//------------------------------//
// Jolly Cooperation 
// Story: Dark Souls 2: Rarity's Trials 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
//------------------------------//

As Rarity and Edric walked away from where Pate was sitting, Rarity found herself focusing less on the knight that had killed them and found that her attention was on the strange white stone that they had been given. They had been told that the stone would allow them to leave signs for other Undead to see, where they might be called upon by someone and offer them their assistance, or they might be able to call upon additional allies if they needed help on something. Pate didn't explain everything he knew about the white stone, or maybe he couldn't tell them everything if he actually didn't know anything else, but Rarity assumed that, in time, she and Edric would understand the importance of the white stone. She could also tell that her companion was thinking about the stone as well, because Edric was being a little silent at the moment, but she followed his lead anyway.

The two of them retraced their steps towards the ladder they had climbed down, returned to the walkway that wrapped around the area the terrifying knight had been in, before they turned towards the hole in the wall and approached the bonfire... where Edric sat down in front of the fire, to which Rarity followed his lead and sat across from him.

"So, what's our next move?" Rarity asked, though at the same time she pulled out the spell page she had discovered earlier and took a look at it, finding that by simply reading the words she understood how to use the spell in battle, granting her a second spell to use while they were in combat.

"I'm thinking that we leave a sign near the bonfire and see what happens," Edric replied, to which he held up the white stone they had been given and studied it, though it was plainly clear that the two of them were interested in what the stone could do, "If a few minutes pass, and none of the other Undead have reached out for aid, we'll get up and resume our quest for the four Great Souls that the Emerald Herald asked us to find."

For a moment Rarity had to wonder what sort of creatures were guarding the four Great Souls, because if they were anything like the knight they had fallen to then the two of them were in for a world of pain, though she could tell that Edric was wondering the same thing. She silently wished that the Emerald Herald could have told them something, anything, about one of the creatures that were guarding the souls they needed, because it would have been nice to have a little warning about them before they discovered where they were hiding. A few seconds later Rarity heard the sound of Edric moving, to which she lifted her head up and watched as her companion pressed the white stone close to the floor... though when he started writing she noticed a strange set of words appear just above the floor, covered in a glowing aura of some kind.

It took her a moment to realize that she was staring at the sign that Edric had created, one that would allow the other Undead to summon the two of them, though not a few seconds later her companion returned to the bonfire... where they would wait for a few minutes before they determined whether using it again would be beneficial to them or not. Rarity decided to spend her time getting used to the idea that she had two spells now, instead of just one, and silently debated when she should use the smaller Soul Arrows and when she should use the Great Soul Arrows, as the Great ones had a more limited usage at the moment. After some time she could tell that Edric was getting ready to get up and erase the sign, so they could move on with their own quest, though as he stood up, however, Rarity felt a slight magical tug and quickly discovered that she wasn't the only one who had felt that.

The two of them closed their eyes as the world around them faded away for a few seconds, though when they opened their eyes again they found themselves rising out of where Edric had placed the sign on the ground... though the two of them were now merely phantoms of their former selves, and they happened to be surrounded by a white glow. It took Rarity and Edric a moment to understand that this is what happened when an Undead was summoned from their world and was pulled into the world of another Undead. With that in mind they found that the Undead that had summoned them was actually a warrior like Edric, only this one was female and she seemed ready to take care of business... and Rarity could see that the warrior had slightly red colored hair.

When Rarity opened her mouth, to say hello to the other warrior, she found that she couldn't open her mouth, meaning that phantoms were't supposed to talk and discovered that Edric had quickly discovered the same thing... which meant that they had no way of warning the female warrior about anything, or anyone, that she might encounter.

"Listen up, the two of you are going to help me search this ruin for any powerful creatures," the female warrior said, surprising Rarity by the fact that they could hear the lady talk, while at the same time not being able to say anything to her in return, "hopefully one of those enemies will be carrying one of the four Great Souls I was tasked with finding. Come on, let's move out and get the show on the road."

Rarity and Edric, unable to actually verbally reply to the female warrior, simply nodded their heads and followed her lead, even though her first action was to activate the bonfire and restock her flask, which she had apparently used before finding this place. Once that was done she turned to the ladder and immediately started to climb down it, to which Rarity and Edric followed after her before the enemies below them managed to do any lasting harm. Considering that they were following the same path once more, and that they already knew what to expect, Edric walked along side the female warrior while Rarity walked behind them, allowing her to focus her spells on enemies that were coming up behind them or were trying to attack them from afar.

As they touched the floor the seemingly dead corpses rose from their slumber and attacked the group, which was what Rarity and Edric were expecting, though at the same time they discovered that their new leader wasn't too shaken by the discovery. They then turned into the chamber on their left, dispatched the hollow that was guarding the area, and passed through the fog door that would allow them to access the area that Rarity and Edric had bene through already. The female warrior didn't seem too interested in the enemies on their right and preferred to pass them, though Rarity made a mental note to check that area out at some point, just in case they had missed something important.

As they walked onto the upper walkway, however, dread started to fill Rarity as she noticed that the female warrior was staring at the same ladder she had been staring at earlier, the one that had gotten her and Edric killed, though she immediately started waving her hands in an effort to stop the other warrior from going up there. Not even a few seconds later Edric stopped her and shook his head, indicating that they had no control over where their leader wanted to go and that they were simply here for the ride. Rarity eventually decided that her companion was right and watched as the female warrior climbed up the ladder, though that was followed by the large bird swooping into the area and dropping the knight into the area he preferred to fight in.

"Come on up you two," their leader said, though Rarity could tell that the female warrior was more interested in the knight than the two people she had summoned, "this is going to be an interesting fight."

Rarity mentally moaned as she climbed the ladder and stood on the warrior's left, though as she looked at the large knight all she could remember was how quickly he had moved, in all that armor no less, and how quickly he had put her down. When Edric had decided to use the white stone this wasn't what she had in mind, because right now she knew that they had no chance at beating this particular knight in battle, not without more training and some quicker reflexes. Edric climbed up the ladder and stood beside on the warrior's right, though once he was in place both he and Rarity moved to the side, finding that the knight was more focused on the female warrior than the two of them.

When the large knight charged forward and brought his weapon down on the female warrior, however, the warrior saw it coming and jumped to the right, allowing the blade to collide with the floor for a moment... though it was that exact moment that they were waiting for, as the warrior and Edric attacked the knight's backside with their weapons as Rarity used the Great Soul Arrow to do some extra damage. Before Rarity could even begin to hope for a victory the knight got up and turned towards his opponents, to which he raised his left arm into the air and slammed the shield on the ground, smacking the female warrior into the ground. Edric charged forward to attack the knight, and get him off their leader, but the knight gripped his shield and slammed it into Edric's own shield, knocking him backwards for a moment, though that was quickly followed by the knight bringing the edge of his blade own on where Edric was standing... cutting a diagonal gash into his phantom body.

Rarity continued to fire more spells into the knight's back, knowing that sooner or later he was going to get annoyed and come after her, which meant that the moment she was the knight's focus she was going to die, but that didn't stop her from trying to beat him. Unfortunately the fight didn't go on for much longer, as the female warrior foolishly attacked the knight while he was focused on Edric, right after missing another attack, so she was then turned into the knight's focus... which resulted in the knight delivering a deep diagonal gash to the warrior's chest, before piercing her heart in the same fashion that Rarity had suffered. All Rarity and Edric could do was watch as the life faded from the female warrior's eyes, before the knight tossed her to the ground like a piece of trash, though with their leader dead the two of them were released from this world and everything went black again.

Not a few seconds later they found themselves standing near their bonfire, back in their original slightly dead looking bodies, to which they sat down again and stared at the fire, allowing themselves to relax as they recovered from what they had just seen.

"Well, that was... enlightening," Rarity commented, though at the same time she felt sorry for the female warrior that had called upon their aid, because if she hadn't challenged the knight they might have actually discovered something useful so they could move on in this area.

"It was definitely an interesting experience," Edric said, though he repeated his earlier movements, to which he left another sign and returned to the bonfire, before he looked up at Rarity, "We'll try this white stone out a few more times and see if we can go anywhere else in this ruin, otherwise we'll stop relying on others and search the area for ourselves."

"Hopefully the next person doesn't decide to fight that terrible knight," Rarity replied, knowing that the lure of the ladder being guarded by a hollow would be too much for some people to bare, meaning that they would want to see why that was even happening, and then death would come for them.

The duo barely had a minute of relaxation before they were summoned again, though this time their leader was a male mage that clearly had the same idea as the female warrior from earlier, find great opponents and take them out. As they followed their new leader Rarity and Edric discovered that they still gained soul points from the enemies they helped take out and didn't lose any when they failed to help out whoever had summoned them, allowing them to increase how many souls they each had. Based on what they discovered Rarity determined that they could potentially die while helping someone and not lose any of the souls they had acquired, though succeeding in their 'duty' would likely give them some sort of reward.

As the mage lead the way the duo determined that he wouldn't care about the ladder and that they would be able to avoid it completely... though their hopes were dashed as the mage climbed the ladder, let the knight drop into the arena, and faced him without waiting for the two of them to join him. As a result Rarity and Edric eventually returned to their bonfire, as the mage had been crushed by the terrifying knight before they had a chance to even help him out, to which Rarity sighed as she watched Edric place the sign down once more. She was beginning to suspect that this was a bad idea, as they were getting nowhere fast and they were simply wasting time, but Edric determined that there had to be another Undead out there that wouldn't listen to the siren song of that blasted ladder... to which Rarity simply sat next to the bonfire and waited to see what happened next.

The next person that summoned them was someone that looked like a wanderer of some kind, or at least they did in Rarity's eyes thanks to the armor the person was wearing, though their third leader was carrying two blades with her. Fortunately this leader seemed to be much smarter than the previous two, as she was clever enough to ignore the ladder, meaning that she had either come this way before and restored herself in order to see the signs, or this was her first time through the area and she didn't care much for the empty area. Unfortunately their adventure came to a sudden stop when one of the bomb throwing hollows tossed a bomb behind the wanderer, which happened to land near all the explosive crates, and blew her to pieces... causing Rarity and Edric to sigh as they returned to their world once more.

"I guess that wanderer didn't bother resting at the bonfire before she summoned us," Rarity said, as that was the only reason the poor person would have been torn apart by the explosion, which meant that she wasn't rested enough and had missed the bomb thrower.

"I would have to agree with you," Edric said, nodding his head in agreement, though at the same time he placed the sign on the ground once more before he returned to the bonfire, "We'll try this one more time, though if the same thing happens, and our leader dies within a few minutes of us being summoned, we'll resume our own quest and try this again in a different area."

Only a minute passed before they were summoned again, though when they appeared near the bonfire of their new leader, however, they discovered that the person that had called upon them was the female warrior from earlier, who must have restored her humanity or something to use their sign again.

"Listen, I know we got off on the wrong foot earlier, but I've found out something interesting," the female warrior said, to which both Rarity and Edric raised their eyebrows, because that was all they could do at the moment, "that knight we were fighting doesn't appear in the area that the bird drops him off in, meaning that we can go back there and not have to worry about fighting him again. We're free to explore the rest of the ruins and find the other strong creatures that call this place home... and I intend to take one of them down."

Rarity and Edric nodded and followed their leader, to which she lead them through the opening in the wall behind her, which meant that she had used the explosives to open the shortcut, where she and Edric focused on the enemies on the level below them while Rarity threw a Soul Arrow at the bomb thrower and took him out. Once the group of foes had been taken care of they approached the ladder and went down into the lower area, where the female warrior apparently knew about the ballista that were in the chamber on their right, though she did wait for the hollows to launch their volley before attacking them in return. When they cleared that area out they turned towards the pathway that Rarity and Edric hadn't gone down, which happened to be the path that had a large armored enemy standing in their way... along with two archers staring down at them.

As the warrior and Edric engaged the armored enemy Rarity stood back and focused her fire on the archers, who actually noticed her and tried to put her down with their arrows and bombs, but in the end she managed to shoot the two of them down and turn her attention to their true enemy... though she was in time to see the two warriors finish off the armored enemy.

The moment the armored enemy was taken care of the group walked through the doorway that he had been guarding and found themselves in a large corridor, which had part of one wall collapsed, though at the same time they began searching for the next path they needed to take. They turned to the left of the door they had walked through and found two hollows guarding a door, which meant that they had found the way forward, to which their leader and Edric held the attention of their enemies while Rarity shot at them. When the two enemies were laying dead on the ground they advanced into the chamber that they had been guarding, where they wandered around the immediate area. Rarity, who walked into a small room on the right, found a hollow that was pretending to be dead and little else, though when she rejoined the others she discovered that they had found an elevator of sorts that could taken them down into the depths of the ruined fortress.

The three of them stood around the center of the elevator and rode it down to wherever it was taking them, though when it stopped they found themselves at the end of a passage that would take them right up to a fog door, to which they carefully approached the mysterious area... where they took out another hollow, who was hidden in a locked doorway to their left, before they stopped in front of the fog door.

When they walked through the fog door, however, Rarity's eyes widened as she looked at the creature that was resting in front of them, because it was a large creature that had a gray skin color and appeared to be hunched over at the moment. The creature, which Rarity was sure had to be one of the giants that they had heard rumors about, had a large number of swords sticking out of his back, indicating that whoever he had been fighting had pierced the giant's body with every bladed weapon they possessed. The giant's chest was also pierced by a large stone pillar, while one of its arms was trapped under some rubble and the other was stuck on a large spike of some sort... though as the trio approached the giant it's head started to move, to which Rarity discovered that its head was round and consisted of a large hole, one that screamed at them when it noticed that they were there.

The moment the giant screamed it pulled itself back and shattered the pillar that it was impaled on, leaving a good chuck sticking out of its back, before it tugged on its right arm and pulled it out of the rubble. Once that arm was free the giant focused on freeing his left hand, to which the creature simply yanked its hand in its direction and freed it almost immediately... though once it was free the giant charged at the trio.

Instead of allowing the giant to hit them the trio separated from each other, though while the leader and Edric focused on dodging the giant's hands, while at the same time hacking at it's feet, Rarity put some distance between them and used her spells. She decided to target the giant's head, though she purposely waited for the creature to be standing still before she cast one of her Great Soul Arrows at it, which might have annoyed it... but she found it hard to read a creature's emotions when they had no face. They all had to be careful when the giant chose to jump backwards and refocus on who it wanted to kill first, though Rarity had to sweat when it targeted her, causing her to jump away before it could actually hurt her.

At one point the giant stood still and started tugging on his left arm, though when he pulled his arm free, and started using it like a club, the trio carefully analyzed the situation before they continued their attack... repeating the same movements they had gone through earlier. Since there were three of them, and the giant could only focus on one of them at a time, they were able to do some serious damage to the giant without anyone actually getting hurt for once. The fight came to a rather sudden end when the giant staggered for a moment, which wasn't one of his movements, before he collapsed on the ground and stopped moving... and Rarity confirmed that for herself, after she and Edric got some souls for their efforts.

"How that's what I'm talking about!" the female warrior said, thrusting her sword into the air for a moment, though that was before she collected the giant's soul and what appeared to be a key of some sort, to which she turned towards the duo, "Thanks for your assistance. If the two of you ever need assistance with your quest, and something tells me you might depending on what else is ahead of us, then feel free to call upon me for assistance... oh, and my name is Lucille, so you know which sign to look out for."

Rarity and Edric nodded their heads before they faded out of Lucille's world, though a few moments later they reappeared near their bonfire with a smile on both of their faces, as they had found a decent warrior in Lucille and had been rewarded for their work. One of those perks, besides the souls they earned, was they had been restored to how they had been before that large knight had killed them, telling Rarity that a possible way to reverse their hollowing would be to offer their assistance to another Undead until they had returned to normal. Rarity was overjoyed to be back to normal, or as normal as she could be thanks to the curse that she was afflicted with, but at least she knew that the effects of hollowing were easier to reverse than she originally believed.

Despite that knowledge, and the location of another creature they could take out, Rarity knew that sooner or later they would have to face that knight again... and she wasn't looking forward to that, especially after what happened the first time they had encountered each other.