章 74: Mild Mildred

As they descend they begin to get glimpses of the swamp below and the various creatures that inhabit it, instead of the humanoid hollows that they'd been dealing with so far, most of the swamp's creatures were leech or bug-like. Flies, spiders and who knows what else dwells down there attacking any who trespass. The path the two undead tread eventually leads to a large hole in the stone brick wall.

Before they enter Reima spots a large... Thing? attached to the wall, it has a crab like lower body that sticks to the wall but it elongates into some sort of leech mouth? It's skin is dry and cracked and oozes a black substance.

Ignoring the monstrosity not far from them they enter the destroyed wall and the light seems to be sucked away causing Solaire to have difficulties progressing. Reima simply summons his Pyromancer flame before encouraging it to increase it's size, it provides a good amount of light to the surroundings. Reima lights snuffed out torches as they walk through and dispatch any enemies attempting to impede their progress.

They take a ladder downwards and see the doorway on the other side of the room, something seems to be blocking it with it's body. Reima realises it's that crab-like abomination sitting above the entrance, they approach it and stab it a few times causing it to shudder but not move... Is it stuck here?

After what seems more stabs than neccecery the creature groans and fades into motes of light, dropping a scroll below it's previous position.

Reima approaches it and picks it up before reading the title, Power Within?... Oh, he remembers it being used in the game. If he's not mistaken it should be a massive speed and damage buff, the negatives are that it slowly drains health when it's used.

Reima looks at Solaire "This is a good find."

Solaire "Yes but I wonder what that creature was doing with a scroll? Reading perhaps?"

Reima "It didn't look like it had eyes, so probably not."

They continue to fight the residence of BlightTown as they try to reach the bottom, they enter a path leading through another wall and realise that it leads to the bottomless hole they'd started at, looking up they can almost see the beginnings of the Depths. They take enter the fog-gate and come out onto another wooden platform with a ladder beside it. They head down the ladder and come face to face with their first chaos creature, it's body is long and tapers towards it's tail, red charred skin with spider-like legs. The most notable thing about the creature is it's face which is completely enveloped in fire. It spits a whip of fire at them which makes them block it, Solaire retaliates with a lightning bolt and it quickly dies from the newly formed hole. They don't seem that durable which means that can quickly kill them before they start spitting fire everywhere, last thing they need is the whole structure collapsing on them. Reima looks over the side at the swamp and sees giant tree roots running along the area, he only just realises now that this is probably the base of the tree that he saw in Firelink shrine... He knows the area inside of it is called the Great hollow but is unsure about the tree's actual name... Wouldn't surprise him if it was called Yggdrasil.

Reima and Solaire kill a number of chaos bugs and large blood sucking flies as they travel and get closer to the swamp, Reima stores the wanderer set in his Folded space which causing Solaire to comment that he's got a hoarding problem. They finally reach the swamp after killing a large number of chaos bugs that tried to ambush them, Reima's boots sink in the swamp as soon as they land and he immediately feels the poison trying to invade him system, due to his Witcher mutations, arch griffin mutagen and adaptive body he can take it relatively well... But that doesn't mean Solaire can.

Reima remembers that a bonfire is near them and gets Solaire to sprint with him towards it. They reach a tunnel that looks like where the sewer ends and finally dumps the waste, inside the find a dead bonfire that springs to life has they approach it. Solaire rests at it which causes the poison to vanish from his system which makes him relax, due to Solaire's apparent weakness towards poison Reima decides to loot the nearby area alone while he rests, Solaire tries to refuse but Reima tells him he only has a limited supply of Purple moss clumps.

Leaving Solaire at the bonfire Reima tries to remember where the fire keeper soul was located... He leaves the tunnel and a strange feeling crawls up his neck, looking to the side he sees a glowing red woman wearing rags and a bag over her head sprinting towards him with a huge butcher knife.

Reima readies Arcell as she does a jumping attack and slams her weapon on top of him, his blade shudder slightly at the force but it isn't difficult to block, mainly because of his massively increased strength.

The woman growls and disengages her weapon and tries to bash him with her plank shield, Reima simply dodges with Windfall before stabbing her in the side. Not even a groan is heard when she takes the wound, she seems to just get angrier and starts furiously swinging her weapon around.. Reima decides to end it and parries the weapon knocking her off balance before stabbing Arcell through her throat... She drops to her knees while holding the wound and eventually disappearing.

Reima looks at the floor and sees the butcher knife she was wielding lying in the swampy waters, he stores it in his Folded space despite having almost no idea what to do with it... Reima follows a rickety path upwards and jumps on the elevator that's somehow being powered? He looks at it and sees an undead dog running in what looks like a hamster wheel... He's unsure how it can produce so much force with such a small body but ignores it in favour of finding the fire-keeper soul, while he currently doesn't have a use for them that doesn't mean he won't find one in the future. He refuses to even consider upgrading his Estus flasks due to them probably not working in other worlds.