Information

Runaan has a minion!

Aeonian the Atlas Moth

Runaan
Legacy Name: Runaan

The

Bloodred Telenine
Owner: Tribe

Age: 7 years, 11 months, 3 days

Born: August 4th, 2018

Adopted: 3 years, 7 months, 3 days ago

Adopted: December 4th, 2022

This pet has been nominated for the Pet Spotlight!

Statistics

Level: 268
Strength: 667
Defense: 668
Speed: 658
Health: 659
HP: 652/659
Intelligence: 69
Books Read: 67
Food Eaten: 0
Toys Played: 0
Job: Full-Time Test Subject

CREDITS

profile template (c) helix (get it)
template edited by Tribe, User not found: cauld
overlay + story by Tribe
Elden Ring tribute pet - Malenia the Severed
image of Malenia from Elden Ring promotional materials, property of FROMSOFT
background courtesy of Unsplash user Dave Ellis (ellbo99)

Resolve against rot

The Twin Prodigies: two halves of a whole--

One ever born, one ever dying...

Miquella and I are the twins spawned from the union between Queen Marika and her Second Elden Lord Radagon, a consumation between two aspects of the same self. As if the universe itself decried this twisted arrangement, my brother and I are afflicted by incurable maladies, twisted mirrors of each other.

He lives in a state of perpetual youth, his body forever nascent in rebirth. I would age, yet I was a slow death in motion--sieged by the Scarlet Rot, plagued by the haunt of decay,

It has long laid claim to my body, stealing much away with its infestation. My sight is long gone and many of my limbs are clad in golden prosthetics: ornate shells rather than live flesh. Perhaps this malady exceeds the flesh and rots the mind, but that judgment is likely not mine to make, hmm? That would make for a comfortable delusion, one that denies oneself as askew.

The Outer Goddess of Rot seeks to make me her vessel, to exercise her greater will through the husk of my body and, yet, the remainders of my resolve still stave off the fatality of this grim affliction.

I have every right to be weak, to be vulnerable--

Yet, by some great irony, I am largely unmatched on the battlefield: an undisputed victor who does not knows defeat. My blade strikes true, its swordsmanship swift and dynamic as rushing water; I am death in motion, precision and ferocity manifest.

The Rot wishes me weak.

But I will fight against it, both in blade and will, till it wrests the very breath from my lungs. I refuse to bow to its goddess, this Outer God infringing on mine own will.

The Two Fingers, arbiters of the Greater Will, pointed to us two as Empyreans, alongside the Gloam-Eyed Queen and our half-sister, the sorcerous Lunar Princess Ranni. This Empyrean designation marks us as powerful enough to be challengers to Marika's rule over The Lands Between, potential harbingers of an end to the Age of the Erdtree and its Queen Eternal.

But tell me--look into my unseeing eyes--who would choose a rotting body to bring forth a rebirth for our realm? It would be a twisted irony, one that validates the abounding decay that desecrates us, that thrives on our stagnancy, that breaks us on condition of an uncertain renewal.

New eras bloom with promises of power, of great new heights; this rot within me promises naught but damage and despair.

I am not the right candidate to herald in a new age, but Miquella... Miquella's abundance, the converse of my Rot--it bodes much differently, more fitting fare for the figurehead of a nascent era. Thus, I hold faith in my brother's Unalloyed Gold, lend my blade to his ascendant cause--

He is the rightful heir of this shattered world; he alone can find the cure to allay the spread of the accursed Scarlet Rot, to bring salve to the sufferance in the Lands Between.

I will await His Age of Abundance, a time when all things flourish, be they graceful or malign.

Miquella is one of the few to pluck a seed from the Erdtree before the Shattering, so favored was he by the tree's golden branches. Though he would break with the Golden Order's fundamentalism, he would retain its symbol's grace.

My dear brother seeded its precious pod here, neighboring the castle of Elphael, and compelled it to grow, to seek abundance. He watered the seed with his own blood, forging a kinship bond between himself and the growing tree.

He had great hopes for it, such vivid sweeping vision of what could be: a prosperous new Erdtree for those spurned by its forerunner, an acceptance of all made abundant. He wished for a more forgiving order, one that lived less by the compulsion of an estranged Greater Will and more by the humble dignitas of its good folk.

And, perhaps above all--

It would cure us both, bring us both reprieve from our damning ailments.

... He sought to free us both.

It did not come to fruition--

Though Miquella tended his growing tree with the utmost attention, it failed to fully flourish into an Erdtree; it took form of a paltry imitation, its twisting limbs much paled in comparison to robust gold of the luminescent Great Tree.

Yet still droves of shunned races flock to its promise of sanctuary, seeking its waning silvered glow. They grasp at what little grace this new tree has to offer, take shelter beneath its branches.

My good brother continues his intricate craftwork, manipulating unalloyed gold to meet his ends. He fashions delicate needles, enchants them with secreted incantations.

He is close to something good, something great: a refined method of blocking out the influence of an Outer God. He hopes to perfect it before intervening on his own affliction, in which he has devised for the Haligtree to cradle his form and grow him alongside itself.

I can taste a kind of freedom, a saccharine hope that flutters on paper-thin wings.

We are so close to cures for both of us, these curses near ended.

We are nearly pure souls.

Even amid Miquella's machinations, I ware hardly idle, Mayhap by serendipity itself, I crossed swords with a nomadic blademaster, garbed in blue and armed with a curved shamshir saber. It was a bitter duel fought out to a draw, our swords aclash with slash and parry. He spoke cryptically of Rot, of swift waters that stir in spite of its stagnancy--curious conversation for a duel, indeed.

As it may, we too posed fateful parallels to one another. Two warriors both touched by the Scarlet Rot: one born blind and the other made blind by it, one who sealed it away and one who contains it within.

Locked in harried stalemate, we set aside our duel, both unscathed by the others' assault; he saw prodigial potential in me, offered his tutelage--

A tutelage I accepted with much gladness in my heart; his camaraderie much appreciated in this fraught path forward. He would train me into an ever fiercer combatant, the swift waters of his style joined with my skillful talent.

My waters run foul, giving rise to dangerous straits; all before me would learn to fear the sweeping bladework of my Waterfowl Dance.

The Shattering shakes the world as we know it.

Marika rends the Elden Ring into disparate rune fragments; public gossip poisons the air, depicting her as a maddened goddess--one distraught and grief-bent with Godwyn's predicament.

The consensus, though whispered, rings loud and clear: her fitness to preside over the Lands Between is much in question.

And thus, there is war to be waged, new alliances birthed to join the fray and grasp at whatever powers are within reach. Loyalists and rebel factions alike meet afield, fighting tooth and nail to secure victory, to push their candidate forth to godhood itself.

It is a bitter, bloody time.

The Lands between keenly watch Marika's brood--three by Godwyn, two by Radagon, three adopted from Radagon's first union--with bated breath, awaiting what allegiances they swear to uphold.

Of her union with Godfrey: Godwyn lies fallen, Morgott guards the ancestral seat of Leyndell, whilst Mohg remains a wild card.

Of her union with Radagon: Miquella and I stand joined, prepared to campaign for his ascension. We are well-beloved by the people, but that does not definitively gives us the stature to rise up without question.

Of Radagon's union with Rennala of the Full Moon: Ranni's Empyrean body was peculiarly struck down, Radahn's allegiance remained somewhat in question, Rykard struck out on his own, only to fall prey to the God-Eating Serpent.

... Miquella hoped to sway mighty Radahn to our cause, to compel his goodwill and clear the path foward.

It was not to be: he declared his loyalty to Marika's Golden Order, takes up mantle as one of her wartime generals.

A setback indeed. In pure might alone, he is the only one of our brethren who is my equal--perhaps even my superior. He has a giant's stature, wielding a greatsword with discomfiting ease; moreover, he commands formidable mastery over gravitational magicks. He has long stalled the stars' swirling paths in the dark night sky, affixing them in the heavens and earning him the moniker "Starscourge".

Left to his own devices, he proves to be a devastating challenge in Miquella's rise to power--

He must be neutralized.

Alongside a sizeable cohort of my Cleanrot Knights, I ride to the Southeastern lands, meeting his forces in the region of Caelid. My objective is cold, detached, utmostly focused: Radahn must fall here.

My men rally to the banner, their movements harried by Radahn's altered gravitational field. The cards are stacked against us; I cannot counter Radahn's sway over gravity, putting both myself and my men at greater risk in the event of a prolonged skirmish. We must cinch this swiftly and surely, preventing any further grievous mishap.

Riding atop our mounts, Radahn and I circle each other; the front lines make way for us, the frenzy of the early fray ringing in the battlefield.

I leap off my steed, landing light. The General follows suit, his footsteps heavy on the rocky soil.

The Starscourge gnashes his teeth, swings his greatsword down. I hear the air rush past, hear the crunch of the blade against stone. His master over gravity slows my dodge, the nimble backstep nearly too slow.

I listen for an opening, dance in with a slashing flurry. Our blades clash, his greatsword bearing down with monstrous force. I feel my footing slide, sidestepping to disengage.

This must end quickly.

Any misstep here could be my last.

Our blades clash, again and again and again. The battlefield clamor falls away, a cold focus--a fearful one--running through my veins. I slash and block, and, yet, I fear I am slipping, that my skills will not hold.

The cold panic rises, a terrified, leaden sense of responsibility washing over me.

This is not only my fight, but my men's. This is for Miquella, but I cannot bring them into a death trap and force them to dance.

I fight on with nimble parry and surehanded strikes, but it is to little avail.

I cannot get him to break.

Time itself seems to slow, the great stress weighing on my conscience. My breath quickens; I grit my teeth, pulling away the pins of my golden arm. The golden prosthetic hitches slightly on skin and bone and sinew as it falls away, clattering on the hard earth. The Rot eagerly swirls in my form, a swarm of ghostly butterflies in my chest.

It senses this great duress of mine; its instincts are galvanized, predatory.

It knows.

I uncage it, let the Rot rip into the Lands between; a swirling blossom of energy gathers around me, the bud of an insidious flower--

The Scarlet Aeonia blooms, its petals wafting rot into our surroundings; the sound of its abounding sorcery thunders in my ears. The Rot within sweetly sings with unbridled frenzy, overjoyed at its liberation.

It is giddy that I have called upon it, sickeningly triumphant in its comeuppance. It loves this freedom, this release into the world once more--

It wants more. It craves more. It needs more.

Radahn's great frame topples to the ground.

The Starscourge is no more; the skies are arush with motion, the stars swirling high above once more. He stirs weakly, his body twisted by the scourge of Rot; he curses in a mumbling babble before falling still.

I struggle to recontain the Rot, to call it once more unto me; it stubbornly refuses subjugation, unrepentant as it borrows deep into Caelid's grounds. The Rot's song grows deafening, its cry overwhelming.

A heavy exhaustion bends me to its will; I slump to my knees, utterly spent.

This... this is no victory.

A darkness descends--

I gratefully fade into it; I almost welcome its unknowing finality.

Faithful Cleanrot Knights bring my spent body back to the Haligtree, seat me close to Miquella's cocoon at its roots. They whisper terrible news in my ears: Miquella was taken.

I wake fitfully, rarely for long; I live and drowse in a paltry half-dream, imagining my flesh as dull gold and my blood running scarlet with Rot--

But I know well enough to piece together what happened, what great intrusion occurred...

In the wake of his brutish captor, a trampled flowerbed of rare golden lilies, their shining petals marred and wounded. It is a visceral reminder of what transpired, of the great tragedy of my brother's kidnapping: Miquella's favorite bloom tread callously underfoot after all his tender care in cultivating them.

My strength remains largely emptied by the ordeal; I am far too exhausted to mount an expedition to pursue his captor. To leave now would be foolish and hasty, posing undue danger to my good bannermen and mine own body; we are liable to take losses and damages that we cannot afford.

Thus, I rest, lying in wait; I will guard the Haligtree in my brother's stead.

I will steady our defenses, care for those who seek shelter beneath its silvered branches.

A Tarnished comes to challenge me and it is a rare moment that I find myself well and unduly outmatched.

I cannot fall. I cannot give in. I cannot bend the knee.

I still need to find dear Miquella.

I have nothing left to lose; I give in to the Rot, let it rip free once more, let the Scarlet Aeonia transform my body--

I shed my armor and emerge as Rot Incarnate, great red wings strewn with butterflies. I seek to crush this Tarnished, to protect that which I hold dear--

... And still, yet, it's not enough.

My Empyrean ichor waters the roots of the Halligtree as I take heavy blows and fail to counter in kind; the blood fills my mouth, splatters across my face, my armor. I fold to the earth, energy spent and much weakened.

With the last of my strength, I drag myself to lay at the base of the Haligtree, an arm's reach from where it once cradled dear Miquella.

Tell me, Tarnished. Do you regret nothing?

Do you not understand the ways you have damned the entire Lands Between?

Miquella--

... dear brother.

I am so sorry.