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[Elden Ring] Chapter 26
🕑 Added 2024-12-29 01:56:32 +0000 UTCShabriri. The name of a being that had long since lost any semblance of humanity. A bodiless, immortal spirit, the embodiment of chaos, one destined to guide an unfortunate soul onto the path of the Frenzied Flame.
No one knew how long he had wandered. No one knew how much he had seen. The lore was full of holes—nothing to be done about that. What mattered was the ultimate goal: to find someone who could embrace the power of the Frenzied Flame and bring an end to this vile, disgusting world.
The fame of Konstantin the Tarnished had grown too loud to ignore. A figure like his, whose feats resembled the deeds of demigods more than those of a mere mortal—even one striving to ascend—could not escape Shabriri’s attention.
Shabriri quickly gathered all available information. What little there was, at least: the Tarnished seemed to hail from a faraway land, leaving his past shrouded in mystery. Directly approaching him was no simple matter, either. Not only did the spirit feel an uncanny sense that if he got too close, Konstantin would roll right into him, but the man was also surrounded by other… entities.
There was the Finger Maiden, harboring a chilling curse within her soul, unlike any others Shabriri had encountered before. And then there was the one bearing the title of a demigod who had orchestrated one of the most terrifying conspiracies in the history of the Lands Between.
Sure, Shabriri was a spirit of chaos, destruction, and all that—but he wasn’t a complete idiot!
At least, he believed so.
The blind maiden had intrigued him for a while. Her eyes were special. She could sense the warmth of the Frenzied Flame, touch it, and guide the Tarnished soul toward it. All she needed was a gentle nudge.
Her connection to the Tarnished soul that so fascinated him only strengthened his resolve. Complicating matters somewhat was the fake Finger Maiden who occasionally watched over her, likely acting on orders from the suspiciously perceptive Tarnished. But even she wasn’t omnipotent—Shabriri had the skill to bide his time until she stepped away without ever being noticed.
If anyone was patient, it was him. Their fury never wanes.
Unfortunately, he failed. Irina’s will turned out to be stronger than he anticipated. Moreover, she somehow knew to avoid consuming the grapes.
Shabriri wasn’t omnipotent, nor omniscient. He couldn’t have known that Irina had been forewarned. And he certainly didn’t expect the Tarnished to return so soon and immediately learn of his… little mischief.
A very, very angry Tarnished.
Shabriri had no trouble slipping into the maiden’s mind once more. It was the dead of night, and she was fast asleep. But that didn’t stop the otherworldly voice from waking her.
“Do you still refuse the gift, Irina?”
The voice in her head was impossibly gentle and caring. It was clear he meant no harm. He only wanted to help.
Irina couldn’t wear her blindfold all the time. She opened her eyes, sitting up in bed. Somehow she knew it was nighttime.
A faint smile appeared on Irina’s face.
“Yes.”
Shabriri was slightly taken aback. Her voice had grown much steadier and calmer. Her will had strengthened, as though she had found some kind of inner confidence.
Where could that have come from?
“Do you not seek the light, Hyetta? Do you not feel your hands reaching for the sweet grapes?”
His voice was like that of a worried father, chastising his daughter for making a foolish choice. Gentle, weary, yet surprisingly nurturing. Anyone who heard it would instinctively feel the urge to follow it, to trust it.
After all, the spirit truly believed in what he was saying. He genuinely wanted to help. He wanted to help cleanse this cursed world by destroying it.
He believed it was the only way.
“My name is Irina,” she said, her smile widening just a bit. “I don’t need to seek the light. I’ve already found it.”
Though Shabriri had no physical form, he still managed to furrow his non-existent brow.
“And what light would that be?”
Irina didn’t need to respond. The door suddenly swung open, and there stood the Tarnished. Fully clad in armor, sword in hand, he resembled an enforcer of some grim inquisition, come to claim his prey.
Konstantin hadn’t looked this serious or this furious since he’d first encountered parkour (1) in a Soulslike.
His rage was absolute.
Even beneath his helmet, the spirit could sense—could see—the sunlight blazing in the man’s eyes.
“W-what is this?!”
In that instant, Shabriri realized he needed to flee.
The casual-hardcore energy bursting from Konstantin’s body—decidedly unfit for a constructive conversation—forced the spirit of the Frenzied Flame to abandon Irina’s mind in haste. Though it caused her no harm, the same energy lashed out at the spirit, preemptively throwing him off balance, breaking his focus, and potentially smashing his spectral face.
And who likes having their balance and concentration (and poise!) shattered?!
Ejected from the maiden’s body, Shabriri burst into flames as he phased through solid objects, naively believing he had escaped the bizarre Tarnished. But then…
Boom!
Shabriri had existed for countless ages. Who knew how many Eras he had witnessed—or would witness? But this was the first time he’d encountered a madman who had rolled straight through a stone wall, smashing it to pieces!
A startled Irina, still seated on her bed, shivered slightly. The room had gotten colder. She understood what Konstantin had done. And, judging by her lack of surprise, she wasn’t even shocked.
…It seemed she’d need to move to another room until the repairs were finished…
Konstantin, having rolled clean out of the building, had perfectly corrected his trajectory mid-air and landed smoothly on the ground. Without missing a beat, he sprinted off with the grace and speed of a seasoned assassin trained for this exact scenario.
From the very moment Konstantin arrived in the Lands Between, he had lost one of the most fearsome limitations of Soulslikes—gravity.
How amusing. Kosta had become the most terrifying of casuals mere seconds after his arrival in the Lands Between, yet he hadn’t realized it.
The terrifying 20-meter limitation simply didn’t exist, which was enough to unsettle even a spirit(2).
Shabriri darted through Stormveil Castle, frantically attempting to possess various creatures to mount a counterattack. Yet the madman, as if expecting this, would crash into every possessed servant, knocking them out with a glowing club brimming with searing, all-consuming casual energy.
The Frenzied Flame spirit was being burned!
Had no one told this psychopath about resistances? The mechanic was still there!(3) Someone needed to remind him!!!
Unfortunately (for the spirit), the castle’s inhabitants had been briefed that a peculiar exorcism might take place. They accepted their fates with surprising dignity. With their new lord, at least, they could clean up the place without risking their lives hunting Tarnished.
Getting clobbered by a glowing club for being possessed by some malicious entity? That was still far better than what the previous lord might have done to them.
Some knights, already under Shabriri’s control, even tried saluting their new master as he charged at them, accepting their fates with honor.
Konstantin could have killed them! They’d likely revive later, albeit with diminished cognitive function. By sparing their lives and merely knocking them out with his radiant club, the Tarnished displayed remarkable kindness and loyalty. And this to those who had once hunted his kind!
Konstantin was shaping up to be one of the better rulers of the Age of Fracture.
Though, admittedly, he was a ruler in title only…
Melina had observed the entire ordeal from start to finish, barely suppressing a pang of sympathy. The bodiless spirit, a powerful agent of chaos, a living—or rather, unliving—legend, had been reduced to prey, hunted by a predator whose waifu he had dared to harm.
The girl couldn't help but smile faintly, proud of her Tarnished.
Still, she knew she had to help. After all, her form of existence had its own advantages.
The invisible Melina went after the spirit, following close behind the Tarnished. Oddly enough, the tryhard who had embraced the essence of a casual wasn’t opposed to the assistance. Anyone daring to strike at the few good things in the Lands Between deserved neither an honorable duel nor a "hardcore" victory—or any mercy at all.
The only thing that mattered was eliminating the threat, by any means necessary.
Shabriri didn’t make it out of the castle. Attempting to escape into the sky, he found himself confronted by Melina, the “Finger Maiden,” who had already manifested with a deadly dagger in hand.
The spirit of the Frenzied Flame had no choice but to inhabit a new body—a mindless soldier, a random grunt who had long lost his sanity and continued his duty by sheer inertia. Shabriri simply wouldn’t have had enough time to fully assert control over a more worthy vessel. This would have to do.
At least this way, Shabriri could have a little fun.
Konstantin stood before the possessed soldier, putting away his club and drawing his sword. Surprisingly, neither the armor nor the blade hindered his movements; he barely felt their weight as he broke into a run.
“Finally, we meet. The Tarnished who would be Lord. Oh my, why the long fa…”
Boom!
A glowing lightning bolt shot past the possessed knight, demolishing part of the wall. The casual energy barely grazed him, but it was enough for the spirit to feel the searing sting once again.
“I wonder if he thought about who’s going to fix that later…”
Sellen’s whisper prompted Melina to nod cautiously.
Apparently, even a Soulslike veteran struggled to adjust to destructible environment. No, that’s not quite it. Adjusting wasn’t the issue—it was coming to terms with the fact that all this destruction eventually needed repairing.
Well, at least the mindless undead would have something to do.
Hearing the noise, soldiers from all over the castle began converging on the area, encircling them. Among the castle’s defenders were the ever-prepared Edgar and even Gatekeeper Gostoc. Normally, Kosta would have been ready to clear out the mob, but now the situation was different:
He was the boss of this area, and some random bum had come to challenge him.
What a strange feeling.
The spirit of the Frenzied Flame surveyed the scene, realizing there was no escape. From above, the bodiless, insane Finger Maiden was watching him with the moveset of a Black Knife assassin (4). On the ground soldiers were already crowding around him.
Shabriri wouldn’t have been surprised if someone was waiting for him underground, too.
It would’ve been strange if the spirit hadn’t realized he’d walked into a trap. A twisted grin spread across Shabriri’s face as he removed his helmet, locking eyes with the unflinching Tarnished.
“Tsk, tsk. So fiercely you protect the young maiden. Don’t you know the price you’ll have to pay to become a lord?”
Shabriri shifted his gaze to Melina, who flinched, and his grin widened.
The false Finger Maiden hadn’t felt such fury in a long time. The vile spirit was employing one of the dirtiest tricks in his arsenal.
Worse still, it could actually work on her chosen Tarnished. Melina knew this. And while it warmed her heart to know how deeply the man cared, the realization that his kindness might doom their world…
It spurred her into action.
Melina was on the verge of attacking herself, ready to end the problem as swiftly as possible, but Kosta spoke first:
“Who told you I was going to sacrifice my waifu?”
The man’s unflappable composure was enough to stagger even the most focused opponent. Melina froze.
He knows. Of course, it would’ve been strange if he didn’t know…
The girl lowered her head, utterly unprepared for this conversation to arise now. She’d wanted to delay it, to save it for the very end. She understood that a Tarnished who knew so much would surely be aware of her destiny. And yet, deep down, she’d hoped he wouldn’t know this.
But he did.
Melina raised her eyes, biting her lip.
And more than that, he said he wasn’t going to sacrifice her.
Did he understand that this was impossible?
Of course, Shabriri was taken aback by the Tarnished’s cold calm and strange confidence.
“The Roots of the Erdtree, Konstantin of the Tarnished. You cannot—”
“Who told you?”
The man didn’t even let this late-game plot hint finish its monologue.
This wasn’t even a boss. Just a hint dispenser for an ending that didn’t suit Kosta at all.
“Fool,” the spirit scowled. “I give you one last chance. Descend into the depths, far below the Erdtree Capital. Seek audience with the Three Fingers and the flame of frenzy. If you inherit the flame of frenzy, your flesh will serve as kindling and the girl can be spared—”
Shabriri didn’t finish. Konstantin charged, slamming his glowing fist into the spirit’s jaw.
Obviously Kosta had 100%’ed the DLC. And though he hadn’t liked it much, he’d managed to pick up some useful tricks. (5)
Shabriri staggered from the blow, only to receive another punch, then another, and another…
Before the eyes of the astonished knights, the dumbfounded Gostoc and Edgar, the frozen Melina, and the amused Sellen, the wielder of two Great Runes began pummeling the spirit barehanded, inflicting more than just physical damage.
The spirit tried to leap back and even swung in retaliation, but the blade came faster. Konstantin, intent on showing no mercy to a waifu-offender, plunged his casual energy imbued sword into the possessed Shabriri.
The spirit wheezed, clutching at the blade.
It had been far too long since he’d felt pain like this.
“Shabriri is chaos incarnate,” the spirit growled, before crying out in a voice from beyond, “ I cannot die. Ahh, may chaos take the world!”
The body, now ablaze with frenzied flames, collapsed lifelessly. Silence fell.
Kosta grimaced.
“I never liked your dialogue.”
The man pulled the sword from the soldier’s body, feeling a bit awkward in front of everyone else. Obviously, farming knights was no longer an option. He was about to say something, but the crowd erupted first, cheering their lord’s victory.
“Praise the Sun!”
“Praise the Sun!..”
“Praise the Sun!!!”
Slightly rattled after the attack on his waifu, Konstantin felt something inside him twist at their cries.
Once again, they’d completely ruined his concentration.
Corhyn, pushing through the shouting knights, approached the possessed body and crouched over it. He sighed.
He already had experience… dealing with this type of entity. He knew it couldn’t have ended so easily.
“You haven’t truly killed him, Konstantin.”
The man shrugged. He hadn’t received any runes, so it was easy to figure out. As for where the spirit had scurried off to… that was anyone’s guess.
Shabriri could potentially have been one of those mid-tier bosses who lose part of their HP, flee, and then pop up in random places later. Isn’t the first for that to happen
Still, Konstantin was confident he'd inflicted enough damage on the waifu-harassing spirit to keep it from daring to approach them again anytime soon.
Not even the Greater Will could predict how long it would take Shabriri to recover from those burns.
Kosta blinked, only now realizing he'd managed to burn the spirit without really paying attention to it...
Burn the spirit of The Frenzied... Ahem, Flame?
Not that Kosta dwelled on it too much.
He’d never claimed to be a scholar (or lore master, for that matter). If it worked, why question it?
Melina watched the now noticeably more relaxed man strolling back through the screaming crowd without a care in the world. Her heart was racing. They needed to have a serious talk.
Could she bring it up, though? No. She had to. If her chosen Tarnished succumbed to the Frenzied Flame's temptation, then...
Seluvis’s apprentice, Sellen, had been observing the false Finger Maiden's inner turmoil and was, frankly, growing slightly tired of it.
The women surrounding the Tarnished were, as a rule, not the most socially adept. And the man himself? Let’s just say he wasn’t much better.
Taking advantage of Melina’s distracted state—she’d forgotten about the illusionary exiled sorceress observing the scene—Sellen kept quiet, keenly watching events unfold.
Life had been so boring when she was alone.
Once Kosta returned to the quarters assigned to him, Melina appeared before him. Kosta wasn’t startled by her sudden appearance; he’d expected it.
Meli-Meli loved to keep tabs on everything, after all.
“I beseech you, do not heed that spirit's words. It’s a dangerous path. Chaos drains life and feeds on the mind.”
Melina fell silent for a moment, unwillingly biting her lip again and clenching her burn-scarred hands.
“Yes, our world lies in ruin, and it may seem as though the suffering and despair will never end... But life endures. It persists. Surely you, too, see the sad yet undeniable beauty in that? A future lord cannot forget this. I beg you—don’t align yourself with the Frenzied Flame.”
Because of Shabriri’s early interference, Melina was delivering this plea much sooner than she was supposed to.
Kosta didn’t respond, simply staring at her waifu.
Melina, irritated by his silence, pressed on:
“I beg of you,” she repeated desperately. “Do not seek the Frenzied Flame. A true lord must nurture life and every new sprout it brings. One who destroys all existence has no right to bear the title of lord, for their domain is but dead lands.”
Melina took a deep breath.
“I act of my own free will. I strive to make the world better—my own vision of better. This is my dream, mine and no one else’s. And I won’t let anyone defile it. Not even you.”
She raised a determined gaze to the Tarnished, waiting for his reply.
To sacrifice her life so he could become a lord—that was her choice. Hers alone.
Kosta stared at her for a while before shrugging.
“I already said I’m not sacrificing you.”
“Then...”
“And I’m not aligning with the Frenzied Flame, either.”
He’d briefly considered “skipping” that ending through a certain needle in a certain place, but Shabriri’s actions had quashed any desire to go that route.
Not that the desire had been strong to begin with.
Melina tensed.
“Then how?”
Her mind raced to find an alternative route through the roots. Only one image came to her: her brother. Her long-banished brother.
The one sealed long ago in lands she herself couldn’t reach easily.
Naturally, the overly well-informed man had heard of the Shadowed Lands, too.
“You want to use...”
“I’ll check out the DLC later, but not for that reason.”
Kosta’s typically stoic, cryptic response left Melina momentarily stunned.
Then how? She had no other—
Melina abruptly lifted her gaze to him.
“You want to use the power of the Sun?”
Kosta blinked.
“If you mean cheesing it, sure, you could call it that.”
Now it was Melina’s turn to blink.
She had no idea what her Tarnished was talking about, only vaguely grasping his meaning.
“I...”
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said calmly, cutting through her doubts. “I strive to make the world better—my own vision of better.”
Melina recoiled, unprepared for him to use her own words against her.
After a brief pause, Konstantin spoke gravely:
“I’ll keep tryharding and cheesing and casualling as long as it takes.”
These were the words of a true man, a true Souls-like player, and a true waifu fan—spoken from the depths of a soul scarred by dramatic storylines.
Melina had no idea how to respond. On the one hand, he outright dismissed her will.
On the other, he was prepared to defy all odds to ensure that she, someone not even fully alive, could maintain her fragile existence.
This stirred not only anger and frustration within her... but something else.
Without her purpose, who was she? What was left for her?
By his actions, Konstantin was robbing her of the one goal that defined her existence.
How long had she been wandering the Lands Between?
Melina exhaled deeply.
“I’ve become completely useless...”
She froze as Konstantin unexpectedly extended a ring to her. It was old and battered—clearly looted off some corpse. But Melina could feel a faint warmth emanating from it.
“I’ve been experimenting with some mechanics,” Konstantin shared as if it were no big deal, his expression still serious and stoic. “To make sure no waifu suffers harm without my knowledge.”
There were quests that could potentially harm waifus while he wasn’t around. He couldn’t let that happen. He needed a solution, even if half-measure. Pushed by his enhanced perception, he had ventured even further beyond the game’s basic mechanics and started tinkering with them.
With experiments, casual energy felt less and less like regular magic or faith, taking on increasingly bizarre qualities.
Kosta’s stoic demeanor cracked slightly under Melina’s gaze—her eyes locked onto the ring with an intensity that unsettled him.
After all, he wasn’t used to this kind of interaction.
Melina silently took the ring and, without saying a word, disappeared, fleeing somewhere. Konstantin stared at the spot where the false Finger Maiden had just stood, baffled.
“Well, well, I underestimated you, didn’t I?”
A tiny illusion of Sellen appeared on his shoulder, giving him a thumbs-up.
A sly smirk spread across the sorceress’s face.
Fate favored the patient.
“I want to be your apprentice (6).”
The fleeing Melina belatedly realized that the unnoticed sorceress had been there the whole time.
The cursed eye of the false Finger Maiden widened.
Surely, when the drowsy lunar demigoddess returned after her pre-sleep preparations, she’d be in for more than one shock.
(1) So-called “parkour” in Souls-likes is broken. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t exist. That doesn’t stop the devs from occasionally adding it, leading to players dying from dumb falls more often than from bosses. Gravity remains the deadliest foe.
(2) In Elden Ring, the maximum fall distance is just 20 meters, unless it’s a scripted fall. A bit more than that means instant death—unless you exploit game glitches.
(3) Different enemies have different resistances. Logically, an enemy with no magic resistance will take far more damage from magic than fire if it has high fire resistance.
(4) Interestingly, Melina uses Black Knife Assassin techniques in combat. This could have been the basis for a fascinating backstory, but unfortunately, the game doesn’t expand on it.
(5) The DLC includes a unique item granting characters a “weapon” of martial arts, allowing them to fight with their bare hands and feet like kung fu masters.
(6) In her questline, Sellen mentions that one day, the player—as a lord—might take her on as an apprentice.
