AN: This chapter is mostly filler, but it does set up a few plot threads going forwards and isn't entirely without some fun action scenes. Sorry for the fake out if this chapter got moved to the top of the updated list - I just wanted to fix a few errors. Hopefully it doesn't give those of you who actually follow this story closely false hope. A new chapter will be coming in about a week and a half.
Chapter 17: Consequences of Departure
Raven was able to appreciate the view as she was lifted into Anor Londo much better the second time around. It had been a very long time since she had seen anything which rivaled cresting that large mountain to see the glorious golden light bathing the city and the massive towering spires of the keep. Behind her, lifted by more of the fleshy creatures that weren't quite a number of things that she had seen in past journeys, Solaire and Siegmeyer both gasped in wonder.
"It's... beautiful," Solaire whispered reverently, "The sun! Oh, the sun... I've never seen it so glorious!"
"Mmm," Siegmeyer hummed, "It is rather breathtaking, is it not? A shame, then, that we have another task." Tarkus and Kirk - the latter carried very gingerly, due to the thorns on his armor - nodded in agreement. Raven had forgotten that the four of them had never managed to get this far before.
The party dropped onto the landing below in a series of metallic clinks as each of them was dropped in rapid succession.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Havel asked, before charging down the stairs. Raven sighed in frustration at the archbishop's impatience - something that she had been dealing with over the past hour as they had trekked across Lordran back to Sen's Fortress - before rushing after him. Only a few stairs and a slight bend later, Raven stopped in shock as she watched the stone-clad warrior get slapped by a giant halberd wielded by a sentinel. Raven stared in bewilderment as the sentinel pivoted and brought its great shield down on top of Havel's prone form, squishing him. Oscar, coming up behind her, froze as well.
"They move now? When did that happen?" Oscar asked in shock.
"Don't know," Raven replied, "Come on. Let's go save him... again..." Raven raised her Zweihander and charged the sentinel, watching as it raised its halberd in a stupidly obvious telegraph. As the overhead slam came, Raven simply pivoted and stepped to the side, using the power of the stance she assumed to transition into a powerful uppercut which ripped through the Sentinel with a burst of fire and souls as well as a hollow clinking sound. When she looked again, however, there was no wound. Wonderful. Off to one side, Havel staggered to his feet just as Oscar joined the fray, slashing at the giant's left ankle to similar effect.
Raven immediately brought her Zweihander around for a thrust, attempting to burn the giant away by impaling it, but the sentinel deflected the blow with its massive greatshield, causing Raven to stumble backwards at the recoil. Raven watched the sentinel wind up for a massive horizontal sweep, and reacted quickly, diving between its legs. The halberd caught Oscar in the chest, making Raven wince, but his armor appeared to have held up. As Raven rolled back to her feet, she brought the Zweihander around for a thrust into the back of the sentinel's left knee. Having already wound up a second swing, the sentinel stumbled fowards a bit as the Zweihander's chaos flames consumed its left leg, before slowly toppling over that side and over the balcony railing. Raven quickly helped Oscar to his feet as the rest of the party, marked by much loud clanking of metal armors, arrived on the landing.
"Where is he?" Ornstein asked as he glanced around. Raven looked at the spot where he had fallen - now quite unoccupied.
"Really?" Raven asked rhetorically, "Well, come on." She waved the group after her as she rushed inside the building and around the corner, catching sight of the rogue archbishop on the far end of the landing. For someone so heavily armored, he certainly was incredibly fast. Although she herself knew just how effective those rings that they wore were - currently encumbered by heavy brass armor and a rather weighty porcelain mask, as well as one of the heaviest swords available in Lordran, because of that enchanted ring she was still able to keep up with Ornstein, who wore nothing but a typical gambeson. She still intended to do something about that - she seemed to recall a friend of hers in Zena, a man named Domnhall, being rather cheery about the prospect of journeying to Lordran because of the possibility of a good deal. Even when she had known him, he had had a habit of stocking human-sized replicas of the armor sets worn by legendary figures - including, she hoped, that of Ornstein. Sadly, she hadn't been able to locate him yet.
Raven sighed in frustration as Havel turned a corner and disappeared. They weren't going to be able to catch him, not like this.
"Damn that ring. We'll have to hope he survives and catch up with him later," Raven muttered.
"Hmm... A magic ring, you say? That does put us in quite the pickle... hmmm..." Siegmeyer appeared to be mulling the issue over, lost in thought.
"At any rate, we'd better stop by the bonfire here before we attempt to give chase. It'd be less than ideal for us to get killed and wind up all the way back at the Undead Parish," Raven told the party, gesturing to indicate the bonfire down the stairs. Everyone nodded in agreement. The brass-armored firekeeper glanced up uninterestedly as Raven entered, followed closely by Oscar. Then Siegmeyer and Solaire marched in, and she grew more curious. After which followed Tarkus and Kirk, by which point the keeper seemed downright baffled. And then Ornstein walked in. The firekeeper's curiosity immediately melted away, being replaced by pure, unadulterated rage.
"You," she muttered, venom dripping in her voice, "How DARE you show your face here? You swore an oath to Lord Gwyndolin, to protect the Lordvessel, and then you abandoned your post! Did you kill Smough to do it? Electrocute him until he was nothing but ash, like the ash we found in the cathedral? Did you not even have the respect to face him honorably? And then you had the nerve to rely on a blue eye orb after your betrayal. You're lucky you weren't incinerated where you stood. Do you know that the Lordvessel was stolen in your stead?" The keeper had an estoc out now, glowing dark blue with magic. She raised it towards Ornstein threateningly.
Raven didn't appreciate that, nor did she want to kill a firekeeper - not after the incident that had occurred the last time one of them died - but she did take action quickly. In a single, definitive downwards chop of her Zweihander, she sheared off the flimsy blade of the offending estoc three inches from the hilt. The firekeeper seemed to realize quite abruptly that she was no longer holding a sword, and stumbled backwards in shock.
"Ornstein didn't do anything against Gwyndolin's interests. He didn't attack Smough - I did. It wasn't electricity that left him ash on the ground, but the chaos flame that inhabits my Zweihander. Ornstein decided that Oscar and I had completed the challenge to obtain the Lordvessel, and Gwynevere bequeathed it to us, after which he was released from service, having nothing left to guard. He decided to come with us. That clear everything up?" Raven asked menacingly, her Zweihander still poised to strike even though she knew she wouldn't follow through with the threat.
"Undead of prophecy, I fear that your word in this is valued naught. Lord Gwyndolin has ordered the former knight captain Ornstein banished to the Painted World of Ariamis. His will must be done," the brass keeper said, calm. Ornstein lowered his head.
"It's all right, Raven," he told her, "Finish the mission. Link the flame. I'm glad that I could be of assistance in some regard, at least. Don't try to rescue me - its not worth the risk." The dragonslayer looked up at the brass keeper and nodded.
"I accept the consequences of my departure. I'll come quietly," Ornstein announced, and the firekeeper uttered a quiet 'hmph' before pulling Ornstein out of the room and up the stairs. The room was silent, the entire party reeling from shock.
"Did that really just happen?" Tarkus asked, "The dragonslayer of legend, hauled away for crimes not his own?"
'We mustn't dwell on it," Raven said solemnly, "He told us to finish the mission. That's what we'll need to do. And if it means leaving him to his fate... I fear that it won't be the last casualty of this war."
"Raven..." Oscar laid a hand on her shoulder as she turned to go, "Are you sure you're fit to be chasing after Havel right now? Right after we just watched our friend be sentenced to... well, I'm not going to sugar coat it. We all know that he won't survive, not if we leave him in there."
"It's what he asked! Do you think I'm happy about it? I know what banishment to the painted world means! But you can never leave, never! And if we went in after him, the only thing we'd accomplish is trapping ourselves in there with him!" As the words left her mouth, Raven realized she'd been shouting, at Oscar of all people. She took a shaky step back.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean..." Oscar looked at her pointedly.
"Raven, don't. You don't have to apologize. I understand," he told her.
"There is one way out," Solaire submitted gently.
"What?" Raven asked, confusion radiating from her body language.
"A small doll that I found in the asylum. What it was doing there, I don't know. But Ornstein mentioned to me that it was related to the painted world, and that it might be able to allow a way out. Go after Havel, make sure that he gets to Seath. I'll go get Ornstein," the sunny knight announced.
"Raven, before you go, I have something for you. A ring that Lautrec left behind when he killed that firekeeper. Well, after I killed him for killing the firekeeper, I suppose. Anyways, I thought you might want it. I heard something about the Father of Giants being protected by Fina, and, well... ah, enough rambling. Just take the damned ring." Tarkus outstretched his hand, showing an intricately woven golden band resting on his palm. Raven picked it up and smiled.
"Thank you," she told him, "This was one of the last things on my list. Really doubted I'd ever manage to find the thing." She slipped the ring on her finger, and immediately gasped with the burst of vigor she felt. The ring did everything - more strength, endurance, and it made her feel even lighter in her armor than Havel's ring alone had managed to.
"Go," Oscar told her, "I'll follow when... if, I can. The others can go with Solaire to brave the painted world."
"Well, if you'll excuse me, I have an archbishop to catch," Raven announced, turning to sprint up the stairs. With the added boost from the Ring of Favor, she was able to take them two at a time and sprint across the landing afterwards with ease. She covered the distance in less than half the time that Havel had, darting through the building on the far end and around a corner to a second landing. The landing transitioned into more traditional earth, which sloped upwards steeply, more stone inlaid into the side of the hill forming stairs. Raven took these, too, two at a time, reaching the top in just a few moments. At the top, she saw one of the most grandiose hallways that had ever seen, standing open and inviting. And about halfway down it, she saw Havel raising his shield against a charging armored boar.
"Oh, not another one of these!" Raven sighed, sprinting down the hallway just as the archbishop was bowled over. The boar kept going, straight towards her, but Raven had other plans. She lowered the Zweihander to a horizontal position, and the boar couldn't stop in time. Before it slammed into her, it skewered itself on the outstretched Zweihander, its momentum carrying it all the way up the blade onto the crossguard, where it finally stopped. The plate armor fell to the ground with a loud series of clanks after the boar inside was burned to ash. Raven heard Havel stagger to his feet once more, and, learning from her past mistakes, placed herself deliberately between him and his goal.
"You want to move?" Havel asked menacingly. The stone-clad bishop didn't scare her. Raven knew that, if worst came to worst, she could take him out. Raven firmly and calmly shook her head.
"You aren't approaching this logically. You're rushing in, charging a boar with three times your body mass and expecting a shield between you and it will do a damned thing... you need to stop, calm down. I know you hate Seath. I don't know why. But I do know that while you're acting like this, you're never going to beat him. So please... let me help you," Raven told him firmly.
"You want to know why I hate Seath?" Havel asked, anger still filling his voice, "I'll tell you the story. Maybe then you can understand why I feel the way I do. There was a woman named Sieglinde who came to Lordran about a cycle ago. Said she was looking for her father, trying to deliver her mother's dying words. I took pity on her, helped her... and after some time, not finding him, we fell in love. I didn't announce it, didn't marry her - it wouldn't have been appropriate, based on Gwyn's arbitrary social norms - but while we were alone, we acted as if we had. She got pregnant. It was the happiest day of both our lives when we found out. Two weeks later? I woke up to a crystal golem breaking down the door. I was unarmed, and it knocked me unconscious. When I came to... she was gone. The paledrake stole the love of my life and our unborn child, all for the sake of his mad experimentation. When I tried to do something about it, knowing that Gwyn would turn a blind eye, the benevolent Lord of Sunlight locked me in a basement for six centuries, left me to rot until you found me. Only my rage kept me from going hollow. Is that reason enough for you? Reason enough to let me kill this bastard?"
"I never needed a reason," Raven replied, "Never told you you couldn't take Seath down. You can. But you need to be smarter about how you get there. The reason why you were so helpful in the Parish, why you were able to save Catarina, is because you approach things logically. You use your brain alongside your club. Why should now be any different?" Havel took a step, hesitated, and then nodded.
"You've always been good at talking people down. Me in that basement, Ornstein in Anor Londo... it's why Oscar loves you," Havel told her. Raven cringed at that last bit.
"You know about that?" Raven asked sheepishly. Havel burst out laughing.
"Oh-hahaha of course I know... hell, girl, I'd be shocked if Siegmeyer hadn't figured it out by now. Don't worry about it - its nice to see you two happy. Ah, enough of that. We've got a dragon to kill." Havel broke into a run down the hall, this time allowing Raven to match his stride and keep up. Two hallway corners later, another boar reared its head.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding!" Raven exclaimed in frustration, carefully sidestepping the boar's charge and watching it slam headfirst into the far wall of the hallway intersection as it encountered none of the expected resistance from either her or Havel. The armored beast struck the wall with such force that cracks appeared along it, before stumbling backwards in a daze. Havel quickly stepped forwards and slapped the boar's rear with his dragon tooth, causing the boar's rear legs to skid sideways as the creature stumbled. The result of all this was quite immediate, being that the boar lost its balance and pitched onto its side with a metallic thud.
"Should we just leave it?" Raven asked as the pair watch the boar's legs wave helplessly in the air, unable to find any purchase to right itself. Havel shook his head before bringing the dragon tooth down on the boar's, putting the creature out of its misery.
"Right. Moving on," Havel announced, running into an open room with a bonfire to the left. Havel ignored it, rushing up the stairs and onto the lift while Raven quickly lit the bonfire before following him. As Raven stepped onto the lift, Havel heaved the lever, setting gears clicking and clacking as the lift pulled itself up the track in the wall. A moment later, the lift arrived on the next floor, where Raven noticed their first real challenge.
"I count eight of those crystal soldier things waiting behind pillars and such - there might be more than that, even, but I'm not seeing them. There's a single crystal golem off to the right, as well as a Channeler up the stairs straight ahead. We'll get killed for sure if we rush in without a plan," Raven advised, to which Havel nodded knowingly.
"So we rush in with a plan," Havel said, "Sprint to the stairs, maybe up them. If I use Great Magic Barrier, I'll be able to sponge up anything that Channeler can throw at us. I'll charge the thing and take it out. You stay in the doorway and keep the crystal hollows from this side off my back. They're spread out in such a way that they won't be able to time a unified charge, so you can pick them off one at a time as they run up." Raven glanced around.
"Wait. I should take the golem out with a Greatbow shot first - that thing looks like trouble to fight in close quarters," Raven told him. Havel nodded in agreement and pulled out his bottomless box, before rummaging through it to find the dragonslayer greatbow and a greatarrow.
"Fire a single shot, then drop the bow and run. The sound of that golem going down is sure to alert the rest of them, so we'll have to move with the rest of the plan pretty quick. Here's a tip. Those crystals have grains running in a few different directions. If you can find a point where the grains meet, a seam, if you will, and shoot that, the whole golem will explode in a single hit. Miss, and you'll probably only chip off a few shards of crystal. Take your time with this shot - we can afford it before you let that arrow loose." Raven nocked the massive arrow and planted one end of the bow into the ground, before closing one eye and tilting her head to look down the length of the massive steel rod. It didn't take long for her to locate one of the weak points Havel had mentioned, and after a few adjustments to the angle of the shot, Raven allowed her fingers to gently slip off the bowstring before dropping the construct the instant she saw the arrow strike.
The massive steel rod flew true, slamming into the golem and shattering it into thousands of shimmering crystal bits. Raven, alongside Havel, immediately sprinted forwards towards the center of the room. As Havel ran, he clutched a talisman and muttered a quick prayer, causing a shimmering white aura to appear around him before pulling his dragon tooth off his back. Raven spun on her heel at the door, raising her Zweihander in the opposite direction, while Havel barreled forwards toward the channeler. Raven watched as the eight soldiers she had spotted, as well as two that she hadn't, rushed towards her in loping strides. The closest of the hollows was the least fortunate, as only a half pace in he placed himself in reach of Raven's zweihander. Raven swung her blade in a narrow arc which took the crystal soldier's head off. As another soldier stepped into reach, Raven extended the swing to cleave him in two as well, before bringing the sword up and around over her head to perform another such sweeping attack. The next crystal soldier to step into reach blocked the strike, a puff of dark red fire wreathing his shield for a brief moment as the zweihander's chaos flame sparked against it. The flame, however, was not the cause of his death. That was the sheer force of the blow, which flung both shield and soldier backwards to smash against a pillar. The remaining seven soldiers hesitated, approaching much more warily than the first few. In response, Raven willed flame to appear in her left hand before concentrating it and throwing it as a disc of burning flame, which spun through the crystal soldiers, cutting four in half. That left only three combatants against Raven - two melee soldiers, and an archer. Raven casually took the arrow that the archer fired to the chest, watching the wooden thing clatter off her heavy brass armor, before sprinting back down the stairs at the remaining three crystal hollows. A quick left to right swipe with her Zweihander took care of the archer, at which point Raven spun on point again to throw the sword into a wide 270 degree sweep, catching both of the other soldiers and cleaving them in two.
The room clear, Raven casually set the zweihander back on her shoulder and walked up the stairs when she noticed a bit of an oddity. The location where the crystal golem had been standing also held a very interesting table. Raven walked up to it, curious. The thing appeared to have some sort of planetary figures on it which Raven couldn't decipher. However, another oddity rested on the table, a broken pendant wrapped in a dark red vine. As Raven looked at it, she realized that she heard whispering voices surrounding her. Some of the words were indistinct, but Raven found that she could make out others.
"Home... must go home... can you take me? Back to him, back to my sir... to my lord... home... the garden... the chasm..." The message deteriorated from there, becoming meaningless garbled words, none distinct. Raven couldn't help but strain to make sense of them. Abruptly, Raven realized she had picked up the pendant and was holding it up in front of her face. Shaking her head and trying to refocus on reality, she absentmindedly slid the pendant into one of her belt pouches. Turning around, she saw Havel waiting expectantly.
"Any idea what that thing is?" Havel asked.
"Not a clue. I'll ask Ornstein later, if Solaire can get him back. Got the channeler out of the way?" Havel nodded, but Raven could see that he was confused when she mentioned Solaire having to retrieve Ornstein. Seeing no point in burdening the archbishop further with an explanation, Raven picked up the greatbow and handed it back to Havel before stepping through the doorway.
"Wow," Raven commented as she saw the other room, "That's a lot of books." Havel nodded in agreement, but ignored the massive collection of knowledge, instead making a beeline for the next lift. Raven followed him, and watched the gears of the contraption rotate as Havel cranked the lever. She could almost understand how the lift managed to work - the key word being almost. In reality, she had no clue how the contraption managed to function.
As the lift reached the top, however, Raven noticed crystals creeping across the walls and ceiling - an indicator that Seath was incredibly close. Havel growled in fury as a crystal covered knight stepped out from a nearby hallway.
"Go get Seath," Raven told him, "I'll take care of this guy." Havel nodded his approval and turned to sprint up the stairs as the knight raised his shield and sword. Raven immediately swiped the zweihander at the knight, but the crystal-armored warrior simply backstepped out of her reach. As Raven swung again, the knight repeated the action, again and again until Raven decided that the best way to deal with the warrior was simply to cheat. Raven tossed the Zweihander to the side and raised her fists, unique energies forming in each of them. Her right hand glowed with a sickly red energy, the color of lifedrain, while her right blazed with the flame of pyromancy. The knight charged immediately, and it was Raven's turn to sidestep, before she pivoted and unleashed a black flame on the knight, causing him to stumble. Raven followed up with her right hand, grabbing the knight by the throat and using the power of lifedrain, whose power changed from dark red to a sickly off-white as it connected, to drain the life from the warrior. She held him until he fell limp before releasing her grip and allowing his lifeless husk to drop to the floor as it dissolved into souls. Raven quickly picked up her zweihander and sprinted up the crystal stairs after Havel. At the top, she was met with a fog gate, and grinned as she stepped through it, expecting to find Havel locked in combat with Seath. Instead, Havel was gone, with the paledrake looming over a massive, crystal covered room.
Seath was massive, and appeared skeletal and grotesque, but Raven had seen and fought far more hideous monsters. Raven stepped forwards with determination, looking for a method of reaching the paledrake, who was situated above the room and out of melee reach. Then Raven saw something which horrified her - a petrified corpse reaching as if to shoot a bow, with a familiar weapon on the ground in front of it. Havel's greatbow. Somehow, he had lost the fight this quickly. There were four greatarrows resting next to the bow, and Raven snatched the group up, placing her Zweihander on her back before taking aim. As she watched, Seath inhaled before blowing a white fog out, crystals forming from the floor inside. Raven loosed quickly before rolling away from the paledrake and out of the line of fire. The shot, despite being rushed, flew true, skewering Seath through the neck.
Then the worst thing Raven could imagine happened - the arrow simply fell out, leaving a wound in the neck of the paledrake which closed in just a few seconds. The scaleless dragon glared at her with unveiled fury, and the room exploded with crystals. Raven screamed in pain as she was impaled by multiple crystal spears that erupted from the ground, desperately trying to reach her estus and failing as she felt her consciousness slip away.
Raven groaned in pain as the world faded back into view. She was in a cell. How had she gotten here? The bonfire wasn't... oh. Raven noticed the bonfire in the cell, and realized that she'd been forcibly redirected. She quickly tried to use the Lordvessel, but couldn't sense any of the bonfires from this one. Shit. Looking around, she saw Havel, sitting dejectedly in a corner, and a manserpent standing guard just outside.
"How?" Havel asked aloud, "He's fucking invincible. I put three greatarrows in him and the wounds healed instantly before he cursed me with some weird white fog. I assume you didn't fare any better?" Raven shook her head.
"Well, don't bother trying to escape. There's no way out of the cell - damned dragon thought of everything. We'll just have to hope that one of the others come looking for us when we don't come back out. So get comfortable - it looks like we're going to be here a while."
AN: Okay... I think I finally found a spot to stick the chapter I've got on hold. Expect another update in just a few days because that one is already mostly finished. Be sure to leave a review if anything caught your eye!