From Ashes to Embers (Dark Souls 3)

Chapter I: Cemetery of Ash

Yes, indeed, it is called Lothric

Where the transitory lands of the Lords of Cinder converge

In venturing North

The Pilgrims discover the truth of the Old Words

"The fire fades"

And the Lords go without thrones

When the link of Fire is threatened

The Bell tolls

Unearthing the old lords of cinder from their graves

Aldrich, Saint of the Deep,

Farron's Undead Legion, the Abyss Watchers,

And the reclusive lord of the Profaned Capital, Yhorm the Giant,

Only in truth, the Lords will abandon their thrones

And the Unkindled will rise:

Nameless, accursed undead; unfit even to be cinder

And so it is - that ash seeketh embers.

* * *

I died. I definitely died. Driven through the gut with a spear, beheaded by an enemies axe, burned to cinders by a wyverns flame. The method of my demise didn't matter. What mattered was the mere fact that I had died at some point.

So why. . .why was I alive, sitting up in my coffin among the nameless dead? Who was I? Where was I? When was I?

All these boggling questions swarmed through my hollow mind until I was shaken to my senses. I needed to move. Something urged me to.

I stood, my scrawny legs nearly buckling after what must have been days of inactivity. I looked at my naked body. A thin, depraved husk of what it might have been once before. My hair had grown out, reaching all the way down to my lower back, and my nails resembled cat claws. I was definitely gone for a long time. But ruminating on it now was no good. I had to move.

Trudging through the wet mud, and passing by the hundreds of other untended graves, I spotted another person. A man, garbed in a black cloak, shambling aimlessly with a drunken and half-dead stupor. I froze, crouching low on instinct and spying the stranger meticulously. Their mouth hung agape, drool spilling down their chin. It didn't take a scholar to figure out this thing was no human. Now, it fell on me to make a decision. Should I fight, or should I flee? Suddenly, spots flittered in my vision, bright, orange runes that lingered at my feet like flames. The moment my eye caught them, memories flooded into my spongy brain. Visions of battles, bloodshed, myself - moving swiftly as if I'd done it thousands of times.

I rushed the stranger, catching sight of the gleaming dagger arcing towards my neck. I back stepped, moving clumsily around the mindless thing. It kept swinging at nothing, so I took the opportunity and went for the take down.

If I'd been even a second late, my throat would've been slit. We went to the ground, wrestling in the inky marsh. I may have been weak and my muscles atrophied, but this creature was many times weaker, and I easily gain the upperhand, prying the dagger from it's fingers and plunging the blade deep into it's neck. The monster gurgled on it's own blood before falling limp. I found that I felt no remorse for the murder. Was I a killer? Maybe I was executed for my crimes, but miraculously survived.

No, I thought, what I killed was a monster. That being said, where had I gained such battle instinct? If I were some milquetoast, run-o-the-mill commoner, I'd have been the one with dagger in my neck. Maybe I was a sellsword. . .or a knight!