I entered the aqueduct, glancing back and forth down the dark tunnel. I took a breath of the cool, wet air, and padded down the sheet of ice that I’d made of the water, refreezing the layer of ice as I went. It took only moments before I came up to the small mound of moss that Celia had stacked atop the layer of ice that I’d left behind in my wake. Celia appeared to be haggling with the Undead merchant over a clump of flowering moss, while Siegmeyer stood to one side. He nodded to me as I approached, but neither Celia nor the merchant even glanced my way.

“Negotiations going well?”

He shrugged in reply, his armour shifting around him.

“Well as can be expected. The moss comes at a good price, and in good amount- she has impressive stock at such short notice.”

“Ah…” I tilted my head. “Might be my doing. I advised that she stock up when I passed by the first time, and she seems to have taken my words to heart, if the amount that you’ve purchased is any indication.”

“Mm, that it is. You should have seen it, Lady Sif- she kept pulling entire new bundles of the stuff from practically nowhere! And then she and Celia would immediately be off, arguing about the quality, the quantity, the wilting of various leaves…” He huffed a laugh. “Forget the dragon, I believe I will be telling stories about the battle between the brave knight and the worst, most powerful beast of all… the merchant attempting to get the best price for their product.”

“A terrifying match, to be sure.” I glanced down the tunnel behind me. “Where’s Laurentius?”

Siegmeyer nodded towards the exit. “Just inside the tower, there. Preparing for the trip downwards towards Blighttown, he said.” I nodded in acknowledgement. “Have you decided which of the entrances to Blighttown you prefer?” I raised an eyebrow at that.

“I thought we had put the choice to Celia.”

“Mmm, we did. And Celia made the decision that in this, she will follow your decision.” An amused tone entered his voice. “I think that she’s not particularly willing to lose your accompaniment to something as simple as a series of ladders.”

I growled softly at the thought. “Not like she really needs me for anything more than the negotiation at the end.”

“I believe she simply enjoys your company, Lady Sif. More than that, you’re a skilled and powerful combatant, one whose presence and participation she values greatly. We all collectively increase each other's chances of survival, and an adventuring party is never complete with one person alone.” He examined the armoured form of Celia, her arms crossed over her chestplate and helmet set to one side, grimace on her face as she grappled over Souls. “I think, perhaps more than anything, she missed the company of comrades during her journeys in Lordran. To have a group that stands at her back and fits well with her is more valuable than their actual effort in combat, especially given how she’s most likely able to stand on her own now. Though I’m sure that our capabilities don’t go unappreciated.”

“There’s only so much a single person can do, after all.” I muttered, then shrugged. “I’ll go and see Laurentius, see if he’s ready to leave. I believe we’ll be taking the route in from the Valley of the Drakes- less ladders, you see.”

“Ahhh, of course. By your leave, Lady Sif.” Another note of humour.

I shook my head in exasperation, then gave Siegmeyer a nod, which he returned. Our conversation over, I stepped past him and towards the door to the tower. Celia didn’t even spare me a glance, taking the flowering moss from the merchant and immediately grimacing when faced with another clump of it. Just as vital, just as important, needing just as much bartering. I watched her sigh, then wade right back in for it. I couldn’t help the small smirk of amusement on my face; she was far too responsible for her own good. I slipped by her, earning barely a glance before she focused back on the battle of wits, and stepped through the door exiting into the tower.

The interior was exactly as I left it, save for Laurentius, who was sitting at the edge of the wooden platform with his legs crossed. His hands were on his knees, his eyes closed and his breath slow and steady. A flame hovered before him, small and flickering, barely more than a candle. Was this a kind of meditation for pyromancers? I could feel the energy cycling between himself and the flame, maintaining the small fire at precisely that size, no smaller and no greater.

“Practicing control?”

The flame guttered for a moment as my question reverberated against the stone, his concentration shaken for but a moment before he got the flame back under control. He turned to give me a glance, then focused back on the tiny candle.

“Mm, something like that. This is a control exercise, yes, but it’s also useful for calming the thoughts and bringing a restless mind into line. Restless thoughts make for restless flames, and restless flames have killed more than a few pyromancers consumed by their emotions.” He held up a hand, cradling the tiny flame in his palm. “When you wield a power such as this, it’s easy to forget that its destructive nature can easily turn against you in a moment of lost control. It’s not the fault of the fire, which simply seeks to burn what fuel it finds, but the fault of those who cannot manage the fire. If they can’t keep the flames in check, then they aren’t ready to wield them.”

“Ah. I suspect it’s about patience, as well- perhaps being methodical? Attention to what you’re controlling at all times, given its danger.” I said, moving to his side and sitting down. He nodded.

“True. In that, you’re lucky, Lady Sif- frost is not so eager to spread and consume as flame is.”

“Frost has its own dangers. Even more because it’s treacherous- too much exposure to the cold numbs the senses and dulls reactions. Muscles become harder to move, and responses take longer. Too much can even make one fall into a sleep that they will never wake from.” Hypothermia was just as dangerous as hyperthermia, just for different reasons. Your standard organic form wasn’t designed to withstand extreme temperatures like that.

“Really?” He stroked his beard, looking contemplative. “I hadn’t thought of it, I suppose. Cold isn’t something a pyromancer tends to have to worry about, especially when one lives in the Great Swamp. Mild winters and hot, muggy summers have been my experience for most of my life. I hadn’t seen snow until I came here, and even then, I didn’t feel much of the cold. Is that part of what makes frost useful in a fight, then?”

I shrugged. “Ice is useful for many reasons- a restraint, a hazard, a way of containing something, even as a way to create weapons out of nothing. However, yes, the numbing effect of frost is very useful against something that requires muscles to swing weapons and responses to threats. Enough cold being forced into a body might mean that they slow- enough to be nearly imperceptible, but enough for, say, a sword to pierce through their defenses. Slowing someone in combat, even by just a few degrees, can mean the difference between defeat and victory.” I smirked. “And, well, I could always just resort to making them an ice sculpture.”

Laurentius snorted in amusement, his hands returning to his knees and the candle flame floating in front of him. I watched the flame flicker before slowly returning to its perfectly shaped state, then closed my own eyes and felt out the power inside of me.

It jumped to my call, flowing in and through my two bodies, cycling back and forth as the energy and Soul equalized constantly between the two. My larger body went through a series of feints and strikes against an imaginary opponent, sword whistling through the air at a rapid pace that I couldn’t have possibly kept up when I’d first occupied this form. Now, however, using Sif’s strength to bully around a hunk of metal was beginning to feel like second nature.

Part of me was somewhat worried by that. Was it possible that I was being subsumed by the body that I inhabited? There had been moments, particularly earlier when I still struggled to shape my tongue, where I had not felt entirely like myself. Those moments had become fewer and fewer as time went on, but was that a good thing, or a sign that I was integrating? I didn’t think I felt any different than I’d felt when I’d first woken up in this form, but that was the trap, wasn’t it? I felt a flicker of irritation that I had nothing objective to compare it to, no measuring stick that I could use to determine my mental contamination- assuming that there even was any.

I sighed and let the thought go. Even if I was right and there was some kind of influence or contamination, what was I to do about it? I couldn’t exactly leave this body, which would be the entire source of it. I might be able to pull myself to one side as much as possible, severing the small avatar completely from the larger body and leaving me in it, but that would leave me in a position fraught with danger and uncertainty. Until I knew more, I couldn’t be making drastic moves like that, especially when it would remove much of the power that I relied upon to do anything.

Instead, I focused on the alignment with frost that anchored part of my soul, and the body. I suspected that wolves in general had an association with the cold and frost, though I wondered if that was a result of humans associating them with the far north. Perhaps it was a side effect of them being native to northern, colder regions? Could be both. Regardless, debating the origin of the power wasn’t particularly useful when I already had it.

The power within me felt intrinsically linked to it, though it was not frost itself. It was… easier, I supposed? Simpler to pull unformed frost magic into the world, where it could be manipulated. I suspected that I could do sorcery just fine, provided I had a catalyst, but that was forming magical energy in an exterior sense. If a catalyst functionally filtered the energy, did that mean that your average human could more or less do what I do, and simply never discovered either their alignment or how to bring it into the world? I filed those thoughts away for later, when I could plague Logan or Seath with them. Ultimately, as curious as I was about it, I was here to fight, not research.

When I coaxed the power up from the core of my being, I could feel the moisture in the air around me. I could sense how the damp space behind me bled into the tower, water-laden air finding its way into the space through the open archway with nothing to stop it. With a thought. I turned a number of them into ice crystals, drawing the water together into patterns. When I opened my eyes, it was to see snow landing softly all around me, the air suddenly much drier than it had been.

There was a perfect circle of bare stone around Laurentius, who had stopped with the candle flame exercise and was now looking about in interest. Everywhere else around us, however, was blanketed with a very thin layer of soft snow, pure as if it had freshly fallen from the clouds. I pressed my paw into the powdery stuff, listening as the ice crunched and compacted under the pressure I put on it. It made the interior of the tower quite pretty, if I was being perfectly honest, the white surface reflecting the torchlight and covering up the rotted wood. Perhaps I could turn this into a hazard technique? A layer of snow could very well be dangerous to an unprepared opponent. I filed that away for later as well.

“Lady Sif, you didn’t have to summon up a coating of snow just for me.” Laurentius joked, and I smirked in return.

“Please, I did it for myself. This place needed something to make it at least look passable.”

“Well, that’s certainly something!” Laurentius and I turned towards the archway, where Siegmeyer stood, surveying our surroundings. “How fascinating! Did you just discover how to do this, Lady Sif?”

I nodded. “Just some experimentation with wielding my power. Perhaps something that might be useful at some point, but for now it’s just rather pretty.”

He nodded. “Still, we have the moss, negotiations are finished. I don’t think Celia was happy about it, however.”

“Oh?” I asked, curiously. Siegmeyer huffed in amusement.

“Well, I think it was rather obvious in how she grabbed whatever she could carry and stalked off towards Firelink, muttering a dark streak the entire way. We’d best meet her there, sooner rather than later, or she might find some poor monster to take her frustration out on!”

“Ah, yes, and wouldn’t that be terrible?” I replied, amusement written across my face.

There was an amount of moss that had been left behind when Celia had left. The merchant waved us off happily as we gathered the plant matter into various bundles and bags, practically whistling to herself as she saw us off- or, at least, much as she could from behind the grate. The medicinal material gathered, we made our way back down the aqueduct towards where it exited towards Firelink.

“She did seem best pleased, didn’t she?” I mused quietly. “I wonder if we were taken for something of a ride there. Celia certainly didn’t seem happy with the results.”

Siegmeyer shrugged. “I’m unsure that it matters. After all, surely the souls required were a mere fraction of what we received from the various creatures we’ve fought?” He paused for a moment before the exit, humming in thought. “Then again, perhaps it’s a matter of pride? May very well be that she’s dissatisfied that she didn’t acquire a better deal, feeling that she should’ve with her capabilities.”

“Or,” I said, exiting the door directly behind the knight and following him down the stairs, “she got a good deal and wanted to act frustrated as a way of not cluing the merchant into it.”

Siegmeyer paused on the last step, tilting his helmet up. “Ah. You know, I hadn’t thought of that. A rather clever play, if that’s what she was aiming for.”

As we walked into Firelink shrine, one look at Celia told me that I was most likely right. Notably, the Undead was smiling like the cat that had caught the mouse- given my experience with Alvina, I believed I was the one here with the most authority on the subject. As I watched, she packaged the moss into tighter bundles wrapped with pieces of cord. Siegmeyer settled himself next to her and began helping her with the packaging, which I assumed was to make them more easily consumed for poison treatment in combat. The piles of medicinal moss were too large for us to entirely take with us, and to one side, Laurentius was stuffing the extra into a chest that I recognized as a bottomless box.

I regarded the construction of wood and iron warily. In the lore, the bottomless box was essentially a nascent mimic, a physical representation of the greed that spawned those creatures. Its magical nature, and its ability to hold an unlimited number of items, was a side effect of the avarice of the mimics. There was a half-remembered hint that one could become too obsessed with their bottomless box and become a mimic themselves, but none of the people here seemed particularly fascinated by the box. Something I’d have to watch for, though given the occasional wary glances both Siegmeyer and Patches kept throwing in the box’s direction, I wasn’t the only one who had some idea of the storage chest’s true nature.

Still, it was plenty useful for these purposes, though I wondered how it worked. It hadn’t been here before, had it? Certainly not, or I would’ve noticed it. Perhaps it was linked to the person who’d purchased it, and could be summoned through the bonfires? Would certainly be another way of linking the Undead to the bonfires. I wondered if it was intentional, then; if so, how many Undead had become mimics? Was… every mimic in Lordran a former Undead? That was an intensely uncomfortable thought. I pushed it aside, moving to where Celia and Siegmeyer were sitting.

“You know, I hadn’t thought about how those moss bundles would work for me, given my lack of hands.” I said, sitting in front of them. Celia glanced at my paws, then up at my face, frowning.

“Maybe across the belt securing your sheath? Could stuff one or two in the bag attached to the strap…”

“Mm, sounds like a good enough option to me. Could simply ask one of you for a refill if I start running low.” I turned in Laurentius’ direction. “Laurentius, since you have a pyromancy technique that can clear the poison, do you think you could carry the moss for the rest of us? You’re a ranged combatant, so the extra weight shouldn’t affect you in combat overmuch.”

He shrugged. “Sure, I can do that. Nothing against carrying some supplies for an expedition.”

“That technique…” Celia tapped her gauntleted finger against her thigh plate, producing a ringing noise. “Do you think you could teach it to me in the time we have?”

He leaned back and frowned in thought under his hood, rubbing his beard again. With more downtime, I was starting to notice that habit of his more and more. Eventually, however, he shook his head.

“Not without more time. It’s a more advanced technique than a simple fireball, takes time and self-awareness to pull off. I could teach you, sure, but it wouldn’t be quick or easy.”

I shrugged. “Blighttown isn’t going anywhere in the meantime. It isn’t as if Quelagg is suddenly going to vanish from her post, either. The entire place has waited centuries, it can wait a while more.” I tilted my head. “Celia, you said that there was a man in the Asylum, correct? What was his name again?”

“Oh. Er…” She tapped her fingers against her thigh plates in a rapid series of pings, frowning to herself, then brightened slightly. “Oscar! That was it, Oscar of Astora. Freed me from my cell. Seemed fine when I left. Why? What about him?”

“I was just wondering. If I’m aiming to gather every intact body that I can find, then he falls under that number, does he not? I imagine that even a single sword more, especially if he’s a true knight, will not go amiss.”

“Ah, I’m not sure how to get back, though.” She craned her head back, looking up at the pitch black bird atop the ruins of Firelink. The giant crow stared back with one of its black eyes, silent and observing. “That bird carried me here the first time, and now I’m… well, I’m not sure how I’d even get back.”

“Well, perhaps I can convince it to carry me through a return trip, hmm? I’m sure it can’t be that difficult. And in the meantime, while I’m gone, Laurentius can train you in the technique. With that secured, our stocks of medicine will last much longer, and we won’t be in any danger of a shortage. Might be useful for later challenges we must overcome, as well.”

“Hm!” Siegmeyer pushed himself to his feet. “Well, Lady Sif, if you can convince it to carry one passenger, perhaps you could convince it to carry two? I admit that if I hung around, I’d most likely wander off just to find some bit of adventure, haha! Might as well take advantage of access to a place that I can’t normally get to, hmm?”

I blinked. Could the bird even carry two people? I admitted that I was unsure. Truthfully, I wasn’t entirely sure how it had carried one, but I assumed that it was just because it was magical. Most likely, the birds here and at the Asylum were either the parents or the relatives of Snuggly. There were also hints that they were somehow related to Velka… the crow people that appear in later ages had much the same link. Was that Velka’s token of participation in the plan of the gods? Transportation to and from Firelink ensured that the Undead would base themselves out of it. Having the nations gather their Undead at the Asylum gave a ready pool for certain Undead to escape the metaphorical crab bucket, ensuring a higher grade of candidates reaching the end of the Asylum and being transported to Lordran…

I really needed to confirm where Velka fell on things. I thought of the Pardoner in the Parish, just before the first Bell of Awakening. Speaking with him would reveal my presence and movements to the gods, insofar as I hadn’t already- I doubted Fina would reveal a potential ally to the gods that she’d aligned herself against. Velka, however, was a complete wildcard, and I had absolutely no idea where she stood or for what. Something I’d need to confirm before moving forwards with a large number of my plans. I quickly weighed the things I needed to do against each other- I’d need to pass by the Parish on our way to Sen’s after we rung the second Bell of Awakening, which would make it the perfect time both to have a talk with Oswald and to have that discussion I’d promised with Andre. For now, however, the Asylum was our priority.

“Well… I’m not sure if it could carry two, even if it’s willing, but we can certainly try. Nothing prevents us from experimenting with it, after all.” I turned to Celia. “How did you get the bird to pick you up in the first place, anyway?”

She hummed. “They just sort of grabbed me off the ledge at one end of the Asylum, I don’t think I did anything specific to get them to do it, they just… did.”

No hints there. I knew that if you did the curl up emote in the nest, the birds would pick you up and carry you to the Asylum. Without any hint, however, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to come to that conclusion. I supposed that I would just have to try things until I ‘accidentally’ landed on what I already knew was the correct trigger. Provided, of course, that it even worked like that here.

I nodded, then walked towards the ruined cathedral-like structure, thankful that there were at least no ladders to climb. Just a leap of faith across a fall that I could easily make, after triggering the elevator. Siegmeyer hoisted himself to his feet and followed behind me, checking over his gear as he went.

“So, Lady Sif, how do you plan to reach the nest?”

“I saw ways up, stairs around the outer edges of the tower. There’s no way to reach them from here, but I figured that if I could ride the elevator up a little, I could perhaps find or see another way.”

He nodded, electing not to comment further. We moved past Petrus, who was sitting on a large piece of rubble in his customary room, giving us a mirror of the same wary looks we were giving him. We moved to the elevators that led up to the Undead Parish, and I noted that, as luck would have it, the right hand elevator was up, the left hand down. That meant a slightly easier transition to the top of the structure we were standing in, where slightly more of the roof was intact. I walked into the elevator, Siegmeyer right behind me. I raised a paw to press the button on the floor and trigger the mechanism, then paused and glanced Siegmeyer’s way.

“Be ready to jump, I don’t think the elevator’s going to stop to let us off.” He nodded, once, then hunkered down a little.

I pressed the button. Chains rattled and metal groaned, stone dust cascading from above as the mechanism began lifting the stone plate up the shaft. I waited for just a few moments… there! My paws propelled me into the open air, then I landed with a huff on the stone roof of the structure, a thin area where one could walk. Siegmeyer landed beside me with the heavy sound of armoured boots on stone, then stuck out his arms as he almost fell forwards into the room directly below our feet.

“Ah! Well, now! Huff, this is… I’m too old for such shenanigans, Lady Sif.”

“Seems to me that you handled it just fine, Knight Siegmeyer.” I returned, already looking forward.

When you approached the crow’s nest, it was a matter of lining up a jump so you landed and rolled on a support buttress that was low enough that one could jump from a ledge to it. Here, however, with no armour and a true jump that far exceeded that of the Chosen Undead, I was looking left to where another support crossed most of the gap. It ended more or less even with the stone surface we were walking on, and led right up to the stairs that formed a path to the top of the structure.

“What do you think, Siegmeyer? Do you think you could make that jump?”

I pointed with my nose towards what would be in the games the intended approach to the tower. Siegmeyer leaned past me, staring at it, then nodded.

“Hmmm… bit tricky, but I’m sure I could. Do you have a different route for yourself in mind?”

“I can make the jump to the other support, and not be in your way.”

“And I’m sure that it being safer has nothing to do with it at all, of course.”

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I chuffed. “Of course not. Such snark, Knight Siegmeyer- very ungentlemanlike.”

“Ahhhh, wounded! My pride, injured so! I shall have to make the jump now, to redeem myself in the eyes of milady!”

I gave him an exasperated look over my shoulder, though he looked wholly unrepentant. I shook my head, then moved around, hopping over where the stone dipped towards the ground. There was a larger flat surface here, part of one of two supports that ran a ways up the sides of the elevator shaft. I paused, gauging the distance to the stone support, then backed up a few paces towards where the flat surface took a sharp angle upwards. I checked the distance again, then gathered the energy in my legs, before springing forwards.

My paws slapped against the stone, and right as I reached the edge, I bunched myself up and slammed my back paws against the surface. The force launched me out into the air and over the gap, stretching my paws out towards the stone support on the other side. For a moment, I felt a flicker of anxiety, of uncertainty- was I going to make it? My paws collided with the flat stone surface, and I slowed myself, feeling rather confident that I’d managed to actually cross the gap. Not exactly the most impressive feat that I’d accomplished, to be sure, but personal physical feats were always something I took some amount of pleasure in.

Looking to the right, I caught Siegmeyer sprinting towards the ledge, then throwing himself off. He hit the stone buttress with the shoulder of his armour with a grunt, rolling forwards and onto the thin piece of stone after it, up on his feet with a huff the moment he had the stable ground to do so. He glanced over, meeting my eyes and giving a thumbs up, which I responded to with a wag of my tail. I ascended up the stone support in front of me, settling atop the stairs, and Siegmeyer came up the side of the tower not a minute afterwards.

“Phew! An impressive jump, I wasn’t sure whether either of us was going to make it for a moment, there!” He tapped his chestplate with a finger. “Just about thought my heart was going to stop for a moment, that was far too stressful for an old adventurer.”

“A dragon or a hydra are just interesting foes, but I suppose that we’ve found an enemy that gives even you pause.”

“Oh? And what would that be?”

“Obviously, physical effort.”

Siegmeyer laughed, ruffling my head fur. I poked my tongue out a little, fixing him with a look, and he gave an apologetic wave of his hand.

“Sorry, Lady Sif, I just couldn’t resist. If you didn’t want to be petted, I suppose that you shouldn’t have been in petting range.”

“Ah, I see.” I said, voice filled with mock indignation. “Yes, truly my fault, I really should’ve considered the consequences of my actions.”

He simply laughed again, then held up a hand, indicating the stairs in front of us. I gave him another exasperated look, then started climbing them towards the top. A doorway halfway around the outside led into the completely crumbled away interior of the tower, and I completely ignored it, moving forwards instead and around the half-cylinder that made up what was left. On the other side, on a ledge that poked out towards Firelink, was the nest. However, I couldn’t help but pause for an entirely different reason.

To our left, Firelink clung to the side of the cliff. Figures arranged themselves around a bonfire, and I could just make them out from here. Before us, a view more unrestricted than it had been before, lay the entirety of Blighttown in its sunken manmade valley of carved stone blocks. Far in the distance, the petrified and hollowed out Archtree rose into the sky and down into the poison swamps, all the way down into the depths of Ash Lake. To my right, the graveyard sat against the side of the mountain, skeletons roaming between the gravestones.

Far in the distance, the sun hung over green valleys and hills, lakes, a horizon gilded with the white of clouds. Far off in the distance, I could see a mountain range, green giving way to the gray of stone, which turned into the white of snow. The air smelled clean, the scents of Blighttown contained far below, the Undead Burg and the graveyard both unable to reach this high and this far. The scent was crisp, and I could help but inhale it, pinned in place by the sheer majesty of the view.

“For all that is wrong with this world,” Siegmeyer spoke from my side, “There is still much beauty in it.”

I found myself nodding silently. I had to admit, for everything terrible about Lordran as a place and all the awful things that lived in it, it could be quite beautiful at times. Having moments to realize this was putting it more into perspective, that this place was more than just locations linked together in a labyrinth of enemies. I supposed that it was important to remind oneself sometimes that there was more than what could be directly perceived, a world out there touched by Flame. Our actions here were for the good of every species under the sun, not just ourselves. Sitting here, with this view, it wasn’t hard to imagine how the gods in their walled garden had forgotten that fact in its entirety.

“You! You!”

All of my fur instantly stood on end, and I wheeled around to stare directly into a solid black eye the approximate size of a dinner plate. It blinked, the head it was attached to twitching as the crow shuffled its feathers.

“Sif! You bring- news?”

The damn thing could-!? I reached out with my essence, my sixth sense, and I picked up a hyperdense core of pure Soul. In the center gleamed a spark of unyielding gold, and after a split second, I recognized it as the spark of divinity that others must recognize within me. I supposed that, given the trends, it really should’ve occurred to me that other giant animals in Lordran might share the same anthropomorphic features as Alvina and Sif. However, I hadn’t thought about it too hard, and, for the first time, I was at the receiving end of what it must feel like for people that interacted with me for the first time.

It was an odd experience. I didn’t think I liked it.

Siegmeyer, on the other hand, had doubled over laughing the moment I’d reacted to the crow’s words, leaning desperately against his zweihander as he tried to hold his pure mirth in. The crow itself jerked its head around, staring at us with its other eye, something like curious confusion coming over its avian face. I shook myself, trying to get my fur back in order, then sent Siegmeyer a dark look that he entirely ignored. Then, I turned my slightly anxious attention back to the crow.

“Greetings. I am sorry to say that I bear no news- there has been no contact with the gods, nor any word from Anor Londo, for… decades, perhaps.”

The crow seemed annoyed at this, clacking their beak and fluttering their wings, chest feathers somewhat fluffed.

“Ahh! Why come, then? Bring no news, bring no gifts!”

“Well, I came seeking a way to the Undead Asylum. There is a potential compatriot there that I would like to see, perhaps more than one if I recall the deployment of Black Knights correctly. I’d heard that you bring Undead from the Asylum to Firelink?”

“Difficult, difficult, Undead heavy, but job well done!” They fluffed their feathers in pride. “Velka be proud, yes!”

I twitched at the direct mention of the goddess of crows and sin. I’d not spoken her name since warning Siegmeyer and Celia about the pardoner, and had to fight down the urge to look around nervously, just to make sure that someone hadn’t magically appeared and was listening in. As it was, I still exchanged a somewhat wary glance with Siegmeyer.

“Yes, you’ve done a wonderful job thus far, and I’m sure that Velka would be intensely proud of your work.” Somehow the crow’s feathers fluffed even farther. I hadn’t been sure that was possible. “Still… you should most likely return to the Asylum, yes? If only to check that more Undead don’t need to be transported here.”

The crow nodded in thought. “Yes, bring Undead to Lordran… Sif wishes to go? Take knight with?”

I twitched in surprise. Not that it was hard to figure out, but I realised that I had no way to tack down how smart this crow actually was. The speech patterns had put me off the mark, and now I had no idea where I stood. It was the sensation of suddenly coming to the realisation that you were standing in the middle of a swamp with no idea what directions led into an underwater pit or where dry, solid land was from here. I’d had at least a rough idea of what I was getting into with earlier encounters, but here? It wasn’t like I was guided by the lore, there wasn’t some great explanation for the whys and wherefores of the transport crow. Even Snuggly is just… there.

“... Yyyyyes. Yes, actually, I would like to go to the Asylum. My friend, Knight Siegmeyer, would also like to accompany me there. Is that acceptable?”

The crow swapped eyes again, head jerking around in ways that, while perfectly bird-like in a way that would look totally normal on an average sized crow, here unsettled me some. Perhaps it was the movements being magnified by the size of the one making them, perhaps it was the speed of them, but regardless…

“Hmmm- yes yes, can carry two!” The crow nodded and flared their wings. “Velka gave strength, exactly for this! Glad to help friend Sif!”

On the list of things that I didn’t know how to feel about, I really didn’t know how to feel about this.

The crow flapped their wings once, lifting their body into the air. I had a moment to connect the fact that this was happening right now, right this second, with basically no prep or warning or trigger from an emote. As the black claws swept towards me, I had a brief moment of panic- and then I was snatched up by the crow’s talons, and lifted into the sky.

The first few seconds were absolutely terrifying. I hadn’t exactly been a fan of heights, and that hadn’t changed when I’d swapped forms. After several seconds of not falling immediately to my doom, I managed to start glancing around.

The vista that I’d seen from the top of Firelink was even more majestic from a bird’s eye view. The land stretched out before us, greens and blues and browns, stretching all the way to the feet of the mountains far in the distance. Sunlight glittered off of the water of lakes and rivers, and I watched as wind caused the forests to sway. I craned my head around the foot that grasped me tight, looking backwards.

Behind us, Lordran was quickly shrinking away. From here, I could see the high towers of Anor Londo high above the rest of Lordran. There was the sweeping green and fog of Darkroot, and I could see the stone gray of Firelink, the cleft that was the Valley of the Drakes just below it. To the left was the high tower atop the Duke’s Archives, studded with faintly glowing crystal growths. The splash of stone that was the buildings of the Burg and Parish sat above and behind Firelink. Towering above it all, somewhat separate but still linked by the crevice in the earth that was Blighttown, was the bone white wood of the Archtree.

The view was awe inspiring, but more than anything, it emphasized how small Lordran was in the grand scope of things. The home to the most powerful beings in the world since the end of the Age of Dragons, and as it shrank into the distance, it felt so much smaller than it had when I walked through it. I supposed that the constant tempo of battle against the many enemies that studded Lordran stretched the distances, making them feel farther and longer. It didn’t look so great from here, it looked like a city that had been built into a mountain. Majestic and regal, certainly, especially when the distance hid the monsters and Undead that roamed its streets and hid in its cracks, but still.

I turned my gaze away from Lordran as it became smaller and smaller, looking forwards towards the horizon. We traveled at a speed that was frankly incredible, the crow’s great wings propelling us forwards with a heavy ease that spoke of long practice and great strength. I could feel their essence enveloping the air around them, directing currents, and with a start I realized that it was shockingly similar to the methods that I used to direct frost.

Looking across, I could see Siegemeyer clutched in the crow’s other talon. The knight had slipped off his helmet at some point, holding it secure against his chest, his head swiveling rapidly as he tried to take in everything that was happening around him. He caught my eye and grinned, wide and wondrous, mouthing something that I couldn’t make out over the wind that whistled in my ears. Even despite that, I still caught the noise when he laughed, a sound of pure and unadulterated joy. I couldn’t help but grin in return, feeling my stomach lift like it was weightless, and I watched as the ground far below sped by.

It didn’t take long before we began approaching the mountain range. There, atop a lonely peak and rapidly approaching, a gray and black building stood. Rising in front of the building and pointing directly in the direction of Lordran, a point of stone jutted out from the range that supported the building. On its slopes, I saw tiny pinpricks of light that I recognized as torch bearing Hollows, wandering the outside of the Asylum now that the demon was dead and the doors had been opened. A stone tower rose to the right side, and in the center, a great curved roof hid the central room that had once held the Asylum Demon that had guarded the exit. Huge doors marked the end of the room, wide open now, the only way we could see them being that we’d perfectly lined up with a straight clear path through the ruined walls that stood all over the outcropping of stone.

Behind the Asylum, to the left and right, the stone surfaces fell away in sheer cliffs from the base of its block walls towards green valleys below. In the distance, the land rose up once again into the mountain range that this particular mountain must be an outcropping of, reaching towards the sky. The Asylum was at the end of a pass, a gap in the range that no doubt was the path through which Undead were carted to the Asylum. From there, they would be tested by the threats that dealt within, and either surrender to their fate or forge onwards to Lordran. Even here, I could feel the influence of the gods and their plan, designing and guiding.

Did this mean that they had intended for Undead to return to the Asylum? Surely they had, given that you could only get the second floor key in Lordran, and the fact that the crow had been ordered to take up station at Firelink and await an Undead looking for passage back. In that case, how much of what was here was intended as further tests for returning Undead? How deep did the plan of the gods go, and how much was happenstance that aligned perfectly to make the task more difficult? I couldn’t guess, not without one of the gods to interrogate about it. Perhaps, if Velka or Fina was amenable, I could one day try and construct a picture of how much of this was directly intended.

The crow slowed with huge flaps of their wings as we approached the point of stone. They brought us nearly to a stop, hovering just over the point, then gently dropped us to the mix of dirt, moss, and carved block that formed the surface. They settled atop the point, ruffling their wings before folding them at their side, looking at us.

“That was… very well done.”

“Well done!?” I twitched slightly at Siegmeyer’s boisterous exclamation, ears flicking backwards. “That was incredible! Ah, in all my years, I had perhaps once or twice dreamed of flying as a bird would- truly, what man has not? But, oh, those mere dreams could not have been a pale shade of the true thing! You, my feathered friend, were, in but a word, majestic in the extreme.”

The crow puffed themselves up in pride, strutting a little as they took steps upon the stone, leaving claw marks into the moss beneath their talons.

“It is good! Good appreciation! Do not forget, yes? Perhaps bring nice thing? Soft?” They tilted their head at us, clacking their beak once.

“I’m sure I can find something.” I promised.

I wasn’t sure precisely what that thing should be, but I wasn’t precisely worried about it. Honestly, I’d stuffed a bit of moss into my satchel from the piles that Celia had purchased from the Undead merchant, and I was perfectly willing to give every bit that I had on me to the crows just to ensure a ride home. Besides, I wasn’t so hard of heart that I couldn’t admit that it had been very enjoyable, once I’d gotten past the surprise and the paralyzing fear of heights. I turned towards the path down to the entrance, and immediately grimaced.

“Knight Siegmeyer, I don’t think the locals appreciated your praise of our corvid friend very much.” He turned to look in the direction that I was, then tightened the grip of his hands on the hilt of his zweihander.

Torch-bearing Hollows were streaming up the path- much as Hollows could stream, anyway. Really, it was more a slow tide of stumbling and rasping groans, the occasional hiss when a torch came too close to a Hollow’s face. I recalled that Hollows tended to not like flame, perhaps a hint at the Dark nature of Humanity, but these seemed to tolerate the torches well enough- provided, of course, that the sources of light were a good distance from their faces. Certainly, if it did hinder them, then it certainly didn’t prevent them from moving to attack us in the slightest.

“Ah, well. I suppose that we couldn’t have sat here admiring the scenery all day, could we?”

I snorted at the note of lament in Siegmeyer’s voice. “I’d heard that all old people want to do is look at the scenery, Knight Siegmeyer, but I think you’ll find that I’m still capitalizing the title of ‘old’.”

“And I maintain that you carry your age very well.”

There wasn’t any time for banter after that. The first Hollow swung a torch wrapped in wire, the crude steel heated to red hot by the flame that burned on oil-soaked rags wrapped around a wooden core. Siegmeyer chose to sidestep the clumsy swing rather than parry it, I assumed because of the heat of the thing, easily ramming his sword through the midriff of the Hollow. It screeched, but didn’t have time to make another swing before Siegmeyer kicked the desiccated thing off of his blade and off the cliff.

Another stumbled forwards in the gap created by its brother vanishing over the edge, eye sockets focused on me. I felt a note of amusement as it artlessly swung its torch in my direction, then gathered a breath in my lungs before blowing as the burning rags and hot wire swept the air in front of my face. There was a splash of steam, the Hollow stumbling back a few steps, then holding up its torch and staring at the tip in bewilderment. What had previously been a hot torch reinforced with wire was now something of an ice mace, a chunk of frozen water stuck to the end of a stick. In its confusion, It was practically bowled over by the Hollow behind it, who made to push past with abandon. I leaped up and slammed my paws into the first, driving them backwards and into the second, sending them both toppling over. The first landed directly on the torch of the second, screaming and writhing as the hot metal seared its back, while its torch-turned-mace smashed the second Hollow directly in the face.

Siegmeyer stepped right up and finished the job with a hammerblow from the pommel of his blade, then walked right over the two Hollows. A swing of his sword forced three more to back off or be bisected by the steel, but that had been what Siegmeyer had wanted them to do. In a wonderful show of skill, he began using the sheer advantage of reach afforded to him by his ultra greatsword to pick the Hollows apart one by one without a single singe of torch on his armour. As he harried them, cutting them to pieces one by one and driving them back, I went low. I knocked Hollows off of their feet and to the ground by attacking their legs, where I quickly bit out their throats or smashed their skulls.

Surprisingly, the taste of Hollow flesh was not precisely unpleasant? There was an edge of rot about it, to be sure, but it mostly tasted how jerky smelled. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that particular revelation, so pushed it away into the back of my mind to think about never. My paws, claws, teeth, and occasionally my sword snaked out to deal with Hollow after Hollow.

There were more Hollows out here than there were in the game, likely owing to the fact that the area was larger. Perhaps, as well, more Hollows and Undead had been dropped in the Asylum since Celia had left. With Oscar still around and freeing Undead in an attempt to encourage them to chase a destiny in Lordran, a larger number of roaming Hollows made some degree of sense. Truly, I wondered whether the larger number was really all that surprising: really, I thought that what was more surprising was that more Undead hadn’t tried to come to Lordran while we’d been there. Perhaps that was a result of the crow being at Firelink, rather than ready to pick them up here? I doubted that most Undead with only starting equipment and not very much skill or power at all could fight their way through the hoard of torch Hollows that guarded the way to where the crows roosted.

It wasn’t even that the Hollows petered out in the end, so much as Siegmeyer sliced his way straight through two stragglers at the back of the group and suddenly there were no more. Behind us, their bodies slowly caught fire and burned from the torches they’d been carrying. I huffed out a breath, then went about forming a barrier of ice between the rest of the hill and the mound of Hollow corpses, so that the fire wouldn’t spread any further than them. Who knows, maybe it would finally put these particular Hollows to rest… though I didn’t know how restful collapsing into one of the bonfires and having your bones become its firewood was. Just another reason why refusing to lose yourself to Hollowing was a much better option, all told. Siegmeyer huffed as he used a rag stripped from one of them to clean the blood and viscera from his zweihander, leaving the steel whole and unblemished.

“A true nuisance. Weak enough to individually be nothing, strong enough to be a real threat as a group. Reminds me of the rats, they also rather like to attack in packs.”

I hummed. “The rats might actually be smarter, they tend to use ambush tactics and luring to attempt to secure meals or disable enemies. These Hollows simply swarmed the first non-Hollow they saw without real decision making behind it.” I gave the nearest one a contemptuous frown. “No strategy at all, just mindless rushing.”

“Still, at least it was quite the easy introduction! Now we’ve had a taste of what the Asylum can offer, and I find myself craving more.” He shouldered the zweihander cheerfully, walking towards the doors that formed the front entrance to the Asylum proper. “Come, Lady Sif, adventure awaits!”

I sighed, stretching my legs before following him down the slope. Looking around the edges of the ruins as we passed them, I sighted the small nest that belonged to Snuggly to the left, though it seemed bigger here outside of the game and relative to me. I considered approaching, then dismissed it and continued on down the slope in Siegmeyer’s wake. If I wanted to trade, then I could do so at a later time. It wasn’t as if there was anything to prevent me doing so.

We entered through the front of the Asylum, to the slightly dimmer interior. Light cascaded down from cracks and holes in the block stone roof, lighting an internal space that was filled with cracked stone, footprints, and a variety of large ceramic jars of unknown purpose. I sniffed the air, my nose wrinkling both from the lingering smell of the Asylum Demon, and the Wandering Demon whose steps still rattled the structure slightly from below. My eyes traced where the larger cracks in the stone ran through the center, the blocks looser, the mortar damaged. Siegmeyer made to step farther into the room, but stopped when I moved in front of him. Immediately, his sword was at the ready, his eyes sweeping the room.

“What is it, Lady Sif? What did you see?”

“There.” I pointed with my nose to where the floor was crumbling. Siegmeyer’s eyes followed the pointing, his sword hand relaxing slightly as he gave me a puzzled look. “The floor is damaged severely. Feel that?”

We focused, the floor shaking slightly under our feet. As it did, a block in one of the cracked sections fell loose, plummeting into the space beneath. Siegmeyer hummed.

“What is that, do you think?”

“Some kind of large creature, obviously, and one that I imagine we’ll have to face eventually. Still, I imagine that it might be directly underneath us. If the floor is that damaged, and we walk over it, we could be falling directly into its arena.”

“Ahhh, a cunning trap indeed… though not so cunning as to outwit you, Lady Sif.” He leaned forwards, examining the room in its entirety. “I suppose there’s nothing for it but to skirt the edge and hope that it, too, is not so damaged that it collapses under our feet.”

“I don’t believe we have to worry about that. The stonework around the edges seems intact, so far as I can tell- or, at least, it doesn’t exhibit the cracking and fatigue of the center.” I nodded to the support pillars that ringed the edge of the room. “I suspect that there was enough reinforcement that it was able to hold against whatever creature stomped across it and caused such damage.”

We hugged the wall and moved towards the right hand side of the room, where a doorway led out and deeper into the Asylum. Past the door, I eyed the portcullis built into the ceiling with some amount of wariness, recalling how it came down and trapped you in the bonfire room. I knew that anything beyond your second pass through it didn’t trigger it, but I still had a moment of nervousness passing it by. I knew what was at the end of the next corridor, and I had little desire to be trapped with them.

The bonfire was slightly to our right, lighting up the small, square room. The quiet crackling and clinking that was typical of bonfires echoed throughout the space, the sound bouncing off the stone walls and reflecting inwards. I wasn’t sure what the true purpose of this room had been, empty and unadorned as it was, but if I had to guess… perhaps some kind of antechamber for processing people entering the Asylum? Maybe there had been a time when this building was actually staffed by people, and not simply packed with the milling Undead, left to rot unwatched and uncared for. Once, perhaps, this building had had a purpose beyond being a dumping ground for the unwanted Undead… perhaps that purpose had been as a dumping ground for other desirables, or maybe a prison given the bars that closed off the many cells branching off of the hallways. Whatever it had been, it was a place of Undead now, emblematic of the rot that infested the world.

Siegmeyer merely gave the bonfire a glance before scanning the room, finding the exit and not much else. There wasn’t precisely much to the blank stone room for him to focus on, and thus he was drawn to the second doorway, looking around the corner before pulling himself back. His helmet turned to me, and he spoke in a low voice- not panicked, but wary.

“Lady Sif, at the end of the hall there is a great knight in black armour. Large sword, as well.” He turned his head slightly back towards the door, thinking. “I do believe we can match them with ease in these tight confines- their large weapon will be limited greatly by the stone walls, and they will be unable to maneuver it correctly.”

“Ideally,” I muttered back, “We won’t have to fight them at all.”

Siegmeyer’s head turned back to me, slightly tilted in curiosity. “How so?”

“I’ve run into others of their order, and they were surprisingly reasonable, even amenable to a discussion. I suspect that it was because I was the one doing the talking; the Black Knights have served all the way back to the reign of Gwyn, to the war against the dragons. Much of their order knows who I am, by reputation if not personally, and are thus willing to speak under a banner of peace.”

“Well! Let it be certain that I wasn’t looking forwards to fighting such a skilled and armoured-looking knight in such surroundings, especially given that my sword would be near as limited as theirs. Please, Lady Sif, by all means- if you think you can get us by them peacefully, then be my guest!”

He stepped back and waved a hand towards the open and unoccupied doorway. I nodded to him, stepping around the knight and through, into the hall beyond.

To either side of the hall, doorways marked the entrance into the various cells that ran up and down the corridor. Hollows, completely gone and wearing nothing but the rags customary for the truly insane and broken, sat or stood aimlessly in the doorways to cells that had once held them, too far gone to realize that the doors had gone and freed them. Some clutched weapons, horribly rusted and broken, while others simply curled up silently. And watching over this, all the way at the other end of the hall, stood the Black Knight.

The moment I’d come around the corner and stood in the doorway, their helmet had turned to me, and I saw the grip on their sword and shield tighten slightly. The slight rattling of their armour as they shifted echoed down the hall to me, and I could see how the wrapping of black steel and titanite shifted around their form. Having met other knights, I wasn’t so intimidated now, especially with the distance between us, but still. It was hard to forget what these knights truly were, even if I knew them to be open to peaceful discourse under the right circumstances.

“Greetings, sir knight! I am Sif, sworn of Artorias and the Sunlight throne, guardian of Darkroot. I would like to speak with you, if you are willing- I have spoken with your brethren in Lordran, and have no desire to cross swords with you.”

The knight stood straighter in surprise, and their weapon lowered somewhat, their shield coming out of the ready position. When they spoke, the voice was male, and surprisingly young sounding for a demigod that I knew must be centuries old at least.

“Ah! Is that truly you, Lady Sif? I haven’t seen you in ages- there’s naught but the Hollowed Undead here, no news from the seat of the gods travels all the way back to the Asylum. I had thought I was forgotten here in my post, but it’s excellent to see a friendly face for once! Here-”

He sheathed his sword, walking down the hall and stopping at one of the cells, whose door hung off of its hinges- though it was still attached to the wall. With titanic strength, he brushed away the heavy stone blocks as if they were made of air, pushing them out of the way and opening the cell itself.

“I apologize- it’s not much, but it’s at least a small fire and some hot drinks, perhaps some bread. I fear that there hasn’t precisely been much in the way of friendly conversation here, and I find myself lacking good company in a rather unfortunate manner. Perhaps you and your knight friend might be willing to speak over a hot cup of something comfortable?”

I shared a glance with Siegmeyer, who shrugged.

“I can’t say I’d ever refuse an offer of hospitality from a knight that is a member of such a legendary order. Regardless, I doubt that such a figure would violate guest rights once bread is broken.”

I nodded my agreement, and stepped into the hall, towards where the Black Knight waved me forwards before stepping into the cell.