The uneven ground obeyed no real rules of physics or terrain. It had, on its face, the texture of dirt or those hexagonal stone structures, but the way the strips of land looped around like ribbons or some Hot Wheels racetrack gave lie to any attempt to say that this was in any way natural. I was already familiar, in some way, with the unnatural construction of Yharnam. But this was a completely new experience, where the world paid only the barest lip-service to physics.
Another of the silver-furred, flayed, sideways-headed monsters ambushed me. I'd have to come up with a shorter name for these freaks. They had an endless grab-bag of tricks, it seemed. Claws that could extend to several feet long, fearless of the torches they carried and able to ignite them, able to crawl around like the wolf-beasts of Yharnam, and even able to generate their own electrical bursts. The good news was that they died easily, particularly to impalement. They initially seemed surprisingly hardy, shrugging off my saw spear, but then one good claw to the chest would put the things down. I don't know what exactly that meant: from my earliest conversations with Iosefka I knew that these monsters and even the maddened huntsmen were somehow resistant to bullets, so maybe these things could somehow resist physical damage. Their flayed skin was somehow exceedingly durable in comparison to their actual vulnerable bodies beneath? It was a fair theory.
The land wended back and forth, rising ever higher like a serpent, and I dealt with several more of the silver creatures. I opted to call them gugs. It wasn't a one-to-one translation: Lovecraft's monsters were supposed to be black-furred and have eyes on either side of their beartrap heads, but like with the changelings from Hemwick it was close enough.
The further I got through this place, the more nightmarish and outright evil the terrain became. The tombstones blended together with the lumpy stones until they were indistinguishable, and some were split open to reveal hideous interiors of stringy, deep-red meat. At one point, noticing a strange glimmering in the landscape, I hopped a gap and found another ephemeral sand-dollar, a Caryll rune in physical form.
Eventually the track of land I strode came to an end and a narrow bridge led to another strip of suspended terrain. As I crossed, noting the deformed statue nearby (it called to mind the stinkhorn statues from the Grand Cathedral: the monster that brought me here had a similar head, as well… Were these the angels of Yharnam's gods?), I heard a snarl. Not bestial, human.
Lunging out from around the enormous statue was a pair of hunters in the typical dark-gray leathers that I likewise sported. The first carried an axe much like Gascoigne had, and his friend who lagged behind wielded a threaded cane much like my nemesis in Byrgenwerth used.
I didn't bother with diplomacy. The guttural cackling as they approached told me all that I needed to know. The rearmost hunter snapped the cane at me like a bullwhip, the bladed segments sparking off the stone bridge behind me when I juked out of the way. His companion interposed himself, grinding the axe against the ground before sweeping up. Gascoigne had done this as well: it kicked up dust and debris even if the attack missed, making it difficult for a fast opponent to counterattack. The cloud was briefly too thick to line up a pistol shot. Then Cane's blunderbuss barked and I felt the pellets embed themselves in my left arm. Unlike the pair I'd fought outside the Grand Cathedral, these two were experienced.
So was I.
I holstered Evelyn and snapped open the saw cleaver in my left hand. Wielding two weapons, both open and extended, I charged to meet Axe in open combat. The saw spear's tip sought out his left arm, forcing him to abort his attempted shot-parry, then the cleaver came in overhand to catch his attempted uppercut with the axe. The curve of my glaive met the beard of his axe, briefly locking our weapons and giving me the chance to move closer. I was about to close the spear and saw open his throat when Cane struck again. I swung the spear to meet his whip, the teeth latching onto the segments of his threaded cane.
I leapt over Axe, letting momentum disengage my weapon from his, and kicked him in the back. He stumbled toward the edge of the land strip, almost tumbling into the strange purple lake far at the bottom. I landed in a crouch and skidded my heel outward to send myself into a spin, dodging most of Cane's shot and further tying his whip up into my spear. To his credit, he kept his cool and backed up toward the statue to use it for cover, wanting to force me to attack around it. I yanked hard on my spear, likewise forcing him to close with me or release his weapon. He did the latter, leaving me with a spear tangled uselessly with a whip, and took another shot at me.
It was meant not as an attack or even really a preventative, but to drown out the sound of his companion's approach. Axe had recovered and it was only the instinctive bristling on the back of my neck that saved me. I batted his weapon aside with my heavy, useless spear. Discarding it until I could disentangle the threaded cane from around it, I bridged the cleaver to my right hand and once again drew Evelyn. I followed Cane's example and fired a warding shot at Axe's head before turning to give chase on Cane. He whirled around the statue to avoid me, looping a full circuit until he rushed past Axe to begin trying to retrieve his weapon from around mine.
I'd expected Axe's ambush as I went around the statue and stopped short, planting my heel and leaning back to avoid the blade that went for my neck. I raised my left hand and once again channeled Ebrietas, the impact hurling Axe into Cane where they tumbled in a heap before emerging battle-ready. Cane snapped his wrist and my saw spear launched from the tangle where it had been engulfed by his weapon, hurled toward me like an atlatl. I dropped Evelyn, bouncing it on the top of my boot like a hackey sack, and leaned to the side to catch my spear by the handle as it rocketed past me.
The pair were once more upon me, Cane having locked his weapon into close-range mode, and we were a storm of blades. I don't know if it was luck, some sort of divine guidance, or if my instincts were just that good, but as I whirled to counter them, our footsteps carried us closer and closer to the bridge. I couldn't spare sight, but I heard the result as the smooth slide of steps gave way to the sudden crunch of dirt as one of my opponents was forced to a stop. In that moment I capitalized, a heavy strike at my other enemy to force him back, the momentum carrying me in a circle, I brought up the cleaver to deflect his counterstrike and swept the saw spear beneath Axe's feet. He, of course, leapt to avoid the attack. That brief departure was all I needed: I continued my movement and hit him with a mule kick, launching him off the strip of land. He snapped his neck against the opposite ledge and his broken body plummeted into the depths.
Without his companion, Cane was nowhere near the same threat and I quickly scissored his head off with my weapons. I took a few minutes to regain my breath and my composure, then continued forward. The sky was a uniform overcast yellow, like the sun trying to shine through a mud-caked window. The occasional tuft of what might be grass broke through the stone and dirt now, though it was gray and didn't sway in the wind.
I continued following the occasional chime of the bell, I at last found the scourge of my time here. She looked rather like a vampire or witch, tall and lanky like a Cainhurst noble, with a vile face mostly concealed by her hood. Her skin was paper-white yet her thin lips were a dark gray, pulled back to reveal jagged teeth. Her bell looked more like a mace, five-sided and flanged, and far too large and heavy-looking to make such a delicate noise. But she did indeed ring it, and from around her arose creatures formed from blood. Huntsmen, deformed and partly-bestial, moving like marionettes.
I snarled and charged forward, intent on tearing through the huntsmen. My saw tore into one but he didn't keel over as I was used to at this point, and he drew his sword across my gut in retaliation. I cut a 7 across his eyes and chest to at least hinder him and replenish some of my lost blood. The bell-woman was clearly their summoner: getting rid of her should at least help. I hurled a molotov over their shoulders and set her and her voluminous robes on fire, then focused on defense as I danced back from the four blood-formed enemies. The woman made no sound even as she burned, though she certainly looked in distress. When she at last burned to a crisp, her creations didn't die but they did stagger and appeared to lose some metaphysical substance. My next strike smoothly carved one in half, so it was all but effortless to clean up.
Finally I felt the pressure lessen. I could backtrack and likely take the lantern back to the Dream, but I wanted to figure out just what this place was. I now had the ability to retreat, so if things got difficult I'd do so. The further I advanced, things got even more twisted. I was now seeing giant tombstone-rocks not unlike the Graveyard of the Old Ones, many ripped open to expose the bizarre meaty interior. The path led back down, into a tunnel, past another gug. This one started out on all fours, which if we'd been in the open would have made it dangerous due to its speed and agility. In the confines of a cave, however, it was only a brief roadblock.
Emerging once again into the dull pale light, my eyes adjusted just in time to see a boulder hurtling straight toward me! I juked back and the rock burst apart, showering me with shrapnel. I stuck my head out of the tunnel to see three hunched, bigfoot-like creatures spaced out on a winding path upward once again, switchbacking up a tall hill.
"Great," I muttered to myself. "Now I have yetis to deal with…" I took a moment (ducking back in a few times to avoid the rocks) to plan my attack. It would be easiest for the other two to rain stones on me while I attacked the first, while the terrain would block upward projectiles more easily. It would be best for me to ignore the first two and juke around them, getting up to the third and then backtracking to get rid of the others.
After the last boulder broke apart, I shot out like a cannonball to race up the hill. Purple poison bubbled in the recesses alongside my narrow path before I reached the switchbacks: maybe I could use that for later but for now my objective was the climb. Evelyn roared as I peppered the yetis with gunshots to pause their attacks, then I made it to the top.
The creature, now that I could see it properly, was truly bizarre. I have no real idea how to describe it, but to the best of my ability, it looked like it was made of wood. The light wood of a thin-barked tree, like banyan, seemed to be the color and texture of its flesh. Its head and shoulders, forearms and hands, hips, and calves and feet were all covered in shaggy fur rather like a knitted shawl. Its head sunk down between its shoulders, almost level with the muscular joints. Its face was strangely sunken and completely covered in the same off-white fur. Its eyes barely reflected light, its nose was snubbed downward, and it had heavy jowls hanging far below its jawline.
Thankfully the yeti was just as slow in melee as it was in picking up rocks to hurl, and it was easy to sidestep the heavy blows it swung my way. It was slow going, hacking at the thing, but eventually it dropped dead and I waited for the boulders to break on the cliff before descending to the second yeti. This one was a bit more complex, because it was within the line of fire for the first. I had to use its body as cover, and thankfully its companion didn't want to brain it with a rock. Once I was done with them, I continued onward.
Yet another tunnel let to three paths. I started to the right and found nothing but one of those crawling masses of skulls that I'd first found skittering around Old Yharnam. They coughed up some bloodstones and echoes when killed, but otherwise seemed purposeless. Once satisfied that this was a dead end, I went back to the middle path. It opened up and I could see the entrance from where I'd arrived. Manhandling one of the huge tombstones, I flipped it onto its side to form a makeshift bridge: now I had a convenient shortcut for if I ever had to retrace my steps.
The leftmost path once again opened up, leading to a choked collection of bloody pseudo-tombstones. Amid them, something glittered on the ground. I stooped down and picked up a coin. I'd collected coins like these back in Yharnam, and used them on occasion to check the depth of pits. Was someone pulling a Hansel and Gretel out here?
There were a few more smatterings of coins, along with a cryptic statement carved into one of the stones: Ahead, bear witness to a miracle. Following the trail and keeping my head on a swivel, I eventually smelled something familiar: the scent of the flowers from the Dream. Near the cliff's edge rested a single underdeveloped flower, not quite bloomed yet. I heard a thud behind me.
I'd dealt with monsters in Yharnam, but this...it was visceral, and made me freeze. Patches was charging me. His pale, bald head shone in the overcast light, eyes glimmering with madness and face twisted in a gleeful smile. His enormous spider body scuttled forward, limbs longer than I was tall. The spindly, horribly real arachnid body caused me to briefly lock up as my brain simply tried to process it, and he shoved me with his frontmost legs. I careened over the cliff to the sound of his frenzied laughter.
"Don't dally, you lucky scamp!" he crowed. "The godhead awaits!"
I crashed to the ground in a pile of mud, forcing myself back up. That image had been horrific, and would keep itself burned in my mind for a long time to come. I double-checked to make sure I had a Bold Hunter's Mark available, then pressed onward. A few more yetis gave me trouble, though one was genuinely surprised when I managed to catch his boulder and chuck it right back.
The valley sank deeper and gave way to a poison swamp, with vile slug-things undulating within. I still had some antidote on-hand so I resolved to rush from island to island. The slugs were huge, pearl-white and deformed, masses of tentacles more like a mutant man-o-war than a gastropod. For the most part they flopped harmlessly, but some of the bigger ones took offense to my presence and gave chase. I lured them to an island so I could fight more safely, and the one in the lead reared up to spew a cloud of toxin at me. As it did, it opened up its body to me.
The interior was a rust color rather than the slimy white of the outside, and it seemed to be made up of...of mummified little ones! Those creatures from the birdbath and lanterns, so ugly they were cute with their deep voices and glowing-white bodies, were now rendered in rust-orange and desiccated, knotted together to form, what, this thing's organs? Did these things feed on little ones, capturing them like some insects would lay eggs in a host body? Regardless, for the first time other than with Patches, I was genuinely angry and I tore the things apart. They tried to slither away, expressing some degree of fear, but that didn't save them.
While an enraged part of me wanted to hunt down the rest of these things, practicality won out: I only had so much antidote and I'd burn through so much just to satisfy my need for these things to hurt. I trudged my way out of the swamp and dealt with another yeti, finding another blue lantern. It couldn't take me home, but at least it was an anchor.
And then my sharpened senses picked up off-key singing. It was a warbling, burbling sound, like hearing through water or someone with far too much mucus in her throat. It was definitely a female voice, sounding rather drunk or high, tuneless "la-la-la" with no real rhythm. The landscape funneled me toward the voice's origin, the valley encroaching and leading to several large boulders. I descended the slope until I caught sight of what was singing.
Once again, simple words fail to convey the true disgust and horror of the sight that was before me. Wobbling and swaying like a schoolgirl after a house party was a creature shaped somewhat like a mushroom: it had a humanoid body, but in place of the head was a bulbous mass of dark-pink meat with various deformed, milky octopus eyes randomly pulsing in the flesh. The head, if it could be called such, was easily twice as wide as the shoulders. It danced and flounced in ragged clothing, which twinged something in my mind. As I began to realize with horror that its head was likewise made up of dead little ones, it turned around and I froze.
Doll's three primary colors are white, dark-gray and burgundy. This creature's colors were the same. Doll wore a dress that stopped at her ankles, with a white underskirt that descended a bit further. So did this. Doll wore a corset with burgundy ruffling at the front. This creature's corset had a dark, fleshy slice of meat in place of the ruffling.
I felt pain in my head and my veins, agonizing tinnitus building up.
This thing had Doll's hands.
It giggled and approached me.
This thing had Doll's body, and the little ones comprised its head.
Its malformed mass of a head distended, extruding tendrils made up of little ones to grab at me. Several of the little ones' heads opened up into gnashing maws.
Blood exploded from my eyes, nose and ears, boiling away into mist from the lightning that accompanied it.
I screamed, then it screamed as I grabbed it and burned it away. Whatever this abomination was, IT. WAS. NOT. DOLL!
...But what if it once had been?