I'm absolutely uncertain how this hasn't been made yet. But I'm writing this as a sort of break from trying to come up with stuff for Tor, or Bottom. It's actually been really relaxing.

Anyway, this is a story based on the first Dark Souls game, I would have made one for Demon Souls first but I was never able to get my hands on any sort of Play Station. This wouldn't have been posted here at all as I feel it's in need of some heavy editing, but I decided to do so anyway as the game's remake is cominf out soon.

Needless to say, there WILL be spoilers and opinion based lore translations either based on my own interpretation or made for the purpose of writing this character. Please let me know what you think and drop any suggestions you have as a comment, as with most writers I love to know what the people who read what I've written thing of it.

***

Escaping the Asylum. (Gore, death, no sex, zombie)

I remember the first time I died. The moment was hardly special, some Cleric Lord had been coming too quickly down the street as I turned the corner, I don’t even think he stopped. I remember staring up at the sky and wondering how I had ended up on the ground, trying to sit up only to realise the arm I was trying to push myself up with was no longer there. I cannot remember turning my head, but I remember seeing my arm laying on the street along with the lower half of my body. It was surreal then, I don’t think that I formed a single coherent thought that entire time my consciousness was fading, though I do remember the pain flaring back to the surface near the end, pushing through the shock my mind and body been forced into.

I don’t remember waking up after that, though I feel it must have been days later given the state of my body. They probably killed me again as soon as they noticed the Darksign emblazoned in me, packed me in a cart with the rest of the undead and carted me away to the asylum like I’ve seen done hundreds of times before. For some reason i never thought it would be me in that cart, in hind sight I doubt many do.

But now here I am, a rotted husk left to continue rotting in this cell. I spent some time exploring it when I was first left here. I don’t know if I was trying to find a way out or something to eat aside from these undead rats or anything really. But I did find this sword, broken and rusted as it is, barely more than a handle now, but it feels comforting in my hand. I think I was a mercenary, back in Thorolund, maybe some kind of body-guard because I’m wearing armour, simple and cheap I’m fairly sure they meant to bury me in it before they discovered my condition. But still, this too is comforting.

I’m not certain how long he’s been crouching there, staring at me. But I know he’s there, even if I haven’t looked at him. He’s wearing heavy armour, by the sound his footsteps made when he walked over to the hole in my ceiling and looked down at me, but I haven’t looked up to check. I didn’t think that humans guarded the Undead Asylum, I thought that was left to the malformed beasts brought low by the Gods. Still, I can think of no other reason for him to be here.

I feel my face trying to redden in shame after I jump when he drops a body, even more rotted than I, directly in front of me. I’m not certain why I’m ashamed about being startled, perhaps because I was so stoically refusing to acknowledge him and my sulking petulance caused me to miss him dragging it over.

I look up at him, then back down to the body. There is a key embedded in its back. I look up at him again, and somehow I know it’s the key to my cell. I can almost feel him smiling even through his helmet. It’s infuriating, but endearing all the same. This little bit of light coming to me even in this rank place, what kind of man must he be to aid some simple Undead without a clue as to who they are? He nods, almost imperceptibly, then stands and walks away.

I find myself staring at the body for many minutes, perhaps even hours. Then I look down at my hand. Even through the glove I can feel the small ring on my middle finger of my left hand. I don’t remember her face, but her crackling little voice pierces my mind as clearly as the day she had given the piece of jewellery to me. “Thou, young warrior, thou hath not yet been tested. Oh do not look upon me so, whatever thou hath experienced will be brought again one thousand-fold fold upon ye, and yet ye will forge on, never ceasing until found is that end ye seek. Take this, this ring. It shall offer thee comfort when least it is expected. And it will be needed.” Her voice trails off in a laugh, more a wheezing rattle than a cackle as I recall.

The next thing I know, I am pulling that key from the corpse I’ve been given and moving toward the cell door. Questions flutter through my mind, “Why am I doing this? What is the point? What could I, of all people accomplish?”. But I feel a swell of determination and the gate swings open to reveal the no less depressing, but much more open, hallway beyond.

I make my way slowly down this hallway, the sounds of dry, ragged breathing coming at me from the nearest cells, containing undead nearly as emaciated as the one that was dropped into my cell, they stare and exist but I know that they do nothing more. I am nearly at the end of the hall before I notice it, a constant sound to me by now, but louder than it yet had been. A rhythmic thumping that shakes the crumbling stone tiles that I walk on. My head turns slowly to my right and I see it. A massive, bloated beast, covered in thick grey-green skin that falls in flabs over it. Horns wreathe its head, wings in a pathetic approximation of the Everlasting Dragons I remember hearing of from the Maidens, it takes a moment of staring, but then I see a massive flaccid flab of flesh dragging along the ground between its stocky legs. I turn ahead and make my way quickly out of the hallway and up the set of stairs beyond, hoping not to draw the thing’s attention.

I pass several other undead, but they are no more coherent than the rats that moved through my cell, and I do my best to ignore them and how I close I came to becoming one of them. It is after a long climb up a ladder out of a cistern that I find it, an open courtyard. The walls are still high and oppressive, but I can see the sky cold and grey as it may be. Thunder drowns out the still rumbling footsteps of the thing bellow and sparse plants bring some comfort, I find a small flower, grey like everything else here. It is a weed, I know this, but I still tuck it into the armour over my left breast where I can still feel the Darksign burning.

Better than any of these however, there is a sword. It looks flimsy, charred and perhaps poorly made. It is jammed into the earth, with burnt piles of what appear to be bones. But it is still a better weapon than this broken thing I hold. I move toward it, reaching out. But then my Darksign flares just before I can touch the thing, a burning sensation shooting through my arm and into the blade. A fire catches in the small mound of bones and ashes, the flame drawing me to sit.

It is some time before I realize that I’ve been resting here, all thought of taking this weapon gone, simply gazing into the flame as it twirls in a slow dance around the charred, coiled blade. But I must press on, this I know.

Standing from my place I look about the courtyard. The most obvious place to go is a massive set of double-doors up a set of stairs. I also note a smaller door set into the masonry to my right, but decide to look that way after investigating the massive gates.

They are easier to open than I had expected, though the reinforced wood is heavy and the hinges are rusted I am able to get them open after a few seconds of effort. Through them I find what seems to be some sort of destroyed chapel with another set of smaller doors on the other side. I am making my way toward them when that massive beast from down bellow, near my cell falls directly in front of me. No, not the same beast. This one is smaller, though not by much, and holding a gigantic hammer rather than the spear-like weapon I’d seen on the other. None the less, it is massive and not happy to see me. I cannot imagine it will do much, but I attempt to strike it with my broken sword, the decimated blade simply deflecting off of the thing’s hide. I hear it laughing, rolls of flesh jiggling before I feel myself crushed between its club and the stone tiles beneath us.

I jolt awake at the small fire I had lit in the courtyard only meters away. The doors are closed again, but I can still feel the pain of my splintered ribs piercing my sides. I decide to check what might be through the smaller door at the side of the courtyard.

It’s locked.

With a bit of trepidation I make my way back to the massive doors that led to where the disgusting demon had been found. I find the room empty yet again, but looking up I can see it through a hole in the ceiling. I imagine it waiting for me or any others to try to and make it through the door at the other side. I take my time now, studying the area for an advantage against the beast, in doing so I notice a small doorway to the left side of the large room that could once have been a grand hall. The portcullis is open, and looks thick enough from here that I wonder whether the demon might not be able to break through if I were to make it past.

It was waiting for me this time, I’m certain of it. It falls in the same place as before as I run toward the small doorway, but what had once been a flaccid mass of flesh dragging between its legs is now standing erect, nearly as long as I am and wider than my own body with almost as many rolls of fat and skin as the rest of it. I do my best not to dwell on this, focusing instead on pushing myself toward the doorway.

When I am running straight for it the run seems almost trivial, he is far too slow and I slip beneath the portcullis long before his hammer slams down. I hear the metal opening slam shut behind me, and wonder how that happened just as I hear and feel his hammer slam into the rusted metal. But it holds strong, prompting a roar of rage from the monster while I do not slow my sprint even as I run down a set of stairs and find myself standing before another coiled sword.

After lighting this and taking a nearly irresistible rest beside the flames I move through the dank area the only way I know I can go without heading back to the monster with the hammer. I’ve barely turned the corner when an arrow finds it’s way into my chest, sprouting from directly between my breasts. My armour takes the brunt of the damage, and I feel more able to continue with a wound like this than I would when I was alive, allowing me to take cover in a cell to the left, prying a shield from a mummified body within.

I’m in a hallway, similar to the one I had been placed though clearly higher in the asylum than my own given I could see sky through a hole in the roof. At the end of the hallway is another nearly mummified undead, this one is holding a bow and firing arrows at me down the hall. I lift my shield and move slowly toward it, deflecting each shaft that comes my way with relative ease. The thing shooting at me runs away as soon as I get near, ducking into another hallway to my left and disappearing.

I find a longsword on a corpse in the hallway, fairly kept though old. I am still examining it when the archer reappears not ten feet from me. I lift the shield and feel an impact, moving forward once more and blocking another arrow. I lower my shield and take the thing’s mouldy shoulder in my left hand, jamming my blade into its stomach and letting it drop to the floor with a hissing gurgle. It’s more satisfying than I’d like to admit.

After some exploration I find the other side of the locked door from the courtyard, a pleasant surprise that allows me some rest to recover from that arrow in my chest. Flames flicker over my body, bringing warmth, comfort and a tingle of pleasure while they heal the wound. This feels oddly natural and I hardly want to leave. But I do, working my way up a staircase when i find a massive metal ball rolling down toward me. I lift my shield, managing to be forced to the side rather than crushed beneath it, still ending up on my ass with bruises and scrapes, but alive. Looking back I can see that the iron sphere made a hole in the wall across from the staircase.

Curiosity gets the better of me more often than I think it should. Inside, to my surprise, I find the man in heavy armour who had dropped the key to my cell to me. He does not look well, his leg at an awkward angle and his breathing ragged. Looking up I can see that he likely fell through a hole in the roof, given the state of his body perhaps he was helped through by the demon up there.

As I approach him, his helmeted head turns to face me and I hear a young voice call out. “Oh, it’s you, I’m Oscar of Astora. I’m glad that you made it out of there. I’m done for I’m afraid, but we’re both undead. If you would... would you hear me out?” I consider for but a moment, he had helped me when I was at my worst not but hours ago, I could not very well deny him.

“Of course.” Is all I can say, kneeling beside him, feeling the thin layer of water that lay over the floor soaking around the leathers of my armour. He speaks of his failure, that he will go hollow just like those things in their cells, as all undead do eventually. But he then speaks directly of his mission, how an undead is meant to leave this prison and go ring a bell to awaken some... thing. And that doing so would allow one to learn the “Fate of the Undead”. He then with some difficulty passes me a small flash filled with some sort of warm liquid, and a key.

“I do not have much time, left. You should go, I would hate to harm you after death.” He finishes, a gloved hand lifting and stroking the tips of his fingers across my face. I cannot not help but smile. This man had helped me, not only by releasing me from that cell, but by giving me something to strive for. I need that, I can feel it. An impossible task to push towards all of my lives. A purpose.

“Thank you.” I say, lifting his visor on an impulse and leaning down. He looks human, rather than like a corpse. I wonder how he did that for a moment before I press my lips to his. I hear a quiet gasp, but pull away from him and begin walking out the hole I had come before he can do anything more.

A few more hours of exploring and many fights with the resident ill-equipped undead I find a place that I recognise. It looks to be the back of the room I had been crushed by the giant demon in, though I am some ways up I can hear his growling breath through the doorway and down, likely still waiting for me to come through one of the doors.

A surprise attack then. I wonder if I might be able to land on top of him, using my weight to drive this sword through his thick hide. There is nothing for it but to try, so with a running start I leap off the balcony into the dreaded room, finding the beast directly bellow me. I angle my weapon down even as he looks up, the massive shaft of flesh I hardly even dare name still erect before him.

I come down on his back as he flinches away from my plunging blade. I feel my sword sink into his flesh and past what I assume to be bone with a scraping sound before wrenching it out and sliding down his huge body to the floor. He roars in pain and attempts to spin and face me at his back, though he appears to be rather encumbered by his erection, the massive thing slowing his movements just enough for me to roll to the side as he brings his wicked hammer down at my head.

It takes some doing, but I mage to begin opening his body, cutting at one side of his belly before dodging his strikes and working at the other. His skin, however thick is easily split once I have a blade in it and soon he is well and open. He drops his hammer and small arms attempt to hold his roiling intestines inside of his belly. As he sways and I realise he is about to fall, I notice too late the twitching of his member just before it sprays almost half-heartedly in front of him and onto me. It could have been worse I feel as he crashes down before me. I wipe the searing semen from my face and arms. It smells of sulphur and heat. It had been clear how he had intended to use that thing before I had fully armed myself. I am certain I got the better end of the deal.

To my surprise, his corpse simply dissolves, though the sticky mess he left behind does not it seems. But where he lay is now a large key, almost as stout as he. I take it to the door I wanted to head through from the beginning.

I had taken a few glancing blows of his hammer through our fight, but nothing that I felt was too dangerous. However, before I try the door I decide on impulse to drink from the flask Oscar gave me. I only take a sip, though a generous one. It fills my body with warmth, and this only grows. It feels like drinking the fire from where I have been resting, the pleasure and comfort moving through me is almost a shock and I let out a quiet gasp, hardly even noticing as my wounds disappear.

Through the door I find myself in a graveyard out on a cliff surrounded by nothing but mountains miles and miles away. But, more importantly I am outside of the Undead Asylum. Free to pursue this quest that Oscar spoke of. I do not linger, making my way as far away from the Asylum as I can. Something fills me as I distance myself from that place, taking root in a hole I had not realised was there deep in the pit of my stomach. I feel alive again.

As I reach the very farthest edge from the Asylum that I had learned to hate so much, I hear it, the beating of wings. It is a sound that feels comforting, not the same warmth as the bonfires from before, but something I feel a connection to. An image enters my mind of a weeping Goddess surrounded by crows, and even in that moment a massive crow appears before me, wings opening to reveal reaching claws. I almost fall into them and I am carried away.