I woke up, coughing bloody water. I splashed around as I panicked, turning in every random direction within the water before finding myself upright. My tiptoes lightly touch the bottom of whatever lake I am in as I cough out more of the water and some of my own blood as well. Once I calm down, I wince as the thrashing had agitated my wound and caused it to throb in pain. I slowly make my way to the edge of the lake, crawling up onto the ground. I sigh in relief as I rip off my shirt, ruined in battle and completely soaked in water. Pain pierced in my side as I did so and I sighed again, this time in irritation.
I took some deep breaths to calm myself down before I coughed out some more water and collapsed onto my knees, the burning pain of the Scarlet Rot burning through my veins. "The one fucking time I'm happy to die, I don't..." I scowled before coughing some more. "Fuck..." I looked at my tattered shirt, the heart design only pissing me off. I let out a shuddering breath before tenderly tapping around my left side, remembering the almost debilitating wound now I'm not almost drowning. My teeth digs into my bottom lip as I feel around a certain spot above my kidneys.
"Definitely a broken rib." I mutter to myself before I push myself up from the muddy ground, wiping my dirty palms on my soaked through greaves. I almost stumble on my first step as the water weight holds my legs down. I'm not wandering around in my, also soaked, underwear so I'll just have to deal with this.
Rolling my shoulders to motivate myself, I walked up the shore of the lake. The dark muddy ground slowly faded away to oddly familiar verdant grass. I grimaced, feeling the throbbing ache of the Scarlet Rot spike with every step. As I crossed along the boundary from shore to field, I noticed someone on horse traveling along a trail. Something clicked in my mind and I realised that I'm in Limgrave, but how? The question fades from my mind as I notice that the horseman is carrying a very big, curved sword and galloping towards me. My eyes widened in shock before I crouched slightly, ready to dodge and counter. "Fuck..."
The pounding of horse hoofs mirrors the beating of my heart as the horseman gets closer. With a wide swing, the sword slashes down at me. Knowing that being hit by it would most likely kill me, I crouch further down and lean towards the horse as it storms by, the edge of the curved blade brushing over my back. I grind my heel into the ground as I twist around and charge directly at the horseman, needing to close space now. He notices my charge and tries to twist his bulky, massive horse around to no avail. Once I'm close enough, I jump and grab onto his sword arm. I use my weight to pull him down and fall onto my back with a grunt. The horse reacts to the movement and takes off into a gallop, dragging the horseman along. He drops his sword, trying to free his feet from his stirrups. I wrap my hands around the hilt of the blade and immediately widen my eyes at the weight as I slowly raise it to rest on my left shoulder.
"What the hell kind of sword...?" I mutter to myself. My eyes track the horseman manage to free himself. He rolls on the floor, bleeding off the momentum from being dragged along by his horse. I watch, noticing how far he's been dragged. I make a soft estimate of around 30 meters, add or give an extra 3. I slowly circle closer as he lay on the floor, recovering from the arduous experience before getting up with shaky legs. I narrow my eyes, gripping the sword tighter as I continue to circle, like a shark smelling blood. "I think it would be best if you gave up." I call out, wanting to set a peaceful precedent for myself.
He simply growled out as he lurched towards me. His helmet covered his eyes but I didn't need to look past it to see the undoubtedly savage look he must bear. Each one of his steps were packed with power as he sped up. He ran towards me, smashing his body through the air with brutal strength. I timed my swing until he was right in front of me, swinging the unfamiliar weapon more like an axe than a curved sword. The blade hit snugly just beneath his helmet. The edge easily cut through his neck, almost too easily. The weight of the blade carried it through and I lost my balance, stumbling forward into his headless corpse. The weight of his body and the momentum of his charge knocked into me, sending me onto my back.
I pushed the heavy body off of me, gasping for breath as I weakly groaned and coughed.
"Infected with the scarlet rot, hit by Radahn's spell..." I muttered to myself as I slowly pushed myself to my knees "...then I wake up drowning in a lake which forced me to wander around shirtless and weaponless..." I continued before starting to strip the decapitated corpse of his clothes. "Not very fun is it, dead guy? I tried to let you live but you just wanted to run at me." I pulled off the shirt and warm fur coverings, wiping my dirty and grimy body somewhat clean with my hands before placing it on. I sighed in relief as my overworked body was enveloped in warmth. "Good man, Khirza." I chuckled, before I pushed myself up fully. I'm definitely not taking a dead man's trousers. I have my limits and my limits are now leaving me in the same soggy armoured leggings. I picked up the heavy curved sword and, unable to find a sheath, I carefully balanced it on my left shoulder throughout each movement.
The adrenaline fades from my system and I felt the slow ache of the Scarlet Rot set in my damaged side again. I lightly touched my left side with my fingers and I had to choke back a scream of pain, eyes watering. "That's... not good." I take a deep breath to steady myself "Must be the air, bunch of goat fuckers." I snarled, referring to Limgrave's residents. I slowly took note of my location, recognising the formidable sight of Stormveil in the distance. I look around some more and notice that there was an old ruined church also far off but much closer than Stormveil. I heard the former residents pissed off one of Malenia's generals on their march to Caelid and the place was consequently used as a training exercise. My eyes lit up at the thought of Caelid, remembering the same rot afflicting me having spread through the waterways of the land. The once beautiful lake turned into a swamp of putrid blood and thick fluids. The loud hum of armies of flies, come to feast on the corpses off all that fell to Malenia's bloom...
I distracted myself with the much more recent memory of the savage's horse, standing still and looking a bit lost and agitated. I lowered myself slightly as I slowly approached the big horse, its skin pulled tight over hard muscle. Each leg packed with enough power to emulsify my insides if it kicked out. This observation added to the anxiety gained as its dark orbs took me in. My hand felt underneath its jaw, scratching delicately as I moved along its side. I hooked my feet into it's stirrups as I threw myself onto the horse's back, slowly settling me and the horse to eachother's weight and presence. I patted the horse's muscled neck. "Uhh, don't buck me off okay? That wouldn't be nice and I'll probably not end up as well as that guy over there." I nod to the headless corpse. I turned my head to the broken church, skillfully pulling the reigns so the horse's body aligned before giving it a gentle nudge with the stirrups, sending it on it's course.
I breathed a heavy sigh of relief at the horse's gentle nature as it trotted along. I let it do it's own thing as we moved, eating some grass or sniffing Marika knows what, I wanted to set a good precedence of myself to the horse to build up some trust and I'm not sure if it's smart enough to know I beheaded it's former rider. "So... since you lack a name, I'm going to call you Oak because goddamn are you a big fucking horse." I chuckled, running a hand down its dark brown fur and black mane. "And it also fits the colours." The horse let out a rough noise at my words but I knew that really it didn't understand them, just acknowledged them.
After a long time, the ruined building itself seemed much closer and now that I could see it clearly it barely counted as shelter. But something is better than nothing. I heard loud clanging sounds and the iconic heavy hoofbeats of a great warsword and looked to my left. I looked through the cover of some trees and... a Tree Sentinel?! My eyes blazed in anger. The sheer terror these men put me through in the Redmane's siege of Leyndell could never be expressed with words; they were indomitable, fearless, unstoppable but most importantly they were on horseback. I still remember the grim sight of a fellow footsoldier chopped in half by their inhuman halberds.
Before I even knew it, I had spurred the horse to full-speed as I charged towards the golden knight of Leyndell. "Time to put some things straight." I snarled, noticing what the Tree Sentinel was fighting as I burst through the tree cover. A person covered in black cloth and armed with a dagger and a bow. I noticed the Tree Sentinel's horse was pretty badly cut up but the man himself seemed fine, except with a few arrows stuck in his armour. I was more impressed that the arrows even effected his gold-plated armour. The breastplate itself weighs more than me! I hefted the heavy curved sword off of my shoulder as I held it to my side. The knight was jabbing it's halberd towards the person in the middle, circling around them with it's massive warhorse. I slammed my whole weight into my blade as it smashed into the horse's skull. The force of my own horse galloping and my body holding rigid onto the blade caused a brutal concussive force to rock the horse's skull amd and causing it to fall over, unconscious. I let my horse bleed off momentum, past the unknown warrior that can somehow handle a Tree Sentinel on foot. I circled back around to them to be immediately greeted by a feminine voice.
"Who the hell are you?" She asked, in an understandably shocked tone. I pointed a thumb at the Tree Sentinel, struggling to free himself from the chains that tied him to his horse.
"Somebody that really hates Goldilocks over there. Let's deal with him first then have introductions. I'll charge in with my horse and deal the heavy damage, you use your bow to piss him off." I reared my horse back as it neighed, feeling the familiar beating drum of war in my chest before I stomped down to the Tree Sentinel. I was still wary of him but his position rendered him helpless, the weight of his shield pinning him down and keeping his halberd arm under his body. I hung my blade down low so it smashed against the Sentinel's helmet as I rode past. He started flailing but the concussive force was great. His movements were relatively weak, I was surprised he could even move after such a blow. I turned my horse around and circled around him and his fallen horse, occasionally smacking my blade against his helmet as his movements grew weaker and weaker. Eventually, he stopped and I took that as an opportunity to breathe. I stroked Oak's fur. "Good job, Oak. Without you, I'd be dead. Twice really." I threw the heavy blade at the Sentinel, the weapon bouncing off of the armour. I rolled my shoulders, feeling the burn at the intense movement. These savage, threatening weapons are no good for war, only terrorising villagers or people they catch on the road into submission. Useful for singular encounters but would heavily exhaust you over a longer conflict. As I stretched, that pulling sharp pain in my side erupted and I winced in pain before quickly bringing my arms back down to my side. "Fuck... I really need to get that checked out. On Marika's name, that can't be good." I coughed heavily before getting off of Oak's back as the woman walked over.
"Lightwork." I chuckled weakly before I collapsed on my face.
A/N: I know exactly what you all are thinking. "Where the fuck were you?" Let's just say I recognised just how bad I am at writing so I took an extensive training break on a certain AI app that everybody on this app is well familiar with. I hope I've improved from the prologue enough to really show.