It’s no secret that I’ve been kind of obsessed with the campfire encounters in Dying Light 2: Stay Human. I listened to tales of heroism and tales of woe in the beginning, and then I started finding full-on stages where people would give performances. This is a surprisingly fleshed-out corner of Techland’s open-world zombie-parkour game.
I found another stage with another performance, and this time it’s a story called “The Monster of the Cathedral.” You can listen to the whole thing for yourself right here:
Since I’ve been transcribing each and every one of these campfire stories, I might as well keep the trend alive and do this one too.
This guy warms up the crowd a bit with a nice little intro: “Gather round, ye seekers of knowledge. Tonight’s performance is on the Monster of the Cathedral. You are eager to know from whence it came, what it is. But you truly thirst for the knowledge it holds for mankind.”
At this point, one person in the crowd goes: “Um, I thought this was a puppet show?”
The performer is not having it. He shouts, “Silence!”
There actually is a moment of silence before the guy in the crowd shouts, “Beer!”
The performer says, “Bruce! I told you to never come back! Throw him out!” He calms himself almost instantly, and goes back into his tale. “Two brothers once dwelled in Villedor. The younger, a poor man. The elder, a rich pharmacist with hardened heart evermore.
“One day, the younger brother’s daughter fell ill. ‘My brother has ne’er helped me. Mayhap he will assist his niece with just one pill.’ Dressed in his finest array, he bowed before his kin. ‘I humbly ask a boon. Save your niece or spell her doom.’
“‘Yet medicines are fine and rare. What do you offer in repair?’
“‘I have nothing, but will do what you ask.’
“‘Fetch me the treasure of Saint Paul’s. I’ll give you ‘ere you need whence you perform this task.'”
And then the guy in the crowd — Bruce, apparently — shouts, “Yer usin’ those words wrong!”
The performer is fed up. “Damn it, Bruce! What’d I say? Get him… finally…”
He transitions back into his story inhumanly fast. “So the younger brother goes and prays at the crypt of Saint Paul. When his biomarker blazed red, he feared he was dead.”
And now an unseen heckler gets a jab in: “Enough with the rhymes, dude!”
The performer mutters under his breath, “Ugh, Philistines…” before getting back to the story. “Saint Paul answers his prayers. There was treasure there, but there is must remain. The father begs, ’tis not for me, but for my daughter.’ Saint Paul sees into this good man’s heart and grants him access to the vast hidden treasure. The brother takes a single ring, leaving behind his most precious possession, the only picture of his deceased beloved wife.
“Returning to his stone-hearted brother, the exchange is made, and the younger’s tale is told. The pharmacist, thinking his brother a fool, himself beseeches Saint Paul. Lies poured from his lips of made-up needs. Yet Saint Paul also reveals the treasure to him. Stuffing his sacks full, he gloats, mocking the saint’s gullibility. But as he leaves, his bedecked jewels burn hotter and hotter. His skin not only burns, but he swells to monstrous size. Begging for his life, he barely squeezes through the door. But the sun further burns his blistered and scaly skin. He leaps through a stained-glass window to return to his new lair, and there he sits, brooding o’er his treasure. Let all liars and thieves beware.”
Then the heckler says, “What did I say about the rhymes?”
“Fuck you, Bruce!” That’s where the story ends, and an uncomfortable silence fills the air.
