alright! time to get into Russian Caravan again! can't wait to see what you cook up next!
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A Brocktonite Yankee in Queen Marika's Court (Worm/Elden Ring)
- Thread starter GraftingBuddha
- Start date
-
- Tags
- elden ring worm
Lady Taylor of Haight, Stormveil's strategist - by the effervescent TunTun
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"What's your build?"Congratulations on reaching 100 chapters.
"Yes."
That's one good piece of art right there.
Character List (Current Status, Last Appearance, etc.) - by the inestimably thorough Annoyed Catholic
Annoyed Catholic
Moody fellow
Hi folks!
As of right now I am only something like a quarter of the way through here putting this . . . .THING together.
As of chapter 100, this is something I banged together for the "named" characters. I mean characters with NAMES. Who appear more than one paragraph. Who actually we "see" in the story instead of merely MENTIONED in passing (or whatnot). And which are human (or "humanish"), vice the "Outer Gods" and whatever EXACTLY the #$%#% the Greater Will is here....
And they are put into the order of appearance, not alphabetically. Seemed to be the way I wanted to tackled it. Why? Well.... I wanna do it that way.
And if you see something missing or just plain WRONG? Just let me know and I'll get to it. Sometime. Soonish? Kinda been busy with real life and all that.
Sigh.
Character.…......................Origin.…............................ First Seen.…......................... Current Location
Taylor Hebert.............Earth Bet.................................Chapter 1...............................Lands Between
…...............................Brockton Bay.........................................................................Limgrave
…...............................Winslow Highschool.............................................................Fort Haight
Potiphar......................Lands Between.......................Chapter 1...............................Lands Between
.…...............................Summonwater Village..........................................................Limgrave
.…................................…................................…................................…....................Fort Haight
Tisiphone...................Lands Between.......................Chapter 2................................Lands Between
…...............................Deathtouched Catacombs…..................................................Limgrave
…...............................…...............................…...............................….....................Fort Haight
Nepheli Loux…............Godrick Knight's …...............Chapter 3…............................Lands Between
…...............................Encampment…......................................................................Limgrave
…...............................…...............................…...............................….....................Fort Haight
Margit (Morgott)........Area before Entrance to.........Chapter 4................................Leydell Royal Captial
the Fell Omen …........Stormviel Castle…...............................….............................Bakery
Gostoc …...................Gateway to Stormviel…........Chapter 4…...........................Storage area
…...............................Castle…...............................…...............................…..........under Stormviel
…...............................…...............................…...............................….....................Castle-dead
Onager …...................Stormviel Castle Courtyard...Chapter 5…............................On Parachute Off
…...............................…...............................…...............................….....................Stormviel Castle Wall
Godrick the Golden....Stormlviel Castle…..............Chapter 5….............................Stormviel Castle
…...............................Throne room…...............................…...................................Graveyard (?)-dead
Telavis …....................Stormviel Castle Ledge........Chapter 6….............................Lands Between
…...............................Near Rampart Tower…...............................….......................Limgrave
…...............................…...............................…...............................….....................Fort Haight
Angharad of Liurnia...Stormviel Castle....................Chapter 7…............................Lands Between
…................................Throneroom…......................................................................Limgrave
…...............................…...............................…...............................….....................Fort Haight
Sorcerer Rogier...........Area before Entrance to.........Chapter 9…............................Catacombs beneath
…................................Stormviel Castle …................................…............................Stormviel Castle by
…................................…................................…................................….....................Face of Godwyn
...........................…................................…................................…..............................-dead from Death
…................................…................................…....................…................................ Blight/puppeted
Crawa..........................Stormviel Castle …...............Chapter 14.......….....................Lands Between
…................................Throne Room…................................…....................................Limgrave
…................................…...............................…................................…........................Fort Haight
Thomas Calvert...........Earth Bet..............................Chapter 23 ...............................Stormveil Castle
….................................Ellisburg...…..................................…......................................Courtyard – dead
Anastasia.....................At Campsite by.......................Chapter 25...............................Vulcano Manor
….................................Limgrave road
Sir Ectasia...................Stormhill Evergaol..................Chapter 27...............................Stormhill Evergaol
As of right now I am only something like a quarter of the way through here putting this . . . .THING together.
As of chapter 100, this is something I banged together for the "named" characters. I mean characters with NAMES. Who appear more than one paragraph. Who actually we "see" in the story instead of merely MENTIONED in passing (or whatnot). And which are human (or "humanish"), vice the "Outer Gods" and whatever EXACTLY the #$%#% the Greater Will is here....
And they are put into the order of appearance, not alphabetically. Seemed to be the way I wanted to tackled it. Why? Well.... I wanna do it that way.
And if you see something missing or just plain WRONG? Just let me know and I'll get to it. Sometime. Soonish? Kinda been busy with real life and all that.
Sigh.
Character.…......................Origin.…............................ First Seen.…......................... Current Location
Taylor Hebert.............Earth Bet.................................Chapter 1...............................Lands Between
…...............................Brockton Bay.........................................................................Limgrave
…...............................Winslow Highschool.............................................................Fort Haight
Potiphar......................Lands Between.......................Chapter 1...............................Lands Between
.…...............................Summonwater Village..........................................................Limgrave
.…................................…................................…................................…....................Fort Haight
Tisiphone...................Lands Between.......................Chapter 2................................Lands Between
…...............................Deathtouched Catacombs…..................................................Limgrave
…...............................…...............................…...............................….....................Fort Haight
Nepheli Loux…............Godrick Knight's …...............Chapter 3…............................Lands Between
…...............................Encampment…......................................................................Limgrave
…...............................…...............................…...............................….....................Fort Haight
Margit (Morgott)........Area before Entrance to.........Chapter 4................................Leydell Royal Captial
the Fell Omen …........Stormviel Castle…...............................….............................Bakery
Gostoc …...................Gateway to Stormviel…........Chapter 4…...........................Storage area
…...............................Castle…...............................…...............................…..........under Stormviel
…...............................…...............................…...............................….....................Castle-dead
Onager …...................Stormviel Castle Courtyard...Chapter 5…............................On Parachute Off
…...............................…...............................…...............................….....................Stormviel Castle Wall
Godrick the Golden....Stormlviel Castle…..............Chapter 5….............................Stormviel Castle
…...............................Throne room…...............................…...................................Graveyard (?)-dead
Telavis …....................Stormviel Castle Ledge........Chapter 6….............................Lands Between
…...............................Near Rampart Tower…...............................….......................Limgrave
…...............................…...............................…...............................….....................Fort Haight
Angharad of Liurnia...Stormviel Castle....................Chapter 7…............................Lands Between
…................................Throneroom…......................................................................Limgrave
…...............................…...............................…...............................….....................Fort Haight
Sorcerer Rogier...........Area before Entrance to.........Chapter 9…............................Catacombs beneath
…................................Stormviel Castle …................................…............................Stormviel Castle by
…................................…................................…................................….....................Face of Godwyn
...........................…................................…................................…..............................-dead from Death
…................................…................................…....................…................................ Blight/puppeted
Crawa..........................Stormviel Castle …...............Chapter 14.......….....................Lands Between
…................................Throne Room…................................…....................................Limgrave
…................................…...............................…................................…........................Fort Haight
Thomas Calvert...........Earth Bet..............................Chapter 23 ...............................Stormveil Castle
….................................Ellisburg...…..................................…......................................Courtyard – dead
Anastasia.....................At Campsite by.......................Chapter 25...............................Vulcano Manor
….................................Limgrave road
Sir Ectasia...................Stormhill Evergaol..................Chapter 27...............................Stormhill Evergaol
Last edited:
Character List 2 - by the incomparably comprehensive Annoyed Catholic
Annoyed Catholic
Moody fellow
And LO!
So here is the rest of the list!
Character.........................Origin.................................First Seen................................Current Location
Irina............................Abandoned Village.................Chapter 33..............................Lands Between
....................................In Limgrave, enroute to.........................................................Limgrave
…................................Castle Morne.........................................................................Fort Haight
Lunar Princess............Stormviel Castle.....................Chapter 36..............................Ranni's Rise
Ranni...........................Godrick's Bedroom
D, Hunter of the..........Limgrave, on roadway............Chapter 37..............................Catacombs beneath
Dead............................To Stormveil Castle...............................................................Stormviel Castle by
…................................…................................…................................….....................Face of Godwyn
...........................…................................…................................…..............................-dead from Death
…................................…................................…....................…................................ Blight/puppeted
Therolina.....................Limgrave, on roadway.............Chapter 37.............................Catacombs Beneath
…................................To Stormveil Castle...............................................................Stormviel Castle by
…................................…................................…................................….....................Face of Godwyn
...........................…................................…................................…..............................-dead/puppeted
Vyke............................Tarnished Encampment.............Chapter 41...........................Caelid
….................................To Stormveil Castle...…................................…....................Church of the Plague
Roderika of Theris.......Stormhill Shack.........................Chapter 42...........................Lands Between
….................................................................................................................................Limgrave
…..................................................................................................................................Fort Haight
Mohg, Lord of Blood...Lands Between...........................Chapter 44...........................Mohgwyn Palace
…..................................Stormveil Castle
…..................................(In Taylor's Dream)
Rupert............................Tarnished Encampment.............Chapter 48...........................Stormveil Castle
…...................................To Stormveil Castle................................................................Graveyard-dead/
…....................................................................................................................................Grafted
Rykard, Lord of...............Tarnished Encampment............Chapter 51...........................Volcano Manor
Blasphemy.......................To Stormveil Castle
….....................................(Tisiphone's Vision)
Hodir.................................Stormveil Castle.......................Chapter 52...........................Stormveil Castle
….......................................Angharad's Lab.......................................................................Graveyard-dead
Pollyanna (Payne)...............Tarnished Encampment...........Chapter 55........................Malenia's Room
Crimson Valkyrie................To Stormveil Castle...........................................................Bottom of Elphael,
…....................................................................................................................................Brace of Haligtree
…....................................................................................................................................-dead
Tuya....................................Stormveil Castle......................Chapter 58.........................Stormveil Castle
….........................................Courtyard...........................................................................Courtyard-dead
Saikha.................................Stormveil Castle......................Chapter 58.........................Stormveil Castle
….........................................Courtyard...........................................................................Courtyard-dead
Bayar...................................Stormveil Castle......................Chapter 58.........................Stormveil Castle
….........................................Courtyard...........................................................................Courtyard-dead
Gideon, the All Knowing....Tarnished Encampment...........Chapter 62..........................Roundtable Hold
Malenia, Sword of..............Malenia's Room.......................Chapter 63.........................Malenia's Room
Miquella.............................Bottom of Ephael................................................................Bottom of Elphael
…........................................Brace of Haligtree…...........................................................Brace of Haligtree
Preceptor Seluvis..................Catacombs Beneath................Chapter 74..........................Seluvis' Rise
…...........................................Stormveil Castle by
…...........................................Face of Godwyn
Rya.........................................Volcano Manor.......................Chapter 89........................Miles Away From
….....................................................................................................................................Fort Haight in
…......................................................................................................................................Forest
Tanith.....................................Volcano Manor........................Chapter 89........................Volcano Manor
Bernahl...................................Volcano Manor........................Chapter 89........................Volcano Manor
Inquisitor Ghiza......................Volcano Manor.......................Chapter 89.........................Volcano Manor
Quarrel.....................................Volcano Manor......................Chapter 89..........................Volcano Manor
Bote..........................................Volcano Manor.....................Chapter 89........................Miles Away From
….....................................................................................................................................Fort Haight in
….....................................................................................................................................Forest
Adula........................................Ranni's Rise..........................Chapter 89........................Ranni's Rise
Millicent...................................Road out of Caelid & Into....Chapter 90.......................Lands Between
…..............................................Limgrave, Pollyanna's..................................................Limgrave
…...............................................Grave...........................................................................Fort Haight
Maureen.....................................Road out of Caelid &...........Chapter 90......................Miles Away From
…...............................................Into Limgrave, Pollyanna's..........................................Fort Haight in
…................................................Grave...........................................................................Forest
Mary...........................................Road out of Caelid &...........Chapter 90......................Miles Away From
…...............................................Into Limgrave, Pollyanna's..........................................Fort Haight in
…................................................Grave...........................................................................Forest
Amy............................................Road out of Caelid &.............Chapter 90......................Miles Away From
…...............................................Into Limgrave, Pollyanna's..........................................Fort Haight in
…................................................Grave...........................................................................Forest
Licia............................................Lands Between.......................Chapter 91...................Lands Between (Baker)........................................Leyndell.......................................................................Leyndell
Patch............................................Stormveil Castle...................Chapter 91....................Stormveil Castle
….................................................Throne Room.............................................................Throne Room
So here is the rest of the list!
Character.........................Origin.................................First Seen................................Current Location
Irina............................Abandoned Village.................Chapter 33..............................Lands Between
....................................In Limgrave, enroute to.........................................................Limgrave
…................................Castle Morne.........................................................................Fort Haight
Lunar Princess............Stormviel Castle.....................Chapter 36..............................Ranni's Rise
Ranni...........................Godrick's Bedroom
D, Hunter of the..........Limgrave, on roadway............Chapter 37..............................Catacombs beneath
Dead............................To Stormveil Castle...............................................................Stormviel Castle by
…................................…................................…................................….....................Face of Godwyn
...........................…................................…................................…..............................-dead from Death
…................................…................................…....................…................................ Blight/puppeted
Therolina.....................Limgrave, on roadway.............Chapter 37.............................Catacombs Beneath
…................................To Stormveil Castle...............................................................Stormviel Castle by
…................................…................................…................................….....................Face of Godwyn
...........................…................................…................................…..............................-dead/puppeted
Vyke............................Tarnished Encampment.............Chapter 41...........................Caelid
….................................To Stormveil Castle...…................................…....................Church of the Plague
Roderika of Theris.......Stormhill Shack.........................Chapter 42...........................Lands Between
….................................................................................................................................Limgrave
…..................................................................................................................................Fort Haight
Mohg, Lord of Blood...Lands Between...........................Chapter 44...........................Mohgwyn Palace
…..................................Stormveil Castle
…..................................(In Taylor's Dream)
Rupert............................Tarnished Encampment.............Chapter 48...........................Stormveil Castle
…...................................To Stormveil Castle................................................................Graveyard-dead/
…....................................................................................................................................Grafted
Rykard, Lord of...............Tarnished Encampment............Chapter 51...........................Volcano Manor
Blasphemy.......................To Stormveil Castle
….....................................(Tisiphone's Vision)
Hodir.................................Stormveil Castle.......................Chapter 52...........................Stormveil Castle
….......................................Angharad's Lab.......................................................................Graveyard-dead
Pollyanna (Payne)...............Tarnished Encampment...........Chapter 55........................Malenia's Room
Crimson Valkyrie................To Stormveil Castle...........................................................Bottom of Elphael,
…....................................................................................................................................Brace of Haligtree
…....................................................................................................................................-dead
Tuya....................................Stormveil Castle......................Chapter 58.........................Stormveil Castle
….........................................Courtyard...........................................................................Courtyard-dead
Saikha.................................Stormveil Castle......................Chapter 58.........................Stormveil Castle
….........................................Courtyard...........................................................................Courtyard-dead
Bayar...................................Stormveil Castle......................Chapter 58.........................Stormveil Castle
….........................................Courtyard...........................................................................Courtyard-dead
Gideon, the All Knowing....Tarnished Encampment...........Chapter 62..........................Roundtable Hold
Malenia, Sword of..............Malenia's Room.......................Chapter 63.........................Malenia's Room
Miquella.............................Bottom of Ephael................................................................Bottom of Elphael
…........................................Brace of Haligtree…...........................................................Brace of Haligtree
Preceptor Seluvis..................Catacombs Beneath................Chapter 74..........................Seluvis' Rise
…...........................................Stormveil Castle by
…...........................................Face of Godwyn
Rya.........................................Volcano Manor.......................Chapter 89........................Miles Away From
….....................................................................................................................................Fort Haight in
…......................................................................................................................................Forest
Tanith.....................................Volcano Manor........................Chapter 89........................Volcano Manor
Bernahl...................................Volcano Manor........................Chapter 89........................Volcano Manor
Inquisitor Ghiza......................Volcano Manor.......................Chapter 89.........................Volcano Manor
Quarrel.....................................Volcano Manor......................Chapter 89..........................Volcano Manor
Bote..........................................Volcano Manor.....................Chapter 89........................Miles Away From
….....................................................................................................................................Fort Haight in
….....................................................................................................................................Forest
Adula........................................Ranni's Rise..........................Chapter 89........................Ranni's Rise
Millicent...................................Road out of Caelid & Into....Chapter 90.......................Lands Between
…..............................................Limgrave, Pollyanna's..................................................Limgrave
…...............................................Grave...........................................................................Fort Haight
Maureen.....................................Road out of Caelid &...........Chapter 90......................Miles Away From
…...............................................Into Limgrave, Pollyanna's..........................................Fort Haight in
…................................................Grave...........................................................................Forest
Mary...........................................Road out of Caelid &...........Chapter 90......................Miles Away From
…...............................................Into Limgrave, Pollyanna's..........................................Fort Haight in
…................................................Grave...........................................................................Forest
Amy............................................Road out of Caelid &.............Chapter 90......................Miles Away From
…...............................................Into Limgrave, Pollyanna's..........................................Fort Haight in
…................................................Grave...........................................................................Forest
Licia............................................Lands Between.......................Chapter 91...................Lands Between (Baker)........................................Leyndell.......................................................................Leyndell
Patch............................................Stormveil Castle...................Chapter 91....................Stormveil Castle
….................................................Throne Room.............................................................Throne Room
Last edited:
Annoyed Catholic
Moody fellow
An Age of . . .{Time} Fracture (in Which Some Things Gets Undone and Some People Who Shouldn't Gets Through)
Meanwhile...
"Someone must extinguish thy flame," the Fell Omen finishes, sneering down at the two people before him. "Let it be Margit the Fell!"
Margit then blinks, as if surprised as to who actually stands before him.
Two twin pairs of blindfolded golden eyes blink back at Margit, then blink again when they turn to each other in askance.
"Oh pardon!" The young man with the hidden golden eyed twins laughs slightly, embarrassed for having forgotten a VERY simple thing.
While the blindfold HAD come with his (and his unexpected fellow female companion's) new form (somehow) with his having escaped from that silken tomb, sometimes it was so EASY to forget one was wearing them! The magics within actually made it SOOO much easy to see around, day or night. But was so comfortable that honestly! He'd forgotten about them, even!
….
Then again, perhaps he SHOULD start NOT wearing them. At least at ALL times! Besides being admittedly eerie, it DID cover his eyes. Which apparently caused their "dear" gate keeper here to believe disguised eyes belonging to the Tarnished?
"See!" the blonde young man smiled cheerily, blinking his eyes now UNCOVERED for emphasis. " Still blessed by the Erdtree so no need for hostility."
"Dear brother," the blonde man adds, softly so as only he and the Fell Omen could/would hear.
While having . . .issues with the Erdtree and the Golden Order, at least he would be as polite and positive and possible, right? But still, while a step in the right direction the blonde's young man's face is not familiar. But something about his mannerisms just makes the Fell Omen feel he SHOULD know this man before him!
Honestly, he'd been feeling SOMETHING was off about everything. Like something was WRONG, but not. Like he'd just missed something happening, and he SHOULD know it...
"Wha? . . .Who are thou?" Margit sputtered, not quiet sure how this supposed tedious chore of swatting away yet another Tarnished away from the Grafted's realm should have taken THIS turn.
Then? Seeing the "corrupted" hands of the speaker, and then finally (and HOW in the Erdtree and the Golden Order had he missed IT?!) the power of the Great Shard dwelling within the speaker!
It was sooo obvious and only NOW was he sensing it?!
"Miquella?!" Morgott the Omen King blinks.
WHAT in the Erdtree . . .?! How did he show up after centuries . . . and grown UP?!
This could be VERY bad. The fact that a stalemate between the demi-gods had been in effect for centuries on end, this was new.
And possibly a dangerous new thing at that. Renewed hostilities?
The Lands Between could not take yet another Shattering War!!
And his almost identical twin blonde sister had the same "vibes" coming off of her shakes her head.
"Prithee, would you be so kind as let us pass so we can get in touch with dear Malenia?" Trina sighs and frowns, wondering how much longer this must take. Time was ticking, and gods only know what would happen if they took too long!! "It would be best for all that we make contact with her, considering what could happen if my . . .our sisters if put under enough stress and she loses control over her Crimson Rot infliction!"
How long had that bastard Mohg kept her . . .them away from their sister?! Not like she or Miquella could ASK Mohg! Either of them!!
They'd awaken from their silken womb to find some kind of furious battle had happened, and the charred and broken SKELETONS (or what was left of their skeletons) laying half way dragged out of pits of molten rock and masonry!
Both skeletons had that those unique horns, of which one had pierced out an eye.
Not something one would or SHOULD ever forget!
Oh, and the other bodies littered about? Well rather . . . bits (and only bits) of what Trina figured would have been Mohg's (both of them) hanger ons/cultist.
….
She should have severed all ties with that horned freak when Mohg had gone all in with that Mother of Truth business! But she and her sister had . . .
He was family and persecuted by the Golden Order! And both of them had wanted to try to bring him back to reason....
Having a "doppleganger" as it were was a documented thing. Rare but it happened. For regular people and the not so "regular" people like the Tarnished. The "invaders" did it from time to time (for a short period of time) for various reasons, going to other worlds to murder some such for petty reasons. But when an invader met his or her twin while invading? A madness happened and both need to kill the other in the worst fashion!
No demi-god had ever felt a need (or whim) to invade one of those mirror realms, but . . .this wasn't like that.
At least until now, and what was happening NOW had lasted much LONGER than any kind of "invader" raid/whatnot she had ever heard of before today!
Thankfully, the "tricks" she had learned before her hibernation at the roots of the Haligtree allowed her and her "brother" to flee the scene before more cultists should arrive to make things difficult. Both were happy enough to emerge, finding themselves both not having been "corrupted" in Mohg's insane attempts to raise them both to godhood under the Formless Mother. . .
Finding themselves not covered in horns and deformities like a Fell Omen had been a welcome thing! Indeed, having somehow having their mutated arms return to normal? VERY welcome indeed!
Might it have something to do with Miquella sporting an extra Great Shard? From one Mohg? Miquella had said something about the other slipping away somewhere while somebody who'd nearly crushed his mutated hand while screaming, crying and cursing . . .
No, one thing at at time! Too bad her attempt to highjack the Grace site teleportation system had failed to return themselves to the Haligtree, but some beggers cannot be choosers.
Thank the Erdtree that both of them were now recovered enough from their reemergence to be able to walk in a straight line, much less make a risky play at pleading for a horse or two (if unlucky enough to not score a quicker transport mode) to make what was going to be a LONG journey home!
At least while they'd been sleeping it appeared that somebody managed to fix the Erdtree (and the Elden Ring by extension). Looked better than it had in centuries and while it somewhat hurt the pride that somebody ELSE should have solved that problem. When they'd gone into hibernation/meditation in part to solve it? Good show!!
"What happened to the Erdtree?" Margit blinked, finally noticing.
What in the world was going on here?
Meanwhile, with One Who Shouldn't Have Been Allowed Through....
"Glad we could strike an accord instead of yet ANOTHER needless battle to the death," a winged woman said softly after returning the swords to the Grafted Scions she'd confiscated upon arrival to this rather tall and isolated spot. Melina (that odd woman with Heterochromia) been nice enough to offer her an accord, being all actually disturbingly friendly after having stabbed and killed some vagrant looking fellow with some kind of firey/mad eyes.
Wonder of wonders, Lilith hadn't made any snarky remarks about what year the "Accord" was and what kind of down payment was needed. Let us not mention anything about "low interest deals" would or could be made to make the deal happen.
She said that they were going to some place called the "Round Table". Ending up here was something else. Not that she'd been in any shape to do anything but take up what had turned out to be a misadventure. She'd wanted to be AWAY from that fell place with all those cultist! She'd been in no shape to complain after nearly suffering a heart attack from whatever that mystical retributive strike that had hit her from those demonic looking cult leaders!!
Five minutes of peace? Too much to ask?!
Getting jumped by twin "Grafted Scions" who actually turned out to be merely what amounted to scared young girls (albeit rebuilt like living war machines according to Melina), had been an unwelcome thing.
Getting her hearing almost blasted to Hell and Gone definitely hadn't been a welcome thing!
Good thing she wasn't too far gone as to just MURDER these girls for being afraid of her. Thank God that she was IN a position to be able to handle this without resorting to battle! To bloodshed!
Why had that happened so many times? And why had one of those horned madmen babbled something about her coming here to steal his cheese? While Garlic yarg was nice (her sister's husband made a rather nice hobby cheese), it hardly was something...
Nevermind! She'd sort it out later! Somewhere between now and a time she'd have to give her power armour a good thorough look over after that late debacle!
Sighing, after doing a rather unlady like "chugging" down of one of her more powerful healing potions she turned back to the blinking Scions who seemed . . .surprised at getting their weapons back instead of being stomped flat with that odd warhammer of hers.
"Would you like to come along and get back DOWN from here and back over to your home?" Lilith smiles at the nervously shuffling Scions while pulling out some kind of odd looking crossbow . . . device. "I am sure that your sister Crawa you mentioned would love to see you both again!"
It was on her way to where she needed to be and while walking (or riding on Torrent) would be slower than merely flying there, the girls had been crying and begging. Talking about this Crawa of theirs like they really wanted to see her and...
Left a bad taste in her mouth to merely spare the girls without at least helping, eh?
A small "blurp" sound is emitted from the device she is holding. Twice. One forms a blue circle area in one area from the ejected beam from said mystery device. The other beam formed an orange circle. Something connected and . . .
"Really?" one of the twins asked, looking first at Lilith and then down into the portal into what appeared to be the area BELOW their inadvertant towering prison.
Meanwhile, in another place called the "Three Sisters Rise"
"Kill, kill, kill!" chanted a red haired demi-goddess, who was staring at nothing while sitting on a shattered blue doll with four arms and what appeared to be a completed sigil of death (or whatever). Instead of the HALF sigil it should have been if the spell had worked out as Ranni had originally planned.
If she had not suddenly found herself here, facing that smug blue B*tch who'd practically crowed about having hurt Queen Marika through Godwyn the Golden's death. A deliberate act instead of some insane mistake! Her step mother had ORDERED her own death to release her from the Greater' Will's clutches. It was not to have been what happened, not her favorite sons. Godwyn had been a mistake! A mistake!!
But this BITCH!!
So with a spare Black Knife used on this . . .this MONSTER instead of herself. Earlier than planned. Spell ceremony finally winding down, malfunctioning VERY badly at the last with some ancient magics of the lands beneath....
And the world had gone insane for a few moments. Things shifting. Changing. Turning back on themselves....
Her mind was suddenly like a load of wash and her thoughts the laundry....
"Owww," Lunar Princess Ranni muttered, clutching her head. "Where am I?"
Blinking, she just realized something.
"Who am I?" she asked herself, finding no memory of how she got here. And even WHO she should be!!
"Who are you?" another voice asked, one which sounded familiar, off to the right.
"Where is this?" another voice asked, one which sounded familiar, off to the left.
"What's going on?" they all asked themselves and each other, with a growing sense of dread and panic. Not realizing that long ago in the EARLIEST days of it's founding, the Three Sisters Rise had been named such for other reasons than what it had become known as, with the newest "rises" being put up on this land....
Meanwhile...
"Someone must extinguish thy flame," the Fell Omen finishes, sneering down at the two people before him. "Let it be Margit the Fell!"
Margit then blinks, as if surprised as to who actually stands before him.
Two twin pairs of blindfolded golden eyes blink back at Margit, then blink again when they turn to each other in askance.
"Oh pardon!" The young man with the hidden golden eyed twins laughs slightly, embarrassed for having forgotten a VERY simple thing.
While the blindfold HAD come with his (and his unexpected fellow female companion's) new form (somehow) with his having escaped from that silken tomb, sometimes it was so EASY to forget one was wearing them! The magics within actually made it SOOO much easy to see around, day or night. But was so comfortable that honestly! He'd forgotten about them, even!
….
Then again, perhaps he SHOULD start NOT wearing them. At least at ALL times! Besides being admittedly eerie, it DID cover his eyes. Which apparently caused their "dear" gate keeper here to believe disguised eyes belonging to the Tarnished?
"See!" the blonde young man smiled cheerily, blinking his eyes now UNCOVERED for emphasis. " Still blessed by the Erdtree so no need for hostility."
"Dear brother," the blonde man adds, softly so as only he and the Fell Omen could/would hear.
While having . . .issues with the Erdtree and the Golden Order, at least he would be as polite and positive and possible, right? But still, while a step in the right direction the blonde's young man's face is not familiar. But something about his mannerisms just makes the Fell Omen feel he SHOULD know this man before him!
Honestly, he'd been feeling SOMETHING was off about everything. Like something was WRONG, but not. Like he'd just missed something happening, and he SHOULD know it...
"Wha? . . .Who are thou?" Margit sputtered, not quiet sure how this supposed tedious chore of swatting away yet another Tarnished away from the Grafted's realm should have taken THIS turn.
Then? Seeing the "corrupted" hands of the speaker, and then finally (and HOW in the Erdtree and the Golden Order had he missed IT?!) the power of the Great Shard dwelling within the speaker!
It was sooo obvious and only NOW was he sensing it?!
"Miquella?!" Morgott the Omen King blinks.
WHAT in the Erdtree . . .?! How did he show up after centuries . . . and grown UP?!
This could be VERY bad. The fact that a stalemate between the demi-gods had been in effect for centuries on end, this was new.
And possibly a dangerous new thing at that. Renewed hostilities?
The Lands Between could not take yet another Shattering War!!
And his almost identical twin blonde sister had the same "vibes" coming off of her shakes her head.
"Prithee, would you be so kind as let us pass so we can get in touch with dear Malenia?" Trina sighs and frowns, wondering how much longer this must take. Time was ticking, and gods only know what would happen if they took too long!! "It would be best for all that we make contact with her, considering what could happen if my . . .our sisters if put under enough stress and she loses control over her Crimson Rot infliction!"
How long had that bastard Mohg kept her . . .them away from their sister?! Not like she or Miquella could ASK Mohg! Either of them!!
They'd awaken from their silken womb to find some kind of furious battle had happened, and the charred and broken SKELETONS (or what was left of their skeletons) laying half way dragged out of pits of molten rock and masonry!
Both skeletons had that those unique horns, of which one had pierced out an eye.
Not something one would or SHOULD ever forget!
Oh, and the other bodies littered about? Well rather . . . bits (and only bits) of what Trina figured would have been Mohg's (both of them) hanger ons/cultist.
….
She should have severed all ties with that horned freak when Mohg had gone all in with that Mother of Truth business! But she and her sister had . . .
He was family and persecuted by the Golden Order! And both of them had wanted to try to bring him back to reason....
Having a "doppleganger" as it were was a documented thing. Rare but it happened. For regular people and the not so "regular" people like the Tarnished. The "invaders" did it from time to time (for a short period of time) for various reasons, going to other worlds to murder some such for petty reasons. But when an invader met his or her twin while invading? A madness happened and both need to kill the other in the worst fashion!
No demi-god had ever felt a need (or whim) to invade one of those mirror realms, but . . .this wasn't like that.
At least until now, and what was happening NOW had lasted much LONGER than any kind of "invader" raid/whatnot she had ever heard of before today!
Thankfully, the "tricks" she had learned before her hibernation at the roots of the Haligtree allowed her and her "brother" to flee the scene before more cultists should arrive to make things difficult. Both were happy enough to emerge, finding themselves both not having been "corrupted" in Mohg's insane attempts to raise them both to godhood under the Formless Mother. . .
Finding themselves not covered in horns and deformities like a Fell Omen had been a welcome thing! Indeed, having somehow having their mutated arms return to normal? VERY welcome indeed!
Might it have something to do with Miquella sporting an extra Great Shard? From one Mohg? Miquella had said something about the other slipping away somewhere while somebody who'd nearly crushed his mutated hand while screaming, crying and cursing . . .
No, one thing at at time! Too bad her attempt to highjack the Grace site teleportation system had failed to return themselves to the Haligtree, but some beggers cannot be choosers.
Thank the Erdtree that both of them were now recovered enough from their reemergence to be able to walk in a straight line, much less make a risky play at pleading for a horse or two (if unlucky enough to not score a quicker transport mode) to make what was going to be a LONG journey home!
At least while they'd been sleeping it appeared that somebody managed to fix the Erdtree (and the Elden Ring by extension). Looked better than it had in centuries and while it somewhat hurt the pride that somebody ELSE should have solved that problem. When they'd gone into hibernation/meditation in part to solve it? Good show!!
"What happened to the Erdtree?" Margit blinked, finally noticing.
What in the world was going on here?
Meanwhile, with One Who Shouldn't Have Been Allowed Through....
"Glad we could strike an accord instead of yet ANOTHER needless battle to the death," a winged woman said softly after returning the swords to the Grafted Scions she'd confiscated upon arrival to this rather tall and isolated spot. Melina (that odd woman with Heterochromia) been nice enough to offer her an accord, being all actually disturbingly friendly after having stabbed and killed some vagrant looking fellow with some kind of firey/mad eyes.
Wonder of wonders, Lilith hadn't made any snarky remarks about what year the "Accord" was and what kind of down payment was needed. Let us not mention anything about "low interest deals" would or could be made to make the deal happen.
She said that they were going to some place called the "Round Table". Ending up here was something else. Not that she'd been in any shape to do anything but take up what had turned out to be a misadventure. She'd wanted to be AWAY from that fell place with all those cultist! She'd been in no shape to complain after nearly suffering a heart attack from whatever that mystical retributive strike that had hit her from those demonic looking cult leaders!!
Five minutes of peace? Too much to ask?!
Getting jumped by twin "Grafted Scions" who actually turned out to be merely what amounted to scared young girls (albeit rebuilt like living war machines according to Melina), had been an unwelcome thing.
Getting her hearing almost blasted to Hell and Gone definitely hadn't been a welcome thing!
Good thing she wasn't too far gone as to just MURDER these girls for being afraid of her. Thank God that she was IN a position to be able to handle this without resorting to battle! To bloodshed!
Why had that happened so many times? And why had one of those horned madmen babbled something about her coming here to steal his cheese? While Garlic yarg was nice (her sister's husband made a rather nice hobby cheese), it hardly was something...
Nevermind! She'd sort it out later! Somewhere between now and a time she'd have to give her power armour a good thorough look over after that late debacle!
Sighing, after doing a rather unlady like "chugging" down of one of her more powerful healing potions she turned back to the blinking Scions who seemed . . .surprised at getting their weapons back instead of being stomped flat with that odd warhammer of hers.
"Would you like to come along and get back DOWN from here and back over to your home?" Lilith smiles at the nervously shuffling Scions while pulling out some kind of odd looking crossbow . . . device. "I am sure that your sister Crawa you mentioned would love to see you both again!"
It was on her way to where she needed to be and while walking (or riding on Torrent) would be slower than merely flying there, the girls had been crying and begging. Talking about this Crawa of theirs like they really wanted to see her and...
Left a bad taste in her mouth to merely spare the girls without at least helping, eh?
A small "blurp" sound is emitted from the device she is holding. Twice. One forms a blue circle area in one area from the ejected beam from said mystery device. The other beam formed an orange circle. Something connected and . . .
"Really?" one of the twins asked, looking first at Lilith and then down into the portal into what appeared to be the area BELOW their inadvertant towering prison.
Meanwhile, in another place called the "Three Sisters Rise"
"Kill, kill, kill!" chanted a red haired demi-goddess, who was staring at nothing while sitting on a shattered blue doll with four arms and what appeared to be a completed sigil of death (or whatever). Instead of the HALF sigil it should have been if the spell had worked out as Ranni had originally planned.
If she had not suddenly found herself here, facing that smug blue B*tch who'd practically crowed about having hurt Queen Marika through Godwyn the Golden's death. A deliberate act instead of some insane mistake! Her step mother had ORDERED her own death to release her from the Greater' Will's clutches. It was not to have been what happened, not her favorite sons. Godwyn had been a mistake! A mistake!!
But this BITCH!!
So with a spare Black Knife used on this . . .this MONSTER instead of herself. Earlier than planned. Spell ceremony finally winding down, malfunctioning VERY badly at the last with some ancient magics of the lands beneath....
And the world had gone insane for a few moments. Things shifting. Changing. Turning back on themselves....
Her mind was suddenly like a load of wash and her thoughts the laundry....
"Owww," Lunar Princess Ranni muttered, clutching her head. "Where am I?"
Blinking, she just realized something.
"Who am I?" she asked herself, finding no memory of how she got here. And even WHO she should be!!
"Who are you?" another voice asked, one which sounded familiar, off to the right.
"Where is this?" another voice asked, one which sounded familiar, off to the left.
"What's going on?" they all asked themselves and each other, with a growing sense of dread and panic. Not realizing that long ago in the EARLIEST days of it's founding, the Three Sisters Rise had been named such for other reasons than what it had become known as, with the newest "rises" being put up on this land....
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Annoyed Catholic
Moody fellow
I have a question here.
In this story we have five named Grafted Scions, all who are Godrick theGrafted Golden's daughters. They are as follows: Crawa, Bote, Swuste, Hild, and Dunne.
Crawa we know is found within Stormveil Castle at the start (as is canon within Elden Ring) at first. Now she and the rest of Taylor's gang are at Fortress Haight.
By the sound of things the twins Hild and Dunne are still together. At a guess I believe that those two are the ones which MIGHT be found in the Fringefolk Hero's Grave, what with them being inseparable and all that from what I recall in the story.
Bote got all the way up to Mt. Gelmire from what we saw before going along on an adventure down to the forest area outside of Fortress Haight.
Swuste stayed in Liurnia, but we learned that she couldn't find her way home from there. Meaning that she still probably IS there at lake Liurnia even now.
Of course, Grafting Buddha already knew that when he created this story
At least according to lore videos (on Youtube) and the wiki page has all of them located throughout the map:
Some nameless servant that Godrick grafted into a Grafted Scion?
A nameless sister?
In this story we have five named Grafted Scions, all who are Godrick the
Crawa we know is found within Stormveil Castle at the start (as is canon within Elden Ring) at first. Now she and the rest of Taylor's gang are at Fortress Haight.
By the sound of things the twins Hild and Dunne are still together. At a guess I believe that those two are the ones which MIGHT be found in the Fringefolk Hero's Grave, what with them being inseparable and all that from what I recall in the story.
Bote got all the way up to Mt. Gelmire from what we saw before going along on an adventure down to the forest area outside of Fortress Haight.
Swuste stayed in Liurnia, but we learned that she couldn't find her way home from there. Meaning that she still probably IS there at lake Liurnia even now.
Of course, Grafting Buddha already knew that when he created this story
At least according to lore videos (on Youtube) and the wiki page has all of them located throughout the map:
Elden Ring Grafted Scion Location
- Chapel of Anticipation [More Info ↓] [Map Link]
- 2 in Fringefolk Hero's Grave [More Info ↓]
- Stormveil Castle [More Info ↓] [Map Link]
- Liurnia of the Lakes (disguised as a Giant Crayfish) [More Info ↓]
- Mt. Gelmir [More Info ↓] [Map Link]
Some nameless servant that Godrick grafted into a Grafted Scion?
A nameless sister?
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Max Uristwell
Custodian of the Toobs
- Location
- United Kingdom
The access point for the Chapel is in Liurnia, and the Scion disguised as a crayfish is actually a Mimic Tear (based on the Larval Tear item description) imitating the most dangerous things it's met as a method of protection: the most likely explanation is that Swuste wandered around Liurnia and was spotted by the Mimic Tear, then made her way west to the Four Belfries and from there to the Chapel. Meaning that there is no sixth 'real' Scion.
Whew, finally up to date. What a massive work. Impressive world-building, and impressively deranged comedy.
I gathered up the typose I found along the way. Dunno if you care about that sort of thing, but here they are just in case.
Perhaps things are different now that she has access to her entire collection of ashes rather than just what's at hand, but I feel like that should be made explicit, bc otherwise this just looks like a continuity error.
One last bit of criticism: I don't think the point where Tisiphone's shard dragment stops overtaking and completely altering her mind is ever really characterized, or how and why exactly it happens.
We are told at one point (during the puppetry/posession/Mogh saga) that having a goal in front of her helps distract the fragment from trying to manage her whole life.
But then after Stormveil falls, Tis seems to see no negative consequences at all from the fragment being permanently stuck in her hand, despite the complete absence of both overarching goal and conflict situations for the fragment to latch onto. It seems almost like she ended up with a more or less normal version of Taylor's canon power.
In the end the greatest argument against trying for the rune was still that it would ruin her life by making it so everyone is after her when she has neither Godricks personal power, nor his castle with established defenses.
Of course Taylor isn't exactly in her right mind here, and negative experiences tend to weigh more heavily in our memory and mind than neutral or positive ones.
In the same way, the misbegotten needed to revolt to gain freedom, and now that they have it, they need to work to preserve it. Their situation actually reminds me of Taylors quite a bit. They can't just wait it out in castle Morne, because the world is big and scary and out to get them. They need to gather strength enough to protect themselves, to preserve their freedom. Just like Taylor in Stormveil, they can't afford to remain static, because eventually someone would come and ruin what they have. (Them stealing armor and equipment too is a parallel to Taylor's tactics, though the context is a bit different.)
By my memory he was smashed by possessed Taylor while some distance from the face.
His status seems up in the air, depending on whether the ghost-flame she was intermittently projecting burned him, and whether casual exposure to it is already enough for someone to die permanently.
Personally, I'd love for him to have survived, because of the particular history he now shares with Taylor (and Tisiphone), as well as the question of what he would think of the different version of Destined Death that she now holds as part of the alloyed gold.
I gathered up the typose I found along the way. Dunno if you care about that sort of thing, but here they are just in case.
=>Apparently
check, keep
once
Earlier it was explicitly said that Roderika's spirits didn't have the right memories for this sort of thing. That's why Crawa had to do an overfly to drop the napalm.
Perhaps things are different now that she has access to her entire collection of ashes rather than just what's at hand, but I feel like that should be made explicit, bc otherwise this just looks like a continuity error.
down
add 'in'
remove 'to'
add 'she'
add 'that'??
remove p
Remove 'but', or rewrite the sentence in some other way.
into
managed
remove a
herself
and
his
it
had
Just seemed weird, don't know how/if to fix this.
he
??
word? Could also be fine already, a play on 'preaching the good word'.
by
there
remove most
add 'as'; the word sight here seems a bit strange?
add t
they
Why would they burn the bodies of the prior inhabitants, greatly delaying or even preventing resurrection? Just seems like a shitty thing to do.
add -al
Like
We are told at one point (during the puppetry/posession/Mogh saga) that having a goal in front of her helps distract the fragment from trying to manage her whole life.
But then after Stormveil falls, Tis seems to see no negative consequences at all from the fragment being permanently stuck in her hand, despite the complete absence of both overarching goal and conflict situations for the fragment to latch onto. It seems almost like she ended up with a more or less normal version of Taylor's canon power.
The presented idea of power=corruption doesn't really make sense. As seems to be implicit in the second quote, it's not power that's the problem, but the desire for power at the cost of all else, up to using methods such as grafting or mutative divine powers. Margit and Vyke are also powerful, on similar levels to Godrick at least, and as far as Taylor knows they don't have anything terrible going on.
In the end the greatest argument against trying for the rune was still that it would ruin her life by making it so everyone is after her when she has neither Godricks personal power, nor his castle with established defenses.
Of course Taylor isn't exactly in her right mind here, and negative experiences tend to weigh more heavily in our memory and mind than neutral or positive ones.
It's true, Tis didn't wage war against the dragon or her superiors. But that's a bad comparison when it comes to the misbegotten. A better comparison would be Tis risking her own life, and getting mixed up in fighting, in an attempt to get her things back from Taylor, because that is what would be necessary to reach the life she wishes for.
In the same way, the misbegotten needed to revolt to gain freedom, and now that they have it, they need to work to preserve it. Their situation actually reminds me of Taylors quite a bit. They can't just wait it out in castle Morne, because the world is big and scary and out to get them. They need to gather strength enough to protect themselves, to preserve their freedom. Just like Taylor in Stormveil, they can't afford to remain static, because eventually someone would come and ruin what they have. (Them stealing armor and equipment too is a parallel to Taylor's tactics, though the context is a bit different.)
Coil's power? Interesting.
Are you sure he's perma-dead?
By my memory he was smashed by possessed Taylor while some distance from the face.
His status seems up in the air, depending on whether the ghost-flame she was intermittently projecting burned him, and whether casual exposure to it is already enough for someone to die permanently.
Personally, I'd love for him to have survived, because of the particular history he now shares with Taylor (and Tisiphone), as well as the question of what he would think of the different version of Destined Death that she now holds as part of the alloyed gold.
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Annoyed Catholic
Moody fellow
@ Jastolus
About D...
I like your ideas there but then again if what I fear is true about getting puppeted? By Ranni's pet mage/psycho?
I recall something being said by that piece of work about Taylor's fate being notedly different from the norm for those within the Lands Between. That said to me that getting puppeted means more than being involves more dire things. Longer times than merely getting puppeted until they die. Death being what it is here in the story? Fate being usually for the rest of one's existence (and perhaps into the afterlife in some instances in some tales)?
We might be seeing D coming back still as a puppet. Or not. Could be a GOOD thing to have D getting perma-dead here.
And considering that Godrick's unnamed wife got death blighted and all that?
Well, I don't think D is coming back in any form being able to have intelligent conversation. At best as me if those walking skeletons Taylor ran from early on in the story.
Who knows?
About D...
I like your ideas there but then again if what I fear is true about getting puppeted? By Ranni's pet mage/psycho?
I recall something being said by that piece of work about Taylor's fate being notedly different from the norm for those within the Lands Between. That said to me that getting puppeted means more than being involves more dire things. Longer times than merely getting puppeted until they die. Death being what it is here in the story? Fate being usually for the rest of one's existence (and perhaps into the afterlife in some instances in some tales)?
We might be seeing D coming back still as a puppet. Or not. Could be a GOOD thing to have D getting perma-dead here.
And considering that Godrick's unnamed wife got death blighted and all that?
Well, I don't think D is coming back in any form being able to have intelligent conversation. At best as me if those walking skeletons Taylor ran from early on in the story.
Who knows?
For being puppeted, I suppose the question is whether death purges that affliction like it does almost everything else, including scarlet rot. Could be that puppet-ification beyond death requires additional procedures be performed, could be it happens automatic because the potion acts on the level of 'fate' rather than body. Though in the latter case, frankly, it would simply be too powerful. Instantly take out almost anyone without opportunity to resist or chance of recovery, even with tarnished resurrection? The scarlet rot wished it was that scary.
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Annoyed Catholic
Moody fellow
Landing in A Land [Fortification], Confused
"What's going on?" they all asked themselves and each other, with a growing sense of dread and panic. Not realizing that long ago in the EARLIEST days of it's founding, the Three Sisters Rise had been named such for other reasons than what it had become known as, with the newest "rises" being put up on this land....
But meanwhile, elsewhere at the same time...
"Really?" one of the twins asked, looking first at Lilith and then down into the portal into what appeared to be the area BELOW their inadvertent towering prison.
That . . .would be a welcome thing, given everything. Besides the fact that this winged woman could have easily murdered them both without even breaking a sweat (given she had managed to so easily disarm them). Besides that, there was the rather dire fact that with TWO of them stuck on this same rocky prison meant that the struggle to get enough food to eat would have become twice as hard.
Eating birds had been enough, but it seemed that the birds were wising up . . .and less and less kept coming by so . . .this would be a welcome thing indeed! That wrong turn with the teleportation to here from Liurnia instead of Stormveil Castle.
Both Swustes did hope that that nice mimic tear they interacted with for a while there were doing well...
Shaking their heads, they put that aside and look at Lilith hopefully.
"But of course," Lilith smiled as she jumped through the portal and down into the grounds below. And continuing to speak as both JUMP down into the portal hole below them. And then Up from the exit portal down on the grounds below, yelping slightly in the unexpected change in direction/orientation.
"But before we just part ways here and now . . . .or at the gates of the castle with your sister?" Lilith continues. "I do not feel like walking into a battle with an entire castle due to a mistake I could easily avoid, you see. That and I so very much do wish you to get you safely to your sister Crawa. Anything I might need to know before we begin our journey?"
"Well," one of the Swustes twins--Lilith had designated her as Swuste 1 on her suite sensor's Friend or Foe designater--begins, giving her sister a glance before starting. "Stormveil Castle had been under some kind of Tarnished army siege, with even a attacking dragon. It got killed by father's . .. by Lord Godrick's forces, thank the Erd Tree. That and the Tarnished had used catapults to throw various things into the castle."
"A Tarnished Army was laying siege to the Castle?!" the Swuste 2 blinked. Lilith sighed at the rather lack of originality of how she'd assigned designations, but for a quick fix... "They've never done that before, instead of just attempting time to time to get into the castle through the front gate. They kept failing and never manage to get Lord Godrick's Great Shard!"
"I guess their failures due that the patched repairs to the castle walls as well as the Fell Omen finally got them frustrated enough to try to gang up and force their way in?" Swuste 1 guessed, having been able to see at least SOME activity from her perch while stuck in the chapel/towering prison.
"Oookay," Lilith muttered, pulling out something from a side pouch and setting it on the ground. "Good to know that before heading blind into a possible deadly situation." the winged woman muttered softly to herself, before pulling about a half dozen more items of the same make from the pouch.
"What is 'ooh-kay'," one of the Swustes asks Lilith blankly, not familiar with that particular English word.
It goes to figure, not all English got yanked to the Lands Between (however and for what reason that actually happened anyway.
"It's a quaint little term from my mum's home world," Lilith explained, a bit distracted so leaned a bit more into the linguistic ticks of both her adopted parents. All the while setting up the gadgets for what she had in mind. Spellwork could do it, but she wanted to save her magical energy for later if a need arose. Like for combative reasons, as for an example for a need. "It hales from early 19th century from a place called Boston, in a nation called . . .America. Part of a fad for misspelling it and originally stood for "oll korrect [all correct]"
At least that wikipedia article I read while idling researching it says so, the white haired woman qualified. It hadn't been important to do a Master paper on, but she'd been curious one day so...
"Ooh-kay?" Swuste 1 said, rolling it around in her mouth and finding . . . it rather charming for some odd reason. The naming of a century by a mere number was less than charming, but still just lent to the . . . world building of were Lilith seemed to BELIEVE she haled from here.
Swuste 1 was not totally sold on the idea of Lilith being from another world, even IF Queen Marika was supposedly of Numan stock (and that race haled from another world, supposedly).
She never put stock in such things, really! Might as well believe that the world that the Lands Between was actually ROUND as some astronomy lovers seemed to believe!
"Home world?" Swuste 2 mutters to herself and nodding.
She recalled that Queen Marika was said to have haled from the same world as the Numan people came from, being of that stock. With Lilith being so . . .different from just about ANYONE and Anything she'd ever encountered. Not alarmingly so. Not disturbingly so. Just . . .different, and in a pleasant way, from the norm within the Lands Between. That is, of the present day and time.
A sense of charity of sorts. Nice!
She shan't complain. It allowed not only for her and her unexpected twin to live through that failed attack upon Lilith (who the Grafted Scion is now asking herself if Lilith should be considered one, non-golden Graced eyes or not). Not only that the odd woman is now attempting to help both of the Grafted Scions get back together with their sister (sisters?) over inside Stormveil Castle.
IF she is still within the castle.
If Crawa was still alive.... She quickly put that thought aside, not wishing to even ENTERAIN that thought within her own mind. Her sister must be alive. She must be!!
"Well, that did it!" Lilith announced after making one last adjustment to the . . .things at their feet.
The small probes lift off the ground, ready to scan the castle proper and surrounding areas.
Splitting up and speeding off, the Star Trek surplus pieces of technology (ala late Kirk era) would silently scan the castle for any signs of battle and damage and send back to results to the sensors of Lilith's power armour.
Perhaps the technology of Janeway's and Piccard's era would be . . .flashier and more swift, that earlier era was much more . . ..rugged. Her sister Rei had told her horror stories about how the later era's technology had failed her badly, and even to this day Rei had sworn an oath to NEVER just choose technology due totally it being more "stylish" and modern.
Lilith and her sisters had heeded that warning and thus far never regretted it.
And . . .while a few simple scrying spells would do the same job, Lilith didn't feel like tripping EVERY magical alarm/detector which would surely be within that castle over there. She felt like taking a modified page from various Cyberpunk tales she had consumed during various deployments.
When facing a hi-tech opponent? Go low tech.
Low tech opponent? Go High!
Magical opponent? Go technological!
And so forth!
BUT!
While the probes would report back that off in the distance in farms located around the castle proper having MILES AND MILES of fields of wheat (a true sign of an age of plenty Lilith will at least tell herself, saying good things about the lord and master of this castle if nothing else), she did have the probes do a discrete and detailed scan of the pair of Grafted Scions.
She probably should have asked Melina about the exact nature of Grafted Scions, but at the time the poor woman had been more than a bit confused at the latest development with the Erd Tree (it had gotten HEALTHIER by some means unknown to her). That and Lilith had made the rookie mistake of just believing that the Grafted Scions were a naturally occurring race in this odd/magical land she'd arrived upon.
"So . . .girls?" Lilith begins slowly, letting the probes fly off to gather their information while they all waited here. "Mind telling me just how you both got the donor parts for you forms there? I can see it was to overcome the inherited immune deficiency, but . . . Well, I do not cause any misunderstandings."
"Godrick the Grafted sends out hunters to harvest body parts from the Tarnished found upon his lands," Melina began, sneering slightly at the Scions after shaking herself out of her confused staring at the Erd Tree.
Lilith finds herself wishing that Melina COULD still disappear into the thin air instead of being stuck in corporeal form. The Finger Maiden (who really wasn't a Finger Maiden)...
"Which deprives the Tarnished those limbs when they return to life after being slain," Lilith interrupts before yet another heated argument could brew up between the 'false' Finger Maiden and Grafted Scions. "Which I should add are people—Tarnished--who are after the 'Great Runes' that Shard Bearers are in possession."
"And who are willing to relieve those like Lord Godrick—their father--of his in obtaining," Lilith hissed softly to Melina after closing the short distance between, not wishing to be overheard (and upsetting) the Grafted Scion twins more than already they'd become. "By way of his death I should add. Of course the girls have a negative view of Tarnished. Godrick is . . . their father, which I can say they still have some love for, right?"
Melina flinches slightly, getting the point. She'll keep her peace for now, to not upset the Scions.
…
And this wasn't something that she had expected when she found herself with an accord with this . . .odd woman. She recalled vaguely that she'd made an offer for an accord with Lilith, but not exactly just WHERE she'd made it.
She felt that she should have made the offer AFTER some time had passed where Lilith had a lethal encounter with the Grafted Scion back up at the Chapel of Anticipation, not BEFORE the Chapel.
SOOO many questions!
Things like . . . well....
Lilith having actually formed some kind of rampart with the Scions?
And Melina recalled foggily that Lilith had appeared somehow injured, clutching at her chest before hastily agreeing to the accord . . . when Melina had decided to teleport her to the Round Table for aid?
Melina had done it out of concern for Lilith, not being a heartless one to ignore Lilith's distress.
Why had the Grace teleport mis-warped them to HERE instead?
….
It was almost a wonder that Lilith hadn't broken their accord out of shear disgust at that debacle. It may even be a reason why Lilith was leaning more in favor of the Scions than her? Melina was not too happy with that line of thought.
And of course there was just WHY was her sealed eye now open? How and why?
And who was that Wretch who she had vague memory of stabbing with a Black Knife?! Just when and how would she gotten that fell thing? She'd only use such means to deliver Destined Death when . . .if those she'd joined in an accord betrayed her and the Lands Between with allying with the Frenzied Flame!
What the Hell?
And how in the Hell had the Erd Tree. . . heal itself? Did . . .someone already become Elden Lord and even now was riding off with Queen Marika to put right what had gone wrong since and BECAUSE of the Shattering?
Then what of her Purpose, whatever exactly THAT was?!
"I shall keep my peace for now," Melina sighed, bowing her head. Opting for a more peaceful approach. For now.
Smiling slightly, seeing the bio-readings Melina's giving off to her power armour's sensors confirming to Lilith the validity to Melina's words, the white haired woman reaches out.
"At least until we get some of this sorted and we learn more about what is going on here," Lilith agreed, patting Melina's hand. "And get the ball rolling on getting whatever the Lands Between back to right if it's still needed once we get that clearer picture, eh?"
From prior revelations she had learned what Great Shards actually were, and how incredibly incompatible she (and probably everyone else of her little adventuring party) were with the Elden Ring!
Which will NOT include me being Elden Lord, Lilith added, if only to herself.
Lilith as of yet had not reveal the prior battle between herself and those two horned madmen who were overly fond of certain craft cheese. She wasn't sure yet just how Melina would react to the news that Lilith had no desire tosuffer a never ending heart attack becoming Elden Lord and entering into a lesbian relationship becoming the Consort of God Queen Marika. But she'd cross that bridge when she got to it.
But there are a few cards to play to make things happen all the same, Lilith finishes, nodding mentally to herself. Two loose Great Shards she'd somehow stashed into one of the two rather tacky local version of the Dali art exhibit ("Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man") could be quiet the bargaining chip in things...
Still! Lilith just hoped and prayed that once this part was said and done? When Grafted Scions get their long awaited family reunion? Then perhaps she could be able to get permission to use a shady and unused corner of the castle to attempt to contact her sister and fellow Eternal Champions...
"Hmmm, seems we've found Crawa . . .and another interesting chap nearby?" Lilith muttered, somewhat baffled at what she was witnessing through her probe unit hovering over a graveyard area in the more rear part of Stormveil Castle.
Happening inside Stormveil Castle ....
"I have exalted him! And perhaps, Tarnished, if thou should acquit thyself well…" Godrick the Golden proclaims to something only HE can see at the moment.
His axe swung upwards, pointing dramatically forwards.
"Perhaps I shall exalt thee too."
Shaking off the momentary feeling that he has DONE this before and really should NOT be ABLE to do this again.
Images of him having been elsewhere? Inside a large tree, near a large familiar seeming red haired warrior woman, asleep and defenseless while that VILE FAKER reared back to behead her with HIS war axe?!
While Godrick felt he should know (and perhaps FEAR) the red head? He was too focused on the OTHER.
Who DARE wear his face and do such a cowardly act?! THIS DOPPLEGANGER faker must DIE!!
Shaking his head and dismissing thoughts that he had been zipping hither and yon (or at least the largest part of him, the part he invested in. . . .his Shard) had been. Seemed like sometimes it had been in one place for mere seconds before it would end up elsewhere, the previous holder slain?
Had he actually made that curse real?
Dismissing the idea, as well as the idea that he had actually DIED he instead concentrated on the here and now, and what he Believes to be real!
Vyke roared and charged, the others following behind him. Godrick cackled, and whirled around, calling the storm to his side, a whirlwind flavoured by fire bursting forth from the dragon's mouth. A firestorm, building greater and greater, serving as an enormous loudspeaker.
"Great Godfrey, dost thou witness? That a trueborn heir makes war in thy name? I am Godrick, the Lord of All that is Golden. Great Godwyn, witness! Forefathers, one and all, witness!"
He exploded into motion, and Taylor was at his side.
Or rather, a rather confused and somewhat afraid Grafted Scion was at his side. Ready to at least attempt to aid herfather lord in what could be a battle with invisible enemies yet to be revealed. She would not fail Lord Godrick!
"Crawa, Bote, Swuste, Hild, Dunne, witness! No Tarnished shall defile the tomb of my beloved while this Lord still draws breath!"
As as with the morning mist vanishing with the rising sun, so too does the mirage of enemies past pass away. Leaving one VERY confused series of people. No, not those demigods at the front gate! A runner had been sent back to track down Lord Godrick in order to allow entry and perhaps give aid, but only after the lord of the castle gave leave!
Instead, a false Finger Maiden and twin Grafted Scions were watching through a holographic display that allowed them to share in what Lilith was witnessing. Some were impressed with Godrick's boasts and promises. While somewhat bombastic and perhaps self aggrandizing, it still said good things about wishing to stand and defend what was his for his family (passed on and presently still living). Others were confused, the boasts and promises not being at all in character from what they knew of Godrick.
Soldiers of Godrick were staring at their lord, wondering just what brought about this latest display but not wishing to get too close to as avoid being harmed. Some were used to similar displays so weren't too put off by it. Others? Well . . .they'd never seen Godrick act this way before so were rightly alarmed!!
That they were at this strange and old castle was also alarming instead of their posts for Godrick's real estate nearer the capitol, was besides the point....
The group who'd traveled back here from Fort Haight? The one doing it in order to graft on a new arm that the Scarlet Rot had taken? Well, they were too far away a'grafting to hear this commotion...
But as for the lord in question, looking at the one who'd fight at his side?
At first, he had expected to see his Strategess. Taylor Hebert, the one who's books with such strange/powerful/alluring weapons within had initially drawn his interest. But the interest had grown into something much grander and fulfilling.
Pausing when recalling that picture of that one super weapon: the atom bomb? For some reason he suddenly had a VISION! A vision where one of the atomic bombs as seen in the picture would be used on the city of one of his rivals, and the Erd Tree would get caught in the blast radius and burnt! Horror and terror indeed. Equal perhaps to what those fools who follow the Frenzied Flame! Not something he wished to be mistaken for, but it would . . . Destruction beyond what he had aimed for and . . .
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds, he finds himself almost muttering. Only to shake it off and instead concentrate on the here and now and not that . . .whatever that fell vision he'd witness.
"Daughter!? Why are thou still here instead of with my strategess in safety at Fort Haight!?" he asks while noting something ELSE equally as . . .off putting. "And where are thou's wings?!"
Okay, some of this needs major work. Some parts just feel shoehorned in, but I feel better for having done it. Especially after seeing a recent movie about a bomb that one certain Wo-class carrier's name is SO tied up with....
"What's going on?" they all asked themselves and each other, with a growing sense of dread and panic. Not realizing that long ago in the EARLIEST days of it's founding, the Three Sisters Rise had been named such for other reasons than what it had become known as, with the newest "rises" being put up on this land....
But meanwhile, elsewhere at the same time...
"Really?" one of the twins asked, looking first at Lilith and then down into the portal into what appeared to be the area BELOW their inadvertent towering prison.
That . . .would be a welcome thing, given everything. Besides the fact that this winged woman could have easily murdered them both without even breaking a sweat (given she had managed to so easily disarm them). Besides that, there was the rather dire fact that with TWO of them stuck on this same rocky prison meant that the struggle to get enough food to eat would have become twice as hard.
Eating birds had been enough, but it seemed that the birds were wising up . . .and less and less kept coming by so . . .this would be a welcome thing indeed! That wrong turn with the teleportation to here from Liurnia instead of Stormveil Castle.
Both Swustes did hope that that nice mimic tear they interacted with for a while there were doing well...
Shaking their heads, they put that aside and look at Lilith hopefully.
"But of course," Lilith smiled as she jumped through the portal and down into the grounds below. And continuing to speak as both JUMP down into the portal hole below them. And then Up from the exit portal down on the grounds below, yelping slightly in the unexpected change in direction/orientation.
"But before we just part ways here and now . . . .or at the gates of the castle with your sister?" Lilith continues. "I do not feel like walking into a battle with an entire castle due to a mistake I could easily avoid, you see. That and I so very much do wish you to get you safely to your sister Crawa. Anything I might need to know before we begin our journey?"
"Well," one of the Swustes twins--Lilith had designated her as Swuste 1 on her suite sensor's Friend or Foe designater--begins, giving her sister a glance before starting. "Stormveil Castle had been under some kind of Tarnished army siege, with even a attacking dragon. It got killed by father's . .. by Lord Godrick's forces, thank the Erd Tree. That and the Tarnished had used catapults to throw various things into the castle."
"A Tarnished Army was laying siege to the Castle?!" the Swuste 2 blinked. Lilith sighed at the rather lack of originality of how she'd assigned designations, but for a quick fix... "They've never done that before, instead of just attempting time to time to get into the castle through the front gate. They kept failing and never manage to get Lord Godrick's Great Shard!"
"I guess their failures due that the patched repairs to the castle walls as well as the Fell Omen finally got them frustrated enough to try to gang up and force their way in?" Swuste 1 guessed, having been able to see at least SOME activity from her perch while stuck in the chapel/towering prison.
"Oookay," Lilith muttered, pulling out something from a side pouch and setting it on the ground. "Good to know that before heading blind into a possible deadly situation." the winged woman muttered softly to herself, before pulling about a half dozen more items of the same make from the pouch.
"What is 'ooh-kay'," one of the Swustes asks Lilith blankly, not familiar with that particular English word.
It goes to figure, not all English got yanked to the Lands Between (however and for what reason that actually happened anyway.
"It's a quaint little term from my mum's home world," Lilith explained, a bit distracted so leaned a bit more into the linguistic ticks of both her adopted parents. All the while setting up the gadgets for what she had in mind. Spellwork could do it, but she wanted to save her magical energy for later if a need arose. Like for combative reasons, as for an example for a need. "It hales from early 19th century from a place called Boston, in a nation called . . .America. Part of a fad for misspelling it and originally stood for "oll korrect [all correct]"
At least that wikipedia article I read while idling researching it says so, the white haired woman qualified. It hadn't been important to do a Master paper on, but she'd been curious one day so...
"Ooh-kay?" Swuste 1 said, rolling it around in her mouth and finding . . . it rather charming for some odd reason. The naming of a century by a mere number was less than charming, but still just lent to the . . . world building of were Lilith seemed to BELIEVE she haled from here.
Swuste 1 was not totally sold on the idea of Lilith being from another world, even IF Queen Marika was supposedly of Numan stock (and that race haled from another world, supposedly).
She never put stock in such things, really! Might as well believe that the world that the Lands Between was actually ROUND as some astronomy lovers seemed to believe!
"Home world?" Swuste 2 mutters to herself and nodding.
She recalled that Queen Marika was said to have haled from the same world as the Numan people came from, being of that stock. With Lilith being so . . .different from just about ANYONE and Anything she'd ever encountered. Not alarmingly so. Not disturbingly so. Just . . .different, and in a pleasant way, from the norm within the Lands Between. That is, of the present day and time.
A sense of charity of sorts. Nice!
She shan't complain. It allowed not only for her and her unexpected twin to live through that failed attack upon Lilith (who the Grafted Scion is now asking herself if Lilith should be considered one, non-golden Graced eyes or not). Not only that the odd woman is now attempting to help both of the Grafted Scions get back together with their sister (sisters?) over inside Stormveil Castle.
IF she is still within the castle.
If Crawa was still alive.... She quickly put that thought aside, not wishing to even ENTERAIN that thought within her own mind. Her sister must be alive. She must be!!
"Well, that did it!" Lilith announced after making one last adjustment to the . . .things at their feet.
The small probes lift off the ground, ready to scan the castle proper and surrounding areas.
Splitting up and speeding off, the Star Trek surplus pieces of technology (ala late Kirk era) would silently scan the castle for any signs of battle and damage and send back to results to the sensors of Lilith's power armour.
Perhaps the technology of Janeway's and Piccard's era would be . . .flashier and more swift, that earlier era was much more . . ..rugged. Her sister Rei had told her horror stories about how the later era's technology had failed her badly, and even to this day Rei had sworn an oath to NEVER just choose technology due totally it being more "stylish" and modern.
Lilith and her sisters had heeded that warning and thus far never regretted it.
And . . .while a few simple scrying spells would do the same job, Lilith didn't feel like tripping EVERY magical alarm/detector which would surely be within that castle over there. She felt like taking a modified page from various Cyberpunk tales she had consumed during various deployments.
When facing a hi-tech opponent? Go low tech.
Low tech opponent? Go High!
Magical opponent? Go technological!
And so forth!
BUT!
While the probes would report back that off in the distance in farms located around the castle proper having MILES AND MILES of fields of wheat (a true sign of an age of plenty Lilith will at least tell herself, saying good things about the lord and master of this castle if nothing else), she did have the probes do a discrete and detailed scan of the pair of Grafted Scions.
She probably should have asked Melina about the exact nature of Grafted Scions, but at the time the poor woman had been more than a bit confused at the latest development with the Erd Tree (it had gotten HEALTHIER by some means unknown to her). That and Lilith had made the rookie mistake of just believing that the Grafted Scions were a naturally occurring race in this odd/magical land she'd arrived upon.
"So . . .girls?" Lilith begins slowly, letting the probes fly off to gather their information while they all waited here. "Mind telling me just how you both got the donor parts for you forms there? I can see it was to overcome the inherited immune deficiency, but . . . Well, I do not cause any misunderstandings."
"Godrick the Grafted sends out hunters to harvest body parts from the Tarnished found upon his lands," Melina began, sneering slightly at the Scions after shaking herself out of her confused staring at the Erd Tree.
Lilith finds herself wishing that Melina COULD still disappear into the thin air instead of being stuck in corporeal form. The Finger Maiden (who really wasn't a Finger Maiden)...
"Which deprives the Tarnished those limbs when they return to life after being slain," Lilith interrupts before yet another heated argument could brew up between the 'false' Finger Maiden and Grafted Scions. "Which I should add are people—Tarnished--who are after the 'Great Runes' that Shard Bearers are in possession."
"And who are willing to relieve those like Lord Godrick—their father--of his in obtaining," Lilith hissed softly to Melina after closing the short distance between, not wishing to be overheard (and upsetting) the Grafted Scion twins more than already they'd become. "By way of his death I should add. Of course the girls have a negative view of Tarnished. Godrick is . . . their father, which I can say they still have some love for, right?"
Melina flinches slightly, getting the point. She'll keep her peace for now, to not upset the Scions.
…
And this wasn't something that she had expected when she found herself with an accord with this . . .odd woman. She recalled vaguely that she'd made an offer for an accord with Lilith, but not exactly just WHERE she'd made it.
She felt that she should have made the offer AFTER some time had passed where Lilith had a lethal encounter with the Grafted Scion back up at the Chapel of Anticipation, not BEFORE the Chapel.
SOOO many questions!
Things like . . . well....
Lilith having actually formed some kind of rampart with the Scions?
And Melina recalled foggily that Lilith had appeared somehow injured, clutching at her chest before hastily agreeing to the accord . . . when Melina had decided to teleport her to the Round Table for aid?
Melina had done it out of concern for Lilith, not being a heartless one to ignore Lilith's distress.
Why had the Grace teleport mis-warped them to HERE instead?
….
It was almost a wonder that Lilith hadn't broken their accord out of shear disgust at that debacle. It may even be a reason why Lilith was leaning more in favor of the Scions than her? Melina was not too happy with that line of thought.
And of course there was just WHY was her sealed eye now open? How and why?
And who was that Wretch who she had vague memory of stabbing with a Black Knife?! Just when and how would she gotten that fell thing? She'd only use such means to deliver Destined Death when . . .if those she'd joined in an accord betrayed her and the Lands Between with allying with the Frenzied Flame!
What the Hell?
And how in the Hell had the Erd Tree. . . heal itself? Did . . .someone already become Elden Lord and even now was riding off with Queen Marika to put right what had gone wrong since and BECAUSE of the Shattering?
Then what of her Purpose, whatever exactly THAT was?!
"I shall keep my peace for now," Melina sighed, bowing her head. Opting for a more peaceful approach. For now.
Smiling slightly, seeing the bio-readings Melina's giving off to her power armour's sensors confirming to Lilith the validity to Melina's words, the white haired woman reaches out.
"At least until we get some of this sorted and we learn more about what is going on here," Lilith agreed, patting Melina's hand. "And get the ball rolling on getting whatever the Lands Between back to right if it's still needed once we get that clearer picture, eh?"
From prior revelations she had learned what Great Shards actually were, and how incredibly incompatible she (and probably everyone else of her little adventuring party) were with the Elden Ring!
Which will NOT include me being Elden Lord, Lilith added, if only to herself.
Lilith as of yet had not reveal the prior battle between herself and those two horned madmen who were overly fond of certain craft cheese. She wasn't sure yet just how Melina would react to the news that Lilith had no desire to
But there are a few cards to play to make things happen all the same, Lilith finishes, nodding mentally to herself. Two loose Great Shards she'd somehow stashed into one of the two rather tacky local version of the Dali art exhibit ("Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man") could be quiet the bargaining chip in things...
Still! Lilith just hoped and prayed that once this part was said and done? When Grafted Scions get their long awaited family reunion? Then perhaps she could be able to get permission to use a shady and unused corner of the castle to attempt to contact her sister and fellow Eternal Champions...
"Hmmm, seems we've found Crawa . . .and another interesting chap nearby?" Lilith muttered, somewhat baffled at what she was witnessing through her probe unit hovering over a graveyard area in the more rear part of Stormveil Castle.
Happening inside Stormveil Castle ....
"I have exalted him! And perhaps, Tarnished, if thou should acquit thyself well…" Godrick the Golden proclaims to something only HE can see at the moment.
His axe swung upwards, pointing dramatically forwards.
"Perhaps I shall exalt thee too."
Shaking off the momentary feeling that he has DONE this before and really should NOT be ABLE to do this again.
Images of him having been elsewhere? Inside a large tree, near a large familiar seeming red haired warrior woman, asleep and defenseless while that VILE FAKER reared back to behead her with HIS war axe?!
While Godrick felt he should know (and perhaps FEAR) the red head? He was too focused on the OTHER.
Who DARE wear his face and do such a cowardly act?! THIS DOPPLEGANGER faker must DIE!!
Shaking his head and dismissing thoughts that he had been zipping hither and yon (or at least the largest part of him, the part he invested in. . . .his Shard) had been. Seemed like sometimes it had been in one place for mere seconds before it would end up elsewhere, the previous holder slain?
Had he actually made that curse real?
Dismissing the idea, as well as the idea that he had actually DIED he instead concentrated on the here and now, and what he Believes to be real!
Vyke roared and charged, the others following behind him. Godrick cackled, and whirled around, calling the storm to his side, a whirlwind flavoured by fire bursting forth from the dragon's mouth. A firestorm, building greater and greater, serving as an enormous loudspeaker.
"Great Godfrey, dost thou witness? That a trueborn heir makes war in thy name? I am Godrick, the Lord of All that is Golden. Great Godwyn, witness! Forefathers, one and all, witness!"
He exploded into motion, and Taylor was at his side.
Or rather, a rather confused and somewhat afraid Grafted Scion was at his side. Ready to at least attempt to aid her
"Crawa, Bote, Swuste, Hild, Dunne, witness! No Tarnished shall defile the tomb of my beloved while this Lord still draws breath!"
As as with the morning mist vanishing with the rising sun, so too does the mirage of enemies past pass away. Leaving one VERY confused series of people. No, not those demigods at the front gate! A runner had been sent back to track down Lord Godrick in order to allow entry and perhaps give aid, but only after the lord of the castle gave leave!
Instead, a false Finger Maiden and twin Grafted Scions were watching through a holographic display that allowed them to share in what Lilith was witnessing. Some were impressed with Godrick's boasts and promises. While somewhat bombastic and perhaps self aggrandizing, it still said good things about wishing to stand and defend what was his for his family (passed on and presently still living). Others were confused, the boasts and promises not being at all in character from what they knew of Godrick.
Soldiers of Godrick were staring at their lord, wondering just what brought about this latest display but not wishing to get too close to as avoid being harmed. Some were used to similar displays so weren't too put off by it. Others? Well . . .they'd never seen Godrick act this way before so were rightly alarmed!!
That they were at this strange and old castle was also alarming instead of their posts for Godrick's real estate nearer the capitol, was besides the point....
The group who'd traveled back here from Fort Haight? The one doing it in order to graft on a new arm that the Scarlet Rot had taken? Well, they were too far away a'grafting to hear this commotion...
But as for the lord in question, looking at the one who'd fight at his side?
At first, he had expected to see his Strategess. Taylor Hebert, the one who's books with such strange/powerful/alluring weapons within had initially drawn his interest. But the interest had grown into something much grander and fulfilling.
Pausing when recalling that picture of that one super weapon: the atom bomb? For some reason he suddenly had a VISION! A vision where one of the atomic bombs as seen in the picture would be used on the city of one of his rivals, and the Erd Tree would get caught in the blast radius and burnt! Horror and terror indeed. Equal perhaps to what those fools who follow the Frenzied Flame! Not something he wished to be mistaken for, but it would . . . Destruction beyond what he had aimed for and . . .
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds, he finds himself almost muttering. Only to shake it off and instead concentrate on the here and now and not that . . .whatever that fell vision he'd witness.
"Daughter!? Why are thou still here instead of with my strategess in safety at Fort Haight!?" he asks while noting something ELSE equally as . . .off putting. "And where are thou's wings?!"
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Annoyed Catholic
Moody fellow
Wives, Demigods Newly Un-Undeaded, and Goings Awry at the Rise...
"Daughter!? Why are thou still here instead of with my strategess in safety at Fort Haight!?" he asks while noting something ELSE equally as . . .off putting "And where are thou's wings?!"
"So we have an Crawa analog with grafted wings and over at a place called Fort Haight," Lilith said softly to herself. If things should go sideways with trying to rejoin the twin Grafted Scions with THIS particular Crawa in Stormveil Castle? Perhaps due to a overly wary father? There was THAT option in order to keeping her promise...
"A Strategess," Melina observed, looking about the area of the castle visible through Lilith's holographic display. This unnamed woman would be the answer to the defensive walls the false Finger Maiden would notice a side display of the rest of various Stormveil Castle. Much better than what she had known of the castle, albeit in her memories.
This castle and the one which she recalled? Yes, this unnamed stratagess was obviously responsible for at least SOME of it....
Who was this Strategess?
"Yet another question in a long list of questions," Melina sighed to herself, resigned. Hopefully more would become clear as time past.
Hopefully.
"Fath. . . Lord?" Crawa (the Unwinged) asked, tentatively. The questions that Godrick were asking about the poor Scion hardly had clue one for answering. She knew of no stratagess, much less one which would provide safety in that far off corner of her sire's lands. Nor did she know why she should have wings, of all things?
…
Though, the idea suddenly had an odd appeal. She could use those wings to fly around and scour the Lands Between for her sisters?
"Crawa," Lord Godrick almost sounds . . .hurt that his daughter has gone back to this. It was almost as if everything that had happened? Him finally reaching out after basically ignoring her so long as nothing more than a useful tool in his long term quest for becoming Elden Lord? It was like time had wound back and things were as they'd been before! Unacceptable! "Crawa, thou are my daughter and I your father. Thou need no permission to acknowledge that, dear one!"
And in front of the entirety of the castle staff and soldier (as well as the viewers of the probe), Lord Godrick the Golden reaches out and tenderly hugged the shocked (but joyful) Crawa.
And then this picture perfect scene gets interrupted, of course by two things . . .or rather two people which makes for quiet the reaction!
Even those who are watching events fold from afar through Lilith's probes. Lilith herself is only watching this last part with half an eye, more concerned about a bio-hazard warning the scans just gave her, located in a section of the castle much closer to the front gates than that graveyard scene the others are gaping at the moment.
Opting on the quicker option of just directly scrying the bio-hazard alert, Lilith gives off a soft dismayed hiss seeing there seems to be someone within the castle afflicted with a VERY dangerous magical disease/curse of the like she's NEVER seen before. She would be even MORE alarmed if said said afflicted person (a young woman from her scryings) had some kind of magical device (in the form of a golden NEEDLE of all things) stuck between her breasts, keeping the affliction quiescent .
The young woman seemed to be sleeping alone, off in a side room and away from a large gathering of people nearby.
Dismissing the crowded room nearby, Lilith opted on turning her full attention to the developing situation back in the graveyard.
The one that Lilith knows as Lord Godrick seems to be engaged in a rather heated discussion with a woman who is both somewhat unsteady on her feet, as if still not quiet recovered from something which had sapped her vitality. That and the woman seems rather ANGERED at Godrick, who looks stricken, wanting both to explain what he has done to himself (and his daughter). That and wanting to hug this woman and never let go again.
Crawa (the Unwinged), is gaping meanwhile at the woman.
"Momma?" both Grafted Scion twins AND Crawa finally manage to gasp out, tears beginning to form in their eyes.
Funny, with all the evidence about them with some kind of time reversion happening (what with things like the Eld Tree being in much better condition and such) they never thought that dead and departed (by Death Blight)...
They didn't think that those who'd been claimed by the curse that Godwyn the Golden had been spreading throughout the Lands Between ever since the Night of the Black Knives would be up and running again.
"Godwyn?" Melina gapes, mouth open in utter shock as said demigod coughs and tries to play the peace maker between distraught wife and husband. Sure the wife had good and valid reasons to be upset that her darling should have been rebuilt as a Grafted Scion, but Godwyn was familiar enough with Godrick's side of the family line. The diminished strength and vigor that seemed to been afflicting them for the longest time for reasons the demigod was not sure about.
Especially with things going to Hell, what with the Shattering Wars. A War which Godwyn was alarmed about, only having vague memories of it before finding himself down in the depths of Stormveil Castle after falling asleep within his bed back in the capital). But it sounded harrowing so was willing to give Godrick, one of his descendants, a hand up.
To help with the rather upset missus over the changes done to her daughter (and Godrick) been performed. For not only merely just a grasp at power, but the grafting performed for the sake of survival!
After all, not only were there Tarnished about, mucking things up, there was the fact other Shard Bearers would be out to garner more power for themselves.
While Godwyn loved his family, given everything he had learned from the others around him (i.e. various soldiers of Godrick) left him with a dire picture of the state of the world. At least up until his return, anyway...
"But I am sure that dear Miquella might be able to do . . .something to aid both Godrick and your daughter here," Godwyn finishes, pausing slightly as Godrick's form shifts back to his more . . . . combat oriented form after a flurry of hiccups.
"And I dare say the sooner the better," Godwyn mutters to himself, out of his depth at why and how Godrick is managing these shifts. And what it might mean in the long term for the man, even. Miquella was the go to person for this situation.
(….)
"Let's get up to the front gate and announce ourselves properly," Lilith announces, breaking the stupor her inadvertent group had slipped into here. While not a total disaster, events made Lilith wish to speed things along before something COULD/WOULD go wrong. "And right quick and proper!!"
Like what was Lilith's problem?
How about this?
While Lilith and the others saw Godwyn being hale and hearty, it did not mean that the event which eventually lead to the Elden Ring getting shattered by Queen Marika are null and void forevermore. Yeah, there does happen to be another Godwyn the Golden running about. . .
Wouldn't do for the Black Knives to gank right?
Getting the dead demigod buried in the roots of the Eld Tree, only for his dead body do generate Death Roots and cause all sorts of health problems for the population and that Tree right? Yes, those kinds of health problems coming In the form of the Death Root slowly smothering the Eld Tree and the population being attacked by theUndead! Those Who Walk in Death.
Well.... Yes, there was the idea of just using the Portal Gun to some how just Portal into the middle of the Graveyard?
Well, there is the fact that such an act would probably cause people to attack in panic before any kind of warnings could be made, even IF Lilith brought along the Grafted Scions as a gesture of good will.
Godrick the Golden kind of came across as a . . .cautious sort, locking himself away from danger with the castle and such.
So....
A quick portaling we ago up from the shore of the island holding the Chapel of Anticipation and over to a corner of the castle walls, nearby the corner visible from the Chapel proper....
Sigh, if you must ask, Lilith chose to show off a little bit and show her wings were not for show. What might have been an impossible shot from the beaches of the Chapel of Anticipation was much easier done. The sight of a human sized flier near the castle might or might not alarm any guards looking out from the walkways if Lilith was unlucky enough to be spotted before she dove back down (and through the newly formed portal and onto the area besides said castle wall), but the risk was worth it.
"Mind the gap," Lilith warns, waving for the false Finger Maiden and Scion Twins through. Despite wearing her helm, the winged woman's voice was clear enough. And even if it had muffled by the helm, the hand gestures were good enough.
And so this odd collection of individuals march forth from around the corner and into the line of sight of the Fell Omen and his two demigod guests, who are awaiting for the runners that got sent to the "Lord of the Castle" to come to discuss things with Miquella and Trina. Things about getting horses to ride out of here at the very least so the wayward demigods can get back to the Haligtree in order to contact their dear sister(s): Malenia.
Which . . . has some humorous misunderstandings coming there way. Since when told to get in contact with the Lord of the Castle, it led to some head scratching from one of the runners before he opted on just heading to the current owner of the Castle. The one who they rightly know (from what they understand) being the rightful heir of Stormveil Castle, what with Lord Godrick having died by the hands of the Tarnished knight,
So . . . who'd inherit the castle?
Whelp...
(....)
Lady Crawa (the Winged) is finishing up the operation on Angharad of Liurnia, who like Millicent had opted on being put under for this operation. While Taylor had been awake for her Grafting, Godrick had to make due with alcohol for numbing the pain. Having been better prepared (and not quiet as skilled as her father), the Grafted Scion had opted on stronger medicines to knock out her patients for the best results.
"Lady Crawa?" a male voice calls from the other side of the door to the room they'd holed up in for the operations. Having traveled through secret passages and byways in the castle innards had gotten the runner here quicker than the exterior/outside pathways. Keep that factoid in mind...
"May I enter?" the man calls from the other side of the locked door. "I have news of strange visitors at the front gate asking for your boon."
Looking at Taylor, who shrugs back since she'd not been expecting visitors, the Grafted Scion calls for the runner to come in to deliver a more thorough message face to face (instead of yelling through the door).
(....)
Meanwhile the OTHER runner (who'd not witnessed or heard of Lord Godrick's death), goes running further into the castle proper (also by secret passage ways with no views of the exterior world, including a certain mega tree). Which takes longer to travel, and who's message is delayed more as the man gawks at the Eld Tree, flummoxed at it's fuller, healthier foliage .
"Well out with it you base born fool!" Godrick yells, loosing patience with the runner who's obviously here for something but is gobsmacked for reasons the Lord cannot see due to poor eyesight. "What brings thou yonder to interrupt mine families reunion?!"
(....)
Meanwhile, as amnesia stricken triplets are being aided by VERY, VERY worried and bloodied Blaidd (that Baleful Shadow had been . . .almost a dead ringer for the poor wolfman) is escorting them back to that Dolly Botherer's Rise in the dim hope that that FOOL may be able to fix . . .whatever in the hell this was!
Throwing off the feeling of . . .lose at having slain that Baleful Shadow, as having somehow lost a brother he'd never met until now, he concentrated on the here and now. On more important things!
"What in the bloody hell is going on here?" Blaidd mutters to himself, looking over at the broken blue doll his sister in all but blood should be dwelling within, instead of back in the Empyrean flesh. Well, once the ritual had been completed later today by his reckoning.
Something had gone wrong! Lady Ranni was suffering from amnesia, still in her birth form and . . .
Gods and goddesses above and below only knew just what was with the other two!
Barreling past the two (!) sleeping twins Adula, the poor wolfman nearly breaks his neck in the double take he does seeing not one but TWO Glint stone dragons guarding Ranni's Rise.
Opting on ignoring that . . .whatever the hell that meant he concentrated on getting aid for Ranni! After that? He'd figure out why there were more dragons about than there should be. That and hope that the extra Adula will be as faithful as the "original" one he'd left before coming back from his latest mission.
"Later . . .concentrate on Ranni," the wolfman told himself. "She is the only thing that matters!"
Storming up to the rise of Ranni's pet wizard/psycho and wishing that Ranni would be DONE with Seluvis. Dirty business, that one's . . .hobbies.
Entering the Rise without so much as a by your leave, the wolfman blinks when he sees the state that Seluvis is under! He's abandoned the hat. And the mask. In fact, his face seems to be rather… torn up!
"...oh, Lady Ranni - I do apologize for my state of disrepair, I…" the Preceptor begins to say before his pain hazed mind finally catches up to what he is seeing. The still flesh and blood Ranni (and two twins right outside the doorway). The shattered masterpiece that SHOULD be housing said demigoddess instead of the flesh and blood she'd been born to.
"Good gods man!" blurts out the Preceptor. "What did you do you thundering cretin!? What have you done to Ranni? To the perfect ceramic shell I crafted for her?!"
"I did nothing!" growls Blaidd, wanting to introduce that Black Blade he'd secured from the shattered remains of the doll he'd hauled here.
"Whatever it was it left Lady Ranni without memories and . . .and . . .!" Blaidd continues, gesturing wildly at the triplets. "Hells man, I cannot even tell one form the other by scent, much less by sight!"
"I . . .we need your help?" the wolfman finishes, almost having to drag out the last. Coming out more of a question to himself than Seluvis. Not wishing to need anything from this slime. "Not finger pointing. Not screaming at each other. Ranni needs HELP!"
For Ranni, Blaidd chides himself.
"What the bloody hell happened to you?" the wolfman asks after chiding himself, suddenly wondering if he should be fearful of yet MORE Baleful Shadows than the one he'd slain just moments earlier!
A close run thing that battle!
"Blaidd, I understand, truly," the arrogant man mutters. Recalling the favors done in his hour of need and the debts he owed the red haired witch. Who's protection he still needed in order to avoid the damnable Golden Order. "I do, but… the Strategess. She caused… issues, I cannot precisely explain how, I believe-"
"Strategess?" the wolfman mutters, unaware of what in the Erd Tree the man was speaking about.
"Sir?" one of the Ranni triplets asked, pausing from looking around at the mage's rooms like she had NO idea what half of the things in here were for or what they could do. "Prithe? Help me? Help mine sisters? Please?"
It was so . . .unlike Lady Ranni. Like she'd been reborn and was a child again. A tearful child. The other two are not in much better shape, worried and fearful at remembering nothing about themselves.
Only that this nice wolfman had helped after that OTHER wolfman had attack him for trespassing! Daring to just help her and her sisters?!
How rude!
After taking a deep swig from a bottle of dark liquid and applying some bandages to some of the more smoking wounds upon his body, the man gathers his over sized ego to answer.
Only to have his breath taken away and stare at . . .the other who was . . .
HE HAD NO RIGHT TO enter HERE, LOOKING LIKE HIM AND!...
"DIE!!" the wounded Seluvis screams drawing his magical might and attacking the doppelganger, who screams in rage and throws down the completed (and intact) blue doll he'd made for Lady Ranni for tonight's ritual.
Needless to say, the two make quiet the mess and don't give a solid d*mn about who may get caught between the death duel they are waging.
Growling in rage, the wolfman named Blaidd soon is wiping blood off his overly large sword, finishing off these two fools for daring have endangered Lady Ranni!
"But now what?" Blaidd muttered to himself, before groaning and falling to his knees.
Great! He was direly wounded (AGAIN) and had no handy Flask of Crimson Tears on his person to use!
"Blaidd!" scream all three triplets as they rush over to administer some kind of first aid!
Yep, like this chapter better than the last one I scrapped. Enjoy!
"Daughter!? Why are thou still here instead of with my strategess in safety at Fort Haight!?" he asks while noting something ELSE equally as . . .off putting "And where are thou's wings?!"
"So we have an Crawa analog with grafted wings and over at a place called Fort Haight," Lilith said softly to herself. If things should go sideways with trying to rejoin the twin Grafted Scions with THIS particular Crawa in Stormveil Castle? Perhaps due to a overly wary father? There was THAT option in order to keeping her promise...
"A Strategess," Melina observed, looking about the area of the castle visible through Lilith's holographic display. This unnamed woman would be the answer to the defensive walls the false Finger Maiden would notice a side display of the rest of various Stormveil Castle. Much better than what she had known of the castle, albeit in her memories.
This castle and the one which she recalled? Yes, this unnamed stratagess was obviously responsible for at least SOME of it....
Who was this Strategess?
"Yet another question in a long list of questions," Melina sighed to herself, resigned. Hopefully more would become clear as time past.
Hopefully.
"Fath. . . Lord?" Crawa (the Unwinged) asked, tentatively. The questions that Godrick were asking about the poor Scion hardly had clue one for answering. She knew of no stratagess, much less one which would provide safety in that far off corner of her sire's lands. Nor did she know why she should have wings, of all things?
…
Though, the idea suddenly had an odd appeal. She could use those wings to fly around and scour the Lands Between for her sisters?
"Crawa," Lord Godrick almost sounds . . .hurt that his daughter has gone back to this. It was almost as if everything that had happened? Him finally reaching out after basically ignoring her so long as nothing more than a useful tool in his long term quest for becoming Elden Lord? It was like time had wound back and things were as they'd been before! Unacceptable! "Crawa, thou are my daughter and I your father. Thou need no permission to acknowledge that, dear one!"
And in front of the entirety of the castle staff and soldier (as well as the viewers of the probe), Lord Godrick the Golden reaches out and tenderly hugged the shocked (but joyful) Crawa.
And then this picture perfect scene gets interrupted, of course by two things . . .or rather two people which makes for quiet the reaction!
Even those who are watching events fold from afar through Lilith's probes. Lilith herself is only watching this last part with half an eye, more concerned about a bio-hazard warning the scans just gave her, located in a section of the castle much closer to the front gates than that graveyard scene the others are gaping at the moment.
Opting on the quicker option of just directly scrying the bio-hazard alert, Lilith gives off a soft dismayed hiss seeing there seems to be someone within the castle afflicted with a VERY dangerous magical disease/curse of the like she's NEVER seen before. She would be even MORE alarmed if said said afflicted person (a young woman from her scryings) had some kind of magical device (in the form of a golden NEEDLE of all things) stuck between her breasts, keeping the affliction quiescent .
The young woman seemed to be sleeping alone, off in a side room and away from a large gathering of people nearby.
Dismissing the crowded room nearby, Lilith opted on turning her full attention to the developing situation back in the graveyard.
The one that Lilith knows as Lord Godrick seems to be engaged in a rather heated discussion with a woman who is both somewhat unsteady on her feet, as if still not quiet recovered from something which had sapped her vitality. That and the woman seems rather ANGERED at Godrick, who looks stricken, wanting both to explain what he has done to himself (and his daughter). That and wanting to hug this woman and never let go again.
Crawa (the Unwinged), is gaping meanwhile at the woman.
"Momma?" both Grafted Scion twins AND Crawa finally manage to gasp out, tears beginning to form in their eyes.
Funny, with all the evidence about them with some kind of time reversion happening (what with things like the Eld Tree being in much better condition and such) they never thought that dead and departed (by Death Blight)...
They didn't think that those who'd been claimed by the curse that Godwyn the Golden had been spreading throughout the Lands Between ever since the Night of the Black Knives would be up and running again.
"Godwyn?" Melina gapes, mouth open in utter shock as said demigod coughs and tries to play the peace maker between distraught wife and husband. Sure the wife had good and valid reasons to be upset that her darling should have been rebuilt as a Grafted Scion, but Godwyn was familiar enough with Godrick's side of the family line. The diminished strength and vigor that seemed to been afflicting them for the longest time for reasons the demigod was not sure about.
Especially with things going to Hell, what with the Shattering Wars. A War which Godwyn was alarmed about, only having vague memories of it before finding himself down in the depths of Stormveil Castle after falling asleep within his bed back in the capital). But it sounded harrowing so was willing to give Godrick, one of his descendants, a hand up.
To help with the rather upset missus over the changes done to her daughter (and Godrick) been performed. For not only merely just a grasp at power, but the grafting performed for the sake of survival!
After all, not only were there Tarnished about, mucking things up, there was the fact other Shard Bearers would be out to garner more power for themselves.
While Godwyn loved his family, given everything he had learned from the others around him (i.e. various soldiers of Godrick) left him with a dire picture of the state of the world. At least up until his return, anyway...
"But I am sure that dear Miquella might be able to do . . .something to aid both Godrick and your daughter here," Godwyn finishes, pausing slightly as Godrick's form shifts back to his more . . . . combat oriented form after a flurry of hiccups.
"And I dare say the sooner the better," Godwyn mutters to himself, out of his depth at why and how Godrick is managing these shifts. And what it might mean in the long term for the man, even. Miquella was the go to person for this situation.
(….)
"Let's get up to the front gate and announce ourselves properly," Lilith announces, breaking the stupor her inadvertent group had slipped into here. While not a total disaster, events made Lilith wish to speed things along before something COULD/WOULD go wrong. "And right quick and proper!!"
Like what was Lilith's problem?
How about this?
While Lilith and the others saw Godwyn being hale and hearty, it did not mean that the event which eventually lead to the Elden Ring getting shattered by Queen Marika are null and void forevermore. Yeah, there does happen to be another Godwyn the Golden running about. . .
Wouldn't do for the Black Knives to gank right?
Getting the dead demigod buried in the roots of the Eld Tree, only for his dead body do generate Death Roots and cause all sorts of health problems for the population and that Tree right? Yes, those kinds of health problems coming In the form of the Death Root slowly smothering the Eld Tree and the population being attacked by the
Well.... Yes, there was the idea of just using the Portal Gun to some how just Portal into the middle of the Graveyard?
Well, there is the fact that such an act would probably cause people to attack in panic before any kind of warnings could be made, even IF Lilith brought along the Grafted Scions as a gesture of good will.
Godrick the Golden kind of came across as a . . .cautious sort, locking himself away from danger with the castle and such.
So....
A quick portaling we ago up from the shore of the island holding the Chapel of Anticipation and over to a corner of the castle walls, nearby the corner visible from the Chapel proper....
Sigh, if you must ask, Lilith chose to show off a little bit and show her wings were not for show. What might have been an impossible shot from the beaches of the Chapel of Anticipation was much easier done. The sight of a human sized flier near the castle might or might not alarm any guards looking out from the walkways if Lilith was unlucky enough to be spotted before she dove back down (and through the newly formed portal and onto the area besides said castle wall), but the risk was worth it.
"Mind the gap," Lilith warns, waving for the false Finger Maiden and Scion Twins through. Despite wearing her helm, the winged woman's voice was clear enough. And even if it had muffled by the helm, the hand gestures were good enough.
And so this odd collection of individuals march forth from around the corner and into the line of sight of the Fell Omen and his two demigod guests, who are awaiting for the runners that got sent to the "Lord of the Castle" to come to discuss things with Miquella and Trina. Things about getting horses to ride out of here at the very least so the wayward demigods can get back to the Haligtree in order to contact their dear sister(s): Malenia.
Which . . . has some humorous misunderstandings coming there way. Since when told to get in contact with the Lord of the Castle, it led to some head scratching from one of the runners before he opted on just heading to the current owner of the Castle. The one who they rightly know (from what they understand) being the rightful heir of Stormveil Castle, what with Lord Godrick having died by the hands of the Tarnished knight,
So . . . who'd inherit the castle?
Whelp...
(....)
Lady Crawa (the Winged) is finishing up the operation on Angharad of Liurnia, who like Millicent had opted on being put under for this operation. While Taylor had been awake for her Grafting, Godrick had to make due with alcohol for numbing the pain. Having been better prepared (and not quiet as skilled as her father), the Grafted Scion had opted on stronger medicines to knock out her patients for the best results.
"Lady Crawa?" a male voice calls from the other side of the door to the room they'd holed up in for the operations. Having traveled through secret passages and byways in the castle innards had gotten the runner here quicker than the exterior/outside pathways. Keep that factoid in mind...
"May I enter?" the man calls from the other side of the locked door. "I have news of strange visitors at the front gate asking for your boon."
Looking at Taylor, who shrugs back since she'd not been expecting visitors, the Grafted Scion calls for the runner to come in to deliver a more thorough message face to face (instead of yelling through the door).
(....)
Meanwhile the OTHER runner (who'd not witnessed or heard of Lord Godrick's death), goes running further into the castle proper (also by secret passage ways with no views of the exterior world, including a certain mega tree). Which takes longer to travel, and who's message is delayed more as the man gawks at the Eld Tree, flummoxed at it's fuller, healthier foliage .
"Well out with it you base born fool!" Godrick yells, loosing patience with the runner who's obviously here for something but is gobsmacked for reasons the Lord cannot see due to poor eyesight. "What brings thou yonder to interrupt mine families reunion?!"
(....)
Meanwhile, as amnesia stricken triplets are being aided by VERY, VERY worried and bloodied Blaidd (that Baleful Shadow had been . . .almost a dead ringer for the poor wolfman) is escorting them back to that Dolly Botherer's Rise in the dim hope that that FOOL may be able to fix . . .whatever in the hell this was!
Throwing off the feeling of . . .lose at having slain that Baleful Shadow, as having somehow lost a brother he'd never met until now, he concentrated on the here and now. On more important things!
"What in the bloody hell is going on here?" Blaidd mutters to himself, looking over at the broken blue doll his sister in all but blood should be dwelling within, instead of back in the Empyrean flesh. Well, once the ritual had been completed later today by his reckoning.
Something had gone wrong! Lady Ranni was suffering from amnesia, still in her birth form and . . .
Gods and goddesses above and below only knew just what was with the other two!
Barreling past the two (!) sleeping twins Adula, the poor wolfman nearly breaks his neck in the double take he does seeing not one but TWO Glint stone dragons guarding Ranni's Rise.
Opting on ignoring that . . .whatever the hell that meant he concentrated on getting aid for Ranni! After that? He'd figure out why there were more dragons about than there should be. That and hope that the extra Adula will be as faithful as the "original" one he'd left before coming back from his latest mission.
"Later . . .concentrate on Ranni," the wolfman told himself. "She is the only thing that matters!"
Storming up to the rise of Ranni's pet wizard/psycho and wishing that Ranni would be DONE with Seluvis. Dirty business, that one's . . .hobbies.
Entering the Rise without so much as a by your leave, the wolfman blinks when he sees the state that Seluvis is under! He's abandoned the hat. And the mask. In fact, his face seems to be rather… torn up!
"...oh, Lady Ranni - I do apologize for my state of disrepair, I…" the Preceptor begins to say before his pain hazed mind finally catches up to what he is seeing. The still flesh and blood Ranni (and two twins right outside the doorway). The shattered masterpiece that SHOULD be housing said demigoddess instead of the flesh and blood she'd been born to.
"Good gods man!" blurts out the Preceptor. "What did you do you thundering cretin!? What have you done to Ranni? To the perfect ceramic shell I crafted for her?!"
"I did nothing!" growls Blaidd, wanting to introduce that Black Blade he'd secured from the shattered remains of the doll he'd hauled here.
"Whatever it was it left Lady Ranni without memories and . . .and . . .!" Blaidd continues, gesturing wildly at the triplets. "Hells man, I cannot even tell one form the other by scent, much less by sight!"
"I . . .we need your help?" the wolfman finishes, almost having to drag out the last. Coming out more of a question to himself than Seluvis. Not wishing to need anything from this slime. "Not finger pointing. Not screaming at each other. Ranni needs HELP!"
For Ranni, Blaidd chides himself.
"What the bloody hell happened to you?" the wolfman asks after chiding himself, suddenly wondering if he should be fearful of yet MORE Baleful Shadows than the one he'd slain just moments earlier!
A close run thing that battle!
"Blaidd, I understand, truly," the arrogant man mutters. Recalling the favors done in his hour of need and the debts he owed the red haired witch. Who's protection he still needed in order to avoid the damnable Golden Order. "I do, but… the Strategess. She caused… issues, I cannot precisely explain how, I believe-"
"Strategess?" the wolfman mutters, unaware of what in the Erd Tree the man was speaking about.
"Sir?" one of the Ranni triplets asked, pausing from looking around at the mage's rooms like she had NO idea what half of the things in here were for or what they could do. "Prithe? Help me? Help mine sisters? Please?"
It was so . . .unlike Lady Ranni. Like she'd been reborn and was a child again. A tearful child. The other two are not in much better shape, worried and fearful at remembering nothing about themselves.
Only that this nice wolfman had helped after that OTHER wolfman had attack him for trespassing! Daring to just help her and her sisters?!
How rude!
After taking a deep swig from a bottle of dark liquid and applying some bandages to some of the more smoking wounds upon his body, the man gathers his over sized ego to answer.
Only to have his breath taken away and stare at . . .the other who was . . .
HE HAD NO RIGHT TO enter HERE, LOOKING LIKE HIM AND!...
"DIE!!" the wounded Seluvis screams drawing his magical might and attacking the doppelganger, who screams in rage and throws down the completed (and intact) blue doll he'd made for Lady Ranni for tonight's ritual.
Needless to say, the two make quiet the mess and don't give a solid d*mn about who may get caught between the death duel they are waging.
Growling in rage, the wolfman named Blaidd soon is wiping blood off his overly large sword, finishing off these two fools for daring have endangered Lady Ranni!
"But now what?" Blaidd muttered to himself, before groaning and falling to his knees.
Great! He was direly wounded (AGAIN) and had no handy Flask of Crimson Tears on his person to use!
"Blaidd!" scream all three triplets as they rush over to administer some kind of first aid!
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Annoyed Catholic
Moody fellow
Who is That and What Just ACME-ed . . .
"Blaidd!" scream all three triplets as they rush over to administer some kind of first aid!
Meanwhile, back at Stormveil Castle, front gate....
"Brother," Trina muttered to Miquella. She had memories of the one known as Lord Godrick the Grafted and none of them particularly pleasant. "I do hope we are not wasting time doing this endeavor."
While they could have used their power to instill affection in others, there were two reasons against that happening. The first was their morals being opposed to such things. At least without a d*mn good reason, anyway. That and ALL said horses were being used by the villagers for those ACRES and ACRES of wheat (and other farm crops)!
Gods! It was almost as if it was the Age of Plenty all over again... It was going to be a struggle for those farmers to GATHER up and store all bounty before it spoiled out in the fields, for Marika's bountiful b. . .
No, trying to pull rank by using their status as demigods would have been in poor taste to try to get horses down in the fields and valleys below.
And let us NOT mention the utter absurdity of getting a MAGICAL means of contacting those back at the Haligtree being in the hands of the farmers!
Well, at least with that unexpected large spike of magical energy both had felt pulse from within the castle grounds? That spoke at something. Something that might just be the very thing they needed for contacting those back at the Haligtree itself.
Or not! But the mere fact that something like THIS should be found in what amounted to the "boonies" (or the Lands Between equivalent of that term).
Thank the Eld Tree that a MAJOR stumbling block both he and her sister just HAD to stumble into with Mogh's BROTHER had not erupted into mortal combat! The Fell Omen just HAD to ask....
Begins Flashback
"So....where hast thou been?" Margit asks vaguely and without heat as he looks again at the Eld Tree as if at a total loss at what it meant. But of course they, the demigods who'd been Morg's unwilling guest knows the exactly what Margit (or rather Morgott the Omen King) meant.
At least "exactly meant as far as where the twin prodigies been", exactly...
Miquella and Trina share a look, knowing that SOME information needs not be shared. Bad news of Death of omen brothers could be nulled out with an eventual resurrection from the Haligtree.
All were welcome there, in this life and in the return and not just those deemed worthy by the Golden F*cking Order!
Sources that had . . .supplied eyes on things back at the Eld Tree. Or at least rumors....
The very Tree barred the way inside, including to the very one who was perhaps the closest to it by proximity: Morgott.. Morgott, the one who was perhaps most loyal to the Golden Order. Nobody was allowed in, perhaps.
Miquella and Trina though, they thought that perhaps the Greater Will had something against the Golden Order. The Golden Order was . . .or had a large section, of corruption within. Power hungry, so was barred from entry to protect the Erd Tree (and the Lands Between) from the Golden Order (and those who were being manipulated by those corrupt folks).
Morgott was many things, but at the heart of it Miquella and Trina felt he was a good man. Just . . .being misled. Both had included their versions of Morgott into the lands where the Haligtree dwell.
Mohg had been a . . .mistake. Morgott was not, even though . . .he'd turned them down again and again.
As for the Greater Will and the Haligtree?
Miquella and Trina were against the Golden Order, in the end of things. But they still in the end felt that the Greater Will was for the best for the Lands Between. Oh, Trina said something about the Greater Will being an Outer God (something that Miquella disagreed with strongly). But better the Greater Will than the Others! The Greater Will was a god that was a counter for the Outer Gods, who had nothing but horrible ends in mind for the Lands Between as a whole.
The Lands Between without the Greater Will? Disaster and nothing but that! So they agreed on that, at least...
Erdtree dead by Death Root? Whelp . . .nice thing that the Haligtree existed, eh?
. . .
Hopefully....
"Many of things," Trina said, smiling softly. "Things like how to fix the damage done by the shattering of the Elden Ring. How to cure my and my sister' Melania's curses."
"How to cure Godwyn's condition," Miquella added sadly, glancing at the healthy Erd Tree. "Getting his soul healed and his life restored. "
"Not happening now," Trina sighed. "The Golden Order kept tripping up our efforts. And it's all moot now."
"What?" Margit blinked in surprise at the first, but slowly nodded at the second. Whatever the case, all the struggles? All the wars and shadow play? Pointless now. The Erd Tree was back to good, and by extension the Elden Ring.
Done by somebody else and not him, or any of the others here. Somebody which had done it despite his efforts.
At least they actually FIXED them, it only was a matter of time to see who was Elden Lord.... And how he and the other Shard Bearers would fit into the new world order...
End Flashback
"Keep positive sister," Miquella chides his new sister. "That and keep it . . . polite when we do meet the lord of the castle."
Honestly! While Miquella had met his version of Godrick theGrafted Golden, he recalled that at one time the man had been so much less of an insufferable . . .person than he'd become soon after becoming a Great Shard Bearer. Maybe if only his wife had not been inflicted with Death Blight...
But whatever the case, despite Lord Godrick having become something of a . . .cunt did not mean he (or his sister) should look down upon him and be cunts in the process. One should hold oneself to higher standards if nothing else!
A meaningful glance and slight shake of the head from Miquella conveys that message to Trina, who sighs slightly and nods. Best foot forward and all that. It had paid dividends thus far.
Morgott the Omen King hasn't attempted anything violent with them or otherwise drive them both off, despite both Trina and Miquella being in less than friendly relationship with that Omen's ever SO precious Golden Order.
So far, so good and . . .
"Ahoy the front gate," a young woman's voice interrupts Miquella's train of thought, causing him to jump slightly to find the hair on the back of his neck stand. That and one of his hand begins to throbe in pain. Remembering that crushing grip that almost crushed his mutate arm not too long ago, back at Mohg's Palace . . . "Parley? We have a dire need to pass along to Queen Marika and her forces back at . ."
Snapping around to look over at the corner of the castle walls that Miquella (as well as others at the front gate) had sworn had been empty of all people. And now this?
Whatever Miquella was going to say goes straight out of his mind when he caught sight of the armour wearing winged woman.
Why that do you ask?
Remember earlier part where Lilith nearly crushed Miquella's mutated hand when she was offloading those Great Shards into him? Do you think that wasn't so painful that Miquella wished to make the pain stop?
So much so that he accidentally tried to use his power to induce love in Lilith to get her to STOP?
But notice that Lilith didn't notice, or at least made no mention of it?
Guess what! It bounced off Lilith's power armour... Weakening it to a large extent but . . .
"Oh Erd Tree," Miquella blinked, his head swimming as his power activated upon seeing Lilith's face, belatedly. "So . . .beautiful."
He could easily dispell it himself, but . . . He just didn't want to do it...
….
"What?" Lilith blinks at Miquella's out of the blue statement. Only to hiss in dismay as she see a VERY glassy look in Miquella's eyes.
Back on her world, she'd seen it too many times NOT to recognize it and . . .
"Okay, who was the bastard who slipped that bloke a Love potion?!" She shouts in anger! "It's not funny and not WELCOME!"
And this is the scene that Crawa the Winged and her group comes into . . .
Lilith looks very put upon as Miquella keeps interrupting anything she would say as he keeps on spouting out love poetry, praising her beauty and body. The others around her (both her group and the other demigods) are looking on flabbergasted at this unexpected turn.
"Oh BLOODY KNOCK IT OFF!!" Lilith screams at Miquella after casting her most powerful dispell magick scroll upon the demigod. The scroll was one of her strongest, and hardest to create within her workshop back home.
Whatever the case? It worked, staggering the genius demigod.
It worked on that one other demigod on the last world.
The one that had led Medea eventually down that dark path, so . . .
"What?" Miquella sputters, looking around after his head clears from being so . . .love besotted. "What . . .what just happened?"
"Blaidd!" scream all three triplets as they rush over to administer some kind of first aid!
Meanwhile, back at Stormveil Castle, front gate....
"Brother," Trina muttered to Miquella. She had memories of the one known as Lord Godrick the Grafted and none of them particularly pleasant. "I do hope we are not wasting time doing this endeavor."
While they could have used their power to instill affection in others, there were two reasons against that happening. The first was their morals being opposed to such things. At least without a d*mn good reason, anyway. That and ALL said horses were being used by the villagers for those ACRES and ACRES of wheat (and other farm crops)!
Gods! It was almost as if it was the Age of Plenty all over again... It was going to be a struggle for those farmers to GATHER up and store all bounty before it spoiled out in the fields, for Marika's bountiful b. . .
No, trying to pull rank by using their status as demigods would have been in poor taste to try to get horses down in the fields and valleys below.
And let us NOT mention the utter absurdity of getting a MAGICAL means of contacting those back at the Haligtree being in the hands of the farmers!
Well, at least with that unexpected large spike of magical energy both had felt pulse from within the castle grounds? That spoke at something. Something that might just be the very thing they needed for contacting those back at the Haligtree itself.
Or not! But the mere fact that something like THIS should be found in what amounted to the "boonies" (or the Lands Between equivalent of that term).
Thank the Eld Tree that a MAJOR stumbling block both he and her sister just HAD to stumble into with Mogh's BROTHER had not erupted into mortal combat! The Fell Omen just HAD to ask....
Begins Flashback
"So....where hast thou been?" Margit asks vaguely and without heat as he looks again at the Eld Tree as if at a total loss at what it meant. But of course they, the demigods who'd been Morg's unwilling guest knows the exactly what Margit (or rather Morgott the Omen King) meant.
At least "exactly meant as far as where the twin prodigies been", exactly...
Miquella and Trina share a look, knowing that SOME information needs not be shared. Bad news of Death of omen brothers could be nulled out with an eventual resurrection from the Haligtree.
All were welcome there, in this life and in the return and not just those deemed worthy by the Golden F*cking Order!
Sources that had . . .supplied eyes on things back at the Eld Tree. Or at least rumors....
The very Tree barred the way inside, including to the very one who was perhaps the closest to it by proximity: Morgott.. Morgott, the one who was perhaps most loyal to the Golden Order. Nobody was allowed in, perhaps.
Miquella and Trina though, they thought that perhaps the Greater Will had something against the Golden Order. The Golden Order was . . .or had a large section, of corruption within. Power hungry, so was barred from entry to protect the Erd Tree (and the Lands Between) from the Golden Order (and those who were being manipulated by those corrupt folks).
Morgott was many things, but at the heart of it Miquella and Trina felt he was a good man. Just . . .being misled. Both had included their versions of Morgott into the lands where the Haligtree dwell.
Mohg had been a . . .mistake. Morgott was not, even though . . .he'd turned them down again and again.
As for the Greater Will and the Haligtree?
Miquella and Trina were against the Golden Order, in the end of things. But they still in the end felt that the Greater Will was for the best for the Lands Between. Oh, Trina said something about the Greater Will being an Outer God (something that Miquella disagreed with strongly). But better the Greater Will than the Others! The Greater Will was a god that was a counter for the Outer Gods, who had nothing but horrible ends in mind for the Lands Between as a whole.
The Lands Between without the Greater Will? Disaster and nothing but that! So they agreed on that, at least...
Erdtree dead by Death Root? Whelp . . .nice thing that the Haligtree existed, eh?
. . .
Hopefully....
"Many of things," Trina said, smiling softly. "Things like how to fix the damage done by the shattering of the Elden Ring. How to cure my and my sister' Melania's curses."
"How to cure Godwyn's condition," Miquella added sadly, glancing at the healthy Erd Tree. "Getting his soul healed and his life restored. "
"Not happening now," Trina sighed. "The Golden Order kept tripping up our efforts. And it's all moot now."
"What?" Margit blinked in surprise at the first, but slowly nodded at the second. Whatever the case, all the struggles? All the wars and shadow play? Pointless now. The Erd Tree was back to good, and by extension the Elden Ring.
Done by somebody else and not him, or any of the others here. Somebody which had done it despite his efforts.
At least they actually FIXED them, it only was a matter of time to see who was Elden Lord.... And how he and the other Shard Bearers would fit into the new world order...
End Flashback
"Keep positive sister," Miquella chides his new sister. "That and keep it . . . polite when we do meet the lord of the castle."
Honestly! While Miquella had met his version of Godrick the
But whatever the case, despite Lord Godrick having become something of a . . .cunt did not mean he (or his sister) should look down upon him and be cunts in the process. One should hold oneself to higher standards if nothing else!
A meaningful glance and slight shake of the head from Miquella conveys that message to Trina, who sighs slightly and nods. Best foot forward and all that. It had paid dividends thus far.
Morgott the Omen King hasn't attempted anything violent with them or otherwise drive them both off, despite both Trina and Miquella being in less than friendly relationship with that Omen's ever SO precious Golden Order.
So far, so good and . . .
"Ahoy the front gate," a young woman's voice interrupts Miquella's train of thought, causing him to jump slightly to find the hair on the back of his neck stand. That and one of his hand begins to throbe in pain. Remembering that crushing grip that almost crushed his mutate arm not too long ago, back at Mohg's Palace . . . "Parley? We have a dire need to pass along to Queen Marika and her forces back at . ."
Snapping around to look over at the corner of the castle walls that Miquella (as well as others at the front gate) had sworn had been empty of all people. And now this?
Whatever Miquella was going to say goes straight out of his mind when he caught sight of the armour wearing winged woman.
Why that do you ask?
Remember earlier part where Lilith nearly crushed Miquella's mutated hand when she was offloading those Great Shards into him? Do you think that wasn't so painful that Miquella wished to make the pain stop?
So much so that he accidentally tried to use his power to induce love in Lilith to get her to STOP?
But notice that Lilith didn't notice, or at least made no mention of it?
Guess what! It bounced off Lilith's power armour... Weakening it to a large extent but . . .
"Oh Erd Tree," Miquella blinked, his head swimming as his power activated upon seeing Lilith's face, belatedly. "So . . .beautiful."
He could easily dispell it himself, but . . . He just didn't want to do it...
….
"What?" Lilith blinks at Miquella's out of the blue statement. Only to hiss in dismay as she see a VERY glassy look in Miquella's eyes.
Back on her world, she'd seen it too many times NOT to recognize it and . . .
"Okay, who was the bastard who slipped that bloke a Love potion?!" She shouts in anger! "It's not funny and not WELCOME!"
And this is the scene that Crawa the Winged and her group comes into . . .
Lilith looks very put upon as Miquella keeps interrupting anything she would say as he keeps on spouting out love poetry, praising her beauty and body. The others around her (both her group and the other demigods) are looking on flabbergasted at this unexpected turn.
"Oh BLOODY KNOCK IT OFF!!" Lilith screams at Miquella after casting her most powerful dispell magick scroll upon the demigod. The scroll was one of her strongest, and hardest to create within her workshop back home.
Whatever the case? It worked, staggering the genius demigod.
It worked on that one other demigod on the last world.
The one that had led Medea eventually down that dark path, so . . .
"What?" Miquella sputters, looking around after his head clears from being so . . .love besotted. "What . . .what just happened?"
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Annoyed Catholic
Moody fellow
Did the get infected?
Edit: nevermind. That question's answer will be moot as far as the next omake from me is concerned. Let us just say that either way Calvin will have much to answer for here....
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Annoyed Catholic
Moody fellow
In Which Children Get Underfoot...
"What?" Miquella sputters, looking around after his head clears from being so . . .love besotted. "What . . .what just happened?"
Lilith gives Miquella a slightly measured look before opting on a . . .round about way of answering that question. OR at least that was what Margit reads from the expression. Lilith surprises him, however.
First by a softly muttered curse when Lilith seems to catch sight of something she's rather NOT too happy about something she sees from the (optically camouflaged) probes still fluttering about above the castle. Since none of those who'd not traveled with Lilith up until this point knew of the probes that had the winged woman had been spying upon the goings on within Stormveil Castle, they had no way to know what she'd just viewed.
Basically, Lilith was unhappy with the fact that the Lord Godrick the Golden--as well as Lady Crawa Winged—had gotten waylaid by castle servants wanting orders on what to do with all the Kaiden younglings which had been sheltering within the bowels of Stormveil Castle during the Tarnished Army's attack.
Somehow they had survived, the younglings and the few castle servants who'd been tasked to over watch them. First not getting slain the Crimson Rot catapult attacks and then not getting slain by rampaging Tarnished who'd breached the castle defenses at the end.
The younglings and servants had managed to SOMEHOW find safe passage out of place after everything was said and done. And had been journeying back to the Kaiden lands proper, having survived that horror only to end up mystically here AGAIN!
Not having remembered that journey, nor having missed Taylor's group journeying back from Castle Haight to Stormveil Castle.
Not having any memories of that, they still had been under either the panicky state of having barely avoided the Scarlet Rot. That or having cowered in the lowest bowels of Stormveil Castle, avoiding rabid Tarnished!!
All in all, they were in quiet the state! They wanted to go home and go home NOW, thank you!! And they (through their frustrated castle servant chaperons) were making such wishes known to the powers that be!!
And tying said powers that be down for the moment as they were attempting to sort this latest mess out!
But time waits for no one, and Lilith felt like not wasting more time than needed. She had a proper channel to give proper warnings here and now in front of her.
Right?
"Basically?" the winged woman begins, sounding a bit put off by whatever she'd just seen. But opting on the tasks before her one thing at a time! "You were under some kind of overpowered love spell which happened to take hold at . . .a rather awkward time. Right before I could officially turn over the Grafted Scions sisters here back with Lady Crawa and Lord Godrick the Golden."
Lilith pauses, as if waiting for somebody to speak. And as luck would have it (or at least her travel companions getting the hint), somebody does step up.
"Also, right before warnings about how time seems to have twisted back upon itself to before the Shattering?" Swuste 1 asked on Lilith's left side.
"And with that we have people who had permanently died showing again?" Swuste 2 adds on Lilith's right. "But coupled with the fact that at least SOME events seem to be replaying or could replay again? That warrants attention and immediate attention!"
"Like the fact that the other 'analog' of Godwyn might still fall to the Black Knives?" Melina added drolly, not totally sure just why she and the Grafted Scions had been tasked (quickly in haste before coming to the front gate) to deliver these warnings instead of Lilith herself.
Then again, looking at the utter distain that the Fell Omen and that masked odd female mage by the gate had been giving Lilith? She might be onto something here....
Tarnished are as a rule in the Lands Between not to be trusted, but hunted down and killed. Too many Tarnished had done so much wrong upon their return, so Lilith not being immediately believed was . . . would have been par for the course.
Better to at least come from her and the Grafted Scions than Lilith, at least for now.
"But I do want to see Crawa and Mum again after all this time," Swuste 1 adds after glancing over at Melina, gently touching Lilith's shoulder with one of her larger hands. "Could we make this quick? I mean danger or not to the Lands Between I and sister . . .want to see them again! Lady Lilith, it's been so long! We miss them!"
With all the abilities that Lilith had casually shown up until now? With an apparent wide array of knowledge? The Grafted Scions at least had grounds to trust Lilith for her worries; so are not childishly crying for Lilith to drop everything now and return them to their sisters and mother. Lilith was aware of that and appreciative.
"That I will and we'll throw in at least ONE Uncle Godwyn in this upcoming reunion," Lilith smiles over at the fretful Grafted Scions. "I'll make this as fast as possible, promise."
"Tarnished!" Margit thudered, finally having had enough of Lilith's antics and less than amused at the deceptions that the Grafted Scion and this strawberry haired woman with Lilith obviously got duped into here. "What is the meaning of this trespass upon Lord Godrick's lands? I . . ."
Whatever the Fell Omen would have said towards Lilith would forevermore be lost to the pages of history when . . .
"Morgott? Brother?!" a merry, booming male sounding voice shouts from behind. "Queen mother let you finally free of the Shunning Grounds!? Fantastic!!"
"What?" Miquella sputters, looking around after his head clears from being so . . .love besotted. "What . . .what just happened?"
Lilith gives Miquella a slightly measured look before opting on a . . .round about way of answering that question. OR at least that was what Margit reads from the expression. Lilith surprises him, however.
First by a softly muttered curse when Lilith seems to catch sight of something she's rather NOT too happy about something she sees from the (optically camouflaged) probes still fluttering about above the castle. Since none of those who'd not traveled with Lilith up until this point knew of the probes that had the winged woman had been spying upon the goings on within Stormveil Castle, they had no way to know what she'd just viewed.
Basically, Lilith was unhappy with the fact that the Lord Godrick the Golden--as well as Lady Crawa Winged—had gotten waylaid by castle servants wanting orders on what to do with all the Kaiden younglings which had been sheltering within the bowels of Stormveil Castle during the Tarnished Army's attack.
Somehow they had survived, the younglings and the few castle servants who'd been tasked to over watch them. First not getting slain the Crimson Rot catapult attacks and then not getting slain by rampaging Tarnished who'd breached the castle defenses at the end.
The younglings and servants had managed to SOMEHOW find safe passage out of place after everything was said and done. And had been journeying back to the Kaiden lands proper, having survived that horror only to end up mystically here AGAIN!
Not having remembered that journey, nor having missed Taylor's group journeying back from Castle Haight to Stormveil Castle.
Not having any memories of that, they still had been under either the panicky state of having barely avoided the Scarlet Rot. That or having cowered in the lowest bowels of Stormveil Castle, avoiding rabid Tarnished!!
All in all, they were in quiet the state! They wanted to go home and go home NOW, thank you!! And they (through their frustrated castle servant chaperons) were making such wishes known to the powers that be!!
And tying said powers that be down for the moment as they were attempting to sort this latest mess out!
But time waits for no one, and Lilith felt like not wasting more time than needed. She had a proper channel to give proper warnings here and now in front of her.
Right?
"Basically?" the winged woman begins, sounding a bit put off by whatever she'd just seen. But opting on the tasks before her one thing at a time! "You were under some kind of overpowered love spell which happened to take hold at . . .a rather awkward time. Right before I could officially turn over the Grafted Scions sisters here back with Lady Crawa and Lord Godrick the Golden."
Lilith pauses, as if waiting for somebody to speak. And as luck would have it (or at least her travel companions getting the hint), somebody does step up.
"Also, right before warnings about how time seems to have twisted back upon itself to before the Shattering?" Swuste 1 asked on Lilith's left side.
"And with that we have people who had permanently died showing again?" Swuste 2 adds on Lilith's right. "But coupled with the fact that at least SOME events seem to be replaying or could replay again? That warrants attention and immediate attention!"
"Like the fact that the other 'analog' of Godwyn might still fall to the Black Knives?" Melina added drolly, not totally sure just why she and the Grafted Scions had been tasked (quickly in haste before coming to the front gate) to deliver these warnings instead of Lilith herself.
Then again, looking at the utter distain that the Fell Omen and that masked odd female mage by the gate had been giving Lilith? She might be onto something here....
Tarnished are as a rule in the Lands Between not to be trusted, but hunted down and killed. Too many Tarnished had done so much wrong upon their return, so Lilith not being immediately believed was . . . would have been par for the course.
Better to at least come from her and the Grafted Scions than Lilith, at least for now.
"But I do want to see Crawa and Mum again after all this time," Swuste 1 adds after glancing over at Melina, gently touching Lilith's shoulder with one of her larger hands. "Could we make this quick? I mean danger or not to the Lands Between I and sister . . .want to see them again! Lady Lilith, it's been so long! We miss them!"
With all the abilities that Lilith had casually shown up until now? With an apparent wide array of knowledge? The Grafted Scions at least had grounds to trust Lilith for her worries; so are not childishly crying for Lilith to drop everything now and return them to their sisters and mother. Lilith was aware of that and appreciative.
"That I will and we'll throw in at least ONE Uncle Godwyn in this upcoming reunion," Lilith smiles over at the fretful Grafted Scions. "I'll make this as fast as possible, promise."
"Tarnished!" Margit thudered, finally having had enough of Lilith's antics and less than amused at the deceptions that the Grafted Scion and this strawberry haired woman with Lilith obviously got duped into here. "What is the meaning of this trespass upon Lord Godrick's lands? I . . ."
Whatever the Fell Omen would have said towards Lilith would forevermore be lost to the pages of history when . . .
"Morgott? Brother?!" a merry, booming male sounding voice shouts from behind. "Queen mother let you finally free of the Shunning Grounds!? Fantastic!!"
Author's Note: this is short, but a manageable omake chapter I can deal with. Pardon typoes and the like. Did a bit of proofreading but not too much. Will neaten it up in the near future..
In the meantime, have a sneak peak at the next shipwreck of this omake story I am telling! Part of it is shipping. Part of it is . . . a mistake made by the Elden Beast/Greater Will's fault.
Art by derryfebrian
P.S. I believe that omakes come under the heading of "useful"the continuations of long dead threads, vice "thread necromancy".
It might not be a good omake, but it is allowed, right?
In the meantime, have a sneak peak at the next shipwreck of this omake story I am telling! Part of it is shipping. Part of it is . . . a mistake made by the Elden Beast/Greater Will's fault.
Art by derryfebrian
P.S. I believe that omakes come under the heading of "useful"the continuations of long dead threads, vice "thread necromancy".
It might not be a good omake, but it is allowed, right?
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Annoyed Catholic
Moody fellow
Side Effects May Vary....
"Morgott? Brother?!" a merry, booming male sounding voice shouts from behind. "Queen mother let you finally free of the Shunning Grounds!? Fantastic!!"
Margit (or rather Morgott) . . .
The whole SERIES of expressions that pass across the Fell Omen was a thing to see! Lilith later would say that it had been worthy of an Oscar movie award! She'd say that they just don't MAKE the play of expressions that Margit displayed like that any more!
…
Nah! What actually happens here is that Margit (let's just call him that for now) FREEZES in his tracks with a look of utter shock and disbelief.
OH! Yes, the Omen King had had both the flash of mortification and rage at to having his real identity being broadcast far and wide. However, THIS was his long lost brother Godwyn!
….
Unlike with his half brother and sister demigods Miquella and Trina, Morgott had enough spent more than enough time with Godwyn on his visits to know the demigod by first sight (and other senses versions as well).
It had been one of the more welcome memories he and his brother Mogh had whilst entrapped in the Shunning Grounds. Godwyn (and Lord Godfrey) had always made it a point to visit both himself and his brother down in the Shunning Grounds . . . While the other siblings pretty much only saw him face to face AFTER he and Mogh had escaped the Grounds.
Meaning exactly what in this case? Simple! It meant that unlike his earlier meeting with his half brother Miquella (and Trina), Margit (Morgott) is able to tell that this is the true Godwyn. An impostor would be hard pressed to fool him.
So anyway!
After spinning around and looking at Godwyn the Golden--who's apparently managed to excuse himself from the crowd of people he'd been traveling with, promising to just see WHO the petitioners and report back—the Fell Omen King then gave himself whiplash doing a wild take first to the masked (female) mage at his side. Trina looks back at him, a bit shocked herself.
The Tarnished wasn't attempting some kind of grand scheme to gain yet another Great Shard. Unaware of the . ..
Okay, let's just say that Trina and Morgott are now thoroughly confused. And not that they both are unhappy to see Godwyn, but . . . THEY BOTH HAD SO MANY questions now. All of the demigods present (or at least most have so many questions now).
Melania already had a boat load of questions for Lilith, but that list had piled up BEFORE Lord Godwyn's unexpected appearance. She is very sure that Lady Lilith shall answer those questions. When there comes a proper time, this ODD Tarnished (or whatever Lilith REALLY happened to be here) would answer. Fully and properly.
Right now Lilith had been following "a feeling" and was too invested on following it up. "Paying due diligence", the pale winged woman had said pretty much when Godwyn had stumbled into the picture back in Stormveil Castle.
And HEY! Maybe in the course of things maybe Melania could find out what her purpose could/should be now that. That made the waiting a bit more bearable than what it could be for the false Finger Maiden....
Margit--let us just continue calling him that—also has a barge full of questions himself. But the top question running through his startled mind is...
"How?" the Fell Omen sputters, looking wildly back at Lilith. "How didst thou even KNOW my broth!. . . that Lord Godwyn was within Stormveil Castle, much less hale and WHOLE?!"
"Brother?" Godwyn asks, meanwhile finding himself in a situation that he'd jumped into blind with BOTH FEET.
Who was this Tarnished, and why was his brother Morgott acting like he had seen . . .
Idiot, Godwyn lambasted himself realizing at least SOME of what was happening!
Everyone he had met before now had kept saying that he'd DIED during the Night of the Black Knife, correct? That his body had lived, but his soul had been destroyed. That mean that in as far as Morgott was concerned, Godwyn was actually something of a ghost indeed!
Or something worse than a ghost... at least until now, with Godwyn's unexpected recovery—both in body and soul-- down in the bowels of Stormveil Castle.
"Simply put?" Lilith answers after giving a quick (but hopefully acceptable curtsy, albeit in power armour) to both Lord Godwyn and Lord Morgott. "After hearing from one of the Grafted Scion twins here with me that their castle had gotten invaded by a Tarnished Army? While the other may have not noticed an invading army with THEIR version of Stormveil Castle, I wasn't going to just blithely waltz up here and have a coin flip of a chance of running into hostiles like some kind of idiot; and thus risking the twins here getting injured or worse."
Lilith suppressed a shudder, remembering that ONE bio-warning her probes had detected moments earlier. Which had of course made her opt on going OVERT with her scrying, by using her more powerful magics.
The Scarlet Rot was like nothing she had ever seen before and was something... She'd rather NEVER had seen.
Then again, she and her gang had walked in another realm recently with diseases even worse, she supposed.
Nurgle was an actual thing, she recalled back in the Warhammer 40k realm. Nasty!!
. . .
Do remember that name and setting here in the future! It will . . .become relevant.
…
"That would not do at all!" Lilith finishes off. "Especially if the one young woman I detected was somehow VICTIM of that VERY THING in some way. Would be more concerned about things and not be even THINKING about coming here if not for a pure gold magic needle keeping her scarlet rot in check!"
"What?!' the Fell Omen shouts in alarm. Bad enough that this was the VERY first time he had heard of anything about anything about an actual ARMY of Tarnished having attacked Stormveil Castle. But that the fools had used Crimson Rot?! In that manner?
Nobody but NOBODY with any sanity (and few with insanity) would dare try such a ploy, because of how dangerous that curse/disease happened to be! Ah, and Morgott is not the only one who'd been alarmed about this insanity. Lilith and those who'd been traveling with her had been VERY alarmed about the young woman's infection of Crimson Rot (even if it had been held in check with an unalloyed gold needle). The fact that more of the same should have been used on the castle? Even IF the physical evidence had been mystically whisked away . . .
…
In his time line.
Yes, it is pretty much as you have figured. This Morgott the Omen King (who moonlights as Margit the Fell) happens to hale from another reality (aka an "invader" as they call doppelgangers here about).
"Especially when said Tarnished Army unleashed Crimson Rot upon the castle," adds Godwyn, gesturing back towards the way he came. "The tales that Craw . . .that Crawa 'the Winged' told me was most alarming things. Which . . .I can see you had no idea has happened?"
With a minimal of back and forth between brothers the fact that Morgott the Omen King finally confirm what those who are reading have by NOW figured out. So now everyone was on the same page (more or less). Morgott now was aware that his doppelganger had been defeat while barring the way to the castle from the Tarnished Army. The other Omen King was probably still back in the Royal Capital of Leyndell, taking care of the business of running the city (from the shadows) and such. So as such the OTHER Morgott wasn't aware YET of what was going on here. . . .
Back at the Capital, meanwhile....
Margit the Fell (let us called him this to differentiate from the Omen back at Stormveil Castle), after having seen the now much healthier Erdtree (among other things) is attempting to figure OUT what in the Hell is going on here.
But while trying to direct everything (and trying NOT to pull out his hair over reports of isolated town guards here and there questioning his authority) and a bunch of the peasantry being out and about instead of observing the curfew...
And trying to not pull his hair out in trying to figure out why it seemed like everyone in the city (and those who lived OUTSIDE the city) seemed to be so . . . unconcerned about all the changes about. The Erdtree being back to full health (but still baring entry to all that try to enter). Why all those about him seemed so . . .passive and submissive to given orders from those with authority....
<....>
Above and inside the Erdtree another . . .entity is also wanting to tear it's metaphorical hair out as well. Nice and well that the Elden Ring is no longer shattered. That the shards are now back in place (including certain shards which Queen Marika had removed without authorization), but . . .why were there Great Shards still out in the wild? With the Shard Bearers? Why were the minor Shards still out in the wild? Still being used as currency?
How did this happen? Who did this?! The Entity had just finally gotten back to fix things and . . .somebody already did it.
Well, he/she/it would look into it more thoroughly instead of from afar after fixing the broken Queen. The . . .more agreeable one who'd been screaming in rage at her mirror still crucified above, enraged at what her doppelganger had done of her own free will while she (the other) had been a mere puppet . . .
And then FINALLY that anomaly can be addressed! Why in the Blind Eternities was that Outer Goddess still here?! The sacrificial offering by way of the Contingency should have satiated her to where she would have naff-ed off to where ever Outer Gods and Goddess scamper off to when not interfering with an honest Deity's hard work. She had the Emperium in hand to play with, but NOOOO!!! Still scampering about, mucking things up here and there by just LINGERING!!
As safety measure, as much as this Entity found such extreme measures distasteful even for him/her, better to have the masses at large held in a passive/submissive state than needlessly panicking and tearing all things down. Not before the Entity could make their next move....
When his train of thought is interrupted by a single, screamed name. A male voice that is very familiar to those who are familiar with the James Bond movie franchise: Roger Moore.
It is a dead ringer for that actor's voice, but while Human enough but . . .more is than human! It says A name.
Not that the Greater Will would know that...
<....>
Said in hate.
AND RAGE!!
"NURGLE!!" is the screamed name. And the name of the screamer? Well, he has had many names throughout his long years. The latest name he called himself was Revelation, but almost everyone else in the Imperium calls him the Emperor of Mankind....
The Emperor then pauses as he Senses that the target of his rage might, just MIGHT not be the Demon God after all. While the burst of Psyker energy did a satisfying amount of damage? Seems that it d
He does not say "Oops", but Lilith can see a slight look of consternation as his form shifts back to that of Roger Moore's James Bond as he walks more fully into Lilith's field of view afforded her by her Tarot reading's "screen".
"Uh . . your Imperial Grace?" Lilith Quatermain laughs nervously as he pulls up next to the sister/group leader of their little adventuring group. "I was only . . .attempting to get into contact with the rest of my missing group. That and/or contact some folks over at a place called the Halligtree? Didn't know sister Rei had been hobnobbing with you before I interrupted. So sorry!"
Honestly, if Lilith had KNOWN that one of the first people besides her sister should have been the Master of Mankind himself? She would have at least not been so flip when attempting to contact sister Rei! Using her old CB "handle" of "Angel the Second" while trying to see see if the "First Children" (aka Rei) or any of the others would have their "ears on" had been funny enough to use at the time.
The looks of the others around her of confusion had been funny enough for a small chuckle. That look on Miquella's face (adding to the slight cute blush he'd taken on after she'd shown interest in at least going on a date). . . .
Priceless!
But . . .
....
Perhaps using that souvenir deck of cards (that one spare deck of the Emperor's Tarot) had been a bad idea? Then again, what with the interference Lilith had been getting at almost every turn from the Erdtree for her less mundane means of scrying and communications? The Emperor's Tarot had that little "something extra" to get through what basically what Lilith mentally calls it screaming magical "interference"!
Ah yes, the Emperor of Mankind? You know, that one chap from the tabletop game Warhammer 40K? The one game who's setting is basically everything cranked up to eleven (at a the least)?
Kind of a given that He has a History with hating Demon Gods, four major ones in particular. Of which, the Demon God of disease and rot is being one of them!
Which . . .is what the . . .Emperor of Mankind is mistaking the deity behind Crimson Rot. Which Crimson Rot just happens to have within her, albeit held in check by the Unalloyed Needle.
Earlier there? The Emperor had blinked having realized (too late) that the entity on the other side of the Tarot hand that Lilith had dealt on a CHEAPLY made card table, in the Lands Between. He looks out sees that the blow he'd put forth to drive back his Enemy . . .is both much more lethal than intended.
That and the target of His ire is not a Warp entity known as a Demon God at all! But rather soon enough something quiet a bit different, a magical entity we know as an Outer God.
Yep, as you may have guessed? Lilith . . .had been attempting to use her card deck in a magical communications to attempt to reach out and contact various peoples out in the wider realms of this odd world she'd landed in here. This had been with permission from Lord Godrick (having finally won free from the fretful children from earlier there) so well and good! With the stipulation that the Grafted Scion she'd been traveling with up until now would have her sword drawn, ready to strike her down if Lilith should attempt some kind of betrayal.
Which Lilith understood the idea, even if she didn't exactly appreciate that. And that the kindly Grafted Scion girl should be put into such a position.
At least nobody was yelling for her head. What with that wave of Gold there only striking one young woman, without actually killing her!
Ah? That Gold wave? Well....
A wave of GOLD hits the blinking crimson haired woman who just happens to be afflicted with said Crimson Rot, and staggers as the power of the most powerful human Psyker in the Imperium of Mankind, and she finds herself on the ground (on her posterior). Feeling something . . .absent now within her and the the unalloyed needle quivering almost like a tuning fork! A tuning fork that is quivering like it had been struck with GREAT force instead of HER quivering like a tuning fork (sort of speak).
"What?!" the young woman blinks, wondering what in the Hells that was about and why her head is spinning so much.
Elsewhere. . . .
A figure stares, looking on as the Lake of Rot's shore. Or rather, the spot where the Rot had ended and receded to something like to a fourth of what it had been until now. Accompanied by a scream of absolute agony and now the soft (but gurgling) crying of a woman somewhere in the distance.
"What the hell?" the holder of the Rune of Death mutters, flummoxed at this latest development.
Looking at the small, blue skinned doll he'd come across elsewhere, earlier . . .
Shaking his head, the Shadow knew that whatever just happened was NOT due to her.
She was . . .truly beyond being able to do anything, good or bad, due to a fatal encounter with her doppelganger
Weird enough that the Boss of his Boss to give an Order that this Shadow NEVER expected to be given (much less be ABLE to follow).
But the Greater Will (for that was what the Entity who'd came to him up in Crumbling Farum Azula . . .
After getting the Fingerslayer Blade in order deal with the traitors? To deal with the puppet masters? The true reason why Queen Marika was as she was now?
What was this latest development? His last target was on the other side of this Lake, but if the Greater Will was able to do THIS while healing the mind of his Queen (shattered after so long from the agony of crucifixion and EVERYTING ELSE she'd endured while being puppet-ed by the Two Fingers)...
It was with a flash of Gold, but it wasn't the Gold of the Greater Will. Of anything of the Golden Order . . .
It was . . .different . . .Alien!
Also Elsewhere . . .
"Mommy?" a young girl's pain filled voice whimpers, drawing a groan out of a young woman with a golden prosthetic arm.
She had just drawn forth an unalloyed Golden Needle. To die as herself instead of Blossoming/ To rot away to nothing. To have the Tarnished who'd accompanied her here to deliver it to Malenia.
"Where's Mommy?" another young girl's voice asks. "Who's this icky bug?"
"Huh?" The young woman calling herself Millicent mutters intelligently, looking into the golden eyes of . . .five young girls who look VERY familiar Four of them look to be the very "sisters" who'd been out to strike her down. Force her to bloom!
But . . .they cannot be those, since they are all . . .three years old! Too young by far. The very ages where they'd come out of the swamp where they'd spawned and the poison their "father" had poured into their ears for years on end, warping them into monsters
But who was this fifth little girl? Who was this face that was so like her own? The one she'd seen in the mirror? Except, why was she also three?!
Who was that shriveled corpse over there? What damnable Kindred of Rot?!
Why was she still here? Where was the pain?
Where was the Rot?
Why hadn't she Rotted away into nothing?
Why did she have a cracking headache about fit to split her skull open? Gods! It was almost like her head was vibrating like a tuning fork.
Groaning softly, Millicent wanted more than anything right then and there to curl up into a ball and just pray that the pain would pass.
"Who are you?" twin adult female voices ask to the left (and right) of the youngsters and Millicent.
Groaning again, M Millicent cracks opens her eyes. Glancing over to where one of the adult's voice came from, Millicent freezes. It was HER!!
"MOMMY!!" a young set of voices behind Millicent screams (apparently being somehow able to throw off whatever had hit them all perhaps due to sheer youthful vigor . . .or just plane luck) followed by the scampering of little feet over to the owner. Passing by Millicent from behind, over next to Malenia! Past some VERY familiar liking three year old red headed girls.
And at the same time? The original group of three year old look confused for a second, first glancing back at the crimson haired demigoddess before them. One standing in a pile of golden limbs, who's staring wide eyed at a health set of limbs.
And then at somebody with the same voice a Malenia before them . . ..
Turning her head, Millicent turns to see the same face and form. One with a similar set of golden limbs, but who's face is marked. Marked with the the splotches and marks of Crimson Rot, but only the very beginning stages of infection.
Off to the side, a US nuclear submarine (the USS Georgia) given human form looks over at a WW2 two Mahan destroyer (USS Oppenheimer) given human form and shakes her head in askance.
Suddenly finding themselves here back on Earth? With the (NOT!) God Emperor of Mankind (of the 30th Millennium) and that odd blue haired and WINGED (NOT!) Sister of Battle chatting with somebody that had contacted them magically?
Confusing.
What is this latest bit of insanity? These gingers who are looking around now, pained but wondering now after asking who each other were? Little girls who asked their Mommy was (and apparently finding it in the two EIGHT FOOT TALL Valkyrie looking women)?
Now they all were looking around, confused and with more questions!
Like asking where the Erdtree (whatever the hell that was) happened to be?
The towering Amazonian women looking down at the gaggles of three year old girls snuggling (cute as buttons) up to them, clearly split between wanting to protest that they are not their mothers. And wishing to lean down and give them the most loving hugs....
And what in the hell were tarnished and why the concerned looks, when they glanced over at Georgia and the Fleet of ship girls?!
"Do you know these assholes?" USS Georgia asks the former abyssal submarine from the Crossroad Fleet.
Look, let's just get this out of the way here and now. Being that I only write on what I have seen from various Youtube videos for Elden Ring and Warhammer 40K, discrepancies and mistake must happen. Almost guaranteed So! Consider deviance from canon can be put down as it being AU, okay?
"Morgott? Brother?!" a merry, booming male sounding voice shouts from behind. "Queen mother let you finally free of the Shunning Grounds!? Fantastic!!"
Margit (or rather Morgott) . . .
The whole SERIES of expressions that pass across the Fell Omen was a thing to see! Lilith later would say that it had been worthy of an Oscar movie award! She'd say that they just don't MAKE the play of expressions that Margit displayed like that any more!
…
Nah! What actually happens here is that Margit (let's just call him that for now) FREEZES in his tracks with a look of utter shock and disbelief.
OH! Yes, the Omen King had had both the flash of mortification and rage at to having his real identity being broadcast far and wide. However, THIS was his long lost brother Godwyn!
….
Unlike with his half brother and sister demigods Miquella and Trina, Morgott had enough spent more than enough time with Godwyn on his visits to know the demigod by first sight (and other senses versions as well).
It had been one of the more welcome memories he and his brother Mogh had whilst entrapped in the Shunning Grounds. Godwyn (and Lord Godfrey) had always made it a point to visit both himself and his brother down in the Shunning Grounds . . . While the other siblings pretty much only saw him face to face AFTER he and Mogh had escaped the Grounds.
Meaning exactly what in this case? Simple! It meant that unlike his earlier meeting with his half brother Miquella (and Trina), Margit (Morgott) is able to tell that this is the true Godwyn. An impostor would be hard pressed to fool him.
So anyway!
After spinning around and looking at Godwyn the Golden--who's apparently managed to excuse himself from the crowd of people he'd been traveling with, promising to just see WHO the petitioners and report back—the Fell Omen King then gave himself whiplash doing a wild take first to the masked (female) mage at his side. Trina looks back at him, a bit shocked herself.
The Tarnished wasn't attempting some kind of grand scheme to gain yet another Great Shard. Unaware of the . ..
Okay, let's just say that Trina and Morgott are now thoroughly confused. And not that they both are unhappy to see Godwyn, but . . . THEY BOTH HAD SO MANY questions now. All of the demigods present (or at least most have so many questions now).
Melania already had a boat load of questions for Lilith, but that list had piled up BEFORE Lord Godwyn's unexpected appearance. She is very sure that Lady Lilith shall answer those questions. When there comes a proper time, this ODD Tarnished (or whatever Lilith REALLY happened to be here) would answer. Fully and properly.
Right now Lilith had been following "a feeling" and was too invested on following it up. "Paying due diligence", the pale winged woman had said pretty much when Godwyn had stumbled into the picture back in Stormveil Castle.
And HEY! Maybe in the course of things maybe Melania could find out what her purpose could/should be now that. That made the waiting a bit more bearable than what it could be for the false Finger Maiden....
Margit--let us just continue calling him that—also has a barge full of questions himself. But the top question running through his startled mind is...
"How?" the Fell Omen sputters, looking wildly back at Lilith. "How didst thou even KNOW my broth!. . . that Lord Godwyn was within Stormveil Castle, much less hale and WHOLE?!"
"Brother?" Godwyn asks, meanwhile finding himself in a situation that he'd jumped into blind with BOTH FEET.
Who was this Tarnished, and why was his brother Morgott acting like he had seen . . .
Idiot, Godwyn lambasted himself realizing at least SOME of what was happening!
Everyone he had met before now had kept saying that he'd DIED during the Night of the Black Knife, correct? That his body had lived, but his soul had been destroyed. That mean that in as far as Morgott was concerned, Godwyn was actually something of a ghost indeed!
Or something worse than a ghost... at least until now, with Godwyn's unexpected recovery—both in body and soul-- down in the bowels of Stormveil Castle.
"Simply put?" Lilith answers after giving a quick (but hopefully acceptable curtsy, albeit in power armour) to both Lord Godwyn and Lord Morgott. "After hearing from one of the Grafted Scion twins here with me that their castle had gotten invaded by a Tarnished Army? While the other may have not noticed an invading army with THEIR version of Stormveil Castle, I wasn't going to just blithely waltz up here and have a coin flip of a chance of running into hostiles like some kind of idiot; and thus risking the twins here getting injured or worse."
Lilith suppressed a shudder, remembering that ONE bio-warning her probes had detected moments earlier. Which had of course made her opt on going OVERT with her scrying, by using her more powerful magics.
The Scarlet Rot was like nothing she had ever seen before and was something... She'd rather NEVER had seen.
Then again, she and her gang had walked in another realm recently with diseases even worse, she supposed.
Nurgle was an actual thing, she recalled back in the Warhammer 40k realm. Nasty!!
. . .
Do remember that name and setting here in the future! It will . . .become relevant.
…
"That would not do at all!" Lilith finishes off. "Especially if the one young woman I detected was somehow VICTIM of that VERY THING in some way. Would be more concerned about things and not be even THINKING about coming here if not for a pure gold magic needle keeping her scarlet rot in check!"
"What?!' the Fell Omen shouts in alarm. Bad enough that this was the VERY first time he had heard of anything about anything about an actual ARMY of Tarnished having attacked Stormveil Castle. But that the fools had used Crimson Rot?! In that manner?
Nobody but NOBODY with any sanity (and few with insanity) would dare try such a ploy, because of how dangerous that curse/disease happened to be! Ah, and Morgott is not the only one who'd been alarmed about this insanity. Lilith and those who'd been traveling with her had been VERY alarmed about the young woman's infection of Crimson Rot (even if it had been held in check with an unalloyed gold needle). The fact that more of the same should have been used on the castle? Even IF the physical evidence had been mystically whisked away . . .
…
In his time line.
Yes, it is pretty much as you have figured. This Morgott the Omen King (who moonlights as Margit the Fell) happens to hale from another reality (aka an "invader" as they call doppelgangers here about).
"Especially when said Tarnished Army unleashed Crimson Rot upon the castle," adds Godwyn, gesturing back towards the way he came. "The tales that Craw . . .that Crawa 'the Winged' told me was most alarming things. Which . . .I can see you had no idea has happened?"
With a minimal of back and forth between brothers the fact that Morgott the Omen King finally confirm what those who are reading have by NOW figured out. So now everyone was on the same page (more or less). Morgott now was aware that his doppelganger had been defeat while barring the way to the castle from the Tarnished Army. The other Omen King was probably still back in the Royal Capital of Leyndell, taking care of the business of running the city (from the shadows) and such. So as such the OTHER Morgott wasn't aware YET of what was going on here. . . .
Back at the Capital, meanwhile....
Margit the Fell (let us called him this to differentiate from the Omen back at Stormveil Castle), after having seen the now much healthier Erdtree (among other things) is attempting to figure OUT what in the Hell is going on here.
But while trying to direct everything (and trying NOT to pull out his hair over reports of isolated town guards here and there questioning his authority) and a bunch of the peasantry being out and about instead of observing the curfew...
And trying to not pull his hair out in trying to figure out why it seemed like everyone in the city (and those who lived OUTSIDE the city) seemed to be so . . . unconcerned about all the changes about. The Erdtree being back to full health (but still baring entry to all that try to enter). Why all those about him seemed so . . .passive and submissive to given orders from those with authority....
<....>
Above and inside the Erdtree another . . .entity is also wanting to tear it's metaphorical hair out as well. Nice and well that the Elden Ring is no longer shattered. That the shards are now back in place (including certain shards which Queen Marika had removed without authorization), but . . .why were there Great Shards still out in the wild? With the Shard Bearers? Why were the minor Shards still out in the wild? Still being used as currency?
How did this happen? Who did this?! The Entity had just finally gotten back to fix things and . . .somebody already did it.
Well, he/she/it would look into it more thoroughly instead of from afar after fixing the broken Queen. The . . .more agreeable one who'd been screaming in rage at her mirror still crucified above, enraged at what her doppelganger had done of her own free will while she (the other) had been a mere puppet . . .
And then FINALLY that anomaly can be addressed! Why in the Blind Eternities was that Outer Goddess still here?! The sacrificial offering by way of the Contingency should have satiated her to where she would have naff-ed off to where ever Outer Gods and Goddess scamper off to when not interfering with an honest Deity's hard work. She had the Emperium in hand to play with, but NOOOO!!! Still scampering about, mucking things up here and there by just LINGERING!!
As safety measure, as much as this Entity found such extreme measures distasteful even for him/her, better to have the masses at large held in a passive/submissive state than needlessly panicking and tearing all things down. Not before the Entity could make their next move....
When his train of thought is interrupted by a single, screamed name. A male voice that is very familiar to those who are familiar with the James Bond movie franchise: Roger Moore.
It is a dead ringer for that actor's voice, but while Human enough but . . .more is than human! It says A name.
Not that the Greater Will would know that...
<....>
Said in hate.
AND RAGE!!
"NURGLE!!" is the screamed name. And the name of the screamer? Well, he has had many names throughout his long years. The latest name he called himself was Revelation, but almost everyone else in the Imperium calls him the Emperor of Mankind....
The Emperor then pauses as he Senses that the target of his rage might, just MIGHT not be the Demon God after all. While the burst of Psyker energy did a satisfying amount of damage? Seems that it d
He does not say "Oops", but Lilith can see a slight look of consternation as his form shifts back to that of Roger Moore's James Bond as he walks more fully into Lilith's field of view afforded her by her Tarot reading's "screen".
"Uh . . your Imperial Grace?" Lilith Quatermain laughs nervously as he pulls up next to the sister/group leader of their little adventuring group. "I was only . . .attempting to get into contact with the rest of my missing group. That and/or contact some folks over at a place called the Halligtree? Didn't know sister Rei had been hobnobbing with you before I interrupted. So sorry!"
Honestly, if Lilith had KNOWN that one of the first people besides her sister should have been the Master of Mankind himself? She would have at least not been so flip when attempting to contact sister Rei! Using her old CB "handle" of "Angel the Second" while trying to see see if the "First Children" (aka Rei) or any of the others would have their "ears on" had been funny enough to use at the time.
The looks of the others around her of confusion had been funny enough for a small chuckle. That look on Miquella's face (adding to the slight cute blush he'd taken on after she'd shown interest in at least going on a date). . . .
Priceless!
But . . .
....
Perhaps using that souvenir deck of cards (that one spare deck of the Emperor's Tarot) had been a bad idea? Then again, what with the interference Lilith had been getting at almost every turn from the Erdtree for her less mundane means of scrying and communications? The Emperor's Tarot had that little "something extra" to get through what basically what Lilith mentally calls it screaming magical "interference"!
Ah yes, the Emperor of Mankind? You know, that one chap from the tabletop game Warhammer 40K? The one game who's setting is basically everything cranked up to eleven (at a the least)?
Kind of a given that He has a History with hating Demon Gods, four major ones in particular. Of which, the Demon God of disease and rot is being one of them!
Which . . .is what the . . .Emperor of Mankind is mistaking the deity behind Crimson Rot. Which Crimson Rot just happens to have within her, albeit held in check by the Unalloyed Needle.
Earlier there? The Emperor had blinked having realized (too late) that the entity on the other side of the Tarot hand that Lilith had dealt on a CHEAPLY made card table, in the Lands Between. He looks out sees that the blow he'd put forth to drive back his Enemy . . .is both much more lethal than intended.
That and the target of His ire is not a Warp entity known as a Demon God at all! But rather soon enough something quiet a bit different, a magical entity we know as an Outer God.
Yep, as you may have guessed? Lilith . . .had been attempting to use her card deck in a magical communications to attempt to reach out and contact various peoples out in the wider realms of this odd world she'd landed in here. This had been with permission from Lord Godrick (having finally won free from the fretful children from earlier there) so well and good! With the stipulation that the Grafted Scion she'd been traveling with up until now would have her sword drawn, ready to strike her down if Lilith should attempt some kind of betrayal.
Which Lilith understood the idea, even if she didn't exactly appreciate that. And that the kindly Grafted Scion girl should be put into such a position.
At least nobody was yelling for her head. What with that wave of Gold there only striking one young woman, without actually killing her!
Ah? That Gold wave? Well....
A wave of GOLD hits the blinking crimson haired woman who just happens to be afflicted with said Crimson Rot, and staggers as the power of the most powerful human Psyker in the Imperium of Mankind, and she finds herself on the ground (on her posterior). Feeling something . . .absent now within her and the the unalloyed needle quivering almost like a tuning fork! A tuning fork that is quivering like it had been struck with GREAT force instead of HER quivering like a tuning fork (sort of speak).
"What?!" the young woman blinks, wondering what in the Hells that was about and why her head is spinning so much.
Elsewhere. . . .
A figure stares, looking on as the Lake of Rot's shore. Or rather, the spot where the Rot had ended and receded to something like to a fourth of what it had been until now. Accompanied by a scream of absolute agony and now the soft (but gurgling) crying of a woman somewhere in the distance.
"What the hell?" the holder of the Rune of Death mutters, flummoxed at this latest development.
Looking at the small, blue skinned doll he'd come across elsewhere, earlier . . .
Shaking his head, the Shadow knew that whatever just happened was NOT due to her.
She was . . .truly beyond being able to do anything, good or bad, due to a fatal encounter with her doppelganger
Weird enough that the Boss of his Boss to give an Order that this Shadow NEVER expected to be given (much less be ABLE to follow).
But the Greater Will (for that was what the Entity who'd came to him up in Crumbling Farum Azula . . .
After getting the Fingerslayer Blade in order deal with the traitors? To deal with the puppet masters? The true reason why Queen Marika was as she was now?
What was this latest development? His last target was on the other side of this Lake, but if the Greater Will was able to do THIS while healing the mind of his Queen (shattered after so long from the agony of crucifixion and EVERYTING ELSE she'd endured while being puppet-ed by the Two Fingers)...
It was with a flash of Gold, but it wasn't the Gold of the Greater Will. Of anything of the Golden Order . . .
It was . . .different . . .Alien!
Also Elsewhere . . .
"Mommy?" a young girl's pain filled voice whimpers, drawing a groan out of a young woman with a golden prosthetic arm.
She had just drawn forth an unalloyed Golden Needle. To die as herself instead of Blossoming/ To rot away to nothing. To have the Tarnished who'd accompanied her here to deliver it to Malenia.
"Where's Mommy?" another young girl's voice asks. "Who's this icky bug?"
"Huh?" The young woman calling herself Millicent mutters intelligently, looking into the golden eyes of . . .five young girls who look VERY familiar Four of them look to be the very "sisters" who'd been out to strike her down. Force her to bloom!
But . . .they cannot be those, since they are all . . .three years old! Too young by far. The very ages where they'd come out of the swamp where they'd spawned and the poison their "father" had poured into their ears for years on end, warping them into monsters
But who was this fifth little girl? Who was this face that was so like her own? The one she'd seen in the mirror? Except, why was she also three?!
Who was that shriveled corpse over there? What damnable Kindred of Rot?!
Why was she still here? Where was the pain?
Where was the Rot?
Why hadn't she Rotted away into nothing?
Why did she have a cracking headache about fit to split her skull open? Gods! It was almost like her head was vibrating like a tuning fork.
Groaning softly, Millicent wanted more than anything right then and there to curl up into a ball and just pray that the pain would pass.
"Who are you?" twin adult female voices ask to the left (and right) of the youngsters and Millicent.
Groaning again, M Millicent cracks opens her eyes. Glancing over to where one of the adult's voice came from, Millicent freezes. It was HER!!
"MOMMY!!" a young set of voices behind Millicent screams (apparently being somehow able to throw off whatever had hit them all perhaps due to sheer youthful vigor . . .or just plane luck) followed by the scampering of little feet over to the owner. Passing by Millicent from behind, over next to Malenia! Past some VERY familiar liking three year old red headed girls.
And at the same time? The original group of three year old look confused for a second, first glancing back at the crimson haired demigoddess before them. One standing in a pile of golden limbs, who's staring wide eyed at a health set of limbs.
And then at somebody with the same voice a Malenia before them . . ..
Turning her head, Millicent turns to see the same face and form. One with a similar set of golden limbs, but who's face is marked. Marked with the the splotches and marks of Crimson Rot, but only the very beginning stages of infection.
Off to the side, a US nuclear submarine (the USS Georgia) given human form looks over at a WW2 two Mahan destroyer (USS Oppenheimer) given human form and shakes her head in askance.
Suddenly finding themselves here back on Earth? With the (NOT!) God Emperor of Mankind (of the 30th Millennium) and that odd blue haired and WINGED (NOT!) Sister of Battle chatting with somebody that had contacted them magically?
Confusing.
What is this latest bit of insanity? These gingers who are looking around now, pained but wondering now after asking who each other were? Little girls who asked their Mommy was (and apparently finding it in the two EIGHT FOOT TALL Valkyrie looking women)?
Now they all were looking around, confused and with more questions!
Like asking where the Erdtree (whatever the hell that was) happened to be?
The towering Amazonian women looking down at the gaggles of three year old girls snuggling (cute as buttons) up to them, clearly split between wanting to protest that they are not their mothers. And wishing to lean down and give them the most loving hugs....
And what in the hell were tarnished and why the concerned looks, when they glanced over at Georgia and the Fleet of ship girls?!
"Do you know these assholes?" USS Georgia asks the former abyssal submarine from the Crossroad Fleet.
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Annoyed Catholic
Moody fellow
One Thing After Another for the Gingers...
As the Tsukumogami known as the USS Georgia asks that question, all "higher powers", both alien and native, are wondering something similar right now. Having seen a until now unknown "god" having casually brutalized the Outer God known as the Crimson Rot. Injuring it almost to the point where it barely hangs on, too injured to do more right now but lie where it was struck and cry in agony from what the Emperor of Mankind did to it.
Some are curious. That is all they can be, considering their alien nature, having no true understanding of . . .death. Cessation of life. Ending of existence.
Some do have those concept, in one way or another. In Varying degrees allowed to their alien nature. So? Those few are are concerned
VERY CONCERNED!! ESPECIALLY THE GREATER WILL!
"Lilith" had been a concern and something of a mystery. But deemed as not an immediate threat.
This "Emperor of Mankind" guy?
THIS kind of thing makes a deity stand back and take notice!!
Who is this newest interloper, and what does he want?!
Are They next?
….
Will the Lands Between be destroyed or warped beyond recognition due to this newcomer?
With USS Georgia
"Do you know these assholes?" I ask my fellow submarine ship-girl, giving up trying to figure out how this gaggle of red heads figure into this latest . . .thing.
"Never laid eyes on them before now," the submarine ship-girl admits, dashing any hope of a quick resolution of mysteriously appearing gingers in our midst.
...
Nothing was over there just a moment ago, and now? BOOM, red heads aplenty!!
After I heard the Emperor of Mankind (!!) yell something heated at one of the people back there a bit!
Bet it was Kirk, he's got the knack at getting under the skin right now!
How in the Hell did he ever get a star-ship, much less the Enterprise?!
…
Yeah, anyway! Redheads! Out of the f*cking thin air!! Of which, the two towering red heads are armed with gain FUCK OFF huge KATANNAS. Albeit ones which are currently attached to what look like golden prosthetic arms.
But HEY? ABOUT THAT?
Mere details!
Yep, I had just taken a small walk, to clear the air a bit after having my FILL of Captain James (Mother F*cking) T. Kirk.
That Commodore guy was okay, but Kirk?
NO! Just no! No wonder that blue haired Sister of Battle (or whatever) wasn't too taken with the man!
At least with the Emperor over yonder, you had charm to go with that . . .that rep of his. Back from the twentieth century when he went by the name James Bond!!
His Warmaster isn't too shabby as well, and at least isn't to smarmy with women who hold command (like which you'd expect from ship girl Princesses).
Lord knows that Kirk sure doesn't have it, though he TRIES to hide it...
Whatta pr*ck!! Star Fleet captain or not? The man is too full of himself by far!
Compare Kirk to the Commodore is no contest, the Commodore there wins all tests. But then again it might be that I was Not a fan of Shatner's portrayal of him so . . .
Nah! No question about it. Kirk is a jerk.
But speaking of questions!
. . .
Kind of like how we all got here in this field? I ask myself. I mean what exactly was this bad and nasty baddie from a Stephen King novel going to do there? That Author/Random Omnipotent Being? Which did what here exactly?!
By means of a ROB, who zapped us all here. Who also forged that paperwork from Saratoga to allow me access through the Gate, onto her Earth and to MARS!! Or was that that one fugitive from a Stephen King novel, that Randal Flagg jerk?
Jesus Christ on a pogo-stick, this is my life now? I mean being reborn as and Abyssal Submarine Princess is odd at times, I will admit (quietly) to myself, but this?!
,,,,
God, I am going to have so much paperwork and investigations! I JUST KNOW IT!! And I HATE PAPERWORK!!
*Saratoga, does that blue haired 'not' Sister of Battle/Living Saint know anything about a bunch of red heads just magically showing up here?* I radioed over to my long time (albeit sometimes estranged for various reasons) friend, the red haired Lexington class ship-girl, USS Saratoga. *A bunch of little girls with two warrior woman/Valkyrie types? With long hair and armed with some kind of golden katannas of all things by chance, eh?*
Meanwhile with Malenia, Blade of Miquella (aka the one not renamed Trina)...
"Where is the Erdtree?" the red headed Valkyrie finally giving voice to one of the many questions running through her mind.
Many questions are running through her mind, indeed! Questions like... Who are these . . .wonderful children snuggling up to her and calling her "Mommy"? Surely they don't mean her? How in the name of Marika's TITS could she be the little ones' mother, considering that any man who'd ever attempt the . . .acts needed for giving her children was doomed to failure?! The Crimson Rot, It would ruin their dangly bits AND the Rot had seen her to be MOST incapable of bearing children. Dammit.
"Who are thou?" Malenia asks her almost twin (again after being interrupted by her . . .children?), the somewhat shorter red haired woman with a golden prosthetic arm like the one she had been sporting (up until she found herself HERE, replaced with a living flesh and blood one).
...
Why does she have flesh and blood limbs again after the Rot had caused them to ROT away?
Shaking her head slightly--and noting that her identical twin seems to be glancing down at her own limbs and asking herself the same question--Malenia, Blade of Miquella (male edition, but she doesn't know that wrinkle yet), waits for this young woman with the prosthetic arm to speak.
That and being content to let the crowd of odd Tarnished people (and other people with appearances somewhat akin to Misbegotten and Demi-humans) stay well away from them for the moment. If they showed no hostility to her and hers? She'd return the courtesy. AT least until she gets this first part sorted out...
THAT was the way she felt this entire SITUATION she'd suddenly found herself in unexpectedly should be handled.
So! With that?
With the Red Haired Young Woman with the golden prosthesis..
"My-my name is Millicent," the red haired young sword maiden stutters while tightly holding her unalloyed golden needle. "I came from a long ways away to deliver this to you. I-I believe I am somehow related to you? A daughter or sister?"
A little red head three year old girl with a familiar name...
"But I'mma Melina," one of the little red haired girls who looked . . .disturbingly familiar to the golden prothesised warrior woman. A tiny girl who, like those in her group, are being mostly ignored in favor of the adults talking and trying to figure out what in the @#$@#$ is going on here.
"Me too," the twin of the first little girl echoes. "Maybe she like how we have two Mommies and all stuff like this?"
"Let's share Mommies and names then with her?" the Pollyanna still snuggling. "And maybe have her as Big Sister?"
Soft mutterings soon come to some kind of consensuses, some of which will bring consternation to the adults...
Meanwhile, back with "Big Sister" Melina...
Having said what she had said...
The last part is delivered with more than a little trace of hope. In what she'd thought would have been her last moments, she's settled on the idea and hope that the Tarnished she'd traveled with would deliver the Unalloyed Gold Needle to Malenia. To restore her dignity...
Of course, that plan had been with the understanding that there was just ONE Malenia.
And what was it with all those little girls (two of which just strike her as so . . .familiar)?
"Where did thou . . .?" Malenia blinks, knowing that that thing had gotten misplaced during her fight with that brother kidnapping scum, Radahn.
"MAKE A HOLE!" a female's voice interrupts whatever the red headed demigoddess was exactly to ask.
Turning in consternation, BOTH Malenias look to the source of the voice.
The wall of oddly dressed woman Tarnished (for what else could they be without the golden grace in their eyes) parts way to show a small odd gathering of people.
The red haired woman with long hair has an air of command to her and seems (somehow) to have been the source of the voice. However, she is not the one that draws all but a slither of their attention.
It is not the armored figures (two giants and one more normal sized female warrior . . .with blue wings and hair).
Nor anyone else, except for a translucent mirage of a scene elsewhere.
The scene is from a place the sword women remember rather well, having given the owner a most deserved comeuppance for daring to insult them and their twin siblings
It was Stormveil Castle! But the two figures in the mirage that draws their attention? The two figures they've never actually seen.
Not grown up, anyway.....
"Miquella?" both crimson Valkyries whisper in shock, not expecting this at all on top of everything else!
As the Tsukumogami known as the USS Georgia asks that question, all "higher powers", both alien and native, are wondering something similar right now. Having seen a until now unknown "god" having casually brutalized the Outer God known as the Crimson Rot. Injuring it almost to the point where it barely hangs on, too injured to do more right now but lie where it was struck and cry in agony from what the Emperor of Mankind did to it.
Some are curious. That is all they can be, considering their alien nature, having no true understanding of . . .death. Cessation of life. Ending of existence.
Some do have those concept, in one way or another. In Varying degrees allowed to their alien nature. So? Those few are are concerned
VERY CONCERNED!! ESPECIALLY THE GREATER WILL!
"Lilith" had been a concern and something of a mystery. But deemed as not an immediate threat.
This "Emperor of Mankind" guy?
THIS kind of thing makes a deity stand back and take notice!!
Who is this newest interloper, and what does he want?!
Are They next?
….
Will the Lands Between be destroyed or warped beyond recognition due to this newcomer?
With USS Georgia
"Do you know these assholes?" I ask my fellow submarine ship-girl, giving up trying to figure out how this gaggle of red heads figure into this latest . . .thing.
"Never laid eyes on them before now," the submarine ship-girl admits, dashing any hope of a quick resolution of mysteriously appearing gingers in our midst.
...
Nothing was over there just a moment ago, and now? BOOM, red heads aplenty!!
After I heard the Emperor of Mankind (!!) yell something heated at one of the people back there a bit!
Bet it was Kirk, he's got the knack at getting under the skin right now!
How in the Hell did he ever get a star-ship, much less the Enterprise?!
…
Yeah, anyway! Redheads! Out of the f*cking thin air!! Of which, the two towering red heads are armed with gain FUCK OFF huge KATANNAS. Albeit ones which are currently attached to what look like golden prosthetic arms.
But HEY? ABOUT THAT?
Mere details!
Yep, I had just taken a small walk, to clear the air a bit after having my FILL of Captain James (Mother F*cking) T. Kirk.
That Commodore guy was okay, but Kirk?
NO! Just no! No wonder that blue haired Sister of Battle (or whatever) wasn't too taken with the man!
At least with the Emperor over yonder, you had charm to go with that . . .that rep of his. Back from the twentieth century when he went by the name James Bond!!
His Warmaster isn't too shabby as well, and at least isn't to smarmy with women who hold command (like which you'd expect from ship girl Princesses).
Lord knows that Kirk sure doesn't have it, though he TRIES to hide it...
Whatta pr*ck!! Star Fleet captain or not? The man is too full of himself by far!
Compare Kirk to the Commodore is no contest, the Commodore there wins all tests. But then again it might be that I was Not a fan of Shatner's portrayal of him so . . .
Nah! No question about it. Kirk is a jerk.
But speaking of questions!
. . .
Kind of like how we all got here in this field? I ask myself. I mean what exactly was this bad and nasty baddie from a Stephen King novel going to do there? That Author/Random Omnipotent Being? Which did what here exactly?!
By means of a ROB, who zapped us all here. Who also forged that paperwork from Saratoga to allow me access through the Gate, onto her Earth and to MARS!! Or was that that one fugitive from a Stephen King novel, that Randal Flagg jerk?
Jesus Christ on a pogo-stick, this is my life now? I mean being reborn as and Abyssal Submarine Princess is odd at times, I will admit (quietly) to myself, but this?!
,,,,
God, I am going to have so much paperwork and investigations! I JUST KNOW IT!! And I HATE PAPERWORK!!
*Saratoga, does that blue haired 'not' Sister of Battle/Living Saint know anything about a bunch of red heads just magically showing up here?* I radioed over to my long time (albeit sometimes estranged for various reasons) friend, the red haired Lexington class ship-girl, USS Saratoga. *A bunch of little girls with two warrior woman/Valkyrie types? With long hair and armed with some kind of golden katannas of all things by chance, eh?*
Meanwhile with Malenia, Blade of Miquella (aka the one not renamed Trina)...
"Where is the Erdtree?" the red headed Valkyrie finally giving voice to one of the many questions running through her mind.
Many questions are running through her mind, indeed! Questions like... Who are these . . .wonderful children snuggling up to her and calling her "Mommy"? Surely they don't mean her? How in the name of Marika's TITS could she be the little ones' mother, considering that any man who'd ever attempt the . . .acts needed for giving her children was doomed to failure?! The Crimson Rot, It would ruin their dangly bits AND the Rot had seen her to be MOST incapable of bearing children. Dammit.
"Who are thou?" Malenia asks her almost twin (again after being interrupted by her . . .children?), the somewhat shorter red haired woman with a golden prosthetic arm like the one she had been sporting (up until she found herself HERE, replaced with a living flesh and blood one).
...
Why does she have flesh and blood limbs again after the Rot had caused them to ROT away?
Shaking her head slightly--and noting that her identical twin seems to be glancing down at her own limbs and asking herself the same question--Malenia, Blade of Miquella (male edition, but she doesn't know that wrinkle yet), waits for this young woman with the prosthetic arm to speak.
That and being content to let the crowd of odd Tarnished people (and other people with appearances somewhat akin to Misbegotten and Demi-humans) stay well away from them for the moment. If they showed no hostility to her and hers? She'd return the courtesy. AT least until she gets this first part sorted out...
THAT was the way she felt this entire SITUATION she'd suddenly found herself in unexpectedly should be handled.
So! With that?
With the Red Haired Young Woman with the golden prosthesis..
"My-my name is Millicent," the red haired young sword maiden stutters while tightly holding her unalloyed golden needle. "I came from a long ways away to deliver this to you. I-I believe I am somehow related to you? A daughter or sister?"
A little red head three year old girl with a familiar name...
"But I'mma Melina," one of the little red haired girls who looked . . .disturbingly familiar to the golden prothesised warrior woman. A tiny girl who, like those in her group, are being mostly ignored in favor of the adults talking and trying to figure out what in the @#$@#$ is going on here.
"Me too," the twin of the first little girl echoes. "Maybe she like how we have two Mommies and all stuff like this?"
"Let's share Mommies and names then with her?" the Pollyanna still snuggling. "And maybe have her as Big Sister?"
Soft mutterings soon come to some kind of consensuses, some of which will bring consternation to the adults...
Meanwhile, back with "Big Sister" Melina...
Having said what she had said...
The last part is delivered with more than a little trace of hope. In what she'd thought would have been her last moments, she's settled on the idea and hope that the Tarnished she'd traveled with would deliver the Unalloyed Gold Needle to Malenia. To restore her dignity...
Of course, that plan had been with the understanding that there was just ONE Malenia.
And what was it with all those little girls (two of which just strike her as so . . .familiar)?
"Where did thou . . .?" Malenia blinks, knowing that that thing had gotten misplaced during her fight with that brother kidnapping scum, Radahn.
"MAKE A HOLE!" a female's voice interrupts whatever the red headed demigoddess was exactly to ask.
Turning in consternation, BOTH Malenias look to the source of the voice.
The wall of oddly dressed woman Tarnished (for what else could they be without the golden grace in their eyes) parts way to show a small odd gathering of people.
The red haired woman with long hair has an air of command to her and seems (somehow) to have been the source of the voice. However, she is not the one that draws all but a slither of their attention.
It is not the armored figures (two giants and one more normal sized female warrior . . .with blue wings and hair).
Nor anyone else, except for a translucent mirage of a scene elsewhere.
The scene is from a place the sword women remember rather well, having given the owner a most deserved comeuppance for daring to insult them and their twin siblings
It was Stormveil Castle! But the two figures in the mirage that draws their attention? The two figures they've never actually seen.
Not grown up, anyway.....
"Miquella?" both crimson Valkyries whisper in shock, not expecting this at all on top of everything else!
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Last Notes
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
Right. So, I know this fic has been dormant for a long time on SB/SV On other sites I've talked about my plans for this fic, but never here. So, to clear things up: this fic is dead. It wasn't intended to finish here, but that's where it wound up ending. I'm happy where it cut off, by and large - if you wan to think of a 'canon' ending, just think of it ending before Millicent arrives at Fort Haight. Taylor and her buddies are just living in a nice seaside castle, contentedly insulated from the horrors of the Lands Between. As for why the fic is ending, I tend to take long breaks after finishing a major arc, to give myself time to recharge and think up some new ideas. I did that with Russian Caravan a good few times - BYIQMC emerged from one of those breaks, actually. Sometimes I come back and just pick up where things left off, and sometimes I come back, review what I've written, and decide that it might not be worth continuing. RC was almost in that state - there's a whole chunk of chapters that had to be scrapped because I wasn't happy with them. BYIQMC is definitely in that state, and the DLC coming out just sealed things.
Basically: if I were to continue BYIQMC, I'd be rewriting quite a few of the last chapters by default, just to lay the groundwork for a different kind of pacing. That was pre-DLC, and was already a bit of a stumbling block to me getting back into it. Then the DLC came out... and I haven't played it. My computer can't run it (I had to downgrade to a weaker laptop after my old one broke), I haven't played video games generally for over a year now, and I'd kinda moved on from Elden Ring. Loved the game, loved the setting, but I'd spent a while building up my headcanons, characterisations, all that jazz. DLC, to my understanding, rewrites all of that. So I wouldn't just be rewriting the last few chapters, I'd have to rethink everything from a lore perspective. And given that I've finished up with my old job and no longer have as much time for writing...
Yeah. BYIQMC is, alas, over. I hope you all you can understand why, given the reasons above.
However - I'm not going to just leave with an apology and an explanation. I did have some plans going forwards, which never quite coalesced into a solid plotline. More of a disconnected string of ideas. So, I'll post all of those, that way people can at least see where things might've gone. I'll also include some ideas for an earlier draft of BYIQMC which I only abandoned midway through. Keep in mind that all of this is pre-DLC. I haven't played it, I haven't read up on the lore, I do not know what happens in it, beyond the memes people have thrown at me from time to time. This is especially important for some characterisations. All of these are just ideas, if I'd written a continuation, a bunch of this would've been abandoned, or shrunk down. It's happened before with this fic, and it would've happened again.
But given that they're just ideas, I might as well throw everything I have at the wall.
Alright. Here we go.
Post-Haight
Irina, Tisiphone, and Crawa
Taylor, Rya, and Millicent
Angharad
Ranni
Marika
Endings
Notes
Alternate BYIQMC
Alright. Done. There's the summary. That's it. That's the last bit of content. Just for a bit of closure. Now I really really need to sleep. There's definitely stuff I've missed, and I'll be happy to answer questions if you have any. Hope you're all having a nice Christmas!
Basically: if I were to continue BYIQMC, I'd be rewriting quite a few of the last chapters by default, just to lay the groundwork for a different kind of pacing. That was pre-DLC, and was already a bit of a stumbling block to me getting back into it. Then the DLC came out... and I haven't played it. My computer can't run it (I had to downgrade to a weaker laptop after my old one broke), I haven't played video games generally for over a year now, and I'd kinda moved on from Elden Ring. Loved the game, loved the setting, but I'd spent a while building up my headcanons, characterisations, all that jazz. DLC, to my understanding, rewrites all of that. So I wouldn't just be rewriting the last few chapters, I'd have to rethink everything from a lore perspective. And given that I've finished up with my old job and no longer have as much time for writing...
Yeah. BYIQMC is, alas, over. I hope you all you can understand why, given the reasons above.
However - I'm not going to just leave with an apology and an explanation. I did have some plans going forwards, which never quite coalesced into a solid plotline. More of a disconnected string of ideas. So, I'll post all of those, that way people can at least see where things might've gone. I'll also include some ideas for an earlier draft of BYIQMC which I only abandoned midway through. Keep in mind that all of this is pre-DLC. I haven't played it, I haven't read up on the lore, I do not know what happens in it, beyond the memes people have thrown at me from time to time. This is especially important for some characterisations. All of these are just ideas, if I'd written a continuation, a bunch of this would've been abandoned, or shrunk down. It's happened before with this fic, and it would've happened again.
But given that they're just ideas, I might as well throw everything I have at the wall.
Alright. Here we go.
Post-Haight
This was going to be... uh, challenging. The idea was that the plotline would split into a few different directions here. Taylor and her new band set out for the north, to try and reach the Altus Plateau. The ultimate goal being to reach Leyndell and investigate why Taylor (and her fellow travellers) wound up dumped here in the first place. However, Millicent's sisters find themselves in a funky situation when one of Mohg's envoys approaches them. He's very much not pleased with Taylor following the theft of his trident, the destruction of his plans, and the theft of his cheese. Mohg's envoy (possibly Varre) works together with Millicent's sisters in order to ruin Taylor's journey. Helping them (to a degree) is Rya and Bote, one of Crawa's lost sisters. They've been captured by Millicent's sisters, and Rya is basically convinced that taking out Taylor is the sort of thing a good scout does - she manipulated a Recusant, after all, and the Volcano Manor was definitely considering treating her as an enemy. Bote's been traumatised by the whole experience of living on Mt. Gelmir, plus a run-in with a Fallingstar beast, and is barely aware of what's happening around her at this point.
Taylor ventures north... and her group is ambushed as they try and get through Stormveil. Rya and Bote are used as bait, and only Bote's efforts are enough to stop the entire gang getting wiped out. Patches is weirdly helpful too, given that he winds up kicking one of Millicent's sisters off the side of the castle.
He wasn't on Taylor's side or anything.
He legitimately just wanted her sword.
The basic strategy for dealing with Taylor is to neutralise her powers by any means necessary. Varre, lovely chap that he is, brought just the sort of tool. See, Malenia is riddled with golden needles, holding back the Scarlet Rot by any means necessary. And during her battle with Radahn, quite a few of those needles came free. Plus, when Mohg kidnapped Miquella, he was able to grab some of his tools, which included some used Malenia needles. These are formed of unalloyed gold, but are soaked in Scarlet Rot. If you have them embedded in you, you're fine - the needles stop the Rot spreading. But remove the needles... and then the Rot has nothing to hold it back. The needles were designed for Malenia, after all, not for regular humans. Taylor can't work with the Scarlet Rot at present, her understanding of the Greater Will doesn't yet permit it - she's barely managing to handle the Formless Mother and Destined Death. And unalloyed gold already banishes the influence of Outer Gods.
She's in a catch-22. Keep the needles in, and lose access to her new powers. Or remove the needles, and hope she can master the Scarlet Rot before it consumes her mind.
In the shock of the ambush, the gang gets separated. Angharad is killed (not permanently), Nepheli and Telavis are separated, Taylor and Millicent use Rya as a hostage against Mohg's lot (the last thing he wants is to be implicated in the death of a scion of the Volcano Manor), which allows them to escape to Liurnia. Crawa, Irina and Tisiphone are stuck together as well. Millicent's sisters scatter the groups, along with a handful of vengeful Tarnished. By the time any of them can get to a position of safety, they're already days apart, and have no idea where the others have gone. Not that safety lasts for long, of course - always being pursued by something. The only way they even survive the ambush is through Patches, Bote, and Rya - Rya as a hostage, Bote after she kills one of Millicent's sisters, and Patches by kicking another one off a cliff.
Roderika was in an awkward position. No idea on whether to keep her alive or not. If she died, I had a half-joking idea where the last Site of Grace she touched was somewhere in the middle of the bloody ocean on the way over to the Lands Between. Leaving her marooned on a desert island... right in time for her illustrious Tarnished ancestor to stop there for a quick break on his journey. Yes, there might've been a Godfrey teaching Roderika how to wrestle arc. Because he can't accept such a shambolically spindly descendant, not at all. But that was just an idea - it might've been abandoned, or reworked.
For future reference, the remaining groups are:
Telavis & Nepheli
Taylor & Rya & Millicent
Crawa & Irina & Tisiphone
Now, here things get messy. Because I had plot ideas for all three of these groups. But, see, I'm not very good at writing such a sprawling storyline. And this leads into a basic problem with continuing BYIQMC - there's too many characters, not many options for slimming things down, and plenty of opportunities for adding characters. The Stormveil gang is Taylor, Irina, Tisiphone, Angharad, Crawa, Roderika, Telavis, Potiphar (though he's very quiet), and to a degree Nepheli - this ignores all the side-characters who jut in from time to time. That's already a bigger cast than I'd necessarily like. Now, let's add Millicent, Rya, Bote... and just to keep going, let's add all the characters who'd need to be properly established as time goes on, like Marika, like Morgott, like Ranni, like the other members of Volcano Manor, like Crawa's other sisters, and so on and so on and so on. If the plot was designed to be more character-focused, I could work on a smaller scale. But BYIQMC...
In short, I'd written myself into a corner. Too many characters, too little time, too broad a scale. If I rewrote BYIQMC from the start, the cast would be dramatically reduced, and the scope of the story would be radically changed. This is why this idea has Angharad and Roderika dying - it clears the cast slightly, and Angharad's further storylines would demand more characters (Sellen and Angharad's sisters, particularly). It's clumsy, but again, written into a corner.
But given that these are just ideas... here are the summaries for the ideas I had for the other groups. Again, these couldn't have been written, there's too much going on in too many settings and eventually my head would explode. If I'd continued, I might've just focused on a single group, and thus made the others do much less.
Anyway. For the sake of spitballing all my ideas into one place:
Taylor ventures north... and her group is ambushed as they try and get through Stormveil. Rya and Bote are used as bait, and only Bote's efforts are enough to stop the entire gang getting wiped out. Patches is weirdly helpful too, given that he winds up kicking one of Millicent's sisters off the side of the castle.
He wasn't on Taylor's side or anything.
He legitimately just wanted her sword.
The basic strategy for dealing with Taylor is to neutralise her powers by any means necessary. Varre, lovely chap that he is, brought just the sort of tool. See, Malenia is riddled with golden needles, holding back the Scarlet Rot by any means necessary. And during her battle with Radahn, quite a few of those needles came free. Plus, when Mohg kidnapped Miquella, he was able to grab some of his tools, which included some used Malenia needles. These are formed of unalloyed gold, but are soaked in Scarlet Rot. If you have them embedded in you, you're fine - the needles stop the Rot spreading. But remove the needles... and then the Rot has nothing to hold it back. The needles were designed for Malenia, after all, not for regular humans. Taylor can't work with the Scarlet Rot at present, her understanding of the Greater Will doesn't yet permit it - she's barely managing to handle the Formless Mother and Destined Death. And unalloyed gold already banishes the influence of Outer Gods.
She's in a catch-22. Keep the needles in, and lose access to her new powers. Or remove the needles, and hope she can master the Scarlet Rot before it consumes her mind.
In the shock of the ambush, the gang gets separated. Angharad is killed (not permanently), Nepheli and Telavis are separated, Taylor and Millicent use Rya as a hostage against Mohg's lot (the last thing he wants is to be implicated in the death of a scion of the Volcano Manor), which allows them to escape to Liurnia. Crawa, Irina and Tisiphone are stuck together as well. Millicent's sisters scatter the groups, along with a handful of vengeful Tarnished. By the time any of them can get to a position of safety, they're already days apart, and have no idea where the others have gone. Not that safety lasts for long, of course - always being pursued by something. The only way they even survive the ambush is through Patches, Bote, and Rya - Rya as a hostage, Bote after she kills one of Millicent's sisters, and Patches by kicking another one off a cliff.
Roderika was in an awkward position. No idea on whether to keep her alive or not. If she died, I had a half-joking idea where the last Site of Grace she touched was somewhere in the middle of the bloody ocean on the way over to the Lands Between. Leaving her marooned on a desert island... right in time for her illustrious Tarnished ancestor to stop there for a quick break on his journey. Yes, there might've been a Godfrey teaching Roderika how to wrestle arc. Because he can't accept such a shambolically spindly descendant, not at all. But that was just an idea - it might've been abandoned, or reworked.
For future reference, the remaining groups are:
Telavis & Nepheli
Taylor & Rya & Millicent
Crawa & Irina & Tisiphone
Now, here things get messy. Because I had plot ideas for all three of these groups. But, see, I'm not very good at writing such a sprawling storyline. And this leads into a basic problem with continuing BYIQMC - there's too many characters, not many options for slimming things down, and plenty of opportunities for adding characters. The Stormveil gang is Taylor, Irina, Tisiphone, Angharad, Crawa, Roderika, Telavis, Potiphar (though he's very quiet), and to a degree Nepheli - this ignores all the side-characters who jut in from time to time. That's already a bigger cast than I'd necessarily like. Now, let's add Millicent, Rya, Bote... and just to keep going, let's add all the characters who'd need to be properly established as time goes on, like Marika, like Morgott, like Ranni, like the other members of Volcano Manor, like Crawa's other sisters, and so on and so on and so on. If the plot was designed to be more character-focused, I could work on a smaller scale. But BYIQMC...
In short, I'd written myself into a corner. Too many characters, too little time, too broad a scale. If I rewrote BYIQMC from the start, the cast would be dramatically reduced, and the scope of the story would be radically changed. This is why this idea has Angharad and Roderika dying - it clears the cast slightly, and Angharad's further storylines would demand more characters (Sellen and Angharad's sisters, particularly). It's clumsy, but again, written into a corner.
But given that these are just ideas... here are the summaries for the ideas I had for the other groups. Again, these couldn't have been written, there's too much going on in too many settings and eventually my head would explode. If I'd continued, I might've just focused on a single group, and thus made the others do much less.
Anyway. For the sake of spitballing all my ideas into one place:
Irina, Tisiphone, and Crawa
The idea here would be addressing two basic plot concerns - the rise of Fort Morne as a kingdom of beasts, and the issues with Tisiphone abandoning her life as a Black Knife. For the kingdom of beasts... the idea is that Morne has been taken over by the Misbegotten, and they've been allowed to develop. The Leonine Misbegotten who's seized control of the castle has certain advantages which have allowed him to repel Tarnished invaders, and the Tarnished army was distracted with Stormveil - plus, Taylor withdrew as many troops as she could for the castle's defence, leaving Morne free to do whatever it liked. The Leonine Misbegotten isn't interested in a crusade of vengeance. Yet. His men certainly are. Anyway, the Leonine has a castle, he has an army. Now, he needs a way of conquering the single advantage that everyone else in the Lands Between has over him - resurrection. The Misbegotten are exiled from the Erdtree's grace, they can't be revived normally, not that the Leonine would want the damn Erdtree helping him anyway. So, his goal is to find the Ancestral Followers below the Earth, and mimic their own method of resurrection - through ancestor spirits, independent of the Erdtree. This is why one of his scouts was found by Elemer in that one chapter. Otherwise, the Leonine is downright pleasant, has real dreams of building a kingdom for his king, and talking to a fallen Beastman of Farum Azula has given him a proper template for what a kingdom of beasts can look like.
As for the advantage he has, that makes him able to resist Tarnished incursions...
AK-47s.
Two of 'em. Plundered from a traveller, much like Taylor. This one just came through with more weaponry. So now a huge lion-man is dual-wielding AK-47s and intends to reverse-engineer them by any means necessary. He wants an army of beasts with the right to bear arms. Both in the sense of guns, and in the sense of maybe grafting some Runebear arms so his men can hold the mythical device he's heard of, the mythical device called 'a Howitzer'.
One little twist, though. The Beastman of Farum Azula? The one who's advising him on what to do with his new kingdom?
It's Patches.
The bastard has a mimic veil, after all. And he's figured out how to use it. He wants the Leonine's guns, and all the treasure Morne's stored up over the years. Plus, the Leonine doesn't know anything about Farum Azula, nothing beyond the name, so Patches can easily manipulate him.
Back to the gang. Irina here is... a lot more vengeful than in canon. She has a full awareness of what happened in Morne, and has been immersed in more than enough violence since then. Plus, Morne is acquainted with vengeance - she's been near an artefact strongly associated with vengeance for her whole life. The road to Liurnia is blocked. She can't reunite with Taylor - to her, Taylor might actually just be dead. She tried peaceful life in Haight. It didn't take. Irina wants revenge for Morne - and yes, she's very much been influenced by Tisiphone, whether Tisiphone likes it or not. The issue being that Irina has zero understanding of how to reclaim Morne. But with Crawa... maybe there's a chance. This plotline would've likely involved this gang of three trying to infiltrate Morne. The Leonine doesn't know about Stormveil's fall, so Crawa can negotiate with him as Godrick's heir. Crawa's motivation here would be to do her father proud. Taylor's separated from her, and Crawa isn't good on her own. She needs someone to lead her, to give her purpose. Plus, she's just seen her sister for a brief moment before the fighting separated them. She's vulnerable. And the idea of taking back Morne, something her father would've wanted to do, would be very tempting to her. A way of making up for her absence at his death - something made even more prominent if she'd encountered the shrivelled brainless remnant of him in Stormveil.
Irina wants some kind of revenge. Crawa wants to make her father proud. And Tisiphone has no idea how to manage them. I have no idea where this plotline would've gone, honestly. I have a setup, but no conclusion. One moment I can imagine happening would be Irina or Crawa stealing the mimic veil and Patches' disguise, then using the same disguise to manipulate the Leonine into doing... something. Maybe just being more aggressive. As Gideon said, all challenge in the Lands Between invites competition - and a rising kingdom of beasts might draw out the Redmanes from Caelid, thus summoning an army to clear out Morne. And given that the Scarlet Rot is becoming more and more of a problem, a more active Redmane army could be useful. Indeed, Millicent's sisters would definitely be drawn back to Caelid if they thought the Redmanes were going to start marching all over the place, burning things down and unmaking years of hard work. But the movement of the Redmanes allows Radahn's bonds to slip, he leaves his usual beach, and... just might wind up shifting the stars a little.
Unlocking fate for a crucial moment.
Tisiphone's plotline here would've revolved around her time as a Black Knife. Her sisters are still alive, and still active (to a degree). Her involvement at Stormveil attracted attention, and maybe Mohg allowed knowledge of her existence to seep down the grapevine to her sisters. He's petty like that. They see only two paths for Tisiphone - either she rejoins, or she's killed permanently to avoid spilling their secrets. More so than she already has, anyway. Ranni's movements are making the Black Knives nervous, and they want all the bodies they can get for a potential assault on her hideaway. But Irina's mad dream to take back Morne means Tisiphone can't go into hiding, she can't just flee the Lands Between and hope for the best. The woman has no idea how to process having friends, and it definitely shows with Irina. She constantly recommends caution with the Morne situation, but Irina ignores her, and Tisiphone can't muster up the willpower to stop her forcefully - terrified of losing the one companion she has left.
This would culminate with a final breaking point. Irina and Crawa ferment a mad plan (mentioned above) involving the Redmanes, and this is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Tisiphone objects strongly. Tries to express how she feels towards Irina, how much she actually cares about the girl, thinking that this might break through to her...
It doesn't.
Irina sees Tisiphone as a normal friend. Not as a lifelong companion. Not as the best thing to ever happen to her. Tisiphone sees Irina as the first person she's met in centuries who's treated her like a normal person, not as an immediate threat. Tisiphone adores Irina, in a way, but the feeling isn't totally reciprocated.
As Irina and Crawa go off to do the last stage of their mad plan, Tisiphone is left alone. She can't go along with them. They won't go along with her. All she has is to rejoin her sisters. Which she does. And that puts Tisiphone on ice until affairs with Ranni spike to a conclusion, and she's brought out with the rest to go and assault Caria Manor.
As for the advantage he has, that makes him able to resist Tarnished incursions...
AK-47s.
Two of 'em. Plundered from a traveller, much like Taylor. This one just came through with more weaponry. So now a huge lion-man is dual-wielding AK-47s and intends to reverse-engineer them by any means necessary. He wants an army of beasts with the right to bear arms. Both in the sense of guns, and in the sense of maybe grafting some Runebear arms so his men can hold the mythical device he's heard of, the mythical device called 'a Howitzer'.
One little twist, though. The Beastman of Farum Azula? The one who's advising him on what to do with his new kingdom?
It's Patches.
The bastard has a mimic veil, after all. And he's figured out how to use it. He wants the Leonine's guns, and all the treasure Morne's stored up over the years. Plus, the Leonine doesn't know anything about Farum Azula, nothing beyond the name, so Patches can easily manipulate him.
Back to the gang. Irina here is... a lot more vengeful than in canon. She has a full awareness of what happened in Morne, and has been immersed in more than enough violence since then. Plus, Morne is acquainted with vengeance - she's been near an artefact strongly associated with vengeance for her whole life. The road to Liurnia is blocked. She can't reunite with Taylor - to her, Taylor might actually just be dead. She tried peaceful life in Haight. It didn't take. Irina wants revenge for Morne - and yes, she's very much been influenced by Tisiphone, whether Tisiphone likes it or not. The issue being that Irina has zero understanding of how to reclaim Morne. But with Crawa... maybe there's a chance. This plotline would've likely involved this gang of three trying to infiltrate Morne. The Leonine doesn't know about Stormveil's fall, so Crawa can negotiate with him as Godrick's heir. Crawa's motivation here would be to do her father proud. Taylor's separated from her, and Crawa isn't good on her own. She needs someone to lead her, to give her purpose. Plus, she's just seen her sister for a brief moment before the fighting separated them. She's vulnerable. And the idea of taking back Morne, something her father would've wanted to do, would be very tempting to her. A way of making up for her absence at his death - something made even more prominent if she'd encountered the shrivelled brainless remnant of him in Stormveil.
Irina wants some kind of revenge. Crawa wants to make her father proud. And Tisiphone has no idea how to manage them. I have no idea where this plotline would've gone, honestly. I have a setup, but no conclusion. One moment I can imagine happening would be Irina or Crawa stealing the mimic veil and Patches' disguise, then using the same disguise to manipulate the Leonine into doing... something. Maybe just being more aggressive. As Gideon said, all challenge in the Lands Between invites competition - and a rising kingdom of beasts might draw out the Redmanes from Caelid, thus summoning an army to clear out Morne. And given that the Scarlet Rot is becoming more and more of a problem, a more active Redmane army could be useful. Indeed, Millicent's sisters would definitely be drawn back to Caelid if they thought the Redmanes were going to start marching all over the place, burning things down and unmaking years of hard work. But the movement of the Redmanes allows Radahn's bonds to slip, he leaves his usual beach, and... just might wind up shifting the stars a little.
Unlocking fate for a crucial moment.
Tisiphone's plotline here would've revolved around her time as a Black Knife. Her sisters are still alive, and still active (to a degree). Her involvement at Stormveil attracted attention, and maybe Mohg allowed knowledge of her existence to seep down the grapevine to her sisters. He's petty like that. They see only two paths for Tisiphone - either she rejoins, or she's killed permanently to avoid spilling their secrets. More so than she already has, anyway. Ranni's movements are making the Black Knives nervous, and they want all the bodies they can get for a potential assault on her hideaway. But Irina's mad dream to take back Morne means Tisiphone can't go into hiding, she can't just flee the Lands Between and hope for the best. The woman has no idea how to process having friends, and it definitely shows with Irina. She constantly recommends caution with the Morne situation, but Irina ignores her, and Tisiphone can't muster up the willpower to stop her forcefully - terrified of losing the one companion she has left.
This would culminate with a final breaking point. Irina and Crawa ferment a mad plan (mentioned above) involving the Redmanes, and this is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Tisiphone objects strongly. Tries to express how she feels towards Irina, how much she actually cares about the girl, thinking that this might break through to her...
It doesn't.
Irina sees Tisiphone as a normal friend. Not as a lifelong companion. Not as the best thing to ever happen to her. Tisiphone sees Irina as the first person she's met in centuries who's treated her like a normal person, not as an immediate threat. Tisiphone adores Irina, in a way, but the feeling isn't totally reciprocated.
As Irina and Crawa go off to do the last stage of their mad plan, Tisiphone is left alone. She can't go along with them. They won't go along with her. All she has is to rejoin her sisters. Which she does. And that puts Tisiphone on ice until affairs with Ranni spike to a conclusion, and she's brought out with the rest to go and assault Caria Manor.
Taylor, Rya, and Millicent
Now this would've been interesting to write. Taylor's lost her most powerful abilities (largely, she might still have some stuff clinging on), she's separated from the friends she's spent an arc getting to know... and as for her companions? Rya was instrumental in the ambush which damaged her powers. And Millicent is a near-stranger who continuously draws in her feral sisters, who were the ones to prepare the ambush to begin with. She's not on great terms with either of them. And Volcano Manor Recusants are now looking for Rya, which only complicates things more. The only thing keeping Millicent and Rya around is the fact that Taylor needs help from Millicent, and Rya is the only one who can stop the Recusants from attacking immediately. She's a hostage. So, interesting dynamic between the three - and three is a much more manageable number for a storyline.
However, beyond the interesting dynamic, I don't have much else. I have scattered ideas for this plot. Maybe they go to Liurnia and just try to get up to Altus, which involves fighting through the swamps, the crayfish, the knights of the Cuckoo, the crayfish, the dragon, the crayfish, the marionette soldiers... the crayfish. Despite everything, the three end up becoming... almost friends. But they can't get to Altus. The Recusants and Mohg's forces are eager to stop her, and they know she has only one route to Altus. Easy to stop her if they watch the passageway up. A few desperate attempts end in failure. When all seems lost, with Millicent's sisters closing in and the only exit blocked... Crawa and Irina's mad plan pays off, drawing the sisters away, allowing Taylor's crew to get out of the horrible situation they're stuck in, into another area of Liurnia. Maybe leading to an encounter with the Turtle Pope, who instructs Taylor on how to actually engage with the Greater Will/Golden Order. Until now, she's been working purely on instinct, with very little explicit teaching. Losing her control of the Formless Mother and Destined Death left her mostly powerless. Miriel, the Pastor of Vows, can actually give her some education, for once. Something legitimately useful. She's not going to start casting anything related to the Greater Will... yet. She lacks the faith for it. But maybe she's able to develop something like a Thinker ability just by learning to observe the golden strings of structure, the threads which bind everything together under the Greater Will. And that allows her to go for a plan which seems suicidal, but just might work.
As for what that plan is... bit stuck, personally. Maybe it involves manipulating Vyke into doing something. Maybe it involves kidnapping mages to use as bribes for Smarag, getting a ride up to Altus that way. Maybe it involves pitting the Recusants and the Bloody Fingers against one another. Maybe it involves seeing (using her new powers) that Radahn is about to move, shifting fate - and she uses this to intimidate the people in her way. As in, she declares that she's tired of their nonsense, and won't be playing around any further - behold! And at that convenient moment, the stars shift for the first time in centuries.
I don't know. Could've been anything. I quite like the last one, though. Maybe Vyke could be involved, giving her a hand with her grand deception... and this allows him to come into contact with Lansseax. And won't that be fun.
Taylor gets to Altus, and things begin to get messy. Messier, anyway. Rya's role thus far is acting as a source of information on Rykard's blasphemy, and the arguments raised against the Erdtree's continuation. Plus, pleasant company, and maybe she's starting to question the Volcano Manor's strategy thus far. Millicent has just been restraining her Rot, while struggling to put together who she actually is - it's very Taylor-centric, the first chunk of this arc, at least in terms of advancing a personal storyline. But on Altus, things change. Liurnia is unsettled, Limgrave is in ruins, Caelid is active for the first time in forever, the Mohgwyn Dynasty is enraged, and the Volcano Manor is furious. Taylor's using her talent to piss off everyone to the fullest - there's not a single faction which regards her as anything but a massive risk, something to be steered clear of at every opportunity. Not sure what would happen in Altus. Some random ideas: Taylor winds up seeking out Goldmask to continue her education on the Greater Will, as she's getting the feeling that something very fucky is going on with Marika. Potiphar reaches Jarburg, though that would happen in Liurnia, earlier on. The Dung Eater is freed from his containment by Calvert, and has a nasty encounter with Taylor and her crew. Leyndell might well be sealed off, with Morgott forced to defend it against various enemies. The Lands Between is moving to a state of war. The Redmanes are moving, and this allows Radahn to move a little as well. Mohg and Rykard are in an active conflict after botching the execution of Taylor in Liurnia. Ranni (addressed later) isn't doing too hot. And Gideon, with multiple Great Runes, is now moving on Leyndell. He knows Godfrey is returning, thanks to a little bit of observational magic placed on Roderika, and he wants to become Elden Lord before Godfrey can claim the title instead. Vyke is having a bit of romance with Lansseax, but it's hinted that he's moving towards... a less-than-pleasant ending. Not because of Melina, though. Melina has little influence on him. Lansseax does. And... things start to become complex on that front. I'll explain more later.
As you can see, I really don't have a direction from here. So, let's skip ahead to the other vague plot points I had marinating around in my brainpan.
However, beyond the interesting dynamic, I don't have much else. I have scattered ideas for this plot. Maybe they go to Liurnia and just try to get up to Altus, which involves fighting through the swamps, the crayfish, the knights of the Cuckoo, the crayfish, the dragon, the crayfish, the marionette soldiers... the crayfish. Despite everything, the three end up becoming... almost friends. But they can't get to Altus. The Recusants and Mohg's forces are eager to stop her, and they know she has only one route to Altus. Easy to stop her if they watch the passageway up. A few desperate attempts end in failure. When all seems lost, with Millicent's sisters closing in and the only exit blocked... Crawa and Irina's mad plan pays off, drawing the sisters away, allowing Taylor's crew to get out of the horrible situation they're stuck in, into another area of Liurnia. Maybe leading to an encounter with the Turtle Pope, who instructs Taylor on how to actually engage with the Greater Will/Golden Order. Until now, she's been working purely on instinct, with very little explicit teaching. Losing her control of the Formless Mother and Destined Death left her mostly powerless. Miriel, the Pastor of Vows, can actually give her some education, for once. Something legitimately useful. She's not going to start casting anything related to the Greater Will... yet. She lacks the faith for it. But maybe she's able to develop something like a Thinker ability just by learning to observe the golden strings of structure, the threads which bind everything together under the Greater Will. And that allows her to go for a plan which seems suicidal, but just might work.
As for what that plan is... bit stuck, personally. Maybe it involves manipulating Vyke into doing something. Maybe it involves kidnapping mages to use as bribes for Smarag, getting a ride up to Altus that way. Maybe it involves pitting the Recusants and the Bloody Fingers against one another. Maybe it involves seeing (using her new powers) that Radahn is about to move, shifting fate - and she uses this to intimidate the people in her way. As in, she declares that she's tired of their nonsense, and won't be playing around any further - behold! And at that convenient moment, the stars shift for the first time in centuries.
I don't know. Could've been anything. I quite like the last one, though. Maybe Vyke could be involved, giving her a hand with her grand deception... and this allows him to come into contact with Lansseax. And won't that be fun.
Taylor gets to Altus, and things begin to get messy. Messier, anyway. Rya's role thus far is acting as a source of information on Rykard's blasphemy, and the arguments raised against the Erdtree's continuation. Plus, pleasant company, and maybe she's starting to question the Volcano Manor's strategy thus far. Millicent has just been restraining her Rot, while struggling to put together who she actually is - it's very Taylor-centric, the first chunk of this arc, at least in terms of advancing a personal storyline. But on Altus, things change. Liurnia is unsettled, Limgrave is in ruins, Caelid is active for the first time in forever, the Mohgwyn Dynasty is enraged, and the Volcano Manor is furious. Taylor's using her talent to piss off everyone to the fullest - there's not a single faction which regards her as anything but a massive risk, something to be steered clear of at every opportunity. Not sure what would happen in Altus. Some random ideas: Taylor winds up seeking out Goldmask to continue her education on the Greater Will, as she's getting the feeling that something very fucky is going on with Marika. Potiphar reaches Jarburg, though that would happen in Liurnia, earlier on. The Dung Eater is freed from his containment by Calvert, and has a nasty encounter with Taylor and her crew. Leyndell might well be sealed off, with Morgott forced to defend it against various enemies. The Lands Between is moving to a state of war. The Redmanes are moving, and this allows Radahn to move a little as well. Mohg and Rykard are in an active conflict after botching the execution of Taylor in Liurnia. Ranni (addressed later) isn't doing too hot. And Gideon, with multiple Great Runes, is now moving on Leyndell. He knows Godfrey is returning, thanks to a little bit of observational magic placed on Roderika, and he wants to become Elden Lord before Godfrey can claim the title instead. Vyke is having a bit of romance with Lansseax, but it's hinted that he's moving towards... a less-than-pleasant ending. Not because of Melina, though. Melina has little influence on him. Lansseax does. And... things start to become complex on that front. I'll explain more later.
As you can see, I really don't have a direction from here. So, let's skip ahead to the other vague plot points I had marinating around in my brainpan.
Angharad
She's back.
Now, this is an idea. If it happened... hell, I have no idea how I would've done it. But I liked the idea. Basically, Angharad is resurrected, as tends to happen in Elden Ring. Everyone else has moved on at this point to their own storylines, and Angharad is completely in the dark. No idea what's happening. She's in Stormveil... but the castle is empty and ruined. Limgrave seems to be a bit chaotic right now, so she heads through to Liurnia instead, back to her old home. Being a very weak perfumer without much luck on her side, she gets captured by the Knights of the Cuckoo, and dragged to Raya Lucaria for the mages to experiment on. She doesn't manage to manipulate her way up the ranks, she doesn't learn amazing sorcery, she's a hapless paranoid weirdo who's too terrified to speak. Can't even explain that she's a perfumer, which might keep her alive a little longer.
So they throw her to Rennala. They always throw her a few treats, now and again. Just in case she starts getting bored, and thinks of leaving her chambers. This storyline would've involved Angharad meeting Rennala's weird spawn, and trying to stop Rennala from 'rebirthing' her. Maybe she gets a little stunted scholar buddy. But the reason she survives, beyond some early tactics of 'hide in a pile of scholars' and 'pretend to be a very large book', is her chemicals.
The woman has high fantasy meth.
And Rennala is in the middle of an extended mental breakdown that's left her near-catatonic. Turns out losing your husband, then having your two sons basically disown you, then having your one daughter seemingly commit suicide will... do things to someone's mental state.
Angharad has to start inventing medication from scratch. Anything to try and make Rennala more lucid. Burning immense quantities of hemp to get Rennala high enough to leave her alone. Offering a stunted scholar some of her fantasy meth so Rennala has to run after the subsequent rampages, thus buying Angharad more time. And, yes, eventually more sophisticated drugs. It's never perfect, not even close, but the idea is that she's able to make Rennala have a few minutes of lucidity at a time, enough to have an ordinary conversation. Rennala's recovery is never going to be a matter of 'take the right drugs', that's going to require years and years of slow and steady work, but it's enough to stop her being a massive threat to Angharad just by existing. By the end, Angharad is able to survive Rennala's company, and is able to get an insight into Radagon's character.
This last bit is the most important, given that Radagon will become quite important indeed.
Now, this is an idea. If it happened... hell, I have no idea how I would've done it. But I liked the idea. Basically, Angharad is resurrected, as tends to happen in Elden Ring. Everyone else has moved on at this point to their own storylines, and Angharad is completely in the dark. No idea what's happening. She's in Stormveil... but the castle is empty and ruined. Limgrave seems to be a bit chaotic right now, so she heads through to Liurnia instead, back to her old home. Being a very weak perfumer without much luck on her side, she gets captured by the Knights of the Cuckoo, and dragged to Raya Lucaria for the mages to experiment on. She doesn't manage to manipulate her way up the ranks, she doesn't learn amazing sorcery, she's a hapless paranoid weirdo who's too terrified to speak. Can't even explain that she's a perfumer, which might keep her alive a little longer.
So they throw her to Rennala. They always throw her a few treats, now and again. Just in case she starts getting bored, and thinks of leaving her chambers. This storyline would've involved Angharad meeting Rennala's weird spawn, and trying to stop Rennala from 'rebirthing' her. Maybe she gets a little stunted scholar buddy. But the reason she survives, beyond some early tactics of 'hide in a pile of scholars' and 'pretend to be a very large book', is her chemicals.
The woman has high fantasy meth.
And Rennala is in the middle of an extended mental breakdown that's left her near-catatonic. Turns out losing your husband, then having your two sons basically disown you, then having your one daughter seemingly commit suicide will... do things to someone's mental state.
Angharad has to start inventing medication from scratch. Anything to try and make Rennala more lucid. Burning immense quantities of hemp to get Rennala high enough to leave her alone. Offering a stunted scholar some of her fantasy meth so Rennala has to run after the subsequent rampages, thus buying Angharad more time. And, yes, eventually more sophisticated drugs. It's never perfect, not even close, but the idea is that she's able to make Rennala have a few minutes of lucidity at a time, enough to have an ordinary conversation. Rennala's recovery is never going to be a matter of 'take the right drugs', that's going to require years and years of slow and steady work, but it's enough to stop her being a massive threat to Angharad just by existing. By the end, Angharad is able to survive Rennala's company, and is able to get an insight into Radagon's character.
This last bit is the most important, given that Radagon will become quite important indeed.
Ranni
Yeah.
Her.
Ranni would've played a role. The chaos in the Lands Between leads to her accelerating more than a few plans, exploring every possible option with regards to killing the Two Fingers and ushering in her own personal destiny. But... she's not presented as a brilliant mastermind who has the perfect solution to the world's problems, nor is she a raving monster. She's presented more as someone who's got her heart in the right place, but rarely had much control over her own schemes and is helplessly altered by a certain sort of upbringing. I'd be writing her like Senator Armstrong - she's got some interesting ideas, she's charismatic, but she's also completely deluded in other respects. More than willing to start the Shattering by organising Godwyn's death (or so she thinks), and her vision of an improved world is one where people are free to do whatever they want.
Which is a much more attractive prospect when you're the immensely powerful Empyrean child of two royal families.
For someone that powerful, freedom is a lot more... free than it would be for everyone else.
She's not the big bad guy in BYIQMC. Maybe while Taylor's in Altus, Ranni makes contact in an attempt to influence her in one direction or another. Taylor doesn't take too kindly to that - hasn't had a good experience with Ranni's minions in the past. But the shifting of the stars allows Ranni to access the Fingerslayer Blade, which in turn violates a quiet agreement she had with the Black Knives and their masters. See, Ranni did allow for the Night of the Black Knives to happen, alongside Rykard... but she turned against the Black Knives at the end. Alecto, the leader of the Black Knives, was given an extra set of orders by the other person orchestrating the Night (to be revealed in a bit). Once things were done, she'd go back to Ranni, and kill her. Or at least try. Certainly, she was meant to spread knowledge of Ranni's involvement in the Night. But Alecto's daughter Tiche died during the Night, and... Alecto got ahead of herself. Didn't tell the other sisters about her orders, didn't wait to plan things out. Just went and tried to kill Ranni. Ranni, in response, locked her up in that Evergaol. Fighting her directly would involve fighting a highly skilled assassin with accessed to Destined Death - never a good idea. In the aftermath, the Black Knives were left without leadership. Alecto was dead, Tiche was dead, and the supreme source of their orders wasn't answering their calls. All they had was the instruction to 'stop one side from winning the Shattering'. Indeed, for this reason a group of Blcak Knives was dispatched to the Haligtree to take care of Miquella, though they never managed to get inside. Ranni's Two Fingers were able to take control of the order as a consequence.
But when Ranni moves against the Fingers... the Black Knives descend. Tisiphone included. Most of them die - Tisiphone lives. Barely.
They butcher her allies, and like in-game, Ranni is able to escape. But she hasn't got a Tarnished loyal to her who can help her out, which means no passage over the Lake of Rot, no conquering Astel, no taking on the last remnants of the Two Fingers' forces. All she has is one brother who might be able to help her out. So, yes, tiny doll Ranni struggling to reach Rya, because Rya's the best route to Rykard. Tiny doll Ranni being pursued by half-feral deeply-wounded Tisiphone. Rykard, incidentally, is starting to wake up, struggling out of his lava cave so he can lead his forces against Leyndell (things are spiralling faster than he likes, and Tanith is whipping him into a frenzy after losing Rya). This allows Taylor to meet Ranni again, and in turn allows for some information about the Night of the Black Knives to come out. Enough for Taylor to piece together what happened.
Her.
Ranni would've played a role. The chaos in the Lands Between leads to her accelerating more than a few plans, exploring every possible option with regards to killing the Two Fingers and ushering in her own personal destiny. But... she's not presented as a brilliant mastermind who has the perfect solution to the world's problems, nor is she a raving monster. She's presented more as someone who's got her heart in the right place, but rarely had much control over her own schemes and is helplessly altered by a certain sort of upbringing. I'd be writing her like Senator Armstrong - she's got some interesting ideas, she's charismatic, but she's also completely deluded in other respects. More than willing to start the Shattering by organising Godwyn's death (or so she thinks), and her vision of an improved world is one where people are free to do whatever they want.
Which is a much more attractive prospect when you're the immensely powerful Empyrean child of two royal families.
For someone that powerful, freedom is a lot more... free than it would be for everyone else.
She's not the big bad guy in BYIQMC. Maybe while Taylor's in Altus, Ranni makes contact in an attempt to influence her in one direction or another. Taylor doesn't take too kindly to that - hasn't had a good experience with Ranni's minions in the past. But the shifting of the stars allows Ranni to access the Fingerslayer Blade, which in turn violates a quiet agreement she had with the Black Knives and their masters. See, Ranni did allow for the Night of the Black Knives to happen, alongside Rykard... but she turned against the Black Knives at the end. Alecto, the leader of the Black Knives, was given an extra set of orders by the other person orchestrating the Night (to be revealed in a bit). Once things were done, she'd go back to Ranni, and kill her. Or at least try. Certainly, she was meant to spread knowledge of Ranni's involvement in the Night. But Alecto's daughter Tiche died during the Night, and... Alecto got ahead of herself. Didn't tell the other sisters about her orders, didn't wait to plan things out. Just went and tried to kill Ranni. Ranni, in response, locked her up in that Evergaol. Fighting her directly would involve fighting a highly skilled assassin with accessed to Destined Death - never a good idea. In the aftermath, the Black Knives were left without leadership. Alecto was dead, Tiche was dead, and the supreme source of their orders wasn't answering their calls. All they had was the instruction to 'stop one side from winning the Shattering'. Indeed, for this reason a group of Blcak Knives was dispatched to the Haligtree to take care of Miquella, though they never managed to get inside. Ranni's Two Fingers were able to take control of the order as a consequence.
But when Ranni moves against the Fingers... the Black Knives descend. Tisiphone included. Most of them die - Tisiphone lives. Barely.
They butcher her allies, and like in-game, Ranni is able to escape. But she hasn't got a Tarnished loyal to her who can help her out, which means no passage over the Lake of Rot, no conquering Astel, no taking on the last remnants of the Two Fingers' forces. All she has is one brother who might be able to help her out. So, yes, tiny doll Ranni struggling to reach Rya, because Rya's the best route to Rykard. Tiny doll Ranni being pursued by half-feral deeply-wounded Tisiphone. Rykard, incidentally, is starting to wake up, struggling out of his lava cave so he can lead his forces against Leyndell (things are spiralling faster than he likes, and Tanith is whipping him into a frenzy after losing Rya). This allows Taylor to meet Ranni again, and in turn allows for some information about the Night of the Black Knives to come out. Enough for Taylor to piece together what happened.
Marika
And here we come to the big thing which would need changing. Because I understand that Marika's character has been significantly changed by the DLC, in ways I... just don't know about. I have no clue what it's changed, but I understand it's a lot. So here was my take on Marika.
Marika was a war goddess. Elden Ring's world has moved through stages of development and civilisation, something mentioned in a few item descriptions. The dragons ruled over an inchoate world of beasts, where the Primordial Crucible ran rampant, where humanity was fairly insignificant. Marika was effectively a cavewoman - she was primitive, violent, and had few prospects in life. The reason she wears hobnail boots is because her birth culture regarded hobnail boots as a sign of divine kingship - the only good metal they had was meteoric iron, and getting enough of that stuff to waste on boots was a sign of immense power. She saw her life before her - she'd go through the rites of adulthood, she'd start a family, churn out some kids, and die before she was thirty summers.
Marika refused. She rebelled. And in the depths of her despair, she found the Greater Will. And channelled it. Becoming a war goddess. To her, the primary issue was the rotten state of the world, a scene of primal idiocy where nothing changed, nothing evolved. Beastmen ruled, and the dragons towered above it all. Death ran rampant. So, she decided to change it. By carving a hammer out of stone, and climbing up to Farum Azula to crush the current Elden Lord. Placidusax used to have five heads. Now he has two. Marika smashed the others off with her hammer, and emerged from his remains dripping with golden gore, wearing nothing but a crude dress of fur. Complete savage, not even literate - not that there was any written language at this stage anyhow. And thus the movement from animistic, primal gods occurred, with Marika taking the spot as a kind of... great mother goddess, combined with a war goddess. More defined than the old order, but still very crude in some ways. When she jumped down from Farum Azula, she met Godfrey (the chieftain of another human tribe), and took him as a husband and consort. Someone to wage war alongside.
Those years were the happiest of her life. She had real, solid control over everything. The beastmen were driven back into the dark. The chaos of the Crucible was restrained. Metalworking was refined, sorcery developed, humanity emerged from its caves to build huge fortresses over the graves of their old gods. But Marika was fundamentally immature - she was terrified of the order ending, terrified of suffering the fate she visited on Placidusax. Placidusax had been content with his usurpation by Marika, he saw it as a test of his faith... but Marika, ultimately, never had much faith in the Greater Will. She had faith in herself, but the Greater Will was always seen as an ally, not a ruler, not a true god. So, she broke things. Her next wars were waged to contain the threats to her rule. The Gloam-Eyed Queen, a shadowy mirror of herself (for Destined Death creates nothing, but can only imitate what it devours. Thus dragons are matched by Deathbirds, the five-headed Placidusax by the two-headed Twinbird, reflecting the doom that would come for him, and the Godskin hunt for Marika's growing order) was defeated by shattering Destined Death, and allowing Maliketh, her most loyal hound, to contain it within himself. A genocidal war against the giants to break their Flame of Ruin. But then she had to sever the Scarlet Rot as well, because without Flame and Death it was running out of control. But this was only a temporary solution, and Rot kept seeping into the world, reflective of the ruined order she was building. The Great Caravan was buried, to stop the terror of the Frenzied Flame from unmaking her. The people of Mt. Gelmir were obliterated, their worship of the great serpent forbidden, to stop yet another source of flame before it became too bright.
For a time... it almost seemed to work.
Marika genuinely tried to become more civilised. She knew she couldn't rule as a warrior queen forever. Godfrey took Serosh onto his back at some point during these wars, and Marika severed herself in two. Radagon was meant to contain her most violent impulses, her desire for conquest and her terror of losing power. Through him, she could viscerally enjoy conquering the world... while Marika herself could be a gentle and motherly queen, capable of ruling a civilised nation.
Something had gone wrong, though. Something went very wrong. But it took time to emerge. She had children, but the Omen twins terrified her - made her think she was flawed, somehow. Had some inner corruption that was seeping out. Locking them up helped, and Godwyn seemed an improvement. But still. Shaken. Godfrey wrestled with his need for worthy battle, and after the Storm King's death seemed to lose all purpose. He wanted to be a civilised Elden Lord, but he couldn't. If he couldn't make war, he couldn't be Godfrey. No matter how hard he tried. This, too, affected Marika. Radagon would wind up... marrying Rennala, settling down to a life of study and family - the part of her she'd severed was becoming peaceful, while her own moods grew darker and darker. The Greater Will wasn't being clear to her, and she thought she'd beaten the cycle of gods being replaced over and over...
Until the war with the dragons.
This was meant to renew her purpose. Meant to. Her people would rise up to destroy the dragons, she could find purpose in warfare once again, and she could finally put down the last remnants of an order she'd broken long ago. This was meant to be the end - a final victory.
But Godwyn... brokered peace. The cult of the dragon entered her city, and dragons began to live amongst her civilians.
This broke her.
Because she could see what was about to happen. Godwyn was having children, see - plenty of them, sired by many mothers. And each generation became weaker than the last, Godrick and Godefroy exemplifying this. Godwyn was better than her, more kindly than her, more suited to peace. Marika was a war goddess, a mother goddess... but Godwyn was a god of peace, a god that could spread a few divine lineages around to rule in his stead, each lineage weaker and weaker as time went on. See, for Marika, this was shattering. She was going to get replaced. The Greater Will was going to replace her with her son, who would in turn sire generations that would be weaker and weaker, until Marika and her ilk became nothing more than... vague presences. From a primal dragon-god, to a raging war goddess, to an immortal god-queen, to a peaceable and forgiving god... to regular old humanity.
All her effort hadn't broken the wheel. Death was gone, and she could still see her ruin coming. So she plotted. Ranni was meant to marry Godwyn, the Two Fingers had ordained it. The two of them were destined to replace her. So, she set up a plan. Godfrey was sent into exile, with orders to return when grace demanded him to. She married Radagon, intending to become one with him - she'd given up on becoming a 'civilised god-queen', she wanted to be Marika, and that meant consuming the parts of her she'd shed long ago. This was a rebellion against the Two Fingers, but she managed to pull it off. Ranni was then in close proximity to Marika, who could... insinuate a few ideas. Ranni wasn't too eager to marry Godwyn, unwilling to give up her freedom, and Marika encouraged this sort of feeling. Subtly, of course. But for beings like them... they had centuries upon centuries to work, for feelings to build up, for resolve to crystallise. The Black Knives operated under Ranni's orders, yes. And she helped them do their job. But Marika was the other half of the equation.
Marika intended for Godwyn to die. This would stop her from being replaced. She could then retreat to the Erdtree, where she could shatter the Elden Ring, unmake order, and reunify with Radagon for good. Her children would wage war against one another, and plunge the land into bottomless chaos. Tarnished would emerge, summoned to try and repair the Elden Ring by any means necessary... and that would include her beloved Godfrey.
She was remaking the age of absolute chaos that she'd adored so much. The age where things made sense, where she had clear enemies and constant warfare. No corrosive peace. No replacements. She was a war goddess - so she'd make sure she had a world of war, so she could endure forever. Godfrey at her side the whole way. Marika saw the wheel of history, and despite her best efforts, she couldn't make it stop. So, she just wants to keep turning it backwards, over and over to stop it from moving on. Marika's a war goddess who's terrified of becoming obsolete - she's pitiable, in a way. And definitely a barbarian queen, not a caring maternal figure. By and large, her plan went well. The Black Knives were instructed to fight anyone who was 'winning' the Shattering, to make sure it went on for as long as possible. And indeed it did, with the fragile peace breaking apart and countless wars ravaging the land. But one step went wrong.
Radagon wouldn't reunify with her.
He'd changed. Grown. Neither of them are sure what happened. Maybe Marika separated out the wrong parts of herself. Maybe some curse from one of Marika's many enemies intervened. Maybe the Greater Will. Or maybe Radagon, as his own person, just... made different choices, met different people, embarked on his own journeys and came to his own conclusions. Marika saw herself sagging from power, and was determined to seize it by any means necessary... but Radagon was happy with his family. When Marika demanded (with the unspoken threat of attacking Liurnia) that Radagon return, he left behind the rune of the unborn for Rennala to use on herself, a way of escaping whatever grip Marika and Radagon might have on her. Even when compelled into service by his other half, he was still trying to help his wife. And seeing what Marika did to his children... Rykard, repurposed into a barbaric inquisitor. Radahn, rejecting his father and trying to emulate Godfrey instead, disgusted by Radagon's infidelity. Ranni, turning to other sources of instruction, turning her back on Radagon's own counsel. Marika ruined his family so she could have more pieces moving around in the Shattering. She ruined his family for set dressing.
Yeah. He didn't want to reunify with her. And his work has kept her imprisoned in the Erdtree. She was meant to be able to escape and hide herself (even had a mimic veil prepared), watching the Shattering unfold from an elevated position... but he delayed her. Kept trying to repair the Elden Ring, even if he ultimately failed. And in the end, she was immobilised by the thorns. But that was why she'd sent Godfrey away - a backup if anything went wrong. He could come back, and guided by a certain kindling maiden, could hack his way into the Erdtree and free her. She could wait.
Radagon couldn't. See, Radagon still believed in the Greater Will. He was genuinely faithful to it, and was horrified at Marika's plans.
And that's why Taylor's here. Along with all the other travellers from Earth Bet.
The Greater Will extends across all universes - it's basically God. By communing with it in the heart of the Erdtree, right next to the Elden Beast itself, Radagon has been calling in allies from wherever he can. It's all he can do, immobilised as he is. The Greater Will on Earth Bet has... problems it needs to dispose of. More accurately, the one channelling the Greater Will on Earth Bet (Contessa) has her own plan for dealing with Scion and saving the world, and it doesn't need any interference. Parahumans who can go on to pose a threat to her overall plan, particularly. Contessa has already figured out a way to kill Scion, she doesn't need anyone else hampering her efforts. So, whenever one of these nuisances trigger, Radagon gets to nick them and sweep them over to the Lands Between, their eyes burning with gold. Sometimes it goes well. Sometimes it doesn't. But it's throwing pieces onto the board that Marika didn't anticipate, and from Radagon's perspective, this might provide just enough chaos to shake things up. Calvert was a dud - he just turned to the Flame of Frenzy. Quarrel was another dud. Amongst many others, who either never amounted to anything or just died horrifically. Taylor's managed to luck through so far - bullshitting her way upwards. Taylor wound up in the Lands Between because she had a powerful Shard and an unstable personality. Could be a problem.
She's in the Lands Between because she was annoying to plan around, and if Radagon was just going to offer to take her, then Contessa would gladly accept.
And that's the full picture of things. Now, for how things might've ended.
Marika was a war goddess. Elden Ring's world has moved through stages of development and civilisation, something mentioned in a few item descriptions. The dragons ruled over an inchoate world of beasts, where the Primordial Crucible ran rampant, where humanity was fairly insignificant. Marika was effectively a cavewoman - she was primitive, violent, and had few prospects in life. The reason she wears hobnail boots is because her birth culture regarded hobnail boots as a sign of divine kingship - the only good metal they had was meteoric iron, and getting enough of that stuff to waste on boots was a sign of immense power. She saw her life before her - she'd go through the rites of adulthood, she'd start a family, churn out some kids, and die before she was thirty summers.
Marika refused. She rebelled. And in the depths of her despair, she found the Greater Will. And channelled it. Becoming a war goddess. To her, the primary issue was the rotten state of the world, a scene of primal idiocy where nothing changed, nothing evolved. Beastmen ruled, and the dragons towered above it all. Death ran rampant. So, she decided to change it. By carving a hammer out of stone, and climbing up to Farum Azula to crush the current Elden Lord. Placidusax used to have five heads. Now he has two. Marika smashed the others off with her hammer, and emerged from his remains dripping with golden gore, wearing nothing but a crude dress of fur. Complete savage, not even literate - not that there was any written language at this stage anyhow. And thus the movement from animistic, primal gods occurred, with Marika taking the spot as a kind of... great mother goddess, combined with a war goddess. More defined than the old order, but still very crude in some ways. When she jumped down from Farum Azula, she met Godfrey (the chieftain of another human tribe), and took him as a husband and consort. Someone to wage war alongside.
Those years were the happiest of her life. She had real, solid control over everything. The beastmen were driven back into the dark. The chaos of the Crucible was restrained. Metalworking was refined, sorcery developed, humanity emerged from its caves to build huge fortresses over the graves of their old gods. But Marika was fundamentally immature - she was terrified of the order ending, terrified of suffering the fate she visited on Placidusax. Placidusax had been content with his usurpation by Marika, he saw it as a test of his faith... but Marika, ultimately, never had much faith in the Greater Will. She had faith in herself, but the Greater Will was always seen as an ally, not a ruler, not a true god. So, she broke things. Her next wars were waged to contain the threats to her rule. The Gloam-Eyed Queen, a shadowy mirror of herself (for Destined Death creates nothing, but can only imitate what it devours. Thus dragons are matched by Deathbirds, the five-headed Placidusax by the two-headed Twinbird, reflecting the doom that would come for him, and the Godskin hunt for Marika's growing order) was defeated by shattering Destined Death, and allowing Maliketh, her most loyal hound, to contain it within himself. A genocidal war against the giants to break their Flame of Ruin. But then she had to sever the Scarlet Rot as well, because without Flame and Death it was running out of control. But this was only a temporary solution, and Rot kept seeping into the world, reflective of the ruined order she was building. The Great Caravan was buried, to stop the terror of the Frenzied Flame from unmaking her. The people of Mt. Gelmir were obliterated, their worship of the great serpent forbidden, to stop yet another source of flame before it became too bright.
For a time... it almost seemed to work.
Marika genuinely tried to become more civilised. She knew she couldn't rule as a warrior queen forever. Godfrey took Serosh onto his back at some point during these wars, and Marika severed herself in two. Radagon was meant to contain her most violent impulses, her desire for conquest and her terror of losing power. Through him, she could viscerally enjoy conquering the world... while Marika herself could be a gentle and motherly queen, capable of ruling a civilised nation.
Something had gone wrong, though. Something went very wrong. But it took time to emerge. She had children, but the Omen twins terrified her - made her think she was flawed, somehow. Had some inner corruption that was seeping out. Locking them up helped, and Godwyn seemed an improvement. But still. Shaken. Godfrey wrestled with his need for worthy battle, and after the Storm King's death seemed to lose all purpose. He wanted to be a civilised Elden Lord, but he couldn't. If he couldn't make war, he couldn't be Godfrey. No matter how hard he tried. This, too, affected Marika. Radagon would wind up... marrying Rennala, settling down to a life of study and family - the part of her she'd severed was becoming peaceful, while her own moods grew darker and darker. The Greater Will wasn't being clear to her, and she thought she'd beaten the cycle of gods being replaced over and over...
Until the war with the dragons.
This was meant to renew her purpose. Meant to. Her people would rise up to destroy the dragons, she could find purpose in warfare once again, and she could finally put down the last remnants of an order she'd broken long ago. This was meant to be the end - a final victory.
But Godwyn... brokered peace. The cult of the dragon entered her city, and dragons began to live amongst her civilians.
This broke her.
Because she could see what was about to happen. Godwyn was having children, see - plenty of them, sired by many mothers. And each generation became weaker than the last, Godrick and Godefroy exemplifying this. Godwyn was better than her, more kindly than her, more suited to peace. Marika was a war goddess, a mother goddess... but Godwyn was a god of peace, a god that could spread a few divine lineages around to rule in his stead, each lineage weaker and weaker as time went on. See, for Marika, this was shattering. She was going to get replaced. The Greater Will was going to replace her with her son, who would in turn sire generations that would be weaker and weaker, until Marika and her ilk became nothing more than... vague presences. From a primal dragon-god, to a raging war goddess, to an immortal god-queen, to a peaceable and forgiving god... to regular old humanity.
All her effort hadn't broken the wheel. Death was gone, and she could still see her ruin coming. So she plotted. Ranni was meant to marry Godwyn, the Two Fingers had ordained it. The two of them were destined to replace her. So, she set up a plan. Godfrey was sent into exile, with orders to return when grace demanded him to. She married Radagon, intending to become one with him - she'd given up on becoming a 'civilised god-queen', she wanted to be Marika, and that meant consuming the parts of her she'd shed long ago. This was a rebellion against the Two Fingers, but she managed to pull it off. Ranni was then in close proximity to Marika, who could... insinuate a few ideas. Ranni wasn't too eager to marry Godwyn, unwilling to give up her freedom, and Marika encouraged this sort of feeling. Subtly, of course. But for beings like them... they had centuries upon centuries to work, for feelings to build up, for resolve to crystallise. The Black Knives operated under Ranni's orders, yes. And she helped them do their job. But Marika was the other half of the equation.
Marika intended for Godwyn to die. This would stop her from being replaced. She could then retreat to the Erdtree, where she could shatter the Elden Ring, unmake order, and reunify with Radagon for good. Her children would wage war against one another, and plunge the land into bottomless chaos. Tarnished would emerge, summoned to try and repair the Elden Ring by any means necessary... and that would include her beloved Godfrey.
She was remaking the age of absolute chaos that she'd adored so much. The age where things made sense, where she had clear enemies and constant warfare. No corrosive peace. No replacements. She was a war goddess - so she'd make sure she had a world of war, so she could endure forever. Godfrey at her side the whole way. Marika saw the wheel of history, and despite her best efforts, she couldn't make it stop. So, she just wants to keep turning it backwards, over and over to stop it from moving on. Marika's a war goddess who's terrified of becoming obsolete - she's pitiable, in a way. And definitely a barbarian queen, not a caring maternal figure. By and large, her plan went well. The Black Knives were instructed to fight anyone who was 'winning' the Shattering, to make sure it went on for as long as possible. And indeed it did, with the fragile peace breaking apart and countless wars ravaging the land. But one step went wrong.
Radagon wouldn't reunify with her.
He'd changed. Grown. Neither of them are sure what happened. Maybe Marika separated out the wrong parts of herself. Maybe some curse from one of Marika's many enemies intervened. Maybe the Greater Will. Or maybe Radagon, as his own person, just... made different choices, met different people, embarked on his own journeys and came to his own conclusions. Marika saw herself sagging from power, and was determined to seize it by any means necessary... but Radagon was happy with his family. When Marika demanded (with the unspoken threat of attacking Liurnia) that Radagon return, he left behind the rune of the unborn for Rennala to use on herself, a way of escaping whatever grip Marika and Radagon might have on her. Even when compelled into service by his other half, he was still trying to help his wife. And seeing what Marika did to his children... Rykard, repurposed into a barbaric inquisitor. Radahn, rejecting his father and trying to emulate Godfrey instead, disgusted by Radagon's infidelity. Ranni, turning to other sources of instruction, turning her back on Radagon's own counsel. Marika ruined his family so she could have more pieces moving around in the Shattering. She ruined his family for set dressing.
Yeah. He didn't want to reunify with her. And his work has kept her imprisoned in the Erdtree. She was meant to be able to escape and hide herself (even had a mimic veil prepared), watching the Shattering unfold from an elevated position... but he delayed her. Kept trying to repair the Elden Ring, even if he ultimately failed. And in the end, she was immobilised by the thorns. But that was why she'd sent Godfrey away - a backup if anything went wrong. He could come back, and guided by a certain kindling maiden, could hack his way into the Erdtree and free her. She could wait.
Radagon couldn't. See, Radagon still believed in the Greater Will. He was genuinely faithful to it, and was horrified at Marika's plans.
And that's why Taylor's here. Along with all the other travellers from Earth Bet.
The Greater Will extends across all universes - it's basically God. By communing with it in the heart of the Erdtree, right next to the Elden Beast itself, Radagon has been calling in allies from wherever he can. It's all he can do, immobilised as he is. The Greater Will on Earth Bet has... problems it needs to dispose of. More accurately, the one channelling the Greater Will on Earth Bet (Contessa) has her own plan for dealing with Scion and saving the world, and it doesn't need any interference. Parahumans who can go on to pose a threat to her overall plan, particularly. Contessa has already figured out a way to kill Scion, she doesn't need anyone else hampering her efforts. So, whenever one of these nuisances trigger, Radagon gets to nick them and sweep them over to the Lands Between, their eyes burning with gold. Sometimes it goes well. Sometimes it doesn't. But it's throwing pieces onto the board that Marika didn't anticipate, and from Radagon's perspective, this might provide just enough chaos to shake things up. Calvert was a dud - he just turned to the Flame of Frenzy. Quarrel was another dud. Amongst many others, who either never amounted to anything or just died horrifically. Taylor's managed to luck through so far - bullshitting her way upwards. Taylor wound up in the Lands Between because she had a powerful Shard and an unstable personality. Could be a problem.
She's in the Lands Between because she was annoying to plan around, and if Radagon was just going to offer to take her, then Contessa would gladly accept.
And that's the full picture of things. Now, for how things might've ended.
Endings
This is tricky.
Vyke was probably going to be the main villain. Lansseax's relationship with him, coupled with Rupert's loss in Stormveil and the overall failure of that siege, has made him committed to not losing anyone else. To get into the Erdtree, he needs to burn the thorns. Lansseax can't burn them, Melina can't burn them without getting to the Flame of Ruin and unlocking the Rune of Death. Vyke doesn't want to burn the Erdtree down by unleashing Death, put bluntly. The burning is fine, but Death is something else entirely. Because Lansseax is a remnant of an impossibly ancient order, and Vyke is keenly aware that dragons are already a dying breed. If Death was released, the dragons would go extinct soon after. The world's not very kind to their sort. Beaten down by loss after loss, he turns to the Three Fingers, and tries to become the Lord of Frenzied Flame. That way, he can burn the thorns using himself and himself alone. His intention is to die in the process, he doesn't want to rule the ashes or to let chaos take the world. Indeed, he maybe sets up an evergaol for himself, along with something to keep him weak - that way he can be locked up once the burning is good and finished. He's an unstable, tragic wreck, just trying to do his best to eke out some sort of success from his life. Lansseax is obviously heartbroken by this. And as the major factions collide in a Second Shattering... Vyke is there, carving through their forces, infesting people with the Flame, building a little army for himself that can pierce through to Leyndell. Every battle with him is a recruiting opportunity - he gains forces, he never loses them. Losing control of himself as he goes, weeping yellow fire, his memories being devoured with each step he takes. Just needs to get to the thorns.
Malenia has started to move at this point, roused from her sleep by Radahn's emergence, the shifting of stars, and maybe a sub-plot involving Crawa and her sisters going to the Haligtree to try and find a place that can accept broken wretches like themselves. Crawa, burned out from the Morne campaign, and her sisters broken by their own experiences over the years. Just keep that in mind.
Taylor and her gang end up in a desperate effort to take on Vyke. This is more tragic than anything else - it's Taylor confronting the chaos she's helped bring to the Lands Between, and Vyke coming to the absolute end of his chain. By the end, they succeed in putting him down (using the knife Tisiphone was meant to use on Ranni), but the thorns are still burned away. Enough for Taylor to meet Radagon and learn about all the above. Gideon is at her side, of course - he's not missing out on this.
But the knowledge breaks him. Becoming Elden Lord means becoming Marika's consort, which means either being her new assistant in a pointless war against everything, or being ruthlessly replaced by Marika in favour of someone she prefers more. There's no hope in it - you either struggle your entire life to become Elden Lord, or you succeed and struggle forever as Elden Lord. Gideon thinks this is the final shape of the world, that Marika has broken order until this is the only route available. Marika can't be replaced, because she killed her replacements, or her replacements (i.e Ranni or Miquella) aren't much better in his eyes. So this is how the world ends, to him. And with the thorns gone, Marika can finally emerge, consuming Radagon completely and initiating the final step in her plan.
So, the final, final battle would be against Marika. Godfrey reaches the Erdtree, and Taylor is able to use Marika's murder of Godwyn as a way to turn him against her. Marika didn't intend for anyone to know about her involvement in Godwyn's murder, not even Godfrey. The idea was: Godfrey reaches her and she reunites with him, they go off and wage war forever. Or, a Tarnished kills Godfrey, she unites with the Tarnished, they go off and wage war forever. The idea of someone getting into the Erdtree who's not a Tarnished and then leaving without a fight was inconceivable - and impossible, until Radagon intervened. Like the rest of Taylor's journey, her primary power is bullshitting people stronger than her, and starting wildfires which burn her enemies before they burn her. But only just. Marika's surviving children are here, and they temporarily set aside their differences to fight her... along with Taylor's ragged crew, all the people she's met over time. The last battle of the Shattering, against a crazed barbarian queen, who's strangely exhilarated. This kind of fight is all she really wanted, at the end of the day.
Dying to it isn't such a bad ending for her. When she dies, the people around her don't even feel much victory - because it's obvious she was having the time of her life. And yes, Marika would have a wrestling match with Godfrey. And the rest of her children who are still capable of wrestling moves.
Mohg dies against her, as does Godfrey. Rykard is killed outside the walls of Leyndell by Gideon, who was able to recover a serpent-hunter for this explicit purpose (why do you think one of his men joined the Volcano Manor). Radahn is insane, and is killed by Vyke at some other point. Miquella is... basically dead (I know, DLC might change some things, and I still don't know who Messmer is, this is all pre-DLC stuff). Ranni, Morgott, and Malenia are the only ones left. Ranni goes back to Rennala (who's reclaimed Raya Lucaria at this point). Taylor engineered all this chaos, even if she did it accidentally, and in the end... she's exhausted.
She doesn't want anything more to do with this. Not becoming Elden Lord, or the new god, or anything. The Erdtree is burning, and Marika's death begins to allow order to repair itself, with Death being freed in the process. The Lands Between are dead at this point. The Shattering did most of it, and the fires Taylor started burned down the rest. It's a quiet, quiet continent. Very quiet indeed. Sooner or later, more people will come along to settle it, free from the gods, from the dragons, from everything. Morgott and Malenia have no family left. No people to rule. No duties to uphold. Even the Scarlet Rot is retreating from Malenia, now that the restored order has allowed for it to flow elsewhere - it doesn't need an Empyrean any more, not when it can be dispersed into the rest of the world peacefully, serving a natural purpose when it comes to decay. In the end, no-one takes the throne. Leyndell is allowed to be buried under a layer of ash.
Morgott and Malenia quietly bury their family in the mountains, where no mortal can find them. They raise simple gravestones, each with a single name on them - no titles, not here. Whatever comes next, the two of them aren't interested in ruling it. They just want to move on and grieve, to allow the next order to come without fighting it. Taking care of whatever lingering curses live in the Lands Between, to allow the next civilisation to rise without any kind of toxic inheritance.
And as for Taylor...
She manages to get back home, with Radagon's help. With her are her friends, and the various people they've picked up along the way. Crawa and her sisters. Angharad. Telavis. Nepheli. Roderika. Tisiphone and Irina reunited in some way. Millicent, Rya, possibly Tanith... maybe Rennala and Ranni, who knows. Anyone who wants to escape the whole burning ruin of the Shattering, and the poisonous legacy of Marika. Earth Bet, after all, apparently has a whole plan devoted to saving it, and that means things can conceivably improve. More than anything, there's a chance of change - in the Lands Between, there was nothing but the choice between stagnation and euthanasia. Earth Bet has some kind of hope in it, at least. Taylor isn't going to be involved in anything at this point. She's done her job.
And when she gets back, and Contessa (as Earth Bet's premier channeller of the Greater Will) faces her down...
Taylor politely tells her to piss off, and heads back home for a nap.
God knows she deserves it.
Vyke was probably going to be the main villain. Lansseax's relationship with him, coupled with Rupert's loss in Stormveil and the overall failure of that siege, has made him committed to not losing anyone else. To get into the Erdtree, he needs to burn the thorns. Lansseax can't burn them, Melina can't burn them without getting to the Flame of Ruin and unlocking the Rune of Death. Vyke doesn't want to burn the Erdtree down by unleashing Death, put bluntly. The burning is fine, but Death is something else entirely. Because Lansseax is a remnant of an impossibly ancient order, and Vyke is keenly aware that dragons are already a dying breed. If Death was released, the dragons would go extinct soon after. The world's not very kind to their sort. Beaten down by loss after loss, he turns to the Three Fingers, and tries to become the Lord of Frenzied Flame. That way, he can burn the thorns using himself and himself alone. His intention is to die in the process, he doesn't want to rule the ashes or to let chaos take the world. Indeed, he maybe sets up an evergaol for himself, along with something to keep him weak - that way he can be locked up once the burning is good and finished. He's an unstable, tragic wreck, just trying to do his best to eke out some sort of success from his life. Lansseax is obviously heartbroken by this. And as the major factions collide in a Second Shattering... Vyke is there, carving through their forces, infesting people with the Flame, building a little army for himself that can pierce through to Leyndell. Every battle with him is a recruiting opportunity - he gains forces, he never loses them. Losing control of himself as he goes, weeping yellow fire, his memories being devoured with each step he takes. Just needs to get to the thorns.
Malenia has started to move at this point, roused from her sleep by Radahn's emergence, the shifting of stars, and maybe a sub-plot involving Crawa and her sisters going to the Haligtree to try and find a place that can accept broken wretches like themselves. Crawa, burned out from the Morne campaign, and her sisters broken by their own experiences over the years. Just keep that in mind.
Taylor and her gang end up in a desperate effort to take on Vyke. This is more tragic than anything else - it's Taylor confronting the chaos she's helped bring to the Lands Between, and Vyke coming to the absolute end of his chain. By the end, they succeed in putting him down (using the knife Tisiphone was meant to use on Ranni), but the thorns are still burned away. Enough for Taylor to meet Radagon and learn about all the above. Gideon is at her side, of course - he's not missing out on this.
But the knowledge breaks him. Becoming Elden Lord means becoming Marika's consort, which means either being her new assistant in a pointless war against everything, or being ruthlessly replaced by Marika in favour of someone she prefers more. There's no hope in it - you either struggle your entire life to become Elden Lord, or you succeed and struggle forever as Elden Lord. Gideon thinks this is the final shape of the world, that Marika has broken order until this is the only route available. Marika can't be replaced, because she killed her replacements, or her replacements (i.e Ranni or Miquella) aren't much better in his eyes. So this is how the world ends, to him. And with the thorns gone, Marika can finally emerge, consuming Radagon completely and initiating the final step in her plan.
So, the final, final battle would be against Marika. Godfrey reaches the Erdtree, and Taylor is able to use Marika's murder of Godwyn as a way to turn him against her. Marika didn't intend for anyone to know about her involvement in Godwyn's murder, not even Godfrey. The idea was: Godfrey reaches her and she reunites with him, they go off and wage war forever. Or, a Tarnished kills Godfrey, she unites with the Tarnished, they go off and wage war forever. The idea of someone getting into the Erdtree who's not a Tarnished and then leaving without a fight was inconceivable - and impossible, until Radagon intervened. Like the rest of Taylor's journey, her primary power is bullshitting people stronger than her, and starting wildfires which burn her enemies before they burn her. But only just. Marika's surviving children are here, and they temporarily set aside their differences to fight her... along with Taylor's ragged crew, all the people she's met over time. The last battle of the Shattering, against a crazed barbarian queen, who's strangely exhilarated. This kind of fight is all she really wanted, at the end of the day.
Dying to it isn't such a bad ending for her. When she dies, the people around her don't even feel much victory - because it's obvious she was having the time of her life. And yes, Marika would have a wrestling match with Godfrey. And the rest of her children who are still capable of wrestling moves.
Mohg dies against her, as does Godfrey. Rykard is killed outside the walls of Leyndell by Gideon, who was able to recover a serpent-hunter for this explicit purpose (why do you think one of his men joined the Volcano Manor). Radahn is insane, and is killed by Vyke at some other point. Miquella is... basically dead (I know, DLC might change some things, and I still don't know who Messmer is, this is all pre-DLC stuff). Ranni, Morgott, and Malenia are the only ones left. Ranni goes back to Rennala (who's reclaimed Raya Lucaria at this point). Taylor engineered all this chaos, even if she did it accidentally, and in the end... she's exhausted.
She doesn't want anything more to do with this. Not becoming Elden Lord, or the new god, or anything. The Erdtree is burning, and Marika's death begins to allow order to repair itself, with Death being freed in the process. The Lands Between are dead at this point. The Shattering did most of it, and the fires Taylor started burned down the rest. It's a quiet, quiet continent. Very quiet indeed. Sooner or later, more people will come along to settle it, free from the gods, from the dragons, from everything. Morgott and Malenia have no family left. No people to rule. No duties to uphold. Even the Scarlet Rot is retreating from Malenia, now that the restored order has allowed for it to flow elsewhere - it doesn't need an Empyrean any more, not when it can be dispersed into the rest of the world peacefully, serving a natural purpose when it comes to decay. In the end, no-one takes the throne. Leyndell is allowed to be buried under a layer of ash.
Morgott and Malenia quietly bury their family in the mountains, where no mortal can find them. They raise simple gravestones, each with a single name on them - no titles, not here. Whatever comes next, the two of them aren't interested in ruling it. They just want to move on and grieve, to allow the next order to come without fighting it. Taking care of whatever lingering curses live in the Lands Between, to allow the next civilisation to rise without any kind of toxic inheritance.
And as for Taylor...
She manages to get back home, with Radagon's help. With her are her friends, and the various people they've picked up along the way. Crawa and her sisters. Angharad. Telavis. Nepheli. Roderika. Tisiphone and Irina reunited in some way. Millicent, Rya, possibly Tanith... maybe Rennala and Ranni, who knows. Anyone who wants to escape the whole burning ruin of the Shattering, and the poisonous legacy of Marika. Earth Bet, after all, apparently has a whole plan devoted to saving it, and that means things can conceivably improve. More than anything, there's a chance of change - in the Lands Between, there was nothing but the choice between stagnation and euthanasia. Earth Bet has some kind of hope in it, at least. Taylor isn't going to be involved in anything at this point. She's done her job.
And when she gets back, and Contessa (as Earth Bet's premier channeller of the Greater Will) faces her down...
Taylor politely tells her to piss off, and heads back home for a nap.
God knows she deserves it.
Notes
Now, there are problems with this plan. If you couldn't already see them, I'll list them quickly:
There are dangling plot threads everywhere. So many things aren't resolved. Potiphar hasn't appeared once. Crawa just vanishes from the story after a point. Characterisations are weird. There are too many plates to spin at once, and this would've been unreadable. It involves too many moments of absolute ruin, and wouldn't be very fun to read even if it was somehow coherent. It deviates from the Elden Ring lore in significant ways. It has zero reference to the DLC lore. Mohg is important for the first chunk, then he vanishes until the climax. There's too many characters, and none of them feel well-developed. Where would Angharad's plotline go without killing the pacing. Roderika just gets written out for most of the story. Millicent does nothing, and Malenia just kinda happens. Crawa's sisters materialise out of nowhere with no buildup. Taylor's shard isn't mentioned once, despite it being a big deal in BYIQMC. The Volcano Manor does nothing. Rya does nothing. Telavis and Nepheli do nothing. When did Radahn die. Despite being built up, the other 'travellers' from Earth Bet seem to just be Taylor, Calvert (mentioned briefly then never again) and Quarrel (does nothing). The Radagon/Marika stuff would necessitate a massive exposition dump, or loads of buildup that would slow the story to a crawl. And where did the Dung Eater go. And does Taylor pitting the characters with more investment in the story into a giant mosh pit provide a satisfactory conclusion for her character - speaking of which, what character development has she undergone which has meaningfully moved her from where she started. By the end of Stormveil, she wanted to crash out of the Shattering and stay distant. By the end of the story, she... has gotten involved in the Shattering, somehow survived, and has... retired, becoming tired of a conflict she was already tired of and never expressed a desire to participate in.
And these are all big, big problems. Ones I don't think I could necessarily overcome. The issue with this sort of fanfic is... there's always a temptation to factor everything in, every character, every mystery, everything. The bigger the scale of a fic, the more necessary this becomes. A fic focused on personal stakes can avoid it, but BYIQMC has already rammed itself into the big picture with very little ability to return.
Theoretically, I could keep it personal. Taylor and her buddies try and just get to Leyndell while accidentally setting the Lands Between on fire without really intending it. They don't get involved in any big conflicts, but big conflicts keep seeking them out, and when they retaliate everything goes wrong. Not their fault. This could be funny - but it demands very strong character interactions and drama, combined with a much lighter tone. Which... BYIQMC has comedy in it, but this proposed plot is very heavy on the comedy. To the point that I basically just have to write 'serious fantasy drama' followed immediately by 'clueless adventuring party bumbles into starting World War VII'. Could that be a fun tone? Sure, in a shorter book dedicated entirely to it. But not a continuation of something with a pretty different tone.
Anyway. I'll stop navel-gazing. This plot is messy, it has a million problems, and if I'd written it, there'd have been changes. Major changes. Ultimately, though, I'm... not going to write it. For all the reasons listed above.
Now, for something more fun:
There are dangling plot threads everywhere. So many things aren't resolved. Potiphar hasn't appeared once. Crawa just vanishes from the story after a point. Characterisations are weird. There are too many plates to spin at once, and this would've been unreadable. It involves too many moments of absolute ruin, and wouldn't be very fun to read even if it was somehow coherent. It deviates from the Elden Ring lore in significant ways. It has zero reference to the DLC lore. Mohg is important for the first chunk, then he vanishes until the climax. There's too many characters, and none of them feel well-developed. Where would Angharad's plotline go without killing the pacing. Roderika just gets written out for most of the story. Millicent does nothing, and Malenia just kinda happens. Crawa's sisters materialise out of nowhere with no buildup. Taylor's shard isn't mentioned once, despite it being a big deal in BYIQMC. The Volcano Manor does nothing. Rya does nothing. Telavis and Nepheli do nothing. When did Radahn die. Despite being built up, the other 'travellers' from Earth Bet seem to just be Taylor, Calvert (mentioned briefly then never again) and Quarrel (does nothing). The Radagon/Marika stuff would necessitate a massive exposition dump, or loads of buildup that would slow the story to a crawl. And where did the Dung Eater go. And does Taylor pitting the characters with more investment in the story into a giant mosh pit provide a satisfactory conclusion for her character - speaking of which, what character development has she undergone which has meaningfully moved her from where she started. By the end of Stormveil, she wanted to crash out of the Shattering and stay distant. By the end of the story, she... has gotten involved in the Shattering, somehow survived, and has... retired, becoming tired of a conflict she was already tired of and never expressed a desire to participate in.
And these are all big, big problems. Ones I don't think I could necessarily overcome. The issue with this sort of fanfic is... there's always a temptation to factor everything in, every character, every mystery, everything. The bigger the scale of a fic, the more necessary this becomes. A fic focused on personal stakes can avoid it, but BYIQMC has already rammed itself into the big picture with very little ability to return.
Theoretically, I could keep it personal. Taylor and her buddies try and just get to Leyndell while accidentally setting the Lands Between on fire without really intending it. They don't get involved in any big conflicts, but big conflicts keep seeking them out, and when they retaliate everything goes wrong. Not their fault. This could be funny - but it demands very strong character interactions and drama, combined with a much lighter tone. Which... BYIQMC has comedy in it, but this proposed plot is very heavy on the comedy. To the point that I basically just have to write 'serious fantasy drama' followed immediately by 'clueless adventuring party bumbles into starting World War VII'. Could that be a fun tone? Sure, in a shorter book dedicated entirely to it. But not a continuation of something with a pretty different tone.
Anyway. I'll stop navel-gazing. This plot is messy, it has a million problems, and if I'd written it, there'd have been changes. Major changes. Ultimately, though, I'm... not going to write it. For all the reasons listed above.
Now, for something more fun:
Alternate BYIQMC
There was a very different direction for this fic, early on. I've mentioned it in other places, but I'll lay it out fully here.
The idea was for things to be shorter. Taylor goes between places quickly, and barely settles before getting moved on. For a sense of pacing, imagine the Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse by Ursula Moray Williams. I know this is a reference very few people will get, but that's the one I'm settling on. Stormveil would've been one segment - ending quickly, followed by another. Crawa also didn't exist in this earlier version, at least, not as she turned out in the main fic. Characters are overall less sympathetic, more... broad-strokes. Things are much faster, so there's more freedom with having less sympathetic characters. Theoretically, anyway.
Taylor enters Stormveil. She meets people, but by intervening in the castle's defences and warding off Tarnished too successfully, she winds up encouraging the siege that happens in the fic. However, this happens much faster than in the completed fic. Because things happen over a shorter timeframe, it's easier to kill off characters (they haven't been built up for dozens of chapters, after all). So, as the siege reaches a conclusion, Taylor just wants to bail by any means necessary - she's not a fighter, she's not got magical powers, she wants to bail. Especially because Godrick has decided to make her into a grafted scion, all the better to fight his enemies. Godrick sees this as an honour. Taylor doesn't. And despite her schemes, she's caught and experimented on, with a few more limbs getting added. The rest of the procedure is meant to happen, but Taylor shambles away while Godrick's distracted with the siege. She just wants to get out. Roderika is here, and Angharad has discovered she's a Tarnished - Angharad wants to use her as a hostage to get out of the castle and through the Tarnished army, and in a struggle, gets pushed out of a window. Taylor helps Roderika get to her fellow Tarnished, then runs for the hills. Telavis sacrifices himself to buy her some time, fighting Godrick to a standstill for a while.
Taylor gets out into Liurnia with far too many limbs, and only Potiphar for company. She winds up running into Patches, and basically becomes a bandit for a bit, doing anything to survive. But Crawa's after her - the siege is over, Godrick is dead, and Crawa wants revenge. Taylor escapes her bandit crew before Crawa rips them apart, and she winds up finding shelter with... Rya. Convinces Rya (while Crawa is actively hunting her down) that she's actually just looking for a job, and she'd love to join the Volcano Manor. She joins... and does her absolute best to become a complete menial. No standing out, no doing significant things, nothing. Just survive. So, she's a maid in the Volcano Manor, and gets by for a bit, becoming good friends with Rya...
Before Rya swipes a contract from Tanith's desk, and convinces herself that she needs to fulfil this contract by any means necessary - to make her guardian proud. Taylor gets dragged along against her will. This is a contract for hunting down the men Gideon sent to wipe out the Albinauric village, and in the process Taylor meets Latenna. Rya's not got the stomach for this sort of conflict, and she's convinced that she can just take Latenna home like a weird pet, much like she did with Taylor. This goes poorly - and Taylor is keenly aware that Crawa is still out there. Worse, Crawa's made contact with one of her sisters (Swuste, the one fought in the tutorial). So now there's two grafted scions hunting her down. Getting back to Volcano Manor is... difficult. Their pursuers drive them towards Raya Lucaria, where Taylor bullshits her way inside. This is achieved by ambushing a cart carrying new book paper to the college, and posing as honest bookmakers. Taylor and her two friends then have to learn bookmaking to stop the mages from experimenting on them... which goes well, until who shows up but Angharad. She's working for Sellen at this point, and is doing a spot of infiltration for her, getting inside the college to steal a few books. Angharad and Taylor both try and rat each other out simultaneously...
Which gets them dumped in Rennala's chambers by the mages.
Long story short, they get out, but Rennala is now very interested in that perfumer meth Angharad makes, and Taylor has one of the juvenile scholars hanging around her neck like a leech. Time to bail. Angharad escapes in one direction, Taylor and her expanding gang go in another. Raya Lucaria collapses behind them as Rennala starts to seize control again. Bad news, too - the Volcano Manor things Taylor is behind Rya running away, and has sent Recusants to pursue them... including the grafted scion on Mt. Gelmir, Bote. Taylor shakes them off in Caria Manor (bad idea), but Bote survives, and meets up with her other two sisters. Now there's three grafted scions chasing her down. Taylor tries to work for Ranni, who is actually willing to help them sort things out with the Volcano Manor, but they all bail after finding Seluvis's little weird basement. Alas, they kill Seluvis on the way, which makes Ranni their enemy. This just isn't their day. Fleeing the grafted scions, Ranni, Angharad, the mages, and the Knights of the Cuckoo, they get back to Limgrave.
Alas, this means running into Varre, who thinks they're all being splendid rabblerousers. He's interested in recruiting them... but it falls apart once he implies that Rya is rejecting Rykard (she's not, but the Recusants sent after her die before they can explain things), that the Scholar is rejecting Rennala (she's not, she's just having a fun adventure), and that Latenna has given up on the Haligtree (100% not). Varre flees from the furious onslaught, while Taylor tries to calm things down. And what lies behind Varre?
The Fringefolk Hero's Grave.
Containing two more grafted scions. Who think Taylor has stolen their father's art. They know Godrick is dead, and they think Taylor was involved somehow.
Now there's five grafted scions pursuing her. Barely escape. Still not going too well, though, and they escape only by using one of those teleporting chests... which dumps them in Caelid.
At least the scions won't follow them here.
So, Taylor, the Scholar, Latenna, and Rya meet Millicent. Because god forbid if I don't wedge more characters into this. And now all five of them come to a conclusion - that they just need to get to the Haligtree. Rya has been burned out by the brutality of the Lands Between, and is disillusioned with the Volcano Manor after all she's seen. The Scholar just wants an adventure. And Latenna always wanted to go to the Haligtree, she even has one part of the seal to get there. Maybe they can find the other one!
They can't.
But they try to go for the elevator anyway. Going through Liurnia won't work... so Taylor does her best, with the aid of her companions, to learn gravity magic. And with the right tools, in the right place, with everyone using their own weird talents...
Alright, they don't just catapult themselves over a vast distance. That would be silly. No, they just find Radahn, stand in front of one of his gravity-empowered arrows, and Taylor uses her magic to harness it. Takes a few tries. She dies quite a bit during these tries. So, they're not catapulting themselves, they're just riding an enormous arrow fired by a demigod.
Much saner.
Yes, they break all their limbs in the process. This is why they've been stealing flasks from Tarnished. Anyway. They get to Altus by being fired towards it via Radahn arrow. Thwacks right into the walls of Leyndell. Getting to the lift of Rold is a challenge, though. Latenna wasn't really aware of Leyndell being in the way, and it's impossible to get inside. But who should come to the rescue...
But the Grafted Scions. All five of them.
Turns out reuniting five long-lost sisters actually tends to make them rather conflicted when it comes to killing you. Talking with each other led to them realising how things have gotten more than a little screwed up, and that Taylor hasn't... really been going out of her way to mess with them. If anything, she's tried her best to stay out of their way, but luck keeps screwing her over. And for the good deed of reuniting them, they offer to do one favour. Acting as a giant terrifying flesh-ladder for clambering around Leyndell, towards the lift of Rold, and manually scurrying up the elevator shaft towards the Consecrated Snowfield. They don't like Taylor, really - nor her companions. But they're interested in the Haligtree, and have a temporary truce to achieve this purpose. Taylor has enraged the Recusants, pissed off the Bloody Fingers, made enemies of a lot of Tarnished, irritated Gideon, insulted Morgott by defying his rule and entering his city, and Rennala isn't very fond of the girl who threw perfumer meth in her face and stole one of her scholars. But she's won. She's reached the Haligtree with her band of rejects, misfits, freaks, and mutants. Herself perhaps the most freakish of them all.
And the Haligtree...
Is in ruins, and Miquella is gone. Malenia is barely lucid.
This causes Taylor to snap a bit. Just a bit. She's worked so damn hard to get here, she's not leaving without a safe place to ride out this crazy world. She has no idea why she's here, she has no idea what she's doing, she just wants to go home, or in lieu of that, to have a place where she can take a nap. And in her furious ranting... she maybe drops a bit of information that a Bloody Finger mentioned. About the whole Miquella situation.
In earshot of Malenia.
Not a good move, that.
And... uh... well, see, it turns out things have gone rather wrong on the outside. Tanith has woken up Rykard on account of the Rya situation, and Rykard is enraged. Convinced that Taylor is an agent of some other power, and he wants to fight that power immediately. Radahn, being the rot-crazed abomination that he is, has... now been shown that he can fire arrows at Leyndell, if he really tries. Which he is. And now Morgott has to go and take care of him before he brings the whole city down. Again. Malenia is on the warpath after Mohg. Ranni has no idea what's happening, and no-one's listening to her wise counsel. Rennala is awake, and the chaos unleashed by that is enough to stir the pot even further. Taylor's started a new Shattering by accident. And with her gang, she manages to barely get to Leyndell as Gideon works to unmake the thorns, desperate to become Elden Lord before everything burns down. He succeeds...
And Taylor gets to meet Marika.
Who congratulates her on being such a good rabble-rouser.
Really not sure where I'd have gone from there. Maybe Taylor gets the other Shardbearers to work together against Marika, maybe Godfrey shows up and Taylor spills the beans on Godwyn, maybe Taylor fucks up something in some specific way to destabilise Marika's existence... hell, maybe Marika shows her how to get back home, the arts Radagon used to drag travellers to the Lands Between...
And Taylor promptly uses that power to grab something from Earth Bet. Just something. As a final act of defiance before running away.
She grabs an Endbringer.
Then hoofs it back to Earth Bet as the Lands Between start to disintegrate behind her.
But that's just an idea. Still, this version of BYIQMC would've been much more comedic in tone. Smaller cast, smaller lore implications, and much, much less serious. You can see why I didn't write it, though. With the way I write things... I don't know, I either write them as unfunny comedies or as brutal slogs. And this story as a brutal slog would be miserable. And this story as an unfunny comedy would be terrible.
So here we are.
The idea was for things to be shorter. Taylor goes between places quickly, and barely settles before getting moved on. For a sense of pacing, imagine the Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse by Ursula Moray Williams. I know this is a reference very few people will get, but that's the one I'm settling on. Stormveil would've been one segment - ending quickly, followed by another. Crawa also didn't exist in this earlier version, at least, not as she turned out in the main fic. Characters are overall less sympathetic, more... broad-strokes. Things are much faster, so there's more freedom with having less sympathetic characters. Theoretically, anyway.
Taylor enters Stormveil. She meets people, but by intervening in the castle's defences and warding off Tarnished too successfully, she winds up encouraging the siege that happens in the fic. However, this happens much faster than in the completed fic. Because things happen over a shorter timeframe, it's easier to kill off characters (they haven't been built up for dozens of chapters, after all). So, as the siege reaches a conclusion, Taylor just wants to bail by any means necessary - she's not a fighter, she's not got magical powers, she wants to bail. Especially because Godrick has decided to make her into a grafted scion, all the better to fight his enemies. Godrick sees this as an honour. Taylor doesn't. And despite her schemes, she's caught and experimented on, with a few more limbs getting added. The rest of the procedure is meant to happen, but Taylor shambles away while Godrick's distracted with the siege. She just wants to get out. Roderika is here, and Angharad has discovered she's a Tarnished - Angharad wants to use her as a hostage to get out of the castle and through the Tarnished army, and in a struggle, gets pushed out of a window. Taylor helps Roderika get to her fellow Tarnished, then runs for the hills. Telavis sacrifices himself to buy her some time, fighting Godrick to a standstill for a while.
Taylor gets out into Liurnia with far too many limbs, and only Potiphar for company. She winds up running into Patches, and basically becomes a bandit for a bit, doing anything to survive. But Crawa's after her - the siege is over, Godrick is dead, and Crawa wants revenge. Taylor escapes her bandit crew before Crawa rips them apart, and she winds up finding shelter with... Rya. Convinces Rya (while Crawa is actively hunting her down) that she's actually just looking for a job, and she'd love to join the Volcano Manor. She joins... and does her absolute best to become a complete menial. No standing out, no doing significant things, nothing. Just survive. So, she's a maid in the Volcano Manor, and gets by for a bit, becoming good friends with Rya...
Before Rya swipes a contract from Tanith's desk, and convinces herself that she needs to fulfil this contract by any means necessary - to make her guardian proud. Taylor gets dragged along against her will. This is a contract for hunting down the men Gideon sent to wipe out the Albinauric village, and in the process Taylor meets Latenna. Rya's not got the stomach for this sort of conflict, and she's convinced that she can just take Latenna home like a weird pet, much like she did with Taylor. This goes poorly - and Taylor is keenly aware that Crawa is still out there. Worse, Crawa's made contact with one of her sisters (Swuste, the one fought in the tutorial). So now there's two grafted scions hunting her down. Getting back to Volcano Manor is... difficult. Their pursuers drive them towards Raya Lucaria, where Taylor bullshits her way inside. This is achieved by ambushing a cart carrying new book paper to the college, and posing as honest bookmakers. Taylor and her two friends then have to learn bookmaking to stop the mages from experimenting on them... which goes well, until who shows up but Angharad. She's working for Sellen at this point, and is doing a spot of infiltration for her, getting inside the college to steal a few books. Angharad and Taylor both try and rat each other out simultaneously...
Which gets them dumped in Rennala's chambers by the mages.
Long story short, they get out, but Rennala is now very interested in that perfumer meth Angharad makes, and Taylor has one of the juvenile scholars hanging around her neck like a leech. Time to bail. Angharad escapes in one direction, Taylor and her expanding gang go in another. Raya Lucaria collapses behind them as Rennala starts to seize control again. Bad news, too - the Volcano Manor things Taylor is behind Rya running away, and has sent Recusants to pursue them... including the grafted scion on Mt. Gelmir, Bote. Taylor shakes them off in Caria Manor (bad idea), but Bote survives, and meets up with her other two sisters. Now there's three grafted scions chasing her down. Taylor tries to work for Ranni, who is actually willing to help them sort things out with the Volcano Manor, but they all bail after finding Seluvis's little weird basement. Alas, they kill Seluvis on the way, which makes Ranni their enemy. This just isn't their day. Fleeing the grafted scions, Ranni, Angharad, the mages, and the Knights of the Cuckoo, they get back to Limgrave.
Alas, this means running into Varre, who thinks they're all being splendid rabblerousers. He's interested in recruiting them... but it falls apart once he implies that Rya is rejecting Rykard (she's not, but the Recusants sent after her die before they can explain things), that the Scholar is rejecting Rennala (she's not, she's just having a fun adventure), and that Latenna has given up on the Haligtree (100% not). Varre flees from the furious onslaught, while Taylor tries to calm things down. And what lies behind Varre?
The Fringefolk Hero's Grave.
Containing two more grafted scions. Who think Taylor has stolen their father's art. They know Godrick is dead, and they think Taylor was involved somehow.
Now there's five grafted scions pursuing her. Barely escape. Still not going too well, though, and they escape only by using one of those teleporting chests... which dumps them in Caelid.
At least the scions won't follow them here.
So, Taylor, the Scholar, Latenna, and Rya meet Millicent. Because god forbid if I don't wedge more characters into this. And now all five of them come to a conclusion - that they just need to get to the Haligtree. Rya has been burned out by the brutality of the Lands Between, and is disillusioned with the Volcano Manor after all she's seen. The Scholar just wants an adventure. And Latenna always wanted to go to the Haligtree, she even has one part of the seal to get there. Maybe they can find the other one!
They can't.
But they try to go for the elevator anyway. Going through Liurnia won't work... so Taylor does her best, with the aid of her companions, to learn gravity magic. And with the right tools, in the right place, with everyone using their own weird talents...
Alright, they don't just catapult themselves over a vast distance. That would be silly. No, they just find Radahn, stand in front of one of his gravity-empowered arrows, and Taylor uses her magic to harness it. Takes a few tries. She dies quite a bit during these tries. So, they're not catapulting themselves, they're just riding an enormous arrow fired by a demigod.
Much saner.
Yes, they break all their limbs in the process. This is why they've been stealing flasks from Tarnished. Anyway. They get to Altus by being fired towards it via Radahn arrow. Thwacks right into the walls of Leyndell. Getting to the lift of Rold is a challenge, though. Latenna wasn't really aware of Leyndell being in the way, and it's impossible to get inside. But who should come to the rescue...
But the Grafted Scions. All five of them.
Turns out reuniting five long-lost sisters actually tends to make them rather conflicted when it comes to killing you. Talking with each other led to them realising how things have gotten more than a little screwed up, and that Taylor hasn't... really been going out of her way to mess with them. If anything, she's tried her best to stay out of their way, but luck keeps screwing her over. And for the good deed of reuniting them, they offer to do one favour. Acting as a giant terrifying flesh-ladder for clambering around Leyndell, towards the lift of Rold, and manually scurrying up the elevator shaft towards the Consecrated Snowfield. They don't like Taylor, really - nor her companions. But they're interested in the Haligtree, and have a temporary truce to achieve this purpose. Taylor has enraged the Recusants, pissed off the Bloody Fingers, made enemies of a lot of Tarnished, irritated Gideon, insulted Morgott by defying his rule and entering his city, and Rennala isn't very fond of the girl who threw perfumer meth in her face and stole one of her scholars. But she's won. She's reached the Haligtree with her band of rejects, misfits, freaks, and mutants. Herself perhaps the most freakish of them all.
And the Haligtree...
Is in ruins, and Miquella is gone. Malenia is barely lucid.
This causes Taylor to snap a bit. Just a bit. She's worked so damn hard to get here, she's not leaving without a safe place to ride out this crazy world. She has no idea why she's here, she has no idea what she's doing, she just wants to go home, or in lieu of that, to have a place where she can take a nap. And in her furious ranting... she maybe drops a bit of information that a Bloody Finger mentioned. About the whole Miquella situation.
In earshot of Malenia.
Not a good move, that.
And... uh... well, see, it turns out things have gone rather wrong on the outside. Tanith has woken up Rykard on account of the Rya situation, and Rykard is enraged. Convinced that Taylor is an agent of some other power, and he wants to fight that power immediately. Radahn, being the rot-crazed abomination that he is, has... now been shown that he can fire arrows at Leyndell, if he really tries. Which he is. And now Morgott has to go and take care of him before he brings the whole city down. Again. Malenia is on the warpath after Mohg. Ranni has no idea what's happening, and no-one's listening to her wise counsel. Rennala is awake, and the chaos unleashed by that is enough to stir the pot even further. Taylor's started a new Shattering by accident. And with her gang, she manages to barely get to Leyndell as Gideon works to unmake the thorns, desperate to become Elden Lord before everything burns down. He succeeds...
And Taylor gets to meet Marika.
Who congratulates her on being such a good rabble-rouser.
Really not sure where I'd have gone from there. Maybe Taylor gets the other Shardbearers to work together against Marika, maybe Godfrey shows up and Taylor spills the beans on Godwyn, maybe Taylor fucks up something in some specific way to destabilise Marika's existence... hell, maybe Marika shows her how to get back home, the arts Radagon used to drag travellers to the Lands Between...
And Taylor promptly uses that power to grab something from Earth Bet. Just something. As a final act of defiance before running away.
She grabs an Endbringer.
Then hoofs it back to Earth Bet as the Lands Between start to disintegrate behind her.
But that's just an idea. Still, this version of BYIQMC would've been much more comedic in tone. Smaller cast, smaller lore implications, and much, much less serious. You can see why I didn't write it, though. With the way I write things... I don't know, I either write them as unfunny comedies or as brutal slogs. And this story as a brutal slog would be miserable. And this story as an unfunny comedy would be terrible.
So here we are.
Alright. Done. There's the summary. That's it. That's the last bit of content. Just for a bit of closure. Now I really really need to sleep. There's definitely stuff I've missed, and I'll be happy to answer questions if you have any. Hope you're all having a nice Christmas!
The Whole Gang, by the enduringly delightful Joe Duncan
GraftingBuddha
Retired Pooh-Bah
And just before I go - a picture of all the main characters from the nonsense I write. From left to right: Carza vo Anka (Orbis Tertius), Tanner Magg (Orbis Tertius Pompilid), Taylor of Haight (BYIQMC) with Crawa and Morrigan (La Papesse) riding on her head, Chorei (Russian Caravan) and Taylor Hebert (same).
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Man, having your main character become increasingly deformed sure is one way of showing character growth- I should do that, some day.
Thief of Words
Trans lesbian librarian
- Location
- Best book girl
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I can see why the DLC would've thrown you for a loop, given all of that. Thanks for updating us.
Admittedly, I'd still have read either of the outlined variants and likely enjoyed them.
Re: DLC lore summary: Marika-wise it casts her as waaay further down the chain of succession from the Dragonlord and roughly contiguous with a more Babylon-Era or Greco-Roman-era antiquity to the Golden Order's medieval feudalism. Lore points to Placidusax being mauled by the progenitor of the Drakes, an absolute unit named Bayle the Dread. Seems tied to wild crucible-tied traits showing up in the 'orderly' line of the Ancient dragons resulting in the second-class drakes.
Turns out the ancient dragons started dragon communion as a method of using human ambition and hunger to kill Bayle.
After the Dragonlord was maimed, his God left (presumably too disordered in his injury, not unlike how the Greater Will is speculated to have abandoned the Lands during the Shattering; it cannot abide the broken). Some time after the temporal sequestering of Farum Azula, a civilization that worked in cyclopean scape with the black stone used in golem crops up. This is the stone used in the Divine Towers. Their tech tree investment was spirit technology. They made the golems and other works of spirit infused stone.
As this is happening, the fire giants are warring with the dragons for the peaks around the Forge of the Fell flame. Other humans made their way t9 the mountaintops to study the stars and the night sky (Liurnia's predecessors, possibly literally including Rennala. Timescale is weird.) These astrologers formed the alliance of night and fire and drove the ancient dragons from the peaks.
Somewhere in ornafter this time, the blackstone/golem maker society falls apart. Their ruins and spirit manipulating technologies are discovered by the hornsent culture, which see horns and feathers and fur from the crucible as a sign of divine favor.
This was the dominant culture in Marika's time. She was a shaman, a minority prized for their ability to be harmoniously blended with the flesh of others (see also: grafting), which the hornsent prize because they use wax-sealed jars to lump together the flesh of their criminals and dissidents with other materials in hopes of creating more perfect beings, termed 'saints' in the English translation.
It's implied Marika was the last shaman alive. Possibly an artificially made Empyrean raised by the hornsent to a point, perhaps just the one surviving shaman with her body whole and her mind intact.
She pulled in (text used is seduced) someone (Godfrey?) to violently (splattered gobbdts of gore on the steps) clear her path to the gate of divinity the hornsent built of their own bodies and, taking strands of grace or power from the eye of a dead body, steps into the gate and beseeches the Will to empower her (in echo of her position crucified to a rune arc in the base game).
From there she proceeds to do the things we know of in the base game, as well as literally cut the heart out of the former hornsent lands banishing them to an unplace called the Lands of Shadow. Along with the genocidal crusading army led by her son Messmer (who is touched by andbmanifests a dark red flame that burns flesh but leaves spirit intact and bears an abyssal serpent inside his right eye) to kill all the hornsent in her name.
Admittedly, I'd still have read either of the outlined variants and likely enjoyed them.
Re: DLC lore summary: Marika-wise it casts her as waaay further down the chain of succession from the Dragonlord and roughly contiguous with a more Babylon-Era or Greco-Roman-era antiquity to the Golden Order's medieval feudalism. Lore points to Placidusax being mauled by the progenitor of the Drakes, an absolute unit named Bayle the Dread. Seems tied to wild crucible-tied traits showing up in the 'orderly' line of the Ancient dragons resulting in the second-class drakes.
Turns out the ancient dragons started dragon communion as a method of using human ambition and hunger to kill Bayle.
After the Dragonlord was maimed, his God left (presumably too disordered in his injury, not unlike how the Greater Will is speculated to have abandoned the Lands during the Shattering; it cannot abide the broken). Some time after the temporal sequestering of Farum Azula, a civilization that worked in cyclopean scape with the black stone used in golem crops up. This is the stone used in the Divine Towers. Their tech tree investment was spirit technology. They made the golems and other works of spirit infused stone.
As this is happening, the fire giants are warring with the dragons for the peaks around the Forge of the Fell flame. Other humans made their way t9 the mountaintops to study the stars and the night sky (Liurnia's predecessors, possibly literally including Rennala. Timescale is weird.) These astrologers formed the alliance of night and fire and drove the ancient dragons from the peaks.
Somewhere in ornafter this time, the blackstone/golem maker society falls apart. Their ruins and spirit manipulating technologies are discovered by the hornsent culture, which see horns and feathers and fur from the crucible as a sign of divine favor.
This was the dominant culture in Marika's time. She was a shaman, a minority prized for their ability to be harmoniously blended with the flesh of others (see also: grafting), which the hornsent prize because they use wax-sealed jars to lump together the flesh of their criminals and dissidents with other materials in hopes of creating more perfect beings, termed 'saints' in the English translation.
It's implied Marika was the last shaman alive. Possibly an artificially made Empyrean raised by the hornsent to a point, perhaps just the one surviving shaman with her body whole and her mind intact.
She pulled in (text used is seduced) someone (Godfrey?) to violently (splattered gobbdts of gore on the steps) clear her path to the gate of divinity the hornsent built of their own bodies and, taking strands of grace or power from the eye of a dead body, steps into the gate and beseeches the Will to empower her (in echo of her position crucified to a rune arc in the base game).
From there she proceeds to do the things we know of in the base game, as well as literally cut the heart out of the former hornsent lands banishing them to an unplace called the Lands of Shadow. Along with the genocidal crusading army led by her son Messmer (who is touched by andbmanifests a dark red flame that burns flesh but leaves spirit intact and bears an abyssal serpent inside his right eye) to kill all the hornsent in her name.
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Thanks for writing. I enjoyed it. Happy holidays to you as well.