ST: Most relevant nuances of my interpretation of the Dark Souls world should be explained in the story, but if you need clarification on anything feel free to either leave your question in a review or PM me.

If I Should Take a Notion to go Jump in the Ocean

(well it ain't nobody's business if I do)

When Dave Strider first saw the Darksign on his left shoulder, he neither shrieked nor panicked. If there had been anyone in the room with him at the time he wouldn't have shown any reaction at all, and would instead have immediately reported to whichever captain was on duty, relinquished his sword, and petitioned to be sent on an Undead Mission. He was all alone in the room however, so he allowed himself a small, ironically enigmatic smile before heading off to find the captain. He'd been waiting for this for two years. It was time to go find his brother.

The very same day that Dave was knighted, his brother Dirk turned undead. In Astora, a knight who became undead could petition to be sent on an Undead Mission, which essentially just meant you got to walk up north rather than get strapped to the side of a carriage. They'd hand you some shitty armor and a shitty sword and send you off, feeling all self-righteous about their 'humane' treatment of the 'afflicted.' Dirk was given his mission, some esoteric bullshit about bells and asylums, and was sent up north. It was nearly a week before anyone noticed that he'd left the shitty sword they'd given him behind in his armory, most of which had been cleaned out, and made off instead with a powerful blessed sword, an artifact stolen from Thorolund during the last Great War. It was no secret that whoever went undead next would be sent off to avenge the honor of the Astoran court by killing Dirk Strider.

~)

Dave appreciated being an Astoran. When he'd served as Dirk's page his brother had been sure to send him on tedious fucking fetch missions all over the continent, making him travel from Carim to Thorolund to the Great Swamp itself. Dave assumed he was being given such shit jobs in order to let him get familiar with different places and cultures, and also because Dirk is kind of a dick. It wasn't until after Dirk went north that he realized he was being sent off to the ass ends of the world to show him how lucky he was that he was born an Astoran.

Someone as rebellious as Dave would have been put to death in Thorolund, killed in some sort of overcomplicated court intrigue in Carim, or used as a lab rat for a half mad sorcerer in Vinheim. He supposed he would have done well enough in the Five-Finger Delta, though spending his whole life as a farmer would've sucked ass. And as cool as Pyromancy was he didn't much care for a lifestyle that got you dead by age thirty. And Catarina, as fine as them bitches be and as sweet as the mead is, is a nice place to visit but not somewhere he'd want to live.

Astora was the second oldest city on the continent. It was there when refugees from Thorolund broke off to form Carim, and was still going strong when the kingdoms of Balder and Bernike fell to the curse of the undead. In Astora Dave's swordsmanship put him on the fast track to knighthood, and his rebellious nature was overlooked in favor of his protective instincts, a valued quality in a knight of Astora. Had he not gone to that witch living underneath Carim, not had her drain enough of his humanity to make him more susceptible to being afflicted with the Darksign, he would have likely taken his brothers position as the head captain.

~)~)

He arrived in Carim by carriage one month after his brother went North. The sun was shining, which was rare for Carim's rainy climate. The light did little to make the city seem less forbidding though; gray stone buildings, soldiers in gray steel armor, rats, puddles, and strange rustling noises down every alley, the whole nine yards cause when a city chooses a theme by god they stick with it, even if that theme is being creepy as fuck.

The people in Carim left their houses to go work in the mines or a noble's house, and that was about it. The only place you were likely to find anyone out on the street would be the marketplace, somewhere Dave knew to avoid. The only people who went to the marketplace in Carim were armed merchants and nobles accompanied by knights. It was a popular locale for assassinating political rivals.

Dave's business would take him into the cellar in an abandoned house, into a haphazardly dug tunnel leading into the sewers beneath the city. The sewers beneath Carim were filled with everything from poor and homeless beggars to safe houses for assassins and heretics. Dave wouldn't be surprised if in a few years refugees from the hamlets formed their own sub city beneath the city proper.

Dave learned early on that so long as you keep your nose to the ground and your mouth shut, you'll be plenty safe down below. Heretics, pyromancers, assassins, all of them needed a stopping point between the eastern cities of Astora and Thorolund with western Catarina and the Great Swamp. Anywhere else and the various criminal groups and factions would be vying for control, but any power grabs here would lead to half the continent being cut off from the other, so the sewers beneath Carim had in effect between the one and only cease fire zone on the whole continent.

He'd always heard that there was a witch living beneath Carim, and never once doubted it. When you think about it, it'd be more far-fetched to say that a witch didn't live in the isolated and expansive tunnels beneath a city famed for being shit-hive maggots. The question was, what kind of witch are we dealing with here?

Some people claimed she was just some old woman who ate rats and gave anyone who came within twenty feet a fierce case of dick fungus. Others claimed she was the last living member of the famous Lalonde clan, an ancient hag who as a young girl escaped the massive purge that sent her family up north. And others still claimed she was some sort of primordial pyromancers who could manipulate life itself.

Dave's met several witches in his time, and usually they're just chicks with magic that either lost their families to the Darksign or were born into a city with a strong anti-magic ruler. They could be real helpful if you're on their good side, 'specially the ones who live out near the swamp. Nothings a sweeter sight late at night in the swamps than the glow of a cabin with a sweet old woman inside who will give that nice Dirk Striders younger brother a place to stay in exchange for a little mushroom gathering, and who can blow the head of whatever's chasing him with a stick that shoots glowing blue death. It's important for him to remember though that years of living in total isolation make most quick to temper. Dave's never heard of a dick fungus spell, or of dick fungus at all for that matter, but he was carrying a few potions and a purging stone on him anyway. Just in case.

~)~)~)

"Kay, um, you shur you wanna do this? Most peple want, you know,the exact opposite."

" God damn yes, for the last time woman I'm sure, just, get it over with already will you?"

"Allright, well, holsh still and keep them peepers shut."

He wasn't all that concerned about having his humanity drained, his contacts told him that the few people capable of it did it fairly easily. What worried him was the fact that this little girl, and she was a little girl, probably two or three years younger than him, was drunk off her ass. And she was about to put her hand in his soul, or whatever. While drunk. And he was gonna let her. This is what it's come to.

" Kay, now serisly don't open you r eyes."

"Damn woman, yes I got it just…"

He was cut off by a strange pinkish glow filtering in through his eyelids and an unpleasant, light headed feeling. His first instinct was to immediately pull away and get the fuck out. He was a Strider though and a Strider knows how to keep his cool.

And keep his cool he did, right up until he passed the fuck out.

~)~)~)~)

Waking up groggy and disoriented is not that unusual for Dave Strider. Waking up groggy and disoriented because he's just had a chunk of his humanity drained out with dark magic by a drunk teenage girl living in the sewers, however, is new.

"God damn, the fuck happened?"

He heard the girl shift around, sitting outside his field of vision, before responding.

" Yeah, it's a side effect of the spell. Ah aint actully a dark sorc'r or nothing, so I can't control the side effects of it too well. Knocking peeple out bein one a them side effects."

" Huh, guess that'd be pretty useful for a dark sorcerer though right? How long until I can move my legs?"

" Oops,shory, fogots bout that one. Shoud be bout a half hour tops."

"Nah, it's cool. So, mind if I ask how the hell you got your hands on the most feared spell in all the land without becoming a black magic wielding psycho."

" Well ther'ry actually called Darkwraiths. My mom could commune with their gods, though she didn't ofen. My little sister on the other hands was all up in all that creepy dark worm god bullshit. Mom went undeash an ran offs with my sister, who gave mey the Dark Hand before she left. That's what I used to drain your humanity."

Dave was beginning to feel just a little awkward. Here he was, miles underground in the sewer system of what is hands down the creepiest damn city this side of the mortal plane, body numb from the waist down, listening to a completely shitfaced witch tell him her life story.

Well, fuck. It's not like he has anything better to do.

"My bro went undead and ran off too. That's why I came here, so can go north and find him."

"You two must have been very close for you to wanna go undead for him."

"Yeah, funny thing is we really weren't. I mean yeah I appreciate him for taking me in as his page and teaching me how to fend for myself, but that's all our relationship ever really was. Now that I've been knighted I really don't need him at all anymore."

"But, then, I mean, why do all this? Why throw yoush whole life away to go after him?"

"Honestly, and believe me I know how fucking stupid this sounds, I just feel like I'm supposed to."

"That doesn't sound shtupid at all. In fact, I'm pretty sure I know exacktly what you mean. I felt the same way about coming to Careem and setting up shop down here."

She gave him a sad, tired smile before patting his leg, at which point he realized that feeling had more or less returned to his lower body. About damn time.

"You should probably get moving, you've no doubt got a lot of work to do if your going to be traveling all the way to the Asylum."

~)~)~)~)~)

They locked Dave up in one of the tower rooms for his last night in Astora. They'd spend tonight getting all the paperwork ready, notifying kin and close friends for him, and in the morning would present him with the same shitty armor and shitty iron straight sword he'd used when he was a page and kick him out of the city. Or at least that was what they thought would happen. In reality they'd come in tomorrow morning only to find an empty room. Not much later than that they would discover that a suit of elite armor had been stolen, along with the surcoat marked with the Strider crest that had been made for Dave when he'd been officially made a knight. And even later than that someone on a tour of the royal vault would notice that the most potent and treasured shield in the entire Astoran court had disappeared.

In truth Dave could have done all that the night before and avoided giving the captains a long list of fake friends and relatives to sort through. But he had intended to send a letter to the only real friend he had, to let him know that he'd be gone and not to bother writing to him anymore.

He'd never actually met John Egbert, a citizen of Zena, an ancient city that no one could ever seem to point out on a map, despite the fact that everyone has heard of it at some point or another. He'd sent the poor fool some letters to give to his sister on Dirks behalf. John sent him a thank you, along with some dorkish, snide comments. Dave sent another, full of ironic sarcasm and badass slam poems. And then john sent another, and Dave followed suit, back and forth until eventually Dave formed a bond with this boy he'd never met that felt like what Dave always imagined real brotherhood was, though he always seemed to shorten brother down to bro whenever he referred to john. Weird.

It was with no small amount of regret that he had to leave his best friend like this, and he had every intention of spending whatever time he had that last night not devoted to larceny writing the most un- ironic goodbye in history. He hadn't expected john to write him his own farewell letter, along with some of the weirdest shit he'd ever heard.

Hey Dave! Wow, I guess this is it huh? The last letter I'll ever get to write to you! Man, it really sucks though, in just another year I would've been old enough to go traveling like my father. We could have met each other face to face finally!

Well I guess we'll still get too eventually, but not until we both reach Lordran and who knows how long that could be? And even then, that's only according to what you've told me, and we both the likelihood of you abusing your powers for the sake of ironic shenanigans is pretty high!

Anyway, I guess all I really want to say is that I'm really gonna miss talking with you and that I can't wait to actually meet up. See you soon I hope!

John Egbert

"The fuck?"