Authors note:
if you are not familiar with Dark Souls 3 fire link shrine is a safe place where you can level up. In this story fire link shrine can only be accessed at specific times, so to "level up" the trio must rest for some time at a bonfire.
After a well-deserved rest at the bonfire the trio began to talk amongst themselves.
Waifu: "sooo um does anyone else feel stronger after resting?" She said staring into the bonfire.
Nia: "Now that you mention it, I do feel a bit stronger. I could probably take out one of those big hollows faster now." She said sitting down looking at the grey sky.
Ligma: "Yea I feel that my affinity to Maricals has increased a bit." She said studying her talisman.
Waifu: "So earlier you guys said that we are going to link the flame... what exactly does that mean." she said glancing at Nia and Ligma.
Nia: "... are you serious... do you not know." She said now looking at Waifu in disbelief.
Ligma: "I'll explain, the linking of the fire is a tradition that is carried out every couple of thousands of years when the first flame starts to fade." she said now looking at Waifu.
Waifu: "... What's the first flame?" she said nervously.
Ligma: "... the first flame is what gave life to the 3 lords in the war between Gods and dragons." she said now she said now a little bit annoyed at her lack of knowledge.
Nia: " not you're wrong about one thing Ligma, there were actually 4 lords." She said with a grin on her face. "It's only natural that regular humans would forget that detail."
Ligma: "No I'm pretty sure I got them all, the lord of death, the witch of fire, and Gwen." she confidently double downs her statement."
Nia: "it seems whatever church you work for needs to update their history books, The furtive pygmy." she says, her confidence growing. "I thought that you would know your own ancestor."
Ligma: "Maybe your right, I don't care much for the undead church's teachings anyway." she says gazing back into the bonfire.
Nia: "humph."
Waifu: "sorry I brought it up" she says curling her knees to her chest and raping her arms around them.
Ligma: "It's quite alright, no skin off my back." she says smiling back at Waifu.
Waifu: " speaking if backs, is your back ok Ligma. That hollow hit you pretty hard with his axe." she said with worry in her eyes.
Ligma starts to blush and giggles when she recalls the experience.
Nia: "why are you laughing..." Nia blushes slightly embarrassed by the revelation. "YOU'RE A FREAK" she shouts while suddenly standing up.
Ligma: "I don't know what you're talking about, I OnLy DiD wHaT wAs NeCeSsArY tO pRoTeCt WaIfU." she playfully shrugs her shoulders while smiling through her words, still blushing.
Waifu remains quiet, she doesn't know what to make of the conversation nor does she know why Nia called Ligma a freak.
Nia stands there in disbelief, she is astounded by Ligmas actions.
Nia: "w- whatever just don't make THAT a liability in battle" she crosses her arms
Waifu: "well if that's everything we should go back before the hollows get back up." she gets up and motions to start moving.
Ligma: "sounds good to me." she follows Waifu's motion.
Nia: "finally we can get back to the fight, I can't wait!" a battle hungry grin forms across her face.
Ligma: "Me too" she says looking into the sky seemingly remembering past events.
Nia: "something tells me we aren't thinking about the same thing." she says with a disappointed look as she leads the way back.
The trio leaves the bonfire on the tower and makes their way back to the right staircase.
While they are walking, they notice a hole in the side of the railing to the right of the staircase.
Nia: " how did I miss this? the hole looks too small for all of us to pass through at the same time, so I'll go in first" she walks through the hole in the railing.
Upon walking through Nia steps not on the usual stone but wood. it would seem that the hole lead to a wooden scaffolding that rest directly above the bottom of the staircase.
Nia: "We could have had a much easier taking out those hollow if we threw some magic from up here." she stands annoyed.
Nia then senses something wrong... almost like her body was trying to warn her. Unsure about this feeling she turns to her right to turn around but before she could turn all the way around, she notices a sleeping hollow wielding a crossbow.
Upon noticing this Nia Grabs he axe from her back and with one brutal swing she half decapitates the hollow.
The top half of the hollows head rolls of his body and continues until it falls of the scaffolding.
Ligma: "What happened I can't see anything from back here." she says disappointed she can't be in the action.
Nia: "Well that's a shame looks like you'll never know" she says walking back. "Let's just go before the other hollows get up."
Ligma follows with a sour expression on her face and Waifu follows with a smile.
The trio make their way to the base of the staircase and look at all the hollows that litter the high wall. They slowly make their way to where they killed the two big hollows, the path now polluted with the horrible stench of death.
Ligma separates from the group and goes to the left where the axe hollow came from.
Ligma: "There is a staircase here that we didn't see before it must be where the axe hollow came from." she said looking back at Nia and Waifu. "It leads down to a dip in the wall."
Nia and waifu walk to Ligma looking down the staircase that hugs the side of the wall.
Nia: "we should have been more carful" she says clenching her fist.
Waifu: "we all share the blame and I'm ok now, so everything is fine" she says waving her hands in the air.
Nia smiles at Waifu and starts to walk down the stairs.
Upon reaching the base of the stairs they are met with a cage door to the right that leads into a small tower, the tower stretches down to a lower part of the wall.
And when they look further to the right, they see a sleeping sword hollow resting against the railing of the wall.
Ligma: "can I have this one?" she says with a demanding pose.
Nia: "fine, just behave like someone with a shred of dignity" she crosses her arms.
Ligma slowly approaches the hollow pulling out her mace.
She stands only inches away from the hollow and prepares to swing.
CRASH!
The mace goes through the hollows head and strikes the stone behind him. The hollows head is no more and is now a blood stain on the wall.
Waifu: " don't you think that was a bit much?" she says griping her staff.
Ligma: "I just wanted to make sure it was dead." she shrugs her shoulders.
Nia: "You sure are strong for a priestess."
Ligma: "I don't hear that much, thanks." she says with a smile.
And so, the trio go back up to where they killed the two big hollows.
Nia: "we should hurry, the hollows could get up any minute." she said now walking to the tower that the halberd hollow walked down before.
so, the Trio heads up to the next tower, some nerves of the potential dangers above.
They make their way up the stairs only to find a most unusual scene. There were hollows praying like before but there was a crossbow hollow and a naked hollow in the back looking into the sky.
Waifu: "I will take down the crossbow hollow with my soul arrow" she ready's her staff.
Nia: "as for me I'm going to kill that naked one I don't exactly like looking at it. Ligma come with me" she says getting ready to run at it.
Ligma nods in agreement.
Waifu: "Come forth SOUL ARROW."
The spell darts across the tower and hits the face of the crossbow hollow.
The hollow drops to the ground, killed by just one soul arrow.
Nia with Ligma following behind are now running towards the naked hollow.
The naked hollow notices them from all the noise they are making trying to reach him. Then all of a sudden, the hollow starts to claw at the right side of its neck. Its movements turn savage as it falls to the ground digging its fingers deeper into its neck.
Nia: "What the fuck!" she stops in her tracks unsure of how to continue.
Ligma: "why did we... What is it doing." she says watching in confusion.
The hollow starts to rip its neck open at the base with its bare hands.
All of a sudden, it stopped, his body starts to slowly bubble at the surface of his skin. The bubbling reached the gaping hole in its neck.
And a huge black mass burst out the hollow flopping on the ground. The mass was as black as the abyss, the word black could not describe how dark it was.
Waifu: "Ummm what's that it makes me.... uncomfortable."
The black mass that emerged from the hollow slithers back to its host fully encasing the body.
The black mass starts to form a horrible monstrosity. It forms what could resemble a raptor head with one giant hand sporting 3 massive claws, in the back of the beast is the hollows legs holding it up and its tail.
The head of the monster forms a mouth and two holes for eyes, the eye holes suddenly burst with a red light. After a second the light settles down into the sockets making it look like this creature has eyes of pure red light.
Nia: "We should run, NOW!" she starts to run back in a full sprint.
Ligma: "Don't leave me here!!" she follows further behind.
The monster starts to trash around letting out a horrible screech that could be heard echoing in the distance.
The many praying hollows started to get trampled under the monster's mass as it flailed around.
Nia then stops, she grits her teeth and clenches her fist.
Ligma: "what are you doing I thought we were running?!" she says franticly.
Waifu: "ummm it is getting closer!" she starts to shake in fear.
Nia: "I refuse to run away! I will never run from a challenge! I WILL BE PROVEN WORTHY!" she raises her axe above her head ready to strike the monster.
The monster drags its head along the ground into an upwards strike at Nia.
Nia only thinking with her muscles strikes the monster and not even for a second does her strike slow it down. Nia is flung into the air and lands a couple of feet behind the monster.
Ligma: "Shit."
Waifu: "Shit."
Nia: "Shit that hurt!"
Ligma thinking quickly picks up Waifu.
Waifu: "Wha- wha- what are you doing Ligma!" she says panicking.
Ligma: "sorry about this." she says as she starts to spin moving her grip to her wrist.
After getting enough speed Ligma throws Waifu over the monster and onto Nia.
Nia: "Ow! WAIFU! WHERE DID YOU COME FROM!" she said with Waifu now sitting on her stomach.
Waifu: "Umm I was thrown here by Ligma" she says timidly.
Nia: "ok well can you GET OFF ME!" she says pushing Waifu off.
Nia: "Keep firing you magic from back here I'm going to give him a taste of my fire magic." she says now walking to the monster with her pyromancer hand ready.
While Nia and Waifu were talking Ligma was spamming her healing spell when she got hurt while also using "unfaltering prayer" to reduce the damage she took when getting hit.
Left unbothered the monster continued to slam Ligma until an impression was left on the ground of Ligams prayer stance.
Nia: "HEY BASTERD, eat this FIRE BALL!" Nia forms a ball of fire in her hand before throwing it towards the monster.
Then all of a sudden, the monster's whole body caught on fire like a match dropping in oil.
The monster then starts to flail around even more violently than before leaving pieces of itself smeared on the ground.
Nia: "HA HA HA HA, behold the power of my fire!" she says with her hands on her hips.
Then from behind Nia a flash of blue light darts and hits the monster.
Waifu: "Come forth SOUL ARROW, SOUL ARROW, SOUL ARROW!"
When the soul arrows make contact, they glide through the monster's body like butter, most likely thanks to the earlier fire damage it took.
The monster cries out in pain, its scream causing the trio to flinch. it reaches for the sky before collapsing and then evaporating into the air. all that remains is half of the hollows corps.
Waifu: "We did it!" she jumps up and down for joy.
Nia: "Wait where is Ligma?"
They look past the hollow corps, and they see her.
The ground is covered in her blood, yet she has no visible injuries. She lays there motionless yet alive but covered in the monster's black biomass.
Nia walks up to Ligma.
Nia: "are you ok?" she says keeping her distance.
On closer inspection Ligma is quietly giggling while hiding her face.
Ligma: "Yea I'm fine... never felt better."
Nia: "I should have known." she said looking down at her in disgust. "There is no need to worry Waifu she's fine."
Waifu: "Thats good and all but this tower doesn't have a staircase on the other side... it's a dead end."
Nia: "..."
And so, the dark sun ever present looms over the trio, the wind blows masking the awkward silence and the screams of hollows are faded but still present.