The ride down to Firelink was awkward. Oscar was obviously growing increasingly annoyed by Lex's mercenary attitude. He understood that, but reigning in his tongue was difficult when his first instinct in an awkward situation was just to talk even more. It was a game to him, but for Oscar and anyone else he would meet, it was life. He was intimately familiar with the land's past, present, and future and knew how everything would end. For everyone else, there was only fear of whether they would make it another day.
So the otherworldly visitor kept his mouth shut – at least for the time being. If he didn't learn now, he'd regret it later. When the elevator touched down with a loud clank, he led Oscar down the stairs and toward the high-ceilinged chapel. There was an elite cleric there with the typical stern looks of Thorolund, though amplified tenfold.
"Cleric Petrus," Lex said, getting his attention.
"Hello there. I believe we are not acquainted?" he replied, confused.
Certainly, Lex also quite resembled a Thorolunder in looks and wore a cleric's robes, but he lacked the unique knowledge the younger priest possessed.
"I am Lex of Luthor, prophet of the goddess Slaanesh. This is my companion, Knight Oscar of Astora. We found the body of the church's Fire Keeper long-abandoned. With no one around to venerate her as she is due, we thought to bury her with her kin in the graveyard. Will you help us? My own faith has no funerary rites."
Petrus wrinkled his nose a little but then nodded his head.
"Very well. I suppose to do otherwise would do her a disservice. Let us make haste before my companions arrive."
He slung his shield over his back and walked with them down to the graveyard. As the skeletons began to rise in protest, he paid them little mind. A quick bash with his morningstar was all that was required to send them back to rest.
"I don't suppose you know what the Keeper's name was?" the older cleric asked.
Lex and Oscar looked at each other blankly.
"Of course not. That was too much to ask."
Petrus had a wonderful knack at sounding completely harmless despite what he was actually saying.
"Then where would you like to bury her? I don't believe ownership over any of these plots means much now. Would you rather I picked one? I would hate for my companions to find me missing because this errand."
Oscar looked down at the dried-up corpse and tried to think.
Lex pointed.
"What about that cliff? If I remember right, there's no risk of it crumbling out from under us while we're digging, and it overlooks the Shrine. Maybe she hated being a Fire Keeper in the end – I don't know. But it's better than just picking something thoughtlessly."
The knight nodded silently, and the trio walked over to the cliff. Two more skeletons began to rise, but Petrus just shoved them over the edge disdainfully.
"There now. The site has been exorcised."
He hung his morningstar on his belt and knelt down to test the soil. Oscar put the corpse down, leaning it against another tombstone for the time being. At long last, he removed his helmet, revealing that his hair was blond and cropped close. Anything else would be difficult to deal with in a helmet like that. Lex figured that his own hair could definitely fit inside a helmet but that it would be terribly hot.
"Lex," Oscar said curtly. "Is there anywhere else we need to go soon?"
The prophet shrugged.
"Not really. Spending an hour or two wrapping things up in the Parish and then ringing the bell."
"Good."
Now Oscar unhooked from his belt what seemed at first to be a small blanket rolled into a tube. He placed it on the ground so that it was out of the way and set his helmet on it. Next came the gloves, and he had soon stripped to only the waistcloth that the men of Lordran were so fond of wearing. Petrus did not join him, despite the unwieldy bulk of his own armor. Lex, of course, didn't have to worry about such things in his robes.
"Do you have a shovel in that magic bag, Lex?"
"Believe me when I say that I don't think there are any shovels in all of Lordran. But I do have a number of shitty shields we can ruin."
With that, he dug into his bag and removed three hollow soldier shields. They were thin, metal, and had a spaded tip. While not perfect, they were still better than bare hands. Oscar set to work. Whether he had done a lot of digging in his time remained to be seen, but he used his body with the trained efficiency of an elite warrior.
Lex, on the other hand showed nothing but the general lack of coordination that came with a lifetime of sitting in front of a screen. Petrus, looking faintly disgusted as always, did nothing, and so the third shield remained on the grass. They were at it for few hours – it was impossible to tell with Lordran frozen in time as it was. It took longer than it ought have, though, because Lex kept getting in Oscar's way. By the end of it, they'd worked out a rhythm, and Oscar had to physically stop Lex, who had forgotten why they were digging and wanted to keep at it, saying something about "mine-craft." Now that he had finished, something else came to mind.
"Wait a minute! With all the fixation on Fire, why are all these graves here? I could understand if they were just markers, but we just dug a six-foot hole in the ground! Is cremation reserved for the gods or something?"
"You are ill-educated, for a prophet," Petrus said, frowning. "Before the Undead curse, corpses were buried so that their humanity could dissipate safely. Now, there are so many dead and so many hungering for humanity that it is not possible. That is to say nothing of the Gravelord's dues."
He wrinkled his nose again.
"I will tell you more later, if that is your desire. Shall we begin the service?"
The pair climbed out of the hole. Lex unwittingly wiped his brow with his talisman before realizing what it was. He was going to wash up before he met anyone else. The question was whether he could find some water in the Burg somewhere or if something that simple would require killing the hydra in Darkroot Basin. He vaguely wondered if he could shower in Estus.
Oscar did actually have a rag for the purpose of wiping his sweat. He did so before putting on his blue tabard. It looked a little silly without the armor underneath, but he wasn't about to make the grumbling old cleric wait any longer. He picked up the body once more and set it before the open grave as Petrus began.
"Dearest friends, we are gathered here today to mark the passing of the blessed Fire Keeper of the Undead Parish. As we pray for her soul to be returned to Flame, in communion with the Great Lord, we return her body to earth. May her humanity rest in piece, and may her bones serve the Gravelord faithfully until they too are ash."
He reached into a belt pouch and removed a stick of incense, lighting it with his hand like a bonfire, before sticking it into the earth at the head of the grave.
"With this offering of Flame to the Witch, may her soul be safe from madness and Chaos as it ventures to the Fire. May she be watched over by Allfather Lloyd, Gwynevere, Flan, and all the gods. With the blessings of the dearly departed Bishop Havel and the saints before and since, we commit her body to the soil."
Oscar gently let the corpse into the hole. Petrus signed, and Oscar and Lex began to use the shields to fill it once more.
"In the names of Gwyn, Quel, and Nito, Amen."
"Amen," Oscar and Lex said in unison.
"Now, if you'll excuse me," Petrus said, stepping carefully so as not to get dirt on his armor, "I will return to await my companions."
The older cleric walked off alone, leaving Lex and Oscar to their shoveling. Eventually, they finished, and Oscar jabbed the shield Petrus hadn't used into the ground to serve as a headstone. The knight donned his armor once more and packed the groundcloth. He nodded to Lex silently, and they walked back to the bonfire. Though he didn't say anything, Lex was pleased that apparently the bonfire turned back time for body odor was well.
"Hey Oscar," he said after a time. "How about you take the next little bit off? I have something else I can do on my own before we go back to finish the Parish."
"I… Thank you. I need some time to sort out my thoughts."
Lex handed him the buried Fire Keeper's soul.
"The Keeper below is called the Ash Maiden, but her name is Anastacia of Astora. She knows what to do with this. If you do not wish to do it yourself, I'll do it when I get back."
He patted the knight on the shoulder as he rose and walked off toward the chapel again. He ran up and onto the elevator, stepping on the panel that served as its sole button. As it rose past the broken ceiling that should have covered the entryway, he stepped off and continued onto the hill beside it. He walked around until he stood before one of the chapel's buttresses and swore under his breath as he looked down. He took a few steps back and started running.
He leapt at the last moment and landed on the stone support hard, groaning at the pain in his legs. Still, it could have been worse. He could have missed. Carefully, he ascended the diagonal support and entered through an open, man-sized window. He continued on the narrow ledge and again jumped down onto the roof of the chapel's side building.
In the center of the roof lay one of Lordran's many mysterious corpses. The cleric walked toward it and reached down, grabbing a key ring from its belt. There was only one key on it, but it was the one he needed, the key to the west side of the Undead Asylum. Complaining under his breath about how roundabout everything was, he jumped from the roof back to the elevator platform. Though the elevator he had used the first two times was now at the top, another had replaced it.
He got in and started it up, the first elevator descending to switch with it. Like before, he stepped off and onto what was left of the roof before climbing onto the grassy ledge. Again he made a running jump, and again he complained about the pain in his shins. This time, instead of walking along what little was left of this upper floor, he went even higher, climbing the stairs that took up the bulk of the ledge. Now, he turned around and walked along the outside of the chapel until he reached a broad ledge where the giant crows had made their nest.
They rested on a ledge below, acting quite like ordinary birds despite their apparent strangeness. Lex shrugged and sat down in the mass of twigs and grass next to some eggs larger than his head. He curled up in a fetal position and waited. It was awkward holding his knees and hunching over like that. The nest was itchy too, but he held his complaints, not wanting to scare off the crows which might have been more used to silent protagonists.
Eventually, one fluttered up to the nest and grabbed him. It turned skyward and clapped its wings as it headed back the way it had entered the valley.
NORTHERN UNDEAD ASYLUM
Time twisted and distorted, and in moments, the crow had closed the great distance between the Shrine and the Asylum on its distant mountain. The crow dropped its burden in midair and banked upward, hurtling above the clouds. Lex rolled to his feet at the edge of the cliff and stared down the pathway. A great deal of feral hollows had found their way out.
Oscar had good intentions in opening all the cells, but now it was proving a hazard. They milled about aimlessly, carrying torches despite the eternal sunlight filtering in from Lordran.
"Are they looking for an honest man? I wonder," Lex said, grinning at the joke even someone from his own world would have trouble understanding.
He raised his talisman and healed himself from his repeated jumps, just in case. The glimmer of magic caught the hollows' attention, and they began hobbling up the hill toward him. Instead of try to swing his claymore in the narrow space between the tombs resting atop the hill, he simply raised his talisman once more. The hollows hardly had time to react as bolt after bolt raced down the hill, shredding their bodies to ash. Lex tried to stick his hands in his pockets casually, but found he had none and settled for hooking his thumbs in his rope belt as he walked down the hill.
The door that the Asylum Demon had been guarding was still open, so he walked in casually. Instead of continuing across to the front door, he stepped to the side and crossed the room inside the columns. He swiftly drew his sword and hacked through a number of clay pots and the hollow standing behind them. Another began to cross from the other side of the room, and he stomped forward, stabbing through its ribs at a safe distance. Now more or less safe, he continued through to the bonfire, attuning to it but not yet reverting time.
His spot saved, he turned and went through the barred door that led to the second floor. Up the stairs, and he spun around to climb the next set. There was the groan of stone, and the cleric rolled back down to the first staircase as the boulder trap rolled past him once more. He looked back into the collapsed room, half-expecting to fight Oscar's hollow despite his survival. When the elite knight failed to appear, Lex continued upward and slashed the offending hollow.
He jogged ahead, and this time, he didn't wait on the hollows to come after him. Not breaking his pace, he charged into the first two, bowling them over with his wide blade. The archer fired an arrow, but Lex rolled immediately, diving under the projectile and stabbing the hollow as he rose. Passing the balcony where he and Oscar had jumped onto the Asylum Demon, he entered the next room, where two hollow soldiers were waiting. He didn't stop here either, charging down one, evading a spear thrust, and hacking the second in two.
He produced the key he had taken from the rooftop corpse and opened the door to the west side third floor walkway. At the end was a crumbled staircase. At its top was another rotted corpse. The cleric crouched down and removed a rusted iron band from its finger, putting it on his open ring finger. He looked down at the broken staircase.
"You know, a character couldn't do it, but I probably could have just shimmied up here. Shit."
He sighed but moved on. He ran back around to the other side and down the stairs to the courtyard. Instead of the bonfire, he continued to the room with the dark well he had climbed out of. He slid down the ladder, the sides slick with slime and continued through the room with the pool and into the long hallway to his cell. As he neared the halfway point, a tall figure in the distance noticed him and bristled.
Armor burned black. A helm with crooked horns like the wings of a bat. A glimmer of red shone through the visor, and the whole suit sizzled, wisps of smoke occasionally rising from it. In its left hand was a black shield and in the right was a black sword.
"Come at me, bro!"
Lex raised his talisman as the Black Knight charged. The Knight didn't waver; only raised its shield. As the lightning splashed across the charred metal, the cleric took a few steps back down the hallway and drew another spear. Now, the Knight was almost to him and began to swing its deadly sword. In a blur, Lex threw the bolt forward and himself backward, the tip of the blade mere inches from his torso.
Since he had not rolled properly, the game mechanics did nothing to help his coordination, and he stumbled backward for a few steps before tripping on one of the short stairs. The Knight, lightning running over its body, swung downward at him unfazed. He rolled to the side, getting sprayed in the face by shards of stone. Fear drove him to his feet and down the hallway.
The Knight was quicker than it had any right to be, but he was able to outpace it, using the time gained to hurl another bolt. It blocked again.
"Why are you here anyway?" Lex screamed as he ran into his cell.
Against the wall sat a corpse that hadn't been there before. Lex had been accepting of it enough while playing, but now that he was living through the Fate of the Undead, he was a little off-put by dead bodies being the primary method of item storage. He cast these thoughts away and slid across the cobblestone toward it. Held limply in its arms was a wooden doll – like the kind artists use – except it had a face, hair, and clothing. He had no time to examine it, though, so he quickly stuffed it into his bag and ducked as the black sword ran cleanly through the corpse's skull and into stone.
"Ha! Stuck in the wall, you-! Oh."
As the cleric stumbled to his feet, the Knight swept its sword around to strike. He only escaped thanks to the brief moment the Knight had to turn its body; had he rolled to its right side, he would have been cut in two. Now, the chase began again as Lex took off down the hallway. Unfortunately, he didn't have enough stamina to make it all the way across, so he spun to face the Knight, another bolt crackling in his hand. Again, he waited for it to nearly close the distance before hurling it, the spear streaking over its shield and striking it squarely in the chest.
As he weaved backward, avoiding the Knight's deadly blade, he found himself at the edge of the pool. The room with the ladder was to his left, but he doubted he could get up and out of the way before the pursuing Knight tore him a new asshole. Instead, he hopped backward, pinning himself against the wall at the far end of the pool. He hoped silently that this was the laundry room or shower or anything that wasn't part of the septic system. The talisman sparked in his hand, and he grinned.
"This hand of mine glows with an awesome power! Its burning grip tells me to defeat you!"
The Black Knight did not react to the warcry, continuing its tireless pursuit.
"Take this! My love! My anger! And all of my sorrow!"
The Knight ignored the drop into the pool and lanced its sword forward.
"Lightning Finger!"
The giant sword ran up through Lex's torso and into the wall. Screaming from pain rather than camp now, he shoved the talisman against the Knight's helm as the bolt fired. At last it reacted, roaring with indignation as it began to slowly flake away. As if a wind blew through the passage, it exploded into ash and vanished. Lex started choking in agony, hung against the wall by the sword through his gut.
He waved his talisman wildly, the movement aggravating the tearing of his sides around the blade, but the force of his panic caused the spell to fire anyway, reconnecting his innards in such a way that they avoided the slab of steel that was occupying their normal positions. While it only took a minute or so, it felt like an eternity as Lex pulled the blade out inch by inch, gasping with each movement. He tossed it onto the floor and collapsed himself, curling up into a ball around his talisman. He cast Heal again and again and kept chanting its activation hymn even after he had restored himself and had run out of casts.
At long last, he shuddered and rose again, picking up the offending sword and stuffing it into his bag.
"Worst way to get a rare drop," he said, straining to joke.
Hands shaking, he forced himself to climb the ladder. When he rose from the depths, he fell again to the ground, hugging the earth. In the center of the courtyard was the bonfire. He wanted desperately to sit there for hours, basking in its sensation of warmth and home. That would only make things harder for him, though, so he resisted.
Instead, he forced himself onward: again around the edges of the Asylum Demon's room and up the hill to the cliffside. On cue, the giant crow appeared to grab him. In that instant, its black talons looked an awful lot like black swords. He screamed, but the crow didn't care. It snatched him into the air, and wheeled about toward Lordran.
