Dark Souls: A Solaire To Madness
Chapter One: A Daring Rescue
Colvin sat in his cell and scratched his crotch, then he scratched it some more. There wasn't much more he could do to be honest. He had already tried to open the barred door to his cell but it wouldn't budge, no doubt having been reinforced when the undead were being corralled and placed in the Asylum. He hadn't been fully awake on his journey inside but had caught glimpses of other cells filled with undead; their armour and clothes telling him that they'd been taken from dozens of other cities and nations.
Knights from Baldur and Astora, Berenike and Catarina, even Carim had its fair share of people inside the walls. And they were all hollow now, hollow and crazed. And then there was him, the only one from Nasla, at least for all he knew.
"I wouldn't be surprised if I was the only sane man in here." Colvin said to himself as he looked up, to the medium sized grate that lay in the ceiling, being the only thing letting any light in he was fond of looking up at it. Strangely though, or at least by him it was strange, was that by his reckoning he'd been here for a week, and yet in all that time he'd never once woken up or indeed gone to sleep while it was dark. It was always light.
He would have cared a little more about the weather if he wasn't undead, so it didn't bother him much. He stood up and stretched his legs, more out of instinct than a feeling of pain. Undead didn't much feel pain, or that was his guess. In any case he wasn't about to go charging into any swords to find out if his guess was right.
Walking over to the door he grasped the bars and pulled slightly, feeling nothing budge. Staring out into the corridor he saw that some Hollows had sauntered this way and were stood quietly banging their heads against the walls. Colvin wondered how they'd escaped but slightly shook his head, reminding himself that they'd already come around before, and that this was no different.
'Poor bastards.' Colvin thought. 'Must be horrible to lose all memories of who you are, or were. Shame.'
He continued staring out into the corridor and thought about all those Knights he'd seen when he was brought in.
'Every one of them, Hollow.'
It was enough to make a man shudder. And Colvin was barely a man, so he did shudder.
All those Knights and Scholars and normal people, whose only crime was dying and coming back to life. And so they were hunted, and transported like goods across the land, to the hellhole that was the Asylum.
'And here we sit, awaiting our inevitable Hollowing. It's not like the guards can kill us can they?'
The last part of that morbid thought cheered him up slightly. While it's true that undead go Hollow if they lose everything, they at least have a form of immortality.
"Doesn't really help me get out of this cell though, does it?"
He turned around and made his way back to the corner of his cell, sitting down he crossed his legs and closed his eyes, pulling the thick fabric of his cloak around him. He wasn't cold but it helped to insulate him against the outside world and allowed him to think unburdened.
A few hours passed, and as Colvin sat in his cell he thought he could hear some strange sounds.
Sounds of metal being scraped against stone...
Sounds of bricks crumbling and falling...
Sounds of exertion as someone above him strained with something...
He opened his eyes and glanced upwards in time to see the grate obscured by a metal helmet.
"What in the world?"
Colvin rose to his feet and stared up at the helmet. It was attached to a head, quite obviously, but it looked new(ish) and still shined quite fiercely. He couldn't make out any features under it due to lack of light and the small amount of slits in the grooved metal.
After a tense few minutes the person spoke.
"You're not Hollow, are you?"
"No, not the last time I checked, I might look like shit but I'm still me." He answered.
The Knight, for that was apparent when he spoke, with that obvious aristocratic voice, soon disappeared from view. Colvin wondered what was going on, but didn't have to wait long until he got an answer, although it wasn't the one he wanted.
The grate was suddenly pulled free, and with a screech was dragged away from the opening. Colvin awaited a rope so he could climb out but what he got was a surprise.
A body suddenly blotted out the light for a second, leaving Colvin to think that the Knight had fallen through the hole. But when he looked again he saw that instead of the Knight, before him was a corpse. A small, shrivelled corpse, Hollow and clothed in nary a scrap.
Colvin stared up again, intent on berating the Knight for not just dropping him a rope or the key, but was silenced before his tongue made a sound.
"Key's on the corpse, open as many cells as you can. Those that don't contain Hollows that is."
Before Colvin had time to react the Knight was gone, vanished from sight.
"Did that just happen?" He said to himself.
Grabbing the key ring from the body looked to be a difficult task, until Colvin saw that the Knight had wrapped the key ring around the corpse's neck.
"Gross, yuck." Colvin said as he wiped the key ring on a bit of moss that was growing in the corner of his cell.
Having cleaned the key ring he attached the metal ring to his belt and then detached the key from it. He stepped towards the door and with some effort managed to unlock it. After reattaching the key to its ring he hesitated before stepping out of the room. Noting the Hollows in the corridor and recalling his 'mission' from the Knight who had freed him, he quickly looked around his cell for a weapon but could find nothing, not even a broken sword hilt.
Frowning he stepped out and grabbed one of the lit torches from its sconce, feeling the weight in his hands he briefly thought about attacking the Hollows but discarded that notion when he closed the distance and nothing happened. They continued to softly bang their heads against the walls.
Whether he should put them out of their misery was a subject of debate for Colvin. On the one hand, they were doomed to live this way forever, never gaining a reprieve from the ever increasing madness that consumed them. On the other hand though, perhaps some soul somewhere might be working on a cure for this cursed state of un-death.
Finally Colvin decided against killing them, for it was not truly his place to be the decider of a man's fate.
Except his own.
He continued past the Hollows, giving them a wide berth and glancing into every cell he came across. Nothing but mad Knights and broken people just sitting quietly and staring at him with glowing red eyes. He began to lose hope that anyone, other than him was still sane.
'Looks like my thinking was right earlier.'
With that macabre thought loose he hung his head and furrowed his brow, not wanting to be the only one with a mind in a building full of those who had lost theirs.
Checking the cells was a tiring task and before long Colvin was feeling worn out. But just as he was passing the second to last cell he happened to glance inside and caught sight of something moving. Obviously it could have been a Hollow but something about it made Colvin stop and move closer to the bars.
Inside the cell was dark and Colvin couldn't make out anything of note, until he shone the torch through the bars and illuminated the inside.
"You there, you're not Hollow are you?" Colvin said to the figure who he'd uncovered with the torchlight.
The figure stirred a bit, before rising to their feet and stepping closer to the door. When they came close enough to be lit up by the light their features were clear to see.
The man, for that was gender of the figure, was a bit taller than Colvin; his hair was a mixture of black and gray and hung loosely from a ponytail. The face and its features were indistinguishable from Colvin's own wrinkled face; such was the burden of being undead. As Colvin studied the man's clothes he felt himself wondering how this man alone had remained sane, if he even was. At the least he wasn't banging his head on the walls.
A patchwork coat, made from sturdy leather and quilting was draped over the man's body, and upon the left shoulder lay a metal plate, the shield arm then, if what Colvin had heard was true. Ruffled feathers dotted the collar and lent the man a certain presence, but what kind Colvin couldn't say.
"Do I look Hollow to you?" The man said, before bursting out into raucous laughter, startling Colvin and the nearby Hollows, who turned their heads for a second.
"Will you attack me if I let you out of there?" Colvin asked.
The man turned around and then back again. Before he opened his mouth and answered the question.
"No, I shan't attack you if you release me from this dank cell. And even if you didn't, I suppose I could do nothing to harm you anyway." And with that he let out a small chuckle.
Running through the options in his head he knew that if he let this man out, that he was actively taking a decision to leave himself open to a brutal backstab and betrayal. If he didn't let the man out, then he'd be feeling rather bad about leaving the only other sane(ish) man here to rot and Hollow.
"Alright, I'll let you out." Colvin said. "But you go in front of me and don't do anything crazy, okay?"
The man bowed his head and pursed his lips a little, although it was borderline impossible to see.
"Very well, you have my word that I shall not harm you but you are wise to ask such a thing from a stranger, especially one you meet in a lovely place like this." He said.
Colvin stood there for a second, before he unhooked the key and used it on the cell door. Swinging the iron door open he back stepped and allowed the man to exit the cell.
The man did so and stretched his arms and legs before grabbing a torch of his own from the wall. He reached to his belt and pulled out what looked to be a piece of a sword.
"Don't worry; this is just for self defence against anything that might trouble us, although I'm afraid that our torches might actually be more useful as offense." And with that he let out another dark chuckle.
The duo walked on for a bit, going up some stairs and wading through some water, before coming to a ladder. They climbed it and came out in what looked like a courtyard, or at least that's what Colvin thought it used to be.
"Hey look, what's that over there." He said, pointing at a sword sticking out of the ground.
Before either of them could do anything they were startled by a voice, one which Colvin recognised.
"It's a Bonfire." Called the Knight from earlier. Colvin and his companion looked around for the source of the voice as their eyes fell on the small, easy to miss cell door to the right of where they were standing.
Hearing it being opened they took a step back, more out of instinct than fear.
The Knight opened the door and stepped through, and Colvin could see him clearly for the first time. He wore the armour of an Astoran, elite Astoran perhaps, if the fire-warding heraldic symbol on the blue surcoat was any indication.
"So, there are only two of you hmm?" He said, walking over to the Bonfire and holding his hand out over it, it immediately bursting into flame as if he had blasted it with wicked Pyromancy.
"Shame, well then, come close and take a seat. We'll have to get the introduction out of the way sooner or later." He beckoned to the ground and bade them sit. They complied and at once felt their worries burn away, like rain on a hot forge.
"My name is Oscar of Astora." The Knight, Oscar said as he removed his helmet and set it down on the ground next to him. Colvin could finally see the face of the man who'd freed him.
For a Knight he looked extremely bad, but that was only because his face was the same as both Colvin's and the unnamed man he'd freed.
"I assume this is a shock to you, that your rescuer is the same as you, afflicted with the accursed Darksign." He said as Colvin swallowed unexpectedly.
"Well, at least you're not hollow." Said the third man.
Oscar let out a laugh, more tortuous than jovial, and deepened his brow.
"Tell me, what do you know of our curse?" He asked both men sat before him.
Colvin cleared his throat and started to talk.
"We're cursed to never die truly, to lose all our memories bit by bit as we do die, and to eventually go Hollow and start raving about moss or acting all sad."
The other man simply nodded his head along with what Colvin was saying.
"And we look like beef jerky." He finished.
Both Oscar and the other man laughed at that comment. But it was a true laugh, full of happiness and life.
"That we do, but I hazard against trying to eat one's self." Oscar said as he played with a pebble.
Colvin smiled and looked at Oscar before being distracted by the other man.
"Well, let me be the second to reveal my name then." He said as he stood up, brushing himself off.
"I am Arias of Zaloog, former wanderer and current undead, at your service." He bowed as he said it.
Now it was Colvin's turn to talk.
"And I am Colvin of Nasla, former nothing and current undead as well." He said as he picked up a pebble of his own and started to rub it absent-minded.
"Your name is Colvin?" Oscar said, his face suddenly taking on a different look, not that it was easy to see.
Colvin nodded and felt a bit uneasy. Surely this Knight of Astora would not normally know of him, something was going on here, and it was strange.
"You know of me, how pray tell?" He asked Oscar, who reached into his pouch and pulled out a small locket.
"The girl who gave me that bid me to find you here. I accepted, though in my heart I knew that whoever she was looking for was probably long Hollow. I am glad to see that you are not." Oscar said.
Colvin looked at the locket and turned it around in his hands.
'This can't be, this is a trick it must be!'
The thoughts were legion, and all of them entailed a horrific death for the girl who had given Oscar the trinket. Colvin started to breathe deeply, not knowing what the clawing feeling in his breast was.
"The girl who gave you this? She?" He asked hesitantly.
Oscar saw the worry on his face and shook his head.
"No, she yet lives." He said. "She waits at Firelink Shrine, in the land of Lordran."
Colvin frowned at that remark.
"Lordran? That's so far away from Nasla, what's she doing there?" He wondered out loud.
"It is where I was, or at the least where I had travelled to from Astora." Oscar began. "Tell me, do either of you know of the prophecy? About the Chosen Undead?"
"Chosen what?" Arias said, having been tuned out of the earlier conversation.
"There is a saying in my family. 'Thou who art Undead, art chosen... In thine exodus from the Undead Asylum, maketh pilgrimage to the land of Ancient Lords... When thou ringeth the Bell of Awakening, the fate of the Undead thou shalt know.' Well, now you both know it." Oscar dropped the pebble he had been playing with as he said it.
"Trouble is that when I arrived at Firelink I was told that there were in fact two bells to ring."
Colvin wasn't sure he quite understood what that whole speech was about but he had gotten the salient points.
"It was there that I came across a young girl, who bid me to return to the Asylum I had just escaped from and find someone by the name of 'Colvin'. And here you are. Though truth is told, I was always going to come back here, for if I was not the Chosen Undead, then one of these wretched beings was, and it was my duty to free them."
Both Arias and Colvin looked at each other and then at Oscar.
"Right, so what do we do about getting out of here then?" Arias asked.
"Without being in coffins, if at all preferable." Colvin said
Oscar smiled as he stood up and retook his helm from the ground; he wiped the dirt from the rim and placed it on his head, covering his jerky face as he did so.
"Simple." He said. "We prepare to die." Colvin groaned. "Did you not hear about the coffin part?"