The Fateless

! ! ! Disclaimer ! ! !

I do not own Dark Souls. That honor belongs to the great people at From Software (or whoever actually owns the IP. I'm not quite sure) This is simply the work of a fan.

Chapter I : A Refusal of Death

I sat in my cell. The rays of the sun streamed down through the broken ceiling. I had long since lost track of the time. It was the lack of any sort of supervision. They had dumped me in here, those clerics. Then they just disappeared. I haven't seen one since then. Not once since I arrived. Not a couple weeks after I-I… I … I don't know. All I remember were those damnable clerics. Those fuckers. Always preaching of how praying to the gods would save us. Of how it would end our suffering. Funny, for all the preaching and praying the Way of the White had done, it was useless. Fucking useless. It hadn't helped anyone in here, hell it had condemned most of them to a grisly fate.

Looking around my cell for the millionth time, and saw the desiccated corpse of my cell mate chained to the wall. I guess corpse wasn't truly an apt description of her fate. She had slowly been… dying? …I don't know. She had been withering away. She kept going on and on about how long she had lasted. On and on, of how she had seen the rise of this damnable asylum, and its subsequent fall to this state. She rambled of how she would see me go hollow, whatever that meant. Ranted of her apparent 'immortality'. What a load of bullshit that had been. She had kept getting more and more unhinged. Finally, she had looked at me, with empty, starved eyes. It was as if she was staring straight into my soul. She had tried to strike me, so I acted out against her, restraining her to the wall using the nearby pair of manacles. She just kept trying to reach me. Eventually, her body just gave out. I think she still alive. Just… not feeling anything anymore. What a horrid fate.

I looked up to the sky. Up to the incandescent ball of fire. I stayed like this for a while. It… comforted me. Ever since I had been here, I was drawn to the flames. Like a moth, I sought it almost mindlessly. If I let my mind drift, I would find myself reaching and clawing for the torches outside in the hall. It made me feel… safe. More or less. I have my doubts I will truly be safe in here. Still the feeling was glorious. As if I had finally found what I had been searching for all my life. Of course it faded, just as the flames did. But the sun, it was a constant, always there. Yet simultaneously unreachable, unobtainable. To try and claim it for oneself surely would only end in madness.

Suddenly, my cell shook, a loud crash reverberating through the asylum. Parts of the crumbling ceiling fell down, and with a mighty crash, my cell door fell. Heh, must have been some pretty shoddy craftsmanship to fall from blow halfway across the asylum. Another blow sounded. My cell shook once more, dislodging even more of the decrepit ceiling. One rather large block fell right by me. With a sickening crunch, and a spurt of a dark reddish-brown, the block landed on my leg.

I stared at it incredulously. My leg was gone. Everything below the knee was reduced to a bloody pulp, and yet I felt only a dull ache where my leg had once been. I sat there, until another crash, and even more of my cell collapsing.

Realizing that there was nothing I could do about my leg, I began crawling to the exit. I'd be damned if I died in here. I wasn't through with life, I wanted to live. I dragged myself through the halls. Pulling myself towards the light at the end of the hall, pulling myself forwards, towards the promise of safety.

As I reached through the hall, it happened.

In my mad rush for the exit, I failed to see it. With the repeated crashes echoing throughout the asylum, I failed to hear it. A soldier, with those empty, starved eyes, rushing towards me. I was reaching out, greedily reaching for another handhold, when it plunged its long sword through my arm, piercing my arm and lodging itself firmly in the crumbling stone bricks of the floor. Strangely, I felt not a sharp pain, but a dull ache. I simply looked upon the scene with a dull surprise. It seemed unreal. The sword… in my left arm… I should feel… something more. The aggressor was trying to pull the sword out. Thinking fast, I grabbed it's ankle with my free hand, and pulled as hard as I could. It did nothing. I was weak, my muscles severely atrophied from my time in the cell.

Then, in a stroke of good fortune, the hall shook as another crash rang out, knocking the soldier of its feet. It fell, releasing its grip on the sword. I raised my left arm up to the crossgaurd, the blade cutting through my flesh, in an attempt to remove it from the floor. Frustrated, I gripped the handle with my right hand and pulled hard. The blade broke free of its stony encasement. Turning the weapon upon its former wielder, I raised it over the soldier's chest and brought it down. Again and again. The damn thing kept struggling, trying to get up. The blade punctured through its armor with ease. I kept slamming the sword into the thing's chest, sending spurts of blood along the blade and into my face. When it stopped moving, I crawled away from it.

I tried to pull the blade from my arm, but couldn't manage it. I just had to accept that it was stuck there for the time being.

I looked around, surveying my surroundings. I sure as hell wasn't making the same mistake of obliviousness twice.

I was on the second story of the asylum. I was on a ledge overlooking what appeared to be a rather large atrium with two thick iron doors at either end. I began to brainstorm ways to get down, and through the opposing door, when it occurred to me that the noise from when I escaped my cell was getting louder, constantly increasing in volume. Every single strike was tearing through the asylum, as if a storm had brewed overhead! The cacophony grew and grew, until suddenly the door across from me was blown open. A massive monster, a rather fat demon with a pair of puny wings, wielding a massive hammer had struck the door, demolishing both it and the wall.

Near its feet I saw a knight, a knight dressed in royal blue armor, with his left arm holding a shield and incased in steel, wielding an ornate straight sword in his right. The demon swung its hammer at the knight. The knight nimbly leapt back, and rolled well outside the demon's range.

The demon had strength, but it had no true strategy. It simply swung its hammer at its foe, trying to kill it with simple brute force.

The knight however, was much different. Outmatched physically, his only hope was in his ability to outwit his opponent. He dodged the demon's swings, slashing and stabbing during the openings in between his foes strikes.

I noticed that the knight kept on backing up, keeping the demon following. The knight was leading the demon to a nearby pillar.

He lured the demon into swinging at the pillar, dodging the blow and rolling well away from the site and raising his shield. The pillar exploded into large chunks of rock, and without support a sizable chunk of the ceiling fell onto the demon.

" █ ██ █ ▄ ▄▄██ █ ▄ ▄▄ █ ▄▄ ▄█ █ ██ █ ▄ ▄▄ █ ▄▄ ▄ █ ██ █ ▄ ▄▄ █ ▄▄ ▄ █ ▄▄ █ ██ █ ▄ ▄▄ █ ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▬▬▬ ▄ ▄ █ ▄ ▄▄ █ █ "

With a mighty bellow, the demon charged the knight down, swinging its hammer in a mighty horizontal blow. The knight ducked underneath the swing, and slashed at the beast's exposed belly. The demon flapped its undersized wings and, in defiance to all logic, lifted into the air.

The knight, clearly wary of his titanic foe, raised his shield and rapidly backpedaled. The demon slammed into the ground, sending several chunks of loose debris into the air. Unfortunately for the decidedly human combatant, a large chunk of rock struck his shield, forcing it out of his hand, and the knight himself flying backwards. The knight landed somewhere beneath my platform.

The demon stood up again, and walked towards the knight, preparing to deliver the killing blow to the knight. It was right in front of my ledge when it hit me. I would have to fight this fucking thing! Without a leg and a sword through my arm! Deciding that the knight would be a considerable lot more helpful alive than dead, I resolved to stop the demon from killing him. Limited in my options, I ended up pulling myself off the ledge. As I plummeted towards the demon, it looked up at me, its eyes widening in shock.

I angled my left arm so the sword lodged in it would impale the demon. I struck the demon's body, while the blade pierced through its eye, and embedded itself deep into its skull.

" █ ██ █ ▄ ▄▄ █ █ ██ █ ▄ ▄▄ █ ▄▄ ▄ █ ██ █ ▄ ▄▄ █ ▄▄ ▄ █ ▄▄ ▄▄ ▄ ▄ █ ▄ ▄▄ █ █ ██ █ ▄ ▄▄ █ ▄▄ ▄ █ ██ █ ▄ ▄▄ █ ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▬▬▬ "

The demon roared. A deep, guttural sound that it released as it died. Its corpse collapsed to the ground, taking me with it, pinning me between it and the ground.

Heh. This is it. This is how I die. Underneath some giant fatass. What a great way to go.

I tried to laugh. A hoarse croaking sound emitted from my throat. Damn. I needed something to drink. My throat was parched. Almost as if I hadn't drank something in centuries.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash light as a sword was placed on my throat.

"Who are you?"

I looked up; it was the knight from before. Upon closer inspection, I saw that his armor was of a rather fine make. Most likely made for nobility, seemed to be Astoran in make.

"I said who are you? Identify yourself!"

Moving my right hand away from the hilt of the sword lodged in the demon and my left arm, I opened my palm in a placating gesture, trying to signal a lack of malicious intent.

After all, why would I try and kill you after saving your ass from that giant demon.

What. A. Prick.

"Why do you refuse to answer? Are you mute?!"

Deciding that yes, I was currently unable to speak, as well as the fact that annoying the knight with a lack of an affirmative response was a bad idea, I chose to nod my head. Hopefully, he would interpret this as 'yes' as opposed to 'chop my head off'.

"Ah. I see." He said as he sheathed his sword.

"So I take it that you're no hollow eh? Thank goodness. I apologize for my treatment of you, it was unbecoming of a knight such as myself. I am Oscar, a knight of Astora."

Seeing as this was the time for introductions, I decided that the best I could do was simply wave. This would be so much easier if I had a less vague way of communicating than through purely gestures. I mean honestly, in the

"I take it that you intended to slay that beast, correct?"

I nodded; after all, that was my plan. Kinda. Not really. Actually not at all, but I sure as hell wasn't going to tell him that. Not that I could if I wanted to anyways.

"I must thank you then. Here, let me help you out of your current predicament."

The knight, or rather Oscar of Astora, began to pull me out from underneath the bloodied corpse of the demon. Upon seeing the sword impaling my arm to the demon, he chuckled.

"A rather odd fighting style you have there. Not many would willing injure themselves just to hurt their foe."

I glared at him. It wasn't like I had a choice you know! I was ambushed! I only resorted to using the sword in my arm because it was the only weapon available! Chuckling at his joke, he continued to pull me free. Upon seeing my leg, or lack thereof, he remarked of how it must have been a miracle that I was still alive, and mentioned that I should get to a bonfire as soon as I could.

Being the glorious and attentive being I am, I paid more attention to spitting on the corpse of the demon that had fallen. I have my priorities damn it! Mortal wounds come second to taunting my foes.

Oscar helped me to my fee- … to my foot, and supported me as we travelled through where the thick iron door had once been. In the middle of the court yard was a twisted and blackened sword surrounded by ash and bones. It was surrounded by a small blaze, a very comforting site despite its true nature. Oscar laid me down next to it, and went back to retrieve his shield.

A/N : A couple of corrections along with a few new jokes. I have a bad habit of using crappy grammar. All the damn time.