DISCLAIMER: I do not own Dark Souls or any of its related works.

WARNING: This fic assumes you've played through Dark Souls 3 and achieved the Usurpation of Fire ending! If you haven't done so, then you WILL be confused!

AN: Sorry for the long wait, here's half the chapter to compensate. Couldn't find a natural way to build onto it, so this'll be a "mini-chapter" of sorts. Again, sorry it's been taking so long.

Chapter 14: Bellclaire's Legacy.

Londor Keep, kitchen...

Bellclaire was a woman of many talents. One of King Yhorm's Court Sorcerers, apprentice to Heysel of Farron; she earned her title of Pilgrim, traveling near-and-far to places unknown. There were few things beyond her ability, beyond her knowledge; for she was—

"Oh!" The woman of the hour moans, a kink in her back that had been bothering her for several hours popping suddenly and unexpectedly. "Thought I'd be stuck with that."

Currently, the kindly woman, who sought to find food that could help keep them Human... is not convinced they'll outpace the rising water. She's seen it too many times before; fellow Undead travelers, thinking they can win against some outside threat— the curse, each-other, their fellow Man— and no matter how often it looked like they had won, almost all of them succumbed to one thing or another. Now, she has no desire to flee the Hollow people of Londor in their time of need; she was once Court Sorcerer to the great King Yhorm, and was the greatest student to Heysel of Xanthous.

But it is the knowledge of Undead cuisine, that she fears will be lost with her.

Such a thought brings a recent memory to her mind, a small chuckle, as she keeps writing across the rough pages of her half-filled cookbook. Bellclaire's Special Stew; she had named it on a whim, when she fed that crying Finger zealot; and it seemed to have stuck with the people of Londor. It was supposed to be something quick she could cobble together, using what items she had in abundant supply; after all, who ate stew made from herbs and berries?

But now, her vials of red water were— well, they weren't running dry yet; but she could not feed over four-hundred mouths for any longer than a month's time, even if they continue to ration them out and only have the one meal per day.

And then there was that thief that kept sneaking off with an extra bowl; a lone Londor Knight that has yet to realize the kindly woman has not left Londor Keep's kitchen once in the past three days. The fact it is the same ironclad warrior of Anri, and not a different one each time, is the most telling to Bellclaire on how much the men and women of Londor love and fear their Lord of Hollows. She planned on tailing the pincher the next time they showed, as so far they have yet realized the Pilgrim now purposefully leaves an extra bowl aside for them, kept warm by sitting atop rainbow-colored prism stones.

Ah, but her cookbooks need to be finished, and her more experimental dishes will be served in the coming days. The rouge water she has comes from a holy fountain in Mirrah, a land so far to the West that it would be faster to walk to Irithyll blindfolded; assuming its holy fountain isn't currently buried beneath the waves. Currently the problem is the crimson liquid running out, and she has no real way of replenishing it when that happens.

In terms of food and drink, they should be fine; but only if the Scholars are able to yield good harvest for Elizabeth mushrooms. With Elizabeth mushrooms, they have a neutral food item, and a source of Victory Brew. In Bellclaire's long time as an Undead, she's met many other like her, seeking food for Undead to enjoy; but they all lacked a base food to work off of, and mossfruit berries were only fine for so long, and in nowhere near large enough numbers for what Bellclaire has sought her entire unlife.

Now though, she has a new concoction, boiling in a pot over the kitchen's fireplace. One nomad she heard of supposedly found a way to cure strips of meat, drying them out after having them pickle in a medicinal solution. Of course there's no meat Undead can truly eat— as it will just sit in their nonfunctional stomach; and the nomad she sought was already Hollow and stark-raving mad, but the idea had stuck with her.

Pickling in a medicinal solution; it was not the strangest thing she's heard, and the idea wasn't anything she could actually work with. But how would one go about even making the liquid solution? Purple moss is a classic medicine, one of the few things that reacts and breaks down in an Undead's body, but those are solid clumps. The more modern medicines, bug pellets, made from crushed scarabs of certain colors; are still solid things that need to dissolve through interacting with an Undead's innards.

And so the pot boils. She's measured how much red water she's poured in, she's filled it with purple moss clumps and a few red bug pellets, and now the Pilgrim hopes that the fire is enough to boil it all into a liquid slop. For there to be medicinal solution, there needs to be liquid medicine; which means that the medicinal clumps and pellets can be, hopefully, liquefied. All she can do now is watch the pot and pray the end result is digestible for an Undead, and also pray the final product gives more than the red water spent to make it. Naturally, as the selfless woman that she is, Bellclaire will test the result before anyone else; and if she can't digest her newest creation?

Then it will be a good thing for Londor, that she's writing these cookbooks; so all of her research does not die with her.

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That's all for now, stay safe!