In the Age of Ancients,

The world was a pretty shitty place, shrouded by fog.

A land of grey crags, archtrees, and everlasting dragons who didn't give a shit when their tails got carved off.

And then there was Fire

And with Fire came absolute fucking confusion. Heat! Cold! Life AND Death. Light and Dark! No wonder everybody went nuts when all this shit appeared.

Then, from the Dark, They came

And found the Souls of Lords within the flame. Pretty epic.

Nito, the first of the dead. And his stupid resurrecting skeletons.

The Witch of Izalith, and her sexy daughters of chaos.

Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight, and his faithful knights with no fashion sense.

And the furtive pygmy, so easily forgotten and so easily stirring up shit theories on the net.

Gwyn's mighty bolts peeled apart their stone scales. So much for his faithful knights doing any work.

The witches weaved great firestorms, because that's the first thing that comes to mind when fighting motherfucking dragons; light that shit up.

Nito unleashed a miasma of death and disease, which he then refused to reverse, leaving him in piss poor standing with the other lot.

And Seath the Scaleless betrayed his own just because he could, and without any bloody legs no less.

And the Dragons were no more (wink, wink).

Thus began the Age of Fire, which is a lot like Christmas but less violent.

But soon, the flames will fade, and only the Dark will remain. Which doesn't make any sense. Fire going out? Kindle that bitch. Don't tell me they ran out of things to burn. That's fucking ridiculous.

Anyway, there are only embers, and man sees not light, but endless nights.

And amongst the living are seen, carriers of the accursed Darksign. Which will never be properly explained. Is it just the Chosen Undead who has it? Or everyone who's going Hollow. Nobody knows. And so begins the journey, and the end of any concrete storytelling…

DARK(ish) SOULS

I

Lordran was indeed a stupid place. There was wasn't much to do if you weren't the chosen undead. You either turned into a hollow and have to suffer the utterly insulting physics engine that sent your limbs flinging about in an idiotic dance every time some hero stampeded over your corpse, or hang out in Firelink and mope about with four-five lines of pre-scripted dialogue to your credit. You better hope you have some items or spells to sell, or you'll probably be perpetually ignored, and that's the best scenario. God forbid you drop any humanity upon being slain.

If you were the Chosen Undead though, great adventures abound! Sure it wouldn't be easy, and death would most certainly rear its ugly head from time to time. But HO! The Darksign'll take care of that little inconvienance. Then its back to more Adventures! Upgrading Weapons and Armor! Finding Loot! Collecting Souls! All the while feeling a very satisfying sense of accomplishment at completing such an ardous journey.

That's the problem, however. Chosen Undead. Singular. There was only one of them in that current reality. And it sure as hell wasn't him or Stacy. Whilst the Great Big Hero was out trying to ring the Bells of Awakening; a task which shouldn't take more than a couple of hours, he was just sitting on the soft grass playing a rather complicated game of cards with his partner.

His name was Bob of Kerns. Kerns being the town he was from: A tiny mountainside village so obscure and unimportant that it could be wiped off the face of the earth by a fleet of Stone Dragons and no one would lose their lunch over it. Stacy was from there too. They'd grown up together, not because they particularly liked each other or fulfilled any sort of human need, but simply for the fact that there was no else.

It'd all started in that crappy Asylum. He and Stacy had been whisked away there for no reason whatsover. Were either of them even Undead? Nobody seemed to give a shit to even bother to ask, so Bob just ignored it.

It'd would've made for one hell of start to an adventure; breaking free from the shackles of imprisonment and instrumenting a daring escape from the Asylum, learning the ropes whilst they were at it.

Nope. A deep, lurching impact that sounded like a great demon slamming its ass into the ground, had dislodged the rusted cell door holding Bob and Stacy within its rank confines. After that, the two just trotted out without a fight, noting with mild interest the corpses of real undead scattered about, capped off by the deceased carcass of the Asylum Demon lying dejectedly at the front door with is ugly head Claymore'd off.

Of course, the waiting time on the giant Raven was a minimum of forty minutes. Which meant the Chosen Undead already had an unfairly long early start.

So now, they waited. Biding their time with their inane banter and hopelessly convoluted card game. No use chasing after the Hero at that point. Bob and Stacy agreed that there was no rhyme or reason for either of them to risk their lives on some fools errand. Plus, they were pretty sure they weren't Undead, or Hollow or whatever. Death would probably be permanent. All the more reason not to go off galivanting on some miraculous quest just so someone who was "Chosen" would end up getting all the credit.

'Allright, I'm putting my Hellkite Drake in the face-down-left position with three amber power crystals attached to its boost cloister. Which activates my Bridge of Flame magic card. Say goodbye to your Hollow Soldiers.' Stacy muttered, peering out from the cowl of her milk-white maiden robe with a lazy and bored expression. A finely cut crop of dull blonde hair peeked out from the hood, masking her pale face further. A cleric or saint, one might think by looking at her, but the Zweihander (+2) laying at her side said otherwise.

'Fuck.' Bob replied simply as he Soul-Shifted his vanquished creatures to his Third Deck Beta crossroad; ready to fight again in seven and a half Polar Moonshift phases, that is IF Stacy didn't cast that dreaded Homunculus Spell card again in two Nerhoips.

In other words, Bod didn't know what the shit he was doing, and Stacy probably didn't either. Still, it passed the time at least pretending they were playing a game.

'Urgh. I'm getting sick of this.' Bob grumbled as he shifted on his sitting position for the twelfth time in the span of a minute. The Knight Armor he was wearing was chaffing so bad that three different places would be itching at he same time, if he was lucky. Bob wasn't even a Knight. He'd just found the set lying on the floor of the Asylum; conveniantly contained within a bright white plume of embers. He'd tried the Elite Knight set too, which looked way more badass, but unfortunately with his goliath 11 points in endurance, the stuff slowed him to a pathetic gait. 'Why's that self-righteous bastard taking so long? You wouldn't think killing a Lesser Demon would take more than a few minutes.'

'You're one to talk. Remember that Hollow Zombie you so gracefully vanquished? You were hacking away at it for ten minutes before you decided to just throw him of a cliff.'

'Hey, at least he gave us 25 souls between us. You'll be thanking me when that Prism Stone saves our lives.'

'REAL smart investment there. Maybe if your intelligence wasn't in the single digits, one of us could actually learn some sorcery.'

'Why don't you learn to shoot lasers out of a stick then, if its so important.'

Stacy shrugged nonchantly at that. 'Faith build, with a two hander.'

Bob grumbled again. SOME kind of magic would be useful. Unfortunately, he didn't want to speak with that moron at the entrance of the New Londo ruins again. Sure, he was selling some basic Soul Arrow spells which Bob reckoned he could wrap his head around, but their last encounter had made him incredibly uncomfortable;

'Oy! I'm Rickert of Vinheim! Esteemed Magic blacksmith! I sell the rarest titanite in the game. Green Motherfuckers!'

'What're you doing in that little hole. I almost waltzed off a cliff getting here too. Not really a sharp place to set up shop.' Bod had commented warily.

'Whatever pal. So I gots two ways to do this; Magic or Enchanted. Which will it be?'

'How exactly do you work?' Stacy chipped in incredously. The prick was just sitting in that little hole built into the ruins without so much as a fork in the way of tools. She also noticed there was no exit or entrance to the place. The horrid and stagnant smells coming from in there weren't lending themselves to Rickerts claims of being more than a crazed hobo.

'Let's go, Stace.' Bob had graciously suggested, leaving Rickert to scream profanties at them as they left.

'Ya worthless bums! Just watch me work moyy magic smithin!'

Rickert then made several loud and theatric noises with his voice; doing his best to sound like he was actually making weapons that existed beyond his imagination.

When he had noticed the two were long gone, he scoffed to himself. 'Heh, losers. Just wait till the ghosts get em! Good thing I'm safe in ere!'

All the screaming and noise had attracted the attention of the aforementioned phantasms, who were already sick to death of Rickert's bitching. They'd phased through the walls into his little hidey hole and promptly hacked him to the death, unknowingly doing a great service to all mankind.

Back at Firelink, Bob and Stacy waited another five minutes in silence before both decided to hatch a master plan.

'Hey, why don't we kill the Chosen Undead? Probably got some good amount of Souls with him. Maybe even some humanity. We could use it to bribe our way back home somehow. What d'you think Stace?'

'Isn't it a little early to be plotting murder? I think we should just talk to him first, see what he's planning. Maybe he knows how to get out here without having to fight an army of demons to do so?' Stacy suggested evenly. ' We can always kill him later. Not like Death is a big deal anyway.'

As if on cue, the Holy Warrior Returnedth; sprinting at top speed down the sloping staircase hugging the cliffs to the north. He was wearing the Elite Knight Set, (smug prick, Bob noted), and duel wielding katanas like a jackass.

'Quick! There he is! Let's talk to him.'

Stacy hopped to her feet off the ground and approached the Hero, who was currently kindling the bonfire.

'Excuse me, Sir. I just need to ask you a few questions, if you would be so kind.' Bob heard her say when he waltzed up to her side. Chosen just watched her blankly, not saying a word. His sweet-looking helmet hid his face completely, so Bob had no clue what expression the son of a bitch wore.

'Uh, hello?' She tried again to reach him, waving her white-gloved hand in front of his face. Still no reaction. 'The hell is his deal?' Stacy motioned gruffly at Bob, so he took it as his turn to get through to him.

'Mr Hero? Chosen Undead or whatever. You help people, right? It just comes naturally to people who have the fates on their side and all that. Stacy and I want to get out of here. Do you know how? Maybe you can convince that giant bird up there to break protocol and take us somewhere besides that piece of shit Asylum.'

Clink! The Elite Knight Armor rattled as Chosen titled his head at Bob. He then thrust his hands up in the air in a jovial V with his feet together. It was simultaneously the gayest and most badass pose Bob had ever seen in his life. Chosen dropped a glowing item at his feet then sprinted away shortly after, heading for the downward path to the New Londo ruins.

Bob and Stacy just stood where they were for several minutes by the glowing embers of the Firelink bonfire until Stacy took some iniative and scooped the dropped item from the floor.

'What is it?' Bob asked curiously. Stacy turned to him utterly stone-faced.

'…Prism Stone.'