4Two heavily armored knights stood guard on a set of stairs. Long had they stood vigil there, by that damnable swamp, even longer had they been exiled from their home land. One carried a club that more resembled a small tree, taller than he was and almost heavier not counting his armor, the other a curved greatsword, one spike pointing down towards the hilt midway in the curve of the blade to further rend any flesh it tore into. Neither of them could remember what had led them to protect this spot specifically, but they refused to leave, even when they hadn't seen a single person come by in a significant amount of time, but they were a stalwart couple, and has survived much worse than simply standing guard too long. So they continued to do so.
Suddenly a shirtless man carrying a claymore ran by them, running so fast you would assume his pants were on fire. They turned to look at him as he practically flew by, and were preparing to make chase when a loud chittering sounded off behind them. They turned to meet it and saw that two massive crabs had come from the swamp chasing the man that ran by, but these knights were no pushovers, having fought many battles together. So they refused to be intimidated by two carriage sized crustaceans.
In an unspoken agreement born of teamwork forged through years of fighting side by side they nodded to one another and charged forth down the stairs, both singling out a crab. After a brief clash, the greatsword wielding knight had the massive shelled fiend on its back, and was seconds from delivering a final blow to it, when a fireball collided with the back of his helmeted head, it disoriented him briefly but not enough to stop him from killing the crab. He turned to meet whichever foe had sneak attacked him only to see the man that ran by him earlier smirking at the top of the stairs, at about this time the knight holding the club finished his opponent as well, and both knights seeing the man began their approach, the bastard ran again and the knights gave chase.
When the knights arrived at the top of the stairs the man was seen jumping down into a hole. Now the knights knew the man to be crazy, that hole was deep enough any fall like that would kill most things easily, that was why there was a ladder there. Why had he jumped?
They rushed to the edge of the hole to peer down and witness the man's death, assuming him already dead was their first and last mistake. They reached the edge at the same time and upon looking into the hole saw the same man leering up at them with an insane grin and manic eyes from his position on the ladder, it would seem he had caught the ladder partway through his fall and climbed up to the edge of the hole. They knew something was awry for a split second and were in the middle of back stepping away from the hole, but had no quick way of escape as the man had both of them by one of their ankles, their backwards momentum and the man's yank of their feet sent both knights falling into the hole. Cursing and screaming on the way down before slamming into the ground.
The man celebrated his victory over both the crabs and the knights by collecting as much loot as he could carry and shoving it into a box of infinite storage he had found earlier in his journey and kept. Repeating the process several times with more rings, shields, and armor he had found in the area.
He sat at the bonfire and contemplated what his next move would be, eventually pulling the curved greatsword he had taken from one of the deceased knights and replacing his claymore with it in his equipment tab, Exile's Greatsword, it was listed as. He smiled, pleased with himself, as he made his next declaration.
"Stats"
Nameless undead(HP-1188/1188)
Level 42
Equipped title - Ashen One
Covenant - Mound Makers
Souls - 8,000
Hollowing 8%
Vigor 27
Attunement 12
Endurance 40
Vitality 18
Strength 28
Dexterity 22
Intelligence 15
Faith 10
Luck 10
He gazed over his stats with pride, some of them had been fairly high upon coming to this world but many had been improving very well since his arrival. He shivered in anticipation for his future, knowing this was just the beginning.
Patches was a survivor, that's why they called him unbreakable patches, they also called him patches the hyena, but that was another story, he was down to the bone a tried and true survivor. Which is why currently he was running, you see, patches liked luring people into traps by telling them there was treasure, it usually led to them dying and him taking their gear, only this time the poor sap he tricked turned it around on him and escaped rather easily. Not only that the fellow seemed rather upset and began running towards a path back up to patches screaming profanity.
Patches plan had been brilliant, flawless even, he had lured a giant into a pool of sludge and slimes, and had sat waiting disguised as an onion knight he had stolen the armor of earlier. Prepared to tell the first poor soul he could find that there was treasure across the bridge, then when they crossed the bridge to get the treasure he would pull a level lowering the bridge and trapping them in with the giant, slowed down by the sludge, and the slimes would distract them enough to get crushed by the giant, then he could take their goodies at his leisure.
He thought the blonde man in the heavy armor and holding the curved greatsword would be too heavy to escape the giant but unfortunately he was a pyromancer so he killed the slimes easily from a distance. It was when he started kiting the giant around slowly whittling away at it patches knew he wasn't dying to this trap, and started an escape of his own, away from the angry man with the big sword. Patches even made it three fourths of the way to the nearest bonfire before a throwing knife hit him in the leg.
As he tumbled to the ground he saw the man he was attempting to flee from approaching him rapidly. When he finally stopped his knife induced tumbling, he rolled over onto his back just in time to look up at the man he had tricked now holding his sword an inch away from patches' face. He laughed nervously before falling back on on old reliable strategy, begging. Begging and similar methods of garnering pity were integral to proper survival strategy after all.
"N-now listen friend, it was a prank, just a silly little joke between pals. You know I didn't mean it, I knew you'd be fine. Tough looking chap like you, there wasn't a chance in hell you wouldn't be able to get through that." Patches waited on his reaction, praying to every deity he could think of that he'd make it out of this. The greatsword wielder stared him down with a stern brow for a few seconds longer, but finally withdrew his blade, resting it on his shoulder. Patches exhaled out a massive breath he hadn't realized he was holding in sheer relief.
Kirk was a knight of thorns, no, he was The Knight of Thorns. A long time invader and a proper slayer of men and undead. The amount of humanity he had stolen over the ages, usually for whomever he was serving at the time, was truly a gargantuan number. He had thorns and spikes all up and down his dark armor, even barbs on his sword and shield, him rolling into someone, or perhaps even brushing by them, would be considered an attack.
That however was neither here nor there, as Kirk had work to complete, his current master, Rosaria, required the pale tongues of the unkindled, and he would bring them to her. As Kirk entered the world of his newest victim he found the man quickly, seemingly waiting for him. There would be no ambush for either the invader or the invaded as they spotted each other white quickly. The man Kirk had invaded wasn't particularly tall or short, but quite stout, wearing heavier armor, and wielding a curved greatsword in his right hand and a pyromancy flame in his left. Through the slit in the man's helmet Kirk could see fierce blue eyes.
Both men traded hardened glares for some time, keeping a loose hold of their weapons while sizing their opponent up. finally Kirk took the first step and dashed forward, to probe his defense with fast strikes via his sword, but the man was ready, swinging his greatsword like it was much lighter than it looked in wide arcs, using it as a tool to keep Kirk outside of it's range or risk it catching his shield. Not willing to test his shield arm against the heavily armored pyromancer's sword arm he waited at the edge of his range for the end of the next swing and lunged into his guard, hoping to get inside of said guard and prevent him from swinging the greatsword again.
He succeeded in halting the the much larger sword from coming down on him but that was because the pyromancer brought his flame up and cast a long lash of fire at him, Kirk was quick to roll backwards and under it, making distance. A grave mistake seeing as the pyromancer stepped forward to continue his flamethrower like pyromancy. Kirk pulled his shield and took little damage as the flame collided with it, he briefly waited for it to let up, and was prepared to backstop when it did. He was glad he did, because before he had fully back stepped a greatsword smashed into his shield, a spike in curve of the greatsword and the edge of his shield got caught, ripping the shield out of kirks arm with the power of it's swing.
Kirk was mostly unharmed, but without his shield, he looked over his options as to approaching the pyromancer and decided quicky it would be a battle of his health against their focus. So Kirk wasted no time in rolling in and full commiting to his slashing attacks, he took more damage than he gave but did no small amount of wounds to the armored fire caster. Backing up and drinking of his estus, the pyromancer did the same, both healing to full and seemingly leaving them where they started, but Kirk knew better. pyromancy took no small amount of focus to cast in the amounts his opponent had, and as Kirk hadn't seen him drink an ashen estus to restore his focus he likely had none, so Kirk circled his enemy and threw knives at him, trying to bleed him.
The pyromancer stepped out of the way if most of the knives thrown at him but caught enough to make Kirk confident in continuing his melee onslaught, Kirk charged again only to be caught in the face by an arrow. Kirk had put the pyromancer's other hand out of his mind what with him being out of or nearly out if focus, and while he had charged the man had pulled a crossbow from his back and fired it. Kirk being as armored as he was took very little damage from the arrow, but it had done it's job in halting his charge.
The pyromancer for the first time in the fight took to the offensive, dropping his crossbow to use his greatsword to greater effect with both hands, he leapt forward with a large overhead swing, Kirk normally would've blocked that with his shield but having no such shield he threw his sword up to meet it, his other hand holding flat of the blade near the top in an attempt to strengthen his block. Kirk successfully blocked the overhead swing but had no way of seeing the kick to the stomach that came next much less blocking it.
Kirk doubled over, the mighty kick had driven most of his air from his lungs and the pyromancer was quick to take advantage of this, battering the thorned knight with his greatsword, and giving him no opportunity to escape. Kirk the long finger took several more blows front eh greatsword, futilely rolling and crawling as a means to creat distance, but none of the attempts got him far enough to matter and the greatsword damage was already done.
As Kirk faded from the world he had invaded his last glimpse of the man he had sought to kill was him laughing in a deep and savage tone and pointing down.
AN: Hey all, ten followers already, doesn't seem like alot but I'm certainly not complaining, good to know somebody reads this stuff. Anyway tried out a third person perspective but centered around somebody else, maybe a few more little tidbits lile this to establish the character and his rough power level, then i move on with the story. Also to be noted, if you wanna see the new sword google "exile great sword", though don't expect him to be using it for long. I imagine alot of you already know what I'm talking about because this is in the dark souls category, but I want this to not be super hard to read for people who haven't played dark souls, y'know, incase they exist. By the way, I don't really have any upload schedule as of yet, just trying to get writing done when I can alongside all the other shit I have to do.