Well, this was certainly a new feeling for Azrael: uncertainty. He had never actually considered that he could be summoned against his will, but it was happening nonetheless. Azrael took a moment to observe his surroundings. This was definitely new.

He seemed to be standing in the middle of a courtyard, with an enormous mansion about 200 feet to his left. To his immediate right stood a frightened-looking adolescent, covered in long white hair that seemed familiar for reasons Azrael could not understand. Cowering behind the girl were two younglings, her younger siblings, if their identical hair color was anything to go by—one male, one female. Azrael's gaze lingered on the younger female for some time, once again not quite understanding what it was that mesmerized him so. A little past the children stood a dark-haired man with a stern expression who seemed to be the only person in the courtyard not completely terrified.

He checked his armor and weapons to make sure he was entirely there. He found everything in order: Lucatiel's sword was held firmly in his right hand, the helm of the legendary Alva the Wayfarer sat firmly upon his head, and the telltale yellow robes of the Xanthous scholars seemed to be intact, along with his Lothric Knight armor.

And yet, that niggling uncertainty remained in the back of Azrael's mind.

Yet, none of this particularly bothered Azrael compared to the ground around him; he was standing in the middle of some sort of rotating symbol or glyph. Azrael decided not to worry about it for now—he could always deal with it later. First things first, he wanted to figure out who had summoned him. His Darksign, like an unwelcome guest who refused to leave, immediately provided a name.

Winter Schnee

Well, that was one mystery solved. He looked toward the young woman, clearly no longer a child, yet not quite an adult. As soon as their eyes met, Winter screamed at the top of her lungs in abject fear.

"DADDY, HELP! PLEASE DADDY MAKE IT GO AWAY!"

Azrael noted the older man's eyebrows raising, but otherwise he did not react. Most likely her father. After understanding how little threat the children posed to him, Azrael began walking directly towards the man. This man—obviously, Winter's father—didn't even register the movement, although his two younger children immediately ran back towards the building,. As he walked to the edge of the symbol on the ground, Azrael took note of several metal attachments to the house that were following his movement. So, he has some sort of defense system in place. Interesting. When Azrael finally reached the edge of the symbol, he wasn't sure what to expect…but it certainly wasn't what happened.

All hell broke loose.

Incredibly loud wails began to sound all over, as if someone had bottled up the dying screams of a hundred Belfry Gargoyles and released them as one. The metal attachments to the building began spitting out projectiles at an extreme velocity—faster than anything Azrael had seen since his first time in ancient Anor Londo, nearly fifteen thousand years before. Thankfully, these projectiles didn't hold a candle to those damnable arrow-spears, and Azrael quickly dismantled the weapon emplacements with several judiciously aimed fireballs.

The adult Schnee, for his part, had already begun moving, a grim determination etched upon his face. He didn't move towards his daughter, nor into his home to make sure his other two children were okay. Instead he ran to Azrael's left, for the rapidly advancing line of armored soldiers.

Azrael cocked his head in confusion; the soldier's weapons resembled a short, strangely shaped club with two handles, one of which had a finger guard and some sort of small lever attached. These men wore light armor, but did not move nearly as fast as he had come to expect from the thieves of the High Wall or the mannequins of that horrid bitch Mytha.

To their credit, the soldiers acted in perfect unison, as if they had trained for exactly this situation their entire lives—which, unbeknownst to Azrael, they had. Azrael let out a vicious snarl that would have chilled the blood of even the proudest Varagian and sent a Lothric Knight running for the hills, tail between his legs. He saw many of the soldiers, now numbering in the dozens, falter, but amazingly, not one of them fled. Azrael would have to investigate how Schnee kept his warriors under such strict control, but even as he tried to decide on a course of action, one of the soldiers started speaking to him.

"DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND BACK AWAY FROM THE GIRL IMMEDIATELY OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE ON YOU!"

It would occur to Azrael later that day that he probably could've handled the order a little better. But Azrael had issues with people who pointed weapons at him. Rather than relinquishing his sword (it was a gift, after all), he raised his right hand—still wreathed in his pyromancy flame (another gift he would not relinquish) and uttered the only word he had spoken so far.

"NO."

Many more men died that hour than Azrael thought was necessary. But they shouldn't have threatened him. On the plus side, the girl who summoned him came to no harm—Azrael made sure of that when he summoned the enormous shield of Havel the Rock and forced it into the ground in front of her.

Azrael was a great number of things, many of them bad, but he was certainly not a summon who would allow his summoner to die under his watch. When the dust settled, there were only three people left standing: Azrael, the girl, and the Schnee patriarch, looking both terrified and apprehensive. Azrael almost cracked a smile upon seeing a crack in the man's arrogant veneer.

The stones that made up the bulk of the courtyard's decoration were strewn all over, cracked and broken. Two statues had been destroyed by the soldier's overzealous assault, and Azrael heard a mighty tree falling somewhere in the distance, likely a victim of the same weapons that destroyed the statues.

He planted his sword a foot deep into the ground, deciding he could easily take on a terrified child and her equally terrified father with his hands if he was forced to. As he approached Mr. Schnee, he saw that the man was about to flee like a coward. He needed answers, and he really didn't feel like playing a game of tag to get them. "Stop right there. I'm not going to kill you."

As Azrael suspected, the coward froze up. "What do you want from me?"

"First? I want to know where I am, Schnee," Azrael spat out.

"Y-you know my name, but not where you are? Is this some kind of sick joke?"

The undead warrior swiveled his head very deliberately, looking at each of the slaughtered soldier corpses in turn. "Does it look like I'm joking?"

"You're in the Schnee family residence. It appears my daughter summoned you accidentally. Please leave now."

Azrael almost did a double take. Could this man truly be this arrogant?

"I don't recall giving you permission to order me around." The color drained from Schnee's face so quickly it was almost comical. For the first time that day, Azrael permitted himself to smile behind his helmet.

"Next question: who exactly are you?"

"My name is Jacques Schnee, and I am the executive vice president of the Schnee Dust Corporation," Schnee replied, puffing out his chest as though he thought Azrael would be cowed by his title.

This was going nowhere and Azrael had no desire to prolong the conversation with this intolerable man any longer than necessary. "I didn't ask for your job, but it's just as well. Moving on: let me speak to your daughter."

"Absolutely not. You just killed more than fifty men, and you expect me to let you speak to Winter?"

"Two things. First, I didn't ask to speak to Winter. I was referring to your younger daughter." Once again, Jacques was visibly cowed by Azrael's tone.

"And secondly, I wasn't asking."