//------------------------------//
// Continuing the Search 
// Story: Dark Souls 2: Rarity's Trials 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
//------------------------------//

The first thing Rartiy and Edric did after resting at the bonfire they had discovered, and finding that enemies didn't come out and attack them, was to access the teleport function of the flames and moved back to Majula, where they could use up the souls they had acquired so far and possibly upgrade Edric's gear some more. Sure, they were only able to empower one or two skills this time, though that told Rarity that to really increase their powers they needed more souls, which seemed to connect with what they had been told so far. At the same time Edric discovered that he didn't need to actually upgrade his weapon and shield while they were there, so when he was done with the blacksmith the duo returned to the bonfire and jumped back over to the Lost Bastille... though upon their arrival they immediately began searching for the next route they needed to take.

What they decided to do, between climbing down the ladder and using the stairs that were nearby, was walk over to the stairs that rested on the other side of the room, passed through the passage that was in front of them, and opened a door to reveal another walkway they could use to access another part of the ancient fortress. When they walked out of the passage they found a hollowed warrior approaching them from the left, to which Edric raised his shield and blocked the attack, before driving his blade into his opponent's chest. The warrior refused to die from such a simple wound and continued his attack, causing Edric to defend himself as he pulled back, though Rarity surprised him by knocking the warrior back with her Force spell... which allowed them to take their opponent out together.

From there they entered the small tower that was right behind them and moved towards the other entrance that it had, where they repeated the same tactic they used against the previous hollowed warrior on the warrior that happened to be waiting outside the second entrance. Once they had dealt with him the two of them walked back into the tower and climbed the stairs that they had ignored when they first entered the structure, though after a few seconds they arrived in a chamber that looked like a wine cellar. There was one of the zombie like enemies hanging around in this chamber, one that was easily defeated because it didn't notice that they were there until Edric stabbed it in the chest, though as Rarity approached the iron gate she heard Edric open a door behind them... but when she asked about it he said that it led right to a wall that had a person's skeleton embedded in the stone, to which they focused on the gate she had walked up to.

As they pulled the lever that would open the gate Rarity spotted that there was a second gate blocking their way, though beyond that she noticed a trio of the zombie enemies patiently waiting for the gate to open... to which she pulled out her chime and started channeling her energy through it. When the gates were open, and the zombies finally noticed that they were gone, Rarity opened fire and loosed one of her Emit Force spells at the closest enemy, before using a second one to knock out the zombie next to the first one. Since she didn't have time to fire a third blast, and take out the last zombie, she and Edric jumped backwards as the zombie threw itself at the floor, though once the smoke cleared Edric moved forward and cut their opponent down... allowing them to enter the area it and it's friends had been guarding.

Rarity noticed that the chamber the trio of zombies had been guarding happened to have what appeared to be clay statues, or this world's equivalent to them, resting in the middle of the room, though as they passed by them one of them broke and revealed the zombie that had been trapped inside it. Edric quickly put the zombie down, without breaking any more of the statues, though once the deed had been done they walked up the nearby set of stairs and walked up to another floor that had two zombies sitting on the ground. For a moment Rarity thought that they looked depressed, that they had lost the will to live with their undead states, to which she and Edric quickly took them down before they could get up and attack them... to which Rarity looked over at her companion.

"Hopefully neither of us end up like those two," Rarity commented, though at the same time she could only imagine the horrors that awaited someone that gave up on their quest, just like those two zombies had done.

"If either of us reach that point we'd be better off killing each other," Edric replied, though his tone indicated that he despised that idea with a passion, to which Rarity nodded as he beckoned to the stairs that rested nearby.

When they walked up the stairs they found four more zombies, these ones looking like they wanted to fight someone, standing around the floor that they had discovered, to which they immediately retreated to a point where Rarity could fire off several of her Emit Force charges without getting hurt in return. Once they had finished off all of their enemies the duo walked back up the stairs and explored what little of the chamber they could explore, as there happened to be a statue of a person, reminding Rarity of Discord's seemingly lifelike statue for a moment, resting between them and the next bonfire... preventing them from resting and forcing them to move on with their quest.

The cell next to the one with the bonfire was locked, which meant that they must have missed a path they could hae taken, to which Rarity nearly slapped her forehead when she saw a lever resting on the wall near the iron gate they had ignored when they returned to the floor beneath them. With the gate out of the way they were able to walk out onto a walkway that was really large enough for one person to walk ahead of another one, so Edric took up position in the front and raised his shield as Rarity walked behind him. It was fortunate that they had planned this out, as the moment they reached the halfway point, between the building they had been searching and the one in front of them, hollowed archers started loosing arrows at them... though they only seemed to be aiming and Edric at the moment.

When they entered the building in front of them, and got out of the archers' range, they were surprised by a warrior jumping down to fight them, though Edric quickly dispatched their foe and allowed them to move on towards the opening on the wall to their right... provided they avoid the ruined center of the room that they were in, as it looked like a pretty nasty fall if they were pushed over the edge. Once they were outside the building again they discovered that they could go either to the left or to the right, though they decided to see what was above them and climbed the ladder that was to their immediate right... where they found a bonfire at the top, as well as what appeared to be a large gargoyle in the distance, flapping its wings and flying around part of the fortress they hadn't been in yet.

"If I had to guess on what that creature is, I'd say that its one the Belfry Gargoyles that Shalquoir told us about," Rarity commented, staring at the creature as it flew around the area it was guarding, while at the same time wondering how she and Edric were going to get over there.

"I'd say that you're right in your thinking," Edric replied, as he knew that Rarity and Shalquoir had some sort of bond going on and that talking with the cat was increasing Rarity's ability to point things about, something that she had been good at before talking with the mysterious being, before he activated the bonfire, "Come on, we still need to find the way to the Lost Sinner and standing around will get us nowhere."

They returned to the ladder and climbed back down to the level they had been on earlier, to which they followed the other path and killed the hollowed warriors that were in our way, before entering the floor beneath the entrance and found an elevator waiting for them. The two of them shared a look with each other before they climbed onto the elevator platform and lowered themselves into the abyss below them, where they eventually reached an area that appeared to be underground in some fashion. When they climbed off the platform, however, the elevator rose back into the air and trapped them down here, which meant that they needed to find a bonfire or die to the creatures that called this place home before they could leave.

Since they had no choice in the matter they carefully approached the area in front of them and found that they would have to wade through some water before they reached the other side of the chamber they were in, while at the same time finding a large creature of some kind that was clearly not happy to see them. The aberration charged at them almost immediately, though when Rarity stuck it with a Lightning Spear she discovered that it was only phased by her attack and not absolutely damaged like she had done to the other enemies she had used the spell against. Now that she had discovered that lightning wasn't going to work against such a creature she jumped backwards and let Edric focus on the enemy in front of them... though that was before she noticed a few more aberrations approaching them from the opening she was standing near.

Rarity sighed and threw an Emit Force charge into the face of her target, but at the same time she knew that with three of these enemies, who shrugged off the lightning like it was nothing, they were going to be hard pressed to defeat them without dying in the process. That was, of course, followed by one of the aberrations slamming into her when she dodged the attack of the one she had been focusing on, which also involved pinning her down against the floor with its large tail. Before she even had a chance to get back up the aberration raised its hands into the air and crushed her under the water, though as she faded away she could hear the sounds of Edric fighting the other two aberrations... before she completely faded away and her body disappeared from where she had died.

As she woke up near the bonfire that they had found at the top of the building the archers had been guarding, however, she simply sat against the wall and waited for Edric to return, while at the same time frowning at her decaying skin and the rotting color that accompanied it.

"I hope we finish this quest soon," Rarity said, mostly talking to herself this time around, since Edric hadn't appeared near the bonfire yet, though at the same time she sighed as she glanced up at the sky above her, "because I'm getting tired of dying and assuming this form over and over again."

Unfortunately she knew that death was a part of this world and that she was going to have to suffer a lot more before she and Edric reached their end goal... though at the same time she hoped that she could survive that long without going completely insane from dying so many times.