FIRELINK SHRINE
The two gazed out on the scenery of Lordran as they approached, the valley becoming more discreetly a beautiful mess of hills and canyons. Some ruins appeared in the distance, and the ravens dove toward them, unceremoniously dropping the pair to the ground before a bonfire before wheeling around and taking roost in a ruined chapel nearby. Lex and Oscar rose and dusted themselves off. Sitting on a fallen wall near the bonfire was a warrior in chain armor. He was hunched over and stared aimlessly into the bonfire but looked up when he noticed the commotion.
"Well, what do we have here? You must be new arrivals. Let me guess. Fate of the Undead, right? Well, you're not the first. But there's no salvation here. You'd have done better to rot in the Undead Asylum… But, too late now.
Well, since you're here… Let me help you out. There are actually two Bells of Awakening. One's up above, in the Undead Church. The other is far, far below, in the ruins at the base of Blighttown.
Ring them both, and something happens… Brilliant, right? Not much to go on, but I have a feeling that won't stop you. So, off you go. It is why you came, isn't it? To this accursed land of the Undead?"
With his explanation over, he began to chuckle despairingly. Lex walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Thank you, my friend. We would have been terribly lost without you."
"Don't try to butter me up. I won't join your silly little party."
Lex turned about and motioned to Oscar. They both attuned to the bonfire before heading down the stairs on the back of the ruins.
"He's actually terribly resilient despite his appearance. He's not fated to go hollow until both Bells have been rung."
"This is strange to me. The prophecy as my family told it said that there was only one Bell. It might be mistaken, but why would there be a second Bell?"
Lex shrugged.
"The gods are all-too-fond of testing their Chosen. The two Bells, Sen's Fortress, and Anor Londo are all trials before the Chosen will even be entrusted with their true task."
"Have you undergone many of these tests, Prophet Lex?"
"Maybe testing my patience with Bed of Chaos..." he grumbled, but he didn't speak further on it.
They walked around the short cliff that separated this level from the one above, and Lex motioned toward a depression in its face. Rusted iron bars blocked off a hole in the stone, and inside the darkened cave was a young woman in filthy robes, a hood hiding her face. While the man above hung his head in resignation, this girl was completely slumped over in misery.
"Have you ever seen a Fire Keeper, Oscar? You know, they're usually buried so that no one can see them, but perhaps this one was revealed by mistake. Even I don't know."
Oscar genuflected, bowing his head.
"Thank you for your selfless service in maintaining this bonfire."
The woman cringed a little. Lex shook his head.
"She can't speak and isn't used to being spoken to. Her tongue's been cut out."
"What?"
"Our friend upstairs believes it was done to keep her from cursing the gods. I doubt she's even spirited enough to curse them in her heart." He paused. "I'll go ahead and spoil the ending now. If we Link the Fires, we can save her. But in a thousand years, all of this will happen again."
Oscar was silent for a bit.
"That's madness. Surely the gods would not allow such a thing?"
"The gods are as bound by the cycle as anyone else. No. If anything, they are so bound to it that even a small change might erase them altogether."
"A world without gods? I cannot imagine what it would be like."
"It's much the same. Men just worship Kings instead. But come. We've work to do."
Lex turned back and ascended the stairs. Oscar lingered for a moment but soon followed, finding the cleric taking something from a desiccated corpse hanging over the side of a well. Lex nodded at him and pointed up the hill. There were a number of hollows standing about vacantly, though unlike those at the Asylum, these had scraps of armor and weapons that were mostly intact.
"Go ahead through here. Watch out for the one on the cliff – it'll throw firebombs at you. I'm going to make a quick run through the chapel and the graveyard to collect supplies."
"That hardly seems fair, Prophet."
"I'm going to be running between the blades of angry skeletons twice a man's height. Would you rather do it, weighed down by your armor as you are?"
"All right, you've made your point. I'll meet you at the top."
Lex gave a quick salute and turned to run back to the chapel. Up the stairs to the corpse above the broken lift to the Undead Parish, then down into the lift shaft to the unexplained group of chests below. Over to the corpse on the cliff facing the shrine, then up the stairs and around the remains of the second floor to the corpse on the other side. He dropped down into the flooded floor and past the scimitar-wielding skeletons that had followed him and proceeded past their awakening friends to the cliff above the Catacombs entrance.
"Crapcrapcrapcrap."
A mob of skeletons was approaching, and he soon would have no room to evade among the tombstones. Lex squeezed through as they approached and rolled under a wave of blades. He managed a smirk as he watched the zweihander and winged spear slowly disappear into his bag. Huffing and puffing, he made his way back to the bonfire and reached out to it, resetting the area. Suddenly, he recoiled in shock.
"That probably messed with Oscar. Shiiiiiiiiit."
He sprinted up the hill to find his suspicions confirmed – the hollows had been revived with the resurgence of Fire. Oscar stood on the aqueduct at the top of the hill, fighting a hollow he had just recently vanquished. Lex rushed forward and smashed the first hollow's skull with his mace. The next dropped from the stairwell in an absentminded attempt to ambush him, but he hit this one hard in the side, sending it sprawling. The corpse of the firebomb-thrower fell from above, and when he looked up, Oscar looked down expectantly.
"What did you do?"
"It's not as bad outside Lordran, but using the bonfire warps time. Aside from restoring any ailments we might have, it also restores any enemies to their original positions and statuses."
"You chose to do this while I was standing amidst defeated hollows?"
"I forgot. And the alternative was leading a bunch of angry skeletons up to you."
"Prophets are often hailed as eccentrics, but I have the feeling you are simply a fool."
"Eh. Jester's set isn't in this game anyway."
"I'm not going to ask."
Lex headed up the staircase to the aqueduct, and together, they entered the interior. Lex turned left and killed a giant rat before he and Oscar followed the right path to another staircase.
UNDEAD BURG
As they came up the stairs, a hollow moved to attack them while a second began to close the distance. Lex sidestepped and moved to intercept the one in back while Oscar stepped onto the rooftop. They both swung their weapons and swiftly vanquished the zombies. Ahead was a wooden bridge connecting this rooftop to the next.
"I'm going to rush across and take out the firebomb-thrower straight ahead. Follow me and block the ambusher to the left."
Oscar nodded, and Lex dashed across the bridge to hit the hollow with a spinning blow. Oscar walked across the bridge and deflected a handaxe with his shield as another hollow stumbled out of a doorway. He stabbed through its ribcage, slaying it quickly. Lex entered the second storey of the building to the right and grabbed something off of the corpse lying under the stairwell before heading up to face a fog wall.
"Don't panic."
Without giving explanation, he dispersed the fog and put one foot on the bridge connecting this building to the next. Oscar walked up behind him just in time to see a massive dragon briefly land before them, shaking the buildings with the violence of its arrival. Its man-sized talons were mere inches from Lex, but he was perfectly calm, bored even. Just as swiftly as it had come, the dragon pushed off again and rose above the Burg.
"Yeah, you better run, you shitty bastard!" Lex began shouting at it as it flew. "You and your bullshit instant death flames!"
"A dragon! You could have told me!"
"Eh. It's just a drake. It's fated to spook the Chosen Undead at this very spot, but they do not come to blows until later." He paused to think about his own playthroughs. "Or never."
"Please give me a clearer warning the next time we are to face such a monster."
Lex shrugged.
"Yeah, sure."
They approached the next rooftop. There were two hollows approaching them, and with a terrible clattering, a third broke through some wooden barrier which was hiding it.
"Crossbowman up top. Watch out while you're fighting."
Lex rushed forward and bashed one. As it fell, he kept going and ducked under the parapet where the crossbow-wielding hollow was shooting. He opened the door, took a shield from the desiccated corpse inside, stuffed it in his bag, and turned to face another hollow. He backstepped to avoid an attack, only for Oscar to jab his sword through its back.
"For a prophet, you are quite lacking in awareness."
"No, see, that's why elite clerics wear heavy armor."
For the first time, Oscar laughed a little.
"I suppose that must be true."
"Come on, then. We just need to take out that last hollow.
Oscar went up the stairs first this time, his shield raised high. He blocked a cheap iron bolt and walked closer. In response, the hollow put down its crossbow and drew a broadsword from its belt. As it swung at Oscar's waiting shield, Lex walked around and smashed the back of its head in.
"Bonfire, ho!"
Lex pointed his mace behind Oscar, revealing a large tower missing one wall, with a bonfire in the middle of the open room. The pair approached it and extended hands to attune to it but did not activate its restorative properties.
"Grand. Now we need to see the merchant. I suppose for the sake of brevity, I can forgo looting the rest of the place. Not much anyway: just a few souls and some humanity."
"A merchant! I was worried the whole Burg was hollow! I can't imagine how a town of this size went hollow all at once."
"Oh, it's worse than you know. Only the merchant still has his wits – and even that is a little questionable. He talks to his sword, you know. No doubt it's the only thing he has left to care about after he had to use it to cut through his friends and neighbors. Or something. Another blind spot in my knowledge."
Oscar sighed.
"So what is our purpose here, Prophet?"
"The lift to the Undead Parish is jammed. We have to cross the Burg into the far side and make our way to the belfry. And we shall meet a grand companion along the way."
"So be it," Oscar said. "I don't think I can look at desolation like this for much longer."