C41: Achievement Unlocked: Smokey's Tears
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I choose to ignore the flame as it won't have any long lasting consequences anywayyyys. I proceed backwards and hang a right to enter the side path around the village which gives me the first gift from a corpse
[+6x quicksilver bullets]
I do see a bum of a villager standing around the corner of a distant house, hard to get a better look as a tree is blocking my line of sight.
I then continue on the side path here and find a tattered house with a shining lamp on it. I knock on the apparent 'door'.
I then kind of zoned out as the person inside began to glaze me and then lament my fate as a hunter before saying he will bestow me a kindness and informed me to seek the Great Cathedral where the promised item will show its worth. [1]
[+1 tonsil stone]
[Side quest activated: Explore the mysterious lands revealed to thee upon using the Tonsil Stone at the key location (Great Cathedral west of Cathedral Ward).
Step 1: proceed to key location, use Tonsil stone to arrive at new location.
Step 2: Explore the mysteries of the new location to reach the final destination.
Step 3: Slay the creature that resides within the deepest darkest and foulest land known to gods
Reward: Greater skill shard x 6
1x random skill given
4x random skill level up
10 free stats]
"Mmmh, yea that certainly hits the spot" I moan a little at the rewards yet strangely enough, my memory which should have improved feels a bit lacking in regards to my destination.
"If I remember correctly, the location I need to go to is the big gate that leads to Yahar'gul. Hmmm, I know that there is an Amygdala there, am I supposed to get caught by it to activate the stone?" I distinctively remember something important happening in that specific room but not the exact details as I barely even remember this tonsil stone from my gaming days.
The resident of the house doesnt say anything important anymore, just a constant reminder of the 'Great Cathedral'.
All but useless now, I proceed onward and find a vast array of cages housing dogs inside.
"Free money" I simply state as just two strikes each takes down the caged dogs, each provides 573 echoes. I then find a path that leads backwards again but a different route.
Doing so, I end up at the entrance of a cave with blue bulbous flowers hanging on the walls, sprouting from pitch black thorn like roots as I make my way inside and I spot my favorite thing in the world.
It's a pile of broken bones everywhere. Hooray.
I take the slope on the right down and look around to find a corpse with [+2 antidotes] as well as a hole in the ground revealing a mercury colored liquid.
"That must taste fucking delicious. Moon water" I say as I jump into the hole as I begin to sing to myself the most known lyrics of, Dream on by Aerosmith.
I'm just kidding, I go around and find another hole in the wall but this one leads forwards as I find myself in a place that I absolutely love.
"It's a poisonous swamp, Miyazaki, you shouldnt have. All for me to drink up. " I continue my joke about drinking the mercury colored water.
I also spot a number of decrepit Church Giants wandering around with even one area being beside a pillar that has a glowing item.
"Damn it, I've seen the item now. I have to get it.
I shoot at the closest church giant who just kinda stands there in response until I take a few steps into the poisonous water which attracts it to me as it fucking jumps at me like markiplier with it's fist raised.
I dash back onto dry land again and see the poison guage slowly dropping. I have the giant approach more before simply dashing between it's legs and around it, making it so it cant hit me at all which takes it down as it drops 2982 echoes and [+1 blood stone shard].
In the midst of the fight, I noticed an item in the corner which turned out to be [frenzied cold blood (7)]. I pocket it and then look towards my next target which is the giant kneeling beside a skeleton pile. I dash over with a jump and give it a strong hit that knocks it over as I just wail on it until It dies.
It seems my repeated attacks agitate the mound and multiple snakes slither out. I kill the few of them until I realized that they arent in the skeleton mound but in the god damned poisonous water!!.
"Hell no, to the no no no" I dash out in the far corner where I spot some distant dry land. Coincidentally, I found a cave entrance leading deeper. Doing so and encountering more snakes, I collect the item off of the corpse here.
[+1 arcane blood gemstone(2)]
I then dash back before my poison gauge increases further and I have to waste an antidote for no reason. I then return to the mound where I slay the two snakes and get 312 echoes from the two combined.
I then dash around a bunch to random patches of dry land and slay the last giant here before collecting the item I first spotted which wasnt the item itself but the moonlight shimmering mystically off of the monument that held said item.
[+1 dirty blood gemstone(3)]
I then cross to the other side and find a side path that actually leads to the other side of the way I originally came in from. I then take the ladder up to find myself in a pretty bare room with only another ladder up. Smells of corpses and poison mixing together in a strangely nostalgic sense…which is weird for me as I absolutely hate it.
It's only when I climb to the very top do I understand why it is nostalgic.
The familiar gravestones, gate with lever and blank faced praying statues.
This is Iosefka's clinic, this is the first sewer I accidentally smelled when I was still injured and only recently woke up. It makes sense now.
My joy at remembering this core event of my life is cut short as i look up into the sky which is now covered in clouds of ash. I try to pinpoint the source and easily find it.
"THE CLINIC IS BURNING?!" I yell in surprise before getting surprised by a voice behind me. As well as a surprise scare from the system too.
[New achievement gained: Smokey's tears. Smokey's tears have merged with the pyromaniac achievement to gain: Burn Baby Burn achievement.]
'What in the fuck. I didn't do this. I'm innocent.' I panicked as I instinctively felt that the system was blaming me for the burning of the clinic.
"Who goes there, You shall find that I am no easy target" I find an older lady in white robes stained with fire and ash huddled in the corner behind the ditch in the floor I just climbed out of.
She wields a candle stick before her like a weapon. Multiple bottles tied to her waist with random papers and clothes stuffed inside. She trembles in fear before properly spotting me as there was a thick smoke cloud between us for a moment.
"Oh, sir hunter, it is you. Goodness me." She seems almost relieved upon spotting me but the situation quickly devolves. Her recent trauma made manifest once again as she cant trust anyone out here, not after what she had already witnessed.
"Iosefka?" I mutter out in confusion as the doctor I only saw once when I originally climbed over to this portion of the map and had found the side entrance to the clinic.
"Stay back, How can I be certain that you are who you say you are? You look so different. No, you have to be another imposter!" I take out a bottle and light it with the candlestick before throwing it at me.
I sidestep her throw as she isn't exactly the most physically endowed woman around. The fire pots she has access to are also weaker than normal cocktails, something I had learned from experience shortly after leaving this area in the first place. I then half kneel down with my arms raised for her to see as I then sit down calmly.
"Alright alright, ill keep back. My only question for you is this though. Please tell me you didn't try to experiment with the information I gave you about the molotov cocktails and burned your clinic to the ground? That was meant only for emergencies if you were threatened" I pray that I am not liable for the damages here but my words only seem to make the doctor begin to cry as tears streak down her face.
"It is you. Sir hunter, Thank you. Im alive because of you"
'That doesnt answer my fucking question bitch. Tell me you didn't commit arson because of what I taught you!' I simply tremble in place as I hyperfocused on the key point Im concerned about. I soon take a deep breathe though and calm down before properly asking.
"What happened here?"
"Ah yes, I um.. Shortly after you left. I had boarded up the doors to protect myself and the other patients better."
"Okay"
"I soon found a letter that was addressed to you that I forgot to get to you when we had talked due to shock."
"Sure"
"Yet when I was in my personal office room, I heard a bang and thought something got inside. Something…did get inside. It was, oh gods it looked just like me." She pauses for a bit to rant about the fake that she had met.
"Shhh, shh, you're safe now" I reassure her and she calms down, continuing her story.
" 'She' had a sword and started bashing in the door to my office when I remembered your advice and gathered all that I could before lighting them one after the other to throw at her as she broke my door. She flinched a few times but kept chasing me but I was able to get past her as she chased me around my desk."
"I then slammed the broken pieces of the door at her and that caught fire as I kept running. I arrived back in the resting room where we met and I used the shelf I had already positioned nearby to block that door inside. She kept bashing at it. Talking about experimenting on me into a new 'beautiful' life and how she would be chosen, she would be chosen. I don't know what she meant but seeing that she was breaking through the door and soon would reach the shelf. I set fire to that and kept running until I got outside and blocked the door with another candlestick I had"
"It has been burning for so long. Did she get out? Am I safe?" Iosefka shutters as she keeps eyeing the side path that leads to the side path. Likely how the intruder got in in the first place.
"Yes, you will be fine now that I'm here. If you want, I can go investigate. No random creature can beat me" 'Unless it's a literal god or the witch of hemwick'. I say with confidence before realizing that there are threats capable of tearing me apart.
"No, please stay. I…I cant move right now, my legs have locked up"
"I can take you to a safe place if you would like? Oedon Chapel, just a few minutes from here. They have tons of incense and nearly a dozen people there too."
"When did you last see them?" She asks skeptically.
"Not too long ago when I was traveling around the cathedral ward and slaying beasts there and in old Yharnam." I inform her which seems to reassure her a fair bit as knowing that no beasts are about and the prospect of incense which she had already mostly run out except for the localized space of her office which did nothing against the imposter.
I slowly and gently approach the scared woman and pick her up. Letting her ride my back as her arms wrap around my neck for stability.
"How did you change so much so quickly?" She helplessly asks, studying my new build with slight interest now that her worries have been assuaged.
"Drugs, and alot of them, had to since i would be constantly feeling pain from any form of exertion otherwise" i blame the other side of town which was labeled a restricted zone by this side as the reason for my changes.
She pays the information no mind as I climb the ladder up from the street near the main gate.
"Hey buddy, you doing alright now?" I speak up to Gilbert as I pass his house.
"Cough cough. Oh, it's you again. Yes I was quite for some reason but then the blood you gave me ran out and it feels worse than ever before. Cough cough"
"Damn, try this then. If that doesnt work then you can try to come with us. I have a doctor here who might be able to cure you. We will be going to cathedral ward since i've opened it up." I see the hand reach out and take the mutagen vial I handed him and drink it down. I hear him breathe easily and clearly as if having found new breathe and a lease for life.
"Oh praise you good sir. A miracle this is. I would be honored to travel with you but I'm unfortunately afraid."
"No one will judge you for being an outsider. Not unless they wish to mess with me "I try to reassure him that the threat of my fist is greater than any prejudice that might flow out of the mouths of any random townsmen at the chapel.
"Very well sir. Please have this as compensation for your help this night"
[+1 flame sprayer]
"Oh neat" I pocket it and nearly shit myself at the weapons details before looking at my new titles, thinking it might have influenced it somehow.
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Word Count = 2587
Exploring the woods more, finding myself back at Iosefka's and finding out she escaped the imposter. No blue man crew today
[1] When I encountered this npc, I could not find the exact dialogue for this and I couldn't type fast enough as I was reading so it ended up being pretty choppy so I just gave it up and focused on the key details.
Enjoy
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