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: Rikiya Koyama.
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!!
"
Kirei!!" is the screamed name.
That priest. That PRIEST!
Played a part in the death of his daughter in some paths of the Fifth Grail War, capping off his failures in the Fourth Grail War.
Played a direct part in his Wife's death! Leaving behind that twisted . . .mirror that he'd had to put down after "winning" the Fourth Grail War, else the world die in Grail Mud...
....
Yeah, she'd been destined to die because of being the integral part of the War as it were, but it would have been a gentle death. Not what Kirei did!
. . .
Not what he'd had to . . .do in that fell dream state . . .
"You?!" the fake priest blinks, not expecting to suddenly see his opponent from the Fourth Grail War.
"Do it," the Magus Killer mutters, not even bothering to chat with long time enemies. As amusing as it would be, right before ending him . . .and all other evil and just plain WRONG things in his and his son's . . .Grail Wars.
Rei Takahashi, the ring leader in this ill advised jaunt to save those . . .who'd been otherwise beyond saving due to "unforeseen consequences" and "outsider interference", nods.
The Magus Killer's brevity was a God Send after dealing with the "Heroic Spirits" who kept insisting on giving their live stories EVERY SINGLE combat situation!
MADDENING!
A magical device is activated, and the LITERAL substitute (literal) heart/regent for activating the Grail . . .burns into ash, destroying the life support device that kept it beating until now.
There is a huge cracking sound of the Dome above all in Rei's holographic image of the world they had left behind. The look of surprise (and more than a little fear) in Kirei's face was . . .heartening to those viewing it from this end of things. Almost made the dark humor of the fake/evil priest falling into the darkness below as all but he and other . . . people and things (certain Servants and Worm Using Maguses) that just CANNOT be brought along without endangering ALL!
Not that the falling last longs.
Blinking, she sees a flash of bright light along with a great cracking of glass before EVERYTHING is swallowed in lava....
The coup de grace is where the blasted/ruined surface of a sun scorched Earth finally, after magicks had been keeping it OUT finally succumbs to gravity. And doing a somewhat graceful swan dive into the surface of the Red Giant the Sun had become after so long.
Five billion years overdue, the death of this Earth. Considering that due to unforeseen consequences of Magus society dealing in things beyond it's kin with the Grail Wars (with all the cheating and twisting this and that). Nothing outside of the dome had lived very much longer due to a train of consequences from the Grail War fallout.
Looking around and seeing (gladly!) that she is no longer in a moonlit night grace VICTORIAN style graveyard.... And feeling utterly drained as the cost of that ceremony she'd participated in for this Fell Grail War beginning to hit her, she turns to look at one Rin Tosaka.
"Ah and now about that appology you owe," Rei sneers, looking at the tsundere. "We'll start with me and . . . maybe go from their to the rest of the gang, hm?"
After a short bout of sputtering, Rin squares her shoulders and gives it. Considering the powers she'd seen displayed (and Archer outright refusing to intercede in this embarrassing situation)? She gives it, but . . .
...
See, Rei and the gang? Not the most trusting of sort, given what they know about this setting with Magus types? Even if Rin was considered a decent person by far compared to most Maguskind?
It was lost to time due a war of multi-spanning proportions. There had been archives to preserve pop culture, but some kinds had fallen through the cracks.
The idea of using "built in lie detectors" in power suits had come from some web novel where a power wearing "Hero" had used such on a regular basis.
It came from the same place where becoming the "Queen of Esculation" haled from, even if WHO the Queen was there wasn't known nowaday.
That and said "hero"? Had the worst taste in commercial sponsers for products supporting his crusades for "justice" and "law". After all, what kind of freak would allow their visage to be placed upon woman's panties of all things?!
Rin's appology is lack luster, but the damnable thing?
She didn't mean a single word of it.
Smiling slightly, a smile that did not reach her eyes, Rei nods at Rin. The smile then drops.
"...And thus we managed to wrangle out the wish to teleport ALL to a world where they all could perish and prosper," the extremely tired (barely standing) young woman says as he glares the twin tailed tsundere. "Managing the nearly impossible considering the CURSED nature of the Grail."
But if not it, what remained of those upon Earth would have been consumed in nuclear fire...of the Sun!
"And as for your apology . . .," Rei Takahashi snarls, remembering and NOT forgiving the insults done that made her youngest sister cry.
What did Rin expect? They were not Heroic Spirits!
Fight a war? Yes.
Fight a war inside a city and not cause noise and enough damage to leave clues to the "muggles" that something is going on?! It was a miracle that with the magics they use that . . .
Snarling at the stupidity of it all, Rei ends up giving an obscene jesture with two fingers AND not bothering to see Rin Toksaka, Rei turned and marched off into a blue box to gather up her adventuring party and be DONE with this whole mess! She actually wants a pound of flesh from Rin, but instead . . .
Cut losses and call it a f*ckin' day!
Of course, that was before detecting a bunch of anomolies that should NOT have cropped up on what was to have been a dead world, ripe for the picking with a MASSIVE wish to make it habitable (and more)...
The BIG GLOWING TREE in the distance was one such anomaly...
"
Shit," Rei mutters, just shaking her head looking at the readings. The Grail JUST had to have the last laugh...
"At least it's not Yharnam," Rei muttered. "Praise the Sun."
Giving the communicator on her belt a questioning look as it interrupts her quipping.
"Breaker breaker!" a young woman's voice says over the device as Rei activates it. "Angel the Second to the First Children! You have your ears on?"
Rei nearly drops the device as lingering Magicks from that Grail Wish seems to wish to make one last backstab (but actually just fulfilling it's assigned tasked, albeit in a most inconvenient manner).
Delivering them to a world where they could grow and prosper. Can't do that if certain Outer Gods keep doing what they've been trrying to do and the Rot spreads all over the lands, eh?
Honestly, if Lilith had KNOWN that Rei had been so frazzled? So DONE with it all after being FORCED into the Role of the Good Hunter (up to and including having to deal with MOON PRESENCE)?!
The wave of fatigue Lilith was now feeling (and powering through) as the Ceremony's dues catch up with her is telling her that Rei is doubly not in the mood for her humor...
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 . . .ALSO!
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!
Mayhaps an echo of the Emperor played a part in that over the top display of healing magicks which just hit that poor red headed woman in the background?
Maybe. That guess was as good as any mages and mystics would theories later....
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.
Oh? Why was (Lady) Lilith Quatermain attempting to use Tarot cards of all things here? Why not something more . . .normal?
Well, 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? The healing magicks? 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 Grail hits, 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 EVERYTHING 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! "What in the Erdtree is this?!"
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 this Earth like world?
Confusing does not even begin to cover it!
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.
