AN: It's been almost two months. Again. I'm sorry for making all of you wait as long as I have. On the bright side, the next wait shouldn't be nearly as long. It feels nice to actually have the next chapter almost done by the time I publish this. Shouldn't be a long waiting period for a second time. Also, content warning. The next few (or many) chapters may be extremely dark and depressing. You have been warned.

Chapter 20: Whispers of the Lost

Solaire was just beginning worry that he would indeed be smashed against the rocky mountainside or the valley below when his vision went black, and a sudden jerking sensation caused his stomach to turn a circle. A moment later, as he blinked in shock, he found himself standing in a golden hall decorated by the painting he had just exited. An unconscious Priscilla lay on the ground just to his left, although her massive size had vanished, likely the result of a dispelled illusion. The warrior of sunlight knelt down beside her and tapped her on the shoulder. The crossbreed's eyes fluttered open a moment later. Priscilla took a deep breath, seemingly savoring the air of the real world after having been trapped in the painting, and sat up, looking at Solaire.

"From the depths of mine heart, I thankest thee," the crossbreed said sincerely, "But... this world is foreign to me, its contents unknown. Mine feet wouldst be pleased to wander, yet wander I cannot. And so, I must ask... wouldst thee mind were I to join you?"

"I would not," Solaire replied, "I would be loathe to miss an opportunity for jolly cooperation!"Priscilla squealed with glee in a chidlike fashion, before leaping to hug Solaire in gratitude. The warrior of sunlight chuckled as he led the crossbreed out of the hall and back towards the rest of the group. He found most of them - Siegmeyer, Oscar, Tarkus, and Kirk - gathered around the bonfire just as he had left them, silently waiting for someone to return. Oscar was the first to look up as Solaire stepped into the bonfire chamber. Oscar immediately recognized the absence of their other companion.

"Ornstein?" he asked, this single word saying everything he needed it to. In response, Solaire shook his head slowly. Oscar sank down against the wall.

"Oh, Gwyn... Can you try again? Is there-" Oscar cut off as Solaire shook his head.

"He made me promise not to go back for him. The cost is too high," Solaire explained, "A life for a life. Someone else would have to stay in the painting for Ornstein to leave."

"How can we tell Raven?" Oscar asked rhetorically, "She..."

"I'm afraid it gets worse," Solaire said, producing the velkian rapier along with the attached note. Oscar looked at it, and his face went pale.

"I'll tell her," Oscar said, "I was just about to go after her anyways. I... who's this?" Solaire glanced over his shoulder and saw that Priscilla had chosen that exact moment to enter the room.

"Her name's Priscilla," Solaire said, "But I'll explain later. Right now, you need to go get Raven. If she's not back by now, something's happened." Oscar nodded in agreement, then stood, picking up the velkian rapier before climbing the stairs out of the room.

Raven was slowly but surely losing her mind. Not going hollow - not yet, at least. No, the madness pressing in on her existence was of another variety. The shadows in her cell had begun to whisper, calling out her name, begging her not to go, in voices which she had not heard in years. She knew why - it was the broken pendant which she had taken the day before, the pendant which itself had whispered to her. And yet, she couldn't bring herself rid of the thing, even as it threatened to destroy her sanity. The reason, she suspected, was that a part of her longed to hear those voices one last time, despite the pain they wrought. Among those that called to her was her father's, filled with sadness and desperation, contrasted by the accusing anger held in the voice of Aran, her younger brother. The voices drew up memories that Raven had done her best to bury for good - and for one long, blissful year, she had succeeded.

At the sound of those whispers, it all came flooding back. Raven remembered, with horrifying clarity, the day that she had woken up and found the darksign branded above her heart. All of her hopes, her dreams, her entire life, had all come crashing down around her in an instant. She remembered waking up Aran, far earlier in the morning than normal, and telling him to pack his things. She remembered the boy, only six years old, wondering why they were leaving. And then... the moment which she had tried her hardest to forget, out of all of the pain in her life. The moment when she had left Aran with Domnhall, the only man she could trust in the city. She heard the same betrayed tone, begging her not to leave him, as the whispers bore. And then she left anyways. She had run away, trying to get far away from civilization before she, as so many other undead before her, went hollow. She had been discovered at the city gate, of course, searched on grounds of suspicious behavior. She had been on a cart to the Northern Undead Asylum within the hour. Raven tried to yank herself out of her recollection, but it was no use. Memory after memory flooded back, each one forcing her to relive it in full. Her father's own death and subsequent revival showing his undead nature before he himself was shipped away, the three day trip to the asylum, her weeks spent there, her begging for Aran's safety and the way fate had laughed in her face by allowing her to catch a glimpse of Domnhall being imprisoned only three days after herself...

And through it all, the shadows whispered.

"Come back..."

"Don't go..."

"Raven,"

"Raven...

"Raven!" Havel's voice, sharp and loud compared to the soft whispers, was enough to snap her back to reality. With a start, Raven realized that she had been curled up into a ball, sobbing in the corner of the cell. She looked up, trying her best to ignore the whispers which pressed still against her mind.

"What's going on?" Raven asked, and in response, Havel grinned, before holding up a key.

"We're escaping, that's what," the archbishop said, before slipping his helmet onto his head and unlocking the door. Raven picked up her Zweihander and slid her mask onto her face as she followed him.

"How'd you manage to get a key?" Raven asked as she slashed through a snake who rushed at her. A loud alarm, some sort of mechanism, blared continuously at them from down below.

"One of the manserpents was an idiot who decided to lean against the cell bars. I grabbed the key off his belt," Havel told her as he smashed the face in of a second manserpent. A moment later, blue serpentine... things... rushed up the winding ramp at them.

"What are those things?" Raven asked, disgusted.

"Those are Seath's monstrosities. The results of his twisted experimentation... we should put them out of their misery." Raven nodded, and skewered one up to the parrying lugs of the Zweihander, while Havel crushed another in two with a mighty swing of his greatclub. Three more approached from below. Raven quickly yanked her blade free before swinging it in a wide sweep to decapitate one, and cut a second in two near some biological approximation of the waist. Havel simply bashed the third's face, crushing its skull under the weight of his dragon tooth.

"Go turn off that terrible noise," Havel said, "I'll search for a way out." Raven nodded, and jogged down the ramp to find another manserpent waiting for her. The thing went down in a single quick slash, its head and neck rolling and convulsing on the floor. Raven quickly climbed up a ladder to the balcony where the machine stood, and pulled a lever, which, thankfully, shut the contraption off. A moment later, she cried out as a bolt of lightning struck her in the shoulder. She pivoted in place to see a manserpent caster charging another bolt, and quickly sidestepped the attack before rushing the creature. She killed it with an overhead slam of her Zweihander, cutting it in two vertically. As it dropped, she noticed a chest behind it. She opened it to find a large key, which could only fit a door which was truly massive. She clipped the key to her belt and turned around, to see Havel waving at her from the top of the spiraling ramp, beckoning for her to come. Raven slid her mask back into one of her belt pouches, then quickly hurried up to him.

"This door is undoubtedly the way out, leading back into the rest of the archives," the archbishop commented, "But it's locked. Mind trying that key you just found?" Raven nodded, and reached up to insert the key into the lock. Sure enough, it turned, and the massive door swung open onto a balcony with one of the best views that Raven had seen in a while - Anor Londo, gleaming in the distance with a vibrant green hillside rolling downwards towards it.

"Shall we?" Havel asked, gesturing to the path that led back into the main body of the archives. Raven hefted her Zweihander and nodded. She found that as she kept moving, the whispers seemed more faint, occasionally disappearing entirely. Unfortunately, they were never gone for long. Havel quickly crushed a crystal swordsman who stepped into their path, while Raven skewered an archer who backed him up. They both turned to see a channeler up ahead who was doing a dance, conjuring magical energy to strengthen his allies. Raven immediately charged the six-eyed creature, intending to skewer him as she had the crystal archer just moments before. However, just as she reached the channeler and lunged forwards, it vanished, reappearing down the hallway to the left. Raven growled in frustration until a flash of steel seperated its head from its body, and a man in elite knight armor stepped into view.

"There you are!" Oscar exclaimed as he turned to see Raven, "I was beginning to worry that you wouldn't turn up. What happened?"

We ran into a complication," Raven explained as Oscar stepped over to her, "in that Seath happens to be invincible. Havel and I collectively put four greatarrows into him, and he didn't even flinch. So we need to look around, and figure out why."

"Right," Havel interjected, "And I think I know where we should start. The crystal caverns underneath the archives. If there's anything Seath wanted guarded, it would be down there."

"Can you give us a minute?" Oscar asked Havel, who nodded, walking down the hall in the other direction. Oscar pulled off his helmet.

"Raven, I... I have some bad news," Oscar began, and Raven froze.

"No... no, please, don't tell me that..." Raven shook her head, in desperation.

"Ornstein's gone," Oscar said solemnly, "Solaire made it, but... he couldn't save him." Raven let out a choked sob, collapsing against Oscar in despair.

"No... I can't... I can't lose anyone else. He's... he can't be. He just can't!"

"I'm sorry, Raven. Really, I am. But... there's something else you need to know. While Solaire was in there, he found this." Oscar produced the velkian rapier, and Raven froze.

"This... this is my father's sword! Where... oh, no. No, no!" Raven knew what the blade meant. Her father, cursed as undead, had gone hollow in the painted world.

"There was a note with it. A letter, addressed to you," Oscar told her, handing her the piece of paper. Raven took it with trembling hands. She hesitated, wondering if she even wanted to read it. She looked up at Oscar for support, and he nodded. Raven opened the letter.

"I have come to the sorry conclusion that there is no escape from this forlorn painting. However long it may take, I am of no doubts that I am going to die here. This letter, among other things, contains my last will and testament. Should anyone with the means to escaping this place find it, it is my dying wish that you deliver this, along with the sword I carry, to my daughter, Raven Imara.

"I fear, Raven, that beyond my blade, I have nothing to give you, and I don't imagine that a sword will help you all that much, wherever you are. I'm sure that if you need one, you've already found a far more dependable weapon than this. To you its only purpose is a trinket of remembrance, unless you've changed even more than I expected. At the time I write this, Aran is far too young to understand the pain of loss. If, by the time you receive it, he has grown, it falls to you to bear my last wish unto him.

"In the end, it will be not a man but a loss of purpose which ends my life. I therefore have one wish for you: avenge me. Live your life, and keep moving forwards, no matter how much sorrow attempts to hold you back. This is for both of you, and given my isolation, it is one of only two pieces of advice which I can offer. The other is this: Never forget, for so long as you remember, the past will live on in your hearts.

"As I write the conclusion to this letter, I realize I was mistaken. My sword is not the only thing I have to give. I have two more. The first is an apology, for all of the things which I could not protect you from. The second is a reminder: I love you with a love stronger than death's power to destroy. Now and always.

"Never forget.
-Ethan Imara."

Raven shakily folded the letter, and slipped it into one of her belt pouches, as the whispers grew louder around her, beckoning her, calling her to take that one final step into the dark. She knew that one step was all that it would take - she was one mistake, one death away from going hollow. And in that moment, the prospect sounded sorely tempting.

"Raven... why didn't you save me?"

A new voice. Whose voice was that?

As soon as she asked, Raven knew the answer. As realization dawned, something inside her broke. Raven fell to her knees in horror, tears flowing freely down her face.

The voice belonged to Ornstein.

Artorias shouldered his greatsword solemnly as he stood before the great lift of Anor Londo, Sif padding along close behind him. Ciaran was somewhere nearby, although he had long since given up trying to track her position as she slipped in and out of shadows, seemingly invisible to the untrained eye.

While the Wolf Knight wore a bold, steady expression, he would readily admit the truth, if only to himself. He was afraid, no, terrified, because of what he was about to do. It was a sort of fear that not even the abyss could instill in him - the knowledge that, in the coming hour, he could do everything right, down to the most minute detail, and it still wouldn't be enough. There was no guarantee, nothing to stop everything from going horribly wrong. Artorias balanced his greatsword on his shoulder as he reached down to a pouch at his belt, and grasped reassuringly at the two halves of a broken pendant that lay within - representation of loss, of sacrifice. They would be enough, he hoped, to serve as a failsafe, as an escape from the fate which he would no doubt be consigned to if things took a turn for the worse. But, again, he had no guarantee.

With a sigh, Artorias grasped the lift's lever, and shoved it forwards, pushing the lift into a spiraling descent. He was committed now, to a task which might well end with him dead. A small price to pay, he decided, as he was already living on borrowed time. He knew all too well that his life should have ended in Oolacile, some thousand years ago. If he died now... well, he had already accomplished so much more than his life was worth. And for the sake of the world, he had to take this one last step.

Artorias grasped his greatsword once again as the lift shuddered to a stop at the bottom of its descent - leaving him facing a bridge into a forlorn place of morning, the memorial tomb of Gwyn himself.

"Come on, boy," Artorias told Sif, before stepping boldly onto the bridge, one foot and then the other. Each step he took saw the weight of his deadly responsibility, settling heavier and heavier upon him. But he was committed now. There was no turning back. It settled heaviest as he took his final step, placing him in the center of the tomb - statues and grand stonework constructed all around him, looming over him in an almost threatening manner, despite the benevolence that the memorial intended to convey. The Wolf Knight heard the soft footsteps of Ciaran as she slipped into the tomb just behind him, ready to come to his assistance if this plan came crashing down around them. Artorias took a deep breath, and looked up at the largest statue of Gwyn, in the center of the memorial. He knew it was an illusion, a magical barrier preventing entry to the true Darkmoon Tomb, although at present he had no power to dispel it. He could only hope that the boy inside would do that for him.

"Gwyndolin!" Artorias shouted, hearing his voice echo through the chamber, sounding several times before fading. And to his relief, the statue on which he had fixed his gaze shimmered and vanished. That, like so much else in this plan, did not guarantee anything. But it improved his chances of survival significantly. Steeling himself once more, the Wolf Knight stepped through the now open passage, onto a red carpet just beyond. He now fixed his gaze not on a statue, but on a wall of shimmering white mist, Gwyndolin's last warning against trespassers. To step beyond it was to consign oneself to death. Artorias had no intentions of doing so. But at the same time, he had no wish to speak to the boy through it.

"Come out from behind that fog," Artorias requested, although his tone, audacious though it was, indicated that 'no' was not an answer he would accept.

"We need to talk."

AN: And there you go. Another chapter, proof that this story has not been abandoned. Make of it what you will. The next one is coming... soon. Let's go with soon. I want to say a week, but it might be less (or, heaven forbid, more,) time than that.