The Fanatic

He knew. He knew when he entered the blood pools that surrounded the Mausoleum, which now bubbled and swirled in chaotic patterns. He knew as he observed the scarlet Albinaurics writhing on the ground in pain, their minds torn asunder. He knew as he watched the scions collapse and burst into stains on the ground, their essence sapped by some otherworldly force. He knew as the shuddering mechanisms of the stone elevator took him to the highest peak of the temple. Varre knew Mohg was dead.

The sight of his lord's body stunned him. Or what was left of it. Mohg was prone on the staircase, his head partially upturned towards the entrance. His body was dissolving slowly into a bloody ichor. His eye was fixed on Varre, but unmoving; his horns sat above the mess like a creature emerging from the deep. Blood splatter around his corpse made the faint outline of wings, as if he crashed to the stairs, felled from his flight.

Varre ran to his lord and fell to his knees. He reached out to touch Mohg, but hesitated. He was unworthy even in death. Mohg was returning to the Formless Mother. As they all would. The chamber was marked by the signs of a battle. The tombstones were shattered most places and there was lingering bloodflame coating the walls.

Mohg had taken him and the other surgeons into his domain, blessing them with the sacred blood. The others could not accept his gift, their minds lost. They became blunt instruments, fit to stalk and slaughter, but unable to achieve any higher purpose. Varre gave himself to the blood, allowed it to remake him. He let it fill the pit inside him and grant him new life. He pledged eternal loyalty to Mohg and the Formless Mother, an agent of their unborn dynasty.

In many respects, Varres role changed little with his transition. As a surgeon he saw the seams in others, where a precise cut could unmake them. He also knew all the ways to mend and change the flesh, to make it better. Under his oath to Mohg, he carried out more of the former than the latter, but he became a skilled recruiter. Or so he thought.

This was Varre's fault. He thought that he had a new prospect, one that would be a boon for the coming dynasty. Instead, he let an assassin into his temple. It was almost humorous. How crude and short sighted that Tarnished appeared when he first blundered out of the tomb, looking half-dead already. Varre hadn't expected the man to live for long. He planted the requisite doubt in the Golden Order and the Roundtable Hold, the same backhanded remarks he offered any tarnished. Better to sow the seed of doubt wherever he could and see what bore fruit. When they met again at the Rose Church, Varre believed this was proof that he was at least hardy enough to join his master's mission. The Tarnished held no special love for the fools of the Golden Order. The man used him to glean the location of the Mohgwyn Dynasty and to track it down. Varre had scarcely considered the idea that this stray beast could be mighty enough to slay Mohg. His lack of imagination had damned them all.

Varre stood and ascended the steps. The cocoon that held the slumbering demigod remained, the Tarnished apparently uninterested in it. A single desiccated limb hung from the crack in its center. Mohg's death had not stirred Miquella. Varre passed it. He looked down to the wilds of Siofra and the ruins of Nokron. The Mohgwyn palace sat high above those lost lands, a beacon in the false night of the underworld. He wondered if it would survive what was to come.

A rock tumbled from a nearby pillar and bounced off the edge. Varre watched as it fell into the hazy abyss. Another followed. And another. His legs wobbled as the ground shook. He turned back and watched as the entire palace rumbled. Hunks of stone sheared off of walls and entire pillars collapsed. It was time to leave.

Varre took a final look at the remains of Mohg on the way down the stairs. He retrieved a vial and collected a sample of the ichor. Perhaps there was a way to bring him back. He glanced back at the cocoon. The arm was gone. There was no time to investigate.

He made it to the lift and pulled the lever. It snapped off in his hands, the entire platform violently rocking. He could feel it begin to tilt. Varre leapt to the side of the rock face beside it, his hands desperate for any relief. His shoulders strained as he found a hold. Something clattered down the rocks below him. His Pureblood Medallion. Without it he could not leave easily. Behind him the supports of the lift groaned their last and tumbled to the ground.

By the time he reached the ground, the entire palace was rocking back and forth. Horrible sounds of rocks giving way rang out from the edges of the plateau. As Varre reached the edge of the blood pools, he noticed they were flowing towards one end, becoming a waterfall. He waded through the current. A hand seized his ankle. A familiar white mask gazed up from the tide of red. One of the surgeons. The white mask stabbed him in the thigh. Varre grunted and dashed the man's head with his bouquet.

Without Mohg to hold their leash, the other white masks were feral. Varre could see them fighting one both each other and the few remaining Albinaurics. There was no time to restore order. Only in survival could Varre hope to continue the work. He made it to the edge of the blood pools, his body slick with sweat and stained red. Behind him, a following of white masks took shape as they sloshed forward in their hunt. Perhaps they knew on some level that Varre was above them. They held him in contempt.

Varre sprinted up the slopes, slowed by the wound in his thigh. He had to make it to the gateway out of the palace. His pursuers closed the gap. Varre swung around, knocking one off the slope and sending another tumbling back into his fellows, his white mask chipped. He could not afford to fight them all.

He continued up the slopes, his grunting growing increasingly strained. He rounded the top and felt a glint of relief as the gate remained. Something slammed into his side and he crashed to the earth, his opponents weight on him. His bouquet flew off to the side, landing near the gateway. Varre thrashed beneath his foe, which saved him from a killing blow as a blade pierced his shoulder rather than his head. He could see another two white faces creeping up to aid their comrade.

Varre ran his free hand over his wound and flared it in the face of his opponent. The man screamed as a swarm of blood flies enveloped his mask. Varre stood and dashed for the gate. He could see an axe swinging in his peripherals. There was an awful crunch, but no pain joined him. He heard shouts as one of the massive carrion crows shook the white face it had in its beak. A gift of respite from the Formless Mother. The only survivor turned and fled.

The cliff side by the gateway gave out. His mace rolled off the edge. No matter. Varre entered the blue swirl of the gateway, his senses dulled from the passage.

Varre emerged to a world painted over white. He was beyond most mundane discomforts, but the cold shocked him. He was in a blizzard. He glanced down and saw the snow dotted red by his wounds. He found a rock to brace on and set about stitching himself up before his hands went entirely numb. His tingling fingers made a mess of it, but it would hold for a time.

The storm reduced him to a humble, crawling thing, making painful progress through the snow. Shelter was his only hope of survival. It could have been hours or minutes, time slipped by without comment. He heard voices on the wind, saw figures drift into the snow, but it was all uncertain.

He found a large rock face and used it as reference to continue forth. At last, there was a small pocket within that sat just far enough beyond the storm. Varre entered into it, checking for danger, before sliding his back down the wall into an exhausted slump. He would come up with a plan after he rested. He examined the vile of crimson ichor, all that was left of Mohg. It seemed to twist on its own accord. There must be a way to resurrect him. A problem for later.

Varre left the waking world.

He entered a tent. His hands were coated with blood and gore. A well-used knife sat in his right hand. A tray of other tools was nearby. A body sat unmoving on the table, its throat slit precisely. Varre could hear the sounds of pain all around him, over the cry of the wind. The stench of rot and ruin clung to his uniform.

He opened the flap of the tent. There was a sea of them all around him. Soldiers and surgeons carried the dead and dying through this maze. Their faces were blurred.

He turned over his shoulder to take another look at the body inside his own tent. It was gone.

"A butcher from the very beginning. How fitting," said a voice. The noise flowed in and out of Varre's head, rising and falling in intensity. He couldn't tell where it was coming from.

He left the tent and began to look through the others. The same scene repeated. A surgeon right at the moment of putting their patient out of their misery. The critical slice sending a spray of blood on the far wall of the tent.

"You never put down the knife. Even when mercy was no longer on your mind."

He entered another. This time the patient sat up and starred at him, its face blurred. The only distinguishing feature was twin streams of scarlet tears flowing down its cheeks. Varre fled the tent.

There was a purple glow on the horizon. He ran through the camp. There was no discernible end. Rows and rows of the same tent stretched on.

"You gave your heart to the god of blood and now you fear retribution? You served my captor, now you carry his debts."

The other figures began to follow him, their tears forming a pool of blood. Varre scrambled through it. There had to be a way out.

He looked to the purple glow. A form stood on the horizon, outlined by the light. Their features indistinct. Save for gleaming blond hair.

Varre snapped awake. His scream echoed through the small cave. He looked at his shoulder and winced as his thread was torn. He steadied his breathing and tried to redo it. His eyes nearly shut, before he took to his feet with a start. It was as though there was a weight forcing them closed. He paced in the cave, clutching his wound. Whispers pricked at his neck. His head dipped more and more. He struck his wound and shouted. The pain gave brief clarity. He could not sleep.

Phantom fingers hovered over his eyelids. He bobbed more and more, beginning to sink into slumber. He ripped his mask off and panted. Varre fled the cave, back into the howling wall of ice. He barreled through the snow, his limbs burning. The ice stung his eyes. He ran till he could feel no more.

Varre ran till he exited the storm. He was on a cliffside, overlooking the Lands Between. The Erdtree was drowning, overtaken by a foaming sea of blood. In the clouds above, Mohg cackled with glee, his dynasty rising to take its rightful place.

The blood shifted, subtly at first, into a purple mist. There was no escape. He took his knife and rammed it into his own chest. The Formless Mother could have him. The blade went through his form without resistance. There was no pain. Or blood. Or knife.

Varre's throat tightened. He gazed behind him. His body lay face down in the snow, a faint pattern of breathing visible in the rise and fall of his back.

The purple mist found him, wrapping him in its tendrils. His body went numb.

"A debt is due. The price shall be paid. The envoy of blood belongs to the land of sleep."

Varre tried to close his eyes, but fingers held open his eyelids. He could see golden hair at the edge of his vision.

A tree branch emerged from the mist. A trail of liquid slithered along its length. It reached the tip. A teardrop of dew formed. His eyes quivered, unable to break from the fingers.

"Welcome the embrace."

The drop fell.

The Tarnished turned the body over. There was a smashed vial of what was once red liquid beside it. He had slain others of this ilk, but there was no mistaking Varre. His body was frozen solid, but the Tarnished could see the puff of breath.. The mask was gone. His face was locked in a peculiar expression, eyes mostly closed. His mouth was twisted into a grimace devoid of any real energy. It was as though he was afraid. The Tarnished considered ending the man, but thought better of it. He failed to notice the purple light flickering in his eyes. The Tarnished set off. He had a long march ahead of him. He left Varre to his nightmare.

This particular entry diverges pretty heavily from the game, but I thought it would be an interesting conclusion to Varre's story.