So this is completely new territory for me: my best friend wanted me to help him write a story, and he wanted it to be about Demon's Souls. We came up with a name for the nameless protagonist (Godric), and we have an idea for the plot all the way through. No spoilers, though! :D His version, the exact same text as mine, can be found on deviantART under the username "Souledge-master". He and I do not own Demon's Souls; we only own our laptops and our imaginations.
He couldn't remember the last time he had taken a rest. The long days spent at the knight's academy seemed like a paradise compared to the foggy terrain he now faced. His horse was exhausted, he had no food left, and his throat was parched. Godric wondered how long it would take before he reached a relatively-cheap merchant's table. Perhaps he would succumb to his hunger first, if the horse didn't drop dead.
Godric was approaching Boletaria rapidly, and his intended destination was supposed to be the place where dreams were fulfilled. He would become a great knight, potentially find a beautiful maiden to serve, and die on the battlefield, buried with full honors. His reality was shaping up to be a vaporous wasteland with little to no life.
Obviously not the life I imagined, he thought sourly. His horse was near to collapsing and he himself wasn't faring much better. All Godric needed was a little bit of crescent moon grass and he would be good as new. Crescent moon grass was infused with healing magic, a remnant from when King Allant rediscovered the Soul Arts.
As he trotted along on his steed, Godric reflected on why he was headed to Boletaria. His advisors had explained that Boletaria possessed some of the most malicious demons in the land. Since the return of the Soul Arts, a ghastly vapor was settling over the land, and only the most stout-hearted of knights and mages would ever consider going to Boletaria. 'It is too dangerous for those not fully committed to their duties,' the advisors had warned. Godric felt that he was more than committed to his task and so he set forth for Boletaria, his entire life on his back and the biggest dream in his heart.
A quick movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, and Godric saw a dog drunkenly stumbling from out of the fog. Once free of the noxious cloud, the dog still continued on in a daze, and Godric was intrigued. He nudged his horse to go on faster, anxious to see the effects of the fog firsthand. The skeleton of a gate's shadow appeared, and Godric spurred his horse into a gallop.
Godric was about to cross into the town gates when a large caravan passed him, leaving the town.
"Wares!" a raspy voice was screaming. "We have cheap wares! Medicine, food! Whatever you need, we have it!" Godric wheeled his horse around to trot after the caravan.
"Good merchants! Do you have some crescent moon grass?" Godric called, dismounting from his horse, and facing the sellers. There were only a couple of them, older men wrapped in hand-me-down clothes.
"We do," answered the largest of the merchants, a rotund man missing a couple teeth. "That'll be 150 souls."
"Souls?" Godric parroted. "Sir, I don't know what currency you speak of. I have no money on me. The only thing I have of worth is my horse." The merchant glanced at his comrades before turning back to the young knight.
"Since you don't speak the language of souls, how about 150 copper pieces?"
"I'm telling you, I have no money!" Godric insisted. He gathered his meager belongings from the back of the saddle and gestured to the horse. "Go ahead and take the horse." The skinniest merchant leaned forward to grab the reins, and the rotund merchant passed a small parcel into Godric's hands.
"Here you go, lad," the merchant told him. "Six roots, and use them well." The caravan began to move again, Godric left standing with his entire life on his back and what he hoped to be his eventual salvation in his hands.
"Better start walking, then," he told himself. He heard the echo of laughter coming from the direction of the caravan, and Godric smiled.
"I made someone's day. A perfect start to my new life," he said, continuing his hike into Boletaria.
The town was eerie. Entire buildings were abandoned, and the only movement came from an occasional stray wandering about, no doubt wondering where its owner had gone. Godric had been promised Boletaria would be the land of milk and honey for a knight, but he was starting to think that his advisors at the knight academy had been drunk out of their skulls. Cumulus cloud formations of fog passed through the town around Godric's head, and a chill went down his spine. There was no one else in the town.
A courtyard soon became visible, and Godric went to the courtyard, positive it would lead to finding another living being. The haze grew thicker as he entered the courtyard, but he was confident soon another person would appear. To his amazement, he heard footfalls slightly behind him. The presence did not feel friendly, and he turned, sword extended as he was taught, to defend himself.
He had heard rumors about the fog…that it was liable to cause insanity. People who entered the fog often exited as a shell of their former selves, hell-bent on causing destruction to ease their madness. Godric had listened to a lecture from a man said to have overcome the insanity, and he had described it as "…not being able to come back to myself…my real soul was lost in the fog". The talk had made Godric afraid, but not so afraid he would stay away from Boletaria. Knights were responsible for swallowing fear and persevering, no matter the circumstances.
A man tottered toward Godric from the fog, and the young knight swallowed once to attempt to quell his fear. This was one of the simplest enemies he could have encountered, or so the advisors at the knight academy told him. The slave infantry of the Boletarian Army, called dredglings, were used as cannon fodder to allow the more trained and valuable soldiers to move in. The lack of training was clear as the creature simply rushed him, raising its broken blade in the air as it released out a loud, agonizing moan. Its face was half covered by a wooden helmet that looked like it was made out of a bucket, and a simple plank shield was hanging from its arm haphazardly as it rushed like a beheaded chicken at him. A simple thrust forward later, and the dredgling was dispatched, now like the analogy in more than just metaphor. Godric stared at the being he had just killed, stunned at how seemingly easy it was to not think about the act of killing.
More dredglings entered the courtyard in the opposite direction from where the first creature had come. His sword at the ready, Godric brought his shield up defensively, as he was taught at the academy. Even if the enemy was untrained, a group could easily overwhelm an unready opponent. They came at him as one, their rusted blades flailing. They broke formation quickly, with one creature speeding ahead at Godric, allowing him to block the attack, and redirect him to the side. Godric took the opportunity to dash forward and slash diagonally through one of the attacker's chests. The blade easily sliced through the cloth shirt and entered the flesh as though Godric were slicing a thin piece of meat. Blood welled up and ran as the dredgling fell to the ground.
Godric let himself sink into his training, imagining these beings as the dummies he had practiced on so many times over the years at the academy. Godric blocked, stabbed, sliced, and dodged his way through the crowd of dredglings, each one seeming to fall even more quickly than the last. Yet, despite his imagination, he couldn't ignore the blood on the ground and his blade, nor could he ignore the groans of pain from the mindless drones as they fell. He quashed down the sick feeling rising up in his stomach as he drove his blade through the last one. The dredgling fell to the ground wordlessly before Godric pulled his blade out.
Once all the dredglings were eliminated, Godric felt a sense of safety come over him for a brief second before he heard a massive crunch coming from behind him. He turned to see the roof and top half of a house be demolished right before his eyes. Godric instinctively took up his knight's stance, sword raised, ready to take on whatever sight came before him. His sword arm fell, however, when he saw the abomination that was approaching him.
A gigantic, humanoid demon approached Godric, its large belly swaying as it tottered toward him. Three glowing gold eye sockets seemed to taunt Godric as it sauntered forward casually, a hungry look on its face. Clutched in one gigantic clawed paw was an oversized blunt axe. Godric had been told to expect to meet demons on his journey, but he had never expected to meet a demon so large as to completely obscure his field of vision. Godric only came up to the demon's calf, and despite having a good sword, Godric did not think he would be able to take on the demon successfully. That didn't mean he couldn't try. Godric could not keep his sense of knight's honor if he backed away from this fight. Adjusting his sword in his hands, Godric took his battle stance once more…
And was promptly knocked off his feet by one fell swoop of the blunt axe. The demon roared, a terrifying, inhuman roar, and Godric panted shallowly to will himself to get back up. The wind got knocked out of Godric's lungs, and he could feel where the cobblestone beneath him had scraped the hell out of his back. He had been told to expect the taste of copper during the heat of battle, but when his mouth became flooded with copper, he began to panic. There wasn't supposed to be this much copper. The demon continued stomping along its merry way, satisfied with its work and ignoring the insignificant human sprawled lifelessly on the ground. Godric felt it was best just to wait. Breathing was becoming more difficult, and the advisors had cautioned that should any knight have trouble breathing, it was better just to wait for the feeling to pass. Godric didn't think the feeling was going to pass.
Godric couldn't remember much except a white, blinding light that seemed to call to him, and he ambled toward it gratefully. The white light would make breathing easier. Wait…the instructors had told him not to go toward the light. Once he entered the light, he would never return to what he knew. But Godric couldn't think about that now. He wanted to go…towards…a girl? There was a female voice calling to him.
"Brave, heroic knight…thou must cometh…Godric…" Godric inched closer to the light, and he was engulfed by the blinding white light.
Before long, Godric found himself lying on stones, surrounded by a slightly suffocating darkness. His eyes adjusted, finding a dim candle and latching onto the sight. A figure materialized behind the candle, and the figure became a young woman, her hand holding the staff aloft. The candle was attached to the end of the staff, and she lowered it toward him.
"Greetings," she whispered, leaning down to where he could hear her better. "Welcome to the Nexus, brave knight." He craned his head to get a better glimpse of who was speaking to him and had to work hard not to recoil when he saw her eyes were covered in pale wax.
"Who…who are you?" he stammered. She straightened up, a wan smile on her lips, and that was as far as he got before drifting into unconsciousness.
A bit of a cliche for the end, but it will pick up from there, we promise! Please review! :D