C94: An End to it all.
This took me a bit longer to write out as I was uncertain about multiple details and now having replayed through it, I realized just how small this dumb village actually was.
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Not far from the Astral Clocktower is a fairly small ramshackled settlement, a fishing hamlet where all the buildings are no more than loose sticks gathered around to make uniform homes for its inhabitants.
Not that the inhabitants had much to say about themselves, what with all of them having mutated into a vast array of fish creatures. Dogs were mutated into Feral Deep Sea Hounds, the great majority of women were mutated into snail women with a select few turned into fishwitches and lightning Summoners while the great majority of men were turned into hamlet fishmen.
The fishmen have the appearance of naked folk; what with their bodies completely dehydrated to the point of having no moisture in them at all and lacking any muscles and barely any skin on them. With their ribs stretched out throughout the whole of their chest akin to a stretched out 8-pack. The only piece of clothing is a mythical portion of cloth that covers the genitals…for modesty. Because the Great Ones are very serious about Modesty.
Even then, their skin only retains a bluish-white hue with barely of their face exposed. Of the exposed face, there is only a portion of their noses and mouths left alone but barely as tendrils of hair or tentacles sticking out randomly. That or it's the skull/eyeball stylized features that are all over the head not including the aforementioned nose and mouth.
The select few men not made into any of the previous creatures were transformed into Mongrel creatures by the name of Shark-Giants. The very same creatures that had bestowed 'me' my death as well as the same thing that was considered a natural nemesis to every Bloodborne player as they circumvent the natural playstyle by simply acting as proper damage tanks and not wincing in pain like every other creature of this world.
Naturally with such a largely diverse set of creatures, it is expected that this fishing hamlet would be naught but ruin, yet it was already like this for a long time before. Broken and shattered by Byrgenwerth scholars who experimented on the people here before the healing church arrived to clean up their mess after they failed to fell the creature that caused all these changes in the first place.
Even then, it remained in this state not because the creatures here were mindless but that they were simply lazy, lying down the whole time until someone got close to provoke them.
Oh hey it's godzilla.
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHH"
Snap Crack Crumble
The still growing chimeric beast that is me, is casually stomping through the village. Even the elder who retained a portion of his mind was stomped to death under the heavy weight that is the maddened beast. Soon enough, the relatively small fishing hamlet is laid waste
Crunch crunch.
The buildings and limbs alike were shattered under the pressure of my legs. So much so that the area around the well crumbles apart as 'I' fell into the hole and face off against two more Shark Giants, three if we count the one on the surface level that also was attracted over and fell in via the shattered ground.
My rage at these beasts was unprecedented, the few shreds of my humanity hyperfocus on these fishy abominations and unleash their full wrath on them even though they are only up to half my knee in height. I pick up the first and tear it asunder. While I'm busy, the other 2 with their weapons begin to wail upon my poor feet.
An assault that would have ended me and any other hunter is now nothing more than an itch to the Chimera that is me. With the first sharkman taken care of, I grab forward at the swinging arm of one of the sharks before slamming said shark into the other who was releasing a mournful song reminiscent of a winter lanterns song.
As the two sharks die, I begin to spasm as what looks like thorns stabbing into my body. I thrash around and further have the ground around me crumble until I get line of sight with 'it'. That thing with a literal pile of shit on its head that it calls eyes. The Winter Lantern.
Even a maddened beast, I retain a great fear of these creatures. Yet instead of panic, I rage further reaching into the hole they stand on and crush it. Yet the frenzy does not end as a second lantern appears. Yet this one is far too distant for me to reach in my current state.
I gather rubble and throw it at the lantern yet it somehow survives even as large chunks of rock swerve past its beady head.
SPLURT
A fountain of blood explodes from me, yet with it comes the mindset of running. 'I' feel something calling to me, and thus I leave this hazardous hole and run. Though I had already been afflicted with Frenzy once more. This means that another eruption of blood is inevitable. Thus my monstrous body moves forward.
[Pet Subsystem initializes main System Reboot.]
[Refinery Subsystem Initializes Main System Protocol: Fail Safe.]
[Main System self diagnosing for breaches]
As the beast squishes the various fishmen into mashed flesh and crushed bones. It barrels through a house. Yes not past but through a building made of wood and stone that acts as the typical final safe zone before reaching the end of the DLC.
Yet the beast would not know this. It only knows that it must go in a certain direction. The simplest would be down but reaching the coastline is imperative. So it barrels past the ruins of the safe zone. Ripping another shark in half whilst doing so before reaching a coastal village.
Another one, technically considered the second half of the original fishing hamlet. Another collection of twig houses, except these are more stacked on top of each other with strange blue white chunks of flesh and veins scattered around the ground and inside some of these houses.
The lightning summoners also make their home here as they quickly notice the hulking monstrosity approaching them whilst tumbling around on the ground with zero sense of balance in its rage. The multi formed arms flail about as houses and said owners of the houses retaliate in turn with hordes of fishmen, dogs and lightning summoners attack the beast.
SPLURT ding ding ding.
[Main System has found backdoor key: Mergo's nap Time which had allowed Curse of Kos to corrupt system messages and features.]
[Failsafe feature begins implementation. Scanning for usable fuel to purge corruption]
The frenzy proc strikes again as these fishmen are coated in tons of flood. The weaker amongst them die from simply being slapped by the heavy fountain of liquid red. At the same time, in a distant building, a red form rises up as if from a puddle.
Brador steps forward to find his target before his eyes narrow upon staring at the ravenous creature before him.
"So in the end, the tragedy was greater still than what you could handle. Misery truly favored you, oh so dearly. Such spirit only to become this monster. Alas, it seems my work was completed before I arrived…" Brador is about to use the hunter silencing mark to dispel his bell hunting form when he stops as his brain catches up to the hints.
The bell tolls only for hunters who transgress the hidden side of this land. Only hunters. Not beasts. Surely there have been few beasts in this far in yet they had all mutated into the fishfolk in the end. Leaving not one standard beast. Yet one is here now. Unchanging, un-mutating. Fighting.
[Failsafe fuel found. Dismantling unnecessary skills and features. Achievement feature dismantled, influencing host mind to buy time.]
Brador stays hidden and observes the situation as the chimera attempts to swim past the ship graveyard before seemingly stopping in confusion for no apparent reason and begins to wail on the rocks, eventually opening up the path to the cave system inside the area just past the second half of the village. Though not before killing the remaining lightning summoners as they made the chimera's back tingle in annoyance.
Naturally, the floor of the spread out mining operation here is inconceivably frail, that a single step causes the whole thing to shatter apart as I fall to the lower portion of the cave system. The caves are filled with the snail women and other snail creatures.
Of the snail variations, there are those that simply stick to their shells and swipe out. These ones are promptly crushed underneath the hoofed feet of the chimera, while the second half of the snail variant are those that can detach from their shells and jump at you like a FNAF 2 jumpscare.
The tunnels are still too small and thus the beast is forced to continue chiseling the rocks away with its monstrous claws and tentacle arm.
[Dismantling Eldritch Arm skill as the host should not be able to possess Eldritch grade skills. Re-bestowing Soul shattering visceral attack skill at maxed level]
Midway through the excavation efforts, the tentacle arm simply pops off the chimera's body, it falls to the floor and giggles around with no actual brain movement linked to it.
In its place is a regular sized human hand, limply sticking out of the monster sized chest, completely unlike the rest of its malformed form. As such, it can only continue to chisel the cave away with only one hand now as the beast was too dumb to use its clawed and hoofed feet to do so instead.
[Dissolving Level 13 Eldritch Hunter Physique. -76 points to all stats except Endurance and Bloodtinge which drop by 48. Returning to Nox Hunter Physique…. Anomaly detected, Nox Hunter physique not in registry, Linked to Seeker race yet requirements not truthfully met. Deemed Anomalous. Reverting physique to Blood-hunter physique. Stats drop further.]
[Seeker Race deemed Anomalous, incapable of dismantling as it is a culmination of hosts achievements and hard work rather than a virus of outside interference.]
[Required Energy Matrix met. Proceeding to next step of Failsafe protocol]
While the system works in the background, the beast continues it's rampage against the walls which shatter and crumble with every blow. It's rampage seems to speed up suddenly as the destructive force decreases bit by bit.
With one last strike, the wall finally crumbles, revealing a section of the caves that goes even deeper. The portion of the cave is still too small for the chimera to simply walk into and thus it must crawl inside. Dropping to its knees, it pulls itself forward with its remaining one hand. Yet it finds that it gets easier to enter due to its body rapidly shrinking as it moves.
Shrinking down to just 10 feet tall, the chimera stumbles as it falls through the hole. Less so that it pulled itself in but rather having the whole upper half of it's body simply caused it's weight to shift through when it could barely move at this point.
Having fallen on its belly, specifically face first on the floor with its chest following after. The beast continues to shrink, yet as it does, it continues crawling forward. As it crawls, its body begins to revert back into that of a human. With the last of the beast's strength, it pulls itself forward once more.
Thump
The body of the beast turned human collapses into a hole that isn't too deep. There is not much else here with only a ladder leading out.
Brador stands at the edge of the hole, peering down inside where my naked unconscious form rests below.
"Fascinating. Almost as if there is hope for the rest of us. I'll at least see how this goes. Should he fail like all the rest then I will see to it that he joins the rest of us here as a member of this cursed nightmare.
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Word Count = 2075