Dark Souls 2: Rarity's Trials

by Blackdrag-rose

Frozen Wonderland

It didn't take them long to retrace their steps and use the bonfire to teleport back to Majula, though when they arrived at their destination Edric spent his souls on empowering himself and making sure that his armor was ready for the final trial that was ahead of them. Rarity, on the other hand, returned to Shalquoir's store and sat at the table that the cat usually rested on, and she had been there when Rarity walked into the building, but she hadn't said anything and simply nodded her head, understanding that Rarity wanted to think about something. As such she carefully pulled out the three crowns she and Edric had collected so far, which had been entrusted to her until they could figure out what they did, and arranged them in a diamond formation, before pulling out the final key she had been given, which was a stone that looked like a frozen flower of some kind. She stared at it for a moment, wondering where the final shrine could be, before she gently placed it on the table in front of her and closed her eyes, where she called a few strands of her magic to her so she could cast a clairvoyance spell to see if she could find what she was looking for.

What happened next surprised her, as the spell seemed to work and she was given a brief vision of the shrine she and Edric had passed when they were heading to Drangelic Castle, indicating that they had literally walked right by the portal to the Frozen Eleum Loyce... to which she opened her eyes and gathered the crowns together once more, knowing that it would be unwise to leave them, or the key, behind.

"I see you know where the final portal rests," Shalquoir commented, causing Rarity to glance over to the cat for a moment, who simply smiled as she stared out at the path that she and Edric had walked down when they first came to Majula, which felt like a lifetime ago at this point, "Go, claim the final crown, and stop the darkness that is trying to take the land at this very moment."

"Shalquoir... words cannot express how grateful I am for your help in getting Edric and I to this point," Rarity said, as she knew that they might have succeeded in doing so at some point in time, but having the omnipotent cat on their side had been a boon she couldn't have seen coming.

"I'm happy that there's an Undead that can do what the others couldn't," Shalquoir replied, though Rarity knew that she was referring to the two of them, her and Edric, when she talked, before she beckoned to the door, "Don't worry, I'll see you again when you reach the end of your journey."

Rarity nodded and headed back out to the bonfire, where Edric was waiting for her at that very moment, before they knelt before the bonfire and prepared themselves to teleport to their final destination in the hunt for the four powerful crowns that the four kings had worn. Since Rarity was the one that knew where to go, as Edric had no idea where the keys were supposed to go, she was in charge of directing them to their destination, which was the bonfire that rested in the crossroads. One path had brought them to an area that Grandahl lived in, the second took them to Aldia's Keep, and the third allowed them to visit Drangelic Castle, though Edric said nothing as he followed Rarity down the path that would take them towards the castle. Of course he was curious about why they were heading back there, since he figured that the final shrine was either near the Lost Sinner's bonfire or the Duke's Dear Freja bonfire, but he said nothing as they followed the path and eventually came to a stop... right in front of the shrine they had walked by some time ago.

"Rarity, what are we doing here?" Edric asked, as he knew that his companion had to have missed something, as this couldn't be where the final shrine was located, as it was in plain sight of anyone that opened the door they had opened with the four Great Souls.

"The same thing we did in the Rotten's lair and the area where we fought the Old Iron King," Rarity said, feeling the magic all around her, something that she had missed when she and Edric had passed through this area the first time, before she pulled out the frozen flower and approached the pedestal in the middle of the shrine, "finding the portal that will take us to another crown, and the kingdom we'll have to fight through to get it. Here, take my hand and I'll show you that I'm not in the wrong area."

Edric glanced at Rarity's left hand for a moment, as it was the one that was reaching out towards him since Rarity's right hand was inches away from the pedestal, where she was purposely waiting for him to grab onto her before she put the key where it was supposed to go. He thought about it for a moment, since Shalquoir had been the one that gave her all three of the keys and the locations of the various Great Souls, and all of those locations had been correct without a single thing being wrong. There was no reason for him to believe that this was the final shrine, since it's location was to obvious, but at the same time he had absolutely no reason not to trust that Rarity had brought them to the fight place, to which she sighed and grasped the hand that was being offered to him. Rarity smiled at him, for a few seconds anyway, before she turned towards the shrine and lowered the key onto the pedestal, onto it's resting place, before the ancient magic wrapped around them and took them to their destination... proving that she had been right and that the answer had been resting in plain sight the entire time.

---

This time, when Rarity and Edric appeared on the other side of the instant one way portal, they discovered that they were standing outside of what appeared to be a massive fortress, fitting for the King whose crown they had come to claim, before they turned and looked at their surroundings. That was when they discovered that they appeared to be in a snowy area that reminded Rarity of the snowy area that she and her friends had walked through before entering the Crystal Empire, only this time around she didn't have any of her winter wear with her, not that she needed it at the moment. Of course, like the other two areas, there was a copy of the shrine they used resting behind them, though the magic was dead and meant that they needed to find a bonfire, and the same strange statues could be seen nearby, but neither of them really knew what those statues represented. Since there was nothing more they could so, besides stand around and stare at the snowy area around them, the duo moved up the path in front of them and pushed open the iron doors that blocked their way... allowing them to walk up some stairs and find the first bonfire for the area.

As Edric activated the bonfire, however, Rarity stared at the icy entrance that was on the opposite end of the bridge that they were on, as she was sure that she felt something that was akin to Elana and Nadalia, whose souls they had claimed in some manner before or after finding the crown they had been guarding... and she was sure that there was another being, just like them, somewhere in Eleum Loyce. Once the bonfire was activated the duo stepped forward, though that was when something struck the floor in front of the entrance and kicked up some dust, forcing them to cover their eyes for a moment... though when they opened them again they found some icy vines of some sort growing out of the icy wall Rarity had been staring at earlier.

You two, approaching Eleum Loyce. a voice said, a feminine one that made the duo look around, despite the fact that Rarity knew it was coming from somewhere deep inside the fortress, Turn back. The old Chaos hungers still.

The duo waited for a moment, to hear what this 'old Chaos' was, but when the voice didn't speak again they simply sighed and pressed onward, to which they walked across the rest of the bridge and approached the icy part of the wall, where they discovered that the ice was actually attached to a massive door and prevented it from closing all the way. What rested in front of them was part of the interior for the entire fortress, with two paths they could choose from, but Rarity also spotted one source of heat that she and Edric would be shooting for, since it was likely to be important. Instead of heading to the left, where a fog door was resting, Rarity turned towards the right and went down that way with Edric following her, as she knew that there had to be a trick and didn't want to spring it. From there the duo headed down the stairs that were on their right and spotted a door that would allow them to access part of the fortress, along with the frost covered knight that standing guard in front of it.

Edric and Rarity avoided the incoming attack, as the knight wanted to pierce their bodies with it's sword, before Edric stabbed it in the back, dealing an intense amount of damage in the process and knocked the knight to the ground, where the duo discovered that these guys appeared to be weak to that type of attack. Edric honestly didn't know what to make of that, since he wasn't a big fan of stabbing his enemies in the back, though he determined that he would try to parry an attack and strike his foes from the front. Rarity also found out a second weakness that these knights had, as when they entered the room the knight had been guarding a second one revealed itself, where a screaming sphere of darkness to the back blasted it into the wall and killed it instantly. The duo glanced at each other, as this development made them wonder if they might be a little overpowered for this area, but since they had some troubles in the Brume Tower, and Shulva for that matter, they knew that they hadn't found the terrible monsters that would push them to their limits once more... to which they moved on and kept their eyes open for anything dangerous.

A third knight entered the room they were in and attempted to strike them down, though Edric parried the incoming attack with his shield and revealed the hole in his opponent's defenses, to which he struck the knight down and opened the way for them to continue forward.

From there they descended down the nearby stairs and found another room with another knight, one that Edric parried to death, though at the same time Rarity found what could have been a hallway, only there was a lift of some kind with a large number of coffins blocking the way, and the lever to move it was broken. After figuring out that this hallway was useless, for the moment anyway, the duo walked out of the room they were in and crossed over the short stone walkway that was in front of them, where they discovered that a knight was firing an ice spell at them. What Rarity guessed, as she and Edric dodged the attack, was that these enemies were like all the other foes they had encountered so far, with some additions since it was a warrior type that had cast the spell. The duo waited for the knight to cast the spell again, as Rarity used a screaming sphere to cancel the ice spell out, allowing Edric to close the distance and cut down the knight before it had a chance to fight back.

Once the knight was taken care of they walked through the short passage it had been guarding and dodged the knight that tried to attack them from behind, where Rarity blasted it into the wall behind it with a Dark Orb, to which she countered herself lucky that her reflexes were as good as they were. The moment that knight was taken care of they walked down the ramp that was in front of them and headed to the area that was below where they were standing, but when they reached the bottom they were assaulted by a trio of frost covered hounds. What they discovered was that the hounds were somewhat fragile, as the first one Edric hit, after dodging the incoming attack, died instantly and the second one actually backed away after being hit. The third one, Rarity's target, didn't last too long, mostly because she hit it with a Fireball and it was cooking on the ground near her, to which she simply stared at it as Edric took out the survivor before they moved away from the area and continued their search.

The duo continued down the ramp and crossed over to a more snow filled area of the fortress, though since most of the routes were blocked off by snow and large ice crystals they could only move in one direction, until they came to what had been a courtyard of some kind. Rarity spotted a sorcerer, covered in frost like everything else that was around here, and sighed as she loosed a few Fireballs at it, because experience told her that it was an enemy that was trying to make them lower their guard, and sure enough it started to cast a spell before the second and third Fireballs knocked it into the wall behind it. After that Edric engaged two spear wielding soldiers while Rarity used her screaming sphere to knock a ranged foe into a different wall, allowing her to clear the way a little as she watched her friend fight, and more importantly defeat, his enemies, before they continued forward.

A knight came running towards them, from an area hidden by the ice crystals to be exact, and tried to attack them in that manner, but Rarity beat Edric to the punch and used a Dark Orb to deal with their foe, finding that even the lowest dark type spell she had was more than enough for most of these enemies... which worried her, since this was the first time they were having such good success.

As they walked out into the area in front of them they found one knight trying to attack them with it's weapon and two more attempting it with spells, so while Edric dealt with the sword wielding enemy Rarity moved around and used two more Dark Orbs to blast the knights away. As she moved she wondered why these knights were so weak to dark type attacks, as other enemies that had the same weakness usually went down in two to three hits with the same spell, making her wonder if she had become too powerful for her own good. It was like she had become what Twilight had been before her ascension to an alicorn, a powerful unicorn that was literally on a level above most of the other unicorns, though at the same time she knew that this power would be used to save this world, instead of trying to do anything evil with the power that now coursed through her veins.

With those enemies taken out they headed towards the stone bridge that was in front of them and crossed over it, or at least they tried to, since part of it was broken and there wasn't a way for them to reach the other side, save for Rarity's teleportation spell, but instead of using that they simply turned around and headed back the way they came... where they spotted an opening next to the area that one of the knights, that Rarity had taken out, had been standing in.

The moment they reached the opening they entered the building and walked up the stairs that were in front of them, allowing them to reach a hallway that had a number of wooden crates and three knights standing guard, where the dark type screaming sphere proved useful in taking out the enemies at the back and allowed Edric to finish the one in front of them off with ease. That also included cutting down the hound that happened to be mixed in with the knights, something that neither of them had seen coming thanks to the crates, though the moment the enemies were taken care of the duo turned around and headed back to the iron door they had skipped by. The moment it was open the duo entered the small room that was in front of them and climbed the stairs on their right, taking out the knight that was protecting the path, before coming to an area with two more sorcerers... but this time Rarity held up a hand and stopped Edric from doing anything, as these guys were purely neutral and didn't rise to fight them.

She felt sorry for taking out the first sorcerer that they had come across, as she had thought it was an enemy as well, but at the same time she and Edric found another set of stairs that took them to the roof, where a knight, looking more like a golem with all the crystals all over it's body, attacked them... but it's weakness to dark, once again, proved to be it's undoing, like everything else in the area.

The duo stared at the chests that were laying around them, trapped in the enchanted ice that seemed to be engulfing this place, and sighed, as it appeared that they wouldn't be getting at whatever the items were for the moment, to which they descended back to the hallway they had been in earlier and crossed over to the door that the knights had been standing in front of it. As Edric opened the door and stepped through it a knight jumped down from where it had been hiding and used it's lance to stab him, to which Edric growled and hacked into the knight that was in front of him, though when he was done he pulled out the lance and Rarity used a spell to mend his body and armor. It was a decent refresher for them to experience, that if they weren't careful some enemy could get the drop on them and kill them before they had a chance to defend themselves, though that didn't stop them from moving forward.

From there the duo headed up what had been some stairs and across a street, back when this place wasn't consumed by the snow and frost, and dealt with the knight that was standing in front of an open door, which they eagerly took since it was the only way forward for them at the moment. It was then that they discovered that, in the area below them, rested a bonfire, to which they happily jumped down into the area below them and activated it, so they would be able to rest here if they so desired.

With the bonfire activated the duo walked out of the clearly abandoned dwelling, much like everything else they had passed by in all the other zones they had been in since their adventure started, though as Edric engaged the knight that was approaching them Rarity branched off and used a screaming sphere to destroy another foe that was lurking off in the distance. They then climbed the snow banks and repeated the process, though as Edric cut down one knight Rarity used her magic to topple two of them at the same time, as she discovered that she could open two portals and send out two screaming spheres at the same time, something that the Darklurker didn't do. As she thought about that she had to wonder if it was something that her foe couldn't have done, even with his great power, and would have required there to have been two of him to do what she did, but at the same time she had no idea if she was right or not. The moment those enemies were taken care of they walked up the stairs and followed the path that was in front of them, which took them around to a hallway... one that had a lance throwing knight standing near what appeared to be a closed gate.

What surprised Rarity was that this foe wasn't as weak to dark type attacks like the other foes they had encountered so far, though at the same time it retained the weaknesses that Edric exploited, meaning that while she might not be able to take them out with one spell her friend would be able to severely punish them with one or two attacks. With the knight defeated the duo walked up to the gate and pulled the lever that rested to their right, to which the gate opened before their eyes and revealed that they were now on the wall they had seen when they first arrived in this area. The duo also discovered two more of the lance carrying golem like knights that they had just fought, one to the left and one to the right of where they were standing, though they picked the left path and cut their way through the slave hollows that were in front of the golem in question. The golem didn't like their presence and attacked them immediately, to which the duo dodged the attack and retaliated when it was busy reforming it's lance, to which Rarity blasted it with a pair of Dark Orbs while Edric attacked it from behind... and, as expected, they defeated it within a few moments of the battle starting.

They then discovered that the room it was guarding had a locked door, meaning that there was a key somewhere that would unlocked it, but since they weren't interested in the room they headed towards the circular stairs, and the iron door, that the second golem was guarding. The duo simply repeated their process from the last two golems, allowing them to topple the third one with ease, before they opened the door and found a chamber where a normal knight was standing guard, which Rarity defeated with a single Dark Orb. With the knight taken care of they noticed more iron chests that were trapped in ice and couldn't touch them, so they simply walked outside and continued up the stairs that the third golem had been guarding. From that point they walked out onto a rampart that was above the area they had walked through earlier and noticed that they could go left or right, to which Edric headed to the left and entered a small structure that was in front of them... where they discovered another frozen iron chest, causing them to sigh as they headed down a different path that would take them back to the exterior of the fortress.

Along that path the duo discovered a small side room that a knight was standing in, though as Edric parried it and cut it down Rarity spotted a lever that, when she pulled it, pulled up a lift that contained a number of coffins, the same one she had seen earlier, meaning that the path she had spotted earlier was now open.

The moment the deed was done the duo moved forward and walked back outside, where they walked on the exterior of the wall, before another lance carrying golem rushed at them from the left, to which the duo moved out of the way and Rarity simply let Edric take it out before they continued exploring the area. Since the ramp that went downwards seemed to go nowhere the duo headed to the right of the small hallway they had exited and approached another iron door, though as they opened it they discovered four hounds waiting for them. Fortunately their combined skills allowed them to take out the hounds without being hurt in some manner, though once the hounds were taken out they started to climb the circular staircase and headed towards the top of the area that they were in... though it was a short climb and required them taking out another hound, before they walked out of the building they were in and found that they had reached a dead end.

Rarity thought about it for a moment, not understanding why there were two dead ends, before she and Edric headed back down to the area they had chosen to ignore, where they discovered a passage with a staircase that took them downwards for a few moments... to which they dropped down into the area below them, as the stairs were actually ruined beyond a certain point. They followed the rest of the path downwards and came out onto a walkway that would allow them to access the area that contained the flame Rarity had seen earlier, though as they walked towards their destination they both heard the feminine voice from earlier tell them to 'back away', to 'never look back', and that 'no one must find that which is sheltered in Eleum Loyce'. That only made the duo continue forward, as they didn't come all the way out here to turn back now, not when the final crown was so close, but at the same time Rarity wondered what sort of secret the voice had been warning them about.

The duo walked up the walkway they came to and found that the flame was resting above a skeletal body that was resting on an alter, though the item in question that they were after was a glass eye of some mind, which had belonged to what they assumed had been a priestess at one point in time... though Rarity knew that it was important, even if she was slightly disgusted by the fact.

From there the duo returned to the path they had been following and continued down it, with the glass eye in hand, where they fought a knight with a large mace, though Edric insisted on fighting it by himself and let Rarity watch as he dodged the incoming attacks and cut down the knight. After that happened they continued walking and walked by two corpses, one that contained some Alluring Skulls and another that held some Skeptic's Spice, before they approached a decently well hidden fog door. Since she was sure that it wasn't a powerful creature Rarity and Edric pushed themselves through the fog door and smiled when they spotted a bonfire, to which they approached it and activated it, where they took a moment to rest and prepare themselves for what came next.

Rarity was sure that they would find the first powerful creature soon enough, if the last few areas were anything to go by, but she knew that the two of them would be ready for whatever their foe was and whatever powers the creature happened to possess... and then they would continue the search for the final crown.

Comments

[Midnight Moon]

... proving that she had been right and that the answer had been resting in plain sight the entire time.

Sometimes, the best place to hide something is right where anyone can see it.