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Glory to my bum ass proofreader: Solare.
THE SPEEDRUNNER'S GUIDE TO THE LAND'S BETWEEN
ACT 2: DRAGON
START!
John's body ached in a good way. It was not the torn-muscle, broken-bone ache of a boss fight, but the deep, heavy, pleasantly hollowed-out feeling that sat somewhere between his ribs and his soul. Like someone had wrung him out and then tucked him somewhere warm to dry.
He blinked his eyes open with a lazy, tired smile.
There was weight pressed against him under the sheets. Something soft, warm, and very much alive.
He looked down.
Melina was sprawled half on top of him, half beside, one bare leg thrown over his thigh, her face nuzzled into his chest as if trying to burrow into it. Her hair, its usual neatness completely ruined, spilled across his skin in a messy tumble.
It hit him a second later that there was nothing between them and the blankets. They had no shirt, under-robe, or cloak.
Just skin.
Memory caught up to him like a delayed lightning strike.
He stared at the ceiling for a beat, then a slow, stupidly happy grin crawled across his face.
"Oh… yeah…" He muttered under his breath, voice rough with sleep and satisfaction. "This far with a Tsundere Demigoddess after only a week. Not bad, me. Not bad at all…"
He tightened his arm around her reflexively, pulling her closer.
The brown-haired girl made the softest, most unfairly cute little noise in her sleep and instinctively curled into him, her chest pressing against his side, one hand flattening low over his ribs. Every inch of her was soft and warm in his arms, a gentle contrast to the scales and scars etched across his own body.
His heart did something unpleasantly pleasant in his chest. A sharp little clench, then a slow, spreading warmth.
John dipped his head and buried his nose in her hair.
It smelled faintly of ash, Grace, and that warm, clean-skin scent that was uniquely hers. He inhaled deeply, eyes fluttering half-shut. An odd, animal urge flared low in his gut, a sudden desire to lean down and bite the pale curve where her neck met her shoulder.
He tamped it down by sheer willpower.
'Down, draconic lizard brain. You've had your fun already.'
He lay there for another moment, soaking in the feeling, before his curiosity finally prodded at him.
"Hey, Marika…" He murmured quietly, so as not to wake Melina. "How long was I out?"
Golden light shifted at the edge of his awareness, and her voice answered, edged with a very specific kind of annoyance.
"Ah. So thou rememberest I exist now, do thou?" She grumbled indignantly. "And only to ask the passage of time, of all things."
He snorted softly.
"Sorry…" He whispered. "Forgive me. I was, uh… preoccupied."
A beat of silence.
"Aye…" She muttered darkly. "Bedding mine daughter. I am unfortunately aware."
That made him freeze for a heartbeat as he lifted his head slightly from the pillow and glanced around the room, searching for her.
He found her perched on the room's spectral window sill in his inner vision, one elbow propped on her knee, her chin resting on her hand.
The "window" itself was not real stone and glass, but it looked the part: a tall, arched opening framing a permanent sight the spectral Roundtable Hold slotted in there. The Erdtree loomed immense and luminous, Leyndell's royal capital sprawling beneath it, the whole vista washed in soft twilight.
Marika wasn't looking at him.
Her gaze was fixed outward on the false horizon, her profile lit by the Erdtree's glow. The set of her shoulders and the line of her mouth, however, made something in his brain click.
He suddenly remembered an important detail.
She was not just a voice in his head.
She rode in his soul, and experienced everything through his senses.
Which meant that last night she…
Saw. Wonderful.
Smelt. Great.
Heard. Oh, God.
…tasted and felt-
His face went hot so fast he could almost hear his blood boiling.
He pushed himself up slightly on one elbow, careful not to jostle the girl draped over him too much. Melina mumbled something blurry and incomprehensible, then clung tighter, her arm sliding further around him, her bare thigh hitching a fraction higher on his leg.
He swallowed and looked back at Marika.
"You, uh…" He started, managing an awkward little smile that felt too tight around the edges. "Felt all that, huh…?"
Her sigh was long and put-upon.
"Aye…" She said, and even her usually steady voice carried a faint hitch. Up close, he could see a hint of color on her cheeks, quickly suppressed. "I… expected such a thing would come to pass, mine champion. Eventually."
Her golden eyes flicked toward him for half a heartbeat before she looked away again, jaw tensing.
"I merely did not expect it to be so soon and so…" She trailed off, the blush darkening for just a flicker.
She cut herself off, visibly forcing her expression back into regal neutrality.
"Thou hast been asleep for but four hours." She finished briskly, choosing to focus on his actual question. "No more."
John coughed into his free hand lightly, as if that could disperse the thick cloud of second-hand embarrassment. He let his head drop back to the pillow and turned his attention to the far more immediate problem of disentangling himself.
He reached down and gently took hold of Melina's wrist.
"Hey…" He murmured, voice softening. "Princess. I'm gonna get up for a bit."
She responded by making a tiny disgruntled noise and tightening her grip, fingers digging into his side like a cat refusing to be moved. Her face burrowed more firmly into his chest.
"Stay…" She breathed, barely audible. "Warm…"
Something in his chest went soft and gooey.
He chuckled quietly, leaning down to press a light kiss into her tangled hair.
"I'll be back before you wake up, promise." He whispered against her crown. "I just wanna go for a walk. Stretch the legs, stare at a lake, you know how it is."
It still took him the better part of five minutes of gentle coaxing, whispered reassurances, and a few more forehead kisses to convince her.
Eventually, the surprisingly yet adorably clingy maiden let out a resigned little sigh and loosened her hold. Her arm slid back to her own pillow, fingers curling into the sheets in defeat.
He turned slowly, easing out from under the blankets with the same care he used defusing explosive barrels.
Cool air hit his bare skin and he shivered once.
He reached down and snagged his underwear from where they'd been abandoned nearby last night, step one in the trail of discarded clothing that had led, in retrospect, objectively nowhere and everywhere at once.
He pulled them on, then straightened and glanced back.
Melina had already rolled, unconsciously gravitating toward the spot he'd vacated. She curled into the indentation left by his body, burying her face into his pillow as if hunting for the last traces of his warmth and scent.
His chest did that annoying clench again.
"Dangerous…" He muttered fondly. "She's way too cute for this world."
He tugged the sheets up properly, making sure they covered her shoulders all the way to her ankles, tucking them in gently around her so no stray draft could find its way in.
He stood up fully and stretched, vertebrae popping pleasantly as he arched his back and rolled his shoulders.
A full-length mirror stood in one corner of the Roundtable's guest room, its surface polished enough that he could see his reflection clearly even in the dim, ever-twilight glow.
He padded over, scratching idly at his stomach with one hand as he took stock.
His hair was a complete mess, dark and white strands alike sticking out in defiance of gravity. A constellation of faint scratches marked his chest and back. It was nothing serious, already mostly healed thanks to his ridiculous regeneration.
The most prominent additions, however, drew his eye and made his grin reappear.
A dark bruise bloomed along the side of his neck, roughly where a certain maiden's mouth had been at one point last night. On his left shoulder, five pale crescent-shaped marks stood out in the skin where her fingers had dug in hard, the imprint of her grip still visible despite his healing factors.
"Nice…" He murmured to himself, the word equal parts smug and affectionate.
He let himself enjoy the sight for another heartbeat, then flicked his hand through the air to bring up his System.
Panels slid into place with familiar ease.
Inventory. Clothes.
He mentally selected the set Edgar had had made for him; the non-armor option, more "noble off-duty" than "walking war crime".
Fabric shimmered into existence around him in a soft flicker of light.
A long-sleeved cotton shirt settled over his torso, slightly loose, the V-neck dipping just enough to show the hint of collarbone and a suggestion of the scales beneath if someone was looking closely. Dark, fitted pants followed, comfortable and practical enough for a stroll without tying him down.
He adjusted the collar absently and gave his reflection a once-over.
'Acceptable. Presentable. Not screaming "just had sex with goddess' daughter in a metaphysical hotel room".'
Good enough.
He dismissed the clothing panel and opened the map.
The familiar parchment unfurled in front of his vision… except now it was bigger than any in-game menu had ever dared to be. Limgrave, Weeping Peninsula, and Caelid sprawled outward with far more detail, little glints of unexplored icons blinking faintly in distant corners that had only been fog in the game.
He noted it idly.
'Huh. Yeah, that's… way larger than FromSoft drew it. Helios, you overcompensating little freak.'
His gaze drifted to a very familiar marker.
[Agheel Lake South.]
He selected it with a thought.
The Site of Grace's icon pulsed gently in response, the ghostly tug of teleportation already starting to vibrate at the base of his skull as the world prepared to rearrange itself around him.
Time for a walk.
…
John appeared at the edge of Agheel Lake South in a brief spiral of Grace.
The world reassembled around him in silver and blue.
The moon still hung high above Limgrave, pale and watchful, though the far eastern horizon had begun to soften at the edges. Dawn was coming but it had not yet risen, not yet gold, it was preparing its slow advance.
John stretched as he started walking, shoulders rolling back, arms lifting over his head with a low groan of satisfaction. The cool Limgrave air kissed his skin through the loose cotton shirt Edgar's people had made for him. It smelled of wet grass, still water, and the faint mineral tang of earth that had known dragons, fire, and blood, but now lay quiet.
For the first time in what felt like forever, there was no immediate crisis.
Just him, the lake, the moon, and the lingering, pleasant ache in his bones from the night before.
That thought alone made a stupid grin threaten the corners of his mouth again. 'If I keep thinking about last night, I'm gonna walk into a tree.'
He flicked open the System as he walked and pulled up the MEDIA tab. The pale blue interface hovered before his eyes, half-ghostly in the moonlight. He scrolled through the growing archive of songs until his thumb paused over one he'd been itching to play since the moment he'd realized Helios had preserved his music.
He tapped it.
["Fly Me to the Moon" by Frank Sinatra – Playing!]
The soft crackle came in, and the song drifted gently into being through the Grace-threaded air around him.
"Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars"
John exhaled quietly through his nose.
"Yeah…" He murmured. "That's the stuff…"
Marika, who had been following in silence at the edge of his awareness, became more visible at his side as the song unfurled. Golden and pale in the night, she walked beside him like a queen drifting through a dream, her hair catching moonlight and Grace alike.
She said nothing at first, and neither did he.
They simply walked.
The path curved naturally along the lake's southern edge, more worn earth than true road. Dew-slick grass brushed at John's boots, the blades whispering against leather. Patches of white flowers, half-closed for the night, bent beneath the wind. Crickets sang in the dark brush, and every so often a frog croaked somewhere unseen near the reeds.
Agheel Lake itself lay broad and dark to their left, its waters holding the moon in a broken reflection. Small ripples moved across the surface where fish disturbed the stillness or night birds skimmed low enough to kiss the water with a wingtip. In the distance, the half-ruined remains of stonework jutted from the earth like old teeth, relics of some forgotten road or watchpoint swallowed by time and swamp.
To the right, the land rose gradually into the low, rolling hills of Limgrave. Sparse trees stood in crooked silhouettes, their leaves silvered faintly in the dark. Wind moved through them with a sound like dry pages turning.
The song went on.
"Fill my heart with song
And let me sing forevermore
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore"
John huffed softly at that lyric and deliberately did not look sideways at Marika.
'Nope.' He thought flatly. 'Not touching that one. Absolutely not. I choose life.'
She gave him a sidelong glance anyway, faint amusement touching her mouth.
He kept walking.
The path eventually sloped upward, leaving the waterline behind as it climbed one of Limgrave's broader hills. The grass there was thicker, darker, still wet with night. Small white moths fluttered out of the weeds as he passed, briefly catching moonlight like drifting ash.
At the crest, the earth fell away sharply.
John sat down near the edge, one knee bent, the other leg stretched out, and let himself simply look.
From here, the lake spread below him like a sheet of dark glass. The moon hung above it, so clean and round that for one strange moment it felt close enough to touch.
Marika settled beside him a moment later, graceful even in the simple act of sitting. She folded one leg beneath herself and tilted her face up as well, her profile soft in the moonlight.
John raised a hand and held it out toward the moon, squinting one eye shut as though trying to pinch it between his fingers.
He closed his hand slowly, but the moon remained insultingly outside his grasp.
He laughed under his breath.
Marika looked at him inquisitively. "What foolishness is this?"
He lowered his hand, still smiling.
"When I was a kid…" He whispered, voice easy and low beneath the song. "I used to want to go to the moon sometimes."
She blinked at him once, surprised. "Truly?"
"Yeah." He shrugged. "One of the other kids told me once it was made of cheese. I remember sitting there and thinking: 'Damn. If that's true, I gotta get up there and check.'."
Marika stared at him for a moment, then let out the tiniest, most incredulous breath.
"Cheese." She repeated flatly.
"Hey, I was, like, six."
"That explains little."
He grinned, but the warmth of the moment shifted strangely when he looked over and caught the expression in her eyes.
Pity shot through her, sharp and fleeting. Followed by guilt.
And beneath both, something more tangled, more private. A faint, sour edge of jealousy so old and deep it barely looked like envy at all, it was more like grief that had calcified into the former.
Marika turned her gaze back to the moon before he could fully catch it.
For all her grandeur, she could not remember her own childhood with anything resembling his easy nostalgia. It had been too long. Too much had been taken. The Hornsent had ripped the shape of that life from her and left behind only fragments, if that.
Her mother's face was gone. Her home, whatever soft warmth it had once held, was gone. What remained was a throne, a cage, and the long road to godhood forced upon her through blood and loss.
When she spoke, her voice had gone quieter.
"Art thou truly content? With this life. With… being here."
John did not answer immediately.
He looked back up at the moon and let the last notes of one verse drift into the next.
"In other words
Please be true
In other words
I love you"
His smile softened.
"I miss my old home sometimes." He admitted. "The place itself, I mean. Little stuff. Music. Night drives. Rain on apartment windows. Dumb food I'll probably never taste again."
He breathed out through his nose. "Most of my family was already gone, though. A lot of the people who really mattered to me were… already in the past."
That truth sat between them for a moment, heavier than the song and lighter than grief.
"I'm sorry for anyone who would miss me, I really am. But…" He turned his head toward her, and the grin that spread across his face then was bright and stupid and achingly sincere.
"I've got no regrets about being here."
Marika looked at him fully now as he raised one hand and counted them off on his fingers with shameless ease.
"I met Melina. Millicent. You." He laughed once, shaking his head. "Not even mentioning the others, just being with you was worth leaving my old world behind."
Her eyes widened and for half a panicked heartbeat, all the practiced poise she wore like armor threatened to crack outright. Her face almost lit up with startled, fragile warmth.
Almost.
She crushed it down with centuries of discipline, turned her gaze away, and arranged her expression into neutrality so smooth it would've fooled anyone who didn't know her.
He knew her, unfortunately.
"I am… glad that thou art happy." She said, a touch too evenly.
John's grin only got more dangerous, he laughed wistlessly. "Didn't think you had it in you to be that thoughtful."
Marika stared at him, trying very hard to retain the full weight of divine melancholy.
She lasted about five seconds before she let out a helpless chuckle.
It was smaller than his laughter, quieter, but real all the same. And warm enough that it made the dawn air feel less cold.
Their combined laughter carried farther than he meant it to.
Below the hill, on the main path winding around the lake, a merchant caravan was making its slow way south. Pack beasts pulled creaking wagons loaded with sacks and timber, lanterns swaying faintly from the frame.
At the head of the convoy fluttered the new Stormveil flag; old sigils replaced with John's emerging mark, a dragon curled with Morne's colors.
A few of the people below looked up at the sound, and one of them recognized him slowly.
"My Lord!" Someone shouted.
Another voice followed, excited and rough with travel. "Lord Johnathan!"
Several arms waved up at him from the road below. Even in the dark, he could see supplies bound for the Peninsula and the practical shape of trade being rebuilt under his banner. Grain, tools, barrels, lumber. Real things. Useful things. The bones of a domain.
John's laughter faded into a softer chuckle as he lifted his arm and waved back.
"Morning!" He called down to them.
The caravan kept moving, but not before several more voices answered him, cheerful and relieved in equal measure. Then they rolled onward, wheels creaking, headed south toward the Weeping Peninsula under his protection.
When they were gone, silence returned in pieces, and John let his arm fall back to his knee as he watched the road a while longer.
He sighed.
"I don't think I'm built for lordship like I thought I was…"
That wasn't entirely true, though.
Some part of him was settling into it with alarming ease. More easily than it should have, really.
He could feel it every time someone called him lord, every time soldiers straightened under his gaze, every time common folk looked up at him like his presence alone meant things would be all right.
A small, human part of him was still awkward about it, still a little bemused that people really were trusting him with their lives, their homes, their future.
But the bigger part of him, the deeper, older thing that curled hot and alive around his Immortal Heart, felt no uncertainty at all.
The Draconic heart in his chest pulsed once, heavy and sure.
And with it came that same ugly, undeniable sense of rightness.
As if this was only natural.
As if of course he was meant to rule.
As if of course lesser beings would look up, bow their heads, and worship the ground he walked on.
John grimaced faintly at the thought, uneasy with how little resistance that feeling met inside him now. Once, that side of himself would have felt alien, disturbing even. Something to push back against on principle.
Now? Now it just felt like another truth he had to live with.
A dangerous one, maybe. An arrogant one, definitely. But still his.
He could no more tear it out of himself than he could rip out the Dragon hearts he'd devoured or the Grace that had sunk into his soul. It was part of him now; instinct, hunger, certainty, and pride. Something ancient and lordly that did not ask permission to exist.
And really… Why should he fight it?
Why should he deny himself?
Marika's gaze slid toward him, but he didn't look at her yet.
"Does it ever get easier?"
"...Yes. With practice." Marika said after a moment. "But thou should not worry thyself."
He glanced sideways at that, and she met his eyes then, her own eyes as golden and steady as the day he met her.
"For a fool, thou art doing quite well." She added, that got a smile out of him.
"Yeah?"
"Aye."
He let that sit for a few moments, then smiled a little wider and looked back toward the waking horizon.
"Well… Guess I had good counsel."
Marika hated the way her heart clenched at that. She hated it.
Hated that something in her chest tightened and warmed all at once, traitorous and tender and far too alive for comfort.
So she did what she did best, and deflected. She lifted her chin with regal disdain and sniffed.
"Obviously. Were it not for me, thou wouldst likely have died face-down in a ditch by now."
John barked a laugh. "HAH! You're not wrong. That Tree Sentinel would have had a field day, huh? He already killed me with a single hit! How many times would I have thrown myself at him and died before I finally realised it was all real?"
He tilted his head ever so slightly, a hollow thought ran through him lazily. "It felt so unreal at the time… if I didn't live through it myself, I dunno if it would have even been… real to me. If that even made any sense…"
A handful of smouldering butterflies drifted through the night air, lazy and bright as wandering sparks. One of them fluttered close enough that John lifted a finger on instinct.
It landed on the bridge of his finger, he held still and looked at it closely.
Its body was thin and dark, almost charcoal-black, while its wings looked as though they'd been cut from translucent emberglass. Veins of molten orange and dim gold glowed through them in branching patterns, pulsing faintly from within like the last heat buried in cooling ash. Every slow beat of its wings shook loose tiny flecks of reddish light that hung in the air for a breath before vanishing.
It was beautiful.
And, for reasons that made perfect sense to his relaxed, overaffectionate brain, it reminded him of Melina.
It was not just because of the fire, or because of the Erdtree warmth in it. It was the quietness, and the way it glowed without demanding attention. The way it felt fragile and dangerous at the same time.
John smiled to himself, watching it perch there.
Last night ended with a smile too.
His mind drifted back through the blur of celebration and wine and laughter.
He remembered pressing the Sacred Scorpion Charm into Melina's hands at some point; her brows lifting in surprise, then the little warmth that had spread over her face when she realized it was for her and no one else.
He remembered letting Millicent keep the claw talisman she'd helped find in Stormveil. She'd tried very hard to play it cool for all of two seconds before grinning like a little goblin who'd successfully robbed a king.
And Roderika…
He remembered pulling the Chrysalids' Memento from his inventory and quietly handing it to her when the moment felt right. The poor girl had frozen, stared down at it, then looked back at him with big wet eyes before completely breaking down. She'd hugged him while crying into his chest, thanking him over and over in a small, shaking voice.
He had patted her back and mumbled something awkward and vaguely comforting while the rest of the table pretended not to stare.
Well… not everyone.
Melina had absolutely stared.
Tipsy, beautiful, one-eyed, and just petty enough in the moment to be visibly jealous of another woman hugging him for emotional reasons.
John's grin widened.
He remembered that look, and he remembered the exact moment it shifted from quiet jealousy to decision.
She had dragged him away from the party not long after, hand locked around his wrist with the kind of determined strength that brooked no argument.
They'd barely made it halfway down the corridor when one of the Roundtable attendants, some poor overworked soul in serviceable livery, had bowed and informed them that, due to the Fingers' updated… accommodations policy, they had been upgraded to the royal suite.
John had just stared at him blankly before pointing at the ring of keys.
"Give me the one to the biggest room, give the rest to Millicent to sort out, and make sure Solaire gets one too."
That was roughly as much administration as Melina had allowed him to do. After that, she'd practically hauled him the rest of the way.
John looked down at the butterfly on his finger and laughed softly through his nose. 'God, she was cute.'
Cute was not the only word for it, granted.
Needy had been one.
Insistent had been another.
Dominant, surprisingly enough, had definitely been a third.
His ears warmed faintly as memory supplied flashes he had no business replaying in the open air: Melina pushing him over onto the bed, the slight flush on her face while she tried and failed to look composed, the way all that shy restraint had cracked the instant she decided she wanted him all to herself.
He loved that, probably too much.
It almost made him want to keep provoking that kind of jealous possessiveness out of her again just to see what happened.
'It's a dangerous thought, but man is it hot… God I love dominant women…'
Afterward, once they'd both finally stopped being disasters for long enough to breathe properly again, she had helped him strengthen himself with runes.
He'd still been lying there half-reclined, flushed and smug and mildly ruined, while grumbling to himself about his uneven stat spread and stewing harder than was dignified over Helios' earlier comments.
So, naturally, he had done the most rational possible thing.
He'd poured a ridiculous amount of runes into Intelligence purely out of spite.
The System pane rose in front of him now at the memory, crisp and blue in the moonlight.
[STATS PAGE – Level 100]
Name: John Elden Ring | Johnathan Pendragon
Race: Progenitor of the Dracúl Aeternum
Talisman: Green Turtle Talisman
Burden: Light
Spells: Flame, Grant Me Strength - Bestial Vitality - Stone of Gurranq
INSIGHT: 37 "Thy eyes open wider with each passing day. Mind where thou gazest, mine champion."
Level: 62
Vigor: 80 "'Tis wise, to heap so much into Vigor early. Especially for a fool who delights in leaping headlong into dragons' maws and Demigods' blades. At least now, when thou art struck, thou dost not crumple like wet parchment."
Mind: 60 "Thy Mind is stronger than thy jests would claim. Shame 'tis mostly used to seduce women."
Endurance: 65 "Endurance befitting a dragon and a degenerate both. In battle and in bed, thou art… persistent."
Strength: 75 "Unga-bunga, as Helios once called it, suits thee well. Still, few can deny the poetry of a Demigod sent flying by a single blow."
Dexterity: 60 "Ah, Dexterity. At last, thou movest with something approaching grace. Yet do not grow complacent, thy footwork still offends the dancer in me."
Intelligence: 70 "Ho? So thou didst pour thy hard-won Runes into Intelligence… purely to spite that petulant star-child who mocked thee. How very… on brand. I am torn betwixt pride in thy cunning pettiness and concern that thou wilt never cast a single true sorcery with it."
Faith: 80 "Thou hast given thy belief to me, to mine daughter, to thine own path. Blind thou art not; stubborn, rather. It is a dangerous, beautiful thing, such Faith in the hands of a man like thee."
Arcane: 65 "Thy blood sings louder with each step. Arcane seeps into thy veins, sharpening instinct and drawing thee nearer to that which lurks beyond sight."
John smiled with the kind of satisfaction only spite-powered min-maxing could provide.
Marika, seated beside him on the hill, followed the shape of the pane with her eyes and sighed. "Thy obsession with even numbers and neat little fives and tens grows more baffling by the day. Truly, there is some low madness in thee no Rune may cure."
John scoffed. "You just don't get it. This is art. This is elegance. This is spiritual hygiene."
He dismissed the pane and leaned back on his hands, eyes drifting up toward the moon again. "It's a shame I can't just raise Insight with runes, though."
Marika turned on him immediately with an offended, indignant stare.
"Thou art not supposed to be raising that one."
He barked a laugh at the look on her face.
It was a very good look on her, honestly. That annoyed, sharp, scandalized, and somehow still unfairly beautiful look.
They sat there for a while longer, saying very little.
His eyes drifted inward for a moment, back to the stat page he'd opened earlier.
Name: John Elden Ring | Johnathan Pendragon.
That part had actually hit him harder than the numbers.
He'd been so blindsided by the stat gains, the Insight nonsense, and Helios' terminally online bullshit that the second name hadn't fully registered at first. But once it had, it had damn near stopped him dead.
Johnathan Pendragon.
He'd sat there for a second, staring at it like the System had just looked him in the eye and decided to rebrand him.
At first, he'd been taken aback so hard it bordered on whiplash.
Then, after about five seconds of shock, he'd decided to take it in stride.
Because, really, if the alternative was introducing himself to the world as 'John Elden Ring,' then frankly, Johnathan Pendragon was a godsend.
It had weight to it, presence. A name that actually sounded like it belonged in this ridiculous, myth-drenched world of ancient kings, shattered gods, and glowing trees. And, more importantly, it sounded cool as hell.
Pendragon.
Like King Arthur Pendragon himself.
Or, because his brain was terminally poisoned by anime, the lesser-known but somehow even more surprising Artoria Pendragon.
He snorted quietly to himself at the thought.
'Honestly, a half-dragon idiot with a growing harem of emotionally complicated women wandering around collecting divine authority on his way to kingship?.' He thought, staring out over Limgrave.
'Yeah. That's kinda on brand.'
The name had felt strange for all of one minute.
After that, it fit a little too well.
Below them, Limgrave stretched wide and silver-blue under the fading moon. The lake gleamed. The roads cut pale lines through the dark. Far off, the trees stood like black brushstrokes against the slowly lightening horizon.
Eventually, the butterfly left his finger in a flutter of warm sparks and drifted back into the night.
John watched it go, then he blinked. 'Wait.'
He looked toward the northwestern sprawl of Limgrave, then toward the low line of ruins tucked nearer the lake-road and rolling field.
Right. He knew where he was.
A grin tugged at his mouth, as he stood in one smooth motion.
As if sensing his mood, the music shifted in his ear and rolled seamlessly into something else. It became jazzier now, a smooth brass-and-bass rhythm sliding through the morning air with an easy confidence that made him want to move.
So he did, he broke into a run.
Just a casual, bounding lope across the moonlit grass, effortless in a way that would have looked absurd to anyone watching. His body ate the distance, long strides carrying him over stone and root and slope like gravity had forgotten part of its job.
Marika rose with him in a ribbon of gold and paced the air at his side.
"Where art thou going now?" She asked, halfway between curiosity and suspicion.
John laughed.
"Well…" He said, springing over a low boulder without breaking stride. "I've got high INT now."
He shot her a sidelong grin.
"Might as well use it."
It didn't take long to reach the Waypoint Ruins.
The broken stones jutted out of the earth in familiar patterns, remnants of some long-collapsed structure swallowed by grass and time. At ground level, the Miranda Flowers clustered around the old foundations like sentries. They were giant, poisonous blooms with fleshy petals and swollen sacs full of rot and venom.
The moment his draconic presence brushed over them, they went very, very still. None of them moved, and none of them puffed.
It was less a matter of courage and more of instinct. Something in them knew better than to challenge a dragon.
John jogged past them with a pleased hum and descended the narrow staircase leading underground. The cellar door at the bottom was a thick, heavy iron shutter set into old stone.
In the game, it had simply opened. Here, it looked like the kind of thing designed to keep either a prisoner in or something worse out.
John planted a hand under its lip and lifted. The whole slab of metal rose with embarrassing ease, rolling upward into the ceiling with a grating rattle that echoed down the stairwell.
He ducked under and stepped into the basement, and saw a large figure standing waiting in the gloom. A Mad Pumpkin Head.
The hulking brute loomed in rusted armor and ragged cloth, great flail hanging at one side, his absurd iron helm shaped like an oversized, battered pumpkin with slit eyeholes and a cruel mouthguard. He was positioned squarely in front of the inner door deeper into the basement like a loyal hound told to guard its mistress.
His shoulders squared, then he looked at John properly.
John cracked his knuckles. "Don't think I even need a weapon for this guy."
Pumpkin Head made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a deeply unhappy cough, but he still raised the flail.
To his credit, he was terrified but very clearly planning to do his best anyway.
Before either of them could move, a voice floated from behind the metal door he guarded.
"Enough."
The word was calm, hauntingly beautiful, unhurried in the way only truly self-assured people ever sounded.
"Jack, sit this one out. He is rather too much for you." The voice said, with a hint of long-practiced fondness threaded through command.
John's smirk deepened immediately, he knew that voice.
Beside him, Marika straightened slightly. There was curiosity in her gaze now, and when John glanced at her, he saw understanding strike a beat later.
"Wait…" She said, eyes widening just a fraction. "Is this the sorceress Sellen thou didst speak of, in those first days after thy arrival?"
The inner metal door lifted smoothly with a wash of azure glintstone light.
And there she was.
Sorceress Sellen stood framed in the blue glow beyond, one hand resting on her hip, the other still faintly wreathed in sorcerous motes.
Her body was wrapped in layered sorcerer's garb of dark cloth and deep blue-gray, belts and fitted fabric drawing the eye to a figure more shapely than any proper Academy scholar had business having. A mantle draped her shoulders. Her posture was composed and elegant, all smooth confidence and hidden tension.
And on her head sat that infamous glintstone crown. It was like an eerie, pale, stone-carved mask with elongated features and clustered glintstone growths, less a true face than a sculptor's attempt to trap thought itself in rock. Its hollow eyes gleamed faintly with sorcerous blue, lending her the air of an inhuman effigy.
But John knew what lay beneath it.
Meta-memory supplied the rest with traitorous efficiency: pale skin, sharp blue eyes, long black hair, a face beautiful enough that if the demigods embodied divine allure, Sellen represented the most dangerous mortal version of it. She was the kind of woman who could absolutely ruin a man's life, then explain the underlying magical principles while doing so.
"Well, well, well…"
Her voice was rich as velvet and edged like a blade. "If I had known a Demigod would be gracing my insignificant self with his presence, I would have prepared refreshments. Wine, perhaps. A tray of fruits. Something befitting the occasion."
It was diplomatically phrased, but caution sat beneath it. There was no fear, nor any submission in her voice.
Just a very healthy awareness that if Johnathan Pendragon had come here in a violent mood, the entire ruin would become rubble in under a minute.
She was cautious, curious, and very obviously trying to determine which way this encounter would go.
Then her head tilted slightly, not quite at John, but just off to his side. She froze, then Sellen actually took a step backward a few moments later.
A short, disbelieving little laugh escaped her.
"…My apologies." She said, correcting herself with visible care. "What is a newly risen Demigod doing at my door… accompanied by his Eternal Queen herself?"
Marika's eyes widened.
"She can perceive me?" She muttered. "This sorceress must know her craft indeed, if she can glimpse even this much."
John, meanwhile, only got more delighted. His grin flashed wide and bright and utterly unhelpful as he pointed at Sellen like a man who had just found a legendary merchant with a broken skill tree.
"Teach me, Sensei!"
Silence rang in the dull basement as Sellen stared at him like he was a madman.
Marika stared harder.
"…" "…What?"
And from beside him, Marika sighed tiredly, realizing her champion would remain a disaster no matter how many Great Runes he absorbed.
"Of course thou wouldst say that…"
--------------------
Author's Note:
Stones please
Will Sellen be a love interest? Probably not (unless the people cry for it). Will she and Johnny boy flirt cuz she's hot, and he's hot? Most definitely so.
(The above note has already been answered in the Patreon.)
…
Next Chapter Title: The Study of the Stars, and the Life Therein.
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