Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-14138255-20170320024103/@comment-14138255-20170623185011

 Chapter 11: Shadow Temple 

 Pyrrha opted to make a short transport to Firelink before departing with Anri and Horace to the Cathedral. With the journey they were making, she wanted to make sure they were stocked and her own equipment upgraded. Moving through the hall past the Handmaiden, she went to Andre for this task.

As he went to work on hammering Pyrrha’s broadsword and reforging it with the metals she’d scraped together, a small scurrying caught Pyrrha’s ears, and she heard a voice call to her. “Ah, Pyrrha, Pyrrha Nikos right? Finally got your attention.” Pyrrha turned and saw Greirat approach her from his usual hangout near Andre.

“ Ah Greirat, I didn’t want to- I didn’t mean..” Pyrrha nervously fumbled her words.

“ Oh it’s no trouble, I’d been meaning to ask you something for a little while anyway. You know I’m a thief, so why not have me go on the prowl and find some weapons and treasure for you? Or maybe some new armor?”

Andre butted in behind Pyrrha, “Sound plan if I’d ever heard one.”

Pyrrha paused, confused and searching for something to say. “You...would really do that?”

“ Well, everyone’s either dead or hollowed anyway, right so…”

“ No, I mean...you aren’t upset over-”

“ Hmm? Oh, not at all. If anything I was mostly angry at myself. Of course, out here, cruel twists of fate have become...normal, ashamed to say. All we can do is keep moving forward.”

Pyrrha looked to the thief and her face softened and smiled in musing thought. “Keep moving forward…” she fondly repeated. “ Awfully grim isn’t it?”

“ No, not at all.”

 Greirat had taken what supplies he needed and left the shrine. He said he wouldn’t be back for awhile, but would return with ample loot when he did.

Pyrrha walked to the right of Andre and down the hall, where Irina, not minding sitting in the dark. She heard her however and looked up to the sound of Pyrrha’s approach.

“ Don’t worry, it’s me” Pyrrha said, holding out her arm for Irina to grasp.

Irina laid her hands on her arm and breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh Ms. Nikos, welcome back.” “ How are you holding up here?”

“ I was not meant to be a fire keeper, but I am honored to serve you before the bonfire.”

“ Thank you. Um, if it’s not too much a bother, I wanted to ask you something, it’s about the ‘energy’ you felt the other day.”

Irina’s eyes widened and she nodded, “ah yes, that feeling. I had trouble feeling it at first, but now that I’m here I can sense it clearly, like a river of spiralling energy flowing through your body. I can’t explain it.”

“ Perhaps I can. On my world, it is the manifestation of the soul, both a shield and a sword formed from our being, protecting us from harm and hardship.” Her face dropped, however, “but when I arrived on this world, I lost my connection to it, and I could no longer use the unique skills that I had once relied on, the tangible power within, and felt all the pain that I would normally have been shielded from.”

“ I think I can understand. I would like to help, but I do not know how, or if I am able to.” “ I am not sure either. Normally it would have to be unlocked, but that either requires great stress or someone with an Aura to unlock. And considering all I’ve been through…” “ Indeed. But perhaps I can assist you in figuring it out. How would you control such a power.”

Pyrrha paused and thought. Controlling her Aura and Semblance had been so natural for so long. “Well… for me, I could manipulate metal and control it by focusing my Aura toward it.”

“ You should try, I’ll be able to sense the change in energy.”

Pyrrha looked and smiled. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt to try.” She then took her shield and rested it against the wall near Irina. She extended her left hand to the shield while her right hand rested in Irina’s, who had begun to focus as well. With great focus, Pyrrha tried to will the shield to bend, a simple enough task that would make her feel all the better to accomplish.

“ I...feel a twisting, and a shaking, as though the energy were a glass of water trying to spill out. It is moving.”

Pyrrha tried to focus harder, and for a small while she managed to hear a slight bending in the shield, but with no noticeable change to be seen.

“ It’s- It’s now-”

At that moment a crushing pain came to Pyrrha’s left bicep and she involuntarily jerked her hand away from Irina to nurse it. Pyrrha’s arm ring had begun to shrink and twist, crushing her arm, and in great pain Pyrrha tried to get it to stop, but failed, the ring further damaging her.

“ Pyrrha? Pyrrha what’s going on!? Pyrrha please tell me!” Irina cried, terrified and hopelessly confused as to what was occurring.

Pyrrha’s arm ring was further tightening and writhing, causing the skin and muscles of her arm to be cut and lacerated from the pressure as Pyrrha tried in vain to get it off. At that moment a pair of hands slammed against her forehead and right wrist, and with a bright glow the arm ring ceased its assault and Pyrrha fell to the floor light headed, as though completely drained of water.

“ Are you hurt Pyrrha Nikos?”

Standing above her was The Fire Keeper as Pyrrha held her forehead and breathed heavily. “What...what did you do to me?”

“ I simply took the energy causing you harm and let it flow between us until you were stable.”

“ I-I couldn’t control...my semblance.”

“ I’m sorry Pyrrha, I couldn’t exactly tell what happened, it’s as though the energy snapped like a rope” said Irina behind them, her head lowered apologetically.

Pyrrha knelt down to her and assured her it wasn’t her fault, though Pyrrha couldn’t help but feel the wind taken out of her sails.

“ If you would allow me however, I could assist you in performing miracles.”

“ Miracles?” Pyrrha asked.

“ When I lived in Carim I was a nun, and we had access to many tales that granted its readers revelations, giving them power granted by the gods. With a good talisman and ample faith, you could use these powers much like those in the stories of old.”

Pyrrha smiled sadly. She couldn’t seem to escape fairy tales that turned out to be more true than she thought. Still, she couldn’t see the harm in letting Irina help her, and she nodded her head in agreement.

Irina then smiled and procured a small, canvas talisman and a sheet of paper. “Eygon found these on our way here to Lothric. He didn’t see a use for them, but you might.”

 Pyrrha stared intently at the paper, engrossed in the story it told. The picture at the top also depicted a man with a jagged crown looking over several knights, with icons of the sun emblazoned on their tabards, holding aloft what looked to be fiery throwing spears.

“ Mmm!” Horace grunted, shaking Pyrrha from her reading.

Anri however waved down the two who were sitting at the bonfire where they had fought The Evangelist before. “Sorry about that, Horace was just wondering if you were ready to head out.”

“ Ah, yes, I think I’m ready” Pyrrha said, scrambling up to begin their journey to the Cathedral.

The party walked along the path to the Cathedral, passing a campfire long since gone cold, and up a path that lead to a large set of steps leading through a stone arch, alone amongst the dead trees. Along the stark and shadowy path were several large and heavy footprints, no doubt belonging to the large hollows that carried the sacrifices to the Cathedral.

“ There, up ahead, the Chapel” Anri said, pointing forward past the road, lined and embedded with tombstones, that lead to the rest of the Cathedral to the small building at the very end of the path.

They slowly made their way to the chapel, but rounding the corner to the right of the chapel came a hollow with a broken sword hilt. Pyrrha only somewhat felt cautious, the hollow being indistinguishable from the hollows too far gone to be any threat. Anri and Horace however went alert immediately, and Pyrrha found out why. The hollow proceeded to stab itself with the short sword, but then erupted in furious flame and shrieking at the top of its lungs, not in pain but as a battle cry. The hollow ran blindly forward as fast as it could, with Pyrrha being unprepared to ready her guard. She was pushed back by Anri, who readied his kite shield to block the hollow, who leaped and exploded, launching Pyrrha and Anri back into the rockface.

“ What in the world?” Pyrrha exclaimed.

Anri got up and looked around, finding several more hollows huddled and praying before an obelisk. “The denizens of this Cathedral, if not sacrifices to Aldrich, are ready to defend this place time and again if it means getting the blessing of the Deep.”

“ The Deep?”

Anri walked back silent and opened the doors to the chapel, moving forward to the bonfire which stood cold at the end, lighting it with his hand. “The Deep, as it’s been said, was a pure and peaceful place, ‘beyond human glen.’” he finally said, sitting by the bonfire, “but then it became corrupted by vile, outside forces, and a cabal of holy men were formed and tasked with preventing its spread, meeting here” he motioned about the room they were in, “in this place, the Cleansing Chapel.”

Pyrrha, who had taken a seat across Anri, had listened to this and pondered its meanings. “But Aldrich came and killed the holy men?”

“ No. Aldrich was one of them.” The news surprised Pyrrha, and Anri continued. “While he was powerful and intelligent, he called upon the powers of the Deep, in violation with the rest of the order, and in time, he corrupted them as well. Rather than stop the Deep, they worshipped it, with Aldrich as its patron saint. They have served him ever since, as Deacons of the Deep.” Through Pyrrha’s disbelief, Anri held his head as he continued, his voice becoming ever so slightly pained. “As his corruption grew, so did his hunger...and he hungered especially for human flesh. The more he ate, the more bloated and obese he became, until he dissolved and became nothing more than a mass of flesh that consumed all it came in contact with. And it still wasn’t enough. He needed more...so the Deacons... brought him more, much as they continue to do now.”

The story sickened Pyrrha, and caused her to cover her mouth as she gagged. Anri’s head was lowered, while Horace fidgeted with his weapon as he stood guard near the bonfire. After resting, the group got up and moved toward the exit, with Pyrrha glumly marching behind. But before Anri left the chapel, Pyrrha called out to him.

“ Um, Anri...how do you know all of this?” she asked, half wanting to be as respectful as possible given the subject, and half wary, almost to the point of not wanting to know the answer.

The latter feeling only increased with Anri’s response. “This isn’t the first time we’ve been to Lothric, to this place. But one way or the other...I want it to be the last.”

“ Hmmmm”

The entire party stopped in their tracks at Pyrrha’s urging. “That voice, is that-?” Pyrrha trailed off and looked around, eventually zeroing in on a well. “It can’t be…”

The voice did indeed call from the well, and it called out again. “Hello? Hello! Anyone there? Anyone at all?”

“ Siegward!” Pyrrha called out in relief at meeting her friend once again.

“ I know that voice. Ms. Nikos! How long has it been?”

“ I…” Pyrrha actually did not know, time seemed to move in circles in this world. She had no comprehension of how long she had been in this world even. She wasn’t about to let this worry her however, not now. “I’m not sure, but what’s going on? Why are you in a well?”

“ I’m loathe to admit it, but I’ve been had, someone’s swiped my armor. Have you seen it anywhere?”

“ What does it look like?” asked Anri.

Pyrrha looked back to him trying to find the right words. “Uhh, well, let’s just say you’d have known if you’ve seen it.” She turned back to Siegward. “I’m sorry, I haven’t. Do you need help out?”

“ Oh no, no, I’m perfectly capable of climbing out myself. It’s just that...well, hmm…”

“ Yes?”

“ Well I...don’t feel it’d be appropriate to fight against all of Lothric in nought but my underwear.”

Pyrrha paused for a beat and then caught herself before she could let out a chuckle. “I’m sorry, it’s just...it reminded me of someone, a boy I knew who wore a dress and danced with me to cheer me up.”

Anri and Horace’s heads snapped to Pyrrha when she heard that, with Horace tilting his head inquisitively.

“ He sounds like a braver man than I Ms. Nikos. But leaving without my armor is out of the question I’m afraid. I would be ever in your debt if you found it.”

“ I’ll keep an eye out for it.”

Pyrrha and the party began to walk away, with Anri keeping his view locked on the well until a certain distance.

“ Now, perhaps I can fashion an armor, perhaps out of rock…...no no, that would never work. I have to think!”

 They moved past the obelisk where the hollows prayed and walked up to a rusty gate that lead to a cemetery. Anri and Horace’s body language tensed as they stopped before it. “This cemetery is the best way into the Cathedral, but it is not empty. Once they begin to rise, we have to run.”

Anri then apprehensively opened the gate and they walked inside. Pyrrha felt a horrible, sinking feeling in her stomach as she scanned the graves piled in mounds around them. Not too far into the graveyard, a rustling came from behind them, prompting Pyrrha to look behind her. Out from the ground, a pale, emaciated hand pierced through the soil, followed by its owner, a gaunt, naked hollow that weakly scrambled from its place in the dirt. Then more sounds came, in front, near, behind, around them, moaning and nauseous gurgling of truly mindless and famished ghouls.

“ Move, now!”

Horace and Pyrrha obeyed Anri’s command, rushing and shoving past the horde of undead that had begun to rise and claw at them as they passed. Blitzing past and weaving through the paths in the graveyard they immediately stopped at seeing what was ahead: a sea of hollows packed together, blocking the path to the bridge that lead to the exit. Bracing themselves, they charged forward, killing and striking the undead in their way. But the ranks of the undead were too great and their advance slowed.

Pyrrha continued to slash and bash the undead away with her shield, but they soon began to grab her sword arm and ponytail, with other undead rising beneath her clinging to her legs, trying to pull her down. Frightened, she wrenched all of it away from them, the ponytail coming undone and hanging loose, but as she sped forward from the momentum, a hollow ahead of her rapidly turned around and hit her with enough force to knock her on her back. Looking up, she found herself staring at a face...with the face and the body it belonged to made entirely of various maggots and larvae, which squirmed and pulsated as it held its shape. Looking closer, the body appeared to be growing from the stomach of one of the dessicated hollows. She froze in shock, and several maggots fell from the body as it restrained her. Just as it raised its squirming arm to strike, a projectile hit and exploded on it and its ghoulish host, causing it to squirm and writhe and shriek in pain as a fire engulfed it.

“ Pyrrha!” Anri went to her side and lifted her up from her arm as he kept pace, with the three running all the way past the bridge. As she stopped to catch her breath however, she noticed what the maggots that fell on her were doing. Each one found a place on her skin and began gnawing and drilling, sending sharp, burning pain through her body and face that only increased, the maggots slowly tearing farther and farther through the epidermis. Pyrrha panicked and swiped at the maggots trying to get them off, but as she grabbed one it maintained its bite on her neck.

“ Horace, quickly! Pyrrha hold still” Anri instructed, and in a second, Horace took out and lit a torch before holding it close to Pyrrha, causing the maggots to fall off of her. Pyrrha began breathing heavily, still recovering from the flesh eating parasites that slowly started dying at her feet.

“ Those-those corpses…”

“ Sacrifices. Whatever is left of them becomes interred here, where those worms eat and grow in what’s left before manifesting themselves to kill larger prey.”

Pyrrha stared at Anri stunned before covering her mouth...and then her stomach, quickly moving to a railing to vomit over the edge. Anri and Horace looked to each other and shrugged their shoulders.

 The Cathedral looked more than abandoned, it looked much as an insect’s husk, long since discarded and left to the elements. The Cathedral itself was weathered and dusty, and the vegetation that had grown on it in the years since had died as well, seemingly long ago, leaving only rotted trunks and wispy branches. Despite its apparent decay, besides the occasional loose brick or tile displaced by vegetation or otherwise, the Cathedral was perfectly intact, with not a sign of it ever collapsing anytime soon.

In a disturbing way, the Cathedral, with its buttresses connecting the towers to the central building, reminded her of Beacon Academy, but the air and feeling of the place felt monolithic and unnatural in contrast to the green and inviting Beacon. Something terrible lurked beneath its surface.

“ We must move quickly, the wardens comb the cemetery to keep the numbers down, they could discover us.”

They strode through the stone stairs and landings, idly being watched by more of the former sacrifices that were on a platform below. They immediately hid when a figure walked by. They weren’t noticed as it continued, seemingly unused to actively searching for prey. The figure was long and slender, with the tell-tale skin of a walking corpse that was ubiquitous amongst the denizens of Lothric, its hands holding two long scimitars and wearing a hood. The warden effortlessly slaughtered the ghouls nearby, but then stopped to sniff into the air. After a tense moment, the warden shuffled off, and the trio left as the sound of the warden’s duties resumed.

The main gate of the Cathedral was locked shut, and no amount of strength could budge it. Anri however knew of another way into the Cathedral, through the upper floors by going through the architecture. They took a right and approached a tower overlooking a path through the roof and the buttresses that made up this section of the Cathedral, with wooden planks connecting the gaps where needed. “Used to be we had to jump across” Anri stated. In the tower, however, a hollow with a crossbow screeched out, causing a few hollows to come, including some that were hanging from the railings.

One hollow with a spear guarded the plank walkway while the one from the railing attacked. This one was immediately cut down by Pyrrha, but it distracted from another, who stabbed itself with the sword and burst into flame. This time Pyrrha was ready, and all 3 dodged away, but the crossbow hollow shot at Pyrrha while the spear struck at a nearby Anri, who knocked into Pyrrha, almost causing her to fall to her death below. Horace followed with body check that sent the hollow crumbling over the railing it was near to its fate. They quickly moved before the crossbow hollow could reload and found themselves on a roof with a buttress overhanging, with a stone parapet connected to the roof.

Going steadily to where the buttress hung over the roof, down from it came two of the same creatures from the Undead Settlement, the ones who had similar hoods to Greirat’s, with one wielding a hatchet and another with an impractical looking zweihander, both landing in front and behind the group. From the parapet came several other hollows. Horace charged toward the parapet hollows, kicking one off the railing before it finished climbing and spinning about to cleave his halberd through the others. The imp like creatures prepared to jump at Pyrrha and Anri, but the two sidestepped as they did, allowing the two to stab the ones that fell on their side. Behind them however, they heard a loud creaking sound, the door in the front having opened, with several sounds of hollows grunting and roaring with increasing loudness. Reinforcements, they surmised, and the party ran down to the buttress to the next part of the Cathedral, but midway through, they saw the landing was lined with crossbowmen, with a large, imposing hollow wielding a halberd behind them wearing clerical robes. The hollow lightly beat the shaft into the ground, prompting the archers to aim and fire. They blocked the swarm of bolts before continuing down. Just as they reached the end they had reloaded and prepared to fire, but Anri and Pyrrha managed to block before quickly ducking down to allow Horace to swing at several of the crossbowmen, killing several instantly, but this allowed the halberdier cleric to deliver a blow to Horace, knocking him down.

As Pyrrha and Anri readied to strike, the cleric retreated as quickly as it could. While it wasn’t fast at all, it managed to outrun them until it made it to a path leading to a stairway. By then, Pyrrha and Anri had caught up with the cleric and were about to attack before the cleric swung its halberd on the ground, forcing them to block. As they did, 3 imps fell to the ground to ambush them, allowing the cleric to escape. Anri immediately set to work on one imp that continuously dodged his attacks while Pyrrha stayed on the defense against two. However, one of them was wielding a zweihander, and Pyrrha was able to attack it in the time it took to swing, but was hit in the side by the other. Anri managed to kill the imp on his side, but from the door a fourth imp leaped into the air with a zweihander. It it attacked however, Horace had caught up with the rest and used his halberd to hit the imp mid air and use the momentum of the swing to cause the imp to overshoot its target and fly screaming off the Cathedral. The three continued to run after the cleric.

They ran up the stairs and found themselves in a narrow balcony, where the cleric was waiting with a squad of hollows standing behind it. As they moved closer, other hollows, previously slumped over on the pillars. The three went back to back anticipating their strike. The hollows attacked all at once, with 4 from the front and the 2 from the back. The ones from behind charged, with one getting knocked down from a shield bash by Pyrrha while Anri was holding back several hollows, who were clawing and pulling his shield to no avail, allowing Horace to kill them as they struggled. The rest of the hollows committed suicide and burst into flame, forcing them all to dodge, with Horace and Pyrrha unable to escape the fire and knocked down by the explosion. The cleric took notice and moved to attack Horace. Before it attacked it moved to Anri and began to swing. Anri moved to block, but the odd timing of the swing caused Anri to briefly lower his guard in confusion, knocking him into a wall. It then raised its halberd to finish Anri, but Pyrrha blocked the strike, causing her to get slightly crushed by the strike. The cleric attacking Anri drove Horace into a rage however, and he relentlessly swung and bashed at the cleric until it was on its back. With its final breath, the cleric finally spoke.

“ For...the Pontiff…”

The word caused Horace to scream into the high heavens and drive the halberd into the cleric’s chest, spraying profuse blood from the impact. Anri got up and gently put a hand on Horace, who briefly growled before relaxing, like a dog not expecting to be petted.

The looked to the double doors that lead to their destination. Anri went up to the doors and rested his hand on it. He hesitated however, and didn’t move a muscle.

“ Anri?” Pyrrha asked, confused as to his delay.

The prodding shook Anri out of his lull however, and with enough force, he opened the doors, and opened the way to the Cathedral, and the dark forces within.

 '''Author’s Note(s): Another one down to the wire, I really have to manage my time. I really hope (again) that it didn’t drag on too much near the end, but I do have plenty of exposition (some really juicy details people never really think or learn about when they do this area). Up next is probably one of my favorite bosses in the game. As for a certain trusty, mild-mannered, unbreakable, spidery character you may know and love, I have to see if it’s convenient to the level design in conjunction with the story, but he will appear in the story one way or another. As always, see you at the movies...I mean on Fridays at 12 PM PST.'''  