Ground Zero

Wandering south had brought the father and daughter duo across a number of different lands, but none had stood out to Dusk enough to excite the little pup into wanting to explore them. So onward they walked until Dusk called out in delight and caught Artorias' attention. What had enraptured his excitable little girl was the large inactive volcano on Auster's eastern coast, towering high above the rest of the continent. It's dark rocks and black soil painted it like a mountain of shadow, so it came as no surprise to Artorias that Dusk would want to investigate the place that was so radically different from the rest of Auster. He just wished it didn't have to be this place of all places... Still, Art was a softie for his children, and he relented to Dusk's requests to see it closer. The sire led the way for his daughter, moving from loamy earth to ashy sediment as they approached the mountain.

Amber eyes surveyed their surroundings, keeping his senses heightened and his guard up. It was ridiculous of himself, he knew. The threat that he had faced here seasons ago was long dead, his skull perched neatly on a shelf back in the Hallows and his pelt on the wall. But despite his common sense telling him otherwise, Artorias could not shake the lingering anxiousness he felt being back here. "Stay close to me, Dusk. Okay?" he gave his child the simple and nonnegotiable instruction. Giant paws pressed deep into the soft earth, leaving behind a distinct and defined trail of paw prints in his wake while he walked with Dusk around the base of the dormant volcano. If he strained his hearing enough, he could swear he could almost hear that manic laughter...

"Artorias" | "Carpathian"