles. He drove the not active greatsword with one hand into the snake, and braced for the thrashing around the reptile was predictably going to do...
As the balck snake shook violently to get the hunter off it's back, Bell prepared his move expertly, jumping off at the right moment to cleave through the head of another shadow, in a scene that looked similar to Heracle's battle against the hydra, either way, another shadow was vanquished leaving only one other that bell could easily kill.
Eyes the color of a blood gem... white hair reminiscent of the moon itself, and the bloodlust aura that seemed to never end...
Those were the last thoughts of the shadow, before it was skewered alive by the inactive greatsword, as the shadow's conciousness slowly faded, Bell tried something new, running his hand through the blade of his weapon, activating it's hidden abyssal properties, making an even more gruesome wound on the shadow's abdomen, slight burn marks appearing on the black robe with greenish embers rising from it... still the shadow fell into dust not a second later and bell saw the lantern slowly being brought over by the messengers for him to light up.
From afar, a bystander might call the hunter calm and normal, that is, when away from the stench of beast and the moonlight exposing the blood in his clothes. Truly not a mundane sight, neither the one of a sane man, walking towards the lamp with an eerie apathy.
perhaps a stop is long overdue... He thought as he looked to the state of his attire, the dull blade on both of his weapons and the lack of bullets loaded on his trusty fire arm. His head was spinning and the color drained from his view, he was quickly being enveloped in the mist he was so familiar with...
The first thing or rather the first person he saw was the doll who possesed the same white hair as him, sleeping again like she does often enough. Carefull to not wake her up, the hunter walked past her, dripping blood whenever he took a step, so he could clean himself and mend both his garbs and fix his weapons.
He was getting pretty good at sewing, with how often his clothes get ripped or damaged, but his real talent was with his weapons, he could assemble and dismantle any tiny mechanism with pinpoint accuracy, making repairs that most smiths in his homeland jealous of his abilities, that and his knowledge of bloodgems bestowed upon him by his mentor, Gehrman.
The repairs of his three weapons would take weeks for a normal blacksmith, thankfully he can channel the blood echoes to help him fix the abuse he threw at his tools.
He spent slightly less than a day working on his repairs, he did not need to sleep and neither eat, so the progress was astounding, his dedication to the lesser works and tasks of a hunter was impressive, many of his predecessors were negligent at best with their tools and weapons, in fact, Bell took care of the only tool he had at his disposal that took the shape of a beast's claw, made by the irreverent izzy, of the hunter's workshop, yet laid abandoned when he found it at the woods, he tested it before the fight with the shadows but could not use it due to his critical lack of resources...
As he tinkered and worked away at his equipment he found a caring hand perched in his shoulder, it was hard and cold, white as porcelain and he had an idea of who this could be:
"Doll."
"Good hunter."
"Should you need my assistance, i am awake now."
"You know, i wouldn't mind you taking more breaks..." Bell said, half dissapointed with the doll's dedication.
They spent some time doing their tasks while talking, the hunter's dream, for all of it's safety and tranquility, was depressingly boring, the silent atmosphere that Bell grew quite fond of, is quite lonely and his lack of interactions with new people was beggining to affect him.
"You know, i was curious..." The bunny-like hunter said.
"About what good hunter?" The doll asked, tilting her head to the side?
"The graves... or more importantly... those who came before me..." The boy asked, a bit afraid of her answer, not of being unsatysfied with her answer, but of touching a bad topic for her...
"Many have come before you, that is true, however, it would not be lying to say that you... is quite a special case." the doll responded, only adding to many questions the boy had.
"... And before you start one of your displays of stubborness and humility, you do deserve this praise."
Bell really did disagree yet decided against speaking his mind, at least this time...
"You are quite young, despite the time you spent here, yet you were frail and did not knew anything about fightings..." The memories let Bell blush in absolute shame.
"...However, you had the biggest change of all the hunters i've seen, you worked hard to change and learn, but unlike the others... you remained yourself." She stated as a matter of fact.
"W-what?" Bell asked, tilting his head to the side.
"Many endured the hunt... yet faced terrible scars... you changed, that is true, yet with a bit of effort, you are back to being the naive boy who stumbled his way into the dream." She said, breaking her usually monotone voice in a small giggle, Bell, while absolutely mortified, appreciated at least her being anything other than her usual self.
Still, time, while not apparent marched on and claimed the moment for the past, a bit too soon for Bell but that is time. Soon enough he was back to the hunt, yet this time, he wanted to pass by the dweller, it had been a good time since he talked to either Arianna or the old dweller.
Bidding the doll farewell he once again ventured into the world of Yarnham, touching the gravestone that led him to the only safe place still left out there, and his second home away from the dream.
"Oh my, look who decided to appear..." The voice of a woman said in a teasing tone...
"Can you not do this again... please..." Bell said in an embarassed tone reminiscent of his shy nature.
"Is just, for a hunter you do act like a child..."
"Oh there you go again..." said another voice, this one however, was rather akward and belonged to a man.
"Hello dweller, so how is the chapel doing?" Bell asked the man.
"Oh nothing new, the same as always, except the old woman seems a little less grumpy.
Oh yeah, i believe that... not. Bell thought
"Oh, but i do believe i've found the key to that locked door over there..." the dweller pointed to a door Bell had asked him about once.
"The one that houses the old workshop?" Bell asked with a glint is his eyes, truly he wondered what type of secrets the hunters locked behind that door, Gehrman had once said that the true workshop lied somewhere deep within the chapel.
"Then if you excuse me, i do believe i have a duty to at least check on that place." Bell said with a curious mind and determined face.
"Oh... leaving so soon?" Arianna said.
"I'm afraid so." Bell said in a rather poor attempt at a comeback.
.
Opening the door led to a circular, stone elevator, that he used to ascend the chapel, finding an elevated catwalk up in the air to another building being thoroughly guarded by beastly men. As he took his first step in the bridge between the chapel and the workshop, he heard the ringing sound of gunfire, yet a small step to the left allowed the bullet to cleanly slide of the side of his body, almost hitting him. However, as more bullets wete being fired he was forced to speed up his pace along the bridge, as he reached the other side, two beasts gave him a warm welcome, as he dodged the saber of one of them, the other tried to backstab him, but did not suceed. Taking advantage of the second beast, Bell turned around, grabbing the man's body and threw him on the other and both fell off the building.
Yet he continued the assault on the tower, passing by mad men and beasts that he easily slaughtered. But now, as no beast was left to kill he moved to explore, yet all he saw was corroded blades, broken equipment and a badge that he could no doubt give to the bath messengers, other than that only a rather weak bloodgem that served him no use.
At the very top of the building, he found a locked door surrounded by candles, he did not possesed it's key so he started to descend the tower.
when almost leaving, he found a small crawling beast he must have missed, no bigger than a cat, yet just as slippery, when persuing the beast, who often had bloodstones on it's system, he found a broken path downwards and followed it.
Jumping in and stomping the beast with his feet. Only a few fragments huh... Bell thought dissapointed, at least i found this path...
Yet following the door way inside the lower level of the tower, he found it hollow, almost not seeing the ground bellow, in between the spaces he found only the wooden support beams that no longer supported any floors.
"T-that is bad... no way to go up again... and i should not waste the blood echoes i still have..." He wondered to himself, before bitting the bullet and jumping to one of the wooden beams.
"That wasn't so bad..." Bell said before jumping to another one, and another one, before landing on a small piece of the floor that hadn't fallen.
Looking around, the ground was still too far to see, yet what surprised him was the door behind his landing spot, as he tried to open it, fueled by curiosity, he felt a sense of dread filled his mind, not unlike the nightmare, yet the familiarity of it only served to embolden his curiosity.
Descending a flight of stairs he could not predict what he would see next...
A perfect recreation of the hunter's dream... or was the hunter's dream a recreation of this... place. Further exploration led him to realise that the place was untouched for years on end...
Hmm it's almost the same but... the bath is missing, there is only a chest there... As he opened that chest he found only a set of clothes who seemed to be very well made, they looked exactly like the doll's.
Looking around the graves he used as altars for the chalice dungeons he found a single bone where the hunter's nightmare would be.
This bone it's shining... yet i can feel it has power within it, perhaps quicksilver can unlock it... i need to experiment later.
Entering the Workshop, he found a small hair ornament, so delicate and frail, yet it reminded him of the doll so much. Then he found her counterpart... The original doll, unawakened and sitting in a corner... a depressing sight, however. as he went to inspect the doll, he next to it a weird mass of pulsating flesh, in the shape of a small cord...
As he extended his head to grab it, the moment he touched the flesh, a jolt of energy surged through him. He felt different, his head was clearer... but then, as the room fell to an unnerving silence, he fell uncouncious of what was around him...
Hello readers... sorry for the long time i took to write this, felt conpletely blocked and could not, for the life of me, get writing again, thankfully i managed to finish at least this in one full part. Thank you all for reading.