Galus managed to get Blaidd out of the evergaol with Seluvis' instructions, it was a lot simpler than he thought it would have been and Seluvis would not shut the fuck up about how dumb we were and how brilliant he was, it nearly got to the point where Galus was considering a second Isekai trip to Lordran. It eventually got to the point that Blaidd threatened to remove his tongue if he didn't shut the fuck up, at that Seluvis hung up his end of the call.

"I fucking hate that guy." The two of them said in sync.

Galus looked at Blaidd's wounds, and took out the bottle of crimson tears, it was slowly refilling, if he had to guess it was one dose per day, he was thankful for that. He gave the bottle to Blaidd and he looked at it before shrugging and taking a drink, luckily he did it in a way that it wouldn't spill over his lower jaw. Galus probably would have told him to keep it if he stuck his tongue in the bottle. He saw the wounds close on Blaidd, and he handed the bottle back.

"So, Blaidd, you weren't wrong, I'm not exactly the best in a fight, I can use a swordsman to train me, would you be willing to train me?" Galus asked, definitely seeing the irony in asking a dog to train a human, but at the same time he was probably the best swordsman this side of the lands between, and the other option was probably Bernald who would probably laugh him off.

Blaidd gave him an appraising look before tilting his head. "I'd atleast like to see where you're at in terms of swordsmanship before I make a decision. Also, here, thought you might like this." Blaidd tossed the hound fang sword to him, he nearly cut himself in catching it, and Blaidd shook his head. "When someone tosses you a sword catch it by the handle."

Galus nodded, holding the sword in a way that felt comfortable, it was kind of weird wielding a dead man's sword right next to his body. "Just tell me whe-" he just barely blocks Blaidd's massive sword, and it wasn't easy to get out of it, he had his hand on the back of the curvec blade but still Blaidd's sword was pushing through, it was like trying to not get crushed by a boulder. he had a thought, he used to watch a channel on YouTube that showed why this was a bad idea on in swordsmanship, and it had become a channel meme. He moved to the right removing his hand from the back of the sword and the sword from the lock, he swung the sword and barely saw Blaidd bring his hand up and caught his wrist. "Atleast you know not to lock swords. But what're you gonna do now."

Galus had no idea honestly, the sword he was holding though made of a lighter metal, was still a bit too heavy to hold on one hand like this, and he dropped it, but instinctually caught it in his other hand, he looked down at it confused and Blaidd clearly didn't miss that confusion by the look in his eyes in his eyes. He tried to swing upward at Blaidd's armpit, remembering reading about armor weaknesses but he was met with a boot to the chest, he couldn't hear ribs breaking luckily but it felt like it.

Blaidd, pointed the tip at Galus' throat, them lowered it a bit, sheathing it onto his back. "That's enough sparring for today, I'll train you, though it looks like we'll be starting from the bottom." Blaidd said, as Galus drank a bit of the crimson tears. He looked at it, one more dose. He walked over to the now solid Knights corpse, and found the sheath for his sword and pried it off of his back, undoing the buckle and strap. He put it into the sheath, it looked to be an open sheath with only a buckle to keep the sword from falling out of the back of it. He put it into his back right next to the shorter bastard sword, and followed the wolf knight.

The two walked on the road and Galus came to a stop at the bridge blockade, he saw that the soldiers were... Gone, scorch marks blackened some of the palisades and the Ballista platform was scorched to hell and even parts of the stone bridge looked burned, as if it's fire was hot enough to eat stone.

Galus sighed, hoping the soldiers died because the alternative wasn't pleasant.

Galus continued forward, Blaidd was about ten feet ahead he'd stopped looking back at him. "Galus, are you alright?"

Galus nodded. "Yeah, best we be careful, there's a cult of the frenzied flame around here, and from the looks of it the guards who had helped us escape them have joined their ranks, because I don't see any bodies."

Blaidd nodded, Galus could see his nose twitch and scrunch up. "Thought I smelled something fowl."

They continued, and they eventually came to their old camping sight and the bodies of the misbegotten who Galus had faced off with. There were plenty of those cleavers lying around and Galus picked one up to pair with his other one before continuing on.

Eventually they come by Korne the merchant. Galus taps Galus on the shoulder. "I'll be right back, I'm gonna see about buying something."

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Galus approaches Korne, the golden amber sphere had a slight glow coming from the depths of the stone, he instinctually knew that it was two thousand six hundred of these runes. It was about the size of a large coin. He'd like to know what the deal with some of this stuff was, hell, he was wishing he'd been given an inventory so he didn't have to lug this stuff around.

Galus sat next to the fire with Korne. "Hey, you have anything good to sell? I have a few runes to spare."

Korne laughed. "Good to see you again, and so soon? What brings you back down this way? I was thinking you'd be gone for quite a while yet."

Galus sighed. "I'm guessing you've seen her, Irina, the daughter of lord commander Edgar, I'm trying to get him out of castle morne but I'm pretty sure that a man foolhardy enough to try and retake a fort that's already lost, and basically alone no less, would probably be dead by now but I promised I'd see if he was alive and bring him back if he did."

Korne opened his saddle bag bringing out a cobbled together iron helmet, a pair of iron Gauntlets, and a pair of Kukri. He gave Korne the small golden gem and put on the gauntlets, he was not sure about the helmet though, he put on his new helmet anyways, better tham nothing... Probably. But Galus spotted something over on the saddle. "Hey, Korne, Would I be able to get that crossbow and some ammo instead of this helmet?" Galus asked, gesturing to the mule. Korne thought about it before taking the helmet off his head and grabbing the crossbow. It was surprisingly light and he found that after some test firing at an empty barrel, it fired relatively accurately though without the ability to reload quickly and requiring both hands to do so was annoying.

Korne waved as the two walked off, Galus waved back, Blaidd looked at him. "Probably the better idea to ditch the helmet, looked like it was going to fall apart." Blaidd said, and Galus saw the castle in the distance, and that asshole fucking golem, maybe if he got close enough he could topple it.

And, he could see the asshole golem pulling it's bow back, and fired an arrow into the sky, it crashed in front of them about 20 ft away, and he raised his hands to block the dust, rocks, and pebbles. He saw Blaidd start running and got behind some stone ruins, Galus was right behind him, and at the crash of the first arrow they moved running to the next nearest cover, mind you the cover was at the very least fifty feet apart each. The first arrow impacted the ground about ten feet away from them, and a second impacted three feet behind Galus, it nearly pushed him over.

They got into the second cover, they continued running from cover to cover... Until they ran out of cover. It was atleast three hundred feet to the golem, it would be a mad rush to the castle gate, both Galus and Blaidd unsheathed their swords, Blaidd looked over his shoulder and said "we'll flank it, I'll go left you go right, it can't shoot both of us at the same time."

Galus nodded, seeing Blaidd hold up three fingers, then fold them one by one hitting zero and they both bolted, and it aimed directly at him because of course it did, it seemed a tad miffed that he escaped it before, he saw Blsid moving increadibly quickly before leaping onto the castle wall and climbing, he was so busy watching Blaidd he forgot about the archer and was nearly hit by the arrow light pole sized arrow but his vision blurred and he was a goot thirty feet away from where he was and where the arrow impacted. He saw the Golem Jolt as Blaidd jumped onto it's shoulders and stabbed his sword between the joints of it's shoulder and it's neck before using it as a fulcrum and it's head nearly flew off like a firework it's neck spewing a flame hey and everything, He saw Blaidd land his sword by his side and the fur cloak not quite fluttering but more just landing around him after he landed the thick leather not exactly being the best material for fluttering, the pose reminded him of when he executed the big monkey in Sekiro, unfortunately it wasn't a far off analogy as the giant stone creature started blasting flames from it's neck hole and it was shooting arrows wildly, stomping it's feet, Blaidd leapt back avoiding the stomping feet. Clearly, whatever the creator of these golems was paid it wasn't enough, not making the head a weakness was probably the smartest thing he's seen someone do in this world so far, aside from maybe Miquella making a big tree house for the people nobody wanted.

It took him a second but Galus finally reacted, nearly in the blink of an eye he was in front of the golem, he wasn't sure what happened but his vision blurred and he was here, he decided to just take the opportunity, he slashed at its shins, the long curved blade dug into the hot rocks and molten stone sprayed from the wound, it sprayed all over his chest and shoulders, luckily stop drop and roll was a thing or he would have been dead, problem was there was a giant foot rushing toward him, once again his instincts kicked in and his vision blurred again, he was next to Blaidd.

---------------

Blaidd looked at him, who was now rolling on the floor to put the any fire out. "Looks like the sword is treating you well, I'm surprised you're using the bloodhound step so well." Blaidd was surprised he wasn't dead three times over, he might actually have to apprentice him if he kept this up.

Galus sits up. "Ooooh, so that's what that is... I can't see shit when I do that." Blaidd looked confused, did he not even know he was doing that? He was surprised he hadn't launched himself into a wall yet.

The golem was still malfunctioning and Blaidd decided to take it out now before it dealt any more damage, he rushed in and hacked at its leg with his sword he could see the golems leg break and bend the wrong way, he was careful to avoid any slag and and the toppling stone tower that was it's body, it collapsed onto the ground and it's flames shot along the ground making a wall of fire near Galus, Blaidd raised his sword and swung it into it's back causing a huge opening crack to be left in the stone outer shell, showing a large metal canister which was glowing hot, he raised his sword once more and plunged hos sword into it, and immediately it exploded causing Blaidd to go flying and black out.

---------------

Galus saw the explosion his ears were ringing and he couldn't see out of one of his eyes, he looked around seeing the golem with it's chest having a massive hole in it, it's arms were blown clean off and he saw half of the bow with it's think rope lying a couple of yards off. Blaidd lying a good fifty feet away from himself, and was very obviously not in good condition, he rushed over to Blaidd and uncorked the flash of crimson tears and practically rammed it into his mouth, he saw the wounds closing but the shrapnel got in the way and unfortunately it wasn't like the movies where they just slid out, no the flesh grew around it, that was probably a horrible idea but it bought him time.

Galus gritted his teeth, and glared his one good eye at the erd tree. "Oh no, no you fucking don't, you're not having him today! And if I get my way you won't be getting him at all!"

He unpinned Blaidd's cloak,opening it to be flat on the ground, he then went over to the broken bow grabbing the bows thick rope it called string, and cut a good length of it, he went over to Blaidd's body and stabbed a pair of holes into the cloak, before looping the rope through them and making it into a makeshift sled. he Blaidd's sword out of the corner of his eye, it was broken the blade was bent and the glint stone handle was brokenvthe other half of it was nowhere to be found, he walked over to it and dragged it over onto the leather sled cape and laid it next to Blaidd, before he started pulling.