The top of the ramp leveled out into a platform from which they could overlook the test. There was a circular grid of pillars with pressure plates on top. In the center was a device of some sort which Lex thought looked like a pitching machine. On the other side of the circle was a platform and a ramp leading up. Directly in front of them were three pillars that they could jump onto.
"I'll go first," the cleric said, holding his sword with both hands and taking some practice baseball swings with it.
He cautiously hopped onto the middle pillar. The pressure plate depressed, and the machine in the center rumbled. After a brief delay, it fired a massive bolt at him. He panicked and jumped onto the right pillar. The plate depressed, and the machine ground to face him before firing again.
"Siegmeyer, quickly!" Oscar commanded, jumping onto the middle platform.
The older knight hustled into action and flopped ungracefully onto the left one. The turret pivoted back toward them, giving Lex time to catch his breath.
"Lex, let's keep it between us! Siegmeyer, hurry to the back. Once I've reached the center, you'll need to take over for me."
"Right!" Lex shouted.
"You can count on me, my friend!" Siegmeyer said, enthused to be helping despite his lack of agility.
Lex started zig-zagging along the right path, cautious about getting too close to the turret that he couldn't react or too far that it caught up to him more quickly. Oscar made a beeline straight for the turret itself, counting on Lex to manage the turret's position for the most part. Siegmeyer didn't have to worry about the turret, but rather his own weight slowing his jumps and making his landings off-balance. Soon enough, the elite knight had reached the platform before the turret. He looked at the mechanisms in search of a weakness.
Finding none, he turned to what he knew best. He hefted the Black Knight sword into some of the spinning mechanisms. There was a horrible shriek, and the machine spat sparks like a blue drake, but it didn't stop. He wrenched the sword out and hooked it back onto his belt.
"Siegmeyer, it's up to you!"
The older knight nodded gravely and turned back to his task. Lex was able to jump quickly thanks to his lighter load and lean body, but for the heavily-armored and out-of-shape Siegmeyer, each jump was a matter of utmost effort. He had to build up momentum carefully before each jump – just enough to make it without rolling off the other side of the platform. Each time he landed, he had to find his footing again and ready himself before the turret spun around and shot the cleric. It wasn't a matter of his own death but that of a companion who trusted him.
Still, he kept up with the younger man until they reached the point where it was faster for the turret to continue turning one way regardless of who pressed the button. He panicked for a moment but breathed a sigh of relief when it turned around again. Oscar had tried backtracking, and it did manage to turn the turret back the way it had come. Now, he was following behind Lex, though taking a path much closer to the center. Eventually, Lex reached the far side, then Siegmeyer, then Oscar, falling flat on the stone as a bolt whizzed over his head.
"You know, if we mess up and fall back down here, let's just send one guy across so we can keep spinning the turret back and forth," Lex said thoughtfully, rubbing his chin.
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Oscar grumbled as he dusted himself off.
Lex shrugged and headed up the ramp. He promptly headed back down the ramp, chased by a large blade jutting out of a track on the wall. It soon caught him, but with his speed, instead of cutting him in two, it simply sent him hurtling forward, off of the platform and back into the water.
"I'll spin the turret…" Oscar said, defeated. "Catch your breath for the next one, Siegmeyer…"
The cleric soon reappeared on the opposite platform and began jumping from pillar to pillar as quickly as he could. Unfortunately, this was too quick, and he overshot a jump before Oscar even had to turn the turret around. The following time, he was a little more cautious and made it across safely, Oscar blocking the final bolt with his shield.
"My bad," Lex said awkwardly.
Oscar just shook his head and led the way up the ramp now that its trap had already been released. The next floor was a wide, sturdy bridge providing a clear path to the next ramp. As they came upon it, they saw it was made up of a great deal of square tiles. On the center of each tile was inscribed a letter. Lex groaned.
"This better not be what I think it is."
He approached the bridge, but Oscar grabbed him before he could set foot on it.
"Hold it. I'm not letting you charge in again."
"Fiiiiine," Lex sighed. "If this is the sort of puzzle I think it is, then all we have to do is spell out some god's name. That provides the only safe path across. Stepping on a wrong letter causes the floor to fall out from under you or sets you on fire or something else that's stupid. At least this time, there aren't any vampires on the other side."
"What were you going to try? There are many gods."
"Well, it's hard because normally with these sorts of things, you can tilt the camera so you can see the whole puzzle at once, but now I can't see the end. Anyway, I was going to try 'thousand' since there's a 'T-H' right here, and I always err on the side of bad wordplay. Might be a good idea to see what happens on a failure, though."
Oscar nodded and let go of him as he backed away. The cleric rustled through his bag and drew out the Eastern helmet. He walked to one of the other tiles and gently rolled the helm toward the center. Once it had gone far enough that only the fastest adventurer could jump to safety, the tile did indeed drop out from under it. The trio watched as it fell onto one of the pillars below. Just as before, the turret slowly rotated around and fired bolts into the empty air above the object.
"Why didn't we ever try ducking down there?"
"Forgive us for rushing to save you…"
"Oh, don't be sour, Oscar! It was an honest mistake! If Lex hadn't wandered into the trap, surely I would have."
Oscar shook his head in disbelief. He'd gone from an elite group of knights to a group with no common sense. And that's considering Solaire was their leader.
"Lex, do you have any ropes at all right now?"
"Nope. I do have a bullwhip if we want to make this reference even more blatant."
"We may have to use that. Siegmeyer, what about you? I don't imagine you would have magical bags like the prophet, here?"
"I'm afraid not," the knight said, humming. "Now maybe we would make some ropes by tearing up Lex's old robes, but I will not insist upon such a plan if he is against it."
"I think the whip will be better for our purpose. Lex, give it here."
The cleric once again stuck his arm into the Eastern cuirass' manpurse further than it could physically go, and after a bit of rummaging around, drew out a coiled whip.
"Tie the loose end to your belt. I'll hold onto this end and follow behind you. We can't keep waiting on you to climb back up, so this is a failsafe."
"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence."
"You said 'thousand.' What makes you think that's the solution?"
"Sen is phonetically identical to the word for thousand in Japa- uh, I mean the, uh, thing. I don't want to spend forever trying to explain how I know that. I'm just going to see if I can spell out the word. This angle is terrible, and I can't see the end."
Oscar lifted his head a little and counted.
"It's a good a try as any. Do you have the knot tight?"
"I'm an Eagle Scout; don't patronize me. I know how to tie a bowline."
"Oscar, why not let me hold the whip?" Siegmeyer interrupted as the cleric approached the first tile. "This extra weight I've put on might prove useful for once."
"Ah. Good idea."
Oscar handed Siegmeyer the whip, and the leashed cleric stepped onto bridge. He reached the center of the first tile without incident, bouncing up and down a little to test whether it would hold him. The knights followed, and he moved on to the next one. T-H-O-U-S- Abruptly, the "A" fell out from under him.
He screamed, more from surprise than fear, as the bridge and the air rushed up around him before his path arced. His belt caught, cutting into his side, and he swung back up, striking the underside of the bridge and making a sound like an avalanche of pots and pans. He was dizzy between the sudden swing and bashing his head against stone, but at least he wasn't frantically dodging an automatic crossbow on broken legs. Siegmeyer slowly reeled him in. When he reached the edge, he heaved himself over.
"Are you all right, Lex? We heard the impact from here," Siegmeyer said, placing a hand on his shoulder to steady him.
"Yeah, I'm just-"
He shook his head as if that would make the pain go away before remembering he could magically heal himself. He swore under his breath and pressed the talisman to his head, undoing the damage.
"I'm more surprised than anything. I guess some of these puzzles did have red herrings. Let's try…"
This time, he walked toward a connecting "E". It held, so the knights followed, wary of another drop. There wasn't one. "T-H-O-U-S-E-N-D" was the secret word, and Lex safely stepped onto the far balcony. As the knights joined him, he looked down and then back up.
"We're pretty close to the top, aren't we? Assuming he didn't move those giant pendulums anywhere, I think we're about back at ground level."
Siegmeyer fell into one of his patented "hmm" cycles, and Oscar took a closer look. The floor above them had been completely hidden by a solid ceiling.
"I think you're right. Let's climb the ramp and see. Behind me this time so there are no surprises."
"That only happened once, man…"
Oscar said nothing but slowly climbed the ramp, his shield at the ready. There was no trap on this one, though, and they reached the next floor without any trouble. What followed was a small room with six other doors lining the side walls and one opposite. There were no windows, and the light came from the same endlessly-burning torches that lit much of Lordran.
"Huh," Lex said.
"Any experience with this one?"
"Not exactly. There's a lot of gimmicks you can do with a room full of doors. We need to go right, right? Where are we in relation to the pendulums?"
"Hard to say. They're louder now, but there's no way to judge. Siegmeyer?"
"I'm afraid my hearing isn't what it used to be."
"Well, let's just assume they're all trapped and start with the most obvious."
They walked further into the room. The middle door on the right was painted red with blood and had torches on either side. A large arrow was drawn on the floor, also in blood, pointing toward it.
"Right, that's definitely obvious," Lex said, looking around at the normal doors.
"I don't think it's that one," Oscar replied, looking at it cautiously. "Those are definitely warnings."
"But from whom?"
"I don't know. Other Undead."
"But they would write with orange soapstone. I don't think they can leave blood like this unless it's their own. And Sen literally just built this. Where did he even get all this blood? Yharnam?"
"Sen's Fortress is a test of worth. That door's purpose is to weed out the fools who rush through."
"Wasn't that the point of the last trap?" Lex said, waving his arms wildly. "This could be a double-trap. When you run into a bunch of paths forward, it's always the unique one that's the real one."
"A double trap?" Oscar said flatly.
"Like, if the first trap got rid of Undead who weren't agile or coordinated and the last one got rid of idiots who rush in alone, then maybe this one does something to people who try everything until it works. Like, each door that opens fills the room with more poison gas or something. I don't know what Sen's capable of other than boulders and crossbows and pendulums and stuff."
"What if that door is the one that releases the poison?"
"What if the poison has already been released, and the discussion about the doors is a distraction?"
"Hmm…" Siegmeyer began.
He leaned against one of the walls in thought but quickly tumbled over as it slid away to reveal a narrow path to what had been the far side of the original bridge. The last pendulum swung overhead, and the Silver Knight statues swarmed on the other side of it.
"Well," Lex said.
"That changes things," Oscar agreed.
Together, they managed to pick Siegmeyer up without throwing out their backs, and the trio looked on at the mob of ready golems.
"We're going to have to plow through a bunch of these guys throughout, so we need to figure out how to hurt them now, before we end up in a room full of them," Lex grumbled.
"They don't seem to be made for combat," Oscar noted. "Still, trying to hit them with a blade will only hurt us in the long run. Andre might as well be in another world. Lex, do you have any blunt weapons in that bag?"
"I've got my old mace for me, this morningstar for you, aaaaand an entire goddamn tree trunk for Siegmeyer."
He set down the first two weapons normally, but for the greatclub, he just upturned his bag and shook it onto the ground, space distorting as the mass of wood slid out of a bag that could barely hold a human hand.
"Oho! It has been some time since I fought with a toy sword!" Siegmeyer said, picking it up and waving it around like it weighed nothing at all.
Lex and Oscar looked at him blankly. He laughed heartily and leaned the club on his shoulder.
"Don't look at me like that. None of the youth these days understand humor. Why one time, my Lin-"
"Hey Oscar," Lex whispered out of the side of his mouth while Siegmeyer was caught up in his story. "Should I mention that his daughter is currently held captive by Seath now or later? I kind of forgot about it until he mentioned her."
"What?! He mentioned her at least once already! Do you actually listen to anything we say or are you still mentally playing the game?"
"I just don't have much of an attention span when parents start talking."
Oscar was lucky he was wearing a helmet, as the look on his face would have given away the private conversation.
"He can't get to her now, can he? You said the Archives are sealed?"
"Yeah, until we get the Lordvessel."
"Tell him then. Let's not worry him now."
Lex nodded and pretended to listen to the rest of the story.