Gentlemen, while we're here, I'd like to discuss something a little farther back in Soul's history that stays on my mind. It still has relevance to II, and in fact was what got me thinking about it all over again. Let's have a little chat about Ash Lake, and the old trees that still survive there to this very day. When we start our journey in Dark Souls II, we go through a great portal, and we go down, very far down. And we end up in a little place that three firekeepers label as a place that exists outside of things, a gap in the fabric of reality. In order to leave, we must venture onwards towards a light source beyond, which goes upwards. But on closer inspection, you will see that you are surrounded by massive trees that seem to spiral up into the darkened sky above, with no end in sight. There is little light in this place, but still enough to see that you are surrounded by the ancient archtrees. Now, let's rewind things a few thousand years backwards. Back when you, as a player, took your first steps onto the sandy beaches of ash lake, and looked up to the sky beyond, to see trees spiraling and twisting, endlessly upwards. The very path you took to get there, was down the ruins of a dead arch tree, through blight town. It was almost as if you had just walked into another world, a completely different realm of existence from what lay up above. Ring any bells? And now, let's speed up just a little bit further in time, when you open the doors the Kiln of the First Flame. What did you see, when you walked across these sandy ashes? A sky. A burnt out, dying husk on the eve of twilight. But this, does not appear to make much sense. This is saying something about Souls in general, but there is a little piece of evidence here that straightens things out. When you first enter the area before finding Lost Izalith, you see, far off into the distance, a great dome, with great roots growing over it. This, is the Kiln of the First flame. This is where everything started. This, in essence, was the beginning of the universe. And it travels up the path of a great arch tree. Even before you enter the final area to defeat Lord Gywn, if you look far below over some cliffsides and drops, you can see these roots, dangling. So. Now you ask, the -blam!- is up with these trees? Well, let me show you, just what's up with these trees. Picture the land before the lords, giants, and humans came into existence. Grey trees. Grey, eternal dragons. And a grey landscape. Nothing changed. Nothing died. Nothing lived. It was a pure state of perfection. But not even that. Because you cannot have perfection without it's counterpart. This land, this place, was simply, there. And then, like a big bang, there was Light. Death. Hot, Cold. Imperfection. And this simple realm was shattered, forever changed. And from the ashes of arch trees the first descendants of everything built their kingdom, from the ground up, to the worlds beyond. I say worlds, because I'm sure that Ash Lake, and the place that the Arch trees exist in, is ground zero, a metaphor for the universe before there was the universe. And from this, the remaining arch trees gave life to existence. And there is one last thing, final thing on your shoulders to hear. Consider this. Time is fractured in Souls. Heroes, people, and places, seem to exist in disjointed paths. Ancient people who have long died can cross the gaps between worlds, time and space. Other, living people, can invade from their own world through time and space. But why is this, I wonder? Why is time so fractured? Why are there so many other worlds? Because every arch tree leads to another world, another dimension beyond, high up above. And what happened to all these worlds? They met imperfection. Imbalance. Opposites. And what did the lords do when they waged war? They destroyed the eternal dragons homes, the great arch trees. When the lords rose up, without understanding, without meaning too, they fractured reality. Destroyed the clockwork mechanism of existence, by fracturing ground zero, by destroying arch trees, they destroyed worlds. Parallel existences snuffed out and forever lost, irreversibly damaging time and space to the point where what was left had little to no barriers, and no order and organization. And now that imperfection exists, it slowly eats away at the foundation of all realities, in the form of the abyss. And it will continue to do so, until the last light of existence goes out. Gentlemen. Thanks for your time.