You are the Lord of Obsidian Blades. The High Pass Keep has never fallen, and so long as you live, it never will. You have defended it from everything from human bandits through to the Eldest Enemies of All. These days, you mostly are left alone with your musings, but, for some reason, an Unvanquished keeps trying to defeat you.
In the Footsteps of Lords (Dark Souls/Elden Ring style boss quest)
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I. The High Pass Keep
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Ages have passed. Ages upon ages, and you have lived through them. The ruins around you have weathered them worse than you. You remember, once, when at your word this keep was raised. It was at the borders of the land that Divine King Gamaliel ruled, for beyond was the wilds where the Eldest Enemies of All stalked. It was no land that humanity could thrive in.
Thus, the need to erect a defense. Your Knights of the Obsidian Razor came in after the advance of the Thundering Charge, those horse-bound knights who had taken grievous losses in driving the Eldest Enemies of All away from these lands, earning Jostein the title of Cavalry Lord.
Day after day, year after year, your soldiers held fast in face of the Eldest Enemies of All, facing down weapons of starlight and gossamer with weapons of well-forged steel. Blandishments and temptations beyond mortal creation slipped into unprotected ear, whispering reasons to turn traitor or to flee into the embrace of the Eldest Enemies of All. Cataphract-horrors of immense strength and terrifying mien would strike when you seemed to be at your weakest, requiring your faithful knights and soldiers to close with hammers to crack their chitin before the Eldest Enemies of All could be put to spear or sword.
Yet, the High Pass Keep grew stronger, and your enemies were winnowed. First, one full day passed without an overt threat. Then, later, a second day. Eventually, you had two days at once. The endless numbers of the Eldest Enemies of All proved to be not so endless, after all. In time, the High Pass Keep became a mighty redoubt that was only occasionally challenged, with the Divine King of the Storm leading the lands shielded behind it to ever-greater glory, wealth, and understanding.
No matter how things changed, and despite you occasionally being called away from the Keep, this became the place you were known for, the place that the Lord of Obsidian Razors kept strong.
Things are different now. The Divine King Gamaliel, whose storms swept the world, has not been heard from for so long. He vanished... so long ago, now. Few of your knights and soldiers remain at their posts. Most have perished, though some have simply walked away from their orders. Whether they did that in hopes of protecting their own skins, or to serve some Lord that they see as more worthy, you have never investigated. Your orders were to keep the High Keep Pass safe for all eternity, and so for all eternity you shall keep it safe. Even if most of your remaining soldiers, as unaging as you, have lost all humanity and forgotten even how to speak or strategize, still they do defend the Keep's walls and halls.
It is enough.
You have not lost your mind, though it might be a relief after so long. The High Pass Keep will not fall. There are so many things it protects, not just the lands of the Divine King themselves.
There are those whom you care for, even if you have not seen them for... too long. Your husband and daughter, for instance.
Wait... someone has snuck into the room with you! It's one of the Unvanquished, those pathetic dead who scrabbled back to the land of the living. They are, occasionally, impressive warriors, but they have always been spurned by the Embrace of the Storm, and are thus unfit for civilized company. What is this one doing here!?
It's a short woman, clad in mis-matched armor, though her gauntlets appear to bear the distinctive mark of the Obsidian Razors upon it. Could she have defeated one of your retinue? It's hard to imagine.
She brandishes a staff in one hand, one that looks like those the Deep-Delvers use to evoke sorcery. The other has a one-handed straight sword, of common design.
How dare she!? SLAY HER!!
[] Roar a war cry and pound her with your mighty fists!
[] Hurl your javelins and pierce her through!
[] A one-two combo with your warhammer will catch her!
[] Feint smashing her with your warhammer, then swing!
Thus, the need to erect a defense. Your Knights of the Obsidian Razor came in after the advance of the Thundering Charge, those horse-bound knights who had taken grievous losses in driving the Eldest Enemies of All away from these lands, earning Jostein the title of Cavalry Lord.
Day after day, year after year, your soldiers held fast in face of the Eldest Enemies of All, facing down weapons of starlight and gossamer with weapons of well-forged steel. Blandishments and temptations beyond mortal creation slipped into unprotected ear, whispering reasons to turn traitor or to flee into the embrace of the Eldest Enemies of All. Cataphract-horrors of immense strength and terrifying mien would strike when you seemed to be at your weakest, requiring your faithful knights and soldiers to close with hammers to crack their chitin before the Eldest Enemies of All could be put to spear or sword.
Yet, the High Pass Keep grew stronger, and your enemies were winnowed. First, one full day passed without an overt threat. Then, later, a second day. Eventually, you had two days at once. The endless numbers of the Eldest Enemies of All proved to be not so endless, after all. In time, the High Pass Keep became a mighty redoubt that was only occasionally challenged, with the Divine King of the Storm leading the lands shielded behind it to ever-greater glory, wealth, and understanding.
No matter how things changed, and despite you occasionally being called away from the Keep, this became the place you were known for, the place that the Lord of Obsidian Razors kept strong.
Things are different now. The Divine King Gamaliel, whose storms swept the world, has not been heard from for so long. He vanished... so long ago, now. Few of your knights and soldiers remain at their posts. Most have perished, though some have simply walked away from their orders. Whether they did that in hopes of protecting their own skins, or to serve some Lord that they see as more worthy, you have never investigated. Your orders were to keep the High Keep Pass safe for all eternity, and so for all eternity you shall keep it safe. Even if most of your remaining soldiers, as unaging as you, have lost all humanity and forgotten even how to speak or strategize, still they do defend the Keep's walls and halls.
It is enough.
You have not lost your mind, though it might be a relief after so long. The High Pass Keep will not fall. There are so many things it protects, not just the lands of the Divine King themselves.
There are those whom you care for, even if you have not seen them for... too long. Your husband and daughter, for instance.
Wait... someone has snuck into the room with you! It's one of the Unvanquished, those pathetic dead who scrabbled back to the land of the living. They are, occasionally, impressive warriors, but they have always been spurned by the Embrace of the Storm, and are thus unfit for civilized company. What is this one doing here!?
It's a short woman, clad in mis-matched armor, though her gauntlets appear to bear the distinctive mark of the Obsidian Razors upon it. Could she have defeated one of your retinue? It's hard to imagine.
She brandishes a staff in one hand, one that looks like those the Deep-Delvers use to evoke sorcery. The other has a one-handed straight sword, of common design.
How dare she!? SLAY HER!!
[] Roar a war cry and pound her with your mighty fists!
[] Hurl your javelins and pierce her through!
[] A one-two combo with your warhammer will catch her!
[] Feint smashing her with your warhammer, then swing!
Last edited:
II. Genesis of the Lord of Obsidian Razors
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Winning vote:
- Feint smashing her with your warhammer, then swing!
You retrieve your hammer from its place at your left hip. Endless foes have thought that they could bait you into overswinging, luring a move that allows them a counterblow.
Your patience is deeper than your foes expect. They try to bait you, pause, then fall themselves for their own trap, trying to sneak an attack in before you counter. As always, it doesn't work like that: your hammer held above your head can fall swifter than a diving kestrel. When the Unvanquished tries to preemptively dodge, you strike.
You doubt she even saw it coming. There's just a bloody smear left behind, which vanishes into essence after a few moments. You snort, returning to your contemplations.
Sometimes Unvanquished return after such a defeat, but it grows less likely with each death they face. She probably won't come back.
Things were good for so long under the Divine King. Long enough that it was assumed by many that things would last for eternity. The Nurturing Storm swept the land, and in its wake, lush fields grew. Forge-Lord Demir and Gem-Lord Nuwan knelt to the Divine King early, and with their support and learnings, the order grew. It was during the crisis of the Prince of Flowing Waters that you rose to prominence.
Truth be told, you barely recall your origins, these days. You must have been ordinary, once. Once, you must have had parents and probably siblings and a home. Your earliest memories now, though, are of war. The chimerical beasts that the Prince of Flowing Waters used as shock troops were something your fellow soldiers couldn't stand up to, save being the lucky few to survive fighting them ten-on-one or more.
You learned, however. You learned their weaknesses. You learned how they attacked, how they thought, how they stalked. You set traps, at first, and lured them to doom. Then, you devoured the beast-meat. You grew stronger, one meal at a time, until you first were forced by necessity to face one openly, unable to lure it safely away.
Your spearhead splintered, but you still crushed its skull with the haft. That was what set you on the path your eventual weapon of choice, the sturdy warhammer that even your burgeoning strength couldn't snap.
From there, your single-handed campaign drove back the Prince of Flowing Waters. His advance foiled, the existing Lords under the Divine King rallied their strength and their armies, and soon won the war.
It had all been for a purpose, however. It had been for simple survival, at first. Then, it had been about growing your own strength and power. Then... well, you probably had some other motives in there, which you can no longer recall.
What it had culminated in was the meeting with the Gem-Lord. At the conclusion of the campaign, he welcomed you as an equal, and brought you personally to the throne of the Divine King of the Storm, and advocated for you.
The Divine King was more radiant and glorious in person than you had imagined. The throne, a masterwork of a dozen carvers, upholsterers, and gem-setters, faded into insignificance compared to the man seated upon it, and the majesty and restrained power you could sense.
Divinity was no mere title: It was an earned fact. The Divine King had created an order to the world, and when you swore yourself to him, you felt the Embrace of the Storm for the first time.
That was, in many ways, the beginning. There had been so many wonderful days to come after that. You weren't granted the title of Lord of Obsidian Razors immediately, and it was only later that you met your eventual husband.
You don't know how long the good times lasted. It was centuries, at least. It might have been many millennia. Truth be told, you never paid much attention.
Things faded, eventually. Once good things in this life fade, and it becomes clear that they shall not return, it's very soon hard to recall or care about if they were once truly fleeting or nigh-eternal.
Wait! You stir yourself as you suddenly realize that you're no longer alone. It's that same Unvanquished from before, the short woman with staff and sword. So she did manage to return even after facing the strength of the Lord of Obsidian Razors! That's laudable, in its own way, even if foolish. For how dare she invade this place not once, but twice!? SLAY HER!!
[] Roar a war cry and pound her with your mighty fists!
[] Hurl your javelins and pierce her through!
[] A one-two combo with your warhammer will catch her!
[] Feint smashing her with your warhammer, then swing!
She reads your timing and avoids your blow, finding an opening to stab at your gut.
- Feint smashing her with your warhammer, then swing!
You retrieve your hammer from its place at your left hip. Endless foes have thought that they could bait you into overswinging, luring a move that allows them a counterblow.
Your patience is deeper than your foes expect. They try to bait you, pause, then fall themselves for their own trap, trying to sneak an attack in before you counter. As always, it doesn't work like that: your hammer held above your head can fall swifter than a diving kestrel. When the Unvanquished tries to preemptively dodge, you strike.
You doubt she even saw it coming. There's just a bloody smear left behind, which vanishes into essence after a few moments. You snort, returning to your contemplations.
Sometimes Unvanquished return after such a defeat, but it grows less likely with each death they face. She probably won't come back.
Things were good for so long under the Divine King. Long enough that it was assumed by many that things would last for eternity. The Nurturing Storm swept the land, and in its wake, lush fields grew. Forge-Lord Demir and Gem-Lord Nuwan knelt to the Divine King early, and with their support and learnings, the order grew. It was during the crisis of the Prince of Flowing Waters that you rose to prominence.
Truth be told, you barely recall your origins, these days. You must have been ordinary, once. Once, you must have had parents and probably siblings and a home. Your earliest memories now, though, are of war. The chimerical beasts that the Prince of Flowing Waters used as shock troops were something your fellow soldiers couldn't stand up to, save being the lucky few to survive fighting them ten-on-one or more.
You learned, however. You learned their weaknesses. You learned how they attacked, how they thought, how they stalked. You set traps, at first, and lured them to doom. Then, you devoured the beast-meat. You grew stronger, one meal at a time, until you first were forced by necessity to face one openly, unable to lure it safely away.
Your spearhead splintered, but you still crushed its skull with the haft. That was what set you on the path your eventual weapon of choice, the sturdy warhammer that even your burgeoning strength couldn't snap.
From there, your single-handed campaign drove back the Prince of Flowing Waters. His advance foiled, the existing Lords under the Divine King rallied their strength and their armies, and soon won the war.
It had all been for a purpose, however. It had been for simple survival, at first. Then, it had been about growing your own strength and power. Then... well, you probably had some other motives in there, which you can no longer recall.
What it had culminated in was the meeting with the Gem-Lord. At the conclusion of the campaign, he welcomed you as an equal, and brought you personally to the throne of the Divine King of the Storm, and advocated for you.
The Divine King was more radiant and glorious in person than you had imagined. The throne, a masterwork of a dozen carvers, upholsterers, and gem-setters, faded into insignificance compared to the man seated upon it, and the majesty and restrained power you could sense.
Divinity was no mere title: It was an earned fact. The Divine King had created an order to the world, and when you swore yourself to him, you felt the Embrace of the Storm for the first time.
That was, in many ways, the beginning. There had been so many wonderful days to come after that. You weren't granted the title of Lord of Obsidian Razors immediately, and it was only later that you met your eventual husband.
You don't know how long the good times lasted. It was centuries, at least. It might have been many millennia. Truth be told, you never paid much attention.
Things faded, eventually. Once good things in this life fade, and it becomes clear that they shall not return, it's very soon hard to recall or care about if they were once truly fleeting or nigh-eternal.
Wait! You stir yourself as you suddenly realize that you're no longer alone. It's that same Unvanquished from before, the short woman with staff and sword. So she did manage to return even after facing the strength of the Lord of Obsidian Razors! That's laudable, in its own way, even if foolish. For how dare she invade this place not once, but twice!? SLAY HER!!
[] Roar a war cry and pound her with your mighty fists!
[] Hurl your javelins and pierce her through!
[] A one-two combo with your warhammer will catch her!
She reads your timing and avoids your blow, finding an opening to stab at your gut.
III. The Beloved Demigod
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Winning vote:
- Hurl your javelins and pierce her through!
From the quiver at your right hip, you draw forth a handful of javelins. Tipped with well-shaped blades of obsidian with cruel hooks on the end of its barbs, these weapons have brought down lesser dragons and broken the ranks of armies.
Sometimes, your peers wondered why you never mastered the sorceries of the deep nor the storm-miracles unlocked through devotion to the Divine King. The truth is that you never needed them. What bolt of power surpasses the strength of your throwing arm?
It doesn't take more than three of your fastest, strongest throws before one catches the Unvanquished. What is left of her is pinned to the wall, the ancient stone itself cracking under the force of your blow, before those remains vanish into essence after a few moments. You snort, returning to your contemplations.
Sometimes Unvanquished return after such a defeat, but it grows less likely with each death they face. She probably won't come back.
Oddly enough, for how most people perceive you, it was never the Divine King who was the true source of your happiness and loyalty. That's no slight on Gamaliel. He was always one of a kind. But part of the very fact of being a god is being set apart and above.
It was Abiel, instead, who was the source of your joy. A son of the Divine King, and thus a demigod in his own right, you'd met only after the resolution of the Violet Sunflowers Affair, where the devotees of the Violet Sun carried out their heretical rites and forbidden studies under the very nose of the Embrace of the Storm. It was only by the assiduous efforts of the Lord of Sharp Shadows that their plot was uncovered and the Veil That Blocks the Eye of the Storm was rent asunder.
You still owe the Lord of Sharp Shadows a debt that she will never know the extent of. Abiel was almost certainly the next on the list for those dark arcanists to target.
There was no sign of that when you had returned to the capital for the celebration that followed. He gave every sign that he was totally at ease meeting the various Lords, greeting you with grace and comfort.
By this point, you and the Cavalry-Lord of the Thundering Charge were spending much of your time on the borders. The Eldest Enemies of All still lurked in bogs, caves, and the deepest jungles, but they were growing scarce. The High Pass was still open, with your High Pass Keep not yet built. That would only be in years to come.
The Divine King had many sons and daughters, but, truth be told, you only ever had eyes for one. It had been a mutual attraction almost from the first. Abiel appreciated your strength and the fact that you didn't need him to always act the flawless demigod in private, which allowed him to explore so many things that he couldn't do in public. What trueborn son of the Divine King of the Storm would ever be bad at painting, or be less than perfect in his appearance, or just enjoy telling a naughty joke? For you, the fact that there was someone who just liked your company was enough. Your knights and the rank-and-file soldiers of the Obsidian Razors knew their Lord was more mortal than the gods and demigods, but military discipline still required you to act like a force of nature.
It was in your time with Abiel that both of you could just be yourselves, instead of living up to a role you had to play. What was more, when the Divine King heard of your mutual attraction, he had blessed the union. He was not just wise and majestic; the Divine King Gamaliel gave you a home. How could you be any less than eternally loyal to him for that?
Although your times together were sadly infrequent, they were only the sweeter for it. You fought on the periphery, and he was safe in the heart of the world because of that. In time, you were even blessed with a daughter together, named Akhila.
You don't think Abiel ever spoiled your daughter, but she was always a willful child. All the education and guidance in the world could never change that she grew up looking at the world with a critical eye and asking uncomfortable questions, the sort of questions that the Storm Cardinals frowned to hear, about topics such as how the world had been organized before the ascent of the Divine King and, worse, what would happen after him.
All the faith in the world couldn't have changed how things turned out, you don't think. Even if only your daughter asked the hard questions about the seemingly-infinite reign of the Divine King, and even if she hadn't, he would still have vanished, one day.
You don't really think he's truly gone. The Embrace of the Storm can still be glimpsed, now and then, and the various sects that succeeded the Storm Cardinals after their schisms still wield miraculous power sourced from him. It's still inarguable that there hasn't been a confirmed sighting of the Divine King in... how long? Your mind shifts away from the question. It doesn't matter how long.
Wait! That one Unvanquished is here again. She looks resolute and ready, for all that even your very own knights never manged to spar with you more than twice before they refused to face your fury again. No one save those worthy of lordship ever did. She's still coming back after two statements of how absolute your defense of this land is? It's impressive, certainly, but it cannot be allowed. SLAY HER!!
[] Roar a war cry and pound her with your mighty fists!
[] Hurl your javelins and pierce her through!
She rolls away when you try, pelting you with conjured lesser gem-spells.
[] A one-two combo with your warhammer will catch her!
[] Feint smashing her with your warhammer, then swing!
She reads your timing and avoids your blow, finding an opening to stab at your gut.
- Hurl your javelins and pierce her through!
From the quiver at your right hip, you draw forth a handful of javelins. Tipped with well-shaped blades of obsidian with cruel hooks on the end of its barbs, these weapons have brought down lesser dragons and broken the ranks of armies.
Sometimes, your peers wondered why you never mastered the sorceries of the deep nor the storm-miracles unlocked through devotion to the Divine King. The truth is that you never needed them. What bolt of power surpasses the strength of your throwing arm?
It doesn't take more than three of your fastest, strongest throws before one catches the Unvanquished. What is left of her is pinned to the wall, the ancient stone itself cracking under the force of your blow, before those remains vanish into essence after a few moments. You snort, returning to your contemplations.
Sometimes Unvanquished return after such a defeat, but it grows less likely with each death they face. She probably won't come back.
Oddly enough, for how most people perceive you, it was never the Divine King who was the true source of your happiness and loyalty. That's no slight on Gamaliel. He was always one of a kind. But part of the very fact of being a god is being set apart and above.
It was Abiel, instead, who was the source of your joy. A son of the Divine King, and thus a demigod in his own right, you'd met only after the resolution of the Violet Sunflowers Affair, where the devotees of the Violet Sun carried out their heretical rites and forbidden studies under the very nose of the Embrace of the Storm. It was only by the assiduous efforts of the Lord of Sharp Shadows that their plot was uncovered and the Veil That Blocks the Eye of the Storm was rent asunder.
You still owe the Lord of Sharp Shadows a debt that she will never know the extent of. Abiel was almost certainly the next on the list for those dark arcanists to target.
There was no sign of that when you had returned to the capital for the celebration that followed. He gave every sign that he was totally at ease meeting the various Lords, greeting you with grace and comfort.
By this point, you and the Cavalry-Lord of the Thundering Charge were spending much of your time on the borders. The Eldest Enemies of All still lurked in bogs, caves, and the deepest jungles, but they were growing scarce. The High Pass was still open, with your High Pass Keep not yet built. That would only be in years to come.
The Divine King had many sons and daughters, but, truth be told, you only ever had eyes for one. It had been a mutual attraction almost from the first. Abiel appreciated your strength and the fact that you didn't need him to always act the flawless demigod in private, which allowed him to explore so many things that he couldn't do in public. What trueborn son of the Divine King of the Storm would ever be bad at painting, or be less than perfect in his appearance, or just enjoy telling a naughty joke? For you, the fact that there was someone who just liked your company was enough. Your knights and the rank-and-file soldiers of the Obsidian Razors knew their Lord was more mortal than the gods and demigods, but military discipline still required you to act like a force of nature.
It was in your time with Abiel that both of you could just be yourselves, instead of living up to a role you had to play. What was more, when the Divine King heard of your mutual attraction, he had blessed the union. He was not just wise and majestic; the Divine King Gamaliel gave you a home. How could you be any less than eternally loyal to him for that?
Although your times together were sadly infrequent, they were only the sweeter for it. You fought on the periphery, and he was safe in the heart of the world because of that. In time, you were even blessed with a daughter together, named Akhila.
You don't think Abiel ever spoiled your daughter, but she was always a willful child. All the education and guidance in the world could never change that she grew up looking at the world with a critical eye and asking uncomfortable questions, the sort of questions that the Storm Cardinals frowned to hear, about topics such as how the world had been organized before the ascent of the Divine King and, worse, what would happen after him.
All the faith in the world couldn't have changed how things turned out, you don't think. Even if only your daughter asked the hard questions about the seemingly-infinite reign of the Divine King, and even if she hadn't, he would still have vanished, one day.
You don't really think he's truly gone. The Embrace of the Storm can still be glimpsed, now and then, and the various sects that succeeded the Storm Cardinals after their schisms still wield miraculous power sourced from him. It's still inarguable that there hasn't been a confirmed sighting of the Divine King in... how long? Your mind shifts away from the question. It doesn't matter how long.
Wait! That one Unvanquished is here again. She looks resolute and ready, for all that even your very own knights never manged to spar with you more than twice before they refused to face your fury again. No one save those worthy of lordship ever did. She's still coming back after two statements of how absolute your defense of this land is? It's impressive, certainly, but it cannot be allowed. SLAY HER!!
[] Roar a war cry and pound her with your mighty fists!
She rolls away when you try, pelting you with conjured lesser gem-spells.
[] A one-two combo with your warhammer will catch her!
She reads your timing and avoids your blow, finding an opening to stab at your gut.
IV. The Ring of Discretion
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Winning vote:
- A one-two combo with your warhammer will catch her!
You retrieve your hammer from its place at your left hip. Imbued with unflagging vitality from the Forge-Lord Demir's anvil, it has served you against endless foes. Cataphract-horrors splintered at your ferocious advance. Castle walls gave way.
Skill was hardly required, yet skill you brought. Even beyond the brute power of your blows, you always struck with intent, driving your foes before you until they reached a point where you could land a telling blow. Foes beyond counting thought you a simple brute, until they faced you and you demonstrated your subtle mastery. The Unvanquished lasts longer than most, but that just means two blows: the second one catches her.
There's not much to be seen save a bloody smear after that, which vanishes into essence after a few moments. You snort, returning to your contemplations.
Sometimes Unvanquished return after such a defeat, but it grows less likely with each death they face. She probably won't come back.
Your daughter grew up to be a fine young woman, you have to admit. For all that the Storm Cardinals disapproved of certain of her lines of questioning, Akhila was publishing advanced studies on the underpinnings of miracles and sorcery and the commonalities between them.
This had only made her unpopular. Neither you nor your husband had minded, and had made your disapproval known to her critics, which had let her continue as her inquiries led her. Sometimes, though, you still tried to reel her back.
It hadn't worked. You don't remember the whole conversation, but it led to an actual shouting match between you and her. Neither of you were trying to go that way, but it had just... escalated. You were trying to convince her not to doubt the Divine King, her own grandfather. She felt that it was a given, based on certain mathematical models, that his order would collapse. You didn't want her to go public with it.
It had led to one of the tensest visits you'd ever had at the capital, with your husband trying to play mediator. He was right, of course, and you hadn't been trying to stop her from researching. You'd only been trying to push your daughter to have some discretion.
You had eventually found the right way to make it up to her. You'd commissioned a pair of rings, their design evoking her work: platinum and gold wound together, set with one stone each of topaz and white sapphire. The platinum and sapphire were symbolic of the Deep-Delver sorceries, and the gold and topaz of the miracles of the Divine King.
Akhila had to ask why there were two. You had told her: the other was when she found the right person to share her theories with. It had been a peace offering, and she had understood that, and accepted it. She would be discreet about who she shared her work with, but you trusted her to find that. After that, you had had time together as a family, before you had to head out to the fringes, again.
That had sustained you through the next campaign. It was when the High Pass Keep was at its strongest. You try not to think too much about how far it has fallen since then. You rest now in an open courtyard that had once been a major interior staging area. The stones themselves have weathered, eroded, until there is no ceiling above you and the walls and floor are barely distinguishable from the unworked landscape.
Still, the Keep itself stands. The Eldest Enemies of All are nowhere to be seen, not anymore. They have been driven back, and even without the Divine King leading things, their strength has waned too far and is not recovering. The lands sheltered behind the Keep are still safe. Abiel and Akhila are still there, surely. The roads are dangerous, though dangerous in a merely human way, and your post... well, the Divine King ordered you to hold this post. You cannot go to them.
Sometimes, you wonder if the reason that the Eldest Enemies of All no longer accost your walls is that they are simply waiting for the mountains around it to give way. The more rational part of your brain knows that that isn't the case. They don't think like that, and their power has been decisively broken. But it still feels heartening to think that they are more scared of you than of waiting for the stone to wear away.
Then, you are jerked out of your musings. You aren't alone, not any more. Someone else has entered the space you guard. It is, of course, that same short Unvanquished woman. You've never seen the like, but you have won more campaigns than any Unvanquished has ever even read about. You get to your feet again. She will learn. SLAY HER!!
[] Roar a war cry and pound her with your mighty fists!
[] Hurl your javelins and pierce her through!
She rolls away when you try, pelting you with conjured lesser gem-spells.
[] A one-two combo with your warhammer will catch her!
She darts this way and that, cutting at your armored legs.
[] Feint smashing her with your warhammer, then swing!
She reads your timing and avoids your blow, finding an opening to stab at your gut.
- A one-two combo with your warhammer will catch her!
You retrieve your hammer from its place at your left hip. Imbued with unflagging vitality from the Forge-Lord Demir's anvil, it has served you against endless foes. Cataphract-horrors splintered at your ferocious advance. Castle walls gave way.
Skill was hardly required, yet skill you brought. Even beyond the brute power of your blows, you always struck with intent, driving your foes before you until they reached a point where you could land a telling blow. Foes beyond counting thought you a simple brute, until they faced you and you demonstrated your subtle mastery. The Unvanquished lasts longer than most, but that just means two blows: the second one catches her.
There's not much to be seen save a bloody smear after that, which vanishes into essence after a few moments. You snort, returning to your contemplations.
Sometimes Unvanquished return after such a defeat, but it grows less likely with each death they face. She probably won't come back.
Your daughter grew up to be a fine young woman, you have to admit. For all that the Storm Cardinals disapproved of certain of her lines of questioning, Akhila was publishing advanced studies on the underpinnings of miracles and sorcery and the commonalities between them.
This had only made her unpopular. Neither you nor your husband had minded, and had made your disapproval known to her critics, which had let her continue as her inquiries led her. Sometimes, though, you still tried to reel her back.
It hadn't worked. You don't remember the whole conversation, but it led to an actual shouting match between you and her. Neither of you were trying to go that way, but it had just... escalated. You were trying to convince her not to doubt the Divine King, her own grandfather. She felt that it was a given, based on certain mathematical models, that his order would collapse. You didn't want her to go public with it.
It had led to one of the tensest visits you'd ever had at the capital, with your husband trying to play mediator. He was right, of course, and you hadn't been trying to stop her from researching. You'd only been trying to push your daughter to have some discretion.
You had eventually found the right way to make it up to her. You'd commissioned a pair of rings, their design evoking her work: platinum and gold wound together, set with one stone each of topaz and white sapphire. The platinum and sapphire were symbolic of the Deep-Delver sorceries, and the gold and topaz of the miracles of the Divine King.
Akhila had to ask why there were two. You had told her: the other was when she found the right person to share her theories with. It had been a peace offering, and she had understood that, and accepted it. She would be discreet about who she shared her work with, but you trusted her to find that. After that, you had had time together as a family, before you had to head out to the fringes, again.
That had sustained you through the next campaign. It was when the High Pass Keep was at its strongest. You try not to think too much about how far it has fallen since then. You rest now in an open courtyard that had once been a major interior staging area. The stones themselves have weathered, eroded, until there is no ceiling above you and the walls and floor are barely distinguishable from the unworked landscape.
Still, the Keep itself stands. The Eldest Enemies of All are nowhere to be seen, not anymore. They have been driven back, and even without the Divine King leading things, their strength has waned too far and is not recovering. The lands sheltered behind the Keep are still safe. Abiel and Akhila are still there, surely. The roads are dangerous, though dangerous in a merely human way, and your post... well, the Divine King ordered you to hold this post. You cannot go to them.
Sometimes, you wonder if the reason that the Eldest Enemies of All no longer accost your walls is that they are simply waiting for the mountains around it to give way. The more rational part of your brain knows that that isn't the case. They don't think like that, and their power has been decisively broken. But it still feels heartening to think that they are more scared of you than of waiting for the stone to wear away.
Then, you are jerked out of your musings. You aren't alone, not any more. Someone else has entered the space you guard. It is, of course, that same short Unvanquished woman. You've never seen the like, but you have won more campaigns than any Unvanquished has ever even read about. You get to your feet again. She will learn. SLAY HER!!
[] Roar a war cry and pound her with your mighty fists!
She rolls away when you try, pelting you with conjured lesser gem-spells.
She darts this way and that, cutting at your armored legs.
She reads your timing and avoids your blow, finding an opening to stab at your gut.
V. The Keep Must Stand
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Winning vote:
- Roar a war cry and pound her with your mighty fists!
Your bellow is louder than a lion's and carries far more authority. The Unvanquished woman staggers on hearing it, and she is thus off-balance as you race in. Your gauntlets and fists are armored with the obsidian razors you are famous for, and the impact they bring will slay bears and knights with any hit. Against this little Unvanquished, they are far more than she could possibly withstand. She tries to recover. She tries to dodge. She tries and she fails.
It doesn't take more than a couple of strikes from you. What is left of her is no longer remotely recognizable as human, and even that residue vanishes into essence after a few moments. You snort, returning to your contemplations.
Sometimes Unvanquished return after such a defeat, but it grows less likely with each death they face. She probably won't come back.
The only other time you had a major argument with your daughter was when she tried to get you to leave your post. It was long after the first one, when she had already been proven right. The Forge-Lord had been the first one to publicly say what had been clear for years: the Divine King was gone. He had not left word, nor was there evidence he would be back.
Some had listened. Some had sworn themselves to one Lord or the other instead of the Divine King. Some Lords had proposed insane schemes to raise either themselves or some other to true divinity. Others had simply struck out on their own. Some, like you, did their best to stay faithful. A dozen Lords faithful to the Divine King splintered and fractured, and twice as many demigods went three times as many different paths.
For you, the idea of trying to reach higher than your station was anathema. The Divine King had given you an order, and it still needed to be obeyed. Keeping the Eldest Enemies of All out was far more important than most realized, these days. Those who had only known the peace after they were fenced away did not understand what they were being saved from.
So, when Akhila tried to convince you to follow her own vision, you refused. She didn't understand. You couldn't find the words. To be honest, a part of you was scared that she had come out this way. Bandits and worse stalked the roadways, and even a sorcerer as accomplished as your daughter wasn't totally safe to travel alone.
These days, you have to admit that part of your fear was just that you still kept remembering her as a baby, not the woman she has become. Still, no matter how accurate her forecasts were, or how compelling her vision was, you couldn't have gone with her. A large part of you is a product of what you've lived through, what you've built. You are not one who could ever leave your post, especially since your post still has such value.
Even if it weren't, even if the Eldest Enemies of All were no longer stalking the world, you're not sure you could bring yourself to leave. This is where you were ordered to be. The orders you followed to bring yourself here are the same type that brought you to your Lordship and which brought you to your husband. You don't know how old you are, but you're certainly far too old to change your ways now.
If the rest of the world tries to move on, well, let it. You can't, though. Akhila seemed to think that it was the result of stubbornness, but that's not really true. If you had to define it as anything, it might be... contentment. You faced trials and the horrors of war, and you won a place for yourself. If this is your place, how can you leave it behind?
That still isn't quite true, though. It's not quite contentment. You miss your husband, his laugh, his self-effacing mannerisms when he had to confess something he was lacking. It's good that he's safe, but... you miss him. If only you could see him now and then, spend a few moments together, that would be what you need. Let the months, or centuries, pass, so long as you are together. Instead, well, you're alone. The only person you see any more was that Unvanquished, and there's no chance she's—
—wait, she's here again! It beggars belief. SLAY HER!!
[] Roar a war cry and pound her with your mighty fists!
She adroitly dodges when you try, and applies a flaming oil to her blade.
[] Hurl your javelins and pierce her through!
She rolls away when you try, pelting you with conjured lesser gem-spells.
[] A one-two combo with your warhammer will catch her!
She darts this way and that, cutting at your armored legs.
[] Feint smashing her with your warhammer, then swing!
She reads your timing and avoids your blow, finding an opening to stab at your gut.
You stagger, stumble, and, somehow fall to one knee. It is unheard of. It is outrageous. You have never taken a knee in front of anyone save the Divine King of the Storm himself. "Divine King," you say, the sound of your voice seeming to give both you and the Unvanquished a moment of startlement. "Is this... truly what is left to us? Is this to be the end of my vigil?"
You almost fall flat on your face, until a wind blows. It howls through the empty windows of the keep. It skirls around you. It finds the opening below your helmet and touches your cheek, a gentle caress that's the only human contact you have had in years beyond counting save only this most persistent of Unvanquished, whom you cannot dissuade. "O King of the Storm," you say, your voice firm again. "Until now, I have served only with my own strength. Now, let me fight with yours."
You shift your grip, your warhammer in only your right hand. Your left... it closes as if there is a second warhammer. At the same time, a bolt of lightning falls from the empty sky above you, straight at your left hand.
You seize the very lightning itself. It crackles with power, and thunder rumbles, the land itself shaking with its impact. You don't need to look. You know what you hold.
With one hand, you grip your ancient warhammer. With the other, you grip its copy, a duplicate formed from frozen lightning. You roar, and the Unvanquished covers her face with her gauntlets to protect her from the surge of power. The power that makes your wounds feel as nothing and your exhaustion vanish.
"Come," you say. "My last worthy foe. The Lord of Obsidian Razors still stands."
[] Your lightning-hammer shall fly with more force than your javelins!
[] Your storm of hammer blows is thrice as fast, and ten times as powerful!
[] Together, your hammers call forth divine lightning from their impact!
- Roar a war cry and pound her with your mighty fists!
Your bellow is louder than a lion's and carries far more authority. The Unvanquished woman staggers on hearing it, and she is thus off-balance as you race in. Your gauntlets and fists are armored with the obsidian razors you are famous for, and the impact they bring will slay bears and knights with any hit. Against this little Unvanquished, they are far more than she could possibly withstand. She tries to recover. She tries to dodge. She tries and she fails.
It doesn't take more than a couple of strikes from you. What is left of her is no longer remotely recognizable as human, and even that residue vanishes into essence after a few moments. You snort, returning to your contemplations.
Sometimes Unvanquished return after such a defeat, but it grows less likely with each death they face. She probably won't come back.
The only other time you had a major argument with your daughter was when she tried to get you to leave your post. It was long after the first one, when she had already been proven right. The Forge-Lord had been the first one to publicly say what had been clear for years: the Divine King was gone. He had not left word, nor was there evidence he would be back.
Some had listened. Some had sworn themselves to one Lord or the other instead of the Divine King. Some Lords had proposed insane schemes to raise either themselves or some other to true divinity. Others had simply struck out on their own. Some, like you, did their best to stay faithful. A dozen Lords faithful to the Divine King splintered and fractured, and twice as many demigods went three times as many different paths.
For you, the idea of trying to reach higher than your station was anathema. The Divine King had given you an order, and it still needed to be obeyed. Keeping the Eldest Enemies of All out was far more important than most realized, these days. Those who had only known the peace after they were fenced away did not understand what they were being saved from.
So, when Akhila tried to convince you to follow her own vision, you refused. She didn't understand. You couldn't find the words. To be honest, a part of you was scared that she had come out this way. Bandits and worse stalked the roadways, and even a sorcerer as accomplished as your daughter wasn't totally safe to travel alone.
These days, you have to admit that part of your fear was just that you still kept remembering her as a baby, not the woman she has become. Still, no matter how accurate her forecasts were, or how compelling her vision was, you couldn't have gone with her. A large part of you is a product of what you've lived through, what you've built. You are not one who could ever leave your post, especially since your post still has such value.
Even if it weren't, even if the Eldest Enemies of All were no longer stalking the world, you're not sure you could bring yourself to leave. This is where you were ordered to be. The orders you followed to bring yourself here are the same type that brought you to your Lordship and which brought you to your husband. You don't know how old you are, but you're certainly far too old to change your ways now.
If the rest of the world tries to move on, well, let it. You can't, though. Akhila seemed to think that it was the result of stubbornness, but that's not really true. If you had to define it as anything, it might be... contentment. You faced trials and the horrors of war, and you won a place for yourself. If this is your place, how can you leave it behind?
That still isn't quite true, though. It's not quite contentment. You miss your husband, his laugh, his self-effacing mannerisms when he had to confess something he was lacking. It's good that he's safe, but... you miss him. If only you could see him now and then, spend a few moments together, that would be what you need. Let the months, or centuries, pass, so long as you are together. Instead, well, you're alone. The only person you see any more was that Unvanquished, and there's no chance she's—
—wait, she's here again! It beggars belief. SLAY HER!!
She adroitly dodges when you try, and applies a flaming oil to her blade.
She rolls away when you try, pelting you with conjured lesser gem-spells.
She darts this way and that, cutting at your armored legs.
She reads your timing and avoids your blow, finding an opening to stab at your gut.
You stagger, stumble, and, somehow fall to one knee. It is unheard of. It is outrageous. You have never taken a knee in front of anyone save the Divine King of the Storm himself. "Divine King," you say, the sound of your voice seeming to give both you and the Unvanquished a moment of startlement. "Is this... truly what is left to us? Is this to be the end of my vigil?"
You almost fall flat on your face, until a wind blows. It howls through the empty windows of the keep. It skirls around you. It finds the opening below your helmet and touches your cheek, a gentle caress that's the only human contact you have had in years beyond counting save only this most persistent of Unvanquished, whom you cannot dissuade. "O King of the Storm," you say, your voice firm again. "Until now, I have served only with my own strength. Now, let me fight with yours."
You shift your grip, your warhammer in only your right hand. Your left... it closes as if there is a second warhammer. At the same time, a bolt of lightning falls from the empty sky above you, straight at your left hand.
You seize the very lightning itself. It crackles with power, and thunder rumbles, the land itself shaking with its impact. You don't need to look. You know what you hold.
With one hand, you grip your ancient warhammer. With the other, you grip its copy, a duplicate formed from frozen lightning. You roar, and the Unvanquished covers her face with her gauntlets to protect her from the surge of power. The power that makes your wounds feel as nothing and your exhaustion vanish.
"Come," you say. "My last worthy foe. The Lord of Obsidian Razors still stands."
[] Your lightning-hammer shall fly with more force than your javelins!
[] Your storm of hammer blows is thrice as fast, and ten times as powerful!
[] Together, your hammers call forth divine lightning from their impact!
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VI. The Challenges to the World's Order
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Winning vote:
- Your storm of hammer blows is thrice as fast, and ten times as powerful!
You charge, faster than a warhorse at gallop and more ferocious than a jaguar. Hammer in each hand, you pound a staccato drumbeat of death, a rhythmless but unending roll of thunder. Every impact shakes the walls around you, echoing back and forth in cacophony.
The Unvanquished is impressive. She moves like no one you have ever seen before, twisting this way and that, stutter-stepping and rolling away in an attempt to evade you.
What she can't do is strike back. With one hammer, you already all but entirely cut off an enemy's ability to find an opening. You are moving even faster, now, and have a hammer in each hand. Eventually, her superlative skill fails her. You do not need a second hit: one glancing blow leaves nothing behind.
"O Divine King," you pray, "abide with me a while." Unvanquished may return after such a defeat, but you can't believe even this great rival could. This is probably the end.
You can't quite recall what Akhila's vision was. That's not your daughter's fault. She made the effort. But it was never an order to the world that could coexist with the Embrace of the Storm. For you, that was already the end of it. You followed your father-in-law, the god of this world.
Admittedly, even before the Divine King disappeared, there were already some cracks in the order he created. The Unvanquished were one of the more visible ones, but not the first. The first that you were aware of was actually when the Deep-Delvers under the Gem Lord showed some of their discoveries from the far underground realms, discoveries that challenged orthodoxy in ways few could ignore.
You certainly remember when news trickled out to you: the Deep-Delvers had brought a dragon out from some primordial cavern, a feral thing of vast size, one that seemed to be a demigod in its own right.
The only reason that that hadn't been a forbidden topic was that no one had ever imagined it needed to be forbidden, any more than horses were forbidden from breathing seawater. Yes, the demigods possessed certain shared traits. Yes, those traits had significance in certain types of inquiry. But the demigods were also the lineage of the Divine King. A dragon with none of his bloodline could not be a demigod, even setting aside that the creature was older than the Divine King himself.
The Deep-Delvers had tried to be smart about it: they did not actually claim their find was divine. They only indicated it had 'certain traits in common with' demigods, without giving any speculation why.
It hadn't been enough. Outcry was both instant and loud enough that it came to even the High Pass Keep almost immediately. It hadn't given you any issues to hear about it. All you really needed to do was imagine your husband as a dragon of caverns and deep passages. It was amusing enough that any possible heresy didn't even merit consideration. Not that he wasn't agile enough in his own ways, of course. That was something you'd long since come to appreciate.
The scandal of the dragon and the censure of the Deep-Delvers were just the first you'd known of. You later learned of the Emulations, a type of artificial pseudo-human the Cardinals had created far earlier, beings which challenged what it meant to be human in certain ways you honestly never fully grasped. You are a warrior, not a philosopher. Later, the insights of the Achronal Adherents and their false timelines caused as much of a stir, but much of the public believed that their claims were just lies, and almost no one learned when the Adherents, blindfolded and gagged so they could not speak, were sent past the High Pass Keep on an open-ended mission to end the Eldest Enemies of All entirely. None ever returned, though occasionally afterward some of the Eldest Enemies of All that assailed your Keep had their mouths riveted shut with silver.
The Unvanquished were less of a challenge, in some ways, although they had been much more widely known about. The Embrace of the Storm was varied in how it affected people, but in order to hold a writ of nobility or Lordship, a certain strength was required. The Embrace, of course, was part of how you existed for the centuries you did. Those held tightly would slow or cease their aging. Most of the common folk never had the Embrace, though you always did require your soldiers and knights to have at least that much. What was the point in training some underling to fight for a mere ten or thirty years before growing too old to contribute?
The Unvanquished are different. From the first, it was not that they ceased aging so much as certain types of death in struggle did not take at first. That was where the name came from. Despite their death in combat or execution, they returned through various means, still whole and hale. It was quite unlike your average undead champion. The only other commonality that all Unvanquished had was that none of them had ever felt the Embrace.
A life after death outside the Embrace of the Storm or the understood false life of undeath was not something that the Divine King's order allowed. There was no telling who would become Unvanquished, save by waiting after someone passed.
One of your sisters-in-law felt sympathy for these benighted people, and took it upon herself to try to help them. Come to think of it, you have no idea what happened with that idea. Did she give it up? Was the Divine King even around? In the first place, what even was her name?
Trivialities like this fall away with the endless procession of time as you guard your post, here in the ruins of the Keep, exposed to the elements.
Idly, you wonder if your daughter's vision for a new order included the Unvanquished, or if you only consider that now because that one Unvanquished has challenged you so often. It's a pity that things keep turning out this way, really. If she'd just leave you be, you'd only have fond feelings about the Unvanquished. She's the only companion you've had in far too long, now, even if every meeting has started and ended with you trying and then succeeding at killing her outright. It's a pity you probably finished her for good the last time she bothered you.
Wait!
She's here again! Straight sword and staff, gauntlets from one of your knights, a medley of other armor covering the rest of her body: it's certainly the same one.
You heave yourself to your feet. If she's here to make her way through the Keep, your duty is still to stop her. SLAY HER!!
[] Roar a war cry and pound her with your mighty fists!
She adroitly dodges when you try, and applies a flaming oil to her blade.
[] Hurl your javelins and pierce her through!
She rolls away when you try, pelting you with conjured lesser gem-spells.
[] A one-two combo with your warhammer will catch her!
She darts this way and that, cutting at your armored legs.
[] Feint smashing her with your warhammer, then swing!
She reads your timing and avoids your blow, finding an opening to stab at your gut.
You stagger, stumble, and fall to one knee. Before you collapse, a wind blows. You feel its gentle touch, and shift your warhammer to only your right hand.
Your left hand reaches up, and closes on a lightning bolt, which shapes itself to another warhammer. You roar, and the Unvanquished covers her face with her gauntlets to protect her from the surge of power. The power that makes your wounds feel as nothing and your exhaustion vanish.
"Come," you say. "My last worthy foe. The Lord of Obsidian Razors still stands."
[] Your lightning-hammer shall fly with more force than your javelins!
[] Your storm of hammer blows is thrice as fast, and ten times as powerful!
Her sword, seemingly so mundane, meets you with skill you've never seen before. Her strength is vastly inferior to yours, but, somehow, she turns your weapons aside and finds moments to stab at you.
[] Together, your hammers call forth divine lightning from their impact!
- Your storm of hammer blows is thrice as fast, and ten times as powerful!
You charge, faster than a warhorse at gallop and more ferocious than a jaguar. Hammer in each hand, you pound a staccato drumbeat of death, a rhythmless but unending roll of thunder. Every impact shakes the walls around you, echoing back and forth in cacophony.
The Unvanquished is impressive. She moves like no one you have ever seen before, twisting this way and that, stutter-stepping and rolling away in an attempt to evade you.
What she can't do is strike back. With one hammer, you already all but entirely cut off an enemy's ability to find an opening. You are moving even faster, now, and have a hammer in each hand. Eventually, her superlative skill fails her. You do not need a second hit: one glancing blow leaves nothing behind.
"O Divine King," you pray, "abide with me a while." Unvanquished may return after such a defeat, but you can't believe even this great rival could. This is probably the end.
You can't quite recall what Akhila's vision was. That's not your daughter's fault. She made the effort. But it was never an order to the world that could coexist with the Embrace of the Storm. For you, that was already the end of it. You followed your father-in-law, the god of this world.
Admittedly, even before the Divine King disappeared, there were already some cracks in the order he created. The Unvanquished were one of the more visible ones, but not the first. The first that you were aware of was actually when the Deep-Delvers under the Gem Lord showed some of their discoveries from the far underground realms, discoveries that challenged orthodoxy in ways few could ignore.
You certainly remember when news trickled out to you: the Deep-Delvers had brought a dragon out from some primordial cavern, a feral thing of vast size, one that seemed to be a demigod in its own right.
The only reason that that hadn't been a forbidden topic was that no one had ever imagined it needed to be forbidden, any more than horses were forbidden from breathing seawater. Yes, the demigods possessed certain shared traits. Yes, those traits had significance in certain types of inquiry. But the demigods were also the lineage of the Divine King. A dragon with none of his bloodline could not be a demigod, even setting aside that the creature was older than the Divine King himself.
The Deep-Delvers had tried to be smart about it: they did not actually claim their find was divine. They only indicated it had 'certain traits in common with' demigods, without giving any speculation why.
It hadn't been enough. Outcry was both instant and loud enough that it came to even the High Pass Keep almost immediately. It hadn't given you any issues to hear about it. All you really needed to do was imagine your husband as a dragon of caverns and deep passages. It was amusing enough that any possible heresy didn't even merit consideration. Not that he wasn't agile enough in his own ways, of course. That was something you'd long since come to appreciate.
The scandal of the dragon and the censure of the Deep-Delvers were just the first you'd known of. You later learned of the Emulations, a type of artificial pseudo-human the Cardinals had created far earlier, beings which challenged what it meant to be human in certain ways you honestly never fully grasped. You are a warrior, not a philosopher. Later, the insights of the Achronal Adherents and their false timelines caused as much of a stir, but much of the public believed that their claims were just lies, and almost no one learned when the Adherents, blindfolded and gagged so they could not speak, were sent past the High Pass Keep on an open-ended mission to end the Eldest Enemies of All entirely. None ever returned, though occasionally afterward some of the Eldest Enemies of All that assailed your Keep had their mouths riveted shut with silver.
The Unvanquished were less of a challenge, in some ways, although they had been much more widely known about. The Embrace of the Storm was varied in how it affected people, but in order to hold a writ of nobility or Lordship, a certain strength was required. The Embrace, of course, was part of how you existed for the centuries you did. Those held tightly would slow or cease their aging. Most of the common folk never had the Embrace, though you always did require your soldiers and knights to have at least that much. What was the point in training some underling to fight for a mere ten or thirty years before growing too old to contribute?
The Unvanquished are different. From the first, it was not that they ceased aging so much as certain types of death in struggle did not take at first. That was where the name came from. Despite their death in combat or execution, they returned through various means, still whole and hale. It was quite unlike your average undead champion. The only other commonality that all Unvanquished had was that none of them had ever felt the Embrace.
A life after death outside the Embrace of the Storm or the understood false life of undeath was not something that the Divine King's order allowed. There was no telling who would become Unvanquished, save by waiting after someone passed.
One of your sisters-in-law felt sympathy for these benighted people, and took it upon herself to try to help them. Come to think of it, you have no idea what happened with that idea. Did she give it up? Was the Divine King even around? In the first place, what even was her name?
Trivialities like this fall away with the endless procession of time as you guard your post, here in the ruins of the Keep, exposed to the elements.
Idly, you wonder if your daughter's vision for a new order included the Unvanquished, or if you only consider that now because that one Unvanquished has challenged you so often. It's a pity that things keep turning out this way, really. If she'd just leave you be, you'd only have fond feelings about the Unvanquished. She's the only companion you've had in far too long, now, even if every meeting has started and ended with you trying and then succeeding at killing her outright. It's a pity you probably finished her for good the last time she bothered you.
Wait!
She's here again! Straight sword and staff, gauntlets from one of your knights, a medley of other armor covering the rest of her body: it's certainly the same one.
You heave yourself to your feet. If she's here to make her way through the Keep, your duty is still to stop her. SLAY HER!!
She adroitly dodges when you try, and applies a flaming oil to her blade.
She rolls away when you try, pelting you with conjured lesser gem-spells.
She darts this way and that, cutting at your armored legs.
She reads your timing and avoids your blow, finding an opening to stab at your gut.
You stagger, stumble, and fall to one knee. Before you collapse, a wind blows. You feel its gentle touch, and shift your warhammer to only your right hand.
Your left hand reaches up, and closes on a lightning bolt, which shapes itself to another warhammer. You roar, and the Unvanquished covers her face with her gauntlets to protect her from the surge of power. The power that makes your wounds feel as nothing and your exhaustion vanish.
"Come," you say. "My last worthy foe. The Lord of Obsidian Razors still stands."
[] Your lightning-hammer shall fly with more force than your javelins!
Her sword, seemingly so mundane, meets you with skill you've never seen before. Her strength is vastly inferior to yours, but, somehow, she turns your weapons aside and finds moments to stab at you.
[] Together, your hammers call forth divine lightning from their impact!
VII. The Absent King
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Winning vote:
- Your lightning-hammer shall fly with more force than your javelins!
You draw back your left arm. Though it may be formed of caged lightning, this weapon is not weightless. Its heft is no less than that of your faithful physical weapon. You see your foe's eyes widen as she realizes what you are about to do.
Her agility and skills avail her nothing here. To dodge your javelin is to avoid it. The wind of its passage may tear at hems, but it is the missile itself that harms. This is nothing of the sort. When you hurl the miraculous weapon with all the muscle of a Lord and all the experience of wars beyond memory, the lightning bolt unbinds itself.
The impact gouges a crater in the floor, sending shrapnel raining. You raise your left hand to the sky, and seize another hammer formed of pure lightning. There is no need for it, though: your foe has been wiped from existence.
"O Divine King," you pray, "abide with me a while." Unvanquished may return after such a defeat, but you can't believe even this great rival could. This is probably the end.
The disappearance of the Divine King is a deep mystery. Most of the time, from when you were first brought to him, it was never hard to find him. The Embrace would whisper his location, and for those like the Unvanquished, the endless thunderheads that crowned him all the way up into the sky served as another subtle way to locate him.
The storms grew less fierce over time. Some said that this was because the storms were blowing themselves out. You, on the other hand, believed that it had more to do with him learning to control them. His fury when roused to fight certainly never showed a man waning and burning out.
Plus, when the storms were at their most controlled, it gave him a surprising subtlety. You caught him, now and then, examining things or watching from afar when the crowning storms suggested he was far away. Other times, he would vanish for weeks, months, or years at a time, only to return with some new miracles in hand. Or, occasionally, with nothing to show for it that the Lords ever found out about. That was his right.
The power he wielded was so far beyond you or any other single Lord that it was outright insulting to fear for him. Certainly, there were many threats that could rival you, and more that could give you a terrible time if you were not at your best, you were surprised, or if various elements aligned poorly. That was not to say that the King would be so vulnerable. No peer to the Divine King of the Storm was ever confirmed. Certainly not in anything that existed during his rule. Even the quiet historical inquiries about times before never suggested that previous human champions, the most ancient of dragons, or even the Eldest Enemies of All in their primeval splendor and terror could match this incarnate god.
So, it seems strange that he should choose to vanish, yet all but unthinkable that he would be compelled to do so by any other force. This would not be a contradiction if he had not vanished, and yet he had, and only your daughter Akhila had even considered that it was a thing possible, much less that it had occurred. It is in no fashion surprising, then, that it took so long for the Lords and demigods to accept his absence.
For a moment, your imagination returns to that distant city where your family lives. Or, at least, lived. How far could the Nurturing Storm have receded? Is your husband still all right?
If you were someone else, perhaps you would take the moments you have felt recently, with the Divine King granting you power, as justification to step away. You have defended the High Pass Keep beyond your ability, even if, somehow, your abilities now are limited to the point that an Unvanquished might give you pause. Life is funny, sometimes.
But if the order of the world truly is falling apart, could you not step away, and return to your husband?
If only you could. You miss him dearly. Perhaps, then, your imagination is that he could come here? But, no, both road and Keep are dangerous. You would not want him to face the Eldest Enemies of All when they next strike. For that matter, if that Unvanquished were to return, even she might be too terrible a foe for a mere demigod. You smile to yourself. Now that is a thought that you never would have believed possible to have in the Divine King's heyday.
When the world is falling apart, the most important thing you can do is be true to yourself, and there is nothing more core to you than guarding this land while your family is safe behind you. If you are doing your duty as best you can, then surely the other Lords are doing the same. This current unpleasantness? Perhaps this, too, will be as fleeting as the times of plenty that have passed.
That would be nice.
Whether or not that dream will come, you will not, cannot, change. Your place is here.
It should be a surprise, then, when the Unvanquished returns. It should be, but it is not. Once more, you see her come to you. Once more, you shall show her the unbending fury of the Lord of Obsidian Razors. SLAY HER!!
[] Roar a war cry and pound her with your mighty fists!
She adroitly dodges when you try, and applies a flaming oil to her blade.
[] Hurl your javelins and pierce her through!
She rolls away when you try, pelting you with conjured lesser gem-spells.
[] A one-two combo with your warhammer will catch her!
She darts this way and that, cutting at your armored legs.
[] Feint smashing her with your warhammer, then swing!
She reads your timing and avoids your blow, finding an opening to stab at your gut.
You stagger, stumble, and fall to one knee. Before you collapse, a wind blows. You feel its gentle touch, and shift your warhammer to only your right hand.
Your left hand reaches up, and closes on a lightning bolt, which shapes itself to another warhammer. You roar, and the Unvanquished covers her face with her gauntlets to protect her from the surge of power. The power that makes your wounds feel as nothing and your exhaustion vanish.
"Come," you say. "My last worthy foe. The Lord of Obsidian Razors still stands."
[] Your lightning-hammer shall fly with more force than your javelins!
With impossible agility, the Unvanquished slips clear of the explosion, and with a wave of her sorcerous staff, she conjures spikes of white sapphire to pierce your flesh.
[] Your storm of hammer blows is thrice as fast, and ten times as powerful!
Her sword, seemingly so mundane, meets you with skill you've never seen before. Her strength is vastly inferior to yours, but, somehow, she turns your weapons aside and finds moments to stab at you.
[] Together, your hammers call forth divine lightning from their impact!
- Your lightning-hammer shall fly with more force than your javelins!
You draw back your left arm. Though it may be formed of caged lightning, this weapon is not weightless. Its heft is no less than that of your faithful physical weapon. You see your foe's eyes widen as she realizes what you are about to do.
Her agility and skills avail her nothing here. To dodge your javelin is to avoid it. The wind of its passage may tear at hems, but it is the missile itself that harms. This is nothing of the sort. When you hurl the miraculous weapon with all the muscle of a Lord and all the experience of wars beyond memory, the lightning bolt unbinds itself.
The impact gouges a crater in the floor, sending shrapnel raining. You raise your left hand to the sky, and seize another hammer formed of pure lightning. There is no need for it, though: your foe has been wiped from existence.
"O Divine King," you pray, "abide with me a while." Unvanquished may return after such a defeat, but you can't believe even this great rival could. This is probably the end.
The disappearance of the Divine King is a deep mystery. Most of the time, from when you were first brought to him, it was never hard to find him. The Embrace would whisper his location, and for those like the Unvanquished, the endless thunderheads that crowned him all the way up into the sky served as another subtle way to locate him.
The storms grew less fierce over time. Some said that this was because the storms were blowing themselves out. You, on the other hand, believed that it had more to do with him learning to control them. His fury when roused to fight certainly never showed a man waning and burning out.
Plus, when the storms were at their most controlled, it gave him a surprising subtlety. You caught him, now and then, examining things or watching from afar when the crowning storms suggested he was far away. Other times, he would vanish for weeks, months, or years at a time, only to return with some new miracles in hand. Or, occasionally, with nothing to show for it that the Lords ever found out about. That was his right.
The power he wielded was so far beyond you or any other single Lord that it was outright insulting to fear for him. Certainly, there were many threats that could rival you, and more that could give you a terrible time if you were not at your best, you were surprised, or if various elements aligned poorly. That was not to say that the King would be so vulnerable. No peer to the Divine King of the Storm was ever confirmed. Certainly not in anything that existed during his rule. Even the quiet historical inquiries about times before never suggested that previous human champions, the most ancient of dragons, or even the Eldest Enemies of All in their primeval splendor and terror could match this incarnate god.
So, it seems strange that he should choose to vanish, yet all but unthinkable that he would be compelled to do so by any other force. This would not be a contradiction if he had not vanished, and yet he had, and only your daughter Akhila had even considered that it was a thing possible, much less that it had occurred. It is in no fashion surprising, then, that it took so long for the Lords and demigods to accept his absence.
For a moment, your imagination returns to that distant city where your family lives. Or, at least, lived. How far could the Nurturing Storm have receded? Is your husband still all right?
If you were someone else, perhaps you would take the moments you have felt recently, with the Divine King granting you power, as justification to step away. You have defended the High Pass Keep beyond your ability, even if, somehow, your abilities now are limited to the point that an Unvanquished might give you pause. Life is funny, sometimes.
But if the order of the world truly is falling apart, could you not step away, and return to your husband?
If only you could. You miss him dearly. Perhaps, then, your imagination is that he could come here? But, no, both road and Keep are dangerous. You would not want him to face the Eldest Enemies of All when they next strike. For that matter, if that Unvanquished were to return, even she might be too terrible a foe for a mere demigod. You smile to yourself. Now that is a thought that you never would have believed possible to have in the Divine King's heyday.
When the world is falling apart, the most important thing you can do is be true to yourself, and there is nothing more core to you than guarding this land while your family is safe behind you. If you are doing your duty as best you can, then surely the other Lords are doing the same. This current unpleasantness? Perhaps this, too, will be as fleeting as the times of plenty that have passed.
That would be nice.
Whether or not that dream will come, you will not, cannot, change. Your place is here.
It should be a surprise, then, when the Unvanquished returns. It should be, but it is not. Once more, you see her come to you. Once more, you shall show her the unbending fury of the Lord of Obsidian Razors. SLAY HER!!
She adroitly dodges when you try, and applies a flaming oil to her blade.
She rolls away when you try, pelting you with conjured lesser gem-spells.
She darts this way and that, cutting at your armored legs.
She reads your timing and avoids your blow, finding an opening to stab at your gut.
You stagger, stumble, and fall to one knee. Before you collapse, a wind blows. You feel its gentle touch, and shift your warhammer to only your right hand.
Your left hand reaches up, and closes on a lightning bolt, which shapes itself to another warhammer. You roar, and the Unvanquished covers her face with her gauntlets to protect her from the surge of power. The power that makes your wounds feel as nothing and your exhaustion vanish.
"Come," you say. "My last worthy foe. The Lord of Obsidian Razors still stands."
With impossible agility, the Unvanquished slips clear of the explosion, and with a wave of her sorcerous staff, she conjures spikes of white sapphire to pierce your flesh.
Her sword, seemingly so mundane, meets you with skill you've never seen before. Her strength is vastly inferior to yours, but, somehow, she turns your weapons aside and finds moments to stab at you.
[] Together, your hammers call forth divine lightning from their impact!
VIII. The Unvanquished Stands Alone
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Winning vote:
- Together, your hammers call forth divine lightning from their impact!
You hold both hammers aloft, crossed above your head. The steel of your faithful weapon and the fury of the new one resonate with each other. Power swells, power beyond even that of your physical frame alone.
The Unvanquished woman approaches, unwilling to flee yet wary of what you are preparing. All her care is meaningless, though. When you slam the ground, the impact is like unto an earthquake, and the lightning-hammer unbinds.
The explosion only doesn't end you because its power radiates from you instead of towards you, and because of your heavily armored frame. Of your rival, nothing is left.
"O Divine King," you pray, "abide with me a while." Unvanquished may return after such a defeat, but you can't believe even this great rival could. This is probably the end.
It is a strange title, perhaps, Lord of Obsidian Razors. The Forge-Lord is clear in what he does and how he earned his title. The Gem-Lord is only unclear for those who lack the knowledge that gems and sorcery are close kin, even for those like you who don't understand the details of the mystery.
It has to do with the armor you wear. It had started life as a knight's protection. Your first armor, that of a common soldier, had been left behind while you were still hunting the Prince's chimeras. This had been improved, piecemeal, time and again in the years to come, replacing damage and taking advantage of new developments.
For a while, you were not granted the title of Lord, even with the Gem-Lord advocating for it. The title had come with a later victory, when the army of the Colossus of the Disillusioned had struck. They were known for their massed archery barrages, and the Colossus itself possessed corded muscle and leathery skin that few weapons could threaten. Your warhammer was with the Forge-Lord, so you had engaged them with a weaker sidearm and only a few soldiers. The soldiers fell in battle, and your backup weapons gave way before the Colossus did.
If it had been a very little smaller, you probably would have just strangled the Colossus, but it was too large for you to get the right leverage. You were pushed back until you'd fallen in a field of volcanic rock. Bits and pieces of obsidian had wedged in your armor, and in your ongoing grapples with the Colossus, you had noticed that they were slicing it here and there. Eventually, then, you worked to cover your armor all over with such weapons.
In the end, blood loss had weakened the Colossus enough that you had won, and from there you had routed the army.
There was no debate after that. You were a Lord in truth, and from then on both your armor and that of your knights and soldiers were marked with obsidian razors, along with many but not all of your weapons. Obsidian is a fine material, but not always the ideal one.
It's funny, the extent to which this has almost been forgotten, even by you. The Colossus had been a strange one-off case, with neither similar cases before nor after it. It was thus almost forgettable, save for your own title. There were a dozen similar things, you're sure. Many threats, many allies, many situations that were resolved in one fashion or another. The reign of the Divine King of the Storm was long.
Is long.
You shrug, internally. You could have been called many things, but this is what you are called. It could have been anything, but this is the one that's important because it's the one you actually are known as. It's more recognizable to you as you than your name.
Then, there's no time to think about it any further.
She is here. You tried to tell yourself otherwise, but you knew she would be. The Unvanquished has returned. You have only one course you can follow. You have only one thing you can do.
SLAY HER!!
[] Roar a war cry and pound her with your mighty fists!
She adroitly dodges when you try, and applies a flaming oil to her blade.
[] Hurl your javelins and pierce her through!
She rolls away when you try, pelting you with conjured lesser gem-spells.
[] A one-two combo with your warhammer will catch her!
She darts this way and that, cutting at your armored legs.
[] Feint smashing her with your warhammer, then swing!
She reads your timing and avoids your blow, finding an opening to stab at your gut.
You stagger, stumble, and fall to one knee. Before you collapse, a wind blows. You feel its gentle touch, and shift your warhammer to only your right hand.
Your left hand reaches up, and closes on a lightning bolt, which shapes itself to another warhammer. You roar, and the Unvanquished covers her face with her gauntlets to protect her from the surge of power. The power that makes your wounds feel as nothing and your exhaustion vanish.
"Come," you say. "My last worthy foe. The Lord of Obsidian Razors still stands."
[] Your lightning-hammer shall fly with more force than your javelins!
With impossible agility, the Unvanquished slips clear of the explosion, and with a wave of her sorcerous staff, she conjures spikes of white sapphire to pierce your flesh.
[] Your storm of hammer blows is thrice as fast, and ten times as powerful!
Her sword, seemingly so mundane, meets you with skill you've never seen before. Her strength is vastly inferior to yours, but, somehow, she turns your weapons aside and finds moments to stab at you.
[] Together, your hammers call forth divine lightning from their impact!
When you slam the ground, the explosion seems to end things, but, somehow, she's behind you, using you for cover from your own attack. Before you can twist to face her, you feel the sting of her blade in your back.
You collapse.
This is not the same as the second wind you've had so far. Your injuries and your exhaustion are too much. Your breathing is labored. Too labored.
The hammer of lightning you can no longer feel. The one of ancient steel you can't quite grip.
It's a state you recognize. This is it. You've seen it in others: allies, subordinates, enemies. Mostly enemies.
The Unvanquished, wary of a trick or final surge of strength, approaches you cautiously. She needn't have worried. If she were just more experienced, she would know that.
When she has satisfied herself that that is the case, she puts her weapons away and takes off her gauntlets, the ones that she must have taken from one of your knights. You doubted, once, that she could have done so, but you've been convinced of it by now.
What is surprising, as she comes close and works to lever the warhammer away from your hand, is what was in the gauntlet, hidden from you until now.
There's a telltale shimmer on her left ring finger: platinum and gold, topaz and sapphire.
You can no longer fight, but you have one other tool you'd forgotten to use until just now: that of speech. "You'll... treat her right?" you ask.
The Unvanquished, whose name you've never learned, jumps away in surprise, then relaxes as she realizes what you mean. "Yes," she promises. "We're..." she hesitates, not sure how to summarize something complex in an instant. "It will be better," is what she settles on. "But she—we—need the weapons of Lords."
Why? Well, Akhila told you, you're pretty sure. You just can't recall why.
So be it.
With an effort of will, you lift your hand up, and shift it slightly. Off the hammer.
The Unvanquished steps forward, and, with both hands and good leverage, is just barely able to lift the weapon you would swing with one hand.
But your burden is, finally, lighter.
- Together, your hammers call forth divine lightning from their impact!
You hold both hammers aloft, crossed above your head. The steel of your faithful weapon and the fury of the new one resonate with each other. Power swells, power beyond even that of your physical frame alone.
The Unvanquished woman approaches, unwilling to flee yet wary of what you are preparing. All her care is meaningless, though. When you slam the ground, the impact is like unto an earthquake, and the lightning-hammer unbinds.
The explosion only doesn't end you because its power radiates from you instead of towards you, and because of your heavily armored frame. Of your rival, nothing is left.
"O Divine King," you pray, "abide with me a while." Unvanquished may return after such a defeat, but you can't believe even this great rival could. This is probably the end.
It is a strange title, perhaps, Lord of Obsidian Razors. The Forge-Lord is clear in what he does and how he earned his title. The Gem-Lord is only unclear for those who lack the knowledge that gems and sorcery are close kin, even for those like you who don't understand the details of the mystery.
It has to do with the armor you wear. It had started life as a knight's protection. Your first armor, that of a common soldier, had been left behind while you were still hunting the Prince's chimeras. This had been improved, piecemeal, time and again in the years to come, replacing damage and taking advantage of new developments.
For a while, you were not granted the title of Lord, even with the Gem-Lord advocating for it. The title had come with a later victory, when the army of the Colossus of the Disillusioned had struck. They were known for their massed archery barrages, and the Colossus itself possessed corded muscle and leathery skin that few weapons could threaten. Your warhammer was with the Forge-Lord, so you had engaged them with a weaker sidearm and only a few soldiers. The soldiers fell in battle, and your backup weapons gave way before the Colossus did.
If it had been a very little smaller, you probably would have just strangled the Colossus, but it was too large for you to get the right leverage. You were pushed back until you'd fallen in a field of volcanic rock. Bits and pieces of obsidian had wedged in your armor, and in your ongoing grapples with the Colossus, you had noticed that they were slicing it here and there. Eventually, then, you worked to cover your armor all over with such weapons.
In the end, blood loss had weakened the Colossus enough that you had won, and from there you had routed the army.
There was no debate after that. You were a Lord in truth, and from then on both your armor and that of your knights and soldiers were marked with obsidian razors, along with many but not all of your weapons. Obsidian is a fine material, but not always the ideal one.
It's funny, the extent to which this has almost been forgotten, even by you. The Colossus had been a strange one-off case, with neither similar cases before nor after it. It was thus almost forgettable, save for your own title. There were a dozen similar things, you're sure. Many threats, many allies, many situations that were resolved in one fashion or another. The reign of the Divine King of the Storm was long.
Is long.
You shrug, internally. You could have been called many things, but this is what you are called. It could have been anything, but this is the one that's important because it's the one you actually are known as. It's more recognizable to you as you than your name.
Then, there's no time to think about it any further.
She is here. You tried to tell yourself otherwise, but you knew she would be. The Unvanquished has returned. You have only one course you can follow. You have only one thing you can do.
SLAY HER!!
She adroitly dodges when you try, and applies a flaming oil to her blade.
She rolls away when you try, pelting you with conjured lesser gem-spells.
She darts this way and that, cutting at your armored legs.
She reads your timing and avoids your blow, finding an opening to stab at your gut.
You stagger, stumble, and fall to one knee. Before you collapse, a wind blows. You feel its gentle touch, and shift your warhammer to only your right hand.
Your left hand reaches up, and closes on a lightning bolt, which shapes itself to another warhammer. You roar, and the Unvanquished covers her face with her gauntlets to protect her from the surge of power. The power that makes your wounds feel as nothing and your exhaustion vanish.
"Come," you say. "My last worthy foe. The Lord of Obsidian Razors still stands."
With impossible agility, the Unvanquished slips clear of the explosion, and with a wave of her sorcerous staff, she conjures spikes of white sapphire to pierce your flesh.
Her sword, seemingly so mundane, meets you with skill you've never seen before. Her strength is vastly inferior to yours, but, somehow, she turns your weapons aside and finds moments to stab at you.
When you slam the ground, the explosion seems to end things, but, somehow, she's behind you, using you for cover from your own attack. Before you can twist to face her, you feel the sting of her blade in your back.
You collapse.
This is not the same as the second wind you've had so far. Your injuries and your exhaustion are too much. Your breathing is labored. Too labored.
The hammer of lightning you can no longer feel. The one of ancient steel you can't quite grip.
It's a state you recognize. This is it. You've seen it in others: allies, subordinates, enemies. Mostly enemies.
The Unvanquished, wary of a trick or final surge of strength, approaches you cautiously. She needn't have worried. If she were just more experienced, she would know that.
When she has satisfied herself that that is the case, she puts her weapons away and takes off her gauntlets, the ones that she must have taken from one of your knights. You doubted, once, that she could have done so, but you've been convinced of it by now.
What is surprising, as she comes close and works to lever the warhammer away from your hand, is what was in the gauntlet, hidden from you until now.
There's a telltale shimmer on her left ring finger: platinum and gold, topaz and sapphire.
You can no longer fight, but you have one other tool you'd forgotten to use until just now: that of speech. "You'll... treat her right?" you ask.
The Unvanquished, whose name you've never learned, jumps away in surprise, then relaxes as she realizes what you mean. "Yes," she promises. "We're..." she hesitates, not sure how to summarize something complex in an instant. "It will be better," is what she settles on. "But she—we—need the weapons of Lords."
Why? Well, Akhila told you, you're pretty sure. You just can't recall why.
So be it.
With an effort of will, you lift your hand up, and shift it slightly. Off the hammer.
The Unvanquished steps forward, and, with both hands and good leverage, is just barely able to lift the weapon you would swing with one hand.
But your burden is, finally, lighter.
THE END
Epilogue
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Easily my favorite April Fool's things are ones that are high-effort and with as much skill as the creator can bring to it, but are very clearly something that would be bad to press at long-term… and so don't even pretend that they're going to do that.
This idea has actually been with me for almost a full year. "The Elden Ring boss that absolutely is just going to fight the protagonist and win every time until the protagonist learns the boss patterns, but is someone who will not use any tools for that interaction except violence" is definitely a bad idea for a quest. It can't work long-term. I still wanted to tell it, though.
I put a lot of effort into the world-building, here, not that there's enough here for someone to make a full decoding of it unless we have a real VaatiVidya anxious to do so. But, well, that's set dressing. This is definitely one of the weirdest stories I've set out to tell, but there is a real story here, if a tragic one. Tragic doesn't mean hopeless or miserable, though, so for those of you who've read this weird little story of mine, I hope it brightened your day in some way.
This is, in fact, the very end of this quest. Thank you for coming along with me on the ride. And, to steal a joke from Monty Python, just remember that if you've enjoyed reading this just half as much as I've enjoyed writing it, then I've enjoyed it twice as much as you.
Thank you, and goodnight.
If you haven't found the pun, I'm not giving you any hints.
This idea has actually been with me for almost a full year. "The Elden Ring boss that absolutely is just going to fight the protagonist and win every time until the protagonist learns the boss patterns, but is someone who will not use any tools for that interaction except violence" is definitely a bad idea for a quest. It can't work long-term. I still wanted to tell it, though.
I put a lot of effort into the world-building, here, not that there's enough here for someone to make a full decoding of it unless we have a real VaatiVidya anxious to do so. But, well, that's set dressing. This is definitely one of the weirdest stories I've set out to tell, but there is a real story here, if a tragic one. Tragic doesn't mean hopeless or miserable, though, so for those of you who've read this weird little story of mine, I hope it brightened your day in some way.
This is, in fact, the very end of this quest. Thank you for coming along with me on the ride. And, to steal a joke from Monty Python, just remember that if you've enjoyed reading this just half as much as I've enjoyed writing it, then I've enjoyed it twice as much as you.
Thank you, and goodnight.
If you haven't found the pun, I'm not giving you any hints.