Chapter
5
The sound of the door closing behind them echoed through the empty house. “Hello?” Twilight tested lightly shouting into her home. There was no reply. “I guess no one’s home.”
“Did you expect anyone to be here?” Trixie asked, a moderate tone of sarcasm in her voice.
Twilight chose to ignore her tone and answered “Not really but it’s always good to double check.” She made the last k sound much harder than usual to emphasize her point. “Anyways, since no one’s home I’ll go get the X-Box. Make yourself at home.”
Twilight left the room and Trixie made her way over to the couch. The once well lit living room that she had been in this morning was now casted in shadows that loomed everywhere. Cracks of light in the parts in the blinds glowed like embers of light in the dark times. Trixie sighed as she relaxed and began to sink into the couch.
Trixie’s relaxation was disrupted by a noise coming from down the hall. A couple of the cords Twilight had been carrying had hit the doorframe to her room. Trixie stood up to offer her help but figured that Twilight had a handle on her magic and was porbley able to carry the cords and console without assistance. “Ok!” Twilight shouted happily as the cords and system flew across the room and hooked themselves into the TV. “We’re all set.”
The system powered on with a ding and a circle on the face of the console lit up. Twilight searched hastily for the TV remote. Once she found it she quickly hit the power button and instantly the room filled with light from the screen. On the homepage sat a large picture of a burning suit of arming crushing ash in one hand; a sword in his other, held at his side. Large text said “Dark Souls III”.
“Why not start with the first?” Trixie pondered.
“I want to give you a more forgiving experience.” Twilight said, a mischievous grin on her face.
“Duly noted.” Trixie stated cautiously.
The game started up and all was silent again for a moment. That didn’t last long however as soon after the logos disappeared the room exploded with sound as chanting emanated from the speakers. Twilight calmly reached for another remote and turned the volume down. Trixie calmly uncurled from the ball she had pulled herself into. “Why on earth is that so loud?!” Trixie yelled.
“Surround sound is fantastic but not if you’re not used to having it blast like that.” Twilight said and then added to herself how did she volume even get turned to one-hundred ten.
Twilight tossed Trixie the controller. “All menus are controlled with the d-pad.” Was all she said.
Trixie selected new game and sat through the opening cutscene with slight interest and was dropped into a character customization menu. “There’s so much here.” She said in amazement.
“From Software usually does a good job with building extremely in depth character creators.” Twilight stated matter of factly.
Trixie didn’t reply as she was absorbed deep within the character creator. Screen after screen flashed before them as a plethora of seemingly hasty decisions we’re made and menus were discarded. Before Twilight even had a moment to speak they were back at the first screen looking at much different player model.
“What just happened?” Twilight asked slightly dazed and holding a hand to her forehead.
“Illusion to speed up your perception of time. Character customization menus are only really interesting if you’re the one in control.” Trixie stated matter of factly as she proceeded to name the character after herself.
“So how much time did we lose?” Twilight asked frantically.
“I don’t know. I didn’t check.”Trixie said pointedly.
“Oh Goddess!” Twilight shouted, grabbing Trixie by the shoulders. “What if we’re late. We can’t be late! You’re the performer! Oh n-” Twilight was abruptly cut off by a magic aura holding her mouth shut.
“Calm down I just checked the time we lost thirty minutes it’s around six twenty. We don’t have to leave until eight thirty.” Trixie deadpanned. “Great because of your panic I missed the opening cutscene.” She crossed her arms frustratedly.
Twilight shook her head to ground herself. “Ok. Since you missed the game doing it welcome to The Cemetery of Ashes. As far lore goes this place is really important. If you pay attention later it’ll be kin-”
Trixie cut her off “What is my motive. I like story but right now I see a thing and I want it dead.” She preceded to snarl uncharacteristically.
“Oh…” Twilight laughed awkwardly. ”So your motive is to get to Firelink Shrine. Which is just the other side of The Cemetery here.” Trixie nodded. “And in order to make this go a little faster I’ll give you a basic run on the controls.” Twilight proceeded to give a brief but highly detailed overview of the game’s less than simple control scheme.
Trixie tried out each individual control and after said “Ok. I think I’ve got a hold on this.” She stared intently at the screen as her character of the same name ran toward it’s first of many unfortunate victims. She performed an expert slash with her mail breaker and three hits later the enemy was no more.
It was here that twilight chose to interject. “In the bottom right you’ll see a number appear and increase every time you kill something. This the amount of souls you have and it will help you level up. Of course you ca-”
Trixie cut her off again as she ordered her character to move forward. “Look this is nice playing a game with someone and I like Legend of Zelda. But Navi doesn’t really add to an enjoyable experience. If ya’ catch my drift.”
“Oh.” Twilight looked slightly hurt but it wasn’t anything that wouldn’t clear up quickly.
Trixie decided however that it was time to attempt some damage control. “Look a Fey or a Gumshoe is okay but don’t become the next Roll.”
Twilight smiled. “I have no idea what those references were but I’ll assume they were compliments.” Twilight glanced over at screen and upon seeing where Trixie was gasped and put her hand on the magician’s shoulder.
“Ok. Sooooo I’m assuming I need to do something here.” Trixie said a hint of disappointment in her tone.
“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” Twilight sounded like a dog about to be given a bone. “Make a right down that dark pathway.”
“Uh-huh. Ya’ know usually the only time you see go in and dark pathway in the same sentence is when the word don’t is put in front of the statement.” Trixie said mildly confused. Twilight only and made hand movements to usher her forward. “Eh, Screw it. You’ve done this before.” Trixie ushered her character to the right. The water forced her to roll repeatedly as to keep a good pace.
She rose from the water and arrived in a large dimly lit cavern. There wasn’t really much to the area aside from a large crystal formation against the back wall and a small white orb. Twilight interjected once more. “That orb is an item, go get it may prove useful.”
Trixie decided she better not argue and moved towards the orb. As she approached she heard a snoring sound. She looked around, the only thing near her was the crystal formation. She moved inches closer to the orb. She heard the ticking of claws on rock. Trixie once again turned to the right but this time she saw no crystal formation. In its place stood a lizard nearly triple the size of her character. “The hell...is…that?”
“Nothing much, just a ravenous crystal lizard.” Twilight said nonchalantly.
“And you didn’t think to tell me.” Trixie shouted as she mashed the B button. This did nothing more than roll dodge around the room. This caused the camera to be nearly impossible to follow. “Don’t help me or anything!?”
“Oh! Right, You have two options you can grab the item and die.” Twilight stated.
“AND!?” Trixie said impatiently.
“Or run and come back for the item later. The choice is yours.” Twilight stated dramatically.
Trixie processed the options for a brief second and then immediately backed out and ran out of the cavern and out of The Cemetery. She reached the spotted the first bonfire, and instead of letting Twilight interrupt the user experience yet again, she clicked the button that allowed her to read the developers note on the ground in front of it:
Rest at bonfire: Restore HP and Estus supply
“Ok so what is Estus? And yes Twilight you can answer.” Trixie clarified.
“Your healing item.” Twilight stated quickly almost as she’d been holding her breath.
“Oh. So you mean all that crap you made me waste fighting a lizard.” Trixie gave Twilight a pointed look before lighting the fire. She exited the menu and her player stood up.
“Move forward there will be a gate, a statue, and a door you need to open in order to proceed.” Twilight directed.
“Sounds simple enough.” Trixie pushed forward the occasional monster left dead in her wake.
“You’re not half bad.” Twilight quipped as Trixie walked into a large circular area with a large tree to one side and a statue of a warrior at its heart.
Trixie proceeded to the door on the other side of the vaguely arena-like area. It gave her no prompt to open it. She moved back passing by the statue in the process, it gave her a prompt:
Remove Sword
Twilight’s giddy look only increased as Trixie chose to comply with the prompt and remove the sword.
For a moment all was still as Trixie waited for something to happen. Then with great effort the statue came to life and ripped the halberd at its side from the ground. That shot shards of rock flying from the ground and knocked over Trixie’s character while she was still in awe at what lay before her. “Attack it!” Twilight shouted.
Trixie snapped out of her confusion and rolled back to a safe distance and launched a heavy soul arrow at the beast. It hit and took a chunk of health but made little difference overall. Having seen what her magic could due Trixie charged in a made several faint slashes at the behemoth’s legs. She once again feigned back and charged a spell. “Seems like wash,rinse,repeat with this guy.” Trixie said simply. Several moments the beast hit half health and it froze. Trixie took advantage of the moment and ran in slashing at his legs. Trixie let out a triumphant howl as she landed hit after hit sending her foe’s health plummeting.
Only seconds did her enemy falter before a black substance rose from his back and turned solid on top of him and turned into a dragon? “What the FUCK is that?!” Trixie shouted.
“Ya’ know I’m on new game plus three and still can’t make heads or tails of that gunk. It possesses dragons late game but it’s really weak to fire. Hilariously so.” Twilight chuckled as she recalled the first time she’d thrown a fire bomb that stuff.
“Ok so I guess I’ll just repeat the same strategy as befo-” She never got a chance to see if that would work, as her player was instantly smashed by a giant branch-like hand. “Well shit. That was not my plan.”
“Welcome to Dark Souls. An unforgiving and harsh landscape where only the strongest survive.” Twilight dramatised. “Anyhow with your welcoming done, I actually need to get something done in-game real quick.”
“I didn’t even kill it and you’re gonna take control.” Trixie crossed her arms. “One more shot.” She finished as she moved back toward the boss arena.
“Sure.” Twilight said as Trixie’s avatar stepped into the arena for the second time. “So what’s different is kno-” She then remembered what she’d been told and quickly stopped talking.
Twilight watched in awe as Trixie slashed the boss’ health bar in what she considered to be record time. The boss’ transformation weant smoothly and after it finished it proceeded to vault across the field. The boss thrashed around seemingly aimless as Trixie stayed safe at the back launching spells. After a while she couldn’t use her magic anymore “What’s going on here?!” Trixie started to panic equipping her mail breaker and running in close for melee.
“Well since you’re gonna kill it anyways I’ll tell while your hack slashing at the boss. You have the life estus, or you know the little orange bottles you’re chugging away at. Well if you hit down on your d-pad it switches what you have equipped to a blue version of the same flask. It refills the blue bar that keeps the magic flowing.” Twilight droned in a voice recognized as impression of some tutorial.
“That would’ve been nice to know earlier!” Trixie said starting to get frustrated. This subsided quickly as the boss fell to the ground. The reward of a coiled sword was bestowed upon Trixie and a message reading ember restored. “Wooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! And what is an ember?” Trixie shouted happily with only mild confusion showing in the latter half of her exclamation.
“It extends your available health, stamina, and magic. It stays that way until you die.” Twilight explained simply.
“Neat.” Trixie began to exit the arena but Twilight stopped her.
“Every boss drops a bonfire and remember I get to play now.” Twilight smirked as Trixie grudgingly handed over the controller. She proceeded to log Trixie out and waded through handful of menus to get back to the load game option on the title screen. “Ok Sunset Satin let’s get this done.”
A set of loading screens greeted this statement and after few moments Twilight was dropped into the world of the game. She was in large cathedral hall with vaulted ceilings and paths that lined the upper portion of the room. Twilight began moving forward and the small archway opened to reveal a beautiful sky pale with the moon’s colour. The air looked cold and the ground seemed to be coated in ice and snow. The beauty presented to Trixie on screen captivated her and she nearly lost herself in the false snow.
Twilight saw how Trixie reacted and jerked the camera to get her attention. “Mesmerising, isn’t it. Welcome to Irithyll, of The Boreal Valley. A beautiful capital twisted and distorted by the Pontiff’s power.”
“It’s almost like it’s real.” Trixie shook herself out of a daze and regained her composure.” So two questions.”
“Shoot.” Twilight replied pushing her character onward through the cold air.
“So what are you about to do?” Trixie inquired.
“A marriage ritual with an NPC to prove my worthiness as lord of hollows.” Twilight spouted cheerily.
“Ok so now I have even more questions. But I assume those will be answered later.” Twilight nodded in assurance. “So next question, what’s with the name of your avatar?”
“Uh… I uhh... I’d rather not answer that.” Twilight shifted uncomfortably.
Trixie made a mental to look into that further when she had more information. Meanwhile Twilight’s character ran past giant metal soldiers holding weapons the likes of which made Trixie vow never to see what kind of damage they inflicted.
Eventually Twilight stumbled into a large room filled with oversized statues of knights of a long forgotten order. “Welcome to The Darkmoon Tomb. This is where the most honoured of The Darkmoon Knights were laid to rest.” Trixie sighed. “But they’re history would bore you so check this shit out!” Twilight moved to the wall on the right of the circular room. She charged an attack and slashed at the statue. It disappeared leaving a gaping archway with a hallway of even more statues.
“Ok. So that was pretty cool.” Trixie agreed.
Twilight moved forward and interacted with an odd looking NPC. Trixie knew Twilight wanted to hear the dialogue but her questions remained. “What is that thing?” Trixie whispered.
“Pilgrim.” Twilight responded. “Time?”
“Eight twenty we have forty minutes till the show starts.” Trixie said reassuringly.
“The key word is starts.” Twilight said starting to worry they’d be late.
“I’m a magician we’re never late.” Trixie smirked.
Twilight reached the end of the hall and panned the camera down slightly as to see the flower petals and light cloth that covered the ground. The moonlight filtered in through a massive stain glass window at the back of the tomb.
The mood was destroyed as the front door was kicked open. There was a loud shout as heavy footsteps hit the tile in the front room. “Well Howdy there Twi and uhh... Trixie right.” Applejack stated as Trixie nodded in approval.
Twilight and Trixie turned to face Applejack. She was holding Rarity bridle style. Rarity kicked a leg out and waved to Twilight and Trixie. “Evening darlings.”
Twilight set the the controller down and in the process bumped the action button initiating a cut scene. “What has you two in such a good mood?” Twilight asked.
Applejack started to answer but Rarity took it upon herself to make it a statement. “Applejack love if you would please set me down. I’d like to say this if you wouldn’t mind. Would you?”
“Ah’ gu-” Applejack started but was cut off abruptly.
Sounds of sword cutting through flesh startled everyone in the room. Twilight turned to face the TV. “Damn. Looks like I missed my character’s wedding. I’ll look up the cutscene later.” Twilight sighed heavily. “Continue please.”
“Ok, anyways.” Rarity inhaled deeply and shouted “APPLEJACK PROPOSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”