//------------------------------//
// At the belly of the Hidden Tower 
// Story: Sunset Shimmer - The Princess of Lordran 
// by ratedoni 
//------------------------------//

Picture the scene.

Lost among the empty hallways of a doomed city, there was a hidden stairway. One secretly placed there by an unknown power with no real purpose beyond more stairs, this time leading down and unlocking a secret tower away from every curious entity thanks to a door that had been locked. Not with just a key, but with strange powers that went all the way back to the beginning of the era, a testament that something deserved to be hidden, or at least it had some reason to why it was placed in such a place.

Now imagine how that hidden stairway would have looked after hundreds of years with no one coming in contact with such a place. Try to imagine how it may look after not only a whole civilization had been wiped out, but the degradation of such place. The sturdy blocks that made the rest of the tower truly showed the age of such a place. While the stone on top of the hidden tower showed some degradation, it was mostly due to being lived in, as in people constantly walking back and forth. That, alongside the strong winds that came with living in such a high place, contributed to the state of disrepair most walls and houses showed.

This place was different.

Huge chunks of stone had been torn out from most walls, but even then the place remained in one place, as if it was being held up by an invisible hand. Torches still continued to provide light on this inhospitable place with no sight of being burnt down. In fact, they still looked brand new, or at least they seemed that way since Sunset had no time to do a thorough investigation of the place. No, she hasn’t had time because as soon as they saw the reason for the tower, she has heard something unprecedented since she arrived at Lordran.

Madeleine of Astora was a woman of many mysteries and many stories, one that had received Sunset with kindness and offered her companionship, something she truly needed in a place as dead as this one. Never before have she heard her this worried, not even after telling the story of the doomed kingdom and what may have happened to the knight’s homeland. Now, in the presence of such fearsome power, Madeleine had sounded… maybe not scared, but definitely in awe at the monster they had found.

Since arriving at Lordran, Sunset Shimmer has grown used to the feeling of pain, to the feeling of dying, and it is not a pleasing feeling. Most of the time, this is just a nuisance, something that will disappear soon once she dies and comes back to life, or by sitting at the bonfire close to their new camp. But no matter the situation, Sunset Shimmer has grown used to pain, so an injury that might have made her scream before now merely slowed her down. So it was with this new resistance to pain that she was sent flying through the air just to crash and roll across the worn down stone floor.

Shaking her head to clear it, she quickly found out that there was something wrong and it had something to do with the way she had been sent flying. Landing on a heap against the stone had opened a gash on her head. It was certainly interesting to see that even if her body was dead, it still generated blood, because it was starting to flow freely from her head, falling through her face and obscuring her right eye. She tried to clear it, but it was useless. She was now blind from one eye for this fight.

Across the room, things were still bad since from the cloud of dust the battle had created, Sunset could see Madeleine and Havel fighting against each other. The agile knight, even with her full armor, was capable of dancing her way around Havel’s heavy curved hammer, but her weapon, the Winged Spear, wasn’t strong enough to so much as scratch Havel’s armor. What’s more, the armor alongside the huge tower shield made it impossible for the dark haired woman to find an angle in which to skewer Havel.

Sunset groaned, feeling the way in which her body complained at each movement, but this was nothing new since she had been thrown into this living, or undead, hell. Standing up once more, Sunset raised her axe and shield and with a mighty cry she jumped into the fray. Her attack did nothing beyond maybe shake the tower shield, Havel being too strong and heavy for her to be moved or staggered, but at least it allowed Madeleine time to fall back and try to find the perfect angle to attack the moving fortress.

Sunset understood that a drawn out duel against Havel will mean their doom. Yes, Sunset was undead and she will wake up once again, but Madeleine had said that Havel had been a bishop of the Way of White a long time ago, sorcerers that were capable of destroying undead. Who knew if she would be able to wake up again after facing Havel? But the most important part of all was that Madeleine was human. If she died, that would be it, and Sunset would find herself alone in this dark world.

Both warriors knew that they have to end the fight as quick as they could, hopefully with just one precise strike. Sunset would not be able to find the opportunity. Her weapon was slow and she was still too rough with it. No, this needed Madeleine’s training and experience with the piercing weapon to find the perfect place. And when Havel raised his weapon once more, Sunset knew she had found her opportunity.

Waiting for the perfect moment, Sunset knew that she would not be able to dodge it in time and blocking it would be useless considering the way she was sent through the air the last time she tried. No, this would need something else, another strategy, one that was more dangerous, but she found willing to gamble. Instead of stopping the attack, Sunset threw her shield to the ground and received the hit form the hammer right into her side. The redheaded undead felt how her ribs were shattered and soon felt the metallic taste of blood rushing into her mouth. She was sure that there had been internal damage beyond her ribs, but she didn’t have time to assess the situation, because just as she dug her heels into the ground and halted Havel’s movements, a spear went through her body and struck Havel at the place where the waist and chest armor separated.

Looking behind her, Sunset saw Madeleine wielding her spear and could do nothing but smile, knowing that the dark haired woman had found the chance to counter attack, even if it meant she had to go through Sunset.

As the knight retracted her spear, Sunset fell down alongside Havel, who injured, tried to regain his footing. Sadly, the armor that had protected him for so many years now worked against him. He lost his footing and fell backwards, where he could only struggle to get back into his feet. Thankfully, Madeleine never gave him a chance since she once more struck down, this time right between the helmet openings and a burst of blood flew upwards. Leaving the spear as it was, Madeleine quickly took hold of the heavy curved hammer that Havel had thrown aside when his face had been struck by the knight, and with a mighty swing, the head of Havel had been flattened under the weight of its weapon.

Sunset didn’t know how to feel. Yes, it was a fight for their survival, but even so, it just made her even more convinced that this was Hell on Earth, or at least the closest she will get to it. And that was what went through her head as Sunset once more died.