"A shame." Marika stated, hovering just behind he and Melina. "Tis hath proved to be a wasted trip. No matter, we will make do without the offerings."
They stood before the minor Erdtree Melina had spoken about, the thing a departure from the much smaller trees that made up the Mistwoods as well as the giant ethereal one from which it came. For starters, it lacked that ethereal glow, its thick bark a distinct dark brown that reached so far into the sky that the persistent fog hid a majority of its branches from view. The few smaller ones that could be made out, grew leaves that were a yellowish shade of gold, as solid as the bark they stemmed from.
"The offerings may have proved useful to you." Melina stated, kneeling to run a hand across the golden bowl set up on a gathering of roots that secured it, dirt and grim falling away at her touch. "No matter. With your power such things are likely unnecessary."
Well, those two were in synch. He wasn't sure he'd be so quick to call this a wasted trip as Marika did though.
Onyx's gaze jumped from the bowl to the dark bark.
Naturally the same power given off by the rays of the actual Erdtree wafted off this thing, continuously infusing with all around. Just being near the thing fed into Melina's power, the golden threads sown into her soul strengthened. Like the Erdtree, it tried to do the same to him, falling miserably, a constant repulsion keeping it from doing any more than flowing over him.
It shared in the same power, but its insidious presence lacked the same strength of the distant Erdtree.
Onyx stabbed the Grafted Blade into the ground, stepping past it and Melina as he pulled his longsword free of its sheath. He pulled the blade back across his chest.
"Do not bother. Such basic weaponry can do it no harm." He ignored her, swinging. True to her word, even with his mana enhanced strength behind the slash it didn't manage to so much as nick the dark bark. In fact, he was forced to stop short least the crack already spreading across the metal worsened to the point of shattering the weapon entirely. "What is thine's intention?"
Again, he ignored her, sword returned to its sheath as he shifted into a lower stance, right arm pulled back, palm and fingers fully straightened out and held tightly together. The mana below sped up as more and more poured through the pathways leading to said hand.
Onyx stepped forward, hand shot ahead.
SHRRCH!
Bark splitered, his hand cutting and digging into the tree. Shifting his fingers, he hooked them in and stepped back, yanking. A piece of bark, hardly any bigger than his palm, rested in his grasp.
Along with her confusion, a sense of satisfaction flowed over from Marika.
He ignored that, slipping the bark into his pouch before walking up to the tree and tracing its ancient groves. It didn't take long for him to find handholds, Onyx throwing himself up. It took several leaps, the massive tree not so much as creaking or peeling away beneath his weight, before his climb brought him to one of the small leaf covered branches.
He grabbed hold of it.
Small as it was, physically speaking the thing should've snapped right then and there, but like the bark, it refused to acknowledge his presence. Planting his feet into the tree and grabbing hold of the unbending branch's end, he straightened out his hand once more.
A swift swing severed it from the rest of the tree, Onyx flipping as he fell. He landed beside Melina, branch in hand, and Marika's confused satisfaction once more briefly rising to the forefront of their bond.
Again, once could be shrugged off, twice was a coincidence, and thrice was a pattern. While she took no pleasure in her current state, Marika cared little for the power she'd lost in their meshing. The way she spoke of the Golden Order and its people was far from flattering. And, just to add icing to the cake, here she was taking pleasure in his dismantling of the tree people worshipped in her name.
The fact that she was the one to bring about the Shattering said plenty but combined with all that, there was one thing being constantly hammered into his mind.
Marika held no love for the Golden Order.
"Why did you…" Though Melina's face held strong to its apathetic state, she trailed off, both confused by what he did but unsure if it should be questioned.
"Yes, I'm quite curious what spurred such a rash act." Marika questioned, regarding him with a raised eyebrow, still by Melina's side. "Though fickle, thy hardly seems the sort to partake in sacrilege for the sake of it."
"There are few better ways to understand something than to study parts of it." Onyx said as he slipped the branch into the same pouch as the bark. Understanding something also tended to be a cornerstone in establishing an ironclad defense against it. Right now, the golden energy wasn't much of a threat to him in any way that truly mattered, but once he drew closer to its source?
Prepping specialized and or enhancing the natural defenses around his soul with whatever he learned would be essential. This wasn't the Erdtree itself but offshoots of it would serve that purpose.
Melina regarded him with a long stare, more unspoken questions pulling her deep into her thoughts.
"Remember, if you want to ask me something, just do it." He said, his brow raised.
"I…" She trailed off, before continuing, tone lowered. "…I have come to realize that you can commune with…her." Despite the fact that they were more or less alone now, Melina displayed the same suspicions Marika harbored about other forces being focused upon them, words kept vague. "Was this an action she approved of?"
Quite the question.
"As-"
"And if it wasn't?" Onyx questioned, grasping the Grafted Blade's handle.
"Cease this foolishness. What does thou hope to gain by stirring conflict within her?"
Onyx ignored Marika's order as well as her hard glare, instead watching Melina. A downward twitch of her mouth. The gradual furrowing of her brow. Her gaze lowering from his.
Uncertainty.
This would hardly be the first time religion and faith took the reins of his relationship with another, but he doubted that it'd be a problem now. So long as this bond with Marika remained, Melina wouldn't be going nowhere.
Afterwards? That depended on how things went.
The ground shook as Melina looked back up. Another tremor, coming from behind her, shook the ground, Melina turning as she backed up to his side. The simple presence of one of the distant bears roaming the foggy forest was closing in alongside the tremors.
Marika, glare still aimed down at him, allowed herself to fade from view.
The head of one of the hulking bears emerged from the fog. A quick trace of some of the white patterns along its fur revealed that it was the same exact bear that'd previously thought better of attacking them.
It stopped, a clear distance kept between them, and lower its head, mouth opening.
Clicks and creaks filled the air.
It pulled back, clutter left where it placed its mouth, the animal now staring down at him.
Grafted Blade left behind, Onyx stepped forward.
Barrels and crates. Pots and sheathed rusty weapons. Plenty of other things, some broken and useless but others tools that any traveler would get some use out of. In some of the barrels and crates were stores of plants and messily stored meat.
If one could get over the sheer amount of saliva covering the stuff it would be quite the offering.
He backed off, pulling the Grafted Blade from the dirt and placing it on his shoulder. "Looks like our friend here wants something." Onyx said, looking at Melina as he prepared a jump. "Coming along?"
She nodded, silently stepping up to him. He placed an arm at her waist and leaped, landing on the bear's burly shoulder. It shifted, taking off into the fog.
Miraka's no small amount of dissatisfaction let him know how little she agreed with the sudden detour.
XOXO
Onyx jumped off the bear's furry shoulder, he and Melina landing on cracked stone. They stood among a set of ruins a good distance away from the main trail that ran through the Mistwoods.
Or what remained of it.
Archways, walls, any towers or intact rooms. It'd all been reduced to a gathering of rumble. Intermingled with that rubble were the bodies of quite a few demihumans. Crushed into wet bloody pastes and split into pieces by could have only been the work of a giant set of claws, there was little room to question what had been behind it all.
The bear moved towards the center of the rumble, pushing aside an out of place gathering of fallen trees.
A set of stairs, almost identical to the ones that led into Sellen's hideaway aside from rumble trickling down into it, had been blocked by those trees. The bear growled lowly, a paw slammed beside the opening. Primal rage rested within its eyes, restrained only the simple fact that it could not descend the steps itself.
Someone or something it wanted to tear into was down there.
Marika formed beside the stairway. "Rather than pursue the power the Elden Ring's pieces offer, thee hath chosen to waste time on a wild animal?" She said as he turned the dial on the lantern hanging from his waist, a flame sparking to life. A parting gift from Kalé. "I don't believe there exists a word which encapsulates how nonsensical thine's decisions are. Furthermore more-" A sigh of all things left her, frown dropping away. "-I am no longer certain I should be surprised."
"Would you look at that? You're not too stubborn to learn something." Onyx said sarcastically as he passed her, Melina following him. "Doing away with your personal assumptions is the first step to genuinely understanding another, you know."
"Disrespectful." Her mutter echoed within his head as they descended into the darkness, lantern lighting up the steps ahead. She didn't appreciate being talked down to like a child though her annoyance faded quickly enough.
Faint light lit up the very bottoms of the steps, shadows dancing about along the ground. An unintelligible mess of noise existed alongside the fire.
Demihumans. Their smell gave them away long before he entered the end of the stairway. Which begged the question, what could a bunch of demihumans have done to draw such intense ire from an animal? For a predator to approach him of its own volition an intense amount of desperation was required to override deep rooted survival instincts.
They reached the bottom of the steps.
Pure chaos ruled over the stony chamber. Some demihumans were attempting to kill one another with their bare hands, others curled up in corners, while some were hitting at different parts of the walls as if to dig their way out. Their eyes, all bearing a blood red glow as they turned upon him, were full of a hunger indictive of starvation.
That starvation wasn't enough for their instincts to go completely ignored.
Fights broke up and many shot up, rushing past him and Melina up the steps. Tremors and screams painted the bloody picture of how that decision ended. Nevertheless, the demihumans were persistent in their efforts, continuing to pour up the stairs until the chamber was empty. They had some measure of success, the growing distance of the tremors indicating some had managed to slip past the bear's attempts to crush them and were being chased down.
Just beneath the crackling flames of several torches spread across the room, faint raspy breaths came from the right back corner of the abandoned chamber. They headed over, finding a small hole within the hold walls.
Tucked far back into the opening? A young, injured bear cub.
To his surprise, Melina acted first, golden trails of light flowing from her glowing hand and over to the cub, dancing and entwining itself with its wounds until they were sewn shut. Its breaths steadied as she attended to it.
He wondered whether or not the demihumans had the risky idea to attempt to tame one or if the animal had just wandered in here by chance.
Either way, its presence here explained a lot.
XOXO
Had that disgrace Godrick caught wind of his plans? Or had that crazed knight just been looking to spill blood, he and his men attacking Fort Haight by chance?
Kenneth stroked his beard as he gazed up at the withered statue of Queen Marika.
How he wished he had her wisdom. She would not only have the answers to those questions but know exactly how to proceed. How to take back the fort with so few men. How to rebuild his forces afterwards. When and how to attack that cowardly excuse of a demigod. Who to place on the throne of Stormveil after it was free of such a wicked lord.
Alas, he possessed no such wisdom and none of those answers for he was simply a mortal with his own designated role to play in the Order on a much grander scale. An important role that could, no, would shape Limgrave's future.
He'd have to do the best he could and pray that Queen Marika, wherever she was, would guide him through these tribulations.
Dust fell from the statue.
Then Kenneth stumbled, barely able to right himself as distinct tremors shook the entire church. He moved quickly, following what remained of his knights as they gathered towards church's crumbling entrance.
By Grace, if that troll they'd run off had made a return, or worse, another had come upon them, they would-
Kenneth's breath caught in his throat and his heart hammered against his chest as he caught sight of the colossal mass of fur headed straight for the church from the direction of the Mistwoods.
A runebear.
A troll, for all its strength, possessed enough intelligence to decide a battle was not worth the effort, making certain ranged tactics very effective at sending them running. A runebear, one of the most ferocious predators to roam The Lands Between on the other hand? Under normal circumstances all the noise their hulking forms produced made it easy enough to avoid their territory but for one from Mistwoods to emerge from its home and hunting grounds willingly?
It could only be hungry. And a hungry runebear did not abide by reason or logic, the primal need to sate its hunger the only driving force behind its actions.
His knights, just as aware of that, stopped at the entrance and Kenneth was not foolish enough to order them beyond it. Their best hope for survival and maintaining their few numbers was praying to Marika that the thing didn't catch wind of them and simply passed by.
But that did not happen.
Something far more unlikely did.
As loose rock shook free from the ruins around them, it seemed as though the bear was going to walk right up to the church, by a stroke of misfortune already tracking their scents, before suddenly stopping right in front of it.
It lowered its head.
Two of his knights raised their crossbows and took aim at the eyes, prepared to use the unusual opportunity to blind the creature.
"What-" They stopped mid-aim, one knight voicing all of their shared surprise.
The dark haired tarnished, the same one he expected never to return, jumped off the bear's head alongside his maiden, and, if the situation wasn't bewildering enough, a much smaller bear cub. Even if it weren't the progeny of the runebear itself, its small size indictive of that, the animals were fiercely defense of all their kind.
"Hey." The tarnished greeted them with a wave and raised brow as he approached the entrance, stopping on the other side. "Going to lower those weapons or…"
"Ah, of course, of course." Kenneth cleared his throat, best done to reign in his shock, confusion, and, though he wouldn't be so forthcoming about it, fear. It was rather difficult to do when that giant runebear rose high, its gaze easily peering over the crumbling walls of the church and fixing them with hard stares.
If they so much as yelled at the tarnished, his maiden, or the cub shuffling about between the two's feet, that thing would start acting far more inline with its reputation.
"I-" Pulling his gaze down from the animal's blinkless stare, Kenneth stilled the trembles in his voice. "-I presume you've elected to handle what I requested of you?"
"Yeah. I killed that commander." The tarnished confirmed with a nod. Normally he'd have requested some form of evidence to ensure that was the truth but given his company? That wasn't necessary. "If you're going to head that way, you should be prepared for some kind of fight though. Last I saw the demihumans and the knights under that commander were battling over the fort."
"And you did nothing about it?" One of his more overzealous knights questioned too aggressively. The runebear's head lowered slightly, gaze zeroed in on that knight as a low guttural rumble left it.
"Didn't feel like getting involved." The tarnished bluntly admitted with a shrug. "Besides, you only asked me to go after the commander."
Given that he would've had to find someway into the fort to begin it, Kenneth, much like his knights, had assumed that if a lone warrior managed to take down that crazed degenerate that it would involve killing all those that accompanied him. It seemed that assumption was wrong, but they were in no position to back out of the agreement.
Not that there was any reason to. As the tarnished said, whatever his methods, he did what was asked of him. Kenneth was sure that without their lunatic of a commander the rest would be easy enough to handle with the right approach.
"This is excellent news, my friend. I knew I was right to trust you. Now here's your reward. And it's quite something too, a weapon once reserved for nobility alone, mind you." Kenneth wasted no time producing the dagger hidden beneath his clothing, handing it over to the tarnished.
He took it, testing its weight and examining the elegant golden dagger and its pattern. He didn't expect a wandering tarnished to recognize the significance an Erdsteel Dagger represented but surely his maiden would. Unfortunately, the cloaked woman maintained her silence, no input offered to support Kenneth's claim.
"And don't think your earlier aid was forgotten either." Kenneth said, quickly following up by loosening the pouch at the back of his waist and handing it over to the tarnished. A vast majority of his wealth remained within Fort Haight, but he'd taken an emergency supply intended to enlist the help of warriors such as the tarnished before him. "Even if you do not wish to keep any for yourself, such precious things will undoubtedly make for fine bartering material wherever you find yourself."
Normally he wouldn't have been so quick to part with such a significant portion of what he managed to retreat with, but it was a safe gamble to avoid any trouble with the man. And, as the tarnished pulled one of the jewel necklaces from the pouch, it proved to be the right move, his eyes lighting up.
"Thanks." The tarnished said with a tip of the head to them, dagger and pouch of jewels pocketed before he turned, climbing back onto the runebear's head alongside his maiden and the cub. "Good luck on your way through the Mistwoods and with the fort."
"Thank you. May Marika's Grace guide your path, Tarnished!" Kenneth was forced to shout near the end, the runebear lifting its head and taking off.
As the rumbles of its step faded, sighs left Kenneth and his knights, the tension draining from them. They watched for a time as the tarnished once more dismounted from the massive bear before they went their separate ways, the animal and its cub returning to the Mistwoods while the tarnished and his maiden followed the trail back up to the heart of Limgrave.
A warrior that could send demihumans fleeing by presence alone and somehow tame a fabled runebear. If they should ever cross paths ago that was a tarnished who Kenneth would ask into his service.
Strength like that was a rarity.
XOXO
(A/N: No Onyx is not going to keep the bear though it may make an appearance later. Anyways, how's the start to your week? Good I hope. I've been writing, gaming, and all the usual. Still thinking about buying Metal Gear and still holding off on doing that because I know I'll stop doing anything else just to binge it.
My bad habit/addiction aside, see you all in the next chapter. Got to lock in and finish some last minute stuff I was working on.)