Dark Souls 3: Cinders of Power

by Blackdrag-rose

Looking for Supplies

Instead of returning to the new bonfire they had discovered, and continuing on from that area, Tirek decided to return to where the second bonfire was located, which happened to be the one they found Martok standing near, and move on from there, though it didn't take him, Sarana, and Martok long to reach the area he wanted to start in and move away from the bonfire. Thanks to their recent session with the Fire Keeper, and Tirek's session with Yoel, they did find that it was slightly easier for them to take out the revived enemies that they had taken out during their first trek through this area, though the only one that Tirek kept his eyes out for where the evangelists, as they had been tough to take down before Yoel drew out some of his true strength. He found that his earlier thoughts were correct, that his new power was more than enough to take out one of the peasant hollows with a single Soul Arrow, even if the thralls took two to take down, though he was eager to see how many hits one of the ladies took before he could bring them down, especially after the last time he battled one of them. As such it didn't take them long to get through the first building that was after the bonfire, since those enemies were rather easy to take out, before they reached the area with the burning tree, where all of the hollows were praying and waiting for the evangelist to do something, but that wasn't the area they were interested in, as they headed for the bridge that was to the right of the tree.

As it turned out there were two more peasant hollows guarding the bridge, where Matrok parried the incoming attack as Tirek blasted the hollow that was hanging at the back, which allowed his companion to take care of the first one, before they headed over the bridge and approached the building that was in front of them, where they also spotted a path off to their right as well, with some barrels and boxes in the way. Matrok, understanding that they were here to look for anything and everything that could aid them in their quest, quickly smashed the items in question and revealed the side path that went around the building they could enter, which was when the three of them walked along the thin path, one by one, as they kept an eye open for items and enemies. As they did that Tirek spotted a few thralls in the area in front of them, each wielding a different weapon and appearing to be minding their own business at the moment, though as they stepped into the area they were watching over the thralls reacted immediately, attacking them in a matter of seconds, to which Tirek, Sarana, and Martok defended themselves. What happened was that Matrok raised his blade and cut down the foes that tried to attack them from the front, allowing Tirek to blast the ones that were hanging near the buildings as Sarana found her way onto the roofs that the dagger throwers were standing on, cutting the pair of them down so they wouldn't have to worry about them anymore. With the three of them working together it didn't take all that all to clear out the thralls, which allowed the group to search the area and see if there was anything worth grabbing, where Tirek found a fading soul, just like the others he crushed to gain their power, so he collecting it and added it to his pack, while Sarana found some more firebombs to replace what she had used earlier.

While they were doing that Tirek did notice that the Undead Settlement was larger than what he originally believed it to be when he and Sarana were looking at it from afar, as there was a brand new section that the building they would be walking through would take them, but for now they focused on clearing out the roof area and the rest of the side passage they had found, before returning to the main path. To the side of the final building on the side path they discovered an odd item, a shield made out of planks, so they simply stashed it in their shared packs, again something Tirek wasn't going to question since he'd likely drive himself insane, before he spotted one of the spider cages behind the building, one that seemed to be a normal cage and not a monster. Sarana, on the other hand, didn't share his opinion and struck the cage with her weapon, causing the creature to awaken thanks to the disturbance, where Tirek watched as she quickly dealt with the creature, mostly because it didn't even try to fight back all that much and just shook all of its arms at her, mostly in what he guessed was annoyance. Once she was done with that creature they carefully climbed the ladder that was at the front of this building and walked over the roof, where they found some more of the odd bones they kept finding, though after that they had no choice but to jump down into the area in front of them, which was when they found a tall being walking around, one that looked like the guy who was patrolling near the bonfire they had discovered before returning to the shrine.

The only major difference between the two was that this one was docile and didn't even try to attack them, as all three of them felt the first one would have attacked if they got close, so they searched the area the guy was in and quickly found that there was almost nothing in the area, save for a brass or golden ring that was on the corpse that was hanging near the ledge, one with a ruby in it, before they headed back to the main path.

"So what was the point of that?" Matrok inquired, because based on what he had seen there wasn't much of a reason for them to have explored the side passage they had discovered, despite the fact that it was because Tirek wanted to make sure they missed nothing as they moved through this area, though as he said that they found a drop off point that would allow them to return to where the group of thralls had been, even if it hurt them a little, before they continued walking back towards the bridge.

"Souls for the most part, and a ring that might help us in the future." Sarana replied, as they needed all the souls they could gather to empower themselves, or even purchase certain items from the various vendors that were gathering inside the shrine, and she knew that Tirek understood that fact at this point, hence that was the first reason she listed when she answered the question.

"Indeed, and the rest of Undead Settlement will be the same, more souls and potentially useful items." Tirek added, as he knew the more souls he collected the stronger he would become, once he empowered himself at the Fire Keeper to be exact, so making sure they collected all of the souls they possibly could was important, to make all of them stronger for the enemies that were after the area they were exploring.

It didn't take the group long to return to the building at the end of the bridge and enter it, where they found a few stalls that would have contained horses at some point and were currently home to two slumbering peasant hollows, but as they stepped into the stables the pair got up and tried to rush them in seconds, either annoyed about being woken up like that or because they were faking being asleep to ambush intruders. Sarana and Martok were more than skilled enough to take down one of their attackers, allowing Tirek to blast the other one into the wall, ending the threat in a second or two, which made him happy that he had commanded Yoel to draw out his true strength earlier, as it seemed to be helping them more than he thought it would, even if he was still weak and pathetic when compared to his fully empowered state, something that would have crushed most of their enemies in a second if he had that power. Once the pair of hollows were taken care of Tirek found a larger soul resting nearby, one that was collected instantly, before they headed for the door that served as a second entrance of the stable, which would allow them to access the other section of the settlement and whatever enemies were over there, and whatever items might have been discarded recently. What he then discovered was that the stables were small and they had to exit it to enter another small building, one that housed the door they were walking towards, but even as the three of them did that a new thrall, this one wielding a two handed sword, dropped down onto the ground in front of them and rushed at them, to the best of their ability anyway.

Tirek found it amusing as he and Sarana watched as the large weapon, a flamberge now that he got a closer look at what it was, struck Matrok's armor and seemed to do nothing, allowing the warrior to swing his own sword down and cut down the thrall that had lashed out at him, making Tirek wonder if Matrok's armor was far stronger than anything they had encountered so far or if the warrior was actually getting wounded, but the dead thrall did drop his weapon so it was added to the collection as they headed towards the door he had been guarding. It took Matrok a second or two to force open the door so they could walk through it, where the group found a new bridge that would take them over to part of the Undead Settlement that none of them were familiar with, though before they did that Tirek walked up the small hill that was to their right and found a round shield of some kind that had two snakes on it, so he simply put it inside his pack and then returned to where his companions were standing. As they started to walk across the stone bridge Sarana stopped, something that caused Tirek and Martok to pause as well, where she pointed out the oil filled barrels that were right at the end of the bridge, perfectly within range of a peasant hollow that seemed to be holding something he could throw, which would ignite the barrels in seconds and cause them to explode if the group approached them. Her solution was simple, she just pulled out a firebomb and threw it at the barrels, blowing them up and torching the pair of docile hollows that had been resting in front of them, allowing the trio to enter the new area that the bridge was connected to, even though Tirek did blast the peasant hollow that would have thrown something at the barrels in the chest, eliminating one threat even if there were two more of his type up on the walkway he was on.

The new part of the Undead Settlement, as they soon discovered, was rather small and the first thing they found, in addition to the pair of buildings that were around them, was an executioner's block, one that must have been in use over the last couple of days, mostly due to the soul that Tirek picked up as Sarana and Martok continued to scour the area for anything that might be useful to them. As he did that, however, they quickly found themselves under attack as the other two peasant hollows started throwing down firebombs at them, while at the same time one of the manservants, the tall guys they had seen a few times so far, walked up some steps they hadn't seen and seemed to be carrying a large pot that was full of severed limbs and body parts, something that he hurled at Sarana, who dodged out of the way and let it collide with the building that was behind her, before she and Martok dealt with him. That left Tirek with the easy job, using his Soul Arrows to blast the two peasant hollows off the area they were standing on, which was as easy as he expected it to be since the pair didn't even target him at all, so he had a smile on his face as he knocked them off their walkway, allowing his companions to focus on their foe without having to worry about additional problems. Once they were done taking care of that foe Tirek walked over to where they were standing and came to a stop when he reached the top of the steps that the manservant had walked up, though that was the moment that he discovered that they were close to two important areas of the Undead Settlement, as in front of them rested a grand building that seemed important, while off to their right, just a little further away, rested the tower they had seen some time ago.

"Hm, two important looking structures... how interesting." Tirek remarked, because while he knew that they were in the process of looking for the Lords of Cinder he knew that important landmarks were the way to reveal a path to whoever was on an important quest, and right now both of the buildings they could see looked rather important, so much so that it would take him a few moments to determine which he would want to investigate first.

"Where would you suggest that we search first?" Sarana asked, as she was curious as to what Tirek wanted to do first, as in visit the church and see what was inside it or head over to the tower and investigate whatever it had for them, as she was sure one of them held a path to one of the Lords of Cinder, while at the same time Martok remained silent as he kept his eyes open for any additional enemies that might try to attack them.

"First, I wish to scout out the area that's below the bridge we walked on," Tirek stated, as he knew there had to be a path that would allow them to get onto the building they had walked by, mostly because he wanted to see if the enemies he had taken out had dropped anything useful when he killed them, before Sarana nodded as they turned around and made their way back to the bridge in question.

Once they made it back to the stone bridge they found two more peasant hollows wandering around the area, which was the moment that Sarana jumped over the edge and raced down towards one of their foes, cutting into him with her blade before she jumped off, though Tirek readied himself and did the same thing, somehow actually hitting the other one with enough force to transfer all the damage to the hollow in question, even if it didn't kill either of them. Martok followed them not a few seconds later, dropping down onto the first foe, crushing it under the weight of his unique armor, before he spun around and cleaved the other one in half, allowing his companions to take in the soul energy as they started to move, even though they did find another Titanite Shard along the way. At the other end of the path, the one that actually lead somewhere, the group found a room that only had a bonfire in it, something that they lit right away, even if none of them actually needed to rest or restock their Estus Flasks, so they headed through the other entrance and found some wooden steps that allowed them to access the roof of the building that Tirek had been hoping to get on, meaning they could actually see if there was anything up here or not. As they walked on the roof they found another hanging corpse near the wooden path that would take them over to where the peasant hollows had been located, a partizan according to what Martok said, to which they knocked the body down and claimed the weapon, before following the path and finding that none of the hollows dropped anything for them, much to Tirek's disappointment.

As they explored the rest of the roof area, to see if the peasant hollows had been guarding anything useful, it took Tirek a few seconds to find a cage that had a man standing inside it, one that was dressed in a rather interesting set of clothing that had a collar that appeared to be made out of parts from a tree, the leaves to be exact, and seemed to have a white cloth around the area of his eyes, either because he was blind or because he didn't want to see what the rest of the world had to offer him.

"Ah ha, Unkindled are we?" the man said, where Tirek stopped as his companions did the same behind him, as he did know that Sarana and Martok were keeping an eye open for useful items and any enemies that they might have missed, so they didn't get attacked from behind, before the man seemed to think of something else to say as he focused on Tirek once more, "Welcome to my abode. I am Cornyx, an old pyromancer, though now I'm a crow in his cage as you see. But here we are, an encounter for the ages! I hear the Unkindled make for fine vessels. Would you like to learn pyromancies from this old man?"

"Pyromancies, interesting." Tirek commented, as while he hadn't actually learned anything from the people he had recruited so far, and had sent back to the shrine so he could purchase their wares at some point in the future, it was good to have them around, so he could learn the spells whenever he wanted to pick up what they were offering him, before he turned back towards the old man, since that was what Cornyx labeled himself as, "Sure, I'd like to learn whatever you have to offer me."

"That is most wise. A chance encounter like this should not be squandered." Cornyx replied, his tone revealing that he was happy to have someone to teach his spells to, even if he didn't seem to notice the fact that Tirek, in his current state, happened to be much older than he was, before Cornyx readied himself for something, "To reiterate, I am Cornyx, of the Great Swamp. The pleasure is mine."

Tirek, Sarana, and Martok watched as Cornyx disappeared rather suddenly, just like what happened when they took the time to recruit Yoel earlier, something that Martok hadn't seen, though that told Tirek that they would have a new ally whenever they returned to the shrine, to which they resumed searching the area and he discovered that there was an axe resting near where the cage was located. Once they had done that, and had explored this part of the settlement, the three of them headed back down to the roof that was above where the new bonfire was resting and dropped down into the area that was behind where the manservant had been positioned, meaning they could walk down the steps that were in front of them and head over to where the church was located. What they discovered was that there were a few enemies in the area between them and the church that was Tirek's current destination, as in an evangelist, two of the peasant hollows, and a pair of undead dogs, but even as they discovered what sort of enemies were hanging out in this area it just made it that much easier for them to know who to take out. As such Sarana focused on dodging the dogs and lashed out at them when they missed her while Martok pulled the peasant hollows away from their main target, allowing Tirek to gather his magic as he blasted the evangelist with some Soul Arrows, while doing his absolute best to avoid the spells that were being flung at him, something that was hard to do given his still frail body. Even with his power boost from Yoel he could see that his spells weren't having the effect he was looking for, as it still took some time to take down his foes, but in the end he was able to take out the major threat, even if he was the last one to finish since Sarana and Martok had taken down their foes in a matter of seconds.

Instead of focusing on his annoying his situation was, and how limited his power happened to be, Tirek headed up the stairs that would bring them to the church's entrance and paused for a moment, mostly to wait for his companions to catch up to him, before he pressed his hands against the door and tried to push it, only to find that it wouldn't budge and that when he had Martok try it nothing happened as well.

"Really? They locked the church?" Tirek commented, though that was rather annoying, as he was hoping to find one of the Lords of Cinder without having to work too much for it, but now that they had discovered that someone had locked what appeared to be the only way into the building he was going to have to rethink his plan, especially since he didn't know if there were any other ways to get into the structure in question.

"Some doors can only be opened from the other side, to prevent the Unkindled from having easy access to certain parts of the land." Sarana remarked, remembering what she had been told when she found this out for herself, since she figured it was time to tell Tirek the news about this, though that was before she considered what their companion was thinking about and how wrong that thought was, "Also, we won't encounter a Lord of Cinder here, as the places they must have run off to are quite different from what the Undead Settlement is."

"Then why are we wasting time trying to get into the church?" Tirek inquired, because the whole reason he had come to this building was because he was hoping to find a Lord of Cinder here, who was ruling the evangelists, peasant hollows, and everything else they had encountered so far, including everything else that they might not have found just yet, and yet now he was learning that there wasn't one here in the first place.

"Probably to find a clue as to where the Lords went, or possibly a key to enter their domains." Sarana replied, though as she said that Martok turned around and headed back down the stairs they had climbed up, since there was no reason for them to be in this area anymore, meaning that it was time for them to get going and locate another way to enter the church, "Besides, if we find another creature like that knight, or even the Dancer, we can beat them and take their souls for ourselves, to empower our bodies for the challenges that we'll encounter in the future."

Tirek, despite how annoyed he was at having to work a little harder to get into the church, sighed as he followed both of his companions down the steps as they continued to explore the rest of the area they were in, where Sarana quickly found an ember resting behind a tree and added it to their collection, though what caught Tirek's attention was the large number of metal cages that were near them. Based on what he had seen so far he was starting to think that the residents of this settlement were capturing people, be they hollowed or not, and might actually be sacrificing them in some manner, one that he wasn't sure about since he had no idea if his thoughts were correct or not, but so far all he could determine was that these people were weird and that they had to be doing something strange, before tearing his eyes away from the cages as they continued to walk. After the cages they found a small stone bridge, wide enough for Sarana and Tirek to walk across it if they walked side by side, which connected to the path that would take them to the tower Tirek had spotted earlier, one that he knew they would be visiting at some point in time, before spotting a few manservants on the other side of the bridge, three of them to be exact, where each of them seemed to be holding their own large pot in their hands, but they had to focus on two peasant hollows that didn't like the fact that they stopped to look at the area. It only took the trio a few moments to take them down, since Sarana and Martok were able to beat one on their own while Tirek just blasted his foe off the bridge and dropped him into the chasm that the bridge was above, a location that they might be able to explore if they so desired, before they headed towards the cliff side that the area with the executioner's block had been built on, where they found an opening and an undead dog protecting it.

The dog, as it turned out, was rather easy to defeat when they had three people to make sure it didn't move around and attack one of them from behind, though once the undead dog was taken care of the trio entered the opening that it had been guarding and discovered that it was a small sewer of some kind, one that neither Sarana or Martok appeared to be worried about, so Tirek assumed that everything was just fine and that it wasn't the nasty type of sewer. There was also a ladder they could use to get down into the area that the water was in, so while Sarana climbed down it, being the safest thing to do, Martok just jumped down the rather short distance and landed on the stone walkway that was just before the water, allowing them to focus on looking out for enemies while Tirek climbed down the ladder. When he joined them he found three small dog sized rats approaching them, to which he, Sarana, and Martok lashed out at the rats, as they were definitely aggressive and charged at them the moment they laid eyes on the trio, though it only took each of them two attacks to take one of the rats down, allowing each of them to follow the path that was in front of them and be on the lookout for any additional opponents. At first they found nothing as they walked through the ankle high water, or at least that was how high it was according to Sarana, but then they came to a stop when she found a new weapon, a pair of fist style weapons called caestus', something that she added to their collection of growing weaponry as they continued to walk through the water and headed for the other end of the sewer, as Tirek was sure there had to be another exit to this place and was hoping to find it soon. Of course what they ended up finding was three more rats, where two of them happened to be small ones and the third happened to be about Sarana's height, so what happened was that Martok took care of the large one while Sarana and Tirek took care of the pair that were coming at them, though it didn't take them long to knock out the smaller rats as Martok cleaved the larger one in half, almost as if he had done this sort of thing before.

Tirek discovered that the rat had an interesting ring inside its stomach, one freed thanks to Martok killing it like that, and nothing that there happened to be a path behind a locked gate, so with the ring in hand they continued forward and found the other ladder that he was hoping to find, where they climbed out of the sewer, opened the door that was up there, and returned to the bonfire that was near the very first manservant they had seen, though as they approached it he felt something in the air shift and turned his head to their right as they left the sewer.

"Is something wrong?" Martok asked, though at the same time he readied his weapon again, as right now the only foe he knew about was the manservant that was guarding the way into the area that might be connected to the side of the church that Tirek was so interested in, but he was ready for anything and knew that his companions would tell him if there was someone new they had to fight.

"I do not know, as there is a person standing nearby with a purple aura around him," Tirek replied, where he raised his empty hand for a moment and pointed at the path that the being in question was standing on, who looked like a knight of some kind, not like Martok anyway, before he glanced at the area that was around the creature and found that there were two hollows that seemed to be shambling around a ruined house that was near an arch that lead into the next area of the settlement, "and two odd hollows, one male and one female, that also have the same aura around them, only they don't seem to be as aggressive looking as the knight does."

"Is that so?" Sarana inquired, to which she glanced off in the direction of the two hollows and Tirek sensed that there was something more to this than what was being said, as not even a few seconds later she headed over to where the pair were wandering around, totally ignoring the manservant that was in the way, leaving him and Martok to deal with the knight that was coming towards them.

"What was that all about?" Tirek commented, because while he didn't know his companions all that well, and he knew that he didn't care enough to really learn their pasts and whatnot, one thing he understood was anger and while Sarana might not have the ability to convey her emotions to people he got the feeling that seeing those two had sparked some sort of fire inside her.

"Oh, those are her parents... you'll have to ask her the full story if you want to know anything." Martok replied, though at the same time he approached the knight that was coming their way and charged at it, intending to take it out before it could head over to where Sarana was heading, leaving Tirek on his own for a time, even though he could target the large manservant and take him down on his own.

As Tirek blasted the manservant with his Soul Arrows, and knocked him to the ground a few times, he knew that he didn't need to be told anything about Sarana's connection to her parents, because it seemed that it was a terrible one and had been the reason for molding the companion that he was sharing his journey with, and he saw the signs of anger in a matter of seconds, even if she couldn't express herself. Sarana had a burning hatred for her parents, that much he could see as she attacked them with more speed and power than what she did when they were going up against the various foes they had encountered so far, and even if the hollows in question didn't fight back that didn't stop her from trying to tear the pair apart. It was rather amazing, he had to admit that much as he watched his companion get her revenge, if it could be called that, on the parents that had wronged her, especially since this was likely the first and only time he would ever see her body display whatever emotion she was feeling at the moment, even if she couldn't do so herself, and it didn't take her long to break her mother apart, allowing her to move to where her father was standing. Martok, of course, had next to no problems taking out the knight that tried to attack them, and Tirek was able to take out the manservant without giving him the chance to be attacked in return, to which they watched as Sarana continued to vent her anger out on her parents, something that she would be doing for a time.

While they waited Martok said nothing, leaving Tirek to wonder if the purple figure had been a special attacker that didn't want anyone to progress further into this area or if they were guardians of the Lords of Cinder, or, as Sarana said earlier, whatever clue had been left behind to help the Unkindled find the Lords, but he pushed the thought away as he and Martok watched as Sarana finally rejoined them, leaving behind ruined corpses.

"Okay, I'm done with them." Sarana stated, informing the pair that she was finished with her business, and had made sure that neither of her parents would be able to come back from this, though Tirek did notice that she seemed to have calmed down, based on what he was feeling at the moment, and that Martok seemed ready to go the moment she said that, indicating that he was ready when she was ready.

"Very well, then I would suggest its time we got a move on." Tirek replied, because based on what he had seen so far neither of his companions seemed like they needed time to rest, nor did they really need to restock their Estus Flasks, so what he did was head for the arch, since that seemed to be the next area for them to explore, especially since it seemed to take them right to the side of the church, possibly giving them a way into the structure.

Sarana and Martok nodded their heads, as they knew that it was time for them to continue moving after Sarana had stopped for her little episode, to which Tirek headed towards the arch and found that the area between them and the next ruined building had a white tree growing in the middle of the area, some broken ledges to walk on, and seemed to be filled with massive arrows. It was an interesting sight to see, mostly because he wasn't expecting to find this sort of thing over here when he decided to come this way, though he did see that there were a number of items that they could collect and a number of hollows that seemed to be guarding the area, either in small groups or wandering on their own, but based on what he was seeing they should be able to take them out in no time. There were even a number of gravestones off to their left, where he was sure that they could find some useful items if they searched the area, especially since he could see a path of some kind near the tree, meaning that if they could get their hands on the items they could potentially make their journey that much easier for them, at least for the Undead Settlement. He knew that Sarana and Martok could see this as well, meaning they were likely thinking about how they were going to go about gathering the items and killing the hollows that were in front of them, though instead of wasting time he walked forward and stepped into the area that they were about to explore.

In the next few seconds a massive arrow slammed down into the area near the tree and crushed the hollows that he had been looking at earlier, though as he looked to the right, to see where the arrow had come from so they could track down whoever, a second arrow came crashing down in the area he was standing in, or, to be more exact, he had been punctured by the arrow and the world went black once more.

Comments

[PrismStrike]

deaths this chapter:
Tirek: 1
Sarana: 0
Martok: 0

Total Deaths:
Tirek: 4
Sarana: 3
Martok: 0

Tireks first power boost seems to be serving him quite well indeed and martok seems like a real tank with that armor. It seems to be on par with the black knights set if it can simply take a flamberge hit. Also Can relate far to heavily with Sarana and anger at her parents though for her to go to such lengths it must have been a truly terrible childhood (given that its dark souls its not to hard to picture) and finally Tirek gets skewered by the giant lol though that does tend to happen to newbies first entering that area (I know its happened to me a few times) as always another great chapter, looking forward to the next. Keep up the great work

[Comickook]

Excellent job on the latest chapter. Love the work that went into the exchanges, characterizations, action and future chapter set-up. Yeah, certainly really liked the look at the supply run as Tirek, Sarana and Martok explored the peasant hollow settlements and Tirek reflected on how much Yoel actually helped him. And, yeah, I could see where Tirek might be interested in learning a bit of pyromancy and also learned that Sarana has issues with her parents (to put it EXTREMELY mildly). And, yeah, the fight with the manservant was great to read. Unfortunatley, Tirek just got killed again at the very end of the chapter.

Very certainly looking forward to more of this.