"Arise dearest Consort, for thy time has come."

And for the first time in this unknown age, the Tarnished opened his eyes. Roots and dirt encased his body, holding him inplace amongst the corpse of the Erdtree. Forcing his limbs to obey was a struggle like no other, his languished form lacking much of the strength it once held. Finally breaking free, he crashed to ground in a heap and ws nearly buried by the rubble that came down with him.

Rising slowly from the dirt, the Tarnished took in the surroundings. All around him was nothing but dead roots and rocks, small rays of light filtering in from gaps in the skeletal roots. And in the corner across the cavern, stood the body of Radagon. And within it laid the fragments of the Elden Ring, it's golden glow long faded. It held power, no longer. An empty vessel within another empty being.

His gaze turned upon himself, his armor rusted and broken, his weapons the same. The only things that withstood the time were his Gravel Stone seal, the cloth around his helm, two empty flasks, a still filled Wondrous Physick, and his talismans. The Bloodhound's Fang was a rusted mess near Radagon's feet. The Dragon King's Cragblade was missing entirely. Torrent's ring was cold and lifeless, it's connection seemingly severed. And the Ranni doll, empty as well.

With a rough sigh the Tarnished did his best at dusting himself off, and retrieved the Fang. Slinging it over his shoulder he set about finding a way out.

--

The Tarnished, Vabin, was quite done with this maze. The winding passages at the foot of the Erdtree were long and lybrythinian. Dead ends and pitfalls were a constant, cave ins a problem, and the darkness an annoyance. Still better than that one dungeon beneath Leyndell. He had lost track of time and did not know how long he had been wandering. Fortunately, a Tarnished required no food or water to survive as they were rejected by the natural order and cursed with immortality.

"Accursed, theiving Gods... Stealing away my victory. And sealing me away undergrou-" Breaking into a coughing fit, he paused, voice hoarse from lack of use, "Couldn't have locked me away somewhere a bit more convienant, like an Evergoal. Certainly would have been cleaner... What was that?"

Hearing an echo in the distance, sounding almost like a voice. Silencing himself he listened carefully, trying to find oit the direction of the sounds but they had already disappeared into the dark. He couldn't tell which path they had come from, so he fell back onto his most tried and trued method of picking a path forward.

"Eeny meeny miny moe, catch a dragon by the tail, if he bites let him go, eeny meeny miny moe. Hmph. Option two it is then."

Setting forth into the second tunnel, he began to make his way forward. Looking as though he got lucky the path began to lead upwards as he continued. The little light let in by thr small holes in the ceiling died away as dirt gave way to stone. Soon Vabin had to feel along the walls to find his way forward.

Evantually the air around him grew moist and his next step landed him ankle deep in a liquid filled hole. Quickly taking a knee he removed his helm and tasted it. It was simply water. Setting the helmet aside he greedily drank from the puddle through his cupped hands, finally sating his thirst. Staring into the puddle, Vabin's golden draconic eyes glowing faintly into the darkness. Taking a breath, he picked up his helmet. The Banished Knight helm had seen better days, it's surface rusted and scarred from countless years of use. The red and gold cloth wrapped around it was worn, but clearly taken care of. A small V, still embroidered in gold in the corner, a reminder of the one who gifted it to him.

Vabin was however broken out of his memories when a loud screech echoed through the cave, swiftly followed by the shaking and crashing of something large moving fast. Returning the helm to his head, he drew his sword and began to hurry through the caves once more.

"First voices, now an angered beast. What a lovely start to my day."

Soon the cave widen and a light shown in the distance. Traces of the beast were visible, it clearly had struggled to move in the confines of the cave. An extinguished torch lay on the ground as well, clearly abandoned by the ones that stumbled across the beast. Climbing the finale stretch of the passage felt like an eternity, each step feeling longer than the last, until he finally took his first step into the light in an unknown age.

Taking a moment to adjust his eyes to the rays of the sun, he observed the area around. Trees were everywhere, a bright blue sky stood overhead, and the sounds of the forest echoed throughout. A clear path of broken trees laid directly ahead of him, the trail of whatever beast that broke out of the cave. Deciding it would be best to follow the beast and perhaps save the fools that found it, he made his way into the forest.

"Almost reminds me of Limgrave. Hopefully there aren't any large bears hiding in this one."

--

"Strange."

Ozpin, the headmaster of Beacon Academy, was confused. Up on the cliffs above Emerald forest, he had just moved on from watching the latest pair to form when he came back across the cave two students had just ran from, a Deathstalker hot on their tails. An unknown individual had just emerged from it, and he did not recall any other student entering it, let alone one of their appearance. Wearing dirty and rusty armor in the rough visage of a wolf and a helm wrapped in a cloth, the person stood out quite a bit. This was not a student within his school.

"Glynda, has anyone entered the forest within the past few days?"

"No sir. Why, is something wrong?"

"Nevermind, just a curiosity."

Returning his gaze to the scroll, he watched as the figure began to follow the path of the Deathstalker. An enemy agent, or a potential ally. Only time would tell, and time was something he had plenty of.

--

Stepping over countless broken trees was growing to be rather tedious and annoying. The constant climbing was tiring and Vabin was no longer in peak form. Pausing to catch a breath, he sat on one of the fallen logs. He had no idea where he was, let only what age it was. Not knowing what he would face was worrisome, and he had not caught sight of any grace. Without a proper site of grace, he would be unable to retrieve much of his arsenal. Or come back, should he be killed. He broken from thought as a large should passed overhead, along with what sounded like the arguing of children.

"I do hope that wasn't a dragon, or worse, one of those horrid crows from Caelid."

Collecting himself he set of quickly, hoping to catch up before someone got killed. Breaking through the woods, he soon began to hear the sound of battle, and a strange loud bang every so often that reminded him of the Jar Cannon, but more sharp. Shouting could be heard from multiple people, amlnd the enraged screeching of the beast he had been following. Forcing his way past the treeling he found himself in a large field with a ruin sitting at the center. But more importantly was the group of people fighting a rather large prawn like creature. It's body was black, plated in white bone-like armor. But it's tail reached over it's head and ended in a massive point.

And that point was about to stab a small girl in red. Bounding forth he drew the rusted Bloodhound's Fang. As the beast threw its tail to strike the girl he took the blade in two hands and intercepted the massive stinger. His blade bounced off the thick armor of the beast, but it was enough to throw off it's aim. The tail dug deep into the ground beside him amd appeared to be stuck. Seeing a chance, Vabin put full force into a heavy swing, but the Fang found no purchase in the thick bone on the creature's body.

"Oh joy, slash proof enemy. Just my horrid luck," he was interupted by a shadow passing over him, "And of course its a crow."

Jumping back, Vabin tried to get some distance to think of a plan when the tail broke free and reared back to strike again when his foot caught on what seemed to be a metallic feather. Falling backwards he hoped that the beast would miss when he heard the sound of ice forming. Rolling to his feet he found a white haired girl standing next to him, rapier stabbed into the tail of the beast, freezing it in place.

"Chivalrous idiot! Are you trying to die out here!", she berated Vabin while removing her rapier from the tail," I don't know who you are and you are just as bad as Ruby!"

"Apologies Miss, but it wouldn't have been very polite of me to let a child die in front of me..."

"Child! I drink milk you know!"

Both myself and the white haired girl stopped to stare at the girl in red that interupted us, she seemed to suddenly lose confidence and began squirming under our gaze, acting like the shy child she resembled.

"You are so childish. Anddim-witted,andhyperactive, and don't even get me started on your fighting style. I might be a bit...difficult to work with... but if we're going to do this, we're going to have to do this together. So if you stop trying to show off, I'll be...nicer. "

"Yes Wiess... and I wasn't showing off! I just want to prove myself a good partner."

"You're fine, now come on."

Watching the Weiss girl head towards the ruins and the Ruby girl whisper to herself about knees or something, I spotted a blonde girl practically sprinting in Ruby's direction before engulfing her in a hug.

"RUBY! I am so happy you are okay! And you, Mr. Tall Dark and Deadly!," She swiftly turned to me and looked me up and down, "Thank you saving my sister! I might take you out some time as thanks. And you can call me Yang, the sister you saved here is Ruby."

"Er... Yes, well that is not needed, thine thanks is enough."

"Thine? Where are you from, the Middle ages?"

Before Vabin could reply, a loud roar was heard overhead. Glancing to the sky they all saw the large crow circling and roaring in the air. A blonde guy who seemed to at least have the sense to wear armor had come running over as well, seemingly worried about the bird in the sky above us.

"Guys, I think its coming back this way now! What are we gonna do about it?"

"No sense in wasting time our time, the objective are in the ruins ahead."

"Wiess is right, we just need to grab an artifact and make it back to the cliffs," Ruby said nodding to Wiess, "Fighting will just slow us down."

"Right, run and live. Makes sense to me so let's go!"

The blonde then ran in and grabbed a gold rook and Ruby grabbed a gold knight. While they did that, the beast was beginning to break free, the ice cracking bit by bit. Another guy with brown hair with a pink streak in it spoke up for the first time on noticing.

"I think we should go, the Deathstalker seems to be breaking free."

"Right, let's go!", Ruby agreed and everyone followed.

Vabin, taking a finale look at the beast, trailed behind them.

"A Deathstalker? Fitting name for such a beast."

--

Sprinting through a series of ruins, the group was failing to escape the bird they had called a Nevermore. Doing their best to move from cover to cover to avoid the bird's line of sight, their speed had dropped quite badly. The Deathstalker bursting through the ruins behind them did little to help their mood. Yang was the first to spot it.

"Well that's just great!"

"Run!"

The one I had heard called Jaune yelled, before we ran out of cover, the Nevermore leaving it's perch to chase them again. The one called Ren called out to another in pink.

"Nore! Distract it!"

And she did just that swinging a large hammer like weapon to aim at the bird, she began firing canisters at it which exploded into lightning on impact. The giant crow screeched in pain before retreating away from Nora's sight. Right before the Deathstalker burst through the wall behind her. Seeing the others were too far to help, Vabin raised his left hand and summoned a yellow Lightning Bolt and launched it at the beast. As the bolt struck it's shell, it recoiled and bellowed in pain giving Nora the time to get away. Seeing the group was now crossing the bridge and the Nevermore was coming back overhead towards them, Vabin saw an opportunity to face the Deathstalker alone. Staying behind as the others crossed, all doing their best to outpace the bird as it crashed through a section of bridge cutting him off from following them, he turned to watch the beast finally shake off it's pain. Attempting to fight it with a group was not something Vabin was accustomed too. He almost always fought alone, only on rare occasions did he join others, and he always knew them beforehand. Now that he was alone, he could focus on slaying the beast before him.

"Come now beast, let us engage in battle."

--

AN 2

Well then. Here we are for a real chapter. Thanks for the support already. Gonna be honest though, I am having a little trouble with characterization already, so I am gonna take a few days to binge RWBY to learn them, I just wanted to get this out while I was inspired. Anyways, some info on Vabin.

He wears the Raging wolf set with the Banished Knight helm, and has a preference for Slash and Pierce weapons (Had a few bad experiences cause of that though), Loves lightning spells, partook in dragon communion, reverts to olde speak when confused and/or embarrassedn and carries a copious amount of fan blades (all bought from Patches)

Now the mechanics. No he does not have a pocket dimension to keep all his stuff like in the game. What he doesn't use he keeps in the sites of Grace. Would have been too convienant otherwise. He does not age or need to eat, but likes food anyways. He also lost a lot of power over time, so he has been weakened to a reasonable state to keep him from steamrolling everyone.

Now I can't think of anything else that won't be shared in the story, but feel free to ask questions. So have fun.