"Aye siwmae! Welcome back, Lexion. How are you feeling?"
Lex glanced around. He was in a long, narrow room without any obvious purpose. A bonfire had been set in its center, but there was nothing else around. If he squinted, he could just barely see the end of the hallway leading out. He had no explanation for how stupidly long the passage was.
"I'm… alright, I guess. I blacked out pretty early."
He rose to a sitting position. With nothing but debris in the sewer, all they'd been able to do was to lay him on the floor. He rubbed the slime off the side of his face with a grimace.
"Thanks for not letting me die out of convenience."
"Don't mention it. It's only because you're already so harsh on your body that you survived. I don't think I've ever seen a man bleed out so slowly. I guess there's some good in your Cathedral's blood rituals."
"Yes, well, believe me when I say I'm going to need to fully cleanse myself after I get out of here. Where in Lordran do you think I could find enough water to bathe?"
"I've heard there's a beautiful waterfall in-"
"New Londo," Lautrec interrupted. "Your grace, we should get moving."
"That is a cruel joke, Lautrec. But you're right. No sense in sitting around."
Domhnall had been sitting nearby to watch over Lex, but now he rose and gathered his equipment.
"I'm off to salvage leather and bone from the dragon afore the slimes get to it. It's a shame, but I doubt its meat will be good to eat. It was a pleasure meeting you, Lexion. I wish you good luck as the Chosen Undead, but really, you should be running far, far away. You're not cut out for it. That Count of Astora you mentioned – maybe leave it to him."
"Well, I was kind of helping…" Lex said sheepishly.
It didn't matter who he traveled with – he was hiding in the back no matter what.
"It's your choice of course. Never forget the gods aren't perfect. They may have Chosen you, but they've Chosen wrong before. What matters is your own choice. No one could have forced Lord Fin to link the Fire. That was his own choice. If you're to succeed him truly, you must have that strength of character to choose yourself.
I've spoken more than enough. Too much of my father in me. Now, it's time for us to part. Lautrec, make sure to take care of him. He's a good boy, if a bad Chosen Undead. And a downright terrible cleric."
"He will be safe through Blighttown, your grace. As I swore to the Pardoner."
"I guess that's the best I'm going to get out of you. Fair travels, you two."
With that, Domhnall headed out first. Lautrec had been sitting under a torch, tending to his weapons with a whetstone. The dragon's tough hide and meat had blunted them considerably. Now, he rose and turned to Lex.
"How was your first night in solitary confinement? It's downright cozy compared to my little cell in the parish. I can't tell which is crueler, though. This cell has a bonfire so you know you're trapped. The good Pardoner had locked me in an isolated room with no guard. He left my weapons to me. Quite the clear message, isn't it?"
Lex frowned and began unwrapping the bandages which had held him together. All the damage to his body had been undone, but his armor was a tattered scrap. At least now he wouldn't really damage it when he lashed himself.
He'd not carried much on him, and the essentials – his lash and his talisman – were fine. The only concern was that his covenant ring had broken. What that meant for his relationship with the Goddess and his status as Prophet, he could only imagine.
He cast his cleansing miracle to ensure he still had a channel to the divine and to wash the grime his body had taken from the floor. The holy ritual went off without a hitch, so he simply restored his energy at the bonfire and stood.
"Lucky you, we already dug the gate key out of the beast's vomit. Let's get moving. This is more trouble than I thought it would be worth."
Lex nodded, and the pair headed back down into the depths of the sewers. They'd come quite some distance upward, and the giant rat again leered at them as they passed. Domhnall had opened hidden and blocked passages, so now the way down was a straight shot. It was only a matter of minutes before the pair had made it back to the central passage on the lowest level.
The smell here was the worst, as all the waste from above tended to get caught on existing debris instead of flowing down into Blighttown. The water formed stagnant pools, and the drainage channels were full of rotten wood, corpses, or demonic vines reaching from below.
The way forward should have been blocked by a grate, but the bars had been bent and broken outward. It was on the other side of this breech that the prisoners had built a heavy gate of the sturdiest wood and iron they could gather. The old planks had been petrified by basilisk breath and were banded many times over. It was possible that a demon could break through, but all the world would hear it banging against the gate before it did.
Things were considerably easier for the two holy men, who had the key. Lautrec threw the double doors open wide, causing a gust of stale air to sweep in. The architecture beyond was older and had long dried out. Ahead lay a great circular pit with walls of mortar. The channel through which water had once flowed was dry as bone, testament to how long ago the prisoners had gone hollow.
Somehow, a small number of torches illuminated the way down. Something yet stirred in the waste pit, and it wanted to know when intruders approached. The pair edged around the pit, the narrow walkway barely large enough for them to cross. An iron ladder led into the pit, but midway down, it gave way to a wooden one. This was not an enduring ladder, a permanent fixture of the pit crafted by the gods' agents. It was a rickety thing made from waste-wood and lashed together by someone who barely understood knots.
"What is this? A quintuple granny? This is precisely what square lashing is for. Timber hitch, wrap it, frap it, clove hitch. It's not difficult, for Beryf's sake!"
"Well, be sure to tell the Blighters that," Lautrec chuckled.
Directly beneath them was a sprawl of misshapen and misaligned wooden platforms. There was a tremendous hole in the side of the stone pit which led into a dimly-lit cavern. The platforms in turn led to a bridge, which in turn led to more platforms within the cavern. A bulky figure stood at the entrance, two glowing red eyes leering into the darkness.
"Cleric. The walkways will be dangerous from here on. Don't move forward until I say so. Keep your crossbow ready, but shoot only when I say. Understand?"
"Right. I'll be careful."
They climbed down to the lowest platform. A clumsily-repaired wagon wheel was pinned to a vertical post, a length of rope running from it to the bridge. It seemed the wheel was a winch to raise or lower the bridge. Looking to the other side, the matching mechanism was broken. The bridge was safe to cross and couldn't be raised from the Blighttown side, hence the posted guard.
The dimwitted thing gave a cry and pounded its chest. It waddled across the bridge with surprising speed, taking awkward bounding steps while its arms flailed to the side. It swung a massive chunk of driftwood one-handed at Lautrec. The knight was never in any danger. He ducked under the blow and spun on his heel, flipping his blades underhanded and hooking them under the monster's shoulder blades. With a gasp, it fell limp.
"Now let's see what we're dealing with."
He laid the body on the platform and stepped around to get a good look. It was certainly a hollow, if a stupendously large and corpulent one. Somehow, it had managed to keep its thin, disgusting hair. Its eyes were swollen and narrow enough that they almost looked half-closed. Its mouth jutted upward and outward like a fish's, except it was filled with jagged and uneven teeth.
The flesh was gray and clammy, with bruises and tears covering much of the surface. The molds growing over it looked healthier than the stretched and abused skin. Wooden splinters as long as Lex's forearm jutted out of its upper body at odd angles, pus oozing from the infected flesh around them. The savage was dressed in a combination of rags, furs, and stolen teeth, but no garb could have lessened the disgusting nature of the thing's own body.
"Look well, cleric, at the rot that festers on the gods' very doorstep. Think carefully on what you hope to accomplish here."
Lex's hands were shaking with disgust.
"What is all of this, Knight Lautrec?"
"Why, this is Blighttown. This is everything your cleansing-obsessed Cathedral hates. You cast the impure into your holy Deep, correct? Your archdeacons imitate the gods. Look at what it has wrought here – rot. As more and more was cast at the foot of Anor Londo, the disease and poison melded into an untameable blight. I wonder how much longer your Deep can last."
Lautrec laughed, but Lex was deeply troubled. Now that he thought about it, no matter how sacred the Deep was, they really were just throwing things into a pond. Of course it would fill up eventually. How did no one notice that? Were they really so content to believe the holy waters would never dry up or overflow?
Lautrec threw the body into the lightless depths of the pit, and they continued onward. The ramshackle platforms were held together by the tension of interwoven boards, crude splinters of iron, and rope of unknown origin. The path tilted to one side or another, either to lean against something sturdier or because it was poorly balanced on its supports.
More of the hulking guards would cross the travelers' path, the old and rotten boards creaking under the hollows' bloated weight. The bloated undead were all terribly durable beneath layers of protective fat and pus. Sometimes, it was enough to avoid immediate death at Lautrec's blades. Still, the pair progressed slowly and cautiously so that they never encountered more than one at a time. Such luck could only last for so long.
Blighttown at first seemed a wretched and unorganized pile of driftwood spat out by the clogged sewers above. Only, once the intruders reached the interior, they realized it was an eerie replica of any other township. They had crossed the drawbridge and the wall, fought past the guards, and now were hiding just off the main road. The "townsfolk" walked to and fro about their affairs.
Certainly, they looked inhuman monsters. Their faces were narrow and long, with gaping mouths and panting tongues beneath beady eyes. Their skin was gray and disgusting as the guards, but they had no "armor" – no thick layer of fat or protective charms. They carried weapons with them, but so too did many savage tribes keep their hunting equipment with them. The Blighters nearly looked respectable with their chipped swords and dull spears.
Yet, others carried corpses of their own kind. The flesh of these corpses was clearly gnawed away, and their necks were broken or faces smashed in. As in the prison above, the residents of Blighttown had turned to cannibalism and been warped by it.
"We don't have much of a choice," Lautrec grumbled. "We'll have to fight our way through."
Lex almost volunteered to scout the path ahead with his second sight, but he remembered that he was still hiding his power from Lautrec. Assuming he still had it after breaking his ring.
"Do we?" he whispered. "I've seen peaceful hollows. And one followed my orders once. Sort of. Is there anything we could do to communicate with these monsters?"
"Not the two of us. They'd listen to demons, maybe. Bottom feeders like to stick together." Suddenly, he started chuckling: "That's right, maybe they would listen to you. I'll let you go out and try to speak with them if you swear you won't lead them back here."
Lex scowled, so Lautrec just pushed him further behind cover and stepped into the open. The nearest Blighter facing him yelped and pointed. It whooped and hollered, jumping up and down and waving its broken sword.
"That's right, you Chaos-infested inbred. Call all your friends. You'll need them to so much as put a scratch on this knight of the Goddess!"
Lautrec walked down the wooden street and set his back to one of the crude braziers which lined the roadside like streetlamps. Straightaway, three Blighters rushed at him. He ducked under the first swing of a sword, springing up to throw the creature sidelong into the chasm. Another came, and third one thrust a spear with short lugs over its shoulder. He hooked the weapon with his sickle and drove one of the lugs into the nearer Blighter's eye. As it screamed and crumpled, he wrenched the spear forward, driving its wielder onto a waiting blade.
"What's wrong, wretches? I could do this all day!"
In the distant shadows, there was a sound like a tongue clicking. Lautrec's armor plinked, and he swatted at his neck. Between his fingers, he held a festering splinter of wood, stained with a gritty, black liquid.
"Of course barbarians would use toxins. Goddess have mercy."
Another group of the creatures swarmed at him, but he wouldn't be distracted. One swung a corpse at the knight, but he used the unbalanced weight of the improvised weapon to throw the cannibal screaming into the empty darkness. There came the sound again. Lautrec shifted his posture and wrapped one arm around his neck. The toxic splinter bounced off harmlessly.
"I bet you Blighters normally get lightly-armored 'heroes.' A heavy knight would be hesitant about crossing such rickety paths. Well, Lautrec the Embraced shies from no challenge. Hurry back! Tell your leader! You'll need more men!"
In response, he heard the sound of two blowguns firing. He blocked the shot to his neck, but the second came from below and took him in the armpit.
"Oh for the love of Lady Fina. Cleric! I'm badly poisoned!"
Lautrec severed the arms from an attacker and kicked it back into another. He continued shouting taunts as a distraction while Lex crept out of his hiding place and sprinted to the other side of the brazier. With a quick chant, he cured Lautrec, who only grunted his thanks.
"You keep coming, like moths flittering towards a flame. Maybe I should let you have it."
He quickly signaled Lex forward and turned around to the brazier. He thrust his heel into the short supporting rods and pulled along its body. The whole thing rocked toward him, and he spun out of the way. The burning torch and oil made of human fat spilled over the next wave of assailants. Already slick with gore, they caught fire hungrily and ran screaming deeper into the township.
Most of the wood that comprised the platforms was soggy and wouldn't catch light. Some, however, was slicked with the remains of the cannibals' meals, and burned brightly. The half-cognizant creatures howled with panic and blindly threw anything and everything at the blaze. Some of the fires went out, but others grew wilder for the addition of fuel.
Lex could only watch, speechless, as his companion inflicted upon Blighttown some of the same horrors the demons had on the Undead Burg.
"Hurry. While they're distracted."
The pair ran through the burning streets, heedless of where they were going. At last, Lautrec pointed forward.
"There! A bonfire! We can rest and plan our next move."
They dashed headlong for it, but in the firelight, it quickly became apparent that they'd run out of platforms. The bonfire was still some distance away, on some sort of stone bridge beneath them.
"Knight Lautrec! The ladders are over there!"
"No time! And this will throw them off our trail!"
"What will throw them off our-?"
Lautrec roared and made a full-speed jump to a lower platform. He landed with a thunderous footfall and kept going, hopping from level to level until he had reached the bonfire. Lex winced.
"Goddess, I might really need wings this time."
He made the first jump quite alright, and the next. On the third jump, however, he stumbled over something. The corpse of some sort of foreign warrior, who by his posture, had broken his back with a bad landing. Lex rolled off the edge with the body, but they fell apart in midair. He flailed for something to hold onto before he fell into the bottomless chasm below.
It was just his luck. There was no way he would be able to get this far into Blighttown on his own. He would have to wait for Lautrec to slaughter his way back to the entrance. Only, his fingers found purchase at the last moment. Something had become wedged in the side of the next platform. Looking up, it seemed to be the foreign warrior's sword.
It was strangely designed and overly elaborate, a curved blade with a diamond-patterned grip. The sheath was thankfully made of sturdy wood, as he doubted a blade alone could hold his weight without bending. The cleric tried to pull himself up, but the weapon began sliding out of its scabbard. He looked up at it thoughtfully.
"I really appreciate all the practice I have holding onto a long, thick sword."
He swung carefully until his feet caught on the platform's supporting pillars. With a grunt, he held his body rigid and walked back up the side. Exhausted, he flopped atop the platform, panting.
"Cleric! You better not have fallen!"
"Ah, bite me," he murmured, sick of quietly accepting Lautrec's abuse.
Lex rose and took a few steps back before making a running leap. A few terrifying moments later, and he had joined Lautrec at the bonfire.
"What luck!" Lautrec said, laughing honestly for once. "The Goddess is watching out for us. Be thankful, cleric. It is more than you deserve."
Lex just sighed and sat down at the bonfire.
"Say, Lautrec. You seem to know a lot about how this works. Being undead and all. Why are we safe sitting here in the middle of all of this?"
Relaxed, the knight nodded.
"There's no shutting you up, is there? Fine. Souls illuminated by the bonfire are drawn closer to the world envisaged by Lord Fin. No phantom can cross its fog wall. Beasts and men are bowed in the name of the Great Lord. Time itself is held in flux. Still, we'll need to hurry as soon as we turn away from the bonfire."
Lautrec went quiet, focusing on the fire. The stolen souls he had collected from the slain flowed into it, winding around the coiled sword amidst the coals. In return, flame entered his body, strengthening him. Lex did the same, thinking on what he needed most. That was it – he needed to think better. He felt as if a fog cleared from his mind. Lessons from his merchant parents which he had ignored for being too complicated suddenly made sense. Not that understanding tariffs helped him in the dank, dark cave full of monsters in which he found himself.
"Are you ready, cleric?"
Lex nodded, and they both rose. Lautrec peered into the darkness, searching for a path. Continuing forward would only walk them into the air. Countless beady eyes peered out of the shadows.
"By the Goddess, how?"
From either side of the stone bridge came a mob of cannibals. Snarling undead hounds danced around them, just barely restrained. Dog and master alike panted with long tongues, slavering for the first bite of human flesh.
"Mlyglymgy!"
Whatever the sound was, it resembled gurgling, retching, and choking all at once. It was followed by a sort of vulgar sucking and stone cracking. The walkway on which they stood only resembled a bridge in that it was long and somewhat narrow. Walls stood at either end, and an arched beam hung above it. As one of the great dividing walls of Anor Londo stretched out opposite, this was presumably some similar structure of the gods. It was on the above beam that they saw the abomination.
Lex stumbled to the side of the bridge. He tried to vomit, but there was nothing left in his stomach, leaving him to choke up acid. Lautrec growled in the back of his throat and gripped his sickles.
"Oh gods," the deacon moaned, "is this my punishment for lust?"
It was a throbbing, fat, worm-like creature that dripped slime as it moved. A pair of feelers twice the length of its body whipped back and forth about it. Even the way it walked was disgusting. It had seven legs; three bone-like talons; and four fat, stubby tendrils with sucking mouths and countless teeth. Its main body wobbled atop the tightly-spaced legs like a tremendous, phallic pustule on the back of a crab.
It began to angle itself upward like the beginnings of an erection. On its underside was a human face, stretched to three or four times the original size and drawn flat by the tautness of the thin flesh. The thing made a noise again, the human mouth moving as if speaking. Faced away from it, Lex almost forgot it was the horrible moans of a monster.
"Is that…? Lautrec, it's speaking the demon language."
"So it wants to talk? Really. What's it saying?"
"I don't know. I'm no good with languages, so I only learned the curse words."
"If you're no good at studies, why were you at a cathedral? You could have been a village priest, you damned fool!" Lautrec hissed.
"I said languages, Gwyn bless! Let me try something."
The deacon wiped his mouth and turned around, trying not to look directly at the creature.
"Queta Anorya hya a quallë!"
"What was that?"
"A phase I just barely remembered. I requested it speak in the tongue of the gods."
The thing somehow gargled out a response, "Mine Anor-tongue is long out-of-date, but it seemeth that a dangerous prank hath been played upon thee. That phase meaneth 'speak Anor-tongue or die.' As thou'rt not in any position to maketh threats, I presume thou meaneth nothing by it. Yet the two of you are not out of the lhoew yet!
You have killed many of my noss and burnt much. I let you speak for sympathy with your wretchedness, undead outcasts. Give me reason not to cast you into Cirith Úiôl again and again until you hollow."
Lautrec snorted: "Are you really asking us to justify self-defense, you bloated sack of pus? In the name of the Goddess, I will purge this defilement the instant you order your attack."
"Thou'rt welcome to purge the Úiôl, but I fear thou only seekest to murder those who would defend their homes. We are not innocent, but we wish only to be left alone. Thou who wearest black, what sayest thee?"
"We're just trying to get through to ring the Bell of Awakening. I'm the Chosen Undead."
"Is that the rubbish they feed the humans now? Life is no fairy tale; there are no chosen ones. The White Lord spaketh a white lie, and now there is layer upon layer of illusion. Blessed are you humans, that you see not how far the world has fallen."
The thing gurgled to itself for a moment.
"If I allow you to ring the old bell, will humans cease trespassing upon my domain?"
Lex shrugged: "I can't make that-"
"Yes," Lautrec said, stomping on the cleric's foot. "We will make sure of that."
"See that you do. Then on my authority as Quelpalaam Arodmaur, the Blightbaron, I grant you safe passage through my realm so long as you harm not my people or their homes."
Lex raised a hand, quickly speaking before Lautrec could interrupt, "Ah, one more thing, sir, uh, Blightbaron. There are two knights of Astora who may be here already. They won't fight your people if you speak with them."
The Blightbaron gurgled pleasantly, then assented, "I will give them the chance to pass peacefully. Speak thy name, that thou mayst be held accountable."
"Lexion of Carim, former Deacon of the Deep."
"Then go, Lexion Lhûnbôr. My people will open the path for thee."
The abomination turned and crawled away. The cannibals and their hounds growled in the backs of their throats, but a harsh gurgle set them to work. Most dispersed, but some followed Lex and Lautrec as they proceeded through the platforms. Whenever it seemed the explorers would have to take a different path, one of the Blighters would turn a wheel or pull a lever hidden in the debris. Some mechanism would activate, moving a wall or lowering a bridge.
It began to dawn on Lex that these creatures lacked the vacant expressions of hollows. Certainly, mindless creatures couldn't build these devices, no matter how carefully instructed. How many people had Lautrec killed during their entrance? He tried not to think about it.
They passed through another refuse pit like the one they'd used to enter Blighttown – but only briefly. The bottom was still an impossible distance away, and they soon exited through another hole in the side. The turn of a wheel caused a wall to fold away, and they continued, descending several levels as they did.
They were starting to come out into the open now. In the distance, Lex could spy the edge of the enormous tree that loomed over Firelink Shrine. Its roots ran over and under, all throughout the the platforms. Now, they walked cautiously along some exposed roots which spanned a great expanse between segments of the platforms.
There was a constant creaking and churning below. As frightened as he was of the fall, Lex looked down to see a pair of tremendous water wheels spinning below. He couldn't help but be excited over the sheer scale of the human construction if nothing else. On the other side, hideous shapes skittered away before the pair neared them. A few narrow, winding paths and a handful of ladders were all that stood between the travelers and the top of the wheels.
"Why have we been led here?" Lex murmured as they neared. Then he saw the trick: "Look, Knight Lautrec! These aren't water wheels! They're belts with elevators!"
"Well, if you're so tickled to try them, why don't you get on?"
The knight gave him a firm kick as a platform passed by, and he stumbled onto it. The cleric grabbed onto the belt of countless wooden beams and bounced a little on his platform.
"Look, it's safe! The Blightbaron really laid out the red carpet for us."
"Good. Then my contract is complete."
Lautrec hadn't moved from the ramp leading to the elevator.
"Knight Lautrec, what are-?"
"I was sworn to see you through to the end of Blighttown. I can see the end from here just fine."
"You're really leaving me to this?"
"Oh, I'm sure the Astorans will find your body eventually. Now, if you'll, ahem, pardon me, I have business in Anor Londo."