If there was one thing that Melina had learned, it was that she couldn't trust her chosen tarnished champion as far as she could throw her. It was not simply that she was a fool, though she was. It was also because in her foolishness, she had depths of ingenuity and bloody-minded imagination that the wise could never match.
For example, the wisest scholars of Raya Lucaria trapped outside its walls could not get back in, but her champion had managed to get in despite being completely incapable of casting the least glintstone sorcery. Scholars had sought the elusive Ranni, but her champion had blundered into Caria Manor, fought her way through, and discovered the witch of the dark moon and then sworn into her service because (or so it seemed to Melina) she was attracted to a possessed doll. And some might say that it would take a fool to find where the flame of frenzy had been bound below the capital - and they would be correct, for it would take this fool in particular.
Thank any mercy left in grace that she had listened to Melina's warning, and had not sought audience with the wicked, profane Three Fingers. The depths of her foolishness had some limits. Some.
All in all, there was a reason she greeted her champion and travelling companion when she took a seat beside the great legacy of the Giants with the words; "What did you do?"
That idiot in her shiny (stolen) Crucible Knight armour and confessor's hood had the cheek to look confused. "Why do you assume I did-"
"What. Did you do?" No no no, had she… wait. No. She could feel no trace of the flame of frenzy within the idiot.
"Okay. You're angry with me. Again. Let me explain..."
Oh. An explanation. Oh no.
"So there I was in the Consecrated Snowfield, trying to find a way to the Haligtree-"
"Why?"
The woman scratched her head. "Old Man Gideon thought that Miquella or Malenia might be there, and I wanted their Great Runes. But I couldn't get in. Ordina is the worst place ever. Full of black knife assassins - and they're invisible too! It's awful. And then I went exploring, fought another giant space alien eyeball bug skull thing in some mine, and then - not in the mine, somewhere else - I found a sending gate. I thought it'd lead me to the Haligtree, but it didn't! It led me to some of those old Uhl Dynasty ruins that're even older than the Nox, and Mohg was squatting there! Anyone, one thing led to another, I killed him, got his Great Rune, and then there was this strange lady knight that told me there was this place that required me to touch Miquella's gross hand."
"So you did." Melina had heard enough of her stories to know where this was going.
"Yep! And then it led me to the land of shadow! But that was just the start of my adventure!"
"You were meant to be meeting me here. You killed the last Fire Giant, and turned around, wandered off, and somehow got distracted."
"Yes." She massaged the back of her neck sheepishly. "Sorry. But wow! There were lots of things in the land of shadow! And let me tell you about jars-"
Melina listened with an emotion somewhere between horror, exasperation, and irritation as her champion recounted a long, geographically challenged, and very distractible story.
"... and then I killed your brother - I'm sorry if you liked him, I'm not sorry if you didn't - oh! Sorry, just to clarify, that's the brother I killed after the brother I killed to access the land of shadow. Messmer, that's the one I was talking about. Not Mohg, because he's just your half-brother, like Radahn, Rykard, Morgott... well, Morgott might not be dead, he was breathing when I left him. Oh and I have to admit, I was looking for Miquella and Malenia when this happened - wait, I told you this already. And they're your siblings too, aren't they?" The tarnished fool raised one finger and rummaged around in the bags on Torrent, who apparently had been full party to this stupidity. "Oh, that reminds me! I have Miquella's Great Rune here!"
"You... do?"
"Yeah! He broke it, but I got it off a giant sunflower that lived under the flooded part of the Church District." In the hand of the idiot was a sad, shattered remnant of a rune, its husk ruptured and rent. "Didn't actually find Miquella, but I was trying to find him when, you know, I killed Messmer. And here's the thing! I got his embers from him! A magical fire from a child of Queen Marika that can burn magical trees! And then I thought, do I actually care about Miquella? Sure, St Trina - I think she's your sister, but she was sort of embedded in a tree at the bottom of a fissure filled with stone coffins the size of ships, and I'm not sure how the kinship thing works - told me to kill him, but-"
Melina's head was too full of inanity to process each new stupidity that came to her, but something managed to raise its attention through her gridlocked consciousness. "Why do you think Radahn and Rykard are my half-brothers?"
"Remember? There was that time I drank my potion flask and put on one of the glintstone crowns and wore a talisman... anyway, I got to be clever enough to use the Law of Regression incarnation I found in that book on Golden Order fundamentalism. I don't remember exactly everything there because I was on a lot of performance-enhancing potions to use that incantation, but the statue changed and then I discovered Marika was Radagon. I think it's related to the shamans in some way, but honestly the whole thing is very confusing. Anyway, that means that Radagon's children by Renalla are your half-siblings."
Mother save her from fools who could somehow enhance their intellect through the power of drugs enough to understand one of the dark secrets of the Golden Order. "I knew."
"Oh! On that topic, I hope Ranni isn't mad that I killed her aunt, but then again I've also killed both her brothers, her shadow and a lot of her half-siblings so I'm sure she'll forgive me. After all, she is my bride-to-be. Did I show you our engagement ring?"
Melina felt like bashing her head into the snow-covered ground. Wait. No. She'd rather bash the tarnished's head into the ground. It wasn't like she had any brains to lose.
"I don't understand exactly why only you, Mesmer, Miquella-Trina and Malenia have butterflies, and Ranni doesn't when she's also an empyrean, but I could put some thought into it if I put on the glintstone crown and the talisman and mix my potion up again," the idiot said helpfully. "It'd be easier to make frost pots if there were icy butterflies around too. I spent some time looking around Caria Manor for ice butterflies, but they don't seem to exist. And don't worry, I think your butterflies are nicer than your brother's ones. Your fire is prettier."
The fool snapped her fingers twice.
"Anyway! Fire! Yes! I got distracted! I killed Messmer, and I got this! The note the mute dryleaf monk left me told me that this was needed to burn the sealing tree that'd get us to where Miquella is, but then I realised - I know you said not to use the flame of frenzy to burn the Erdtree because that would be bad and I did listen, I did, but what if we use Messmer's fire instead of yours! Then you don't have to burn yourself to death and you can keep on helping me because," and the fool met her eyes with her own gaze, full of earnest sincerity and frighteningly little intelligence, "we both know you're smarter than me."
She had said it, not Melina. "My purpose is-"
"Your purpose is yours. Yours to choose and yours to live. But I'm just suggesting we try using Messmer's flame first in the Forge of the Giants, and if that doesn't work, well, I was just barking up the wrong tree."
Folding her hands together, Melina ran her thumbs over her burn scars. She knew how much fire hurt. She feared it, it was true. And maybe it was truly just cowardice on her part, but just as she wished for life to go on, her life was one of those. She was willing to sacrifice herself in the name of all life, but death was not in itself a virtue.
"Then we shall try the embers of poor Messmer, who was given a purpose even more lamentable than my own," she said, holding her cupped hands towards her champion.
The embers were a foul, writhing thing that felt awful in her hands. She could feel them wanting to take root in her, recognising the kinship. But instead she cast the kindling into the Forge, whispering the incantations sung to her in her cradle.
The fires rose up from the Forge of the Giant, the flame a wicked, smoke-filled red streaked with black. The growing flame hissed like a snake. And yet it was still kindling born from a demigod's vision of flame, a hungry, malevolent flame - but a flame born of one born of the Golden Order's demigod.
The flames rose, and the Erdtree burned too.
"I can't believe this has worked," Melina said slowly, feeling oddly empty. It was a sensation akin to walking up a flight of stairs and finding that the top step was missing. She had, mere minutes ago, lived in a world that had been about to make sense. In that she had her purpose and while she had not wanted to give up her life, the cause of the continuation of life and an end to her mother's unending Golden Order had been worth it.
Now she was going to live, and all it had cost her was the discovery that while she was not looking, the idiot had managed to stumble into a hidden land concealed within Mohg's corpse, had all kinds of wacky and deeply stupid adventures, murdered another of her siblings, killed the Lord of Frenzied Flame (because apparently there had already been one of them), and had managed to find a use for the kindling of poor Messmer that she was fairly sure wasn't the intended purpose.
"Let's go, then!" the fool said. "Ha! You didn't need to die and I didn't accidentally unleash a fire of madness on the world. Incidentally, look at the torch I found. It's made of a spine!"
It was. It was a spine that burned with the vile facsimile of the Frenzied Flame, ever-staring, ever-maddening. "What… why? Where did you find something so hideous?"
"Cradled in the lap of a woman called Nanaya, who was the wife of Midra, who became the Lord of Frenzied Flame! That was down in the hidden Abyss!"
"Put that away! We're destroying it later!"
This was still better than burning to death. Babysitting a tarnished champion who was the most damn genius fool in the Lands Between. And who could always find some new distraction.
It had to be better.
Your comedy is on point as ever, that was really funny. Making fun of common player patterns is easy, because so much of it makes absolutely no sense outside of its own context, but you two have the skill to make something special of it. Are you planning for this to be a oneshot, or do you intend to continue it?
