~ Author's Note ~
Guys!
I can't remember if I promised to be better about
posting these chapters, but if I did, I goofed up
again! Real life got in the way - don't worry, not
anything bad, just lots of Minecraft! My writing
bug has gotten to the point where I'm writing lore
for a Minecraft world... yikes, someone save me.
Anyways, enjoy the chapter, everyone! Take a guess
who my favorite character is... it might be yours, too.
- K
XIV. The Demon Ruins
Beneath the catacombs, beneath the High Lord's chambers, beneath even the Smouldering Lake, unseen paths revealed themselves to Landstrider, who followed them further and further into the earth. The heat was intense down here, but the stoic swordswoman was scarcely bothered by it – the warmth was comforting to her, like a bonfire, though it felt more reminiscent of a time she couldn't quite identify. It all felt strangely familiar, and she knew she belonged down here.
She descended a crumbling staircase into a stone corridor, emerging into a great hall. A tapestry of weathered archways and scorched architecture stretched on beyond her. Littered across the floor were piles of corpses – bodies of what appeared to be demons. Lesser demons, likely the spawn of the Old Demon King, from what Landstrider intuited. Decorating the walls were statues of the same creatures, though many were in shambles, broken apart. Much of the damage looked intentional, as if something arrived and defiled these hallowed halls.
With that thought in mind, the swordswoman then noticed the inhabitants of these ruins – Ghrus, the goat-demons that assaulted the party in Farron Keep. Perhaps there had been a changing of the guards down here.
The whispers in her mind did not grow louder, but stronger, more focused. The language was unintelligible, but Landstrider knew what the voices said. They beckoned her forward, deeper into the hall. They also told her the name of this place – the Demon Ruins.
"Fitting." She mused dryly to herself, drawing her sword.
When the fog lifted, the Unkindled once again found themselves in Wolnir's chambers; the goblet that once sat on the altar was now gone, and all was still. Ephaim timidly stepped forward, finding a waist-high ledge on one of the decorative pillars, and leaning upon it.
"My friends… forgive me for failing you all." He lamented, slinking to the floor and sitting.
Rodric walked to him, setting his spear and shield on the ground, and placing a hand on the old sage's shoulder. "Ephaim," he spoke, his voice a rare tone of gentleness, one almost unrecognizable to the others, "we are all in this together. One of us falls, we pick you back up. Do you understand me?" The old sage nodded, but was clearly defeated by recent circumstances.
"Be that as it may, Lion Knight," he replied, looking up to him, "I fear you will be picking me up much more in the coming trials."
"You are speaking of Irithyll." Rodric predicted.
Ephaim nodded.
"What is it, exactly, that troubles you? We are here to carry you through."
The old sage stood, dusting his robes off, and spoke. "I shall lead us through the city – I know the way forward. More importantly, I knew where the path will take us… " Rodric awaited the answer.
"… to Pontiff Sulyvahn, my old mentor." The words hung in the air like some miasma, infecting all who heard. Rodric eyed him anxiously – that name was familiar to him, in some way, but he could not quite place how.
"Ophelia," Anri spoke gingerly, breaking the heavy silence, and stepping into the midst of her companions, "forgive me for interrupting, but where is Landstrider?" The gentle priestess turned to her, a mixture of grief and disappointment written upon her face, admitting, "She is elsewhere occupied, exploring the ruins below the catacombs."
Anri inspected her cautiously, looking to the sage and knight in confusion. "Mustn't… mustn't we go down and find her?" She inquired.
"I am afraid not," Ophelia replied gravely, fumbling with her talisman, "she has made it clear that our endeavor interests her none. She would much rather entertain… perverted fantasies of lordship." The looked to Rodric, then, with deep concern, "She wields the power of lifedrain – the profaned magic of the Darkwraiths. It is what she used against that interloper on the bridge… she pulled the life from his body."
"What?!" Ephaim sputtered in disbelief. "Where did she acquire this ability?"
"I know not for certain," the priestess explained, "but I suspect it was gifted to her by the woman she colludes with in Firelink Shrine."
'The woman she colludes with?' Anri ruminated to herself, that cannot be right… I thought I had her intentions figured out. I thought I knew her. "At any rate," Ophelia concluded, "she pressed onwards, further into those ruins. She is treading her own path, now. We had something of a… falling out." She walked forward, swiftly joined by Rodric as they continued to the other end of the chamber. "Ophelia," the proud knight whispered as she approached, out of earshot of their companions, "I wasn't sure you'd come back… what happened down there?"
The gentle priestess glanced at Anri, shifting closer to her knight as she quietly explained, "We found Horace." Rodric's eyes widened, and he briefly shared her glance to their Astoran comrade. She was preoccupied, speaking with the old sage. Ophelia looked back to him, nodding solemnly.
"He had turned." She uttered.
Anri stood above Ephaim, helping him rise to his feet. "I'm fine, I'm fine." He implored, taking a restorative swig of his Estus Flask. "I confess, my lady, I am left with more questions than answers."
"And I, as well, sage. Oh, Landstrider…" Anri sighed.
"Well, my dear, there's always a silver lining – at least we can be miserable together!" Ephaim chuckled defeatedly, looking to the large doorway at the end of the room. Beyond it was Irithyll, where all his anxieties and burdens first sprouted. He stood silently a moment, then joined Anri as they caught up to the knight and priestess.
The Demon Ruins were a miserable place. Landstrider cursed herself for following the mysterious whispers of her conscience. Fireballs and spears crashed against the walls surrounding her as goat-demon monstrosities pursued her deeper into the stone corridors. Her robes were singed with embers, and as she rounded a corner, she batted them away. The clattering sound of hooves on cobblestone echoed through the hall beside her, and she ambushed her Ghru pursuers with her sword.
It drove right through a goat-demon's face, and Landstrider nearly lost her grip on the handle. She felt her strength sap for a moment, as the sword shimmered with a brief, red glow. Curious. The stoic swordswoman knew her blade's power drew from her own lifeforce, but she must have lost track of how long she had been using it lately. Another Ghru arrived, one that was quickly cut down. Landstrider felt her strength wain again as she leaned against a cragged, stone wall. She inspected her hand through its wrappings, which looked much more ghoulish than she recalled.
What sort of metamorphosis am I undergoing? She inquired to herself.
More goat-demons awaited her as she plunged deeper into the haunting ruins, but after a time, she came across a curious sight – a giant, petrified spider, though rather than a bulbous, fanged head, it had the torso of a woman. The entire thing was long dead, encased in stone, perhaps tempered by the demonic flames of these ruins. It looked like a Witch of Izalith, as described in the old stories. With this sight, the whispers quickened in her mind, speaking at conversation volume, and proving rather distracting.
Landstrider then noticed a book at the foot of the creature – a tome bound in dark cloth with a golden trim. "Impossible." The swordswoman declared, cautiously approaching the old grimoire. In her mind, the voices grew louder, more intense. She knew this book, or at the very least, knew the ramifications of this book being here. Each step she took, the voices loudened. It was as if they came from the book itself. She reached her hand forward, the murmuring turning to chanting. This place was not merely the Demon Ruins. Her fingers extended as the voices began bellowing and shouting. Landstrider could hardly focus as her mind became a cacophony of screaming, her hand shaking as she strained to touch the face of the book. Her fingers brushed the cloth-bound tome, and suddenly, the violent roaring ceased immediately.
The swordswoman fell to her knees, gasping and panting in the silence, the ancient book in her hand. As she caught her breath, she inspected the tome. The cloth that bound it, she quickly intuited, was cut from the robe of a Chaos Witch – undoubtedly the fabled Quelana, master pyromancer. It was as if touching the face of this book inoculated her with sweeping knowledge of Izalith, which she now understood was reclaimed by the magma, coalescing into the Demon Ruins. She was standing in what was left of the great Lost Izalith. The sensation was so powerful, Landstrider could have sworn she was merely recalling the information, as if she had lived in this very place.
Ephaim walked alongside Rodric as Ophelia and Anri followed behind. They emerged from the hallowed Catacombs of Carthus, stepping onto the precipice of a cliff, one that overlooked the haunting, moonlit beauty of Irithyll. The proud knight felt his lips part in awe as he took in the chilling splendor of the place. Great spires and pointed rooftops protruded from a tangled network of beautifully preserved buildings, through which roads of cobblestone elegantly winded through. It was as if the end of the world made a mistake, and forgot to tarnish this pale realm.
"It's just as I remember it." The old sage murmured without an ounce of his usual personality.
The party approached a long bridge, one that stretched across a wide canal, leading directly into the center of the city. As they crossed, Rodric questioned Ephaim. "What happened to this place? Where is everyone?" The old sage's head hung in defeat, "It was like this long before any of us died, I'm afraid." He swayed his staff forward, as if he was quietly addressing all of the Boreal Valley.
"Below this city is the Profaned Capital, where I once served under the tutelage of Pontiff Sulyvahn. We were Oracles of the Profaned Flame, then, you see – the undying fire beneath the earth. Something…" he began, before quieting a moment, "… went horribly wrong. We went our separate ways, but his presence haunted me all the same."
Ephaim looked over the silent city, speaking, "It seemed he finally got that quiet study he always wanted. This place is a graveyard."
Rodric continued alongside his friend, asking, "Did he still have faithful servants, even after… whatever happened to the Profaned Capital?" The old sage nodded feverishly, "Oh, yes, indeed! Sulyvahn had an order of Pontiff Knights, all of whom roamed his streets and silenced any voices of dissent. The most loyal among them received his rings."
"Rings?"
"Yes, blessings of Sulyvahn, himself. His watchdogs were given the rings, and the longer they wore them, the more… beastlike they became."
"Like Vordt." Rodric replied. "The watchdog of the Boreal Valley."
Strangely, he did not receive an affirmation from the old sage. The proud knight turned to Ephaim, instead finding his companions stopped in their tracks. A curious mist emerged from the end of the bridge where they first crossed, a shroud not dissimilar to the one that conjured Vordt at the High Wall of Lothric. There was, however, a key difference – something different was emerging from this void. It was a large, quadrupedal beast, with six eyes and an elongated snout. The monster was covered in matted fur, and brandished razor-sharp claws and a thousand jagged fangs. A large wound decorated its stomach, revealing a stained and splintered ribcage, chattering like teeth.
It emerged from the mist, howling and screaming as it immediately charged the party. There was still some distance between the monstrosity and the Unkindled, and they quickly sprinted to cross the last half of the long bridge. As he ran, Ephaim channeled a ring of soulmasses around him, which quickly soared off toward the beast. They crackled and dissipated against its body, scarcely hindering the creature. Instead, this elicited another angered, ear-splitting howl, almost sending the sage and priestess to the ground in shock. Anri and Rodric weathered the scream through their helmets, and helped their companions cross the rest of the bridge.
As they approached the courtyard of Irithyll, they observed a translucent wall at the end of the bridge, much like the fog walls scattered about the fallen kingdoms, but much thinner. It wavered and shifted in place, and the old sage procured Aldrich's metal doll from his pocket as he reached the threshold. With the figurine clasped tightly in his hand, Ephaim led his comrades through the wall, which chimed as they crossed it. The old sage fell to his knees in exhaustion, glancing back across the bridge.
His vision was immediately filled with the colossal presence of the beast, lunging at him, maw stretched open. Ephaim cried sharply, holding his arms forward, though the attack never landed. Instead, the beast slammed against the magic barrier, wailing and screaming in protest. Ophelia inspected the metal doll in the old sage's hand, and then turned to observe the great beast slink away, fading back into its shrouded fog and disappearing entirely.
"I confess, I am no longer enthralled by this place." The priestess remarked quietly.
Landstrider pored through the ancient tome, but could not understand what she was reading. The words made sense, but the concepts, the very order the words were put in, were entirely foreign to her. The Profaned Flame, she repeated to herself. She would need to seek the help of a master pyromancer, if any still existed. Pondering this, she looked up to the petrified arachnid-woman above her. Well, certainly none left here. She mused.
She struggled to her feet, the immense fatigue of following the whispers finally alleviating. Flipping back to the first page of the tome, the stoic swordswoman once again inspected the text. Those three words, again, hanging over her like an omen.
The Profaned Flame.
With the book now in her possession, the swordswoman felt an intoxicating clarity. She knew what she had to do, and where to go. Her answers lie in Irithyll, and furthermore, her duties as the Lord of Hollows, as well. She knew it. No whispers were guiding her any longer, and with her clarity came the realization that she now stood in a stiflingly hot ruin, far below the earth.
She needed to leave.
Navigating back through the weathered tunnels was nigh unforgiving, as she was beset on all sides by goat-demons and petrified monstrosities. The voices that led her here seemed to have no care for escorting her back out, and the way was unfamiliar to the swordswoman. After what seemed like an eternity, she ascended the stairs back up to the Smouldering Lake. Across the simmering waters, she noticed another crumbled stone passageway. This must have been where Ophelia fled after the Sandworm emerged. An unpleasant feeling followed the thought of that pristine maiden, but Landstrider ignored it and pressed forward, avoiding the ballista's great bolts as she crossed the lake.
As she reentered the depths of the Carthus Catacombs, she saw a sovereignless soul floating about, in a relatively undisturbed hallway. The swordswoman inspected her surroundings first – there were certainly skeletons here, once. Charred bones were strewn about, likely the product of Ophelia's righteous fury, Landstrider reasoned.
The swordswoman touched the soul, which materialized into a pile of bandages in her hand. She grunted in confusion as she inspected what she was holding. There was a heat in these bandages, and with that, she realized she was holding the hallowed blindfold of a true pyromancer. Oh my, she thought, in a rare tone of surprise, I'm not even fit to carry this!
She ascended back up to the Catacombs proper, all the while pondering the old tales of the Witches of Izalith. The flame reveals all, and obscures all.