//------------------------------//
// Undead Crypt 
// Story: Dark Souls 2: Rarity's Trials 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
//------------------------------//

Rarity and Edric walked through the short cave that was connected to the cavern like area where the demonic frog creature had been resting, where they walked out onto a stone walkway that would allow them to walk up to another set of ruins, to which the two of them sighed as they headed towards it. Fortunately there weren't any enemies in the area this time around, as Rarity was actually tired of the empowered priestesses that they had fought through to get to this point, though when they rounded the corner they spotted a closed door at the point where the ruins touched the rock wall. Edric was the first one to approach the door, where he carefully opened the way for them to access another elevator, one that also took them even deeper into the earth. That, of course, caused Rarity to wonder just how deep they needed to go before they found a path that took them back to the surface, though they patiently waited for the elevator to stop as it traveled down the shaft that had been carved into the earth around them.

A minute or two later the elevator reached the lowest level, where both Rarity and Edric discovered that the path in front of them would take them to what appeared to be a crypt or something similar... though as they got a full view of the entrance, however, the duo discovered that the fire monstrosity they had encountered earlier had returned, causing them to approach the creature.

"I believe we've been acquainted." the creature said, speaking to them the moment they approached it, though at the same time Rarity remembered what she had felt the last time they spoke to the creature and wondered what it was going to say this time around, "Young Hollows, conquerors of fear. What drives you so, to overcome this supposed curse?"

"Our families," Edric replied, as he was fighting to cure himself so he could go back to his loving wife, while Rarity was doing the same so she could return to her sister and the rest of her family.

"Life is brilliant. Beautiful. It enchants us, to the point of obsession." the creature stated, as if it enjoyed the answer that Edric had offered, while at the same time the duo made sure to be ready, as there was no telling what the creature might do, "Some are true to their purpose, though they are but shells, flesh and mind. One man lost his own body, but lingered on, as a head. Others chase the charms of love, however elusive. What is it that drives you?"

"Like Edric said, our loved ones are what drives us," Rarity answered, though she was beginning to think that the creature didn't care and was trying to get them to say something that would spell their doom.

"Once, the Lord of Light banished Dark, and all that stemmed from humanity." the creature explained, to which Rarity and Edric looked at each other, as they weren't sure what the creature was talking about, before turning to face him once more, "And men assumed a fleeting form. These are the roots of our world. Men are props on the stage of life, and no matter how tender, how exquisite... A lie will remain a lie. Young Hollows, knowing this, do you still desire peace?"

"Peace is worth fighting for, but so is our families!" Edric insisted, though he wondered if the creature was paying attention to them at all, or if it was ignoring them in the hopes that they would stop what they were doing.

"Vendrick, the near-true monarch, is here, and not far off." the creature told them, though it made no movements as it started to sink into the floor, indicating that it was leaving like it had the last time they spoke with it, "But what is a king? You, neither born with greatness, nor granted it by the fates. What is it that you seek? You cannot even say yourself. We shall meet again, young Hollow."

It took Rarity a moment to realize that the creature was talking to Edric in that instant and was completely ignoring her, though she simply remained silent as the two of them watched the creature disappear and the area darkened again, returning it to how it had been before his arrival.

Instead of walking up the stairs immediately Edric headed towards the left of the stairs and found an area below it that housed a bonfire, one that he and Rarity rested at for a few seconds, to recover their strength from all of the enemies they had encountered in the previous area. Once the two of them were rested they returned to the front of the stairs and started walking up them, where they passed through a short hallway and entered a larger room, though Rarity wasn't too surprised by the fact that it was slightly darker in this area than anywhere else they had been. A positive side effect about the lower amount of lights was that she had more shadows to work with, if she could learn how to manipulate more than her own shadow at will, but she kept that thought to herself as they pressed onward, searching for enemies and whatever they were looking for.

For the briefest of moments she actually wondered if King Vendrick was down here, which would be weird, but until they knew for sure she also kept that to herself, as she would prefer to meet the King while he was alive and not contend with a hollowed version of him... which would no doubt be stronger than anything else she and Edric had fought so far.

The first foe that they discovered looked like a hollow, and the duo was sure that it was one, to which Edric cut it down before it could do anything against them, putting out the torch that it had been carrying in the process, before another one stepped through the doorway they were planning on heading through. At the same time, however, Rarity saw a magic user in the distance weaving a dark based spell together, which told her that if these guys had a weakness it wasn't going to be darkness this time around. She was happy to find that out, since she was getting sick and tired of almost everything having a weakness she could exploit in some manner, but instead of allowing the spell to hit them she snapped a barrier up and let it take the attack. The duo waited for a few seconds as a third hollow walked up the steps to reach where they were standing, where Rarity opened the barrier enough for Edric to deal the finishing blow, before the two of them moved forward again.

When they stepped into the area that the magic user was in Rarity immediately discovered that he was being backed by two more magic users, while at the same time discovering that they could also use the Lightning Spear spell and the Chaos Storm spell, in addition to the Dark Hail they had been throwing at the barrier to get them to come out. For a moment she considered how best to take these enemies out, before she recalled a spell, in the number of pages that Shalquoir had given her, that was called Profound Still. According to what she remembered it was a hex that was designed to make enemy magic users unable to use their spells for some time, though the reason she hadn't thought about this spell in the previous area was because the priestesses were too close together and she wasn't sure that she would have been able to cast the spell with a dozen enemies following after her. She decided to take a chance and moved into the middle of the three magic users, though as they turned to face her she loosed a wave of dark energy around her, almost like a small vortex of some kind... though it had the effect that she wanted, as none of the trio could use their magic against her and Edric.

With that deed done the two of them quickly dispatched the trio of magic users and walked up the stairs that were in front of them, to which they came to another room, but this time around it appeared to be more empty than the first ones they had walked through.

"Halt." a voice said, to which the duo stopped where they were standing and looked around for the source, though Rarity fought it when she glanced up at the area that was above their heads, indicating that someone was carefully watching them, "Humans, do not produce light. Light, and all those who bear it, are unwelcome in this place."

Rarity, thanks to her new abilities with Dark Magic, could see the path up to where the mysterious man was standing, to which she carefully led Edric to the stairs and stopped at the top when she saw two guards standing there, but since they weren't aggressive she moved on... allowing her and Edric to approach the person who had spoken to them.

"I am Agdayne. Guardian of the crypt." the man said, knowing that they came to learn about him before they moved onward, as those that carried light were swiftly destroyed and those that came with darkness were always curious about who he was, "Countless dead rest here in peace. Cradled by the comfort of dark. Light only agitates. We have no need for it here. I am a Fenito. We weave death, and watch over the dead. This task was granted to me by the one who gave us the first death. Countless souls rest here. Some of them from ages long ago. Some were rich, others poor. Some wise, some dull, but now, they are all just dead."

"Well, it is very nice to meet you Agdayne," Rarity replied, as she was happy to find out that the man she had seen wasn't as aggressive as the enemies they already encountered in this crypt, before moving a hand towards herself and Edric, "I am Rarity, and this is my friend Edric."

"Did you come for him? The one called Vendrick." Agdayne asked, causing the duo to stare at him for a moment before they nodded their heads, which caused him to do the same for a second, "You will find him deeper inside. Many castle servants and the like have come to fetch their lord. But they rest here now, put to death by the King's own guards. Perhaps he's not in the mood for company."

"Well, we'll have to change his mind," Edric stated, as they didn't come this far to be stopped by the King's guards, especially since they were both after the cure that would rid them of the Curse.

Rarity bid farewell to Agdayne and followed Edric as they walked through the opening that was on the other side of the room, from the one they walked through anyway, and came out near some stairs that took them to a bridge, where two knights were waiting for them. Fortunately the duo already knew how to deal with these sorts of enemies and waited until they were on the bridge to do so, letting the corpses fall into the abyss below them as they continued towards the other side of the bridge. From there they approached the fog door that was in front of them and wondered if they were actually going to face a powerful creature this soon, though instead of worrying about that they pressed their hands against the fog and pushed through it... where they gained access to what appeared to be a room full of rocks that could potentially be grave markers, while at the same time Rarity sensed that something was close to where the two of them were standing.

They carefully made their way to the left of the entrance, avoiding the stones as they went, and found an opening that had a bonfire in the middle of a decent sized room, though since they didn't actually need to rest yet they simply activated it and continued onward.

As they approached the only open doorway that they could take at the moment, which was to the right of where the fog door had been, they both walked right by what could have been a stone statue, though as they did so a ghost of some kind, looking like a wraith from some of the stories Rarity had heard. The undead creature had a sword in it's right hand and a circular shield in it's left hand, indicating that it was likely a guardian for something and that they had accidentally awoken it. Fortunately for them the wraith was rather easy to take down, as two swings of Edric's sword cut what was left of it's life apart, though they both knew the creature would come back when they rested at the next bonfire, since that seemed to be a common thing in this world. Rarity was still slightly surprised by that fact, though the good part about it was that the powerful creatures didn't come back, but the only exception to that was the Pursuer, since there appeared to be more than one of those knights roaming the land.

The door they were heading towards brought them to another chamber with some rocks inside it, though while Edric headed for the stairs Rarity locked onto the magic user that was hanging in the area above them and blasted it with a Lightning Spear, though she heard the thud of it hitting the floor as she caught up. From there they entered another room, where a red spirit attacked them, though this one appeared to be a warrior like many of the others the duo had fought on their way to this point, and was slightly stronger than their past foes. The only real difference between this spirit and the other ones was that this one was slightly faster with it's swings, something that Edric parried with his shield while Rarity attacked the spirit from behind with some Soul Arrows. With their abilities combined the duo was able to stop the red spirit in it's tracks and send it back to whatever world it had come from, allowing them to enter the passage that it had been guarding the entire time.

As they walked down the passage, however, they found what appeared to be a wall blocking their way, though Rarity sensed movement behind the wall and Edric attacked it with his sword, to which they discovered two tall knights, using large metallic shields that could have been mistaken for a metallic wall, that wanted them dead. At first it appeared that fighting them normally, with a sword like Edric was doing at the moment, was going to be impossible since they reacted fast to the attack, but they were slow when it came to blocking magic. Fortunately Rarity was becoming quicker when it came to discovering when she needed to use her magic and when she didn't, unfortunately she always resorted to the lowest powered form of the Lightning Spear, which tore through the defenses of her target... while also creating an opening for Edric to take out the other knight.

When the second knight fell the duo barely paid attention to the ghosts that were sticking out of the walls, as their upper bodies were out in the open and were trying to hit the duo with their weapons, but for the moment they weren't a concern for Rarity and Edric... though when they jumped into the hole in the floor, which was at the end of the passage, they found themselves in a chamber that had an alarming number of stone coffins. Unfortunately as they landed on the floor a hollow ran into one of the paths they could take and the sound of a bell could be heard, to which more of the wraiths started to emerge from the coffins around them. Rarity, thinking fast, spotted one pathway that was different from the others and had Edric head towards it immediately, while she stayed put for the moment and gathered some of her power into another spell that she hadn't used yet... one that resembled a ball and loosed a large number of lightning blasts at the enemies around the caster.

While the ball was in the air Rarity followed after Edric as the wraiths started getting hurt by her attack, though fortunately they didn't chase the duo down the path they had selected and, in addition to the luck they had so far, they discovered a lever on their left, which was up some stairs, that connected where they were to the bridge they had crossed over a few minutes ago. They then advanced into the larger chamber that the path had led them to, where they discovered that the only enemies in this area were a group of eight knights that were standing before another fog door, though this time around both Rarity and Edric knew that a powerful creature had to be lurking behind the sinister fog. Instead of heading forward immediately, like any reasonable adventurer would do, the duo jumped off the side of the stairs that they were standing on and found a hollow that was getting ready to ring the bell in front of him... to which Edric beat him to the punch and cut the poor soul down, preventing it from raising more wraiths to fight them.

Rarity soon discovered that these knights were going to put up more of a fight than the ones in Drangleic Castle, but that excited her a little, especially since she was growing bored of constantly figuring out the weaknesses of their enemies before killing them in seconds. Actually hurling different elemental attacks at her opponents, usually when they were done defending from Edric's attacks, made her smile as the two of them pulled a few knights forward and fought them, though they used this tactic since they didn't want to fight all of them at the same time. Despite the fact that Rarity's magic could level all of the knights if she used one of the stronger spells in her new arsenal, like she did with the Royal Rat Vanguard, she knew that this wasn't the time to be wasting her energy in such a manner... not unless she really needed to do so, which wasn't the case since she and Edric carefully cut their way through their foes to get at the fog door.

Once all of the knights were dealt with, and Rarity had healed the few wounds that they had gotten with a healing spell, the two of them advanced through the fog door... where they found a large knight kneeling in front of a second fog door. The knight remained that way for a few seconds until he seemed to sense their presence, since his head turned in their direction a tiny bit, before he pulled himself up into a standing position and turned around to face them, while at the same time raising his large mace like weapon up until the handle was resting on his shoulder. Both Rarity and Edric thought that this fight was going to be a cakewalk, especially after all of the other powerful creatures they had fought, but the knight's mace packed quite the punch as he slammed it into Edric and knocked him into the wall... before kicking Rarity back and smashed her underneath his weapon.

Fortunately the two were merely dazed and slightly wounded from that attack, though this told them that their new opponent was faster than their prior opponents and that they needed to be careful, least he actually smash them under the weight of his hammer.

In response to the knight's first attack Edric rushed forward and swung his weapon at the larger knight, who jumped back to avoid the hit, only to receive a Lightning Spear to the chest, which knocked him into the wall behind him while Rarity grinned. As she had discovered many creatures in this land were weak to magic, and the vast majority of their foes were really weak against lightning based attacks, which was why she opted for this spell the first time around, instead of testing the water and firing at will. Of course she fully expected the knight to get back up and challenge them again, it would have been disappointing if he died in one attack, but what surprised her was the fact that the knight got up and staggered for a moment, revealing that he had been hit by the attack, but he was ready to continue the fight. Rarity was positive that lightning was this knight's weakness, but she guessed it was possible that the knight had more ability to not feel pain and was going to keep coming at them.

The second Lightning Spear that hit the knight, however, confirmed something for Rarity; lightning was the knight's weakness, though he was clearly fighting the damage she had done to him in an effort to kill the two of them before they could find out what happened to King Vendrick.

Unfortunately the wounds seemed to do little to slow the knight down, as he was faster than the duo was and could hit them with an extreme amount of force, though that didn't stop them from making sure that they kept their eyes on him and attacked him when he was open. About the only way to seriously inflict damage on him, and make it count, was for Edric to attack him and force him backwards, right into the Lightning Spear or other lightning based attack that Rarity had prepared. If the knight were to dodge that attack Edric would be ready to deliver a powerful slash of his own, which he would deliver before retreating, though that either entailed being hit again or actually avoiding the attack altogether. After some time it became clear that they were weakening their foe with every hit, before Rarity decided to go one step further and called upon the power of the Sunlight Spear, the most powerful version of the Lightning Spear that she possessed... which blew a gaping hole in the knight's chest the instant Rarity loosed the spell.

Edric stared at the knight as he collapsed on the floor and stopped moving, before his soul escaped from his body and was gathered by the duo as the second fog door collapsed... where they found a giant hollow, as in a giant man and not the monstrous giants they had fought earlier, mindlessly wandering around the area down below them. The crown on the giant man's head indicated that this hollow had to be the once great King Vendrick, which meant that the pile of armor had been what he had been wearing before his transformation into a hollow, so that if someone made it to this point he could be slain. Before Edric did anything, however, Rarity held up a hand and stopped him from doing anything, because she felt another artifact of power nearby, to which she carefully walked over to the pile of armor and stared at all of the pieces for a few seconds... before picking up a seemingly important ring that was glowing, one that had to be what they had come for when they were told to 'seek the king'.

As she and Edric started to walk out of the area that they were in, however, they found that the Emerald Herald had materialized at the top of the stairs that brought them to where King Vendrick was aimlessly wandering around... though that made Rarity wonder how she was able to do something like that.

"This ring is the symbol of the King." the Emerald Herald said, beckoning to the ring that Rarity was holding, though not even a few seconds later she handed it over to Edric, as she felt that he was the one that was supposed to wear it, where he put it on his right pointer finger, "Use it to gain passage, through the King's Gate... and venture to the far east. Bearers of the Curse, if one of you are to be the next monarch, then, one day, you will walk those grounds... without really knowing why."

That did nothing to comfort Rarity, because it appeared that the Emerald Herald was saying that if they followed this path they were going to eventually become hollows themselves, which was the opposite of what she said when they started this quest. The flaming creature that had talked to them, however, seemed to have an understanding of how they might be able to beat the Curse, but even so she still didn't trust that creature due to how it appeared whenever it wanted and left when it desired. If anything the only person she knew that she could ask about this situation was Shalquoir, because the omnipotent cat might have some insight as to what path they needed to take to fulfill their goal of beating the Curse and returning to being normal again.

Even as she and Edric left the area they were in, so they could head back to the last bonfire they found and teleport to Majula, Rarity wondered what sort of artifact she had felt in the shrine like area they had passed through earlier... and why she felt that the three 'key' items she had been given earlier would soon reveal their purpose to her and Edric.