It was quiet in the world, at least it seemed that way for the weary warriors as their tense bodies still ran with the adrenaline that pumped through them. Undead or not, there was very little difference among the three, with armor and weapons worn down from usage. Wind moved the trees not too far away from the cathedral, bringing the smell of a forest, the first sign of life in the dried husk that was Lordran. Alongside the rays of the immovable sun, it was a serene scene that made the perfect counterpoint to the blood and clash of weapons and rock.
For a few seconds, everything remained the same atop the cathedral, with only the wind playing a tune of loneliness, whispering in the wind, and crackling of distant fires. Everything was still on the roof, until slowly, the weary warriors slowly began to relax tense muscles and their minds stopped their battle focus.
Dropping the now bloodied halberd, Sunset almost fell backwards due to her body losing all the energy. Her tired mind attributed it to adrenaline leaving her body now that the danger was over, but when she took a step she then felt the sting and one of the reasons why she felt light headed. Moving her cloak to the side, she saw a red spot growing and the cloth damaged. She must have been hit harder than she thought to have an injury like that.
Sunset knew that the injury didn’t feel that painful right now, but if there was something she had put attention to both in Equestria and the Human World, it was about biology and first aid. It had become invaluable to understand what she could about her own body and the alien form she had gained across the mirror, so she knew that she had some problems.
The cut didn’t feel deep enough to have reached her ribs, but still, it would be a very painful injury that could take some time to heal. Thankfully, she was an undead and a simple jump over the roof will make her wake up completely fine. Before she could continue that train of thought, Sunset remembered something that could be a little less gory and quickly tried to get a hold of the container inside her robes.
She felt twitches of pain along her side as she tried to get the object from her body which made her movements slow down a bit. Her body may be dead, but all of her nerves seemed to be working. If pain was a sign of being alive, then someone truly needed to investigate the whole undead deal. As her fingers curled around the flask, Sunset thought about her situation and how bizarre the whole idea of being already dead was. It just didn’t make sense according to the magical theory she knew from back home.
Sure, she was less powerful than Princess Twilight since she never really finished her studies. She could be sincere and admit it if only to herself, but she knew a thing or two about dark magic and necromantic theory. Whatever she was right now broke all the laws and theories that were written in those books. How could she move? Even more amazing was the fact that she retained her personality, minus the darker aspects of it, probably due to the lingering effects of the Elements of Harmony.
One thing for sure though, Princess Twilight probably knew more about them considering she was bonded to them permanently. Thinking about that made Sunset wince, and not because of her injury. It had been some time since she thought back on her days on Earth and CH, especially why she was stranded on Lordran, the reason why she was dead and with no real plan beyond her promise.
She could go back to the topic of being banished some other time, right now she had to take care of herself and the injury that was starting to get pretty annoying. Taking the small vase from her robes, Sunset noticed how warm it felt to the touch which took her by surprise considering how little her body’s nerves worked. Sure, she had noticed the heartbeat of the fire inside, clearly indicating the medicinal properties of the magic trapped inside the flask, but the chipped and old looking flask didn’t betray the powerful enchantments that had been etched inside the artifact. It was almost hypnotic how calm and concentrated the magic inside the flask were. Thankfully, she was taken from the trance by her mentor.
“Sunset, are you alright? You seem a little out of it.” The woman’s hood had been blown back during the fight, but her hair looked as pristine as ever; Sunset was sure that if there were wind, it would be moving alongside the breeze. Beyond some marks in her shield, courtesy of the gargoyle’s halberds, Madeleine looked perfectly fine and not even winded. Sunset already had an idea of how strong Madeleine was, but this just confirmed that she was indeed a powerful knight.
“I got cut, it hurts a little bit.” Showing her flask, Sunset was for a moment lost about what to do now. Sure, she has had the flask since she started her journey but since then she hasn’t even payed attention to the enchanted object. “So… what do I do now?” with such a comment from the youngest member of the party, Madeleine blinked once before she had to put her fist in front of her mouth to fight back the laughter that was starting to dominate her body. It wasn’t that funny, but the combination of relief, adrenaline and non sequitur were enough to make the three warriors lose their composure and laugh.
It was a sound that hadn’t been heard for a long time in the now dead lands of Lordran. It was the sound of people living, still surviving and having hope for tomorrow, and it was enough to make the girls back on Earth look at each other before getting up and almost ran away from the library. Once outside, they all let a loud cheer. Jumping around in celebration, the six found themselves doing something they would have never thought possible just a couple of weeks ago. They were together as friends, celebrating the victory of the one that had separated them for a long time, as if their favorite team had won the championship or a family member had been awarded something.
It was still up in the air their true thoughts about the situation they had put Sunset Shimmer in, the way in which Twilight Sparkle had been left stranded on their world. Why were they able to see Sunset Shimmer in that other world? Was there any way in which they could help Sunset or Twilight? Those were questions they still had to find answers to, but for now they were happy for the success of the young girl and her companions.
“Alright, I think we all needed that.” Back atop the cathedral, the trio of warriors finally calmed down from their adrenaline filled relief after the arduous battle. “But now that you talk about it, I’m not quite sure how those things work. I’ve seen many undead with those at hand, but I don’t know how they work at all.”
“If I may interrupt you two, the only thing you need to do is to put the flask close to your lips and do the same motion you would do for drinking out of it,” the solar knight said getting closer to the two women, his sword having been retrieved from the corpse of one of the gargoyles. The squelch and torrent of blood made Sunset think of those creatures as not simple machines or summons. The mystery of their existence only grew along many more questions that Sunset had of this place.
Shrugging her shoulders, Sunset decided to stop thinking about such things for now, instead focusing on her injuries and taking a metaphorical sip of the light filled flask, feeling the energy flowing through her body, reminding her of the old healing spells she had been a subject of in the past, when her own rambunctiousness and curiosity made her visit the Canterlot medical clinics after a botched spell back home.
Her body began to shiver, not in cold, but of relief as the cut on her side closed down as if by magic, although it probably was some kind of magic involved in all of that. The flask seemed dimmer now, less bright, which made Sunset realize that the flask could only hold so much power before it had to be… what? Refilled at a bonfire? Lordran was a place filled with strange artifacts and creatures, many of which she hoped she could get a look at, if she survived that is.
“Well, now that we have all of that under control, why don’t we take a look at the reason why we are all in this place?” Madeleine pointed upwards, at the tower close to them and at the bell currently sitting unmoving, waiting for the moment to ring its sound across the empty city.
The trio all nodded before silently moving in the direction of the last tower, knowing that they still had much to do. They all knew that they will have more problems ahead of them and that many mysteries were left unanswered for now, like the power that Sunset was able to show in the form of a fireball.
Still, the trio went on, letting Sunset get up the ladder alone while the other two stood down, serving as sentries and guards for the young undead. Sunset didn’t need to ask why. After all, it was her mission to ring the Bells of Awakening, while the other two knights were in Lordran for their reasons, it was Sunset’s promise to Oscar what made her climb the cathedral and face the dangers of the abandoned city.
As she climbed, Sunset thought back of the monsters she had faced, like the boar, the bull demon and even Havel, but her mind brought the image of Rhea to the front, how empty those eyes looked and Sunset had to grit her teeth to rein back her temper. Never before had she felt that connected with someone without realizing it and it made her feel confused about the whole experience.
Sunset knew that the elements of Harmony were in part responsible for her new perspective of the world and her emotions, but the level of empathy that she gained was something else, like feeling sorry of Oscar and his pilgrimage that had been cut short too soon and the hopeless mission of Rhea which was most definitely an execution in disguise.
Finally reaching the top of the tower, Sunset was face to face with the artifact that had been the main force behind her own pilgrimage, finding it less than impressive. It just looked like any other bell she have seen, almost rusted in disuse. Taking a hold on her lever at the side, Sunset pulled and soon, across the abandoned city, the sound of the bell ringing filled the corridors. Across Lordran, those who were close to the source of the noise turned their eyes upwards in surprise. Demons and undead alike stood a second in silence, while those in their pilgrimage couldn’t believe their ears.
A blacksmith close by stopped the hammering on his anvil. A man with bulky armor and a round helmet stopped his study of an unmoving door. A young mage, inside his room full of barrels stood, feeling some small amount of hope reignite inside of him. Another mage, this one of fire, struggled even harder against his bounds, energized once more in his desire to survive. And believe it or not, as if it were an act of the gods themselves, Rhea of Thorolund heard the bell ring all the way down in the catacombs and a smile appeared on her face.
That Author's Note perfectly describes the next step. Oh god, Plaguetown is going to be a bitch. Wonder how Sunset will react to the Gaping Dragon.
YEAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!! (downs a mug of mead in victory.)
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i have been wondering about that myself for a while now. i remember my first encounter with that thing...
Just gonna say Sunset better meet Tarkus and he better be as badass as he is in the game
The first step in her journey is now behind her, but Sunset only faced the start.
Moonlight Butterfly, Capra Demon, Gaping Dragon are the next obstacles (the last one especially will be hell for her).
Stray Demon, Chaos Witch Quelaag, Ceaseless Discharge (Fire with fire! )
Sif (Tear event ahead! It always gets me if Sifs starts to limp...), Iron Golem, Crossbreed Priscilla,
Ornstein and Smough (the suffering is real ) Dark Sun Gwyndolin (after not praising the Sun, because Sunset doesn't give a damn about monster tits )
Pinwheel, Gravelord Nito (hope she doesn't lose her soul ), Seath the Scaleless, Four Kings
Demon Firesage (Sunny burns hotter at that point, Ah betcha!) Centipede Demon (Disgusting creep!), Bed of Chaos (enough said)
Sanctuary Guardian, Knight Arthorias and lastly, Gwyn, Lord of Cinder
Hey, maybe you even involve the DCL? Black Dragon Kalameet and Manus, Father of the Abyss would be a hit *cough*.
They didn't see despair until now, not even remotely...
Forget the dragon, beware the door kings! Freaking shank Lord's is what they are.
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Blightown is horrible if you ar enot prepared or don't have the fog ring, believe me, that thing is broken; but for Sunset, this is going to be horrible.
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One down... a ton of things to go.
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If you are good with jumps or know how to backtrack for some stuff, the place if pretty easy, the problem is how easy is to slide.
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They won't react well, like, at all.
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Tarkus is... going to be a very special encounter.
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Capra, well, I don't know how it will react to lighting and fire being thrown into his head; Gaping will not be like the game, is going to be a freaking real battle, so forget about hp bars or anything else from the games, this is the real stuff. Moonlight, I have plans for that beauty and the forest in general, cna you spell Witch?
Queelag, Queelad and Queelana are more important than ever, alongside the monster that is Ceaseless, which will be very unlucky in who he is going to meet.
Sif won't be for quite a while, Golem will not be a part of the story until sen and that part will be so incredibly different you won't recognize the place. Priscilla is going to be so sweet since her full story will be explained, including the lies about where she came from and the real power behind her blood, including the crows.
The duo is still going to be a freaking nightmare. Gwyn has a special place on my heart and the story, while Gwen will... well, that's spoilers.
Pinwheel is a freaking joke, but lovely Rhea won't be separated from Sunset for long.
Nito, Seath and the Kings, I have something special prepared for that part of the story since I always found it pretty boring, at least traveling through the cementery; the Kings lore and fight is pretty cool, but Nito felt underwhelming.
Firesage, never fought it that I remember, but centipede and Bed will be present.
All the DLC will be so different, with more enemies, more powers, more characters.... More Sunsets.
Maaan, I gotta tell ya, ringing that bell finally... that was a huge relief for me Nice to see Sunset finally achieve the first of two bells!
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well i was refuring specifically to my first time meeting the gaping dragon. the whole area was dificult (heh) with how dark it was and them bloody poisondart pigmies >.<
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Well, obviously there are no hp bars. So the fights will be a hell of a challenge. I wonder though, except Sunset her allies are not undead and don't have a "second" try. I'm interested to see how this all goes down.
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i wonder how your going to deal with gwen's dark secret.
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Well, Solaire is an undead, that is to say, he turned himself undead just so he would be able to do the pilgrimage and find his sun. Madeleine is..... human? Maybe? If you haven't read Many Destinies of Sunset Shimmer then there are many secrets you don't know about her.
One Bell down, a ton more pain to go... The only question now is if they'll take the route through the sewers, or if they'll pass through the Valley of Drakes. Both routes are viable, though Sewers and Blight Town offers better rewards IMO since Sunset already has Oscar's Crest Shield and doesn't need the one guarded by the Zombie Dragon (Iaito+15 is my favorite casual weapon, and it can be devastating to most bosses if done right and augmented with an elemental effect, my favorite being Sunlight Blade). I just hope she backtracks to the Undead Asylum (if only by accident while climbing around the ruins around Firelink to get a better lay of the land) first and picks up the Rusted Iron Ring to make the Slog through the swamp bearable... I also wonder if they won't get lost on the way down and find their way into The Great Hollow and Ash Lake, though I don't know if they'd be ready for the encounter with the Hydra there... (who am I kidding, you're never ready for any of the bosses on a NG/First Play-through Run...)
On a note to the story itself; I've noticed that you seem to have gone to great lengths, unintentionally or otherwise, to avoid one of the cornerstones of Souls games, that being the nature of souls In the world, and their use in the literal Economy of Souls that exists there. Souls are important to undead for a number of reasons, but the most important overall is that Souls literally equal Power with a capital P. The more souls an Undead has, the more powerful they can become by infusing those souls with their own to augment their abilities above what a normal human would be capable of (expressed by the in-game leveling mechanics), skilled Smiths are able to use them alongside a spark of the Flame to bond Titanite with weapons to make them more powerful or imbue them with elemental effects, and even some of the High-Tier Arcane spells actually use Souls from your "Liquid Souls" pool to augment their power above their base. More importantly, is that from a lore standpoint at least, souls seem to act as a buffer between only being undead and going hollow. It's why you loose everything whenever you die and have to make your way back to that point if you don't want to loose all that progress; you're literally re-collecting Yourself, and the only way to hold onto that self indefinitely is to infuse those souls with your own. If you dig into the lore of Dark Souls 2, you find out that it's especially important for the Chosen Undead to have a particularly power soul because the more powerful the souls sacrificed to reignite The First Flame, the longer it is able to burn once more, and the longer it takes for the Curse of the Undead to reassert itself fully upon the world again.
Now, I can kinda understand wanting to avoid trying to quantify the game-mechanics revolving around souls in a narrative, but you could still draw on the Lore surrounding them. (Also, Sunset should swing by a certain merchant in the Burg and pick up a bottomless box soon, because she's collecting a bunch of heavy, bulky gear and will soon find some of the better armor sets in the game, and deep pockets on her Pyromancer Robes can only take her so far...)
The other thing I think you've missed opportunities on are some of the more unique encounters of the game, such as the two Black Knights on the route to the Church (one in The Undead Burg guarding the Blue Teardrop Ring and the other at the top of the tower past the Helkite Drake, or some of the out of the way areas they could have gone to while exploring, such as the route under the bridge that would have allowed them to bypass the Red Bard altogether and the connection back to the Burg Bonfire, or the side-route that would have taken them to the Burg Merchant that loops back to the start of the burg above the Aqueduct, or the right-side path on the side-route to the Church where you find the Knight's Shield (one of the best shields in the early game with 100% physical damage reduction from the get-go) guarded by a Balder Knight.
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One of the reasons why I gave her the shield so early was the fact that Sunset was not good at fighting and needed something that would withstand most hits, or at least form humanoid creatures that won't be able to squash her like a bug or been able to throw her around, which has happened a couple of times already to her. She will backtrack through several places, including the door that they never went through when they beat Havel back when, so they will definitely meet the Hydra there and a little princess, also they will go through the forest, but the route that Sunset will use will be through the entrance in the sewers.
I know I have ignored two things, one being souls and the other being humanity; Sunset has a couple of humanity shards and also a ton of souls since she haven't been using them and has only been killed a couple of times and since she died at the hands of Havel, she has collected quite the amount of souls. I haven't talked about it because, well, her main companion is not an undead; if you haven't read Many Destinies of Sunset Shimmer then maybe you don't know much about what the hell is going on with Madeleine, but she is no hollow, so she has never found a need for souls, like, at all. I do plan on using souls and some of its uses in the ame, specially since they are so close to a smith, but some of its uses, like leveling up won't be used, alongside the fact of getting many souls to fight back hollowness; now, in this dimension, it is your mental resistance and despair the triggers that send you into hollowness, or at least the main ones.
About the Black Knights, although i enjoy their fights, I didn't want to put a fight that will only drag some of the story; they existed just... not anymore, but explaining why they are not there will definitely be considered a spoiler. And finally, about the First Flame, well, Gwyn and the Primordial Serpernt's plans will be completely derailed.
Explanations that could have been had, had they detoured to the Burg Merchant, probably for a "fee" of course...
And no, I haven't read "Destinies" yet. I'm kinda working backwards, starting with the satellite stories before I get to the series core.
And like I said, "Leveling Up" is simply the in-game mechanic used for the literal process of an Undead infusing the "Liquid" souls they've collected into their own soul in order to boost the strength and power of their own soul, and the "Stats" that they level up such as Strength, Dex, Attunement, Etc, are in-game memetic measures of manipulating that process in specific ways that make an undead stronger beyond the norm, or more clear headed (attunement), or more dexterous, or more in-tune with the divine nature of their soul (faith), etc... The Noble tier of Lordran Society were Masters of the craft, even without being undead, being able to collect souls from the fallen dragons and other enemies they slew to increase their own power, and an important part of their culture was actually to absorb the souls of close fallen comrades in battle to boost their power and avenge them, as seen in the Oreo and Smores fight in DS1, as well as the Nameless King (who is Gwin's Firstborn, the one who's name was stricken from all records for defying Gwin and befriending the few remaining Dragons) boss in DS3 when you kill his Dragon. It's how they were able to wield weapons bigger than themselves, how Havel was able to wear armor literally made of Stone without his spine collapsing on itself. Probably 90% of Seath's research into magic and the arcane was on the nature of the Soul and how it could be manipulated in his quest for immortality.
It's a Very important aspect of the lore, as like I said, the more powerful the Soul Sacrificed to reignite the Flame, the longer it will burn and hold off the age of Dark and the next rise of the Undead. So yeah, all those Level 1 Pyromancer runs that didn't go Age of Dark ending? didn't actually do much in terms of buying the world time...
Now, however much this actually Matters to Sunset, I don't know, but I think Frampt could still exposition-dump some of this on Sunset when his smelly head shows up...
Well, ponies are involved so that's a given.