UNDEAD BURG

"And that's why this psychopath will be joining us," Lex said, concluding an abridged and much less embarrassing rendition of his adventures with Beatrice.

Exhausted from their respective fights, the four had backtracked to the Burg bonfire, where each pair explained what had occurred during the split. The men sat in a circle around the fire while Beatrice leaned against the far wall. The knights had taken the opportunity to remove their helmets. Siegmeyer, they now saw, looked just as he sounded. He was middle-aged and had put on weight as his lifestyle grew more sedentary.

Even beneath the flab and rough stubble from days of travel, he had a heroic face with a square jaw and a flat nose. His hair, however, was thick and in need of cutting like Lex's, though it was totally black where the cleric's had a tinge of brown. Beatrice, her wide-brimmed hat put aside, looked "like an 80s rock star," according to Lex. Her short hair was a bright peachy color and was feathered despite the setting giving no other indication of hair-cutting prowess. However, this minor strangeness was immediately set aside so that he could consider why her eyes were wholly white.

"I mean no offense," Oscar said, turning to her and then the cleric, "but Lex, this is a terrible idea. The Witch-Goddess is already out for our blood. We don't know if she could use Beatrice to track us. Not that I'm accusing her. It could occur without her knowledge."

"True, but at the same time, we have no idea exactly how powerful the gods are and if they have portfolio senses anyway. Even if Velka can spy on us, I think we're better off with her backing us up. She's completely overpowered and could make getting through this without dying a real possibility. Even if she betrays us for Velka, we'll have a better idea of her powers and could retaliate more easily," Lex said, scratching his chin.

"Piss off," Beatrice grumbled. "The gods can go to hell. I'm ditching you saps as soon as Big Ass figures out Seath's shit."

"You know, I wonder if hell is just a romanticized rendition of Izalith-"

"You've got the attention span of a fly, don't you, kid?"

"Now, now," Siegmeyer interrupted. "We are all fellow adventurers here. There's no reason to be rude. We still have to ring the second Bell, don't we? Let's stick together for now. Splitting up might be the fastest means of solving Sen's puzzles, so we can say our farewells there."

Oscar rubbed his lip, thinking.

"I guess that-" he started.

"We might be stuck together a little longer than that. Wait. A lot longer than that. Gwyn sealed the Regal Archives before he departed to Link the Flame. Beatrice could split off to join Logan when we meet him in the Fortress, but neither of them will be able to enter until someone uses the Lordvessel to release the seal."

Oscar sighed.

"Fine. The witch can do as she pleases. Continuing this discussion is pointless. Lex, what do we have to do to ring the next Bell?"

Lex started counting on his fingers.

"Go down into the sewers. Save a pyromancer from cannibals. Kill a really big rat. Kill another Channeler. Run away from death-breathing frogs. Defeat the Knight of Thorns."

Oscar's eyes opened wide, and Siegmeyer grimaced as Lex said the name.

"Meet the mysterious merchant Domhnall of Zena. Kill the mutated remnants of a true dragon. Side task: cut off its tail before killing it. Addendum: praise the sun with Solaire. After that, we'll approach Blighttown.

As promised, Oscar, I'll reveal that secret then. From there, we'll try to get through to the swamp with the least amount of effort. We'll defeat another cannibal in the swamp and then head back up by another path in order to recover a Fire Keeper's soul. With that done, we'll need to kill a lot of giant leeches for titanite. The actual guardian of the Bell is easy enough – it's getting down there in the first place that's a pain."

"Sounds good," Oscar said curtly, putting his helmet on quickly to hide that he was sulking.

"So this is what it is like to adventure with a prophet. What a luxury to have such complete knowledge beforehand!" Siegmeyer said, laughing as he put his helmet on as well.

Beatrice said nothing but set her hat-cum-Crown of Dusk back on her head and started blasting the hollows immediately in front of the bonfire. Nothing seemed to slow her pace as she blasted hollow after hollow. The men rushed to get to their feet and chase after her, but she was moving so quickly that didn't catch up until she was descending the stairs until the aqueduct.

"Don't run off like that!" Oscar scolded.

"What's that? I thought you were the one who was giving me shit about hanging around at all?"

He grumbled. Siegmeyer put a hand on his shoulder.

"Let it go, Oscar. Sometimes we knights must choose to be the bigger person."

He slapped his belly.

"Though sometimes we don't choose the bigger person!"

The portly knight laughed at his own joke and continued after the witch while Oscar stood and held his breath to calm down. Eventually, they arrived at the locked door, and Oscar withdrew the key the Capra Demon had dropped.

THE DEPTHS

"Forward and back! Feral hollows!" Lex shouted as they descended the stairs

Siegmeyer continued ahead and hacked the first one in two while Oscar spun about and killed the second one and grabbed the strong soul behind it. A soul arrow whizzed above Siegmeyer's head and got the one in the back as it charged him.

"Woo! Teamwork!" Lex cheered, having done nothing.

The next room was a mess hall of some sort, with feral hollows milling about a number of wooden benches.

"Beatrice, unleash hell!"

"Kid. No."

She hit him on the back of the head with her staff. Nevertheless, she did as he said, drawing the staff back and throwing it forward to fire off a giant orb of soul energy. It spun forward, casting off smaller bursts of energy as it hurtled into the center of the room. By the time it had dissipated, the hollows were dead and the tables were reduced to splinters. Lex's jaw dropped.

"What? No. Beatrice, that spell doesn't even exist yet."

"Maybe the sorcerers of this era are just shit at it."

"Beatrice. Beatrice. What? No. What?"

He took a deep breath.

"I'm not saying that sorceries haven't ever been lost. Dusk has already proved that it happens. What I'm saying is that since that Soul Vortex was preserved only in the Undead Crypt, and there's not a whole lot of sorcery going on in Nito's domain in the present, it must have been invented later – probably by the Leydia witches. Unless Pinwheel was hoarding it."

"What if I tell old bonesy the secret now that you've told me he's supposed to have it? You're shit at this prediction gig, kid."

"Do we have time for this?" Oscar interrupted.

"Ehhh," Lex sighed. "Everything should be running on an event-based schedule rather than a time-based one because time is so messed up here. But you're right – let's go ahead and move on. I'm sure Laurentius doesn't appreciate being trapped longer than he has to just because we decided to spend an hour arguing about temporal paradox."

The cleric led the others to a short ledge, and they hopped down to the floor below.

"Careful! It's a bit narrow for this fight. Also, look up."

He pointed toward the ceiling. Standing on a small platform designed for these sorts of ambushes was a horrifying human thing. It was the size of Andre, but if his impressive physique was also covered in an armor-like layer of fat. It wore simple trousers and boots covered by a butcher's apron. Its face was hidden by a rough sack, and the glowing red eyes of a hollow peered out at them.

It fell at them, swinging a cleaver as large as it was. Oscar pushed through the others and tried to parry, but his shield was forced back by a twisting of the blade. He shouted as he was forced back by the butcher's rising swing, sparks lighting off the floor as the cleaver scraped the cobblestone.

"Oscar, duck!" Siegmeyer bellowed as he swung his zweihander overhead.

The Astoran jerked to the side as the blade came down, eating into the hollow's collarbone with a spurt of blood. Taking advantage of the distraction, he jabbed his own sword under its ribs. As the hollow roared, Lex circled around and jabbed his claymore down between its shoulder blades. The butcher gave a guttural cry as it dissolved into souls.

"Teamwork," Beatrice said, yawning.

"Is that going to be the joke now?" Lex complained.

She shrugged, so he turned around and climbed the short steps to the storage room. There were barrels full of various cooking supplied and preserved meats, including whole human corpses who had suffered different circumstances of death. One body, however, was still alive. As the prophet had said, it was a pyromancer of the Great Swamp, looking just as rough as they were stereotyped, with his sparse beard and matted wavy hair.

"You! Yes, you! Here, over here! Please! You must help me! She'll have me for lunch! You're my only hope. Oh, please…"

Oscar, being the only one in the group with a reasonably-sized cutting implement, moved through the barrels and cut the pyromancer's ropes. He climbed out of the barrel sheepishly and pulled his hood over his head.

"Th-thank you. I would have been her supper without you. Being eaten alive! I shudder to think… Thank you, thank you dearly. I am Laurentius, of the Great Swamp. I will not forget my debt to you."

He bowed deeply.

"I will not interrupt your travels. You are all, clearly, very talented. If you pass by the Shrine again, I might be able to, uh, repay you in some small manner. Goodbye… for now."

He headed out of the storeroom and climbed up onto the wreckage of the mess hall.

"How very polite… for a pyromancer," Oscar mused.

"Don't be like that, Oscar! He was a pleasant enough fellow!" Siegmeyer said, browsing through the barrels for something to eat that wasn't human or dog.

"I can't believe this era still has that dumbass fear of pyromancy," Beatrice added. "Those failures are more likely to light themselves on fire than anything else."

"Hey! Pyromancy was the only way to get reliable area of effect spells before you went and stole sorcery from the future."

The witch waved her staff in Lex's face.

"We're not starting this shit again, kid. Where next?"

"Since I'm assuming we want to go through as little sewer water as possible, let's climb back up and take the stairs down to the 'kitchen.' Two dogs and another butcher. We need to get the smithing ember in the back, but watch out for the garbage chute. Siegmeyer, if you think you can handle another stubborn door, then we can avoid going down there deliberately."

The old knight nodded, so they climbed into the ruined mess hall and took the stairs down to the kitchen. Beatrice led, blasting the hollowed dog around the corner before it could react. Taking advantage of her superior range again, she also vaporized the one on the far side of the room.

"All right! When the butcher comes at us-!"

Before Lex could finish his battle plan, Beatrice blew its head off with a soul spear. The cleric sighed and walked across the room alone to retrieve the large ember, muttering something about losing a "sack drop." With the ember secured in Lex's mysteriously endless bag, they hopped back down to the lower walkway and descended into the main body of the sewers.

"Eyes up, Beatrice," he said, motioning with his head.

"Holy shit!"

"Well, aside from the 'holy,' you're probably right."

Stuck to the ceiling was a living mass of the various waste products that filled the sewers of Lordran. Even fragments of weapons and human bones jutted out of it as it gibbered. The witch blasted it out of disgust, and Lex grabbed the strong soul from the corpse directly underneath it.

"Feral hollow going to rush us. You're up, only-man-with-a-shield."

Oscar took point. A torch-wielding hollow charged at him as he rounded the corner into the next room, but he forwent defense and simply sliced its throat before it could set his tunic alight.

"Beatrice again."

They entered a long hallway, and the entire ceiling was covered in the living ooze. A lone torch hollow stood at the far end of the room in front of a heavily-reinforced wooden door. The witch didn't want to look at the horrifying mess any longer than she had to, so she fired another soul vortex and was done with it. The group was careful to stay in the center of the hallway after that. The water running across the floor had swept the path clean, but the ceiling and walls were splattered by the remnants of the slimes cast across the room by the vortex.

"So this is the door?" Siegmeyer said as they approached.

"Nah. The next one. The key for this one is down the hall."

They passed into the next room. On the floor below, separated by a bars that looked much too thin, was a giant rat. Now, the Undead curse did allow rats to grow much larger than they would naturally. Oscar had fought giant rats the size of large dogs on his way to the Burg. This one was nearly as large as the drake, though it lacked the impressive wingspan.

At this size, its corpulent, rotting flesh was all the more plainly visible. One eye was foamed over, and the other had a battleaxe still hanging in the socket amidst the decaying remains of the eye.

"This is what you meant by 'giant rat'?" Oscar said, trying not to look directly at it.

Lex had been careful not to so much as glance in its direction.

"Yeah, actually, if Siegmeyer can handle the door, we won't need to kill it. I mean, it would probably be a good thing to do in general, but I don't really want to touch it."

"Nope!" Beatrice said, quite pale. "Sending it straight to hell!"

She stuck her staff out through the bars and focused on it. Once more, the sheer concentration of the energy she was channeling became visible in the air. The head of the staff gleamed, and she fired off a soul geyser, the spears shredding the rat and causing it to explode into pus and gore. The flash had attracted Lex's attention, but now he was frowning.

"Beatrice. Beatrice. You did it again. On the plus side, with this future spell, I can at least tell you that your descendants will be the rulers of the kingdom of Drangleic. Pass this down to Duke Aldia: for the love of all the gods, shut up, I don't care."

"Wow. You just described how I feel about your future sight. Amazing."

They continued into the next hallway. Directly across from them, were a large number of more usual giant rats.

"Rats! Rats! Rats! Why did I have to come to the sewer?"

Beatrice was legitimately screaming now. She fired a soul vortex at the group of rats, vaporizing them and stomped down the walkway. She blasted a rat in front of her, and before Lex could stop her, she walked into a trap. Another rat burst out of a crate on the opposite side of the walkway and bit into her thigh. She shrieked and vaporized it before falling against the wall. Her breathing was heavy, and she pointed her staff around defensively.

"I'm Undead. I'm Undead. I'm Undead. I'm Undead. I'm Undead."

"Beatrice, what is it?"

Before Oscar or Lex could even begin to react, Siegmeyer was beside her, close but not too close. Abruptly, she snapped out of it.

"I was being careful in case there were more of them. The shit does it look like, fatty?"

"I have a daughter your age, you know. When she's hiding-"

"Shut the hell up and let's get moving," she said, rising. "Kid, what's next?"

Lex glanced at Siegmeyer, who shook his head.

"Give me a second."

He sprinted down the stairs and around the corner. There was the sound of a half dozen rats squealing and then nothing. He came back with a bloody sword and a key in his hand. He held it out for the witch to take.

"Look, Beatrice, there are going to be a lot more rats until we get through here. If you go back to the door we just passed, you can wait at the bonfire until we're done here."

"Piss off, kid! I'm not some fair maiden who's afraid of mice!"

"I didn't say that, but you definitely aren't in your right mind for whatever reason. I won't dig-"

She grabbed his collar.

"Shut. Up. What's. Next?"

Lex looked her in the eye for a few moments.

"Oscar. You and me. Siegmeyer, take Beatrice back to the room we saw the bus-sized rat. There's a ladder under some crates. Go down there and see if you can't get the door open."

The witch let him go. He and Oscar walked back down the stairs and doubled back into a tunnel leading under the above walkway. Midway through, Lex collected a strong soul.

"I told you bringing her was a bad idea," Oscar said.

"You didn't predict anything like that. You just thought she'd turn on us."

"You didn't predict that either, Prophet Lex. More people are going to start doubting your powers if you miss something so important."

"The gods work in mysterious ways. I'll be fine."

Oscar grumbled.

"What are we up against?"

"Some of the bigger but not huge giant rats and a Channeler. We want to rush him before he can buff the rats, even if it means eating a few attacks. I'll bolt him while you close the distance. With him out of the way, the rats will be caught between us."

Lex turned the corner and passed through the fog wall. He was standing on a small platform overlooking a long balcony. The balcony itself overlooked a vast room full of broken columns. Daylight shone in through immense holes in the wall and ceiling on the far side, and beneath them, the floor had given way to an inestimable drop. The strangest part was that each wall looked like the exterior of a fortress.

Directly ahead, on the balcony itself, was the Channeler and the giant rats. Lex drew up his talisman, and Oscar broke into a run. The bolt sailed overhead and struck the sorcerer, stunning him just long enough for the knight to make a low stroke, hacking a fatal gash into his shoulder. The rats screeched and ran up onto the platform, but Lex was waiting for them. With a single swing of his massive sword, he hacked through all of them, and they collapsed in a heap.

"Hey Oscar, guess what."

The knight sighed again.

"What?"

"The Channeler could have buffed that mutant dragon I mentioned while we were fighting it. But first! We fight the infamous Knight of Thorns!"

"…great…"