Lex presented the King's Ring, and the lock slid open. The ornate gate of ebony and gold opened wide to admit the Lords, and they entered a wasted yard of dead trees with alternating wild grass and barren ground. The estate ahead lay in disrepair, and small monsters roamed free.
"Watch out, there are Pokemon in the tall grass," he murmured as the two headed for the dilapidated groundskeeper's shack where the bonfire waited.
Again, Lucatiel was absent from her expected location. Lex quirked an eyebrow, knowing what came next. They headed up the stairs and through the grim atrium, only to be greeted by the sound of blades clashing.
"Theeeere we go."
Two masked knights of Mirrah fought with incredible speed, their traditionally dextrous style of swordplay producing dazzling series of strikes and parries. At last, the invader broke the stalemate with a shield bash, but his victim had a second weapon instead of a shield. Even as her sword was batted away, Lucatiel fired her flintlock. With her assailant momentarily stunned, she followed up with a swift kick to the ankle, knocking the legs from under him. Her own sword flashed back, disarming him, and she held the point to his throat.
"I… I won," she gasped. "Aslatiel…"
"End it," he hissed in a voice worn out from fury.
She hesitated for a moment, then drove the blade through him. The phantom dispersed, and she shakily sheathed her sword, falling back against the wall. It was only then that realized her duel had been intruded upon.
"Oh, it's you," she said, almost dreamily. "I had wondered if my mind was playing tricks on me. If I had imagined you. After so long, you never caught up. And you find me now. How funny."
She swallowed hard. Safiya shifted uncomfortably.
"I could never beat my brother, you know. He was older and always had that extra edge. Always put in that extra practice. He had dueled for fun, certainly... But to serve Nahr Alma, to attack the innocent…"
Her breath was uneven.
"And still, I won… He trained with that pack of cutthroats, and I won. I know I came here so I could find my own strength, but I wonder… am I really better better off for having it?"
Lex grimaced.
"Your brother made a choice, and the consequences are his to own. Now, you need to make a choice. Are you going to let this stop you? You came here in search of souls to stave off the Curse, but you have that magic ring which does one better. Why are you still here anyway?"
"I… you're right. I came here to save myself. When you gave me this ring, I became selfish. I thought that maybe, I could help others. Whatever powers a Monarch possesses, I could use them for good. To hold back the Curse. Now, I don't know that I want them.
I almost wish… that my brother had stayed in Mirrah, that we had both gone hollow. I never wanted this, to find him again, a murderer. If I had lost, just as always, I wonder if he would have remembered. Is this the burden a Monarch must bear?"
"Shakespeare, the great Bard of my world, once said something to that effect. I don't remember specifically because I mainly watched that play for the swordfights. But as an older brother, I'll tell you how he may have felt. 'That was a cheap shot. That fight doesn't count. I'm still the best.'"
She stared at him.
"Okay, maybe my sibling relationship is a little petty."
Lucatiel cracked a wan smile.
"No, that's just like him. How he was. Always fighting with the others over technicalities."
She rose, shaking her head.
"Thank you, for everything. I think you're right, though. I won't be needing this anymore. I need to fight with my own strength instead of a device."
She flipped the pistol in her hand and extended it to him.
"Bloodtinge is kind of OP, yeah," the prophet said, shrugging and putting the gun in one of his larger pouches. "What now? We're building up Majula if you want to take a break from all this."
"No. I need to move forward. Push it out of my mind at least. If you wouldn't mind the company, I would travel with you again. At least for now."
"The more the merrier. Well, I say that, but it starts getting a little crowded at around five people. Speaking of which, let's go grab party members four and five right now."
He pointed straight ahead.
"Right, so get ready to sprint in case this doesn't work."
The other two nodded, so he walked ahead and pushed open the door. Ahead was a grand lobby with staircases rising on either side of an overhang. Looming over the room, however, was a dragon skeleton which made Ornstein's collection of mounted heads look tiny. As they approached, it stirred and began to rise. It had barely picked its head up before it was ground to dust.
"Joor Zah Frul!"
The gravity of the Dragonrend Shout crushed the weary bones against the tile, shattering them.
"Oh man, this is going to make the stupid dragon golem fight so easy."
He hurried through the dust cloud and under the stairs, waiting for the others impatiently. Safiya quickly closed with her long strides, but exhausted Lucatiel took some time. The passage there arrived at a wall, following it left and right before turning back on both sides.
"Safiya, with me," Lex said quickly. "Lucatiel, you go the other way. Ignore all the messages telling you to turn back and pull the lever at the end of the passage."
The knight made a displeased grunt beneath her mask.
"And what manner of beast will this unleash?"
"Evil sorcerer. But he's coming out on Safiya's and my side. We've got it."
"I will hurry back regardless," she said, turning.
"Shall I presume this will be our fourth member?" Safiya said in a low voice as they started on their own path.
"Fourth and fifth. Split personality. One is a terrified mad scientist who deeply regrets what he's unleashed, and the other is a deranged murderer with an unexplained hatred of Shanalotte."
"Another eccentric for your menagerie?"
"It sounds weird when you say it like that."
They approached a shimmering barrier of soul force behind which sat a withered husk of a man. He wore gold-hemmed green robes and was hunched over in misery. Hearing their approach, he turned slightly, looking out from under his hood.
"Please, just stay away," he begged. When they kept coming, his cries became more panicked until at last he gave up, "No, please, don't come near me! Nothing good will come of it. Just leave me alone, please…"
"Everyone makes mistakes," Lex said quietly. "You actually owned up to yours. You've been punished enough. Now, you have a chance to make things right. Come with us and use that power for good."
Conveniently, the barrier dropped just as he finished speaking. The sorcerer's quiet pleading quickly turned to shrill outrage. He rose so quickly as to knock over his aged wooden chain and shook Lex by the shoulders.
"By the gods! What have you done? You've really done it! You'll never escape him!"
The man's face was blue like Agdayne's but leather straps covered his eyes, as was a tradition among pyromancers.
"Look, I don't know what you've done as part of Aldia's crazy experiments, but you had a good reason for it, right?"
"No reason could excuse what I've done! You don't understand-!"
"No, you don't understand. My wife has killed a lot of people. Are you going to let their deaths be without justification? All the people my wife killed let her live long enough to take command of the Chaos Flame, preventing the horrors it would have produced otherwise. Did all those people die just so you could feel sorry for yourself?"
"What do you mean, 'command the Chaos Flame'?" Navlaan hissed. "It cannot be controlled. It only leads to such madness as mine."
"No," Safiya said softly. "There is hope, my friend."
She convulsed, clutching her eye. After a moment of panting, she forced the Chaos Maggot to surface, hissing at being subordinated to her will.
"Oh, now that is a surprise," Navlaan whispered, his frail voice turned rich and husky.
"Get back!"
Lex jumped between them just as the royal sorcerer lunged for the maggot. Surprised, Safiya's will weakened, and the maggot lashed her body forward. The three of them collapsed in a heap just as Lucatiel reached them. She raised her shield cautiously, waiting to see what would happen.
"Just kick him!" Lex snapped, trying to wriggle free. "He's got a glass jaw!"
The knight's boot lashed at the sorcerer's head, and his body fell limp. Safiya grumbled a mantra, forcing the Maggot back into her body, and rose first. She pulled Lex to his feet, then threw Navlaan over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
"Let us make haste. I do not wish to remain in this den of monsters any longer than I must."
"Say what?"
"Can you not taste it? The twisted flesh and rotted souls? This manor reeks as if my prison's depravity were condensed and refined."
"Oh yeah, some of the monster things did show up in both places. I dunno if they were sent after you or taken here to be experimented on or what. I think the 'abominations' were made here, but then the mummy things were-"
"This elaboration may wait."
"I agree," Lucatiel said quietly. "I don't want to stay here any longer than necessary."
"Sure, sure," Lex said, shrugging. He led them over the waist-high wall and up the stairs. They passed under the ribcage of the looming dragon, squeezing past a petrified cyclops before continuing up another set of stairs. Safiya and Lucatiel tensed when the stairs gave way to an enormous caged basilisk, but the prophet just shook his head and walked around. They passed through a door to a small room with only an iron dragon statue in the middle.
Lex pulled the hoop hanging from its mouth, and the door shut behind them just before the one on the opposite side opened. The hallway ahead was dark, and countless gibbets loomed above menacingly. Though the cages they approached were filled with monstrous beasts, he casually proceeded through the hallway, up to the door at the end. There, he stopped just short. A cyclops burst through the wall, roaring with maddened fury.
He walked around it briskly but didn't put forth even the effort to run. As he approached the opposite wall, he did the same, avoiding a second cyclops even as the first followed after the trio. Ahead was a great archway and natural light. He continued walking just fast enough to avoid the cyclopes, then paused in the middle of the bridge beyond.
Though ahead was a great iron cage, covered in tarp and chain, all around was breathtaking scenery. Mountains encircled a lush forest from which erupted enormous stone pillars. An evening sun shone gently over it all. In the distance, the mountains fell away to nothing, leaving only gray fog.
"Praise the Sun!" the cleric said, gesturing.
The other two gave him expectant looks.
"It's tradition."
The entrance of the cage was blocked by a fog wall.
"What should I do with this one?" Safiya asked, adjusting Navlaan on her shoulder.
"Eh. You don't need to do anything this fight. Total joke of a boss."
She nodded. Lucatiel likewise said nothing but readied herself regardless. They passed through the fog to reveal an enormous red dragon, which now rose from slumber.
"This is a joke?" the knight hissed.
"Yeah, watch."
Lex raised his talisman. A half dozen Great Lightning Spears later, and the thing fell dead without him having moved from the spot.
"Look, I already fought the Fume Knight and the Ivory King. The only other difficult fight left is the other fake dragon. Other other. Well, there are a lot of fake dragons in Drangleic. The one at the end of this road. And the only reason why that's hard is because the damage is bullshit, but I'm immune to fire anyway, so…"
"If it were so simple, surely the world would not be in such a state," Safiya said, shaking her head.
"Many Monarchs have tried," Lucatiel added.
"Basically, the world's caught in this endless Cycle of Light and Dark. The problem's that whenever someone reignites the First Flame, it has less fuel than it did the Cycle before, so everyone's weaker. I come from the very end of the first Cycle. We'd thought this one was like six-ish, maybe, but then 3 went and changed a bunch of stuff, so I have no idea."
"I had thought so," Safiya murmured, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "The diminishing of the Flame more than accounts for the difference betwixt your half soul and mine entire."
"For comparison, when the Flame was first found, the Gravelord, the Witch of Izalith, the Lord of Sunlight, and traitor, the Paledrake, fought together against an entire army dragons larger than that one which were also invincible until you hit them with enough lightning. Even by my time, the world was… hollow."
"Then we are just living in the shadows of history?" Lucatiel asked grimly.
"Not quite. The Eternal Return, which is the same events replaying forever, does control a lot. But things do change slowly. Vendrick nearly solved the Curse in this Cycle. He started his work during the first. And of course, I already figured out the First Flame problem, so we just need to get there."
They passed over another bridge and through a tunnel leading to a caged elevator. It led up and into a tower, but the tower opened to a windy, winding cliffside. Innumerable drakes wound through the dusky sky. At the end of the path, in the shadow of a grand cathedral, waited the Emerald Herald.
"Shanalotte, god, stop sending out shadow clones to deliver cryptic messages. No one cares."
She pursed her lips and closed her eyes.
"Bearer of the Curse, I have come to understand your strength. I have watched you like I have watched the others before you. You are greater than they were. Perhaps this is what it is like to watch a Monarch rise with the Flame instead of with the Dark. But you are a fool.
King Vendrick was a great man, but he was not a true Monarch. Together with his brother, he built this kingdom, and all that you have seen. They gave life to the dragons above and stole it from the prisons below. Yet, they were arrogant, as are you. You can no more cheat fate than they."
"Excuse me. I've already done-"
"No. You say you were victorious in the distant past, that you escaped a Monarch's duty. Then why are you here? I was raised hearing the theories of sorcerers and heretics. You say that this is another world, that all you must do is link them.
I offer a hypothesis of my own. Fate has refused you, as it has refused all others. It has pruned a twisted and gnarled branch, returning you to its trunk as a mercy."
"Huh. You actually get time travel theory."
Lex was utterly unperturbed. Safiya had listened keenly, but Lucatiel was more interested in the practical matter of the bonfire a little further along the path. The prophet crossed his arms.
"I get that you've not had a great history, but you're forgetting a data point. Or I didn't mention it. Anyway, that's that I've come from a world utterly different from this one. A world with no magic and centuries' worth of technological advancements. Where the length of a continent can be crossed in mere hours by flying in an enormous steel tube propelled by enough explosive force to shatter castle walls.
I've met the Goddess of Fate, you know. Unfortunately, she's also the Goddess of Beauty – and with beauty being subjective, she takes the form you would find most beautiful. So that creates the awkward situation where she looks exactly like my wife, except without being attached at the waist to a terrifying spider demon. In any case, Fate's not anything to worry about. What you're describing is bad luck and human weakness."
"Can you truly claim to be beyond such?"
"Okay, let me rephrase that – mad scientists are kind of crap at basic management skills. Like that giant pile of giant corpses right above the hole into the acid pit. What the hell is that? Has Aldia even heard of keeping a sanitary workstation? What is he, an undergrad lab assistant?"
The attempts at his usual casual humor were falling utterly flat for Shanalotte. Safiya put a firm hand on his shoulder and pulled him back a step.
"Fire Keeper, I know naught of your history with this Aldia, but so too am I ignorant of your reasoning as for why this fool is mistaken. He is by no means fit to rule, but I have every reason to believe he can change fate."
"Continue on this path, and you will reach the dragon, greatest of their creations. It is a failure, no doubt you have already been told. If men whose failures are of such scope could not escape fate, then it cannot be done."
SMASHING THROUGH BOTH KARMA AND FATE!
THE SCREAMS OF LIFE ECHO THROUGH-!
"Stop."
At that moment, the Lost Sinner rumbled with quiet menace. Her single blue eye reflected the terrible discipline inflicted upon herself and frozen Eleum Loyce.
"We will see this dragon for ourselves, but no mean beast can compare to the power of the Chaos I unleashed upon my homeland. This man is an inconsiderate boor, but he is fearless without the madness that so often accompanies such power. It may be long before he learns the ways of true greatness, but an Undead of unbreakable will has all eternity."
"Nothing is unbreakable."
"I think you mean nothing isn't broken with From's crap balancing."
Safiya squeezed his shoulder until the bones creaked.
"I will make certain of it," she said grimly.
At last, Navlaan began to stir on her shoulder.
"Oh, by the gods, what…?"
The Herald stiffened and took a sharp breath.
"M-Master Navlaan!"
"Lotte, is that you? Where am I? You must hurry! I cannot-!"
His voice dropped, and he laughed heartily as he bent his neck upward to see her.
"What a pleasant surprise."
"Don't get too excited," Lex sighed. "It's just an avatar. She's still in Majula."
"Even so, that only means I get to experience her last gasps twice!"
The mad sorcerer writhed in Safiya's grip. Unfortunately for him, rare is the sorcerer with the physical strength to match a Lord.
"Oh, just you wait! I'll-!"
"Look, do you actually have a reason to want to kill her, or are you just tired of her dialogue?"
The evil Navlaan chuckled again.
"Do I need a reason? I am strong. It is my god-given right to use that strength as I see fit."
"You mean that strength that's totally helping you get free right now?"
"Hmph. All it takes is the correct application."
Without any sort of catalyst, he caught fire. Safiya, being a creature of Chaos, only grunted from the minor irritation. As with Lex, she squeezed harder, eliciting a series of pops from the sorcerer's spine.
"A miscalculation is all," he said, forcing the fire out. "I must simply…"
He wriggled some more, but the pressure of the Lord's grip quickly got the best of him.
"Are you certain we need this one, Lex?" Safiya sighed.
"Not really. I mean, he's clearly a genius, but he might just be too unstable."
"How should we deal with him, then?"
"Well, the cliff's always a fun option, but-"
"Please," Shanalotte interrupted, "make it painless. I owe him much."
As she spoke, she clutched a brazen feather to her chest.
"He was my tutor… and the one who helped me escape the fate of all of Aldia's failed creations."
"And the last thing my vessel holds dear!" Navlaan barked. "People call me a monster for slaying others with my own hands. How many more has this doll sent to their doom?"
The Emerald Herald closed her eyes but said nothing.
"That's what I thought!"
"Hey, Navlaan, you want to test how powerful you are, right? How about killing something that's unkillable?"
"Oh? You've piqued my interest."
"Yeah, Aldia's turned into some sort of immortal burning bush severed head Bed of Chaos archtree thing that doesn't die when you kill it."
The wicked sorcerer's grin nearly split his face.
"When can we start?"
"Now. Aldia's right up ahead. Shanalotte?"
She shook her head stiffly, dispersing into pale smoke.
"One less distraction," Navlaan said. "Now, are you going to let me down?"
Safiya glanced at Lex. He nodded, so she finally released her grip. The sorcerer anxiously wriggled free before she could put him down, so he fell to the dirt in a heap. He rose with a smirk on his face, not bothering to dust off his robes.
"Lead on, brave hero."