Sorry about the lateness. Next week will be on time.
"…hello?"
Mike mumbled to himself and turned to his left, ignoring the hazy voice at the edge of his hearing. A low groan escaped him as the voice grew sharper, defined.,
"Sir? Sir!"
"Schtop." Mike ran a gauntleted hand over his forehead, trying to push away the pounding in his skull.
"Please… -sleep for hours." Mike jerked up as the voice came into focus suddenly, like a radio being set to the correct station.
"Huh? What?" His head swiveled in a circle as he took in his surroundings, or better put, the lack thereof. Surrounding him was absolute dark, not even outlines of Priscilla and Jeremiah visible.
"Thou'rt awake!" Mike turned to his left as a clear voice rang from the darkness, echoing once before fading.
"I am. I take it we haven't returned to Lordran yet?" Mike asked as he scratched an itch on his neck. He cut off Priscilla's response with a loud curse, a sharp pain having just spiked up his left arm.
"Art thou injured?" Came a concerned voice from the darkness. He nodded, before realizing she probably couldn't see him either.
"Yeah, Velka's fire kind of stuck to my hand, and seems to be still burning." Mike carefully felt around the ruined lump of slag attached to the end of his left hand, the remains of a! steel gauntlet there. It had been the cause of his pain, still flickering with small specks of dark flame around the rough edges. As hard as he tried, he just didn't seem to be able to fully grasp the fire with his pyromancy to put it out, unfortunately enough.
"Oh! Pardon my lofty speak, I hadn't realized Lower Londish had grown popular among humans. Is there something I could do to help?" Mike shook his head instinctively, before realizing he'd made the same mistake a second time.
"No, my gauntlet melted all over my hand, and is also on fire. If you could give me a minute to-"
Mike paused, an idea popping into his head. Had he a working left hand, he likely would've facepalmed from the sheer idiocy of his mistake.
"Hello? Sir undead?" Priscilla asked into the sudden vacuum of sound.
"Still here, just realized I'm an idiot is all." Priscilla flinched back as there was a sudden burst of light in front of here, held aloft in Mike's right hand. When her eyes adjusted, she realized two things at once. First, the undead in front of her had a large scar running up the left side of his face, and second, that she was naked, her fur coat gone.
"Oh. Right." Mike turned red and turned away from Priscilla hastily, wiping the indecent image of her from his mind. Similarly, Priscilla became a dark shade of crimson, a small peep escaping her as she covered herself with her hands.
"Sorry!" Mike said over his shoulder. After rummaging around his bag for a bit, he pulled out a pair of loose bandit leggings, and a female styled pyromancers shirt.
"Here, they should be clean." Mike held the clothes over his shoulder, until Priscilla carefully took them from him. Unused to garments not her own, Priscilla required a bit more time than she would've liked to put on the clothing, but had to admit it was comforting to be covered when she was finished changing.
"I am covered." Mike turned and faced her finally when she said that, nodding his approval. "Might I, however, ask a single question before you go on?"
"Sure." Mike shrugged.
"That scar on your face, what did that?" Mikes brows rose sharply.
Priscilla looked confused for a second, before a horrified look dawned on her face as she realized what she had said. "I- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to- I was going to ask-"
Mike cut her off with a wave of his left hand, eliciting a wince from him.
"Don't worry about it, I didn't even feel it when I got it. A hollow knocked me into Blighttown, and my face got quite intimate with a pillar on the way down. A whole lot of other stuff happened, but that's neither here nor there." Again, he lifted his left hand, this time along with his right.
"First, could you give me a hand with this." He nodded at the gnarled mass of steel on his hand. "Grab my gauntlet and see if you can't pull that off while I heat it with pyromancy."
"But, if you're heating it, your hand-"
"Psh, don't worry about that. I've been caught on fire three or four times now, and have a naturally good resistance to it. Just pull when I say." Priscilla swallowed, but tugged the good gauntlet off anyway. Her hand was just small enough to fit it, the glove a little stiff on her.
With his free hand, Mike began twisting fire to his will, forming a ball the size of an egg in his palm. A look of intense concentration came over his face as he then imagined the flame curling in on itself, thinning and elongating in the process. As he thought it, so did the fire react, becoming like a long candle flame in front of him. It also dimmed somewhat in the process, the light unnecessary energy use.
"All right. Niiice and slow…" Mike gently applied the fire, now roaring like a mini jet engine, to his palm, sparks flying instantly as it connected. Priscilla winced, but to her credit, did not jerk away at their presence.
A sudden pained look crossed Mike's face, before he tamped it down into a neutral one. "Priscilla." He grit out a moment later. "Open my satchel, and grab the estus inside. I'll need you to hold it up for me, so I don't do any permanent damage to my hand."
Note: Just finished the best book ever, Terminal, between typing sessions, and I just had to say, it was well worth waiting ten years to read.
Priscilla did as instructed gently, pulling herself around Mike, or vice versa, to access the leather bag hanging at his side. Within she pulled a heavy flask full to the brim with golden liquid that emanated heat, much to her surprise. She had seen undead use such flasks before, but had never held one. For a few brief moments, she wondered what it tasted like, just before a horrible scent filled the air.
Mike noticed Priscilla's look of revulsion as she pulled herself back around to face him once again. "Sorry, flame just bit my skin."
"Oh! Here, I got the estus." Priscilla was about to hand him the estus when she realized her mistake.
"I uh, can't hold that." Mike deadpanned. "Mind giving me some?" Priscilla obliged him seriously, carefully pouring a small trickle of estus into his mouth every so often, usually when he began to grimace and/or smoke filled the air.
It was in this way that time passed, both of them simply waiting to be spat back out in reality, wit Jeremiah weightlessly floating nearby. Bit by bit, Mike cut through the warped gauntlet, forming a line from the side of his wrist and up along his fingers, before crossing over them to pass back down to the other side of his hand.
In seemingly no time at all, the gauntlet had almost been completely cut in half, the seam glowing red-orange where it had been recently heated. Mike grinned widely as he finished melting the metal just above his wrist, accidentally burning himself a little in the process.
"Alright." He began, as he changed his fire from a blowtorch to a candle light. "Priscilla, see if you can find a left hand gauntlet for yourself in my bag, and then I'll need you to pry this thing apart." He waved around the twisted mass of metal on his hand loosely.
When Priscilla had retrieved a slightly cracked Balder gauntlet from his bag, they began the removal of the gauntlet.
"Right here?" Priscilla asked as she carefully poked her metal clad fingers into the seam between the gauntlet and his hand. Mike nudged her hand a little left, giving her a little more leverage when she pulled.
"Alright." Mike took a deep, slow great to prepare himself. "Do it."
Have you ever chipped a nail, or maybe scraped a finger or toe on some blunt object, and felt the pain of your skin tearing in large sections? This was what it felt like to Mike, as the gauntlet pulled from his hand. The scarred skin must've stuck to the metal when it melted, and he was forced to simply grit his teeth in pain as the metal was removed.
Priscilla, to her benefit, was focused entirely on the hand, and went unnoticing of his pain. When Velka had stolen some of her soul, so to had her strength as a larger being diminished. To her credit, she still gripped the gauntlet in a steel vice, her face reddening as she pried the ends apart.
"Ok, that should be good." Mike said through the burning pain on his hand. Before it could begin bleeding, he tilted his head back and let Priscilla pour in a little more estus, which healed the skin instantly.
"Now, just pull. If I scream, pull. If I tell you to stop, pull. Just get the gauntlet off." Priscilla nodded resolutely.
"I will." Priscilla again grabbed a hold of the warped metal, her palms sweaty as she braced herself against his upper arm. "I'll pull it off in three, two-"
"AaaaAAAAAAH. HOLY FUCK THAT STINGS."
"Sorry…" Priscilla said suddenly having shot a few feet away. In her hands, the melted gauntlet flickered as the flame was jerked around.
Priscilla had yanked fiercely a few seconds prior to her warning, ripping the gauntlet away instantly. Now she floated back to Mike with a sorry look on her face, before handing him the estus to drink.
"Ok, I take it back. Lego's are still fucking worse than this, but hoooooly shit. Definitely got to invent a fireproofing enchantment eventually." Mike sighed. "Break time now. Let me see that gauntlet, and give me a minute to chill."
Mike took a long, drawn out few moments to stare at the darkness around them. "I've also been thinking, and I don't think well be spat out in Lordran." He said slowly. Priscilla looked at him in confusion as he went on. "Velka was burning the painting on the outside world too, not just in there. If, presumably, it is the 'doorway' there, then its been shut, locked, and plastered over, assuming my companions couldn't put out the fire."
A small gasp escaped Priscilla.
"Yep. We're stuck in limbo."
Mike paused as she went quiet. When he glanced back at her, she was staring at her hand as though it had just talked to her.
"Hello?" Mike waved a hand in front of her. "Anyone home?"
"I- I touched you…" She said softly, pausing to glance back up at him.
"Huh." Mike scratched his head. "Haven't been told that by a girl in a while. Mind elaborating?"
Priscilla looked from her hand, back to him, and then back to her hand once again. "I- ever since I was born, the power of Lifedrain has pervaded my being, killing any and all whom I come into contact to."
Understanding dawned on Mike's face. "Velka." Priscilla jerked her head up. "She must have taken it!" His newly regenerated hand smacked his forehead, sending a small jitter of pain up his arm.
"But why would she…?" Priscilla petered off as Mike thrust something out towards her, black and flickering in his palm.
"This is a twin humanity." Mike explained, gently letting the warm sprites float around his palm. "Now, this might be a liiitle unnerving to hear, but in the very few timelines where an undead, usually horrifically malign, has, um… killed other yous-"
Priscilla inhaled sharply .
"Sorry. Its quite unnerving to hear, I know. Anyway, those Priscilla's usually leave twin humanities like this one." Mike waved around the sprite. "And I would bet that is whatever soul Velka extracted from you, likely some of hers. It fits, Life steal being maybe part of the Soul of Sin, or whatever she has that let's her govern that."
Priscilla nodded along with Mike as he spoke, her hair bobbing with every movement. "That… actually makes sense." She admitted slowly. "I had always thought, that maybe I was larger because of my heritage, but it seems it was her soul inside of me…"
Priscilla heaved a large sigh, looking down at her feet.
"So, its all gone then? Forever?" Mike was confused for a few moments, until she despondently looked upwards, where they'd fallen from.
"…Yeah." Mike nodded. "It was about a third gone when I entered, and easily three fourths by the time I got to you and Jeremiah. If there's anything left, its whatever fell into here, wherever here is."
"Well, it's a bit late, but thanks. For everything you've done for me and Mr. Jeremiah." Mike jerked back as Priscilla kicked herself forward, wrapping him in a large hug. He returned the gesture in full, and they stayed like that, floating in nowhere, with no one looking on.