Isekai'd, My Posterior!
There were many things to love about bonfires. The idle conversation you could gather from it on a cool night, the many smors you could make whilst engaging in such conversation, the romantic atmosphere it could possibly bring should you be alone with your significant other…
On the flipside, if you were anything like William, whereby you had no friends to talk to, a dislike for marshmallows and an attraction to 2-D women only, the many versatile uses a bonfire brought about were significantly dwindled to a sparse few utilities; the first one being that it was a good way to dry off.
"So I just… hold out my hand and I'm human again?"
"Well, there are a few minor details you also have to follow, but yes. Hold out you hand to the flames and offer it your humanity." Oscar nodded proudly, as if teaching the Thief how to rejuvenate his mortality was like showing him how to fish. William eyed the knight as he ran a hand through his golden locks and scoffed.
It had been a surprise seeing what the Astorian looked like underneath his helm. And although he had read many people's descriptions of what Oscar potentially looked like, this topped the charts for one reason and one reason alone: he was perfectly average.
An average aryan, if he were to be specific, with pale skin, blond tresses and the bluest eyes you'd ever see on a hyperactive idiot. Really, the Nazi's would have loved him. But he fit the description of an average man perfectly and that was all William needed to know.
Reaching forward and feeling the flames at the base of the coiled sword lick his hand, William had to admit that it felt quite nice. It felt so nice he wanted to bury his face in those flames, have them embrace him like a warm hug from the father he never knew because the shmuck overdosed on heroine the day he was born. It was that warm feeling he gave into that caused the flames to seep into his skin and siphon the humanity from his Darksign. The bonfire flared for a moment and suddenly a wash of white light cascaded over him like a wedding veil – making William breathe in sharply.
He blinked, and his previously eyeless sockets were replaced by onyx irises encased around a sea of white. He looked down at his hands and the leathery bones shifted into smooth skin wrapped around slender digits.
"Well now, I had not anticipated this," Oscar said, and William turned to him only to see his mystified expression.
"Anticipated what?" he asked, and the knight pointed at him.
"You. How rare it is to see an undead with white hair. I'd thought that race died out centuries ago!"
The Thief frowned and stood, grabbing Oscar and staring into his now polished platemail to see his reflection. That was odd. Last he recalled, his hair had been startlingly black… and short. What started back at him now was shoulder length hair so white it made ivory look dark. He combed a hand through it. It certainly felt real. He gave it a tug. It was definitely real. But why was his hair white? Had he suffered from Marie Antoinette Syndrome or something? He couldn't think of any event that had thoroughly stressed him out thus far…
A stray thought flew into his head like a pregnant fly and he absently pulled at the waistband of his trousers to peer down at his manhood. Yep. His hair was certainly white now. Oh well.
William shrugged and flicked the rich strands over his shoulder, reveling in the slight tickle it left on the back of his neck. He took off the restricting leather wrapped around his chest and raised an almost invisible eyebrow. He was still as scrawny as a stick insect; however, something was oddly wrong with the way his stomach formed perfect lines and outlined his hips as if they were cut from marble. William frowned at the sight. When in the hell did he get jacked? He barely took out the trash as a form of exercise. You know what, it didn't really matter. He had abs and he didn't do shit to earn them. The nimrod that brought him here was slowly beginning to gain his respect.
Sliding the garment back onto his person and securing the straps attached, William thought about his next plan of action. He would need to play it smart if he wanted the Astorian next to him to enter the Kiln without any hassles. At the same time, William didn't think Oscar would be able to handle many of the bosses dotted around Lordran on his own, so the Thief had one of two options: either learn how to fight so that he could handle those bosses himself, or create everlasting friendships with various other undead to ensure continuous bouts of Jolly Co-operation. After all, there was safety in greater numbers. Just ask that YouTuber that liked to pit the whole of Firelink against Artorias in a seven-minute video. He knew what was up.
William hummed at his options before smirking his thin lips, standing up and deciding on a non-existent option three. He was just gonna have to wing it.
He wasn't going to break his head learning to fight and he didn't need to, His brain was already a powerful weapon. And as for using witty conversation to win over every single NPC in Lordran so that they could all be summoned outside of a boss's fog wall? Yeah, he'd rather swallow a poison dart. With the exception of Solaire and Siegmeyer, he wasn't gonna try that hard to rally allies. They were all going to die anyways, why delay the inevitable? Besides, he wasn't some idiotic pleb with a moral compass. He was a douchebag with a lung still painfully sticking out of his ass.
That being said, they still needed a plan, and methodically going through the expansive map as the game directs you is a noob move sure to get anyone killed in the first five minutes, especially since this was Dark Souls.
So, William decided to choose a different method of speed running. One that involved swords, shields, human shields, and a boatload of bargaining chips to prevent any devastating scenarios. But in order to do so, he would first need to acquire said bargaining chips.
A lightbulb flashed above the undeads head and William turned toward Oscar who had just been told by the Crestfallen Warrior to travel through that rancid aqueduct in order to reach the Lower Burg. The knight turned to him after thanking the lazy undead that simply flipped him the bird as he was walking away.
"Right then, shall we be off?" Oscar asked in a cheery tone. William just smiled wider. It was truly a wonder how someone so worrisome wasn't praying to his impudent god to give him courage. Or maybe the generally stupid just didn't understand what fear meant? He had to admit, that advantage was mildly envious.
"Yeah, just give me a few minutes." William replied, waving the knight off and walking toward the stairway leading to New Londo.
"Do you still require rest?"
"Nope. I just need to take a leak."
"I'm sorry but I don't understand. There are no vegetables grown on this area, nor do I think there ever were." Oscar said with a frown.
"What? No. I need to take a leak. Not a leek." William replied in frustration. One would have guessed that that phrase in particular was common sense in just about any era of the world. Guess he was wrong.
"Could you please speak in simple terms. I find it difficult to understand your lingo at times, dear William."
The Thief rolled his eyes. "I need to take a leak. Ya' know… empty the tank, water the plants, make it rain…"
"Use the John." The Crestfallen Warrior quipped.
William snapped his fingers and pointed at him. "Exactly! What he said."
The Astorian paused before nodding his head in understanding. "Ah. You need to relieve yourself. I understand completely."
"Thank you," William sighed. "I'll be back soon."
Without waiting for a response, he flew down the stairs, rounded the corner, shoved his organ back into his body with a well-timed push and finally stepped on a round metal dais that allowed him to descend into a watery dystopia.
Oddly enough, the sound of the mechanical pulley clanking every second mixed in with the growing darkness of this underground city did wonders to his mind as he closed his eyes and saw nothing but the varying shades of eigengrau1. In fact, it was almost as if the very darkness itself was sucking away the meagre flake of anxiety that had settled upon the thought processors of his mind. And for a change, he was grateful. It had been quite a while since he had taken time to lose himself in the nothingness that cooled the boiling temperature of his over-active imagination.
After a few more moments of bliss, his joy ride came to end and the heavy platform spat him out onto a cobblestoned platform covered in wet algae and slimy, stagnant water that stank worse than a rotten butternut sliced open and dumped into a hot pan to 'accentuate the flavor'.
Snorting the moisture that had accumulated in his mouth due to the stench, William spat at the ground before stomping down on the disk that activated the dais before stepping out and watching it ascend. He wouldn't be needing a lift back. He was already pretty sure that he was going to die in the obviously stupid risk he was going to take.
Waltzing around the platform and down a short flight of stairs to its left, the Thief passed a praying hollow smacking its head against the wall and turned left again, finally reaching the ruins of New Londo. The sunken city. Home to the corrupted Four Kings and the Darkwraiths, the minions of the Abyss.
It looked just as one would expect it to; submerged in filthy fluid cultivated by the thousands of bloated bodies drowned and kept at its depths as the many ghosts and gist's hovered around semi-dry rooftops with aimless looks in their eyeless sockets.
He would have taken the time to go and collect the Firekeeper soul resting just a short sprint away but… he wasn't up for being sutured by a throng of floating nurses in torn uniforms.
With excitement running through his newly formed veins, he patted himself down, searching for an item he knew would most likely be hiding on his person and smiled when he felt the outline of something long, strong and hard resting against his thigh.
Yes, it was just as he had assumed it would be: a thick and lengthy piece of work that was both his pride and his joy. Oh, how he was glad to be back in human form!
Turning his back to a nearby hollow, William quick dug his hands into his pants and pulled out the object in question. His dark eyes stared at it intensely as its warmth permeated into the hand holding it. How beautiful, how mystifying it was to hold something this glorious. It was going to be quite the ride experimenting with it, oh, the number of things he could stick it into would be fantastical!
He smirked. It was good thing his status in this world was a Thief. How else would he have been able to acquire this Master Key? The tool that was a literal Dark Souls lifehack.
Prancing up the path on his right, William reached a rusty gate that barred his path from entering the Valley of Drakes and cackled to himself. With this they wouldn't need to go through hours of tedium in order to ring those oversized bells. And besides that, he still had his in-game knowledge. Which meant he could also subtly influence the sequence of events to turn out favorably for himself and Oscar. Oh, how he looked forward to the easiest speedrun in history.
Sliding the key into the gate and turning it clockwise, the undead closed his eyes and sighed out at the sharp snap of the tumblers being pulled out of their respective holes before the gate before him promptly swung open, allowing him to bask in the strong breeze.
He walked forward and snatched the soul orb resting on the rotting corpse nearby before carefully passing over the plank linking one mountain to the next. From here there was a T-junction that lead to two unforgiving territories. On the right, a cave that stank of fermented dung and sludge matured in poison which could only lead to the cesspool of Blighttown. And on the left, the winding pathway toward a floodgate that held bloated corpses, flea-infested water and a hell of a lot of Darkwraiths.
Without missing a beat in this illogical world that possessed plethora's of redundant decisions, William decided to make the idiotic choice and go left – because what was bravery, without a dash of recklessness, eh?
The rickety bridge was… rickety. Even though the floorboards seemed stable enough, he still had to grab the banisters for support as the wind tried to fling him off the cliff like some sadistic ghost from a bad horror movie.
He managed to reach the other end with mild difficulty and when he was sure he wasn't going to puke from the constant side-to-side swaying, he lifted his gaze and saw the reason for his troubles: a giant, putrid form of a dragon with its ass missing.
William briefly wondered how the hell this thing had even managed to die in such an odd way. Had it been attempting to flee from Gwyn's forces when a Greatbow had punctured its wing, forcing it to cling to this old rock for dear life before it had just died like that? Or maybe it had been climbing up the mountainside one day and upon seeing that it was still a way's off from finding food, it had died of exhaustion before the lower half had just… dropped off due to the ridiculousness of the situation? He decided to go with the second one. It seemed much more hilarious.
Bracing himself, he eyed the items resting just a few meters away from the dead things worm-infested teeth. The Astorian Sword. A blade that would get you through to Anor Londo without a problem if you had sufficient Faith. A blade blessed with divine magic that could even stop a skeleton from being reassembled by necromancy. Anyone could obtain such a weapon forged by powerful blacksmiths. The only honest cost was that you had to be smooshed into the side of a mountain to obtain it – which really wasn't so bad… right?
Shaking his head, sucking a breath and grabbing his groin for a moment, William stabled himself before breaking off into a sprint. If he could nab the sword and possibly the shield in time, he could dive toward the cut-out arch of rock above the dragon when it awoke. He would just need to time it right. Yeah, timing was the key. What could go wrong?
The undead neared the supposedly dead beast that stank like unwashed sardines and shit before his slender fingers curled around the Astorian blade. It was then that the ugly lizard decided to stop playing dead and jumpscare him like he was freaking Nightmare Freddy.
The roar the Undead Dragon made through decayed vocal cords sent William's head into temporary numbness as he turned around, tripped on his feet and discovered what soil tasted like. He whined at the pain before pushing himself back to his feet and preparing to run away when he realized something extremely important.
Despite being an undead with abs as hard as stone, his stamina was still crap. Just like the bloody mage build.
He felt his stomach spasm and curl as his legs when taut and cramped, forcing him to kneel with his ass in the sky whilst his head buried into the ground like a shy ostrich. The Undead Dragon took that moment to stop its roaring and look at him. William paled as the thing regarded him for a few moments before finally making up its mind.
The undead tried to scream as the dragon raised a decayed hand. Was it honestly going to spank him like a hoe from one of those bad roleplay pornos his neighbor kept sending to him?
He received his answer when both his ass and body were torn to bloody ribbons as a rotting claw shanked him through the trapdoor. He would have screeched like a rat getting dropped into a vat of battery acid, but unfortunately, he was too busy sampling what century-old dragon scales tasted of.
He was wrong in his assumption. The cost of getting a stupid blade coated in divine magic was one of the worst punishments any person could endure. Oscar better appreciate him, considering all the other horrors he would need to face just to make his gullible ass Gwyn's successor.
Word Bank:1. Eigengrau - (n.) "dark light" or "brain grey"; the color seen by the eye in perfect darkness. The color seen when one closes their eyes.
Apologies for the slow build-up. I'll speed up the plot in the next instalment of chapters.