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The wax candles illuminate the cave as a youthful, and tarnished, astrologer passes through it. His short sword drips with blood gathered from the hapless nobles and soldiers that stood in his path. Sweeping his hair over the eyepatch covering his gouged out left eye, the tarnished glances at a statue of Marika with his remaining green eye.
Now looking ahead he’s stopped by a golden wall mixed with black, yellow mist gathers at the bottom of the wall and around his feet. The tarnished hesitates to cross the barrier, his open hand having reached and paused in front of the yellow fog. After taking a moment to gather his courage though, he commits to facing the final challenge of this dungeon.
He enters, a sense of dread filling him.
The tarnished creates splashes spawning ripples in the water as he steps through it. He’s at first confused by the lack of an enemy inside when the sound of armor clanking draws his attention to the shrouded tunnel leading to the exit. Emerging from the shadows, a warrior clad in full Godrick soldier apparel makes his appearance by sauntering down into the water-boarded arena, the gold erdtree and lion depicted on his chest glimmers in the sunlight let in by the ceiling’s hole.
“So, another tarnished wishes to become Elden Lord?” The (figuratively and literally) grey-faced man smirks as he unsheathes his great sword from his back, the steel blade glints as he lifts it up into the air, “Then let me teach thee a valuable lesson...”
There’s a moment of pure tension as the soldier lets the tarnished make the first move, left hand trembling the tarnished lifts his staff up and fires a glowing cyan glintstone pebble at the ominous foe. As the projectile soars through the air and nears mere inches away from the still-smirking fighter’s heart, he dashes to the side, moving so fast he disappears from vision as the meager spell collides against the back wall. A heartbeat passes as there’s only silence, the terrified tarnished looks around wildly with his still functioning eye. Then the splash of two feet landing in shallow water is heard from behind, the poor thing only having enough reaction time for his eye to widen.
“It is a strange game...” The great sword is stabbed through the tarnished’s torso, the blood shading the astrologer cloth a deeper red, the soldier pushes the sword deeper as he continues, “And the only winning move, is not to play”
He lifts the impaled sorcerer up into the air before giving him a mighty kick to the back, drawing his sword from the chest the tarnished is sent spinning up a few feet off the ground. Leaping after them, time slows for the swordsman as he hovers over the tarnished while he’s still stuck in mid-air, water droplets glistening around them.
The legendary soldier lifts his godsworn great sword high above his head, the cool steel once again catching the almost golden rays of sun, as if Marika herself is imbuing the sword with holy power for the coming assault.
And then he swings, again, and again, and again, the blows being delivered faster than the speed of light. Arcs of bright white are the only thing visible for the naked eye as multiple slashes are made at the hapless tarnished. No visible injuries can be seen by the unrelenting attack as it goes on for almost 10 seconds before he raises his sword up one final time, bringing it down with all his might in one hand as they are both sent plummeting back down to the earth.
The ultimate warrior somersaults away from the defeated tarnished, landing in another splash as the waters are disturbed, back turned to the tarnished as he slowly sheathes his sword back into place. The sound of metal sliding raw. Then the sword settles in one. Final. Clink .
And then a brilliant pillar of fire erupts from and around the tarnished, the molecules of air split by his blade finally igniting as he has deemed it so. Still facing away, the flames highlight his silhouette before eventually dying down into a plume of smoke. Before the tarnished returns to their last site of grace, the soldier lets them depart with his final words of wisdom.
“Heed this, wannabe-lord" The warrior turns his head half-way to the left as he regards them, “If thou wish to claim the throne, then thou must be capable of felling I...”
“Rick, Soldier of God!”