STS Chapter 97: The Hags of Hemwick (Patreon)

I sat on the pile of corpses that showed whatever remained of the shadows of Yharmam. Their bodies were broken beyond belief. And not a single scratch on me.

I would have said it was a fight but it wasn't. This was the equivalent of a boxer fighting 3 infants. They were slow, weak, I could see right through them.

Some of the unique abilities they pulled did catch me off guard sometimes. But I have seen far far too much to be surprised by a snake head popping out of the ground. Besides I was able to see it coming.

Literally, with my insight I had slight precognition. I knew most of their moves before their bodies even moved.

In fact, I would have been more surprised if they actually could keep up with me. Not to mention I have more experience with fighting than any human could feasibly gather in their lifetime against opponents hundreds to thousands of years old my body itself was rapidly improving.

The insight I had gathered is strong. Overly strong even. It is messing up my head, my perception of time. The surroundings around me. Randomly things started blurring together.

Quite annoying.

Anyway, now that those are dead where should I head to next I wonder? By pumping some juice into my already rather strong insight I pondered while jumping from rooftop to rooftop as I twisted necks with my telekinesis.

Focusing on the answer I wanted for my question while isolating all of my mind and insight for that one purpose thanks to my near-absolute control over my own being it happened.

I heard a whisper in my ear. The whisper was not a voice, nor was there was a way to assign a voice to it. It felt like a corpse whispering into your ear.

'................{The Darkbeast Paarl}....................'

'.........................{The Witches of Hemwick}.................'

'...........{Ả̷̛̖̟̥̄̄̂̓͊̈̀m̴̨͍̤̞͚̆̾͆̊͛̕̕͝y̴̹̫̳̼̺̳̌͆̉̅͋g̴̲̣͊̐̈̐̂d̴̙̺̝̫̫̆̈̅ă̵̢̲͔̜̈́͂̈́̌̽̌̑̚ļ̶̠͉͖̯̋̃̌͊͝a̷̺͎̤͖̍̾̀̎̆͑̕ͅ}.............................'

'.................{R̸̪͋o̵͕͊͜m̵̼̣̽̃,̶̰̟̀ ̶̫̤̕t̸̯̒́h̴̳̽è̸̫ ̷̨̔V̸̪̎͐ȁ̶̹c̷̣̾ͅo̵̩͕̿̌u̴̖͓͌s̴̜̈̚ ̶̘͠S̴̥͚͌p̷̨͆͋î̸͜d̶͉͒ẹ̸͖̄̃r̵͕̱̒}.................'

Oof, that hurts my head. Even trying to use my insight to figure out the outer gods hurts. At least this insight gave me a rough guideline on how to go for each of these "bosses". I decided on the Bitches of Henryk.

Why?

Because I flipped a coin. And it turned out tails. Because I can't challenge an Amygdala just yet and Rom gives me the heeby jeebies. But before setting out I returned to the dream to have Doll upgrade my stats after spending several hours grinding a few dozen thousand blood echoes.

{Vitality: 21}(Attribute governing HP)

{Endurance: 43}(Attribute governing stamina and resistances.)

{Strenght: 32}(Attribute governing physical might.)

{Skill: 14}Attribute governing dexterity and nuance)

{Bloodtinge: 29}(Attribute governing the concentration of ??? in blood)

{Arcane: 22}(Attribute governing mystery and attunement )

Also, the amount needed to modify my body was weird. It was definitely easier to enhance me than other Hunters maybe due to how malleable my body is.

After dealing with pimping my body with that new chrome I simply teleported back to Cathedral Ward before strolling to the Hemwick Channel Lane. Not a real challenge really.

And Hemwick Channel Lane? Oh boy.

Why the fuck are there so many tombstones? How the fuck are there so many tombstones?

It doesn't fucking make sense man! This isn't a graveyard these are the fucking streets! I have seen more tombstones than fucking doors and windows since I have come to this world!

It isn't even like they do anything! They are just there! Fuck it some of them are stacked on top of each other like walls. How!? Why!? What tomb do those fucking mark? My braincells!?

Oh yeah for the lane itself, it was more of the usual, brutalized corpses, burning bodies, fucked up cityscape, blood everywhere, disembodied eyes poking out of random places. Classic Yharmam. I am a bit disappointed at the lack of sewers or poison swamps though.

I mean, you could have at least fitted in like at least 8 sewer entrances between the sewers. Oh my dear, the architects are getting lazier by the day. When I enter a building I am not expecting a building I expect a poison swamp that smells worse than death why is that so hard to understand?

But something new was instead of wild and feral "British" men attacking me it was instead weapon-wielding feral "British" hags. I know I have really low standards for women but these hags have more wrinkles than prunes.

...I miss Priscilla...

Anyway. To show my disdain for the decor they had set up around the place I fought in a manner of protest. Of course, I could pop their heads like grapes with my telekinesis or slice them faster than they could aim their stick at me but instead.

My main method in dealing with these feral "British" hags was ripping the tombstones out of the ground and using Deadman style to chuck the tombstones at subsonic speeds to obliterate them from the waist up.

But then I thought: What's better than overkill?

Even more overkill of course!

So I used to bolt infusion to throw electrical tombstones at old women fast enough to split a brown bear in half.

Thankfully, Yharmam has like at least 1 tombstone per meter square so I wasn't running out anytime soon. But while slaughtering people is always fun and all there were very few notable things here.

I found another Carrly Rune of Lake. Strengthening the rune already engraved in my mind. Other than that I also found a funky-looking eyeball in a jar.

---[Bloodshot eyeball]--------------

Material used in a Holy Chalice rite.

An exquisite eyeball removed quickly after death, or perhaps

even before. Used to unlock the seal of the old labyrinth

hintertombs.

--------------------------------------

Yeah, I have no idea what that means, to be honest.

Anyway continuing on, this place wasn't really too impressive. A lot of dogs and big men in armor but for non-bosses armor does not do well against subsonic electrified gravestones.

Well, if I had to say something unique about this place is the amount of crucified people? I mean it has like at least 3 times the amount of people hung up on tall wooden posts. Probably having died horrible deaths.

Geez, I'm glad I am not that guy.

Though how are they fully decomposed already? Hasn't it been only like several "hours" since the night started? Is this because this place is in an imperfect statis or because these people have been crucifying people long before the night?

...Somehow, I feel that the answer to both my questions is a yes.

Fuck, even Lordran was not this bad.

This is like Lordran, but with Feral and Insane British "people".

Truly, hell.

Regardless, as always there was nothing able to stop me. I was simply too fast, too experienced, too powerful for them to even think about stopping me. I could predict their clumsy movements even without my now precognition.

Honestly, it just feels like a chore at this point. Brutally killing "people", wrestling with building-sized abominations that would make god weep, dealing with actual people who have went mad and want to claim my head.

Indeed, it feels about as bothersome as vacuuming the floor, mopping up the kitchen floor to get rid of the stains, wetting a rag to clean the dirty counter, fixing your broken plumbing, moving your furniture around.

It, it just does not feel that different anymore.

Sometimes, I just zone out during fights, just thinking about new jokes I can come up with if I ever manage to get out of Hell² to tell to other people. Hell, sometimes I just start straight-up hallucinating about Priscilla and the others, forgetting where I am before it is abruptly cut off and I wake up in the midst of a sea of brutalized corpses.

Man, I am just glad I am unreasonably good at repressing my trauma and memories. Did you know your mind can actually lock off heavily traumatic experiences? Yeah, mine is working overtime 25/7.

Aaaaaanyways. It did not take me long to reach the Wicked Witches of Hemwick. Because it turns out having a voice in your head telling you what you want to know is pretty useful.

Is Schizophrenia really bad if it tells you the secrets of the universe?

'It isn't.'

See? He agrees with me!

Anyway, it did not take me too long to stumble my way into the what I assume is the boss room after I spent a bit of time on where I found the Lake rune and looking out into the horizon while chugging 18 bottles of alcohol.

And huh, that alcohol actually affected me for once. Maybe because I tried suppressing my poison resistance with my insight? Anyway, I am heading to fight these old hags while completely zonked out of my goddam mind.

I stepped into the...? Church...? Looking room. I don't actually know what it is, either I forgot what this room resembled from my super dementia or I never learned in the first place.

Huh, is that a crusty old hag witch covered in eyeballs?

...Are those inky black sickle-wielding eldrich-looking malnourished people crawling out of blood portals on the floor?

Man. Is that because of the alcohol or the insight? Regardless I just held my hand out and crumpled it like paper using my level 3 and a half telekinesis.

And then the eyeball crusty witch hag. I pulled a particularly large tombstone out of my inventory before rearing my arm back and electrifying it and launching it several times faster than the fastest baseball pitch in history.

The result? A dead hag and a sizeable crater on the ground, but now I am covered in eyeball goo. It did not take me long to notice the other one which I dealt in a more convenient manner by twisting its entire body until it looked like hemp rope.

[PREY SLAUGHTERED]

[ Bountiful Sunlight lv.10(max) has been restored ]

[ Adjusting to world logic... ]

[ You have acquired the skill [Mend Flesh Lv.1] ]

That's nice. I don't really need to regenerate all that much but it's nice to have. But man is this alcohol hitting hard. Zeroing my poison resistance can really get me drunk if I drink enough.

And man let me tell you getting drunk with insight just makes the world rather unintelligible.

Oops, it seems like my mind is shutting down.

*THUD*

A/N: Welcome back to John's ludicrous journey across Yharmam. If you liked the chapter then be sure to tell me as I haven't really been seeing much enthusiasm toward this fic and it would help if you guys showed your opinion on it.

I am driven by engagement and interaction. You guy's comments really help me improve and motivate me to write. I would really like to know your thoughts about this chapter and more importantly how John is faring in this world and what you think about him currently.