Marvel: Elden Ring System

With his trusty steed by his side and the ability to level up with Melina's help, Ray starts his hunt for runes and literally every valuable item in Limgrave. But first he runs over to Boc, who is currently transformed into a bush, and frees him, receiving some mushrooms as a reward. Ray tells him to wait for him at his cave as he will head there later.

After helping Boc, he heads to a small ruin to the south east of the gatefront. He takes a small detour to kill the noble that guarantees a glintstone staff drop before clearing out the poisonous plant creatures in the ruin. 

Once the plants are well and truly dead, Ray heads down the stairs towards the boss room. Inside he finds a lone Pumpkin Head smacking its head against the wall repeatedly, not even noticing his entrance. Ray crouches down and sneaks behind the creature before delivering a devastating blow with his lordsworn's greatsword along the creature's back. 

The Pumpkin Head screams in agony and turns around, slamming its head into the ground multiple times in hopes of crushing the intruder. Ray easily dodge rolls to the side and slashes at its legs, causing it to fall to the ground. With the creature basically defenseless, Ray finishes it off by severing the head clean from the body, just managing to pull the helmet off before the body dissolves into runes. 

Ray equips the helmet out of curiosity and finds that he can see just fine with it on, like he isn't even wearing a helmet in the first place. He unequips the helmet and holds it in his hand, looking it over.

"I definitely have to wear this at some point in the marvel world. It would be hilarious if this giant helmet is all some thug sees before being beaten to a pulp. Then they would have to try and explain to their boss that a dude with a metal pumpkin on his head beat them up…"

Ray smirks as he returns the helmet to his inventory and heads over to the door the Pumpkin Head was guarding. He lifts the door and finds the sorcerer Sellen, standing in the middle of the room with a book in her hand. 

After a short conversation with her, Ray walks out with two books under his arm. The first book is titled 'The Primeval Current and its relation to Glintstone Sorceries'. This thick tome describes how an ancient astrologer discovered the primeval current whilst gazing at the stars and created the first glintstone sorceries. 

Ray gets into a comfortable position at the site of grace and begins reading, his enthusiasm to learn magic quickly fading as his head begins to throb from the complicated rhetoric of the author. 

The most he can gather from his brief reading is that the primeval current is a mystical energy from the stars. The Crystalians are a solidified entity that truly embodies the primeval current, which is why they are so revered by the Carian sorcerers. 

In their pursuit of more knowledge, the Carian sorcerers tried to 'glimpse past the wisdom of stone', causing some adverse effects. Further research on the primeval current was forbidden, and the academy became a place of stagnation instead of progress. Only three people were able to see past the wisdom of stone. Those being the sorcerers Lucat, Azur, and Rennala. 

Ray closes the book and shakes his head to clear out his headache before opening the other book. This book is quite thin, seeing as it only contains the knowledge necessary to cast glintstone pebble. Ray is quite low on runes at the moment and was unable to afford any other spells. He was lucky that Sellen was friendly and gifted him the other book for free. 

After spending some time learning the spell, Ray finds it in his menu. With a simple thought, he waves the staff and a light blue glowing bolt shoots from the top and impacts into the wall, leaving a small dent in the stonework. Ray feels slightly lightheaded from the decrease in his FP, nothing debilitating but it could be annoying in battle if he uses it too many times. 

"It's so strange… Learning the spell and casting it was far easier then I was expecting. I definitely need to increase my intelligence and see if it correlates with my actual intellect. I can't be having headaches every time I read a book."

Ray keeps the staff at the ready along with his lordsworn's straight sword as he hops onto Torrent and heads south, grabbing the Royal House Scroll, Great Epee, the Warpick, another Brass Shield, and a Starlight Shard from a small ruin. The enemies guarding the ruins all fell to an onslaught of glintstone pebbles and sword slashes as Ray makes sure to methodically and safely kill any enemies in his path. 

Besides the guaranteed loot from this area, Ray also acquires a few lucky drops. The half dozen Kaiden sellswords he killed gave him the generous gift of the Kaiden armor and Kaiden gauntlets, Ray quickly equipping them as the tree and beast surcoat and chain gauntlets were not very 'fashion souls' in his opinion. 

The flask of Cerulean Tears finally gets some use as after Ray finishes killing the final enemy, he chugs the blue liquid that strangely tastes like a zesty, refreshing lemonade, the fuzzy feeling in his head from low FP disappearing completely. Ray savors the taste while riding towards the Bridge of Sacrifice. But instead of crossing the bridge, he instead turned around and headed north east, towards the forests of Mistwood. Along the way, Ray loots the nearby graveyards, netting himself a decent chunk of rune drops that he can crack open when he needs them. Afterwards, he rides into the forest, heading to the Mistwood Ruins.

Now the Mistwood is a very dangerous place for someone of his low level. The rune bears in the area alone could kill him with a single swipe, while the demi humans in the area lay in ambush along the winding dirt paths between the trees. Ray skirts around the edge of the cliff till he gets close to the Mistwood Ruins before unsummoning Torrent and sneaking into the ruins. 

In the ruins he finds a chest with a smithing stone [2] along with an absolutely massive rune bear laying down near the entrance to the underground area. Ray moves slowly, trying to be as quiet as possible and manages to sneak past the rune bear and grab the Axe Talisman in the chest down below. 

But when he was heading back up, he finds the massive face of the rune bear staring down at him from above, its glowing golden eyes glaring at him while rivers of saliva drip from its mouth as it licks its lips at the tasty morsel that had so willingly entered its trap. 

Ray dodge rolls down the stairs just in time to evade the swing of the rune bear's paw, the wind whistling past him as the paw misses its mark. Ray pulls out his crossbow and begins shooting bolt after bolt into the creature's thick furry hide, making the rune bear's arms look like a porcupine. 

The rune bear roars in anger as it slams the ground around the underground entrance, trying its hardest to get to him. Ray looks at the walls around him, noticing that they are starting to crack and fall apart from the rune bear's assault. With the options of being buried alive or fighting the rune bear on the surface, the choice was rather easy. 

Ray fires the crossbow once more, landing a direct hit on the rune bear's eye. The rune bear stumbles back, giving Ray just enough time to sprint up the stairs before the stairway collapses in on itself. 

With a mad glint in his eye, Ray pulls out the glintstone staff and fires a glintstone pebble right at the rune bear's face, causing the beast to stagger and fall to the ground. He rushes forward and shoves the tip of the staff into the rune bear's mouth, firing five glintstone pebbles in rapid succession straight down its throat. 

The rune bear lets out a pained whimper before its body goes slack and dissolves into a swirl of runes. Ray stumbles over to a pile of stonework and sits down, his lungs heaving and his heart beating incredibly fast. But like usual, his body quickly recovers from the fatigue so he stands up and starts walking east. 

Just as he starts to make his exit from the ruins, the howling of a wolf echoes through the area before something large falls from the sky and impacts the ground near him. 

Ray gets into a defensive stance as he turns to look at what landed, finding a very tall man wearing armor with a wolf fur cloak and a large greatsword on his back. 

"Hold your blade, stranger. I come in peace… I watched your fight against the rune bear and found your fighting spirit commendable. My name is Blaidd, and I am looking for a man named Darriwill. He is nothing but a traitor, deserving of a fitting end to his tale. He fled somewhere nearby, or so I have heard. Come tell me if you find him before I do. I can offer you an ample reward."

Ray relaxes slightly, though he still keeps a grip on his sword. "Darriwill?... Ah! The bloodhound knight!!! I know where he is. He is currently trapped in an evergoal to the west of here. If you require my assistance in slaying him, I have a few more things to do in the area before I can head over there."

Blaidd nods. "Finally, your days are numbered, Darriwill… I shall await your arrival at the evergoal. Do not make me wait too long…"

Blaidd turns around and sprints off into the woods, vanishing from sight. Ray releases a breath he didn't know he was holding. 

"Marika's tits, that guy is scary up close… It wasn't until he landed that I remembered that Blaidd in the game becomes hostile if you kill any of the rune bears in the area. There is no way I was going to survive if he attacked me… Wait a moment…"

Ray thinks back to what he just said, feeling like something is off. 

"Marika's tits… Marika's tits… Marika's tits… I can't swear!!! It just autocorrects itself…"

Ray experiments with a slew of words, finding that they all get censored for some reason. 

"Well that is weird… I hope it doesn't do that in the marvel world…" 

Ray shakes his head before getting back on Torrent and heading east towards Fort Haight.