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"Wait wait wait, say that all again, I zoned like, three minutes into your monologue." Mike looked between Oscar and Laurentius expectantly. A sigh escaped the knight, his currently bare hands massaging his temples tiredly.
"While you were playing in the mud-" he began. "-a trio of undead appeared in the shrine, two paladins and a priestess."
"That'd be Nico, Vince, and Rhea." Mike added. To Oscars irritation, he took out a paper and began writing as the Laurentius butted in.
"Yes, well we talked to them, and discovered they planned to head down into the catacombs." The scruffy pyromancer nodded in the direction of said caves. "I was right excited to join them, and Oscar here tagged along when they told him his fancy sword might help."
Oscar nodded. "It seems some centuries ago my family had the sword blessed, and I was simply not informed."
Mike snapped his fingers as things began to fall into place. "So you six went into the catacombs, and judging by his absence, Petrus died in some way? Wait, let me guess, a bald man with a spear pulled a lever while you were in the middle of a bridge?"
Oscar and Laurentius looked at Mike in confusion. The knight was the first to speak. "I- no, we didn't encounter any such undead. It was just as we neared the bottom of the chasm that Petrus led us into a room full of skeletons and left us to die."
Mikes brows rose in surprise. "Well then, that's new. I don't suppose either of you know what happened to him?"
Laurentius shook his head. "Didn't see him once coming back up. The miss was in a bad state, all teary-eyed about 'their fearless leader' disappearing. I think she took a liking to sir knight here after that, especially after he accepted her offer to teach him a few healing miracles."
Mike turned to Oscar with a grin. "Turns out I want the only one making friends then."
"I!" Oscar looked taken aback. "I would never so much as think of-"
"Woah there, chill. It was merely a joke." Mike stifled a laugh as Oscar indignantly shook his reddening face.
"A terrible one. Oh! I had almost forgotten." Oscar changed gears immediately, quick to distract Mike with a red paper folded into a thick square. The undead picked at the paper carefully for a few minutes, until it fell open into a hand sized pyromancy that was immediately recognizable.
"No way!" Mike exclaimed, calling upon his pyromancy flame immediately. With a flick of his hand power within had been cast, and a sudden, stinging heat erupted from his chest, spreading to the rest of his body immediately.
"Is that...?" Laurentius leaned in closely as Mike clenched his fist in pain, inspecting the red discoloration that had settled on the undeads skin, or more precisely, erupted from it.
"Agh!" Mike twisted his hands forcefully, grabbing a hold of the magic working through him and sharply lowering its strength. When he opened his clenched eyes, he found his skin to be slightly crusted with a fine layer of brown dust. Laurentius and Oscar simply stared, the latter more confused than before he'd passed the paper to Mike.
"Ew." Mike began, dusting his arms off with a frown. "That, was power within, a pyromancy developed by Carmina." Laurentius's eyes bulged.
"But I've never heard of such a-" Mike interrupted with a raised palm.
"No idea why, but it was below the large chaos bug you two at some point killed, or ran really fast under. I can see now why it wasn't so widespread, just casting it at normal strength really hurt."
Laurentius closed his mouth slowly. After glancing down at his arms, Mike continued. "It appears flawed, for some reason being strengthened makes the body heat up significantly, and holy hell does it hurt. Here."
Mike passed the bent paper to Laurentius, who accepted it gingerly. "If I want to feel a load of pain I already have immolation, and I don't think even it feels that bad. If you want to tinker with it, go ahead, just try not to damage the original much."
With careful movements Laurentius tucked the paper into a large pocket on the inside of his robes, alongside a number of others that crinkled loudly as they were shuffled around. When he had finished, he returned his attention to Mike.
"So... What now?" Oscar asked when Mike failed to continue. With a start, the dark robed undead jerked upright, looking around wildly.
"Note to self: Power Within has irritating drawbacks." With a serious expression Mike turned to his companions, before realizing one of them was missing.
"SOLAIRE!" Griggs jumped as the sound assaulted his ears, sending his quill flying. With a glare of irritation focused at Mike he stomped down the stairs to retrieve it, blatantly ignoring the knight that jogged loudly past him as he bent over.
"You called?" Solaire said as he came to a stop, his helmet tucked under his arm. It appeared he had been conversing with Anastasia below.
"Awesome, now we have the full team. The plan: to assault Sens fortress, which incidentally is the place Siegmeyer seems to have disappeared to." To Laurentius, he added "He's a knight of Catarina we lost in the belltower a while ago, before you came along."
"Ah, this I have heard of!" Solaire exclaimed. "The story was an old one, one I caught at the camp of a few older mercenaries some years back. It was said that entire battalions of knights from both the kingdoms of Balder and Berenike fought their way through, trying to gain the favor of the gods. Unfortunately, I never did hear the end of the tale."
"Oh, they all went hollow, or died." Mike ended.
Solaire frowned. "Entire battalions, gone?! How then can we expect to pass through this place, with a mere handful of undead?"
"Uh, did you just hear what you said?" Mike asked. "Likely a lot of them died prior to undeath, and the rest hollowed, leaving a mere handful behind. Basically, that means they were defeated once, we have as much time as we want!" Afterwards he added "oh, and I know the layout of the entire place, that helps."
"Of course, I had forgotten your knowledge!" Solaire bowed his head. "Forgive me for that, it slipped my mind while you were absent."
"Forgiven sunbro." Solaire frowned in confusion at the nickname. "Anyway, the insides are such: primarily, there are three traps that make up the place, and a fourth that is in no way an actual danger, except to idiots. First, there are the lizardmen. Basically humanoid serpents, there are sword and lightning wielding varieties. The latter has four arms, and no apparent way to cast the lightning, which is actually some form of magic, oddly enough." Solaire let out a small gasp at that, but was silent as Mike continued.
"Those will mostly be irritations that distract you from the primary traps: swinging blades about this wide." Mike held out his arms to their full length. "And boulders that roll down stairways we need to climb. Thankfully, they're easy to work around, and aren't that big of a deal, as long as you pay attention. The final major trap is a giant at the top of the place, it'll throw explosives down at us just about whenever we're on the roof, and must be taken out before we even attempt the final boss. That's... About it, really, without going into specifics."
The three looked at the young undead silently, digesting the information. Oscar was the first to speak. "Am I wrong in assuming there will be this you insist on acquiring?" Mike nodded immediately.
"A ring- no wait, two, or maybe three rings, a spell, a spear, Big Hat Logan, and... damn, another ring. Now that I think of it, this place has a lot of rings." Oscar, Solaire, and most prominently, Laurentius gaped at Mike.
"Do you mean to say the Big Hat Logan is in that fortress?" Laurentius waved a hand in the general direction of the nearby elevator, his eyes wide.
"Yup. I was hoping to grab a few lasers while we were there, it would make Anor Londo a hell of a lot easier." Laurentius nodded slowly in agreement.
"I am not even a sorcerer, yet the man is practically a legend in the swamp even! Why is he in the fortress, does he research the magical lightning, as you intend to?" Mike shook his head.
"The lightning he likely didn't notice, he intended to pass through on the way to Anor Londo, but was imprisoned by the afore mentioned snake men. His true goal is the Duke's Archives, where he wishes to study Seath's magic. I hope to recruit him, at least for a bit, but worst case scenario he wanders back here to the shrine until I open the way to the library." Mike paused for a breather.
"So, we can go at really any time, though I'll need about two minutes to talk to Rickert first." Oscar, Laurentius, and Solaire looked between themselves briefly, before nodding at once.
"Perfect. I'll talk with Ricky, you guys head to Andre's."
Standing shoulder to shoulder, four men looked up at the fortress stretching into the sky above them. In Mike's left hand, his staff, newly reinforced, albeit a bit quickly, with a few shards of green titanite by Rickert, who had been all to eager to try something new. In his right hand flickered his pyromancy flame, ready to cast.
"Display number one!" Mike suddenly burst out, pointing down. (Heh.) When they looked, the other three were simply confused.
"Its... The floor?" Solaire said slowly, bending over to peer at the indicated tile. As he looked closer, his eyes discovered an odd discrepancy between the height of this tile and the rest, barely a fingers width, and difficult to see in the shaded entrance. Curiously, he reached down to touch it, only to be stopped by a hasty movement of Mike's hands.
"Its an automated crossbow." Mike explained, causing the undead present to scatter from the trap. With a slight stomp the tile was depressed, and the group watched as three solid steel spears shot past in the blink of an eye, clattering to the ground some distance away. A moment later, the tile retracted from the floor with a click, resetting.
"Quicker than expected, but manageable. If you want to be especially lazy, these can be used to kill a majority of the lizards here." Mike waved his hands at the two pillars immediately within view. "Such as the ones behind those. I'm thinking divide and conquer, got it?" The knights nodded, and stepped forward with their shields raised.
Oscar and Mike went right, Solaire and Laurentius left. Beginning the fight with a backstab, Oscar then retreated with his shield raised as the snakeman climbed to its feet, hissing loudly. Across the room the other could be heard doing the same. After carefully taking aim Mike reeled back and swung his arm, pitching a fist sized orb of fire at the lizard. With a low hiss it fell, and Oscar lowered his shield. In all, the fight, if it could be called such, was over in less than a minute. Not long after the other half of their party appeared from the other side of the room, and they continued onward.
"And here are the deadly traps. Be particularly wary of the lizard up above, it's one of the lightning ones." Almost on cue, a long bolt of lightning streaked past, illuminating a ferocious snake person with not one, but four swords strapped to its back.
"Oscar, this is the chance for you to use your shield." The knight nodded and brought his shield up and to the right, angling it so that the lightning would be redirected, and into directly absorbed upon impact. After walking along a narrow ledge past the first swinging blade, a second bolt flew from the darkness, glancing off of the shield exactly as it was meant to.
"Oh yeah, well also need to catch that one, if we can. I'll pass you guys the idea when we get up there." The others failed to respond as another man sized blade sliced by, startling them. With light steps did they continue, pausing every few seconds to check their surroundings. About halfway along Oscar was forced to turn and walk slowly backwards after a lightning bolt slammed into Mike's back, leaving him a twitching mess for a few seconds, though he assured them it was actually a good thing, and hastily scribbled down a few notes afterward.
"So what is this plan of yours?" Oscar asked as they took a break at the top of the stairs, the sound of lightning striking the wall interrupting him every few seconds.
"Well, I haven't much use with it, but if Laurentius could lend me Iron Flesh I could use that to get across the bridge, and just use my weight to take down the lizard and disarm it." He turned apologetically to Laurentius. "I don't have any now, but I could give you the souls later?"
"Oh, sure! Here, let me find it..." As the pyromancer dug through his things Mike pried Lily from his shoulder, setting her down on the floor nearby. With a high pitched huff she curled up in a corner of the stairs, her scarf flopping over her head to cover her entirely.
"Here!" Laurentius handed Mike a sheet of paper with a cuboid image on the front. "Do be careful, however." He warned. "It is terribly heavy, and difficult to maintain." Mike nodded and closed his eyes, focusing. After a moment, he pressed his hand to his chest, and his skin took on a shiny silver sheen. With a grimace, he forced himself to stand straighter.
"Ugh, this feels like a hangover, except I'm not exhausted yet. Oscar, your shield?" After gripping the shield in both hands Mike climbed the last few steps with a groan, his weight causing each step to take an eternity. Upon taking notice of him, the lizard immediately assaulted him with a barrage of lightning, the majority of which glanced off or was absorbed into Oscar's shield. The few bolts that got past, however, were quite painful, arcing across his iron skin and leaving a burnt smell lingering in the air.
The first blade missed him by a large amount, leaving a passing breeze to greet him as it slid through the air behind him. The second was not so far, but still a hands width away by the time he had dragged his feet past. The lizard hissed out a warning of some kind as he drew nearer, giving a few calm seconds to pull himself past the third blade, and pause to regain his breath.
The sound of steel on leather filled the air as four warped blade were pulled from their sheaths simultaneously, their owner slowly stepping forward onto the bridge as Mike pulled himself past the fourth blade, and just into he nick of time too. As he cleared it the blade came swinging back, its cold side sparking as it came in contact with his heel, thankfully leaving no substantial damage.
"Hello there." Mike said plainly at the lizard as it approached. After it failed to respond, Mike did the first thing that came to mind. With a step, he was within its reach, and it swung all four blades at once in a single, fluid motion.
One blade went flying immediately. Mike allowed himself a slight chuckle as the second rebounded off his forehead with a loud 'clang!' that echoed throughout the room, before the blade was knocked from its wielder with a strong punch from an iron fist. The third and fourth blades slid uselessly off Oscars shield, before Mike sharply slammed its edge down on the wrists wielding them, sending the swords flying. As a final measure of security, Mike reared back, and with a single, solid punch the snake was knocked out, and collapsed into his hands.
With a wave, iron flesh was canceled, and the others were summoned over. After tying it up with strips of leather the lizard was held by Mike, Lily moving to his left shoulder to maximize her distance from it, though not before releasing an angry hiss.
"Another crossbow, watch it!" Mike hopped over the pressure plate, thankful for his lowered weight, and the others followed suit behind him. The room held little more than a few shards of large titanite, and was therefore passed through rather quickly.
"Oh my..." Solaire said softly as they passed into another tall room. Below them dropped a pit with no foreseeable bottom, a guaranteed death. To their right, a sleeping lizard. To their left, a massive set of stairs, and to their immediate front, a door opening to a path that rumbled as boulders taller than a man shot past, killing a loitering lizard instantly.
"Hm." Mike leaned out slightly after a boulder had shot past, only to retract his head sharply as another almost took his nose off. "Nope, not that way. Laurentius, you up for some stair climbing?"
"I, uh..." The small man was surprisingly light, at least for Oscar, who was chosen to act as the ladder. After tellinh him how to control the boulders above, the man was sent upward, and they waited.
Soon after, the boulders outside stopped, and a rumbling sounded around them out of nowhere. The knights looked around in confusion as Mike waited calmly, until something large and dark rolled down from above. With an explosive sound the nearby wall was thoroughly destroyed, its resident sleeper killed in an instant.
"Oscar, Solaire, meet Logan." Both knights looked around in confusion as the boulders stopped, and Mike began into the room that'd been opened up. Around them hung cages, the majority holding assortments of bones, clothing, and armor in piles. Ignoring it all, Mike led them to a darker figure farther into the room, who merely turned his head as they approached.
"Big Hat Logan, it is very nice to meet you." Mike stuck out his hand cheerfully.
"I, hm. Forgive me, I'm afraid I am at a loss, might you give me your names?" Oscar and Solaire stared in awe as Mike brought his hand up to the lock on the cage the sorcerer was locked in, fire flaring brightly as he worked.
"I am Mike, this is Oscar, and the one in the white is Solaire, both of Astora, and I of Earth. Before you ask, I do not have prophetic gifts, merely foreknowledge." Logan snorted in disbelief.
"You were being tailed by three mages from Vinheim, all of which are of some sort of secrecy club." The sound of flame melting metal paused as Mike looked up, into the drawn face of the master sorcerer in front of him. "I'm not pulling your chain, I've knowledge of most of the areas in immediate relation to the pat of the chosen undead. Beyond that, I'm looking to acquire one master sorcerer on the way to Anor Londo, care to join the club?"
Logan was silent, still reeling at the idea that one undead had so much knowledge. Finally, he coughed dryly. "I... guess I could join you. I don't suppose you intend to head to the mad Duke's Archive's after that, though?"
"Exactly!" Mike exclaimed. "Difficult to believe, but in there is a key to the ruins of Oolacile. I figure you might like it there." Logan suppressed a startled gasp at the thought. Forcing down his emotions, he nodded slowly as the door to his cage creaked open.
"Welcome to the crazies then!" Only then did the sorcerer notice the angry lizard person slung over Mikes shoulder, alongside the rather larger titanite lizard on his other side. Suppressing his scholarly ways, he pulled his staff from his side, and followed the undead out of his prison. This certainly was turning out better than he had anticipated when leaving the Dragon School.
Ugh, caught a stomach bug three days ago, and am very happy that I already had this chapter written. Next up, we reunite with Siegmeyer and some new friends, Logan is intrigued with Mike's different mixtures and applications of magic, and the iron golem gets to know what its insides look like on the outside.