C44: Forbidden Forest Cleared
Pub-2/22/26
Id like to once again thank Sara_Mark767/Fictional Wall for a wonderful art commission of multiple characters that have and will show up in this story. Very satisfied with the work thus far and I hope everyone reading this also likes the art. Pic here.
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It's some time before the beast beggar goes off on his own, heading to old Yharnam under my advice to find a safe haven for himself. Hopefully he doesnt lose himself to the blood moon but if he does then so be it. I'll just take him out then. I have plenty of poison knives to whittle him down with.
For now though, I head back inside what I assume was the windmill as I drop down and head to the lower levels by going down the stairs and simply exiting to a bridge. A memory clicks in my head at this time.
"Right, im only halfway through these damned woods. I forgot that it's pretty much one of the biggest maps in the game with only the few later down the line being bigger like the nightmare realm that is easy to get lost in or the one with the eiljfhtghnv. What the fuck did I just say? Nah screw knowing what it was, HOW did I say that with my mouth" I shiver as if I just glitched when I was thinking of future situations when something like a blast of wind flows by me as im rooted in place for a few seconds until the information I was just thinking about disappears from my mind.
"Fuckers stole my IQ, cant have shit in Britain" I curse at whatever was the cause of it all as I cross the bridge and take to venting my anger on whatever these huntsmen are with the snake heads sticking out of their necks. From their bite, they inflict poison but need about three or four bites to properly poison someone. Pretty weak overall as long as you don't get hit.
1251 echoes from them which is nice. In front of me, I see a winding path so I'm just gonna backtrack a bit…diagonally. Going up the hill behind me, I found a lift. Taking it brings me to a building with what looks like a millstone in the middle though I could be wrong since I don't know what a millstone looks like except that one giant grindstone from the second Rajan level in Sly Cooper 2 that you have to blow up by bringing tnt to it.
"Ah a new face are you, an accomplished hunter, it would appear."
'What the fuck, where did you come from?' I mentally question without saying this out loud, as that might make me an immediate enemy.
Taking my silence as affirmation of my attention, the thick helmet clad man wearing a fine coat ignores my wide eyes and continues speaking. Said helmet is essentially a bucket with a single eyehole in it. He balances himself on a walking cane which likely doubles as his weapon of choice.
"…I am Valtr, master of the league. We, of the league, cleanse the streets of filth that roam during the night. Like any hunter ought to." he continues ranting as he describes the nature of beasts roaming the streets and invites me to join them and fight alongside other confederate members of the league.
"Okay" I respond with simplicity as there are no negatives in the game and I have no memories of this organization from before my time being injured. My only semblance of hesitation would be being referred to as a Confederate as I'm neither racist nor a clanker [1].
The man seems to emit a pleased aura as it appears he had been a bit tense in stating his speech. I hold out my hand and receive a symbol design of their group. It seems that they are quite proud of creating their own Caryll rune and how it grants sight into seeing Vermin….
[ Impurity rune obtained\
"Ummo, what do these vermin look like so that I may identify them?" I ask as I suspect I already know about them and can see them from time to time when I'm doing visceral attacks. Whenever my viscerals kill the beastly target, these bugs would squirm out instead of the hearts and I would crush them everytime.
"They are red centipedes with bloody bodies about a foot long that hid amidst the filth of mankind."
"I like the edge of what you said but im sorry, your a bit too late."
"I dare say what?" Valtr looks confused at me as he simply stands still before me.
"Yea, I can already see these bugs without your rune and i've already crushed like 200 of them in this night alone…." I pause as I say this as Valtr seems to be trembling. I can see his one eye has shot up in surprise.
…
…
…
'I think I broke his AI'. The man seems to have completely frozen, at least other than the constant trembling. I simply kick the door I already unlocked before as it was a simple latch to shuffle. I then return to the hunt by taking the lift back down.
Coming down the hill, I properly enter the second half of the Forbidden Forest, or rather what remains of it.
I can primarily see that a good chunk of the forest had indeed burned down. A large chunk actually hadnt. I do see plenty of spots with small rivers of purple on the ground and covering trees. I simply stick to my exploration and collection as I get Frenzied coldblood 7. Kill a viper pit hatchling for a murky blood gemstone 3 and then some random ,shining coin x6
Though after his I begin to get seriously lost as the trees combined with the many repetitive hills and giant tombstones completely gets me lost. I can only signify whether i've gone up a right side hill or left side ravine that leads to a hill where I fought the hatchlings and got something from it or not.
As such, my treasury increases in this regard: the small snake bundles aka the hatchlings give 260 echoes each. There are tons of them scattered around this forest and the funny thing is that the snake possessed huntsman can also summon four of them and they still give money, not just some illusionary summons that give nothing.
I had even bought rope from the system for a few echoes and beat up one of these snake hosts to tie upside down from one of the thick tree branches in hopes that I could farm the four snake bundles over and over again but after screaming once, they don't summon anymore which immensionly…Disappointed me. On god.
I vented the waste of time spent on that poor poor snake host as it is no longer a snake host but a loose sack of skin since all of it's internal organs were just filled with the snakes. How they used weapons, I have no clue. Maybe a bunch of snake tails for each finger but to me that feels they would be greatly bloated but who cares. Not me anymore.
Amongst my lostness and confusion in navigating this shit stain of a location. I had climbed a tree and got he graveguard set which is just like three pieces and one of them is a kilt. I could rock it.
But im not gonna, my fit is peak. My drip is fire. And so are the next few snake bundles as I got fired of killing them normally and experimented with some molotovs.
Along the way, I got a blood stone chunk which made me quite happy as I should realistically get more sometime soon in whatever is the next part of the map. I don't remember specific spawns except the blood rock is somehow related to the thingymagick that melted my brain a few minutes ago.
Blood stone shards, twin shards, no more blood chunks so thats sad. But I got tons of echoes, even found a random executioner overlooking a cliff early on which gave 5780 echoes, it's crazy how much that gave as it's the equivalent of two of the pigs here that give 2555 each.
Oh right, there are also giant snake bundles called Great Viper Pits. they give 1606 echoes and have a pretty good chance of dropping murky gemstones though I could also get a random 2 or 3 murky gemstones from every few bundles of the hatchlings.
Along one of the right side path hills, there is roughly five hatchlings and one giant viper next to a giant tombstone which held the deep clear sear rune which is nice.
There is also a pit with two giant snakes, took some time but I whittled them down by attracting one and heavy attacking 'through' the tree with my trick extended length shadow axe. The spin to win indeed won as I got a bunch of stones and shards along with the deep sear rune.
Frenzied coldblood 7, and multiple 8's are scattered around. A good handful madmans knowledge which I simply stored away as I have no clue what the next 'limit' there is for insight. As such, the slower I progress in this regard, the better.
At one point, I dropped down from near the center left side path and that brought me to the blue man group, aka the Celestial Emissaries. Essentially tiny humanoids creatures with giant blue light bulb heads that try to smack me but I smack them first with ease.
It has to be mentioned that so far all the enemies in the first required me to hit them three times at least to kill, this includes the hatchlings.
So as Im killing the entire fanbase of the blue man group, I find one who is also a fan of skrillex as he has long blue tendrils sticking out of his head. In fact two of them, might be a couple.
I do the right thing and kill them both at the same time with another spin to win. From them i get the anti clockwork metamorphosis rune. From this area, I entered the water area which had two more pigs, one of which i accidentally found by leaving the water area to continue exploring and it was just standing before a giant tombstone, not doing anything.
Having cleared out every other area, I returned to the water area with giant tree roots that had a few undead corpses that I took out with molotovs due to my increased fire damage achievements. That gave me the Dissipating Lake rune. From there I took care of the last pig but not before getting hit due to thinking it would just barely miss me and my bad eyesight somehow affecting me in this life too as I get smacked, but only once before I vampirically heal before I get a good idea.
I summon Gerald to have some fun with any snakes that might appear at all from underground. He is a bit underleveled as he does not scale with me at all, needing his own grind and this is the best location.
I instead find an open space before me suddenly shrink down to a narrow tunnel in between two giant cliffs that I walk through before finding a split path, left or right. I go right first as i vaguely remember the boss was to the left.
Heading right, I open a gate before finding another host that I de-host by tearing out every snake I can, having shoved my fist into it's neck many times. Originally, I had done this to vent my annoyance at their attack patterns since they are hard to parry but now I was just curious to see If I could get echoes from each individual snake I ripped out. That was not the case and another situation of wasted time and effort. So sad, pray for these snake idiots please.
Though I do get the Clockwise metamorphosis rune here. 'Both variants? That's nice. Though I do vaguely remember that they come in sets of three, is that one also here and I missed it or somewhere else?' I think to myself as I know from the example of the moon rune responsible for echoes gained that it comes in sets of three.
I also now have two lake runes. I got one from Hemwick Charnel Lane then I overlooked the broken bridge that had the rune at the very edge. There is nothing else here except a way back to about halfway through this second half of the forest.
Not wanting to jump down and potentially get lost again, I instead backtrack and begin my way to the boss. I do spot a summon summon for two different summon signs. One for Younger Madara's twin and the other for Hunter Henryk.
"...."
"If I summon the twin then will they do planetary devastation to fight the boss or would it be sussano? Or would this be the one who died early on and thus only know fire jutsus?" "and what the hell henryk. Why would you show up here at all, stay with fucking Cherry dumbass" I originally ignore both summon signs as one is idiot while the other is uncertain but then I remember something from my past life.
It's the way to cheese the Shadows of Yharnam.
While I did not actively look these methods up, it was actually in this game that I even found out what it means to 'cheese' something in a game. And the source of that information was a random short talking about the shadows of Yharnam boss and how you can line yourself up with a tombstone near the entrance and then half enter the fog which bugs out the bosses ai[2].
In the game, this would be possible to simply quit out after entering but less so possible for me. How would that even work since it's not like I get a prompt to enter but have to do so myself. Wait.
"System, can you temporarily take control of my body to enter through fog gates? Id like a prompt to show up for me that I can speak out to enter"
[Fog Gate Prompt activated]
[Challenge Mode activated: select level of NG+ you wish to face]
A devilish smile crosses my face as I only select NG+10. With my old memories, I did not struggle with this boss much, at most plenty of healing with my current setup, I can more easily dodge their attacks and reduce their threat. The world shifts around me as a fog gate is made to the boss like it has all previous times.
To test something, I go and use one insight to summon the madaras twin. He is quite a bland hunter as he only has the Hunters axe in hand. The grayish blue coloration makes it hard to properly make out his body. Yet what I can make out is that he isn't that young but has a similar style as Henryk and Gascoigne with them covering their faces in bandages.
[-1 insight]
With the cooperator joining me, I head to the boss arena first and line myself up with the tombstone sticking out until I get a prompt from the system. I then shuffle a bit to try to get the furthest point I can while still getting the prompt. Once im satisfied. I confirm. "Enter the Fog"
My body mechanically waves his hands as if dispersing the fog while taking a few steps through.
I then leisurely enter the boss arena, the trio wearing reverse KKK outfits. Covered in fully tattered black cloaks as if multiple pieces had been stitched together, with only their arms sticking out like shadows.
[Challenge mode ability bestowed: Tempered state]
I chuckle as from what I can tell, they just do more damage and have more health which won't be a problem if the cheese still somehow works.
The right side one has a long curved sword akin to a scimitar which I will take if given a chance. The left side has a maul similar to a tontritus but not sure if it is one along with a ball of fire. The middle one has a candle in hand and scimitar in hand. All three remain in their spawn location, simply staring at me as if they are uncertain of what to do.
"Heeheehee" I chuckled to myself in success as the cheese strat working which means others could have likely worked too but I don't know the others except Nico-shit. As I step forward a prompt from the system makes me more satisfied.
[Glitch detected. Permanently turning off Fog Prompt system function. Curious George Achievement has leveled up]
"Oh nice. That means with the other achievements effect, I get 25% of my stats when out of bounds." I progress to each shadow as I yoink their weapons before learning that I can drop them with heavy strikes on their backs. The twin in the meantime wails on one of them while I keep riposte striking them in the back time after time.
If I was certain that I could actually succeed in this then I would have gone for higher grades of difficulty though I'm not sure if they would have mutated too much at that point and gained completely new 'ai' to pilot them and thus making the glitch unsuccessful. So I'm satisfied as is.
As i take down the first shadow, I see what looks like a bug flow into another shadow, the one in the middle. As I observe, the twin also takes his out and the same thing happens.
I can feel a threatening aura emit from the last one but nothing still happens. I have the twin take a backseat as I continue backstabbing this shadow over and over again.
Originally, I do this to lower it's health until It gets close to dying before I focus all my senses and stab deep, pulling out a bug as well doing it once to grab at it's soul.
I do have to say that it's quite the robust soul as likely the other two had theirs transfer to this one via the vermin. As such, it's pretty hard to pull. I have the twin pull the arms of the shadow in hopes that a contrasting pulling force would help me.
I was proven only partially right as there is a small improvement but it's only barely there as I activate my halo and keep pulling.
Roughly when Im halfway there does the shadow remember that it's actually alive and not a robot as it smacks The younger Madaras twin away and turn it's head towards me.
"Sup bitch" I have my off hand take out the Tontritus as I activate it's trick state and have it wail on the shadows face. Stunning it plenty enough with the bolt and head trauma while I keep pulling.
My progress actually speeds up quite a bit as either the bolt or damage is loosening the tension of the creature's soul as I get a proper glimpse of it's full state.
It's akin to a Conjoined triplet as it's one central body with two upper bodies sticking out from the back with a snake wrapped around the waist. The snake is comparable to an anaconda in terms of thickness, though obviously this is a smaller version of the original as I remember a giant snake similar but much larger to the Greater viper pits sticking out of the floor at times.
After hitting the shadow for some time, I'm worried I'll kill him before I pull 'their' soul out. I've tried striking the piece that sticks out but it does not shatter like others i've done this to. So I keep pulling, just keep pulling.
Pulling pulling pulling.
Until i finally wrench it free of it's body and my mace comes down with a shocking finish.
Clack click Pts pst clack.
The soul is finally breaking apart before my eyes, the shadow collapses at the same time with all three bodies seemingly flaking away into ash of nonexistence.
[PREY SLAUGTHERED]
[Obtained Blood rapture. +6 insight. 844,890 echoes. The boss's soul has been shattered. Increasing echoes gained. 1.489m gained.]
[As a bosses soul was shattered, +5 to Soul Slayer title]
"Oh, that's cool. Halfway there to upgrading that title" I say as I take in the information of insight which was doubled to 12 and then the vast amount of echoes. A lamp appears beside me and the twin begins to have his body fade. Before he does, he drops a whistle that doesnt share the same glow as him.
I pick it up and get [Madaras Whistle- S Bloodtinge Scaling. 18 bloodtinge required to use. Consumes four bullets per use. Summons giant snake underneath user which bites down where you are. Caution, can harm the user]
"Ohhh, I can actually use this to set traps depending on how long it takes to summon. Granted my own summon is still quite better and can grow stronger easily too." I compliment the hunter tool but the chances I would remember to use them are quite slim. I also compliment Geralt on his fighting prowess as I soon receive multiple notifications of getting 260 echoes which means he found a bundle of hatchling snakes.
I wait for a minute until I don't get any more before activating the lamp and returning to the dream for some upgrades.
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Word Count = 3784
Clearing the forest, getting lost since not all of it was burned down, thanks to poison spit from snakes. Then fighting the boss after cheesing it.
Enjoy
[1] for reference, I'm talking about the American civil war. And B, Star Wars= confederacy of Independent systems (the ones who used droids during the clone wars aka Clankers)
[2] Just last night I had confirmed this still works on the 13th when I was writing this to make sure my loot was accurate.
Whether you like the chapter or not, drop a comment. I can't be letting myself get complacent in my writing. I still have plenty of growth in all forms.
discord channel still has the next chapter preview like usual: https://discord.gg/rE6gtg28XH
Patreon.com/Xanok to find me.