The age of fire is at its end.
More and more get cursed with the Darksign and lose their sanity, only to life forever as mindless husks.
Those who are branded with the accursed Darksign are called the Undead, and they get carried of to the Undead Asylum, a prison of cold stone far, far away from all of civilization located upon a lone mountain.
There are no guards, for there are only the insane hollows there and those who will be insane before long.
No one can escape from the asylum, because none are able to climb down from this peak, because the wings of those who should be able to fly lose all their feathers, because the horns of those who should be able to use magic turn into nothing but dead bone.
Those cursed souls will spend the rest of eternity in this cold, damp prison.
This is your fate.
Fluttershy.
Fluttershy awoke to the sound of something soft hitting stone.
She opened her eyes in surprise and looked up. There, over the small opening in the ceiling, stood an armored pony, its face covered by a helmet.
It looked at her for a few moments in silence, observing her as she pressed herself against the wall, and turned away.
"Um... Sir Knight?" asked Fluttershy in her usual meek voice. When nothing happened she tried to fly to the opening, only to be once again reminded of the fact that her wings were featherless and incapable of flight.
The pegasus called out to the knightpony once again, but received no answer. Disheartened she looked down and it was only then that she saw the source of the noise which woke her up.
She, predictably upon seeing the withered corpse of a pony, instantly started screaming.
And then she fainted.
Dead, unfocused eyes stared at her. No matter how much she tried, she could not find any kind of emotion in them. Slowly, the hollow pony wielding them advanced, its movement sluggish at first. Them it suddenly tried to pounce her, broken sword held in his mouth with more skill then it had any right to.
It should have scared, startled and shocked her. It should have caused her to panic, make her scream, flinch, cower or freeze up.
It did not. And deep down, that fact scared her more than anything else.
Clutching the handle of her sword in her mouth, she slashed at the hollow once, and caught it right in the throat before its leap ended.
Even though she knew she could do something like this, it had not stopped to surprise her. By all means she should be absolutely unable to do a move like this, but once she learned to stop hesitating, it became fairly easy to deal with them.
She chuckled sadly to herself. Who knew that it would only that a few hours for her to stop caring about taking another beings life.
As she reached the top of the stairs she had been walking up after killing another hollow that tried to assault her by leaping down the stairs, she stopped her musings to quickly kill the axe wielding hollow who had overextended itself. Barely evading the firebomb thrown at her. she circled another hollow, this one very annoying with its ranged attacks. A sharp thrust that had surprising range later, this one to died a swift death before falling over the edge of the cliff.
'Who knew that all it needed for me to become a killer was to die a couple of times. Dying hurts.'
Yes, the pegasus had learned the first rule of lordran the painful way. But once she accepted that everything in this world would try to kill her. She made considerably more progress
Fluttershy looked up another set of stairs and saw one more dead looking pony advance. This one tried to jump her. She blocked this one with her metal-encased wing, then cut it across the chest twice to end its life.
She did not look back when she ascended the stairs, and her only thought when entering the aqueduct like structure was a sarcastic note about how she used her wings more often now that they were useless.
Just left of the entry into the murky aqueduct lurked a gigantic rat, but it scurried away once I became aware of her presence.
Fluttershy proceeded right without another glance, after making sure it would not follow her.
Agony was the first thing she felt.
Never before had she felt pain on this magnitude. It blinded and numbed her while still burning hotter an brighter that anything she ever encountered.
Then, as sudden as it came, it was gone.
The pegasus gasped and opened her eyes, only to stare a the grey clouded sky above the ruins of the asylum. She was back at the bonfire, she realized. It was the first place she rested since she escaped the cell.
Fluttershy shuddered at the thought of that cell… and the corpse in it. She had only barely managed to get the key from it and escaping the room after blacking out once and throwing up. She couldn't even truly remember the way out of the building after that.
The only thing she remembered where the whimpering forms of other ponies, mostly earth ponies, who kept writhing in despair and staring unseeing ahead no matter how much she tried to talk to them.
But she had escaped the tunnels, and emerged into something like a courtyard. And in the middle of this open an bright place lay a small bonfire. Until then Fluttershy hadn't even realized how cold she felt.
Her rest at the bonfire had been long and refreshing, but the underlying tension and depression of this place remained.
Therefore she decided to move on, there was no other option and the hope of escaping the asylum and seeing her friends again motivated her.
The last thing she remembered before the pain was a giant monstrosity wielding a huge club that fell from the ceiling of the next room, how she cowered before it in the hope of not getting harmed by it and lastly the sound of something big being swung through the air very fast.
Then came pain.
And now she was back again. In the courtyard, at the bonfire. The pain was already a dream like memory, as it became harder to remember it with every second.
But something had changed. She could feel the pressure of this place more clearly now.
She knew that was a bad sign. She had to get out of this place, as fast as possible.
Getting past the demon was no easy task. Being as huge as it was, it wasn't very fast. But it didn't need to be fast, for it had and incredibly range with that club it wielded. And every time she died she woke up at the bonfire. And every time the tension she felt grew stronger.
She only managed to get by the demon by staying outside of the range of its club long enough to spot the doorway on the left to sprint through it and escape.
The door shut itself after her, but it wasn't like she wanted to go back.
There was another bonfire down here, and after resting by it a bit she decided to continue with escaping the asylum. After all, it couldn't be as bad as the demon in the hall, right?
An arrow in the flank proved her wrong, though it didn't hurt that much. And she found a shield like metal device designed to be strapped on her wings to protect her. And once she found a sword on the corpse of another unfortunate pony, that mean bow wielding, dead looking, zombie like pony wasn't that much of a problem anymore. The pressure prevented her from feeling something as her sword sliced its flesh apart and ended a life.
Had she been in a better state of mind, she would have noticed how she was almost controlled by someone else while wielding the sword.
The next surprise came in the form of a big ball of iron that came rolling down a set of stairs towards her.
She only barely managed to evade it by jumping to the right. Which meant she fell down the stairs she had just climbed up.
Surprisingly, the ball crushed the wall it hit, and revealed the chamber beyond it. Inside, she found the knightpony from before again, but he was dying.
He started to talk when she approached him. "Oh, its you again. I see you managed it to get out of your cell." HE took deep breath.
"We are both undead, you know? The sign on your flank proves it. But there is hope. An old saying of my family speaks about the curse, and how to cure it. 'To those who bear the sign of the undead. Thou have to ring the Bell of Awakening and a path shall be shown.' I know its not much but it is all there is. I even know where this bell is! Its in Lordran, the land of the ancient lords." A couple of violent coughs interrupted him.
I don't have much time left. Here take those. They won't help me anymore.
He gave her an estus flask and told her how to use it, and also gave her the keys to the upper part of the asylum.
So she ascended the stairs and dispatched the hollow there. But as she advanced, another one hiding behind a corner surprised her and landed a hit. And again, the wound only made her flinch once before the pain receded to nothing but a faint throbbing, although more noticeable now. She readied her armored wings and waited for it to strike again. But to her shock, the first pony was joined by another one. As they both sluggishly advanced, she had to force herself to not look away and to keep up her guard. Finally, the first one attacked her with a rather clumsy swing of his broken sword which was harmlessly deflected by her shield. Seeing that the second one was still a few steps away, the yellow pony took a drawn out stab at the unbalanced first one. Her sword pierced cleanly through its chest and sunk nearly hilt deep into the poor pony's body. She hastily drew back her sword and prepared for her second enemy.
Similar to the last one, it took a wild swing at her that was deflected by her shield, but as she lowered her guard to attack she was meet with a vicious flurry of blows from her adversary. It took three hits before she managed to use the force of the blows to back away, and even though it was no longer hitting anything, the undead pony continued to slash at the air. With the help of the adrenalin coursing through her body she attacked it brutally once it stopped. It did not need many hits to down it.
It was only then that she noticed that the throbbing in her body had increased drastically, and also that she was very tired. The tiredness surprisingly was gone a few seconds later and remembering what the knightpony told her she took a swig out of the estus flask, noticing that is was only filled to about one fourth, which amounted to about five swigs in total. As she swallowed the strange liquid, she instantly felt it literally washing away the throbbing until it was barely noticeable.
Refreshed, Fluttershy continued forward and cautiously perked around the corned, mentally waiting for even more crazed ponies to attack her. Her caution was rewarded with an arrow that was blocked by her ready shield. After the more annoying that dangerous bowpony was defeated, the pegasus found herself faced with two options.
In front of her continued the path to the other side of the building. She did not know what would await her there, but her instincts told her that it was probably only more crazy pony trying to kill her.
To her left however, was a tall doorway filled with white fog. If her sense of direction was correct, this should lead directly above the room with the demon. While she tried to think of a way to use this knowledge, she noticed that there was a note carved into the stone steps before the archway. Curiously she looked closer and tried to read it. After managing to decipher the crude letters, she read on how an attack with the help of gravity directly on top of the demon should help her weaken it immensely.
She took a few steps back from the foggate and thought about her options. Overcoming the demon would probably have some kind of reward, but she feared it grotesque form and deadly club.
So she scouted the other way. It was a dead end, guarded by an armored undead pony.
Back before the foggate, Fluttershy readied herself and stepped through the gate.
She was now standing upon a short ledge above the demons hall, and more importantly directly above the demon itself.
Taking a deep breath to gather her courage, she readied the blade in her mouth and took a short jump forward.
As she fell headfirst towards her foe, she jerked her head to the side so that the tip of her blade pointed towards it.
She hit it dead on. Her blade effortlessly penetrated its skull and sunk it to the hilt. It had also been a good idea to use her forelegs to soften the blow on her neck.
A second later, the demon let out an unworldly scream. The pegasus worked fast, forcefully dislodging her sword out of its head an then using its back to slide down to safety. However she did not stop there and ran forward a few steps, away from the demon. Only the she turned to face it again and not a second to late as she had barely the time to lift her armored wings to block the overhead smash of the demons club.
Even though it had only been a glancing blow, the force behind it shoved her back several feet and sent tremors through her whole body. Only now she could really focus upon it and for the first time actually take in its appearance.
It was a bipedal being similar to spike, only as big a house. Its skin was more leathery than scaly and colored in a dirty blue at its sides and back while its front was a light gray. There was also a set of rather tiny bat-like wings on its back. Fluttershy only then noticed that its lower body was far larger then its upper body. The head was a gross mixture of horns and teeth. And of course, it was wielding a gigantic hammer like club with a head almost as large a her.
All in all, it was gross.
So she charged it. When it tired to smash her head in, she quickly jumped to the right and continued behind it. There she took the time to strike the monstrosity a few times, only to jump forward and further around it when it tried a shoving like attack to reach behind it. The mare managed to land a few more hits before the beast used it wings to fly a few feet into the air and she had to take a few quick steps back since she did not want to be crushed by it.
Once it landed, Fluttershy dashed right through its legs, turned and delivered a vicious series of strikes to its right leg, finishing with another powerful stab that pierced through the appendage completely.
The demon let out a cry of agony before it fell to its knees, then suddenly shattering like it was made out of glass. All that remained was a big key, obviously made for the big gate the demon had been guarding.
As she went outside, she felt a surge of hope coursing through her veins.
But all it took to crush it was an enormous crow that appeared out of nowhere, grabbed her with its claws and took of to the cloudy skies. So began her journey through lordran.
A/N:
A few notes:
1. This is a crossover with the GAME Dark Souls, not the LORE of Dark Souls.
2. I am not a native English speaker. Advance with caution.
3. When it comes to ffs, I think of canon as clay that I can from freely. (However the quality of the results are another thing.)
4. The rather fast change in the main character is necessary the get progress in this story.
5. To anyone who wants to say something like: "It is impossible to use weapons with the mouth!"
To you I say: Okami. Sif. Pinkie Pie.
Edit: Ok, fixed the boss scene, and nearly doubled the length of this chapter. I now feel a lot better about this. There are still a few other things I wan to fix but I need to sleep.
Edit: Polished the rest.
Edit: polished some more. Moved the A/N to the bottom.
