"Charge!"
Siegmeyer thundered ahead, the tree trunk hung in the crook of his arm like a lance. Despite his slow pace, he had been careful to match the timing and went straight past the swinging pendulum with no difficulty. He crashed into the mob of golems beyond and swung the club sideways, flattening the stone knights against the wall. He held them there while his companions followed after him, closed in, and bashed in their heads. The golems toppled, and the path was clear.
They rounded the corner and hurried up the stairs. The man-serpent cleric was gone, making the path across the pendulum bridge simple. The problem was what lay ahead.
"Yeah, that's actually the statue storage room or something. It's full of them, so we need a plan. We can't just rush in, because that leads to getting shot. I don't like the idea of fighting on the bridge, but do you think you could lure them out, Oscar? There might be something I could do."
"I'm not sure…" the knight said thoughtfully. "They didn't seem to want to leave their posts. Clever things. They know they can just wait for us."
"Hm. Hmmmmm…" Siegmeyer murmured. "What is on the other side of them, Lex?"
"If all the snakemen are gone? Nothing. A small room with a narrow bridge leading outside, to another trap. There's a ramp to the next floor, and boulders roll down at you."
"Oho! Lord Sen has given us an opportunity! Lex, would it be possible for you to outrun our enemies and reach the next room? Oscar could protect the two of us from the trap, and then we could attack them from both sides!"
"That could work, yeah. I don't know about backstabbing rocks, but it's a tactical advantage regardless. You cool with that, Oscar?"
"Yes, I think so."
"All right. As soon as I enter the room, three bolts are going to come straight out of the opposite wall and through the doorway."
"Got it."
The trio made their way slowly through the pendulums. The golems didn't stir as they neared the other side, perhaps trying to be stealthy this time. Lex continued into the room, rolling across the pressure plate. As the golems began to creak to life, he hopped over the one that had fallen to the floor and continued through the doorway and onto the stairs, where they couldn't follow him. They stared at their escaped prey for a moment while the crossbow fired, then turned to the intruders they could reach.
Nine of them were more or less still functional, sliding around their fallen brethren to form a dragnet to prevent any more Undead from reaching the stairs. Two had fallen but were still active, dragging themselves across the stone. One particularly angry golem had fallen so that its arms had shattered, resigning it to rocking back and forth in a fury. Oscar stepped through the doorway, shield high, and the golems closed their trap, tightening their noose around the entrance.
"Siegmeyer!" Lex shouted, walking around the fallen golems to the side of the room. "I'm going to try that new miracle! Brace yourself!"
"A splendid idea! Oscar, I'm giving you some room. Try not to be caught in the blast!"
With that, the older knight carefully backpedaled until he had reached the pendulums. Lex meanwhile aligned himself with the wall of golems. The ones nearest him spun their heads around backward to face him in case he tried to approach. He merely raised his talisman and began a hymn, as he did for the spells native to the game world. This hymn, however, was not in that ancient language of the gods.
For too long, the human race has ignored the signs. Your planet is nearing destruction. Salvation is reserved for those who pass the test. If you survive, an elevated existence awaits.
Whenever he cast Lightning Spear, the air took on a certain charge. The anticipation was palpable, and there was a faint smell of ozone. Heal brought on a sense of security and warmth. Now, the air shimmered as if from heat, and colors became deeper. There was an indescribable sensation of madness, a taste not unlike when the knowledge of Great Chaos Fireball flooded his mind.
Initiate phase one.
His armor began to jingle, as when he walked. The modifications Domhnall had made caused the racket to grow even worse. Oscar hazarded a glance past the golems to see what the noise was.
Power up the bass cannon.
The cone that had been installed into the lion's mouth on his shoulder began to thump slowly, as did the few dozen smaller ones installed in the smaller plates on the armor skirt. The entire cuirass had been changed into a crude speaker system.
Fire.
Hearing that, Oscar jumped backward, angling his shield to block a solid projectile. Instead, there was a colossal boom that blasted him into the side of the doorway and knocked over the golems, shattering them against each other and the floor.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?" Oscar shouted. "WHAT WAS THAT AWFUL NOISE?"
"Oh god, did I hit you?" Lex said awkwardly.
"WHAT?"
"I'll take that as a yes."
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU. SPEAK UP."
"I turned Emit Force into a sonic blast! It kind of messed up your hearing! My bad!"
"YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME WHAT IT DID."
"I just thought it would be a cool thing to show off! I didn't think I'd need to use it before we got to Anor Londo!"
"Don't be so hard on Lex, Oscar!" Siegmeyer said as he approached from behind, spooking the more-or-less deaf elite knight. "I could have given you a clearer warning!"
"FINE," Oscar pouted. "LET'S KEEP MOVING AND SEE IF THIS WEARS OFF. I CAN COMPLAIN LATER."
Lex nodded and grabbed the titanite out of the chest below crossbow trap before continuing up the stairs and across the bridge. He held out one arm to stop the other two as the first boulder whizzed down the ramp.
"Wait here. I need to head up two floors. I'll go up one first, then when I run to the second one, you two head to where I was. Siegmeyer, you'll need to sprint as fast as you can."
"WHAT?"
"Don't worry! I'll make sure the both of us make it!" the old knight chuckled.
Lex nodded and waited for another boulder to roll down before sprinting up to the fog gate blocking the doorway to the next floor. Once another had passed, he dashed upward and into the isolated room. It was much easier now that there wasn't a man-serpent cleric blocking the doorway – or so he thought. Stone ground against stone, and ten intact golems groaned into activity. They slid toward him menacingly, and he dashed across the room, quickly cornering himself.
As they approached, he recited the hymn again. There was an explosion of sound, and most of them clattered against the floor. Two remained, one on either side of the blast.
"Huh. An eight-ten split. This is why I hate bowling."
The cleric gripped his mace tightly with both hands and paced toward one. As the golems closed in, he rolled between them and again to get behind the nearer one. He took a heavy swing and bashed its head off. Before the other could get near him, he kicked the body of the defeated one forward, knocking them both over. Sighing with relief, he retrieved the Ring of Steel Protection from the chest in the other corner.
"Wait. Come to think of it, I've already got two rings. I can't take off Havel's because I need it to move, and I don't think it'd be a good idea to take off the cell phone ring regardless."
He paused and rubbed his chin.
"I wonder if there's anything stopping me from wearing two like in 2. What finger would I even wear a second ring on? Pinky? I could pierce my ears, maybe?"
He paused again and smirked.
"Nipples?"
He shrugged and mindlessly dropped it into his manpurse before heading back down. Oscar and Siegmeyer had dispersed the fog wall and stood in the middle of the room amidst the wreckage of a half-dozen golems.
"You guys alright?" Lex said.
"Oh, it was no trouble at all. I had plenty of room to swing my club," Siegmeyer said pleasantly. "What about you? I heard the boom from here."
"No kidding," Oscar muttered, his hearing apparently back to normal.
"Yeah, I just wasn't thinking," the cleric replied casually. "Since the statues are normally just statues, I didn't even think about there being a bunch up there."
"What next?" Oscar asked.
"There's a pressure plate in that hallway there that will shoot you from behind. Normally, there's a snakeman that blocks you, but now I guess there's probably a statue. In the next room, just go ahead and rest for a bit. There's even a table and chairs. I'm going to take a stupid shortcut that involves less running from giant boulders."
With that, he approached a slit in the wall. A pair of chains ran down a long shaft and were rapidly descending. Abruptly, a bloodied wooden platform shot downward. Before his companions could say anything, he squeezed through the hole and fell onto the platform. It stopped two storeys down in a room with countless statues lined against the wall.
"Oh. Right."
He rolled off the platform and powered up the bass cannon before they could move out of their tight formation. Shattered pieces of statue piled up in the corner, and the cleric relaxed. He turned to stare at a chest lying conspicuously in the middle of the room.
"Not even worth the trouble," he said, walking toward the door.
A boulder rolled past him, then another and another. Ahead of him and to the left was a deep pit in front of a dead end.
"I really wish I had a phone to play solitaire on," he grumbled as he waited for boulders to fill the pit.
Eventually, the hole was filled, and the next boulder smashed through the wall. He quickly ran across the uneven surface, grabbed a Covetous Gold Serpent Ring off of a corpse hanging over a balcony in the next room, and returned to the bloody elevator. He rode it back up three storeys, went up the stairs, across a bridge, down more stairs, and up a ramp to the boulder control room. It was a large, square room with a pillar at the center. Four ramps extended from it in a cross, and there was a long wooden handle extending from its center.
A boulder dropped down from a hole in the ceiling, landed on top of the pillar, and then slid forward, dropping onto the ramp that led back down to the newly-opened room. He walked up to the handle and took hold of it with both hands. It was hard to push due to long disuse, but with a bit of effort, he pushed it opposite the direction he had come. The mechanism above groaned with the change, but it fired the next boulder down the ramp he had just climbed. With a satisfied grunt, he twisted the pillar around 180 degrees, sending the boulders down an unfinished path and out of the Fortress.
He sighed from the exertion and headed back down the ramp to the room where he'd left the knights. Much to his consternation, he found them playing cards.
"Any sevens?"
"Go fish, my friend!"
"Where did you even get cards from?" the cleric complained.
"We used to gamble for the duties no one wanted," Oscar said dully, collecting the cards and putting them in one of his belt pouches. "I take it the path is clear?"
"Yeah, should be pretty easy, assuming saying that didn't just jinx us."
The trio walked up the ramp casually without the threat of an oncoming boulder to pressure them. After entering the control room, Lex immediately turned around and entered a long hallway. He stepped on a pressure plate and took one step backward. Four crossbows in the wall ahead fired at once, three times in a row.
"Lamest trap in the whole Fortress," he commented before continuing.
He entered the next room, made a sharp turn, and headed down a short staircase. Directly ahead was a single golem. It made a valiant attempt to block him, but a sidelong blow sent it crashing to the ground. He turned right and stared out across the main room.
"Looks like there's some more waiting just across this bridge. Siegmeyer, go ahead and take point."
"It would be my pleasure!"
They moved cautiously through the pendulums, but as soon as he was clear, the older knight thundered across the rest of the narrow path and crushed the statues under the immense force of his weight and that of his greatclub. Lex and Oscar followed more carefully, and Lex led them up a curving staircase to the left. Ahead was the final pendulum bridge, and without the man-serpent cleric to cause trouble, crossing was a simple matter. They easily avoided the pressure plate in front of the stairs, but Lex stopped halfway up.
"Siegmeyer, give me a boost."
He pointed up at a platform a bit too high for him to reach by jumping. The old knight nodded and cupped his hands. Lex stood on them, and he lifted the cleric up to the balcony. The cleric waved, and Oscar followed. Between the two of them, they managed to pull Siegmeyer up to the balcony as well, though they both stopped to catch their breath as soon as they had. Panting, Lex pointed and led them down the hall and around the corner. Ahead was a bonfire and their rogue witch.