Prologue: Death and Awakening.


Edwyne

When the ground began to shift violently beneath him and the crypt started to fall apart, Edwyne thought his death was upon him. That he would die here in this once mighty now ruined fortress' crypt.

He thought it to be a terrible, and gruesome way to go, but to his luck, no rubble fell on him. At least no rubble that would squish him like a bug. All that seemed to have fallen on top of him were dust and small chunks of stone.

The dust that fell caused his and his colleagues' torches to go out and for a coughing storm to be unleashed. All he heard in the dark was the sound of men coughing violently. His cough was of course amongst them, and as he did this, he tried his best to swat away the dirt and grime in front of, but it felt like a fruitless endeavor. No matter how hard he tried he felt like he was collecting more crap on his arm.

"Who," he heard someone shout in the dark before letting loose a terrible cough. "Is everyone okay!?"

If okay was still breathing then that would be a yes, but if that wasn't the case, then no he was not okay. He was far from it. With how hard he was coughing he felt like he would cough out a lung, and the feeling he felt in his stomach was very unpleasant. He felt nauseous, so nauseous that he wanted to vomit.

"I'm, I'm go-"

Gale, one of his best friends in the world, had tried to respond, only to end up throwing up before he could finish the word 'good'.

"Oh no." He heard one of his colleagues say before his ears were graced by the sound of another person barfing.

Three more people threw up after that, and surprisingly he wasn't one of them.

"Okay, okay, if you're alive, say 'aye'." Said the first man that had spoken since the ground shook. "But one at a time!" He swiftly added. "Say it one at a time along with your name."

It took a couple of seconds, but eventually someone responded.

"Aye, Devin." They said with a cough.

"Aye, Mercel." Spoke another in an extremely hoarse voice.

"Aye, Torbor." Came a third.

"Aye, Gale." Gale declared after clearing his throat, at least he assumed it to be him who had done it.

"Aye, Edwyne." He exclaimed, immediately regretting his decision due to the amount of pain he felt in his throat.

No one else's voice came after him, despite several seconds passing. There had been twelve men that had entered crypts, and only five of them besides himself had spoken in the past few minutes.

"Gale's alive, but what about Adrian?" He wondered. "Did he perhaps get knocked out by some of the rubble or was he-"

The thought of finding his friend crushed underneath some rocks made him gag and finally throw up what he had been holding in his stomach. He had fought in the rebellion and had seen some pretty messed up things, but seeing a man become nothing but paste on the ground was something he had yet to see.

As he vomited, one of the men, Devin yelled. "Can anybody see at all?"

"No, it's pitch fucking black in here!" Torbor yelled back. "I have my hand right before my eye and I can barely see my palm!"

"We need to light our torches, does anyone have a fire steel?" Mercel inquired, his voice full of concern and fear.

"I do!" Gale shouted in response. "Just need to get myself a rock and remember where I set my torch down."

A small sense of relief swept over him as he heard what he could only assume was Gale sitting down. A few seconds later he heard his friend exclaim, "got one!" Before he saw metal scrap against stone.

It took him a while, longer than Edwyne would have liked, which caused some curses to be sent Gale's way, and for Gale to curse them back, but eventually Gale got it. Eventually Gale was able to light his torch.

There were no cheers though, for upon Gale lighting his torch they saw laying no more than five feet in front of him buried in rubble a man's hand. Who it was he did not know, but it was enough to earn a few mutters from his companions.

"We need to move," Spoke the first man whose name he recalled to be Ronald. "Head back the way we came and see if our path out of here was not buried in stone."

"And if it did?" Gale asked hesitantly as he began to reignite his and everybody else's torches with his.

"Then we look around a bit and see if there's another path out." The man answered as his torch was lit.

"And if there isn't?" It wasn't his friend or his companions that had asked this, but Edwyne himself.

"Then we end it with this, Ed." The man declared in a resolute tone as he pulled out the sword strapped to his waist. "Because I am not going to starve to death. I'd rather it be a quick one than one of starvation."

At this, Edwyne could only gulp and nod as looks were exchanged with one another. No one wanted to die down here in an ancient stronghold's crypts. Gale had a determined look, but in his eyes Edwyne could see the fear.

"To survive being crushed or buried only to possibly be trapped down here?" Edwyne thought as they backtracked, stepping over rocks and avoiding large piles of them. "What are the chances of that?"

The chances seemed pretty high for upon reaching where the stone spiral staircases should be they were met by nothing but a shit ton of rocks. He wanted to curse and pull his hair off of his head, and so he did, or at the very tried to.

He shouted the word "fuck" and attempted to pull his hair strands out but it was a fruitless endeavor.

"It's not over yet, there may be a path out on the other side, a secret pathway used by the ancient lords of this castle." Ronald said after a moment of staring at the collapsed staircase.

Doubtful looks were given, but no one questioned the man, so they began to walk back towards their deceased friends. They passed by them, and as they did, Edwyne tried to see if he could spot Adrien, but was unable to. One of the few true friends he had in this world had been either completely buried or crushed by a large piece of stone.

After walking about three dozen or so paces away from where their friends died they found something, Edwyne spotted something behind a ruined statue of an ancient Northern Lord, a hole in the wall. "Hey!" He called out to those that passed by him or walking by him. "I found a hole in the wall!"

The mention of a hole caused his colleagues to move towards him as he approached the hole. It wasn't a big one and from the looks of it only a small child could fit through it, but if they could knock some of the stone bricks out then maybe they'd have a way out?

That hole is too small for us to crawl through and a good six feet off the ground." Torbor pointed out after looking at it.

"He's right we should continue looking." Ronald said, a hint of disappointment in his voice.

Edwyne frowned and moved away from the hole only to stop and stare as Devin who had a thoughtful look on his freckled face.

"Everything alright, Devin?" He questioned concerningly as their colleagues started to walk off.

Devin looked at him and with a frown on his face said, "do you not hear it?"

Edwyne frowned and tried to listen to whatever he was listening to, but heard nothing but boots hitting stone and the sounds of torches burning. "Hear what?" He asked the younger man.

"The sound of water running. I can faintly hear the sound of water running." Devin declared, causing Edwyne's eyes to widen.

"You sure?" He asked him seriously who in response nodded his head a single time. Edwyne looked to the hole once more and said. "That's our way out, it has to be."

"Aye, but-"

"By using some of the stone rocks on the ground. We break our way through and then we-"

Edwyne didn't get to finish his sentence, for the ground began to shake once more except this time it was much worse and had caused him to fall flat on his face. He saw cracks begin to form on the ground beneath him and could only widen his eyes in terror and scream as the ground beneath him gave out.

O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O

?

Far away underneath a massive tree in a desolate and cold place, a bright blue eye opened and a whisper was made with a fond smile.

O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O

Edwyne

The first thing he felt upon gaining consciousness was pain, excruciating pain.

"What happened to me?" He asked himself as he laid on a cold and wet stone flooring. "Oh right, I fell."

He had remembered speaking to Devin about running water and a hole in the wall behind a broken statue. He remembered talking about how to break through the stone wall and then the ground started to shake violently, and then he remembered it giving out from underneath him.

"Devin?" He muttered as he pushed himself up and winced. The pain he felt in his arms and chest was unbearable, so unbearable he almost bit down on his tongue when he clenched his teeth. "Devin?" He repeated, a little louder this time as he started to look around.

He saw nothing and heard nothing except droplets of what he assumed to bewater.

"Is this going to be how I truly die?" He wondered as he looked up to the ceiling only to see nothing, but darkness. "Down here in this dark forgotten place?"

The thought alone was enough to make him shiver and weep. He didn't want to die, not alone in this godforsaken place. "I need to find a way out. I have to." He told himself after a while.

With determination brewing him, Edwyne tried to rise only to let out a pain-filled scream and hit the ground. It felt like someone had set his left leg on fire and then while it was on fire put some scolding hot oil on it and then stabbed it repeatedly.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" He yelled out in rage and pain as tears welled in his brown eyes. He hated it, how he was in pain, how he might be the last one of his group alive, and how he and his friends agreed to do this, to loot this once powerful stronghold's crypts.

Sitting there for a moment, Edwyne thought of the brown headed blacksmith's daughter he had come to like. It had been a developing relationship, one her father did not approve of at first given he was ten years older than her, but over time her father accepted it.

"I have to get back, I have to, I said after I do this I would marry her."

Knowing his leg was useless, Edwyne did the next best thing he could do. He dragged himself forward. It wasn't easy and with each pull he had to hold his breath, but pull himself forward he did. He didn't know where he was going, but a part of him believed that if he kept just dragging himself forward he'd eventually reach the exit he craved.

Minutes that felt like hours passed by until finally he pulled himself on to some stone that sunk a bit into the ground beneath him. A click noise was heard, followed by the sound of stone moving. He didn't know what happened, but suddenly it felt like he was going down. Except he wasn't falling, he still felt the stone floor beneath him.

It was strange, it was like he was on a lift of some sort, but instead of it being made out of sturdy Ironwood it was made out of stone.

He wondered what was happening, where the lift was taking him and soon found out when it came to a stop and dozens of fire pits were suddenly lit. He was speechless at what he saw, it was a pathway, but what it led to was disappointing. The path only led to a gray stone coffin.

"Maybe there's something past it." He told himself as he started to drag himself towards it. "Maybe the way out is behind it."

A small part of him doubted that there would be, but his strength was waning and he was getting cold. Worse comes to worse, he could rest here next to the fires before going back and going the other way. After all, he only went forward.

The journey to sarcophagus was a long and hard one, and while the stone floor wasn't warm, it wasn't as cold as the flooring he had been crawling on. He took a moment to breathe halfway through and used this opportunity to inspect his left leg. He had wanted to see how bad it was only to immediately regret his decision. His leg was messed up, so messed up he gagged and nearly vomited.

"If I get out of here I'm going to be a cripple." He muttered sadly. "But mayhaps that is what I deserve for trying to steal from a dead house's crypts."

Knowing how Gale and Adrien would react to him being a cripple, Edwyne shifted his thoughts to Alys. How would she react if he came back as a cripple who had to walk with a cane? Would she still be sweet on him or would she no longer care for him?

The thought was an unpleasant one that made him shake his head. "Focus," he whispered to himself. "First I need to get out of here, then I can think about things like that."

Putting the thought in the back of his mind, Edwyne continued his journey to the stone coffin and was met by disappointment. He saw no pathway, nothing was hidden behind it. "I should have figured," he muttered as he laid his head down on the ground, tears forming in his eyes. "It was foolish for me to get my hopes up."

As the tears fell, Edwyne began to contemplate his options.

"I could go back, but I'm honestly tired from crawling, and my arms hurt from scraping against the stone." He thought with a frown.

"I could just crawl off the edge and end it all, I'm sure the fall this time will kill me."

It was a tempting thing to do, for he knew if he had to do it himself he wouldn't be able to. He couldn't bash his head in or slit his throat no matter how hard he wanted to believe that he could, he was a coward.

"Or," he thought as he glanced at the stone coffin. "Before I do any of that I could see what's in here. Doubt there will be anything useful, but might as well see what treasure is hidden away with whoever was buried here before I die."

Gritting his teeth, Edwyne turned towards it and started to lift himself up with the help of the coffin. He had to gasp for breath with the amount of pain he felt in his left leg and had to put almost all of his weight into his right leg. He couldn't sit on his knees with how fucked up his left was, so it was pretty much him on his right knee, his arms holding onto the coffin with his left leg stretched out.

Raising himself up just a bit, he tried to see if there was anything written on the stone slab, and to his surprise there was, but the words that were written on it were old and indecipherable to him. "Probably says, here lies Lord something something." He said underneath his breath.

He gave himself a moment after that before trying to push the stone slab. He gave it a mighty attempt, but all it did was move about two inches. He gasped for breath and tried again, this time it moved an inch. He repeated the process several times before finally gravity did the rest of the work and it fell over on the other side.

He huffed and puffed, exhausted but proud of what he had done. He had managed to move it despite having a fucked up leg, and now he got to see what treasure was buried with whomever this was. He winced as he lifted himself up to peer into the coffin and was greeted by the sight of a man in intricate armor and not dust and bones.

He noted quickly that there was no treasure laying in the coffin. All that laid with the man was an engraved shield that looked to be made out of pure silver with a blue gem in the center of it; two sheathed longswords that had blue hilts and golden straight crossguards, and something that looked to be a sword, but at the same time a cane and a scepter.

He stared at the man, not knowing what to do at all. He was dead, Edwyne was certain that he was dead, but the armor made it impossible to tell. It covered every speck of him, revealing nothing to the outside world.

Edwyne gulped and very carefully leaned over the ledge he was peering over and reached down towards the man's head. He noticed the intricate designs on the man's helmet along with the small greenish blue gem embedded in the middle.

"This has to be Valyrian Steel," he concluded. "No other metal could remain in this condition."

As he told himself this, Edwyne touched the deceased man's faceplate and slowly lifted it up.

The sight he saw was not what he was expecting, but what was the most shocking thing of it all was when what he expected to be a skeleton opened its eyelid revealing its golden eye.

O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O

?

Upon opening his eye he heard a scream and saw for a fraction of a second movement before hearing another scream. The first scream sounded like it came from shock while this one, the second scream, came from pain.

For a moment, he just sat there with a confused look. Why did someone scream? Who was it that screamed? Where was he? And why couldn't he really remember anything?

He remembered some things, a battle, a fight, four young girls, and a boy, but his memories of those things were foggy.

The battle felt so long ago, so very long ago. He couldn't remember who it was he was fighting, but he remembered being in it. The fight was more familiar, it was long ago, but not as long as the battle. It was against a beast of some sort, but before that he fought someone named Radagon. Who they were he couldn't really remember, but he knew their name.

As for the girls he recalled some things about them, but not their names or their faces. He remembered one had reddish brown hair, one had dark blue hair, one had green hair, and onw had yellow hair. The boy on the other hand, he remembered almost everything about him. His black hair, his mismatched eyes, his olive skin, and his name, Darian.

"Who is Darian to me? Why can I remember him so clearly and other things I can not?" Those were the two questions that plagued his mind as he remained there. It was confusing, and something he wished to be answered.

Blinking, he looked down and took notice of the things resting on top of him. A flash of familiarity crossed his mind upon seeing the items.

"These… these were my weapons I used when fighting Radagon."

The memory wasn't great, but he recalled how he fought Radagon. How he used the shield to block Radagon's attacks, how he used the scepter to unleash magic, and how he used the two swords to slice open Radagon's throat.

He touched the right sword first and moved his hand down the hilt before pulling it up towards and out of its sheath. It looked just how he remembered with a large blue crystal embedded into the center just above the cross guard. He slowly sheathed the blade back into its scabbard before starting to rise.

He recalled two screams before he opened his eye, and he wanted to know who it was and why exactly they screamed.

O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O

Edwyne

When the man opened his one eye that wasn't hidden by a piece of cloth all he could do was scream as he moved away from him.

"Sevens Hells, he's alive!" Edwyne roared mentally, completely forgetting he had a fucked leg and putting pressure on it. He screamed again, except this time it wasn't a wordless one. No, this scream was filled with profane words as he fell to the floor.

With adrenaline up so much, he immediately began to crawl away, forgetting how exhausted he was earlier and pushing himself as hard as he could. He made it several feet away from the stone coffin with wonders of how much longer until the man attacked him. He didn't want to look back out of fear, but he had yet to hear any footsteps from behind.

"If he wanted to kill me wouldn't he have already done it by now?"

Steeling himself as best as he could, Edwyne glanced over his shoulder and saw nothing. There was no man clad in armor behind him.

"Maybe it was a trick?" He asked himself. "Maybe I imagined him opening his eye?"

He doubted this was the case, but even then, that didn't mean he would crawl back to the coffin. Real or not he had no intentions of disturbing whoever that is slumber anymore than he already has.

With that thought in mind, Edwyne looked over his shoulder once more only to see to his horror the man now sitting up and looking right at him.

"Fuck!" He screeched as he turned his attention forward and crawled across the stone flooring.

O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O

?

Hearing the man wearing brown leather screech at him and begin to crawl away made him frown and stare at him. He had questions that needed to be answered.

"Hey!" He called out only to be ignored as he quickly started to climb out of the coffin. "Hey!" He repeated, this time in a much louder tone only to once again be disregarded.

His frown deepened at this, but he made no rush to the man, and began to arm himself with his armaments. He strapped both of his swords to his waist, his shield to his back, and carried his scepter in his right hand.

After doing that, he turned to see the man continue crawling away from him and howling in a language he wasn't familiar with at all. He started to approach him and as he did he wondered, why was he crawling and not running away?

"Could it be that thou's legs do not work? And how will I talk to thy if I don't understand thine language?" He asked himself inquisitively as he slowly closed the distance the man was putting in between them. They were both good questions and ones he didn't have an answer for.

As he drew closer and pondered what to do, a memory of old crossed his mind. It was a memory of when he killed a man then absorbed a fragment of him, a Remembrance. The Remembrance had granted not only a portion of his strength, but his memories as well. They had basically become his, but at the same time were not his.

After shaking his head to clear his mind, he looked at the man once more, and contemplated what to do. He could kill the man and absorb his Remembrance, but the thought of that made his stomach churn.

"Thy has done nothing to me," he declared softly as he resumed walking towards him. "However, I feel tis be for the best. All I can hope for is that thou will forgive me."

Hardening his resolve, he unsheathed the sword strapped to the right side of his waist with his left hand. The sound of his blade being unsheathing caused the man to turn slightly over and look up at him with a look of pure terror.

The man started to hold up his left hand while scooting back and shouting at him, and for a moment, he didn't know what to really do. He knew it would be wrong to kill the man, but at the same time he saw it to be the only other way to learn about things.

Tightening his grip on his blade, he continued his approach until finally he was close enough to sink it into the man.

"Forgive me," he requested right before falling to a knee and thrusting the blade through the man's chest.

A couple seconds passed before he felt the man runes seep into and saw his Remembrance float into the air. He carefully reached out to it, leaving his sword buried in the man's chest. Once it was in his hands, he noticed it was smaller compared to the one in his memory and was brown and yellow, while the memory one was black and gray.

Slowly he started to close his hand, and it wasn't until he had completely closed did he feel a tingle of strength and for the man's memories to become one with his. He sat there for a long while, taking everything in before finally moving. He reached for his blade first and pulled it out of the man before starting to rise to his feet.

"I will not forget you, Edwyne, son of Jorwyn," He said as he looked down at the corpse of Edwyne. "I will remember you and convey to Alys how you felt for her."

With that said, he started to walk away and as he did cleaned his blade of Edwyne's blood and then sheathed it in its scabbard.


Note From Author:

Hey guys, Forgotten here, and uh, well I don't know what to say. I kind of wrote this on a whim, after playing Elden Ring for so long, I just was like, "What if I wrote a Elden Ring x A Song of Ice and Fire fanfic?"

Of course Elden Ring wasn't the only thing that caused me to write this, there were a few fics that also inspired me, but it was mainly Elden Ring. I um, I honestly don't know what I'm going to do with this though. I think I will keep it up for a week or something and depending on how people feel on it I will go from there. A Song of Swords, Maces, and Flames will be my main priority, but I wouldn't mind writing this too. Just depends on if people want something like this or not, you know?

Anyways, thanks for giving this a read and let me know what you think on this by giving it a follow or review. With that said, I bid you all a wonderful day.