Dark Souls 3

Tales of Souls and Blood

Slaveknight Gael's Final Fight

A now dead princess, a broken egg.

Sands and destruction as far as the eye can see. Surely, this is what the end of the world looks like.

A fallen, humanoid creature without legs, is desperately clawing its way towards the tower, calling the name of the person you are sure you just killed. You don't know how, or why. But you're convinced you did. They call their name over and over again, begging for them to save them:

"Fillianore... Please... Help me..."

You consider killing the poor creature out of empathy and mercy, but before you can even finish the thought, you see a looming structure by the foot of the hill of destruction you stand upon. The trail of moisture the creature from earlier left behind in it's wake, resembling dark red muddy blood, trailing from that exact same structure, or what looks to be the remains of it.

You're struck with a sudden curiosity, and, grasping your Irithyll Straight Sword extra tight in your hand, you begin trekking down the hill.

You can sense somehow that, a lot of time has passed since anyone has ever set their foot here. You can almost feel hundreds of years of destruction, death and agony weigh upon your shoulders as you approach the looming structures, which turns out not to be much else than a few crumbling, broken stone thrones. As you stand in the middle of the throne circle, you see bodies scattered everywhere, matching the creature crawling towards the tower you saw earlier.

You hear a growl, something like wet moisture, and the sound of someone ripping into flesh. You reach the top of a sand dune, and your heart sinks as you see a huge creature. It looks human, but at the same time it is eating so maliciously that it strikes you as doubtful that any humanity even remains anymore. Hunched over and munching on something you cannot quite see, nor describe, it doesn't seem to notice you as you approach. Your gut begins turning around itself as you recognize the red cape draped around the creature's shoulders, the hood obscuring it's face and features.

And as if struck by lightning from a clear sky, you suddenly realize why you recognize them.

It's the same man that helped you beat Father Ariandel and Sister Elfriede, the same man who valiantly fought by your side when you challenged and ultimately defeated the demon princes. The same man who sent you on your journey to The Painted World, and later guided you through the ruined dusts and swamps of The Dreg Heap, and who watched over you as you fought your way to the center of The Ringed City, which now lies in sandy ruins.

It is the same man that left that little girl, The Painter, back in The Painted World to search for The Dark Soul, so that she could finally finish the painting she had hoped to finish, and had been working on for so long. The same man who sent you on the journey that filled your mind with so many questions, and so, so few answers, that you constantly doubt whether or not you are doing the right thing here. Lady Elfriede begged for you to "Return, from whence thou cam'st." Maybe you should have listened to her?

He finally notices your footsteps as you approach, and as he turns around to look at you, your heart sinks even further to the bottom of your chest. He looks so old, destroyed, ruined almost. His chest is gaping with a wound you cannot quite describe with words, and you're not quite sure you even wish to. His voice is weak and raspy as he finally recognizes you, and despite his hood, obscuring his eyes, you can almost feel a faint glow of realization in them.

"What, still here?"

He begins to get up, his long, mutated legs barely able to hold his weight. He is larger than when you last saw him. Back then, he was naught but a man of your own size. Now, he easily tower over you, with at least twice your height, a broken, smoldering blade easily your length by his side. His raspy voice cuts through the air like knives, as a demand that confuses and scares you, is laid upon you, laced with anger, pain and desperation.

"Hand it over. That thing, your Dark Soul. for my lady's painting."

The dark soul? You've heard that name before, but you can't quite place from where, or when. When you don't answer him, the same glow in his eyes from before goes dull, and you can almost feel the threatening anger pulse off him like an aura.

He suddenly lets out a roar, grasps his sword, and throws whatever was impaled on it straight at you. You can barely register that he just threw a mangled corpse at you before one of the greatest fights of your life is initiated.

You grip your shield and sword tighter in your hands as he rushes at you on all fours over the dunes, intent on cutting you down where you stand. You don't understand why your companion has suddenly turned hostile. Why would he help you journey to this hollowed place, only to turn on you at the very end? Is he responsible for all this destruction? Did breaking that egg cause him to look like this? Are YOU reponsible for him to apparently lose his mind and go on a rampage?

You don't do much damage to him with each strike, so you know you have to be patient and strategic. Just one of his mighty attacks easily cuts your health down to half, so careful planning is the key. You roll to dodge, poke him now and then with an attack, then have to hurry and roll out of the way in fear of having your head decapitated where you stand.

His attacks are fast and powerful. He seems to fight with a mindless animalistic approach, one that you've only seen from actual animals, like the Gravetender's Greatwolf, or the people that worship the wolf itself, like Artorias the Abysswalker's wolf-like fighting style, or The Abyss Watchers who intended to emulate it. But somehow, despite having fought the very princes of the demon realm, huge animals that could easily rip your head off with a quick jerk of their heads, and creatures so large they could easily squish you beneath their palms, nothing quite prepared you for this, nor did nothing you've ever faced scare you like the man without humanity standing before you does.

Despite the fear he makes you feel, you press on, determined to beat him and figure out just what the hell is even going on.

You've already died several times in your encounters with him, but everytime you die, you come back stronger, more determined and strategic than before. You're beginning to see openings in his defense, you're able to predict how he will attack, and dodge out of the way before launching a counterattack. Every attempt brings you closer to victory, and you finally manage to bring him down to about 2/3 health.

You manage to strike him across the face with the sharp side of your blade. You can almost hear how the frost runs through his veins, hurts him from within, but he either doesn't notice, or doesn't care. He hunches over and falls to his knees, a dark, thin line of blood beginning to cascade down his face, and slowly drips onto the broadside of his sword as he catches his breath.

"Ahh... Is this the blood? The blood of The Dark Soul?"

Darkness seems to begin to burst from every pore in his body, as he leans on his sword and forces himself to stand back on his feet. The dark seems to envelope him and obscures his features, his daunting form towering over you as his blade glows with a dark red, malicious power. Even the very clothes he is wearing, what little of it isn't in ruins, his cape, his armor and his underclothes, are all glowing with the same, torturous darkness that seems to induce even more fear in your heart and soul.

He attacks again, a whirlwind of darkness and pain. He swings in a large round swing, and you dodge the initial attack of his blade, but you feel a guttural pain as his large, heavy cape slaps you across the face, the darkness of his clothes beginning to invade your body and seep through your skin. The very darkness around him is hurting you now too. Another thing to look out for.

You try to keep your distance from him so you can formulate some form of strategy, but the more you back away, the quicker he seems to close the distance, his swings constant and ferral. He seems to involve a whole new strategy, his attacks now more calculated and destructive, while at the same time incredibly hard to avoid. Every time you think you've avoided his blade, his cape slaps you across the face. While his automatic crossbow attacks with a flurry of arrows flying towards you and threatening to impale you is easy to block, he often follows it up with a powerful attack that either cuts your health down to size, or sends you reeling backwards with your stamina completely depleted when you desperately try to block, sending you into another weak panic attack as you hurry to jump out of the way of his next powerful charge. Your estus supply is quickly reduced to half, and you're beginning to run out of options.

The fight goes on for a long time. You don't damage him as much as you wish you did, and you die a few more times, but you stay determined and press on. His health is reduced to 1/3, and when you finally begin thinking that this is about to be over, he suddenly roars, the darkness seeping from within finally exploding out of him and staining the ground around him a dark crimson. His attacks get even more vicious and fast as blinding, blue thunder begins to rain from the sky, threatening to roast you to a crisp.

So now, not only do you need to worry about Gael, but also your surroundings. Luckily, you are used to that from several other powerful encounters in your travels, so the lightning doesn't bring you much trouble, no, it's Gael, that is the ultimate threat.

He rushes you several times, manages to surprise you, and connects his blade several times, forcing you to rely, once again, on your health replenishing Estus Flask. Your supply quickly runs out, but luckily, so does Gael's health. You fear that you will have to start all over again, now that he is finally almost dead. You seem to have run out of options. You're finally out of Estus, and you are too scared to get close to Gael from fear of him finally managing to finish you off. That is when you realize that you have a Focus Point supply.

You have magic and pyromancies to help you.

So you rush through your spells, set your pyromancy, Great Chaos Fire Orb to your set spell, and get ready to put some distance between you and Gael. From his nature, he refuses to give in, and constantly tries to shorten the distance between you. In a panic you hurl your two first Fire Orbs and connect them. He is reduced to about 5% health, but he manages to connect his attack and reduces you to 10% health. You only have enough Focus for one last Fire Orb.

You take a deep breath, roll out of the way of an attack, and finally hurl it straight at Gael. It connects, and reduces his health down to 2%. He's not dead. He didn't die. He almost did. But your final, desperate attempt at finishing him off wasn't enough, and the will to fight begins to seep out of you, reminiscent of the way the darkness is seeping out of your opponent.

But right when you're ready to give up, and let him finally finish you off, just as he is about to close the distance, just as he swings his sword in what you're certain is the final time for this fight, a few milliseconds away from his blade finally connecting in that final strike, a loud scream suddenly assaults your ears. You look up to see Gael, having collapsed on his knees, reaching out towards you in a final feeble attempt to fight. He collapses on his chest, a bright burst of light from his body. You realize the lava left behind from the Great Chaos Fire Orb managed to wilt away his last few bits of HP.

And as he disappears from sight, and his soul is embedded in your inventory as a trophy for your accomplishments, you take a deep breath, and scream. You scream out of victory, of relief, of excitement. You can feel the adrenaline buzzing through your body, the blood pumping in your ears.

You can only imagine your relatives wondering why the hell you're screaming like you're being murdered.

You still don't know why you're even here in the first place. Why Gael suddenly turned on you, or why you just received the blood of The Dark Soul, unknown to you, a part of the most important item in the entire world. But at that one moment, nothing else but your victory matters.

And the sense of pride and accomplishment you feel as a result, will undoubtedly sit with you for the rest of your life.

A/N

Hey everybody! And thank you very much for reading this short story about Gael, the slaveknight who gave up everything to help his lady, and to erase a painted world tainted by rot.

I haven't been able to write a lot lately, but recently I was inspired by my own fight against Slaveknight Gael, and I simply had to write before the muse left me again, like it always does.

This was planned to be a one-shot for DS3, but if you guys liked it, let me know, and I might just make another one-shot chapter.

Anyway, hope you guys are doing well, and see you next time!