Elden Ring : Godrick The Golden

Godrick stood before a heavily boarded cellar, his now gargantuan form dwarfing its entrance. Behind him were large trees wreathed with orange-gold leaves and piles upon piles of stone, wood and supplies. This dilapidated area was mostly deserted as construction hadn't gotten to working on these buildings yet allowing him to sneak through unseen. 

He now wore a large golden-white toga that snuggly wrapped around him, giving him equal parts regality and comfort. He'd found numerous pairs of them in his chamber that was once Godfrey's along with fitting armour and weapons.

If he hadn't undergone his recent growth spurt, they would be many sizes too small.

'Just what were the Godskins doing here', he mused as the wood and metal exploded with a casual flick of a finger. Almost immediately his senses were assaulted by an unusually strong scent of rotten meat. 

Numerous glowing eyes blinked out from the darkness, chittering angrily. Large rats with flayed skin and crazed eyes launched themselves at him. 

Their furious chomping could've easily ripped through flesh and perhaps the reason it was boarded up in the first place, but the low ceiling was a bigger nuisance to him.

[Giant Rat Killed*8 +800 EXP]

His casual movements ripped through their flesh, blood splattering over his new toga. Shaking off bits of flesh and skin, he proceeded toward the imp-sealed door in the distance past large stores of rotting meat, fruits and grain that could have fed a small army.

[Observe]

[Sealed: Golemic seals that can only be opened by Stonesword keys.]

He ignored the small imp statue with the keyhole, choosing to take in the stone arch that made the wall surrounding the seal. It was aged but sturdy, a faint aura of the arcane wafting off it.

It would not break easily, but anything of true worth never did.

His arm bulged with superhuman power as it briefly blurred before crashing into the edge of the stone wall akin to a battering ram. The exponential strength gained from breaking through 51 granted him power beyond what most humans could imagine.

To put it into perspective, he was nearly thirty times as strong as he was when he battled the Lesser Runebear. And so, the sound was akin to a cannon going off in someone's ear. Sharp and explosive.

The very foundations of the building shook dangerously as his fist buried itself into stone, nearly liquefying it with the impact, but, as the vibrations and the cloud of shrapnel and dust died down, it revealed an archway that still stood firm.

'What?'

Massive gashes and a spiderweb of cracks cut deep into it. It was close to crumbling, but the knowledge that it had withstood a punch from a Demigod made it all the clearer why Stormveil was so sought after.

If a worn, decaying wall could endure so much, imagine the strength of one restored and well-kept.

He didn't put more thought into it, bashing and pulverizing it with two more well-delivered punches that generated a mini-earthquake. The imp seal, having no wall to anchor itself to, flickered and disappeared, allowing him to pass through to a room in disarray.

It held two worn chests that called to him. Whispering and taunting. He could nearly feel the disgust from where he stood.

Sure enough, when he opened them, an intricate seal embedded with a black gem along with a thick book made of a material that felt suspiciously like human skin.

[Observe]

[Godslayer's Seal: Sacred seal of the Godskin Apostles, inlaid with obsidian. Said to represent the manipulation of black flame, this catalyst enhances godslayer incantations.]

[Observe]

[Godskin Prayerbook: Prayerbook bound in supple skin. Incantations of the god-slaying black flame are written within.]

The Frenzied Flame, Ancient Dragon Lightning, the Black Flame and the Golden Order. So many incantations to learn. He really needed to hunker down and get to it if he was to take advantage of them.

Both the items momentarily twisted and warped before disappearing into the Arsenal.

One last task remained before descending into the depths of Stormveil.

***

Quilath the Unburnt, she was called.

A title of irony some may call it, for her blackened, hardened skin spoke otherwise. Most trials left scars, but hers barely left skin behind. Even her hair had turned to ash while her eyes bled red.

'Demon', the people of this age would call her, not knowing the true horrors that existed in the time of the Crucible.

Back then, the primaeval life force held sway over the world, birthing strange and eldrich creatures whose power would decimate the broken Lands-Between of today. The very same creatures which were driven to extinction by her former liege.

Her gauntleted hands tightened on her hand-crafter sword as memories she would not rather remember attempted to break free.

'Why didst thou abandon us, Lord...'

Had she not forged his armour? His axe? She, along with her brothers and sisters had given him their souls, yet her liege had abandoned their bodies.

Why? Were they so worthless in the end? What of their oaths? Their suffering? Their unwavering loyalty?

The wind howled in reply to her thoughts as she sat in a crumbling ruin, nestled among the jagged cliffs of Stormveil. Before her lay the entrance to the Rampart Lift of Stormveil Castle.

The last command her lord, Godfrey, the First Elden Lord, had given her was to guard this place. And so she would.

Until the end. Until her end.

Suddenly, as she was slipping back into the monotony she had been in for centuries, a thunderous boom jerked her back into reality. This was no howling wind. Not once had she heard such a horrendous sound during her post here.

She got to her feet in a swift motion, picking up her horned shield and sword. Every step of hers was loud and powerful, her intimidating nine-foot frame packed with immense, concentrated power. She was never the most discrete of her siblings.

Before she could dash toward the ruined archway that led out the edge of the cliff, the perpetrator of the noise beat her to it, walking through it with the air of someone taking a morning stroll.

In her long, long life that stretched for millennia, she had frozen in place thrice. Once as a little girl who'd seen her parents get mauled by a Krethin that had crawled up from the abyss, second as a seasoned warrior who had taken the Trial of the Crucible and survived, and third when she first faced her former lord Godfrey in battle.

This was the fourth.

Before her was a titan draped in a golden-white toga that shimmered like dawn itself. His greatspear, forged of radiant amber, pulsed with veins of greenish-gold, blazing with an aura not unfamiliar to her. Gilded locks flowed down his face akin to aurous rivers caressing sculpted marble.

His features were familiar yet alien and the fact that she did not recognize him scared her. She was older than the Erdtree itself, yet someone like him had escaped her notice? Was he even mortal?

As if to answer her thoughts, a faint halo of gold embraced his head as he looked her up and down with those glowing suns he had for eyes. They swirled in patterns that terrified even her, threatening to suck her in.

"Quilath the Unburnt, thy persistence and strength deserveth far more than this", he spoke and the words hit her like a troll's fist.

That was what Godfrey told her ten thousand years ago after he had beaten her into the ground.

"Who art thou?", she grit her teeth as a ball of hate and rage began to unravel in her chest.

No matter how divine the being before her looked like, he reminded her too much of her absentee liege. His features were sharp yet graceful as was the trademark of the Golden Lineage, but those empty eyes that craved excitement through struggle were all too familiar to her.

"Leave, lest thou wish to be skewered, O Demigod", Quilath spat as a giant pair of golden wings burst out of her back, making her look akin to an armoured angel, but all the being before her did was give her a pitying smile, looking at her like a lost puppy.

Thats it.

With a flap of her wings, she disappeared, the force propelling her faster than the blink of an eye. Her body twisted as her reddish-gold sword sliced toward his head with practised ease. The Trial had given her power to decimate armies on her own and she had used it with abandon.

The blade flashed toward the throat of the twelve feet of muscle but before she knew it, she was held up by hers. His free hand had shot out, grabbing her by the neck akin to a vice. The power of a hundred men was nothing before him as he held her up with ease.

Pain shot up her body through her armour as she was smashed into the ground with enough force to break steel multiple times over. He began to dig a crater with her body, ramming her into stone over and over until even her enhanced body felt the hurt.

She saw those swirling eyes hover over hers once more, but this time, she could not look away. Blood tricked down her lips as the patterns sucked her in.

Rage. Pain. Despair. Chaos.

The sensation of many minds reached out to Quilath, violating her senses as they tried to commune, but then one mind seemed to come from the many, a raw, unbounded power and began to whisper wordless offers to succumb to Chaos. To destroy, to create. To save her brothers and sisters, to kill them. Contradictory impulses, all impossible to disobey, all the same, all different.

Visions of her at her worst burned into her mind all at once. 

Her parents getting mauled by an Eldrich Creature, her skin peeling off during the Trail of the Crucible, losing a brother in a fight against the Stormlord, the abandonment of her liege...but just before they could overwhelm her the swirling patterns appeared before her, twisting in the opposite direction as they jerked her back to reality.

"Argh!!!....gah...haah"

Strangled gasps escaped her and in her disorientation didn't see the look of confusion on the being's face, as though he had not expected such a reaction.

But as the hands around her neck released their grip, the being's words echoed in her dented helmet.

"Thy wings may be true, yet only Angels may fly. My Angels."

***