At the other end of the bridge was the older church, long abandoned by the Parish. Inside the mildew-covered walls was a small altar and pieces of the crumbling walls. The pair rounded a railing and headed downstairs. The room below held a bonfire, and a loud clinking sound rose from below. They attuned to the bonfire and continued down.
In the corner opposite the last step crouched a mountain of a man. His bristling white hair and beard hung around him like an ashen wreath, and he was thoroughly surrounded by weapons and shields of countless variety. Even now, he hammered away at a new broadsword, unafraid of the heat and wearing no protection beyond leather gloves. Now, he stopped hammering and wiped his brow with the back of his arm.
"Well, you must be new arrivals. I'm Andre, of Astora. If you require smithing, then speak to me."
With that, he quenched the red-hot blade and set it lovingly amongst the others before rising to stretch. Lex and Oscar were about the same height – it was hard to tell since Oscar never removed his helmet – but Andre towered over them, a height more appropriate for a native of Berenike than of Astora.
"Just stopping in to say hello," Lex said. "We need to collect quite a bit more titanite before we employ your services."
"Well that's all right," the smith replied. "At least one of you has respectable armor, and you both have fine blades. Come and see me when you're ready to improve them."
He sat down and began shuffling through a drawer under his workbench before drawing out a large iron ingot and placing it in the furnace. Lex nodded and waved Oscar back up the stairs.
"Say, have you ever met anyone else that big in Astora?" Lex said quietly.
"I haven't, I'm afraid. Do you think the smith has reason to lie about his homeland?"
"Well, honestly, at this point, pretty much everyone has been accused of being the god of war, but there's a decent chance of it being Andre. He's even got a crazy beard like Gwyn."
"Choice in facial hairstyle is not genetic."
"But there is a mythic resonance to it. Actually, I wonder what the primary criterion Gwyn has for his succession is. I'm betting it's great taste in headgear, because the Old Iron King has the coolest crown ever… and basically no connection to Gwyn whatsoever. Well, except relative arrogance."
"The Great Lord, arrogant? Heresy aside, you're going too far now."
"He was responsible for the damnation of his Black Knights and is indirectly responsible for the resurgence of the curse of the Undead. He assumed that his sacrifice would be enough and did not make suitable plans for a replacement. The prophecy we follow is a terribly hands-off approach, and I even doubt he had a hand in it."
"Wait," Oscar said, stopping abruptly. "His sacrifice? I thought you were joking earlier! How can a god go hollow?"
"Yes, it is rather peculiar. I suspect it is a condition unique to the now Lord of Cinder, because he Linked the Flame. The curse is a human thing, but dogs who are our companions and rats who are our parasites can also hollow. I suspect when he Linked his soul, it was overwhelmed with the humanity pouring in from bonfires the world over."
"Doesn't humanity make one more resistant to hollowing?"
"For humans, sure. It strengthens our wills, as is appropriate for a Lord Soul."
"Humanity isn't… oh."
Lex coughed.
"Yeah. The shattered Dark Soul. The Dark Lord will one day rise from our kind, and so its power would certainly be poisonous to a god, the Lord of Sunlight especially."
"What can we do, then?" Oscar said quietly.
"I haven't the foggiest, but we've been slapping fate around by accident anyway, so I'm not really worried. Come on now, let's get down to business." He paused. "… to fight through… the church. I really hate grinding… but now I've got… the urge!"
"You're tone deaf," Oscar said, a little more spirited now. "What have we got to do?"
"Well first, we need to lure out the Berenike knight over by the altar so we can fight him in the courtyard without getting lasered to death. Uh. By laser, I mean sorcery. Once we've beaten him, we need to be careful making our way upstairs. There's a Baldur knight on the stairs themselves, and the next room is full of wild hollows who will no doubt be powered up before we get there."
"Powered up? By sorcery of some sort?"
"Yeah, one of Seath's Channelers is up there. Not sure why since there really aren't any Undead here worth capturing." He paused. "Well, maybe Lautrec. But the thing is just standing there and killing anyone who enters the church, so I don't know."
"My ancestral shield is proof against sorcery. Let me lead when the time comes."
"Oh, I was going to let you. The passages are narrow, so even melee combat is a pain."
Oscar chuckled faintly.
"By all means then. Let me lead."
The conversation concluded, they continued past the bonfire and across the bridge once more. As they approached the side entrance to the newer church, Lex rushed in quickly and then raced back out. The sound of steel breaking crashing on stone followed him, and a hollowed knight of Berenike stomped down the stairs. Even its shield was taller than the duo, and its plumed helmet rose above even that. In its hand was clutched a heavy mace which put Lex's old weapon to shame.
"Ready, Oscar?" Lex shouted as he spun about and held his sword at the ready.
"Oh, I'm sorry."
Oscar had casually walked up to the massive knight. Before Lex could react, it swung its mace, only to have it swatted away as if it was nothing. While the knight was already off-balance, Oscar kicked it over.
"There, you can have it."
Lex grumbled as he jabbed his claymore down through its open-faced helmet. It exploded into souls, leaving behind a finger-sized shard of titanite.
"Well, you can obviously handle yourself," the cleric said. "Honestly, I don't relish clearing the rest of the church, so I'll go ahead and leave that to you. Just don't climb out to the rooftop, and don't talk to the suspicious prisoner. I need to go get something I forgot because I'm so used to taking the long way around."
"What's that?"
"The key to free the suspicious prisoner. Spoilers: he's a murderer. He may know something about the Prophecy, though, so we need to get on his good side."
Lex gave a quick wave and headed back toward the wooden scaffolding, leaving Oscar to his own devices once more. He watched the cleric until he had turned a corner and then walked up the stairs to the church in order to complete his own objectives. Ducking behind a column, he grabbed the binoculars at his belt and peered up at the open room on the second floor. Sure enough, the six-eyed "snatcher" of the mad Duke was watching over the church interior.
Putting the tool back in place, he took up his sword and shield and sprinted across the room to the stairs, a heavy soul arrow screaming as it struck where he had been standing moments before. As he rounded the corner of the staircase, a Baldur knight rushed down at him, lunging forward with a rapier. He parried the attack and ran his sword through the hollow's exposed gut. At the top of the stairs, the hallway turned left immediately and then back again after a few paces. Oscar crouched by the windows overlooking the main floor and glanced over at the Channeler.
Sure enough, it was doing its wardance in order to strengthen the feral hollows around it. The elite knight snuck forward. Still in plain sight for those looking down the hallway, a few hollows rushed over to him. Dispatching them was simple enough, but now the sorcerer knew where he was and led the remainder after him. As he rose and backed away, it lashed out at him with its trident.
He blocked the first hit and then the second, but when the third came, he clamped his arm around the pole at the base of the prongs. Oscar grunted, trying to wrench the weapon from the sorcerer's grasp while fending off feral hollows with his sword at the same time. With a final exertion, he yanked the Channeler toward him, causing it to fall into his sword. Just in time, he leapt backward before what was left of the mob of hollows hacked him to bits with their rusty broken swords. The sorcerer burst into soul energy, causing his sword to fall to the ground, but the hollows ran over it unflinchingly, causing it to skitter away.
With no other choice, the elite knight took a step back and adjusted his stance, holding the magical implement like a common spear. He took an experimental jab at the nearest hollow. Unfortunately, the weapon didn't move like he wanted it, and the strange weighting confused him and left him vulnerable while he tried to recover his stance. Still, it was a powerful magic weapon, and even that test attack had felled a hollow. It was simple: if he couldn't fight well, he should fight wisely.
Not turning away from the swarming hollows, he backed around the corner to the top of the staircase as swiftly as he could. As the hollows filtered around the corner, he struck one or two of them at a time until none remained. Sighing with relief, he retreated down the stairs and went after his fallen sword. It had landed amidst the wooden pews, but as he knelt to pick it up, he was forced to dive through them to avoid a blade, splinters scattering across the floor. A Baldur knight stood above him, ready to take another swing, so he kept rolling, sending pieces of bench across the room.
He rose to his feet in the atrium and took a step back, only to bump into another Baldur knight standing guard. That and a third one next to it both spun to face the intruder. Again, Oscar dodged down and away, finding himself back at the front entrance. At least now he knew that he wouldn't run into any more enemies by mistake, but three knights of Baldur at once would be a challenge, hollows or no. Unfortunately, his sword was now lost somewhere among the shattered benches.
Though the trident had served him well enough against the feral hollows, it would be disastrous to use against more agile opponents. By now, he had a good mental map of the area, but whether he could successfully outrun them was another story. He'd grown careless. Certainly, having a prophet around was helpful, but now he was hard-pressed to defend himself in an unexpected encounter. Back to basics, then.
He looked around for something to use as a weapon – and happened to find a perfectly fine halberd instead of the improvised implement he was expecting. He dashed back to the corpse that had been carrying it and scooped it up, letting the trident clatter to the ground. As the Baldur knights paced around him anxiously, he decided to take it for a more aggressive test than he had the other polearm. Grabbing hold with both hands, he took a wide swing and brought the axe blade against all their shields at once. They staggered, and he pressed his advantage by pressing the spearhead through the torso of the nearest one.
Now he stepped back to catch his breath. One of them charged after him, but he backstepped to avoid the swing and followed up with a hammering overhead that brought it to the ground and killed it. He approached the last aggressively, and it lashed out at him. He batted away its attack with the back of his hand and kicked it away. Twisting his whole body, he locked his other arm and used the halberd as a bat to send the hollow hurtling into the wall of the church.
Oscar grumbled.
"I shouldn't do that. It's too rough on my shoulder."
He went back into the church and grabbed his sword out of the debris, leaving the halberd leaning against a pillar in case he needed it again. Readying himself for further conflict, he went upstairs, entering the room that overlooked the altar and the ruins of the pews. First, he checked the inner room across from the entrance. Seeing a series of ladders that presumably went to the roof, he moved on. In the next room, he collected the soul clump.
He stood at the balcony briefly, overlooking the rest of the Parish. He wondered where the cleric could have gone and what sort of hoops he had to jump through. The knight quietly gave thanks to whatever gods were listening that the prophet had known how to get past the drake earlier. He shuddered to think that Lex might be doing something that again. Eventually, he turned about and continued into the hallway on the other side.
A Baldur knight rushed at him, but by now, deflecting their attacks and retaliating was effortless. As long as there was only one enemy, he was confident in his skills. The hall included some shallow stairs and led to a walkway ringing the ceiling three storeys now above the altar. Trying to be thorough, Oscar started by walking all the way around to the other side. Lex had mentioned something about someone getting trapped in a barrel.
Certainly, this corpse was too old to be the one the cleric was searching for, but there was indeed a deceased old hollow tied up and stuffed into a barrel here. Something near its Darksign was glimmering, and after cutting the corpse free, Oscar retrieved the humanity sprite that was clinging to it. The tiny black vapor gazed up at him with eyes of wonder.
"The Dark Soul, he said. How funny."
The knight placed the sprite safely in a belt pouch where it couldn't wander off. Now he turned back to check the boarded doors he had passed. He rapped on one experimentally. The boards were thin. He raised his shield up high and rammed the barricade. The rotten wood gave way easily, and Oscar was faced with more stairs.
"Wait!"
He turned, lifting the binoculars to his visor. At the end of the hallway was Lex, sprinting desperately toward him. Oscar leaned against the stone stairs and waited for the cleric to catch up.
"I… have… the… key…" he panted.
"Where did you go? I didn't see you anywhere from the balcony. The Parish can't be that large."
"Underground," Lex said.
He motioned upward, still unable to talk quite as much as usual.
"Let's go."
The pair went up the stairs and found a single cell. Inside was a knight in coppery armor. The helm had a shovel-shaped visor, and both it and the pauldrons were crowned with five fingers of the same metal. The breastplate was strange, with another set of arms descending from the corners and crossing over the center. This new knight sat anxiously and spoke with a sensuously raspy voice when they approached.
"Oh, still human are you? Then I am in luck. Could you help me? As you can see I am stuck, without recourse.
Please, I have duties to fulfill, and I will reward you handsomely. Well? I am certain you stand to benefit."
"Hello, Lautrec of Carim. I am the prophet, Lex of Luthor. This is my companion, Knight Oscar of Astora. And this," he said, holding up a key, "is the key to your freedom."
With that, he placed the key in the lock and released the knight. Lautrec's voice perked up considerably now.
"Thank you, yes, sincerely. I am free. Now I can get back to work…"
He began to chuckle ominously. Lex joined in shortly. Oscar looked back and forth, wondering what the prophet knew.
"Come on, Oscar, let's give Knight Lautrec time to stretch his legs. We need to wrap things up here."
Lex led Oscar back down to the first floor and approached the altar. Though Oscar had noticed it when he had entered, now he looked more carefully at the body curled up upon it. Unfortunately, the woman had died long ago, possibly when the Parish first fell victim to the curse. Resting upon its heart was a strange soul, the color of ash rather than bluish white, and radiating tendrils outward.
"A Fire Keeper's soul. One of the most valuable commodities in all of Lordran. I had to make sure we'd get it before our friend upstairs."
"What?" Oscar shouted, outraged. "This is a soul; not a thing!"
"I'm not going to argue philosophy with you, Oscar. This is vital to our fulfillment of the Prophecy, since I don't expect either of us are quite so skilled at combat as to kill the Lords without injury."
"Blasphemy after blasphemy, Prophet. Explain yourself."
"Gwyn returned his Soul to the Flame, but he carved off parts of it and bestowed them as gifts. Further, the Witch and the Gravelord still have their entire Souls. The mission of the Chosen Undead is to return them to where they belong."
Oscar took a deep breath.
"I understand. What of the Dark Soul?"
"No one has ever tried killing all of humankind in order to collect its countless pieces." He scratched his chin. "That might be why the mission is doomed to failure and why the other Lord Souls always find new hosts."
"Let's focus on the present. If you say that we need to use this soul for something, then I will believe you. But let's at least give her body a proper burial."
"All right," Lex said, nodding. "Can you carry her or do you need my help?"
Oscar sheathed his sword and slung his shield over his back. He slipped his fingers under the shriveled corpse and tested the weight. Ever so gently, he lifted it up.
"Just in case," the cleric murmured. "Her body may have been left there as a religious icon."
"These people are dead," Oscar said coldly. "They will not care if we give her a more permanent resting place."
Lex nodded and sheathed his own sword. He waved Oscar over to the elevator under the stairs, and they descended to Firelink Shrine.