#12 – Approaching the Undead Church (part 2)

The golden warrior immediately started running past the hollows and ran up some stairs to the right , I immediately ran after him protecting his back. A spearwilding hollow on the base of the stairs tried to strike him from behind and I backstabbed him instead. Once I walked up the stairs, he had his shield up to protect from the bolts thrown by two hollows and two hollows prepared to attack him. As the two crossbow-yielding hollows reloaded, he killed one of the hollows while I backstabbed the second. He ran past the two crossbowers dodging their bolts and jumped down to the stairs leading to the Parish ahead, I lagged behind him killing the two of them while they reloaded. Two hollows approached him, but I took a moment to see where the armored boar were at this point. He was at a distance, but facing the Parish. I waited for a few moments, then jumped down on the boar as he charged passing below me from the elevation where I stood over the bodies of the two crossbow-yielders.

That was clearly a bad idea, but a desperate measure to try and buy some time for my partner. My claymore barely hit the boar through his armor and the fall left me wounded on the torso from landing on his spiked armor. I clearly didn’t stand a chance, so I raised my shield and tried to keep myself on the boar’s backside, hitting him uselessly with my sword just to keep his attention. My fear at this point was to be forced to run, which would mean instant death, or to block one of his blows, which would probably break several bones and open myself to have my head crushed by his weight.

A quick glance at my newfound friend showed him apparently desperate, running around from three hollows charging at him. The boar was becoming angrier with my circling around and managed to land a half-strength blow on my shield that destroyed my balance and threw me several steps back. I managed to dodge his following fatal charge by jumping to the side, but I was now on the ground and completely defenseless. As the boar faced me, I could see the golden warrior plunging his sword at the beast from behind, certainly through a breach on the armor I had managed to see a few moments before. This killed the boar, but left my friend left for a backstab from one of the hollows, and he was dead.

I killed the remaining two hollows in an anger mist, but as the battle was over I had the bitter realization that I was unable, at present state, to conquer the perils ahead of me, and that my weakness had caused much pain to the golden warrior. His help had been invaluable. As I lay there in my bittersweet victory, I could only decide to head back to the new bonfire and rest. The growing powers granted by the bonfire were my only hope to survive the next section between me and the bell above the Parish, which I was certain to be very well guarded.