Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-14138255-20170320024103/@comment-14138255-20170324185434

Here's the next chapter of Dark Souls III: The Invincible Girl.

Chapter 2: Cemetery of Ash

‘It’s too cold to be Vacuo’ Pyrrha mused, trying to occupy her mind after all that has happened. ‘Too warm to be Atlas, certainly, and I don’t recall…,’ Pyrrha shuddered, ‘...ghouls being in Anima’s countryside. Am I still in Vale?’ The thought brought her mind back to what had happened before she got here, and to her teammates that she left behind as she walked along the dark path that was the cemetery. ‘I wonder if they’re alright, how they must feel. They must have evacuated, Beacon wasn’t safe last time I checked, the teachers would have forced them to.... Do they know I’m not dead?’

Her thoughts were interrupted when she saw something in the distance. One of the creatures was at the fountain rustling something about...an armored figure!

“Hey!” Pyrrha yelled as she rushed in to help.

The ghoul had stopped its thrashing and came at Pyrrha, but was quickly taken down by a few quick slashes. While not as traumatizing as the first time, Pyrrha still was not used to fighting figures like them to the death, especially when they fell to the ground with a wet thud, not dissolving like The Grimm would. She forced her eyes to the body the ghoul was fiddling with. The body had an elaborate and well crafted suit of armor, but it was clear that it had died a long time ago. Pyrrha even wiped away a thick layer of dust from the helmet as she saw it.

No help to be had of him, she sighed defeated, but noticed it gripping a glass with blue fluid, similar to the gold one she had. She wrenched it from its grasp, the flask being cold to the touch.

Up two flasks but no answers, she pocketed this one as well and kept exploring the cemetery. She noticed a figure leaning against a wall. She approached but discovered it was one of the ghouls from before. However, it didn’t attack her, despite being closer than any of the others, and instead kept to its own despair. Pyrrha, feeling a twang of pity, opted not to disturb the creature, and continued through the marsh the path lead to.

But upon doing so, a ghoul got up from where it was sitting further down the marsh and charged at her. Pyrrha raised her sword, but the ghoul from behind her grabbed her hand, Pyrrha only just managing to block the first ghoul’s swing, causing it to glance off and send the ghoul off-balance. Preoccupied by her two opponents, she failed to notice a third ghoul rising from its spot on the stone floor, shooting her in the shoulder with a flaming bolt from its crossbow. Pyrrha let out a cry of pain as the fire from the bolt seared the muscle it sank into. She threw off the ghoul behind her and killed it with a slash of her sword, focusing again on the 2nd ghoul, which charged and jumped at her with its broken sword. Raised her shield to block and bashed the ghoul away, causing it to fall to the ground. The 3rd ghoul had reloaded and fired, but Pyrrha was able to raise her shield to block the bolt, after which she charged at the crossbowman and defeated him. The 2nd ghoul was still alive though, and with its broken sword slashed just as she turned around, hitting her stomach. Pyrrha cried in pain, but retaliated with a swing of her sword, instantly killing the ghoul.

Pyrrha panted, trying to take stock of what had just occurred when she winced at the pain the crossbow bolt, still in her shoulder, gave her, as well as the pain in her abdomen. She took the bolt, closed her eyes, and grit her teeth as she pulled it out, nursing the wound after doing so. She limped forward, still holding the wound received from the bolt. She left through a mouth in the grave’s canyon, moving up an incline that overlooked a large mountain range, their peaks brimming in snow, and to the side was...a wall? She looked at the construction and then followed it up, gasping in surprise as she saw a truly huge castle, bigger than even Beacon Academy, covered in so many towers and parapets, overlooking the entire region.

Mouth agape, slowly she turned around and kept walking. Eventually, she came across a sword, sticking out from the ground with ash and dust surrounding it. Curious, she approached it and reached out to take it, but the sword suddenly burst into flame, sending audibly fierce plumes of fire up into the air, causing Pyrrha to step back in shock. After the brief explosion, the fire reduced in size, surrounding the blade sticking in the ground. Pyrrha slowly approached it, and getting closer she knelt down and placed her hands over this impromptu bonfire, enjoying the warmth after having been so cold in the cemetery, and suddenly she couldn’t feel the pain from her wounds.

The safety of the fire and her mind no longer focusing on the pain, she began to question her surroundings, such as the enormous citadel behind her. She didn’t recall any such building existing outside of the kingdoms, not to such an impressive degree, with defensive parapets made (mostly) vestigial by the addition of aesthetically pleasing spires. Whatever the castle was built for, it must have been built in a safer time. She looked around at the gray crags of the dark cemetery. ‘Safer than this’ Pyrrha thought, recalling the ghoulish creatures that had attacked her.

Ghouls, roaming a graveyard in the fog, as an ominous castle looked over everything. It sounded like a scary story, told to children to prevent them from wandering into dangerous places. Except these creatures weren’t shadowy monsters, they almost looked like the bodies of human beings.

‘Could these really be people?’

The bonfire relaxed her however, lifting her spirits after what had been a very confusing and taxing day. By this fire, Pyrrha felt at peace.

Author’s Notes: This will be one of the shorter chapters in this story (since the Cemetery is a tutorial level pretty much), but since you’re reading this right now, that must mean you haven’t ditched the story, so that’s good. To make sure Cemetery doesn’t drag on, I’m posting the 3rd chapter tomorrow.