Following a few days of rest, mostly to steel herself for the seemingly insurmountable challenge that lay ahead, but also to overcome an ever decreasing readership sapping her motivation, Shaw finally decided to confront the innermost halls of Stormveil Castle.
First, the goddamn hell birds with swords instead of legs and a nasty penchant for throwing exploding barrels, which Shaw fucked up from a distance with the help of a recently acquired glintstone spell. I don’t believe she possessed any kind of magic skills during her last attempt.
Next, she had to deal with the goddamn overpowered hell knight patrolling a courtyard; backstabbing the fucker seemed like the appropriate course of action, but sadly his back was covered by some torch-bearing asshole who was following him around. If somehow she could magic-snipe the little shit from above without the knight noticing, she might be able to then sneak in for a backstab. It kind of worked, but the knight noticed, and he fucking ran up after her. Thankfully, Godrick does not hire the sharpest swords in the sheath and the knight lost interest as soon as he lost sight of Shaw. As soon as he went back to his patrol route, Shaw stealthily approached and stabbed him.
Now the hard part, finding a site of grace further in the castle without dying. Shaw told herself if she died again, she was giving up for good, so the stakes were rather high indeed. She encountered a couple more of those fucking knights, but they were alone, too bad for them. She also witnessed untold horrors and barbarism within. Take this troll, for example, hung upside down and bled to death to feed rabid dogs below.
To be honest, aside from the knights, most foes were easily dispatched, but in a grand banquet hall, where the ceiling was decorated with hanging severed limbs, Shaw observed a spine-chilling abomination at the far end of the hall, or to put it in layman’s terms, a really fucking scary monster. Her research told her this was most likely a Grafted Scion; it looked like one of the chrysalids that Roderika spoke about, a mass of flailing limbs and hatred, it was not to be fucked with, especially with only two health potions left.
Shaw is a coward, but she also has a good memory, and she vaguely remembered catching a brief glimpse of this thing when traversing an upper balcony; she would try magic on this fucking thing. Unfortunately, she did not have enough mana (?) to get it anywhere near death; fortunately, she remembered that she also owned a crossbow. A weapon she had never used so far, so she still had plenty of ammo. Around 50 bolts later, the damn thing was finally dead.
She continued to explore the castle, killed like 20 soldiers in a courtyard, the crossbow came in handy again here. After having done all of that, she nearly died to a couple of fucking rats. Yes, standard rats, but maybe a diet of human limbs made them extra vicious? In any case, Shaw barely made it out alive, and with no more health potions. Thankfully, just beyond the courtyard, a site of grace.
Now reassured that she wouldn’t have to restart from the beginning in the event of her demise, Shaw explored a little bit more of the castle, found another site of grace, and met a fellow tarnished, Nepheli Loux. A sickly yellow mistwall stood adjacent this latest save point, this could not possibly be for Godrick, that would be too easy. Her nerves completely shot from the stress, Shaw decided to rest for the evening.
