Prologue: Lying Knight
A shroud of mist clung stubbornly to the shores of Liurnia, as it always did in the mornings. The weeping wind sighed through skeletal ruins of the Temple Quarter, broken windows like hollow eyes staring sightlessly into the gloom. The once-proud Academy of Raya Lucaria loomed on the distant shore, a gothic leviathan casting a long, oppressive shadow across the lake. A collection of arrogant scholars locked up in their protective towers, ignoring the crumbling state of everything around them; no other castle would fit their inflated egos.
The Carion Knight, Moongrum, eyed the academy's shadow with a teeth-clenched intensity that would threaten to break the gaudy masks of those frail paperpushers, assuming they ever had the spine to leave their sanctuary in the first place. His shoulders rested against the crumbling stone as the rest of his party stirred within, still exhausted from yesterday's grueling track back from Limgrave.
Their search for the degenerate mastermind Sellen had been met with discouragingly little, vague whispers of her name here, a sighting there, but nothing concrete. The thought of her name alone was enough for Moongrum to spit, the anger boiling fresh every time he thought about the Graven Mages: fused, hideous spheres of still-live sorcerers congealed into a single entity. The utter audacity, the sheer sadism and self-conceit, to conceive of such horrors was enough to warrant her head on a pike, both in retribution for the dozens, if not hundreds, of dead and tortured but as a warning for others who would dare disregard the sanctity of human life.
Two weeks abroad, rations down to crumbs, and their entire party tired from fending off constant waves of enemies had made him finally decide to pull them back to Caria Manor. His troupe of five bemoaned such actions, returning to Lady Ranni empty-handed, but he knew it was for the best.
The morning sun was peeking over the world's edge, rays only dimly breaching the thick shroud of mist. The water lapping against this ruined mound of stone was eerily silent, broken only by the mournful tolling of unseen bells from too far away and the occasional screech of scavenging animal life flitting between the decaying monuments. A brush against waves, a scream of monsters off in the distance, or the throaty growling of beasts unseen—they were the norm for this lake.
A twig snapping caused Moongrum to glance at his side. A fellow knight decked in his full panoply of Carian armor, save his weapons and the helm, which was resting inside the abandoned temple at the moment, just as his was. Coniraya was a man more stone-faced than sculptures and less compromising than mountains, boasting a modest beard flecked with gray, matching his thinning hair. Despite having a decade over Moongrum, his face was a popular one with younger sorceresses, lacking the scar connecting the cheek to left eye to ear as his commander did. A souvenir from a Rune Bear attack years ago. He preferred the extra-large bear-skin rug now in his living room.
"We'll be ready to depart before the mist lifts, sir," Coniraya stated evenly.
Moongrum nodded in conformation. "Good. The quicker we leave, the less I have to see that damned academy off in the distance."
Coniraya raised an eyebrow at that. "Well, not staring bloody murder at the thing might help with that. You know, we have a good view of the mainland on the other side of the temple." He stabbed in the direction with his thumb for emphasis.
"The boredom would kill me before that ex of yours," he shrugged off the suggestion. "Anger makes the time go by quicker."
"Well, stop your complaining then." Coniraya walked beside Moongrum and mirrored his pose, the plate of his armor clinking, gold-trimmed cape fluttering in the chill morning breeze. "Also, she threatened to castrate me, not murder." He corrected with a deadpan so natural that someone unfamiliar with his humor might think he was being serious.
Moongrum smirked. "No difference. One way or the other, fathers across Liurnia will breathe a sigh of relief."
Coniraya gave a hearty chuckle at that. "Yeah." He shrugged. "I probably would too, hehehe. My son is a blessing in more ways than one!"
Moongrum laughed off his joke and switched topics with a wave of his armored hand. "How's fresh meat?"
Coniraya took his turn to look out at the silhouette of that abominable castle as he spoke. "Up and moving around. Kid has energy; I'll give him that much."
The newest member of the Carian Knights, Máni, was the first in years, approved of by Lord Iji himself. His sorcery was far below what would normally be accepted for the knighthood, but his prowess with a blade made up for that tenfold. The fact that he could match both Coniraya and Moongrum in melee, two of the most experienced knights of the current generation, out of the gate spoke volumes of his potential over the coming years. If he ever learned proper sorcery, well, even Moongrum gawked at what he could be capable of.
Maybe, a stray thought occurred to him: he could one day be a match for Loretta, the greatest of their numbers. He shook his head to dispel the nonsensical idea as soon as he had it, curls of raggy chestnut hair flapping over his face. He really needed a damn haircut.
In the following silence, Coniraya had a moment to think for a minute. Raya Lucaria at the world's edge brought out the worst thoughts in every Carian Knight. A bunch of fools who grew egos bigger than their fake heads, turning upon the royals that sanctioned them in the first place, imprisoning their queen while she was gripped by heartbreak-induced delusions. If she had the will to leave, then the whole academy banded together would not be enough to cage her, but as she was now...
Lady Ranni had stepped in to fill the void and keep the knights together, but some had not felt her leadership worthy and left anyway—over a third of their number. And, as painful as it was to contemplate, he may be joining them soon. Over the last few months, Lady Ranni has done nothing but hide in her tower, sending her loyal dog to bark orders in her place. At best, she is too busy to spare her own loyal knights her presence. At worst, she deems them too unimportant to even pay lip service to. Both possibilities incensed his blood. If this mistreatment of her knights continued, there would be even fewer. Nine was poultry as it is.
Moongrum broke the silence with unprompted urgency, his eyes staring at something off in the distance. "Go tell everyone we're departing in ten minutes. The sooner we get back to Caria, the better," he snapped live suddenly, kicking himself off the wall.
Coniraya raised a thin brow. "Why the sudden drive?" He couldn't see whatever his commander was, or if there was anything at all.
Moongrum sidestepped the question. "This lake unnerves me. The less I'm on it, the better."
…
The Carian Knights rode on horseback through the gloomy mist, the little island where they had rested at a mere blip on the horizon already. All five were now fully plated with weapons at the ready, gripping onto the reins of their steeds now galloping across the lake in a vague "V" formation, Moongrum leading the charge.
One of the knights on his right peeled out of formation and closed the gap to his commander. Moongrum gave him a wicked side eye through his helmet's pointed visor, but kept the harsh words until after he heard what was so important.
"Commander!" Máni yelled over their whipping steeds and splashing water. "Why the sudden hurray? Did something happen?"
Moongrum looked back ahead of them. The jagged points of a landmass peeking over the end of the world. Safety. "I saw a Giant Crayfish scuttling nearby. This time of year, it's best not to even be near one."
"That's it!" Coniraya barked out a laugh from behind, shaking in tune with his horse's strides. Unlike the rest of them, his helmet was not simply spherical, instead elongated to double the size, making room for thicker blue plumage for his topknot. "Lobsters have you worried now?"
Moongrum ignored the jab. "Ever hear the saying, 'the most dangerous Rune Bear is a cub, because the mother is nearby'?" He yelled to his knights over the wind. "Well, the most dangerous Giant Crayfish is a female during the breeding season. Instead of being spread out, they cluster in harems of a dozen or more for the female. A single crayfish is annoying—a dozen breeding-hungry males are terrifying. And the one I saw was too big, too bright in color, to be a male."
"In other words," Máni added. "Odds are there may be up to a dozen sex-crazed lobsters with something to prove lying in wait?"
"Please, sounds like every man I've ever met!" Coniraya butted in again, with just as worthless a comment as the first time.
"Yes!" Moongum yelled out, looking at Máni with a full turn of his head, hands still steering his steed. "Now get back into formation!"
His thoughts died right there. Briefly, Moongrum saw a single instant stretched into timelessness. Behind the young Máni, peering out of the mist, a red form with too many whirling legs reeled back onto a tail thicker than their horses. Wait, no, too many legs and pincers to be just one. Two? No, five, maybe more?
With the seemingly eternal second snapped back into motion, Moongrum bellowed, roaring as loud as he could. "Attack!"
A second later, a volley of too-thin water jets punched through their formation like enemy spears. Horses yelped and screamed as water severed legs, punctured organs, and cut bones. Riders toppled into the shallow lake as wounded steeds bucked in crazed pain or dipped low, scraping across sediment under the water.
Moongrum's vision swam as his horse, struck in the rear thigh by a water jet, roared in fury. He wrestled for control, veins bulging in his neck at the strain, but the beast thrashed like a maddened bull. A sticky crunch resonated as a water jet sliced through the leg of the knight riding beside him at the left, with enough force to cleave into the horse's ribcage still. The man shrieked, tumbling into the murky water, his horse collapsing into a dead weight on top of him.
Moongrum heaved the reins against his horse, calling out to his knight. A sixth crayfish breached forth from underground, bigger than a Rune Bear, pincers the size of tree trunks and a disgusting amount of legs. Beady, soulless eyes perched on thin stalks jerked and twitched in disjointed motion individually.
His horse screamed out in fear, neighing a whine like a cry, reeling back on its hind legs, startled stiff in instinct at the sudden appearance of a predator. Moongrum lost his grip, splashing back-first into the water. His horse galloped away faster than he had ever seen any steed run, carrying both his sword and casting staff with it. He thrashed in the water, his helm suddenly drowning, the taste of mud and iron thick on his tongue. On his knees, he clawed his helmet off, tossing it to the side with the urgency of an enemy's fire pot thrown his way, gasping for air.
Wait, why did his chest hurt? Why was his breathing not getting better now free of the muck in his helm?
A woman screaming clawed at his panting attention. The closer of the crayfish held the lone female of their party in a jaw-clamped pincer, holding her high. He turned to her just in time to see the monstrous thing bash her against a nearby outcropping of stone, breaking her against it as if she were a fruit that needed to be cracked open to eat. In the span of two seconds, it bashed her again thrice more.
Moongrum wheezed out a curse. No weapon, no staff, his chest burning like a torch had impaled him, radiating waves of fire through his blood. He was helpless, and even worse, he was useless.
A three-fold barrage of blue blades, each nothing more than hardened light, suddenly beat against a claw before the crayfish tore limbs off the woman. The monstrous pincer jerked mid-strike, spasming violently. A putrid stench filled the air. Her limp body fell face-first into the water. Coniraya, ever the braggart, roared a battle cry as he charged ahead on his horse, the only one remaining, his longsword cleaving the air beside him outstretched.
Before he could land a blow, a pincer from a different crayfish, bigger than his entire horse, broke free from the sediment right beside his steed's hooves. Yet another crustacean tore loose from underground, this one thickly patched over with blooms of green algae. Coniraya's horse jumped back on instinct, giving its rider a moment's chance to swipe his sword, only for it to bounce off the steel-hard carapace.
Coniraya, quickly realizing just how bad this situation was, changed tactics, whipping his steed around and kicking it into high speed, steering back towards his commander, keeping his eyes locked on the two giant bugs scuttling about closest, who eyed the two of them with similar intensity. Reaching down, he gripped onto Moongrum's arm and helped heave him onto his horse without stopping.
Moongrum looked to the line of giants off in the mist's edges; seething, spidery legs writhe, and pincers wave and snap in the air, arching backwards again on thick tails. Another volley of water jets erupted, shooting towards the two men faster than any arrowhead, whipping the water's surface into a foaming frenzy.
Moongrum pushed through a light head and blurring smears over his vision, quickly drawing Coniraya's own casting staff holstered to the saddle. His lugs screamed in pain but he still swiped the glintstone tip in an arc. Threads of bluish light were stitched into a solid wall, big enough to shield them and the horse entirely, keeping pace with the galloping steed. The jets of water bashed cracks into the magic shield, miraculously breaking into colored shards of not-glass only at the final jet. They were lucky, and neither man wanted to see if the next one would hold as well.
The two closest giants broke into a scuttling crawl on deceptively thin and weak pereiopods, aiming wide-open pincers big enough to pick up their horse and men simultaneously. Moongrum raised the casting staff again, ready to bring forth spectral weapons to, at the very least, slow down their pursuers.
The last knight dropped from the sky, suddenly, his Carian greatsword buffed with a greasy film of blue magic. The sword pierced through the knobby head of the giant coated with algae. The knight hurled his body off the head, gipping his weapon even tighter, using his armored weight to drag the greatsword down the creature's face, splitting it in two between the eyes in a gush of clear fluid. It writhed and flailed its pincers about with wild abandon in its death throes. The knight rolled out of the way just in time to avoid getting smashed flat by one of them.
Coniraya and Moongrum watched in fascination as the rookie battled the second of the pair. With a spin, he moved between two pincer grabs, cleaving one off entirely with a precisely aimed slash to a joint. The thing reeled back in what might have been pain or simply alarm; it was impossible to tell. Máni tossed a crystal dart into one of the two black eyes, causing it to recoil and thrash thoughtlessly. The wailing nonsense gave him the opportunity to dash down its side, severing three walking legs in a single, clean stroke. Its lopsided weight dragged the thing to the water, toppling over in a spidery flail of antenna, legs, and a single pincer.
Máni backflipped over the crayfish's side. In two strides, he cleared most of the thing's body; for the third and final, he aimed his glowing sword downward, falling sword tip-first into the creature's head, hurling the entire weight of his being into a single murderous strike. The weapon punched through the carapace and out the other side, killing it instantly.
His elder knights were still on their running horse, mouths slacked open. The giants at the mist's edge all broke line, scuttling forward to the murderer of their kin. Coniraya reeled his dashing steed to a halt and pulled the reins taut to turn towards the last survivor. "Máni!" He called out.
Back on level ground, pulling his sword free from a mess of stringy meat, Máni did not turn his way. He waved the back of his hand to them, facing down the wall of enormous bugs like a lone man standing up to an army. "Go, Coniraya! I'll distract them!" He yelled out.
"The hell you are!" Moongrum shouted. Something in his chest burned in response, and he coughed up blood. His head was rushing, swimming weightlessly for that. His watery eyes closed, leaning his head on Coniraya's back.
"You're coming with us! You hear that, fresh meat!" Coniraya bellowed, voice tinny through his helm.
Máni suddenly dipped low, picking something up from under the water. He spun far faster than anything either man had ever seen before, briefly becoming little more than a smear of silver and blue. Something small but hard hit the horse. It screamed and bucked against Coniraya's grip and turned the opposite way, galloping towards the mainland once again in fear.
"Better for the captains to survive this than the rookie!" Máni shouted. "Give Loretta my regards!" Coniraya blurted out a string of curses and swears that were most unknightly. Moongrum watched through vision tunneled by blackness as Máni turned his glowing sword to the writhing wall of carnivorous beasts. They descended on him like a tidal wave.
He moved his greatsword with all the dexterity of a katana, or curved sword. He spun and slashed, leaped, and twirled, each movement carving up carapaces or severing something important. He was a furious whirlwind of blades. Never before had any of the knights seen Máni fight with such ferocity. His earlier stray thought of Máni being a match for Loretta didn't seem so far-fetched now.
Why now fight like this? Had he been holding back when training with his brethren, or was it untapped potential pushed forth in a desperate, vain attempt at survival?
Two more Giant Crayfish died before a pincer snatched him at the waist, hoisting him into the air. The thing squeezed hard enough for metal plates to dent and crack. It took a full ten seconds for Máni's legs to stop kicking. The crayfish bashed him into the watery ground once, twice, five times, and more still. On and on, it whipped the limp body ragged, dragging it splashing all across the surface in savage arcs in what could be mistaken for anger, cracking against submerged rocks, crystals, and pillars, throwing him into the watery ground in a final slam that was hard enough to hear the breaking of metal despite their distance and the running horse.
Even letting go was not the end of it. A claw bigger than a man bashed into where Máni now lay motionless. It never stopped, as if it wouldn't be satisfied until the body was nothing more than a pulpy smear. Moongrum's vision squeezed into a total, true blackness, and the desecration of his dead comrade was blocked from view.
Before he lost consciousness, his final, mournful thought was that it was probably for the best that he not see the rest.
When the mists finally started thinning, the lake of Liurnia was eerily silent. The screams and tolls of bells were gone, as if hiding in fear of a great predatory beast prowling the land. Even the wind was strangely absent.
The man once known as Máni stood at the center of butchery. If the crustaceans were humans, onlookers would have called it a massacre. All around him were the torn remains of numerous Giant Crayfish, pincers pulled off of sockets, exoskeletons cracked and mashed, peeled open and leaking eviscerated white meat, and foul fluids. His Carian armor was splattered with their blood and detritus, wet with stagnant water. New divots and dents clawed down the surface of his silver plate, the biggest of which was a giant gouge across his chest, thanks to that one bug slamming him into the ground again and again.
In one hand was his Carian Blade, a chipped and battered parody of its normal luster, while the other cradled the helm of his knight suit in an open palm. His face, red with exertion, was dotted with sweat over slightly tan skin, tracing lines down round cheeks, coalescing on the soft edges of his jaw, before dripping to the lake. His weathered eyes and long hair were both a deep, earthy brown, too rich and vibrant to be natural, like verdant tree bark.
He looked down to the helm as if he were mourning it, or what it represented: another identity dead. The personality was forged, the history fabricated of the most truthful lies, but the friends had been real, despite his efforts. His attachment to them—these creatures who grew to love a ghost of man—was becoming more pronounced with each mission.
He hadn't intended for this to be his escape. He had been working out the details of faking his death at the Carian Manor, putting an official end to the character he played. The thing about being undercover was that ending an operation was often harder than starting it. The number of loose ends that need tying up so as not to leave a suspicious trail would be a worthy challenge for any fiction writer. Still, this opportunity was perfect, giving the knight named "Máni" a good death with witnesses to testify. He eyed the other dead knights with sympathy. Still though, it was a shame. He had liked most of his companions.
The twins' compassion had been rubbing off on him. After countless ages he was starting to feel almost… human again. How interesting. He'd thought that had all been lost long before that upstart Marika had launched her terrible golden crusade.
Fate has a love of irony, does it not?
No matter. He gripped the helmet by its ruined stump of plumage and let it fall to his side, sheathing his blade as he did so. His goal had been met. It was time to return to his beloved Miquella and his sister and tell them that he was one step closer to knowing who killed Godwyn.
He marched forward, water slapping against his greaves, and trudged towards his secret cave hideout, towards his well-hidden teleportation seal.
(End of Prologue)
Author's Notes: Since it only just came out I'm not going to go into spoilers for the DLC, in case you haven't finished it yet, but the DLC left a rather lackluster taste in my mouth lore-wise. Miquella and Malenia were probably my two favorite characters in the base game and I was so so disappointed with how it turned out. It's not that it's bad per say, I was just hoping for something a bit different, and it ended up being what I expected it to be with just a couple of twists. It really muddies what I found so interesting about the twins in the base game. I've had an Elden Ring story on the back burner for a while now and this was just the motivation I needed to get back to it, only taking it a new direction. As far as dialog goes, I'm not even gonna try that lol. I cannot do 'ye old English. I'll try to style it to keep the tone right, but that's it.
Depending on the response this gets I'll add it to my rotation. I have a page full of notes that I could build a lot from, but if not too many people care for this, then I'll leave it as a oneshot as I have several other stories that need attention.