Last location: Lower Calrath (Entrance)
Bosses defeated: (now 3 / all 10 of 38) | Crimson Rector Percival, Ruiner, Infernal Enchantress
Lifetime: 3 hour 47 minutes and 18 seconds
Weapon (#7) Taxidermist’s Hammer
Status: still alive
Challenge: The Hollow Gamble
Swanke stood at the edge of Fitzroy’s Gorge, where the wind howled like a mourning choir through broken arches and twisted stone. The sky above was sick with ash, the light a sickly ochre that clung to the bones of a once-proud stronghold now swallowed by ruin. He descended without ceremony, his steps heavy, the weight of his curse dragging behind him like a ghost on a leash.
Crimson Rector Percival was the first to bar his way — a knight-turned-zealot whose soul had long been claimed by flame and fanaticism. Cloaked in scorched red and wielding doctrines like weapons, Percival struck with purpose but not reason. Swanke, carrying only a rusted bucket and a tattered shield, met the fury with calculated silence. Their duel was brutal and close, but in the end, faith shattered against stubborn will. Percival fell with a scream swallowed by the Gorge.
Yet it was Ruiner who truly defined this descent. No whispers accompanied this beast — only the crunch of bone underfoot and the groaning weight of a colossal shield dragged across stone. Ruiner emerged from the Umbral, a demon clad in skeletal plate, horned helm casting shadow across a face that no longer knew mercy. With a massive axe crackling with ancient spite, it moved with unnatural grace for its size — every blow meant to erase, not just kill.
Swanke, still armed with makeshift tools and a curse older than memory, danced the line between death and endurance. He was flung, crushed, burned — but never broken. His resolve hardened with each strike absorbed, each inch gained beneath that dreadful silhouette. When Ruiner finally collapsed in a heap of splintered bone and ruptured silence, the Gorge itself seemed to exhale.
At its end, the Hammer awaited — not by fortune, but by fate. A grotesque thing, barbed and heavy, forged for someone who had endured torment and emerged unbowed. It suited him.
With blood-stained hands and no victory in sight, Swanke crossed the ruins and reached the ash-grey streets of Lower Calrath. The flames whispered of new trials, and in their midst stood the Eternal Enchantress. One last effort before Swanke could allow himself some rest.
Witness all Hollow Gamble fates unfold: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQRPy70pDgKVutYPapqbk1JFjJP_-j_66
#Challenge #HollowGamble #LordsOfTheFallen #Swanke
