24
And The Truth Shall Set Ye Free

The Dark Sun, Gwyndolin
The Tomb of the Great Lord, Gwyn

If anyone could see underneath his crown, they'd see his brows knit together in concern. A being truly from outside of this entire world, fallen into a universe he knew about as a form of interactive tale. Truly outlandish. But if this was true (and he detected no lies), the problem was bigger than his own heresy. The Era of the Gods at risk? Nay, the entire world was damned. And this otherworldly visitor had no solutions to it all. "And yet…" his mouth curled in anger as he looked down at the holographic screen displaying the would-be prophet in the painting. "You have been strutting around as though you have had the solutions."

"Yeah… That's on me, I'll own that." His sudden outburst of forthrightness was… surprising. In Gwyndolin's experience with humans, they were all proud, willful creatures, though ignorant. This made them easy to manipulate, by prodding at their own pride, but to get them to admit to their own faults or failures was…. Rare. "You've been at this whole thing a while, right? Surely, instead of… Lemme make sure this to phrase this properly." He paused for another moment, then continued. "I'm sure you've already been aware of the possibility that things could go wrong with the existing system. How open-ended it is. Like… To put it nicely, Gwyn is very much on his last legs when you get to him in-game, and is a far cry from his true potential. The king of the gods, reduced damn near to ash already, all on account of that Flame. In game, do you know how the Dark Lord Ending was unlocked? You just kill him, and walk away. That's it. No added steps, nothing. If you get a "Chosen One" who's sense of self-preservation outweighs their sense of self-sacrifice, it's done. They walk away, and the First Flame, lacking the fuel to keep going, burns out. It's literally that easy. Surely, you had to have been making a backup plan for that."

He hadn't.

Gwyndolin had been a master manipulator, and he additionally had the aid of the Kingseeker to further mislead their chosen fodder to the Flame. The concept of failure was almost foreign. The fact that it was so simple to fail could be ascribed to idiocy on his own part. "Were there those in your world theorizing possible solutions to this issue?"

"Nobody in any fields or places of power, no," Thomas replied immediately. "Earth's scientists are far too preoccupied with their own planet and immediate solar system, and have no evidence of alternate universes or even life on other planets. Magic literally doesn't exist. And Faith? There's a host of issues with the faith on Earth. For one, Earth has several different, conflicting faiths, with some of the bigger ones having denominations, which is to say groups of faiths with different interpretations of their faith's texts. Couple this with the fact that no gods from any of these systems have revealed themselves to exist, and this has lead to heated wars between groups, of which the advent of technology has only served to make them bloodier. And that's just among the believers. There's also fakes in each of them that use the faith for their own advancement on Earth. Political leaders are constantly bickering with each other and declaring wars for as petty as insults to each others mothers." At this, Thomas threw his hands in the air, clearly exasperated. "Bottom line: Don't expect help from anyone on Earth. I'm basically all you got where that's concerned. And to be completely clear, I'm not even qualified to be counted amongst anyone competent of my Earth. What you have on your hands is basically one fucker that knows the story of this world. That's it."

Gwyndolin nodded, not that the prophet could see that. "This explains much, and yet you have given me much to think about." Glancing at another screen, he observed that Thomas' little band was, in fact, making progress. Perhaps removing the illusions to summon occasional Darkmoon Blades was a bad move, tactically speaking. Some of the Blades would rather Black Crystal back to their own worlds instead of engaging in 1v7 combat. "…Your allies are making short work of my own. I was wrong to underestimate them."

"I mean… probably," Thomas' answer, which came a bit too quick for Gwyndolin's liking, struck hard. In it was the casual sort of indifference reserved for someone who held his allies in such confidence that the possibility of them struggling here simply didn't occur to them. "Something that holds true for Humans both here and on Earth? Tenacity. Back in my world, there was a guy by the name of Zero Lenny that went through this entire game's world with nothing more than a broken straight sword. He died more than 180 times getting through it. With enough willpower, time, and effort, there is nothing no one human is capable of. Hell, for some people, like Big Hat Logan, being undead is more boon than burden. There are some people whom are so dedicated to their task that their own lifespans are more hindrance than anything else, so semi-immortality would be appealing to them. Human tenacity is our greatest strength." Faced with this sobering assertion, Gwyndolin had no idea how to respond to this. Thankfully, he didn't need to.

"So. Where do we go from here?"

Not that the Outworlder's question was much easier to respond to. "I do not know. You cause rather a bit of trouble in the world. Your influence has already borne massive ripples that I cannot fully measure."

"I presume this is due to my fuckery with the timestream which, if I was to guess, utilizes the portal created by Manus to go back to the time of Oolacile's fall."

"Manus?" Gwyndolin was puzzled. He had the official story of how Artorias dealt with the Abyss, as well as the progenitor, but the name hadn't come up. Additionally, some details never added up for him. The Knights of Gwyn never had a pyrrhic victory such that Artorias had, before or since.

"I take it you never got the truth about that one," Thomas said in a tone of voice that could easily be taken as condescending, given his natural tone of voice, but Gwyndolin elected to ignore it. This one claimed to know the full story, and he was willing to listen.

"Let's pretend that I haven't, and want to hear what you know."

"Playing coy does neither of us favors, as I've only too late learned, but very well." It made a small modicum of sense to Gwyndolin that he would see through the slight fib. "First off; the statement that Artorias defeated the Abyss is completely non-factual. Truth is, he got his ass fucking beat into a pulp, before he was taken by the Abyss, and corrupted by it into a feral monstrosity. Only reason he didn't go rampaging further was because he was stopped in Oolacile by a tenacious undead who faced him in single combat, besting him."

"And am I to presume…" Gwyndolin started.

"That the tenacious undead in question was in Oolacile thanks to a portal ripped open by Manus? Yes. So, at least for this world, I'm going to go on to beat Artorias. Which is probably preferable to having him rampaging destroying innocents. I can't imagine that would lead to good press for Anor Londo. Nor would the fact that an undead not only beat him, but then proceeded to succeed where Artorias failed, slaying the Father of the Abyss within the darkest chasms of, well, the Abyss. And Kalameet."

"I'm not so sure I appreciate your tone, claiming so lightly that you will defeat one of our finest knights in single combat."

"I know how it sounds. But thankfully, I have a potential solution." Thomas appeared to be peering at a flame in his hand. Gwyndolin couldn't make it out from here. "I've used this before to purify Quelaan, but I'm not sure if it will be effective against the Dark within Artorias. We'll have to see. I'll end up dying. Over, and over and over again. But I refuse to give in to despair. It is when I give in that we all lose."

"Hrmph," the Witch Beatrice said from over his shoulder. "The way you say that, you make it sound as if the world lives or falls based on your choices alone."

"I… wouldn't say that's entirely true here," Thomas said carefully. "I think I've altered things too dramatically for that already. As it is," Here he directed his attention back to Gwyndolin. "I think you should go ahead and let me out. With Artorias alone, the ramifications of keeping me locked in here are enormous."

"You admit to deliberately messing with the events of time itself, with intent to do so further, and expect me to just let you go?"

"I mean, not really?" he held his hands up in a shrugging manner. "But from what I've pieced together, I've identified a potential method around another problem you have regarding the Flame: To the point, you don't have the time to figure out a more permanent solution to replace your stopgap method. I have an idea on how to get around that: Go back in time, research the Flame, amongst other projects, and manually wait to get to the present, researching the whole time, and then, when I'm back to the present, pass my notes onto myself, thus attempting again with a set of notes to build off of. And I just repeat this ad nauseum."

Beatrice opened her mouth in shock at the idea. "That's insane. Do you have any idea what you could do to the timeline? Or to your own mind? What about what all of this could do to you?"

"NO CLUE!" Thomas declared with an impossibly wide grin that was definitely fake. "I have no clue what could happen, but it's the only method I can think of."

He then began listing off issues. "You have no experts that understand the Flame, you have no experts that understand the Dark, you have no alternative methods to the Flame Linking to save the world, and you have no time to make either new experts or alternative methods. What I'm proposing is… admittedly risky. But I can settle on a few things, to try and prevent too much time fuckery. Every attempt that I cannot save Artorias…. I'll put him at peace. Partly to keep him from rampaging still in future timelines, partly just so that he can find peace. Killing Manus should close the time loop, because then he's no longer alive to pull people into the past. Once I've done that which I need to, I'll stop him, and then let things progress to the present. By then, I should hopefully have a better understanding of the Light, the Dark, the First Flame, the Abyss, Humanity, and how best to deal with the problems we're dealing with. You have no experts. I propose to become your expert. From your point of view it should be a near instant thing, which will likely be a tad unnerving as I go from merely bullshitting my way through the world to actually knowing what I'm talking about. But trust me, every bit of the knowledge would be earned." At this point Thomas looked at himself. "Fuck I'm dressing Future Me up a lot." Looking back to the general sky, he then addressed Gwyndolin again. "Main point, I think I'm your best bet for doing anything meaningful, and that's why I think you should let me acquire the Lordvessel."

Looking down at him, Gwyndolin pondered this, before letting out a long sigh. "Due to your companions nearly reaching the painting, I don't think I can actually stop your release, short of direct interference, but I suspect that my tactics are not unknown to you thanks to your game."

"To be completely frank with you, they aren't. While you could presumably think outside the box enough to improvise something, I know your general capabilities enough to be able to adapt well enough."

At this, Gwyndolin merely gave a defeated sigh. "Very well. But you will need to fight the Guardians of the Lordvessel in order to earn the privilege."

"More than fair."

Hardly, Gwyndolin thought to himself. The ante of what you intend to do with it is much higher than desired. Therefore the threshold to earn it must also be increased.

Later…

Thomas,
The Cathedral of the Painting

"Right," Thomas muttered, popping his neck, at the bonfire before the Tomb of the Great Lord Gwyn. Before him stood his various compatriots that had arrived, looking to spring him out, when the forces of the Darkmoon simply… ceased. They were allowed to approach the painting without further challenge when, as soon as the doll was brought near the painting, it shimmered, spilling Thomas out alongside Beatrice. They had various questions about her, but Thomas knew that the air needed to be cleared up first. "First things first. I lied."

Conversation stopped, and his friends turned to look at him. How long, he wondered. How long will they remain such after I get done talking? "I lied about who I am. Where I came from, and where I get my knowledge from. To make matters worse, I have been less than totally forthright with it all as well." Looking at their faces, Thomas gauged their reactions. Beatrice, Pharis, and Lol'th gave small nods, like this wasn't surprising for them. He supposed they must have been in on it. If nothing else, Beatrice already was. Kirk gave no visible reaction. His helmet blocked any facial expression. Thomas reckoned that Kirk was also likely in on it, however. Only one child being in on the truth seemed an odd choice for him to make. Priscilla's reaction seemed troubled. She kept her Lifehunt Scythe close to her body, with her tail coiled around her. Her eyes were seemingly fixed on the ground. Laurentius seemed hurt, as though this was a low blow, but it was Oscar and Solaire who really got his heart ripping. Solaire's helmet was also on, but his hands balled into fists. Oscar, however, looked crestfallen. Thomas had effectively become his rock, and he had just yanked himself out from under him.

"I offer no excuses for my behavior, nor do I expect forgiveness. I shall explain why I lied, but by no means expect you to accept it." Sitting at the bonfire, Thomas idly drew on the ground with his catalyst, making random shapes and symbols that had no apparent meaning. "Solaire," he said suddenly. "You once said that the barrier between worlds was thin, allowing heroes to phase in and out of each others' worlds, yes?"

"This… Is true, yes. But I don't recall telling you such a thing." Solaire's words held a mixture of suspicion and curiousity. Hearing such a normally cheery voice regard him with suspicion… It hurt.

"You told me this, but it was another Solaire, from another world. A… contained world, as it were. Let me explain, first, by telling you where I come from. I come from another world entirely. Not merely "another Lordran" or "another Timeline." I come from a completely separate world, where technology outpaces everything you know of here, where magic doesn't exist, where sickness is all but eradicated. Where humans have no gods known, but fight bloodier wars than you could imagine over whether or not their unproven god exists or is better or not. With the power of science, we mimic pyromancies and sorceries you couldn't believe in. Most definitively different of all, however, is the lack of the Undead Curse." His description brought about mixtures of awe and wonder at the sound of Earth. "And, we have games. Interactive, digital media that we play on screens. One of those games is a game called Dark Souls. Created in Japan by a man called Miyazaki, he wanted to create a world that challenged, and rewarded. It's story was vague and grim. The world, barren and hopeless. The people, on the verge of losing themselves all the time. This game would spawn two sequels, further exploring the fate of this world. But first, there was the first game. First, there was Lordran."

"A long time ago, there was a boy who played these games named Thomas. He wasn't the best, but he wasn't exactly shit, either. One day, he woke up, and found himself in a familiar cell. This was where Dark Souls began. And he knew where he was, and despaired. He didn't feel ready for such a challenging world. Worse still, he knew both endings to this story, and neither of them were good. But before he could despair further, a body fell in his cell. The body had a key, given by one Oscar of Astora. Thomas made a decision: Break the game. He didn't know what this would accomplish, but first things first, he would save one person. He managed it, and decided he could try to save everyone. For what purpose, he knew not, but he felt he had to try. But before then, Oscar asked who he was. Here, Thomas was gripped by fear: He needed allies. He needed trust. But the truth… He had no assurances the truth would be believed." At this, Thomas shook his head. "This was where I came up with the lie. Bringing forth the name of a god from a different game, and claiming to come from a land from yet another, Thomas proclaimed himself a prophet, claiming to know the resolution to all things. In this, was but a half truth. He knew how everyone's story would end if he did nothing. But nothing more beyond that. I shall share these with you now, for the full truth."

Thomas looked at each of them in turn. "Rhea, I've already told you your fate." Her hands gripped her quarterstaff tighter. "As much as I may have wished that you had a happier one, it isn't to be. There are no happy endings in Lordran."

"Griggs. You never manage to complete your mission. Sure, on occasion you catch up with Big Hat Logan at the Shrine, but when he leaves for the Duke's Archives, you follow, and Hollow in Sen's Fortress." Griggs looked down, but otherwise didn't truly react.

"Laurentius, seeker of pyromancy. One day, the Chosen Undead would learn of greater pyromancy than you knew of. You would beg for this information, and learn of it coming from a witch in the swamps beneath Blight Town. You fail, however, to find her, eventually going Hollow. The strength of your Pyromancy wasn't great enough to pierce the illusory magics hiding her." Laurentius looked at the Flame in his hand, before it tightened into a fist.

"Oscar, your fate has already been averted. You were destined to hand me your Flask and a key, before dying, and going Hollow. Search yourself. You already knew this fate in your heart long ago. What the future holds for you now, I could never tell you."

He then looked towards Kirk and Lol'th. "Your mother's fate was to die at my hands. The chosen undead, ignorant of why she stood against him. Why she sought to harvest his Humanity. And so he slew her. It's unsure whether or not he would even learn of Quelaan. If he would choose to help her. Or if he would choose to slay her, as well, be it out of greed for her Fire Keeper's Soul, or out of a sense of mercy towards her plight. And frankly speaking," He looked then, towards his daughter. "You shouldn't exist at all." At this, Lol'th gave a seemingly sweet smile, but he couldn't tell whether or not she was actually threatening him. "And Kirk… You would repeatedly invade the Chosen Undead's world, seeking to pilfer his Humanity for your Fair Lady, only to be repelled again, and again, and again. Eventually, you despair, and Hollow in her chambers."

"Sounds about right," Kirk muttered. "You told me as much before."

"And finally, Solaire." This… This would suck to reveal. I owe it to him, though. As much as for anyone else. "You never find your Sun. Searching from the heights of Anor Londo to the depths of Lost Izalith, you couldn't find it. In a dark corner of Izalith, near despair, you find yourself bewitched by a Chaos Bug, giving a false luminance that entrances you. You believe you have found your Sun, but you have been taken, instead, turning on former friends and allies, until slain by the Chosen Undead." Solaire's hands tightened even further.

"And now you know the truth. Who I am. Where I come from. Why I kept silent about so many futures. And there is more yet I have to say, but I don't think it matters anymore." Thomas then stood. "I have to go. I have to try and do something to break this cycle. I don't know if I'll succeed, but…" His voice trailed off into silence, and Thomas then started walking. He didn't hear any footsteps behind him, and considered slowing down, asking if they wished to follow, but decided against it. Frankly, I'd be surprised if they didn't hate my fucking guts, he thought to himself. Their relationship was built on trust, but the foundation had been flawed with lies from the very start.

A short walk later, Thomas found himself in a grand room. At the very end, the doorway leading to the big bossfight stood before him. Thomas had already grabbed the closer bonfire, and was rolling a black, spherical object in his hands. Before I take them on… I've got some stress to let off. Lol'th had swung by while he walked, catching him off guard as she gave him the black eye orb. He'd have business with Lautrec to settle.

AN:
Right so… I honestly considered stopping entirely because I didn't know how to write this chapter. Apologies for taking so long. I'm trying to sort out how to write this without it being the utter cringe it was 4 years ago. I'll try to keep writing, if only to make a finish, but… Well. Life in America is really weird right now, so… Yeah. Thank you for your continued patience, my dudes. Theseus12 out.