The humans circled around the crater and down the stairs to the next platform. Though the coliseum wasn't in the best of shape, the path downward crumbled as weeds grew between the stones. Ivy and mosses had taken much of the buildings, and cockroaches skittered away as they approached. Something growled nearby, and a high-pitched shriek echoed in the distance. Lex hopped down the next flight of stairs and quickly doubled back into the ruined building under the stairs.

When the others rounded the corner, they found one of the creatures Artorias had thrown at them dead at his feet. Oscar and Solaire hardly had time to look at it then, but this time, they looked at it in horror. From its ruined clothing, it was clear that the creature had once been one of the townsfolk, but now it only held a semblance of a human shape. Its arms were stretched to nearly twice their natural length, and they straight out at right angles, ending in massive taloned hands. Its legs themselves hadn't changed, but the toes had fused into foot, becoming a bizarre sort of flipper.

Worst of all was the head, which had stretched into a round, hard shell. It was studded with countless beady red eyes, and an insect-like mouth with feelers and pincers jutted from the bottom. While the majority of the body was purplish flesh, the head was a dull brown chitin. Lex was covering his mouth and looking away.

"You know, I'm trying not to think too hard about it, but that looks pretty Chaos-y, doesn't it?"

Laurentius nodded and actually squatted down to inspect it.

"It does, yeah. What is it, if you don't mind? You never said what we were doing, Master Lex."

"This is, uh, basically what happens when the Dark gets too strong. I don't think it's the natural state of the Dark, but it always ends up like that. …friggin' No-Man's Wharf…"

Solaire looked to Lex in concern.

"How quickly do things turn like this?"

"Judging solely by Anor Londo versus Drangleic Castle, it's probably already started."

The knight was quiet for a moment.

"Then we have no time to lose!" he said at last, drawing his sword. "Lead on, Lex."

The cleric nodded and turned back to the path. Approaching the next flight of stairs, there were four more mutated townsfolk in the courtyard beyond. They were hunched over, facing the other direction without moving. Lex hopped onto a nearby rooftop and collected a soul clump from a still-human corpse while the others descended the stairs.

"Master Lex, if you would allow me…" Laurentius said, gesturing. Lex nodded, so the pyromancer turned to the monsters and shouted, "Hey! How'd you like a taste of the Great Swamp?"

The former humans whirled about, and one pointed its massive finger, shrieking wildly. They rushed the stairs all at once, but Laurentius had already summoned up a fireball. As they drew together, he hurled it forward, incinerating them before they could get near.

"Nice!" Lex said, giving a quick thumbs up.

At the end of the courtyard was a broad staircase leading down to a small gazebo. At its center was a square hole in the ground. Two more mutants on a platform below looked up and ran toward him. The knights quickly ran ahead and blocked the stairs with their shields and ran the creatures through after their wild swings broke against the iron wall. Lex sighed as he looked down the hole.

"One of these days, I'm going to remember to get rope from Quelaag instead of just letting her show up and do whatever we needed a rope for. And why don't the elevators work from the top, anyway? What are the odds that there'll be a bunch of dudes on the bottom when you call it? Aside from that one time where there is, I mean."

Nevertheless, he led the group down three landings, calling them to a halt quietly on the side of a building.

"Dark sorcerer around this corner," he whispered. "Careful if you try to block it. I mean, it's not usually a good idea to block magic anyway, but Dark magic hits like a ton of bricks. I'll rush it, but you'll need to keep the normal one from tearing me to shreds."

The others nodded, so he rounded the corner. Ahead was a regular mutant and one much taller, its whole body stretched like its left arm. Its right arm had retained a semblance of normality, and in it, the creature clutched a wild mass of branches with no obvious origin. Its head was darker and redder, and its mouth had opened up to regurgitate a fleshy mass from which numerous feelers clacked and writhed.

"I don't want to touch iiiiiit," Lex complained.

He dashed forward as the creature raised its wand. Before it could cast, he spun on one foot, striking both of the mutants with a quick slash before rolling between them. The creatures turned to lash out at him, but he rolled away again. A lightning spear flashed overhead, and the smaller mutant crumpled. Lex quickly rose to his feet and hacked through the larger one, which toppled over backward under the weight of its massive head.

The cleric grumbled and walked toward one of the ruined buildings jutting off the courtyard. He swung his sword with both hands around the corner of one of the support beams. There was an agonized shriek, and a second of the smaller mutants fell into view, its head severed from its body.

"You know what? I don't think I want that drop."

He took a soul clump off a human body slumped in the opposite corner and returned to the group in the courtyard.

"Right, so let's see if we get an unfriendly visitor before continuing," he said lazily. "After me, but watch our backs."

He descended some short stairs to a lower balcony, then continued to a landing below. Another slumped-over mutant leapt into action on the next landing, but he swept it over the side of the narrow stairway without much care. He continued down to the last landing, where the stone stairs ended, and a sturdy, if makeshift, wooden scaffold spanned a terrifying drop. They crossed to a wide turret that leaned heavily to one side as a result of the Abyss cracking the earth. There was a chest in the center of it, as if left in a place of honor.

"Don't touch it," Lex said flatly as he circled around. "Oscar, Solaire, stand on either side. When I say, stab it repeatedly."

The knights looked at him, then each other. They shrugged and took their positions.

"Now!"

Their blades shattered the wood in a spray of splinters. Abruptly, the lid flew open, and a pair of gangly arms flew out, swiping blindly at their attackers. The chest shot into the air on a pair of spindly legs, and it hissed, flailing a slobbering tongue wildly. Shocked, the knights only struck harder, and after only a moment of action, the creature had fallen over, a felt bag falling out of its mouth as it sublimated into souls. Lex nonchalantly placed the bag inside his own bottomless bag.

"Of all the things to tell us about, I think that should have been one of them!" Oscar roared.

"I didn't let you get eaten."

"Eaten-?!"

"Look, there's nothing I could have said that would have prepared you for that. I mean, how does all that body even fit inside?"

The knight sighed.

"Fine. I won't argue with you. What's next?"

"You and Solaire can go ahead and take a break here. I'm going to backtrack with Laurentius. I don't think we have to worry about it, but keep an eye on the stairs, because Chester was originally fated to invade back there. When you see the two of us walk by on that ledge over there, get ready to go."

As he spoke, he gestured to the last building they had passed. Though the glow of an orange soapstone had been rare since leaving the Asylum, it could distinctly be seen at the end of the strange ledge.

"Understood."

With that, the cleric and the pyromancer headed back up to the balcony. Part of the railing next to the stairs had crumbled away. Lex leaned over the edge.

"Master Lex, you wouldn't be thinking of…"

He shrugged and tumbled over the side. Laurentius at last gave in and followed him down.

"Murder on your shins, isn't it?" the cleric said nonchalantly.

He waved his talisman and channeled a wave of healing energy over them before continuing down the rickety wooden scaffold and around the corner. At the end, he dropped down to the stone ledge beneath and rounded another corner to stand by the glowing orange message.

"Let there be light," he quoted the text without looking at it.

The pyromancer nodded and moved in front of the message. He raised his flame and conjured the small golden-red orb again. The stone hummed and vanished in a soft glow. The pair walked under the unadorned archway, and Lex grabbed something out of a chest on the opposite side of the empty room.

"And done. Now for more suicidal jumps!"

Laurentius cringed, but Lex crouched down and broke into a sprint out the doorway. He leapt at the last moment and crashed down on the roof of a building below, sliding on the loose tiles as as crystal lizard skittered away. He took his feet carefully and slipped down to a lower part of the roof on the other side and casually stepped onto the spiral staircase abutting it. Without breaking his pace, he continued down the stairs and killed a mutant lying in ambush at the bottom, then another that rushed him. By the time the pyromancer had gathered up his courage to make the jump, Oscar and Solaire had already joined Lex at the bottom of the stairs. The cleric held out an ornate silver pendant, shaking it at Oscar.

"Aaaand you're on defense duty as usual. I don't actually know how to use this, but when you do, it'll provide about three seconds of absolute protection from Dark magic. Got it, Solaire, Laurentius? Whenever you see crazy black stuff shooting at you, hug Oscar."

The knight looked at the pendant for a few moments, then raised it high, presenting its face. When he did so, a golden wave washed out around him, forming a shimmering bubble as divine energy washed around him. When he lowered the pendant the power faded quickly.

"Great! Demonstration time! You go first!"

Lex pointed toward the buckling, crooked stone bridge ahead of them. On the other side was a mutant sorcerer who hadn't yet taken notice of them. Oscar nodded and raised the pendant again, focusing intently on it as he steadily walked across the bridge. The bright light had alerted the corrupted sorcerer, and it pelted them with massive orbs of writing Dark as they crossed. Oscar flinched as the first one came, but after seeing it bounced off of the bubble harmlessly, he continued toward it confidently.

As he approached the creature, he let the ward fall and reached for his sword, hammering into the creature's side and smashing it over the ledge to the unseen ground below. Lex motioned onward, so he rounded the corner and descended the stairs to enter a long hallway. On the other side, countless glowing red eyes leered at him as they rushed forward, but he deflected the mutant's claws over the back of his shield and ran it through. At the end of the hall was more of the inky substance that had oozed from Artorias' poisoned body. It covered the floor and the walls as if it had been spilled, but it covered the room beyond like vines and moss had covered the rest of the city. The knight hardly noticed when he riposted another mutant; the utter corruption of even a building was too horrifying.

"Ambush," Lex said casually, walking past to the opposite side of the room.

Another mutant dropped down behind him, but he whirled around and hacked it in two. He ignored the rubbish on the corpse against the wall and turned to the group as they took in the corruption.

"Ignore the glow," he said, thumbing left of the entrance. "It's a permanently-lit fireplace, somehow. Not a bonfire. Terribly disappointing, but then again, this isn't the sequel, where there are bonfires every five minutes. Anyway, this is one of those places where it's awful to not have a ranged weapon, so get ready to get beaten half to death."

He furrowed his eyebrows.

"Actually, Oscar, keep the pendant up. Let's just take this slow. Everyone keep close to him and move together."

They marched down the stairs in formation, the Silver Pendant of Artorias held high. Halfway down, a normal mutant and a sorcerer howled at the light, but they were washed away in a wave of fire before they could do anything. At the bottom, the room narrowed near a pillar, leaving a small gap through which they could see many more of the creatures. On a platform at the end of the room stood another sorcerer, which hurled an orb of darkness at the group. It bounced harmlessly off the globe of power, and the quartet slowly marched around the pillar.

The two nearest creatures charged them, but Solaire blocked the first with his shield and bashed it into the other. Before they could recover, Lex stepped in and hacked their legs out from under them. As the group came around the other side of the pillar, Laurentius arced another Great Fireball high overhead, taking out two more in the distance. As they closed in, the last of the "normal" monsters charged at them, but Lex gutted it before it got near. With only the sorcerer left, Solaire stared upward and hurled a lightning spear with all his might, blasting it against the wall.

As it fell limp, Lex called for a halt and doubled back. He grabbed a soul clump from a body on a shattered staircase leading outside, then rejoined the group. They exited onto what had once been a balcony and continued onto the side of a fallen building. They descended a short distance before climbing back onto a long bridge. Back into the open and much deeper into the corruption, the group began at last to notice the bits of Dark falling through the dead air like leaves.

On pedestals at regular intervals down the length of the bridge were robed statues. In their hands, they carried exaggerated versions of the bleached white branches the sorcerers of Oolacile used as catalysts, but not one of the statues still had its head. Lex held up one finger and entered the next building alone. He ran onto the elevator at the end of the passage and jumped back off as it started up.

"More sorcerers," he sighed as he rejoined them. "Oscar, we'll be counting on you again."

The knight nodded, and they set off down the bridge in formation, the golden glow of the pendant illuminating the unnatural darkness of the valley in which they found themselves. They descended to the lowest part of the bridge. Laurentius quickly lobbed a fireball at two mutants directly ahead, while Lex dodged an ambush from the left and hacked through the attacker. There were two sorcerers ahead – one on the same level and the other at the top of the stairs behind the first. Solaire blasted the first as it attempted to breach their shield with brute force, but the second tried a different spell. Abruptly, they found themselves enshrouded in a black fog.

"Run!" Lex shouted, rushing through the outer edge of the protective bubble and up the stairs.

He knocked the caster over with his first swing and ran the blade through its ribcage before it could regain its feet.

"Anyone get poisoned?" he panted, actually concerned for once.

They shook their heads. While they hadn't the forewarning the prophet had, the knights were wearing helmets, and pyromancers had a stronger natural resistance to poisons. The cleric sighed with relief and dashed back to grab a soul clump behind the first staircase before continuing. At the end of the bridge was, surprisingly, an archway sized for a demigod – as had been the case with the coliseum.

"Miniboss ahoy!" he said with fake enthusiasm as he entered."

The room ahead was a great hall with a terribly high ceiling. There were strange half-columns jutting out of the walls, most with headless sorcerer statues in front of them.

"Now that I think about it, maybe these are coffins."

Indeed, the bottoms of the pillars were human-sized rectangles with an inlaid portion that could be a door. More concerning, however, was the figure that approached them. It was a bulbous mass of flesh that thundered forward on bloated, elephant-like legs. A massive iron spike ran through its back and dragged along the ground, as did a tangled mess of chains.

"Reeeaaaally don't want to touch that one."

For the first time in a long while, he drew back a lightning spear, the Chaotic taint of his talisman causing the electricity to spark and flare even as he took aim. Solaire and Laurentius followed suit, readying their own magics. When it drew within range, they unleashed a torrent of energy into the pitiful creature, and while it was stunned, Oscar lunged at it, cutting through chain and flesh like tissue paper. He slashed through the air once to sling the black ichor from the blade, then waited for Lex to take the lead again. They continued to the end of the room, which led to a demigod-sized hallway.

The hall promptly changed to stairs. At the bottom, they rounded the corner, and Lex stepped alone onto a short platform that jutted into the darkness. A tile beneath him bearing the seal of Oolacile glowed faintly, and a quiet hum began to rise from the bottom. After a few seconds, a platform rose up from below. There was a mutant on it, but the prophet simply kicked it off and into the vast darkness below.