Summary: Tempest and Ornstein managed to get separated. Will they be fine on their own? And will Tempest escape the fury of the dragon slayer unscathed?
(Author's note: Like I said in the last chapter, I am taking some liberties with the game mechanics to create a better flow for the story. So I will base this story on the general premise of the gameplay in Dark Souls but also weave in my own headcanons and blend out what I think are merely game mechanics.
This one was planned since the start of the fic. Felt good to finally be able to write it out ^^)
When Tempest opened his eyes he suspected Ornstein shouting at him, the small Undead already winced in antipication when he noticed that there wasn't a dragon slayer shouting at him and that he had awoken next to a unknown bonfire.
Tempest got up from the ground and took a look around. He was in a cell. He had no clue how this dragon had done it, but apparently he had managed to snatch his body away before the dark sign had transported him to the last bonfire he had rested at. But that also meant... Tempest was on his own. He couldn't rely on the dragon slayer to get him out of here. He didn't even knew if it would be possible for Ornstein to come to this cell.
What a good thing, that a bonfire was right next to him. With the power of the lord vessel, it should be possible for him to just escape this place. Tempest sat down next to the bonfire and put his hand into it, concentrating on the place he wanted to appear. Anor Londo felt good. If he was lucky, Ornstein would still be around and they could try again.
After around five minutes had passed, Tempest withdrew his hand from the flame. It didn't work. The bonfire didn't respond to the power of the lord vessel. He should have known it. What use would a cell with a bonfire in it would have if the one imprisoned could just teleport away?
Tempest stood up again, pacing a few times up and down in the cell, when he noticed that it even got a bit farther into the wall where the bars had ended. Curiously he wandered there only to run into another crystal hollow, which attacked on sight. Tempest rose his shield just in time to block their attack before slashing away at them with his katana. Damn, why did they had to be so hard? He could even see the colours of the rainbow whenever he managed to splinter away some of that twinkling titanite. When the crystal hollow laid lifeless on the ground, Tempest returned to the front of the cell and examined the door.
It was locked of course. And there was no chance that he would be able to slice this bars in half with his katana or any other weapon he had with him. That was when he noticed the serpent man leaning against the bars. From the sounds of its breathing, fast asleep. And Tempest eyes darted down to its hip ... where there was a keyring. Maybe the key to the cell was there?
Tempest took a step back and considered. Should he just try and snatch the keyring? It looked pretty fast attached to the belt of the serpent men. It could take him quite some time, to remove it, so it would be far safer to take this advantage and kill the serpent man so Tempest could take the key he needed (if it even was there) without fearing for the foe to wake up. The little Undead snuck up to the serpent man, readied his katana and drove it deep into its back. The serpent man woke up and shrieked in pain. Tempest tugged on his katana to remove it from the back of his foe. Blood spurted out and Tempest was sure that the blood loss soon should kill the serpent man, when it suddenly staggered a few steps forward and collapsed. To far away from the door for Tempest to reach the keyring anymore.
"Oh no! What am I going to do now?", Tempest blurted out while disbelief darkened his hollowed out face.
After the idiot had ran through the fog gate and apparently died at Seath's hands, Ornstein had returned to the bonfire, thinking it would be the best to just wait until he reappeared. Only that it didn't happen. After enough time had passed that Ornstein had decided to have a snack, he was under the assumption that Seath somehow had managed to transport the body of the Undead before he had a chance to reappear at the bonfire.
Ornstein swallowed the last bite, took a sip of water out of his flask and then stood up. He better started to search for the idiot before he hollowed out. "Oh, he is in trouble.", Ornstein murmured to himself, picking up his spear and pulling the lever to get the elevator going.
To his disdain all the crystal hollows had been revived in the meantime. Of course, they still were undead. It was impossible to kill them. Most hollows would eventually stop moving, having truly given up and that was the closest to death an undead or hollow ever would manage. Only when they left behind their soul could they find real peace, but that wouldn't happen in a few hours, but needed several decades. Ornstein sighed. He had to fight his way through this place again. At least the channeler from earlier still laid there as a lifeless corpse.
Ornstein scanned the room. With his speed it should be easy for him to make a beeline for the stairs and take care of the snipers first before the others caught up to him and then he could use the lighting powers of his spears to stun them before taking them done one by one. The absence of the channeler truly made this a lot easier.
He kneeled down, spear in right hand and sprinted forwards, zigzagging when the arrows took aim at him and once he arrived at the stairs, managed to strike both of the snipers down there with one thrust before leaping to the one on the left stairs and then turning around to shoot the activated lighting powers of his spear in the group of crystal hollows that had followed him before taking them on one at a time.
At the end Ornstein remained victorious, even though he was sure he had suffered some cuts and bruises. Taking on about ten foes at once maybe had been a bit much after all. He should be more careful for now. He walked over and pulled the lever that called the elevator, supporting his weight on his spear while he waited. When the elevator arrived and Ornstein stepped on it, pulling the lever to get it going up, he took his time to look around and remind himself just how big the archives were.
"Where have been the cells again?", Ornstein asked himself. "Or maybe that little storm still is in the study room? No, I have heard him die. He must have been brought to a bonfire..."
After Ornstein had arrived at the top, he took care of the lone crystal hollow guarding the path to Seath's study room and proceeded his way to the fog gate. He stood in front of it, listening. Ornstein was sure, he could hear the breathing of the paledrake through it. It would be better not to enter through the fog gate. On one hand, he wasn't keen talking with Seath, on the other hand he didn't knew if the dragon would attack him on sight. Seath had gone mad over the years and Ornstein assumed it had only gotten worse over the course of his isolation. So the dragon slayer decided to head back to the elevator.
Ornstein got the elevator going and braced himself. The moment he saw another part of the archives in front of him he jumped off, rolled to dampen his fall and got up, looking around. Now he had to find his way through this labyrinth. With a deep sigh, Ornstein got on his way, weapon in both hands, determined to find this idiot and give him the scolding he deserved.
Tempest had tried to reach the corpse of the serpent man several times now and even managed to dislocate his shoulder trying it. At last the bonfire was near, so he could heal any wounds quickly, but that didn't made it hurt less. He probably looked like a complete idiot, lying flat on his stomach, face pressed to the bars and trying to reach the corpse of the serpent man with his arm.
"Alright, this will never work.", Tempest stood up from his awkward position and then let himself fall down on his rear with a clank. "I wonder how Ornstein would have handled this situation?" Tempest had the image of the dragon slayer clear in his mind in front of him, the lion armour, the long red ponytail and the iconic dragon slayer spear.
The spear... a spear had long reach! Tempest quickly ran to the bonfire to search through the items in his bottomless box. And he was in luck, because he found a spear in it. A short one, pretty sure that he had picked it up from one of the hollow soldiers in the undead burg. But it was long enough and should suffice.
So Tempest kneeled in front of the bars and carefully guided the spear to the corpse of the serpent men, trying to get a hold of it with the tip of the spear. It took him a few times and once he even managed to kick the corpse farther away so that he had to lay down on his stomach again but eventually the spear managed to get a hold of the corpse and Tempest was able to pull it near him.
"Finally.", he breathed out. Tempest was actually a bit unsure why he still needed to breath, maybe it was just a leftover from his living days and he couldn't get rid of the habit. Regardless, he finally had the desired item in reach and so he quickly worked to cut the keyring off the serpent man with a dagger, hoping that one of the keys would actually fit his cell door. And Tempest was in luck because the key he tried clicked and the door swung open.
"Yes.", Tempest called out victorious. "Now I have to find my way back to Ornstein..."
Tempest stepped out of the cell, rounded a corner and found himself in a large, round room, books were aligned at the walls everywhere, stacks over stacks of books. Tempest had to admit, the sight was breath taking. "So these are the archives.", he exclaimed and took a moment to just take in the sight.
The moment of calm soon ceased though, because a most horrible sound started to play, making Tempest cringe. The sound apparently came from a huge gramophone in the middle of the room. Tempest felt like it would be the best to go and switch it off, because that sound didn't deserve the term "music". He started to set one foot in front of the other when he saw several serpent man running at him. Quickly raising his weapon, preparing for a fight, the serpent man instead ran past him and climbed up a ladder Tempest hadn't noticed yet. He stared at them with raised brows for a while and once he had decided that he liked them up there and now could go turning of the gramophone without trouble, he saw about 15 things slithering towards him, making Tempest retract into his cell in horror.
Tempest stayed a few more minutes into his cell, trying to process what he just had seen. The body looked like a snake, the head looked like some kind of squid. Tempest remembered that Ornstein had spoken about Seath's experiment. Were this things experiments of his? Tempest left the cell again and hugged the wall until he could look into the round room again. The weird squid-snakes were still roaming around, but at least they were scattered now. When he didn't make too much noise, maybe they didn't see him. Or hear him. It was hard to determine how exactly this creatures would perceive their surroundings. Tempest tiptoed to one of them, but of course his armour clanked and the creature "saw" him before he could strike in surprise. Tempest decided to strike anyway, maybe a bit force would be right what would help him out of this situation and so he sliced at the creature while it withdrew it tentacle head. Just as Tempest was about to slice a second time, he could feel how the tentacles embraced him and he got lifted into a wet, gross grab. When Tempest was spit out by the creature, he quickly fumbled for his estus, taking a sip and rolled out of the way just in time before another attack could hit him. He got up and managed to got a third slice in which hurt the creature enough for it to collapse. Tempest tried to calm down his shaky body.
He surely never wanted to be grabbed by one of these things again but there were still loads of them left on the way down to the gramophone. Tempest decided it wasn't worth it. He sneaked away and instead headed to the direction of the ladder where the serpent man had ran to. He lifted his head to see them still up there. Great, when he would climb the ladder, they surely would send him down right away. But Tempest had the feeling that he could see a door behind them. He decided that taking on two serpent man was the lesser evil. And maybe he could even get an advantage?
Tempest roamed around in his belongings until he found a longbow and some arrows. He laid an arrow on the string, bend the bow and took aim. And even though Tempest was far away from being a sniper, he actually manage to hit one of the serpent man who hissed in pain. But it didn't collapse. Instead, it came down the ladder. Tempest cast his bow aside in an instant and drew his katana instead, brandishing it once the serpent man had reached the ground. Tempest seemed to be in luck, because the serpent man had been so surprised by his random movements, that he had managed to cut it down cleanly. The other serpent men, who still was up on the platform, seemed to consider coming down and then decided to just walk towards the door, leaving its back exposed. That was perfect for Tempest. He climbed up the ladder and managed to take the serpent man down with a clean back stab. And the best thing was, up here Tempest was save from the squid-snake-things. And he could open the door and leave this place now, this creepy gramophone got on his nerves. He leaned against the door to open it only to realize that it wouldn't bulk.
Of course the door had to be locked!
"Well, shit!", Tempest blurted out, falling on his rear once again. He had escaped his cell only to be locked into a room now. Tempest just leaned against the door, sulking.
Saying that Ornstein was pissed would be an understatement. The dragon slayer was FURIOUS. Navigating the archives had been a nightmare so far. Everything looked the same. The staircases could be rotated and then let to a completely new gallery. And the worst thing was, this place was practically riddled with crystal hollows, especially snipers and two of Seath's channelers also were there.
Ornstein didn't knew how long he had tried to navigate this place by now, but he knew that he had gained a new set of bruises, cuts and among them a few spell burns from the channeler's soul arrows. His armour prevented most lethal injuries at last, but that wasn't true for spells who easily would knock him down. At last the channelers didn't use the most strong spell out there. Ornstein was able to take quite a few hits.
But that didn't mean that it didn't hurt. More than often Ornstein had abandoned the way he had pursued to chase after a crystallized hollow who once again would have managed to shot an arrow at him when he just had tried to climb up. Because this place was such a maze, Ornstein had decided to just climb over the book shelves or from gallery to gallery, whichever way was the most suitable, but that also exposed him to arrows, making him bleeding from quite a few wounds.
Now Ornstein was pretty sure that he had laid waste to pretty much every crystal hollow in the archives now. One of the channelers laid dead in a corner, the other one somewhere into hiding, probably not keen about getting a shock from Ornstein's dragon slayer spear again. What Ornstein hadn't found, however, where the prison cells or the Undead. Ornstein was sure he had searched through every nook of the archives thrice times already. When he hadn't spent his time being lost. It was something, not many knew, but... when Ornstein didn't knew the area very well like Anor Londo or the cathedral for example, he was prone to get lost. The face of the dragon slayer turned to a tint of red when he thought about his young silver knight self getting hopelessly lost in the cathedral.
Just as Ornstein was reminiscent about embarrassing silver knight stories, he passed the balcony again. Ornstein stopped dead in his tracks and walked a few steps backward, leaning on the wall to look outside. He hadn't even considered walking onto the balcony, because why would Seath have prison cells outside, but that only meant he had overlooked the very obvious path to the higher towers of the archives.
"Damnit, Seath.", Ornstein shouted out, his gauntlet connecting with his lion helmet in an attempt to grab his own idiocy. Of course the paledrake would have the prison cells at the most high up place in the archives. He should have known it. Ornstein quickly started to follow the path, taking care of some more crystal hollows on his way.
Soon, Ornstein stood in front of a large door. He extended his hand to open it and...
"Alright, enough sulking around now.", Tempest jumped up with newfound determination in his chest. He surely would be able to find a key to this door somewhere in this room. They had be able to leave and come into this room somehow and Tempest doubted that the paledrake just locked his subordinates into the room. Or at least he hoped so.
Tempest eyed the strange squid-snake-thing still patrolling the pathway and got an idea. They looked like they wouldn't take kindly to get their skin dried out. And Tempest had a bit of pyromancy at his hands. Not much, he had to admit. But it could help him deal with some of them a little faster. Just as Tempest readied the pyromancy flame, he heard a kick against the door and an angry rant.
"Damn, of course it is locked! Why would I have expected anything other from Seath? He always has been a pain in the ass with everything he did. Literally!"
That, very clearly, was the voice of Ornstein. Even though Tempest barely could belief that this specific words had come out of the mouth of the dragon slayer in this order. Flabbergasted, Tempest opened his own mouth to speak: "Ornstein?"
There was a long silence at the other side of the door before the dragon slayer spoke again. "At least I found you.", he said in a very calm voice and then continued in a voice dripping with reproachful energy. "You hopefully know that you are in trouble."
Tempest physically winced. "So, from what I have heard, you don't have a key either. I just wanted to go and search for one.", he shouted through the door.
"No thanks, if I let you search for the key I am stuck here for several more hours, idiot.", Ornstein replied. "I am just gonna destroy the door."
"You, WHAT?!", Tempest exclaimed, looking at the small platform he was on, panic rose in his chest when he heard the buzzing sound of lightning and he small Undead quickly jumped down and held on the ladder when the door burst into splinters. Tempest looked up to see the figure of the dragon slayer striding through the door, casually brushing off dust of his armour.
"There you are, IDIOT!", the dragon slayer shouted the last word and then grabbed Tempest's wrist, pulling him ruggedly up on the platform. "Did you know what I had to go through to come here? Only because you couldn't listen to simple orders?"
Tempest opened his mouth to say something in his defense, but was silenced when Ornstein just started to walk with him in tow, his metal armour clanking on the marble plates of the archive.
"Wait, ouch, where are we going?", Tempest asked and continued to plead to walk on his own and not being dragged anymore the whole way. Only when they had arrived back at Anor Londo (and Tempest had the assumption that the dragon slayer had took a wrong turn at least three times), Ornstein finally released Tempest by throwing him harshly on the ground.
"Having lost to you must been the biggest disgrace of my life.", the dragon slayer started. "You rush forward without thinking, you barely know how to fight, you rely on your healing potion far too much and you aren't even able to listen to simple commands."
Tempest shrunk down under the harsh words of the dragon slayer, deep inside him knowing that every single one was true. Tempest totally expected for Ornstein to just leave him here to finally hollow out.
What he didn't expect where the following words.
"I am going to train you!"