After a long night of rest, the knight's eyes cracked open to the sound of the bell tolling once more.
"Someone is impatient," he muttered as he stood up. He stretched his arms and yawned while doing so. He observed himself and noticed he had cracks of... fire on himself. He put a hand over it, but it remained there. He didn't feel any different so he just put it aside. He looked forward and finally saw a double-door that would lead him to his next destination. Walking towards it, he could see that the bell tower was almost in his reach. Why was it even calling him in the first place? He sighed, and put his hands on either door, pushing with all of his might. After a few seconds full with manly grunts that felt like a few hours, the doors budged out of the way.
The first thing that caught his eye was yet another glowing object. He ran to it, and picked it up, hoping it to be more souls or perhaps more bombs. He was very disappointed to find a broken straight sword lying in a rather useful object's place. He threw it on the ground. He continued to walk forward, stopping just before he would have fallen off a cliff. While stopping himself, he looked to his left and saw one grave warden in a fetal position, and one with a spear standing next to him.
He approached the duo, and the spear-man caught the knight in his gaze, and lunged at him. The knight backstepped away, and retaliated with a sword swing that just ended up slamming into the broken shield. The curled up finally took notice when his brother took a sword to the shield and stood up, wielding a broken straight sword. The knight just jabbed the aroused one quickly, ending it's presence in the encounter. It's limp body fell off the cliff, his spear-wielding sibling not giving a damn about his friend's corpse falling into the abyss. The man who lost a brother lowered his guard for a minute and tried to impale the knight through his solid iron plate. He blocked the attack causing the man to stubble and then receive a sword to the gut.
The souls joined together and went into the knight as he continued down the narrow cliff-side, noticing another gleaming object at the end of it. He ran towards it, his hopes up that it wouldn't be the same disappointment that the previous shiny item was. He picked up...
"A bone?" he said to himself, aloud. He was confused alright. Why would a normal ol' bone be at the end of this path? And why would it be this noticeable if it was just a plain bone? He could rip off a leg and bam, same thing, right? "I'll hold onto it just in case, I guess..." he muttered, stuffing it in his pocket. He went back to the door he came out of, and decided to try scaling up the hill.
He saw two more grave wardens in fetal positions as he walked up some stairs, and decided that maybe engaging them quickly would be the easier way to deal with them.
He did exactly that, running at them and then swiping in between the two twice, disposing of both foes quite fast, but his victory was met with a flaming arrow to penetrate his armor. He held back a scream, and traced the arrow's origin to another duo of grave wardens, one an archer and once again, a spear-man. He ran at the two and swung his sword, killing the archer, but just bashing against the other's broken shield.
"Are you kidding me?" he said, swiping multiple times to just have the shield give way, and to slash straight through flesh. He put his weapons to his side, and yawned. He was still tired, and almost none of the hallows were giving him a run for his money.
He ascended up another set of stairs, and was met with the entrance to where the bell tower was. Before going in though, he decided to explore the areas on either side of the entrance.
He would have flipped a coin, but he only had a bone, some weaponry, a bomb, strange pieces of metal-like substances, and souls so he just went to the right first. He whistled as he walked, not hearing or seeing anything till the last second.
"BARK!" a dog barked, as it pounced the knight, causing him to fall to the ground. The canine didn't have a scrap of flesh on it whatsoever, it was only bone with two eyes that glared down at him. It started to rip at the armor, but before it could do any significant damage to the plate, he threw it off of him, and backed up next to the loot. It barked once more and jumped, but the knight threw his shield up. After the mutt crashed into metal, the knight responded the best way he knew how; slashing with his sword. The limp corpse fell to the ground, and the knight claimed his prize from the fallen individual that leaned against the grave.
He picked it up, and it was as if a bonfire was lying in his hands. It was hot to the touch, but it didn't seem to affect him in the way he thought it did. He looked over himself again, his body mimicking the same patterns that this object was.
"But, what does this do for me?" he asked. Yet another question that most likely no one would answer to him. He returned to the front of the bell tower, and veered off to the left this time. Walking among more coffins, he went up more stairs and saw a man off in the distance. Before approaching him, he saw a tree to his left that held a body within it's branches with another useful trinket. Except it wasn't a trinket, it was a shield. The glow masked smaller items, but it couldn't mask something this large. Almost on cue, two grave wardens came down some stairs to congratulate him on his discovery.
They just ran at him, and he just cut them down. There broken swords were no match to his excellence. Well, what he thought was excellence. He climbed the stairs that they had came from, and ran a bit. He then came upon yet another ember, and went back to facing the man.
"Hey, um, man?" he asked, unable to establish his gender from that distance. He walked a bit closer to him, and saw that he had a katana in his hand, and nothing in his other hand. His dead eyes stared the knight down where he stood, almost begging him to come closer so he could have the satisfaction of another kill. "Uh, I'm just going to go now..." he said, backing up. The individual finally responded by running towards him, his blade drawn.
"Please no," the knight said, putting his sword up. "I don't wanna fight, man," he said. The older being didn't care. He slashed against the shield multiple times in rapid succession, causing the knight to stagger. He shrieked and ran towards the bell tower entrance, his foe hot on his heels. He ran inside and saw two sets of stairs going up, and then two sets of stairs going down. He didn't care about any of them, and jumped off the ledge right into the middle.
"Oh my! Are you ok?" a voice asked him. He got up from his fall, and looked around the area he jumped right into. There was a man off to his right, who glanced up at him, chuckled, and looked back down. A women approached him, dressed in black. She had something over her eyes... she couldn't see him, but she knew where he was. She walked up to him, and bent down.
"I-I think I'm fine," he managed to say, getting up.
"Welcome to the bonfire, Unkindled one," the woman said. "I am a Fire Keeper." 'Fire keeper? What's that?' the knight thought to himself. "I tend to the flame, and I tend to thee. The lords have left their thrones, and must be deliver'd to them. To this end, I am at thy side." She looked about his age, but he felt like she must be decades, maybe even centuries, older than him.
"Uh, hi," he said. "I am, the unkindled one, I guess." The Fire Keeper looked at him, puzzled.
"Do you not have a name, unkindled one?" she asked him. He looked down at his leggings.
"Well, I kinda just emerged from a grave in the outskirts of a graveyard not too far from here when I heard a bell, I fought some big guy, and then ran from a being that held a katana," he said. "So, I have no idea what my name is in the slightest."
"Good so you defeated Iudex Gundyr I see," she replied. "And you had trouble with the Sword Master on the side of the shrine?" He nodded in response. "Here, let me help you ashen one." She led him out of Firelink shrine and to the way the Sword Master was, and he was still there. "Try again, I'll be here watching."
"O-Okay," he managed to spit out, looking towards the Sword Master once more. He ran towards him, his shield up. The sword master saw his prey once more, and readied his katana. He lunged towards the knight, slamming against it only twice and missing the third swipe. The knight slashed at the master, flesh prying away from the slashed man's body. The master didn't take this lightly, and tore through the knight's armor three times before backing off and surrounding him.
The knight was breathing deeply, covering one of his wounds with one hand, the other held up his shield, ready just in case the man decided to attack again. He suddenly felt better, and looked at the fire keeper. She had a talisman, and nodded.
"Try again, I'm right here for you," she said. He nodded, and put his sword back in his hand. The old hallow was about to jump at him, but the knight slashed faster than his katana made contact. The hurt one staggered, and continued to receive the lashing the unkindled was handing him. He then kicked the sword master off the edge, and the master fell to his death. He stood over the edge looking down where his foe would have fell. He felt triumphant. He stuck a pose.
He then heard laughing, and immediately zipped around. The fire keeper wasn't laughing when he looked, but he could see her smile. He laughed a bit, and sat down, his legs dangling off the edge. The fire keeper sat down next to him.
"You'll get better," she said to him. "You're just learning."
"I guess," he muttered. "But what am I suspected to do anyway?" he asked her. "I'm just some ol' knight." He gazed off into the mountains in front of him, and the fire keeper tapped him on the shoulder, trying to get his attention. He looked over at her, their eyes locked.
"I already told you," she answered. "You need to deliver the lords to their thrones."
"But what does that mean?" he said, asking yet another question. "Deliver?" She sighed.
"The lords rose because Prince Lothric didn't light the fire. The tower rung, awakening a bunch of unkindled including yourself, and the previous lords of cinder."
"What's a 'lord of cinder'?"
"A lord of cinder is someone who decides to continue with a new age of fire, and lives to tell the tale. The next lord of cinder comes into play when they defeat the previous one and survive lighting the fire," she said. "Do you understand a bit more now?"
"I think..." he said, still trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. "So... three lords of cinder came back when the prince didn't light the fire so they came back to try and light it?" She nodded.
"Continue."
"Meaning that I or any other unkindled, need to kill the lords of cinder and the prince so that we can be the next in line?"
"Exactly!" she said.
"That sounds like a long task," he said.
"It may be, but at least you'll always have somebody to cheer you on," she said as she smiled. He nodded. "Follow me, we need to start a fire."
