Capítulo 22: Chapter 22: A Maiden's Tears
Are you ready?
I'm in my home, the manufactured home where I spent nearly my entire life.
Yes.
I know these smooth white walls, these polished maple wood floors that switch to soft carpet in the living room, and tacky blue tiles with simplistic design in the kitchen.
Then, let us begin.
The decorations and couches have switched out numerous times over the years and the tv has evolved from the boxy television of my childhood into the modern plasma variant. Dishes have changed, walls have been repainted, and the contents of my room have only grown and shrunk with time. So many changes, yet my home has always been the same.
The little castle of my childhood then, and a clubhouse only for two now.
Whenever Melina and I enter my mind, we find ourselves here as soon as I can manage. It's leagues better than darkness everywhere. She also seems to like the place, enjoys the smooth lines and clean colors of everything. I would like to take her to other places, let her see more glimpses of my world. I'm sure she would love to see more of Earth. But nothing is ingrained in my mind as much as this place, not even sure if I could materialize anywhere else.
This works for now.
Melina paces around me as I attempt my best to stay still, silently humming to herself. I'm on a chair I pulled out into the middle of the kitchen, sitting like those ancient Egyptian statues you can sometimes see in photos. Melina searches all around me with a keen eye; she's not looking at me.
She's looking at, as she describes, a bundle of black knots upon black knots in my memories, all moving about like a mess of coiling snakes, tied up into an erratic ball. I related it to a compound lock, though a better description could probably be a bunch of tangled fishing line you want to straighten out. A nasty spell, with no uniformity or runes to speak of. If magic in the world of Elden Ring were meticulously designed buildings, elegantly grown plants, and carefully chiseled stone, then the spell on me is infesting ivy on the stone, leaf-killing infections in the stems, and slow erosions on the sculpture.
It's like nothing Melina has ever seen before, and she has been slowly picking away at it ever since we first met.
She studies the knotting spell now, looking for the next convulsing strand to pull. These attempts she makes to break the spell, they feel like doctor visits to me. A nurse looking me all over, preparing to give me my weekly treatment.
If that's not relatable, then it's like a visit to the barber's. It's a similar vibe.
I feel a little awkward as she circles around, her single opened eye creased in concentration. She's been at it for a couple of minutes now; a strange prospect when there's no noise here.
See anything?
Melina lightly shakes her head, giving every inch of me a double take.
No.
I… wait.
She pinches at something near my chin; I think for a second that she plucked a hair or something.
But she pulls on something unseen, and a chilling sensation falls over me.
This strand will suffice.
She lets the invisible entity go, before drawing a quick circle around where it floats in space; gold light trails behind her fingers as she does so. She quickly builds on top of the golden circle, overlapping it with two others. It's like she's giving the original circle petals, similar to how a preschooler would draw a flower. But she stops after two, leaving three rings overlapping one another in a triangle configuration. She proceeds to draw other things around it, expertly tracing out a cross shape around the rings, composed of more overlapping lines and designs. It makes the entire shape look like old Viking artwork crossed with Christian symbolism. Finishing out with what looks like branches ended in leaves around the cross, she's made a large and complex design in the shape of a large disk.
She makes a small movement with her hands, and the drawing flashes brightly, before dissipating.
The loose strand is wound up like it was tied onto a spinning spool; pulled out of me until the string is completely removed, and promptly burned away.
Satisfied, Melina pulls away, looking me over like's she a barber admiring her work.
It is done.
Another layer removed
I stand, and my home disappears around us.
We're back in the darkness, only accompanied by the runes I collected from Roard and his garrison; they're swimming about beneath us. Haven't gotten the chance to use them yet, as we were afraid to stay away from Kalé for too long, seeing as we just met him. The last time we were at a breach would have been in the burned town near Stormhill Gate, and we haven't seen any other Sites of Grace around since. We need a breach to strengthen me, and we need a breach to work on my spell. Didn't want to risk it last time.
Now, we have a bit more time, and considering that time moves much quicker in here than out in the real world, we in theory have plenty of time.
I'm excited to get stronger again, but that can wait.
We'll find a way to strengthen me after we see my new memories.
Let's see what we got.
Yes. Let us.
Melina waits patiently.
It would be hard to recall a specific point in time, especially when there's no event associated with it. But with the spell removed, the uncovered memories simply feel fresh in mind, like I just experienced them.
It's simple to pull them up.
We'll start with my memories near the start.
The area beneath us takes shape, and I can see the entirety of my room form into existence below. A flood of nostalgia overtakes me, but I shake the feeling off. I'm not here for sightseeing; we're here for a purpose.
I drag Melina and I down into my room, until my feet land onto fine carpet. There's two others with us in here, though neither of them can see us.
Melina takes a kneeling seat to the right of a familiar boy hunched in his chair between us; it's not her first time being here, doing this.
I take a seat on the left side, glancing skeptically to my right.
I see myself, my past self, sitting right next to me, not much younger than I am now. My focused eyes are locked on the screen not too far away, an Xbox 1 controller in my hands. I can't explain what it's like, being able to see myself from this angle; it's like I'm looking at a flawless doppelganger, or those uncanny wax figures; except this one's a perfect copy.
No mirror or rolling video can replicate this type of strange experience.
I notice Daniel still sitting on my bed behind past me, though he's since stopped giving past me his full attention. He's on his phone now, looking up something relating to the game.
I pay him no heed.
If he says something important or helpful, then I'll tune in.
But I join Melina for now, watching my past self play Elden Ring.
It seems I gave up on trying to defeat the Tree Sentinel, and I snuck past that hulking behemoth. The game doesn't give the Sentinel justice in the slightest; he was a terrifying force of nature in person. In the game, he just paces back and forth, none the wiser of the Tarnished sneaking by only a stone toss away.
My character wanders into a patch of woods I'm familiar with, after giving Kalé a quick visit in the chapel, skimming over his dialogue. I pick a fight with a few soldiers of Godrick in the small forest; my character nearly dies when he fails to dodge a charged swing by one of the soldiers. My past self freaks out a little, before panic rolling away, and drinking one of those crimson flasks.
I stare longingly at the flask symbol on the bottom left of my screen.
Where are those things?
They sound super helpful, and I'd love to have them. But the game gives you them after you're killed by the Grafted Scion and wake up in the Stranded Graveyard.
I was given no such favoritism; I got to wake up to a bunch of skulls and no flasks to speak of.
Eventually, my character slays the soldiers in the forest, dodge rolling away from attacks that are way too slow and telegraphed, and counter-attacks with a sword that doesn't seem to regard the fact the soldiers are wearing armor.
It's all so unfair. I can't help but sigh.
Melina pays more attention to my character's surroundings, comparing it to her knowledge about the world she knows. While the proportions are wildly off in-game, things are still identical. The forest has a slight incline to it, the trees are mainly a form of oak or maple. There is a sudden cliff from the woods to Agheel's lake; though I remember it being taller. My past self spends a little longer in the woods, chasing around some animals, before eventually carrying on.
I knit my eyebrows when my character wanders into Roard's outpost; the town's much too small. I was aware the terrain is bigger in real life, but I thought the town near Stormhill Gate was small to begin with. The version in-game is so small, one could barely call it a village.
Whatever, not like I'll be near that village ever again, I only have bad memories there.
So, to my disdain, we watch me sneak my character about the village, assassinating soldiers who couldn't spot me if I were wearing a bright sombrero with bells.
I got tracked down by wolves and small parties in the dead of night, all the while acting like a bogeyman, seeking out and ruthlessly killing any I found alone.
This entire memory is making me upset; the game makes the world look tame compared to what I know.
I even make a double take when I spot Roard marching up and down the main street of the small town.
It's surreal, seeing him moving again. He's far too robotic in-game, though that's to be expected.
Daniel says something when my past self tries sneaking up on Roard, smiling from his seat on my bed.
"Don't try it. That guy will mess you up."
"Really?" My past self asks.
Like you wouldn't know, Daniel. I painfully remark.
I get promptly killed by Roard, and respawn near the small village at a strange statue. I proceed to run around after that. Nothing more of note happens before the memory ends.
The screen, Daniel, and I just simply freeze, like a video buffering.
Melina sighs silently.
Nothing new then.
I nod reluctantly.
Yeah.
We were both hoping for a hint, some clue into what might happen in our near future. Sadly, I don't think we'll get anything useful anytime soon. If I know me, I'll be messing around for the first couple hours or so, getting used to the controls. If these memories are unlocking by about 5 minute increments, then it will be a long while before something useful pops up in the beginning of my memories.
Well, might as well check the end too.
I think about the end of my memories, the other side of the spell that has been removed. At this point, the ending will be more helpful than the beginning.
Hopefully.
With how this spell works, it's like an entire circular layer is removed, across a linear timeline. This means that whenever Melina removes a layer, more of the beginning is uncovered, but more of the end uncovers too; at least, that was how she explained it to me. The last thing we'll see is the center of my experience with Elden Ring; the entire ending will be spoiled before we even get there.
I'm fine with that. The center of the game probably won't have anything useful to begin with.
When my new memories near the end begin, time outside switches to night. The layout of the room changes slightly, I shuffle a bit to get away from a discarded candy wrapper on the floor next to my knee. Past me has gotten more hunched in his chair, sweat beading on his face. I've seen this same night five separate times now, one of which was my own experience.
If time has stayed the same, then this should be five minutes before I take on Elden Beast the last time, ten minutes before I finally beat the game, and fifteen minutes before I'm killed by the Grafted Scion at my own front door.
It's 2:10 a.m. June 21st, 2022.
I finished the game on an early Tuesday morning; I never saw the sun rise again.
When the memory starts, it's an instant flashbang out the gate.
My character is not in that gold tree arena we saw the last two times, where the mysterious creature called the Elden Beast resided. As for this Elden Beast, Melina didn't know what it was, and I don't know either. It was a strange entity, and it was in an arena where hundreds of golden trees filled up the distant horizon, with colors of the galaxy painting a starry night sky.
Instead of that place, my character is running around a large, dark room.
I have the usual giant and white sword with twisting, bleached wood for a blade. Black armor, fashioned with my hair and eye color matching my real colors. I'm running about, dodging projectiles and blades of light.
I'm fighting a man; one with long, vibrant, and red hair, one of his arms replaced by black smoke. Gold lines that form a familiar symbol reside in his body, like he was a shell around it. His eyes are cavernous pits, with two small suns gleaming from within that damaged skull. The man wields a strange hammer, flying about and teleporting around the arena with accompanying gold light. He's fast, ruthless, and entirely silent, like he was a zombie, hellbent on my character's destruction.
We've yet to see him before.
Accompanied with his health bar, is his name.
Radagon of the Golden Order.
That's quite a name.
I go to look over at Melina, see if he rings any bells to her.
…
The air has begun to feel a little stagnant.
Does he-
I fall silent.
My heart sinks.
Melina stares vacantly at the screen, her widened eye locked on that name.
She looks surprised; she looks distraught. Her face contorted into a frown, and it's not a small one.
Melina?
She's unresponsive.
The battle goes on unhindered, but I'm not looking at it.
Hey, is everything alright?
...
!
A tear.
A tear drips down Melina's cheek.
Not from her open eye, but from her tattooed one.
It's colored crimson, burning her skin where it touches her.
I stand up straight.
Melina, the stoic young woman who rarely smiles. The young woman that only raises her voice when needed, and always keeps a level head, even when the two of us are in danger. The young lady, when she was nothing more than a lost soul, got onto her own two feet and saved me. That young Maiden
She's crying.
Melina!?
Her eyes are only for the screen; that bloody tear falls to the floor, chewing away at the carpet like it were made of acid.
That, or it was made of flames.
…
…Father?
I forcefully stop the memory.
I don't bring us back to my home.
We're out in the black, nothing but the two of us above a bed of swirling golden runes.
Melina hasn't moved, her tears won't stop. Crimson drop after crimson drop drips from her lax jaw, plummeting down into eternity; the runes themselves steer clear of her.
I don't know what to do, what should I do? What would someone do in a situation like this?
I'm at a loss.
This man, Radagon. Who is he? He's Melina's father? Really? Why was I fighting Melina's dad?
None of it makes sense, and my cursed memories won't show any more than that. But despite it all, I think, I ruminate; I try my hardest to remember.
Radagon.
Radagon, Have I heard that name anywhere before?
I try and try; pacing at this point.
Melina remains unresponsive.
...
Nothing.
Nothing comes to mind.
Even mention of such a name won't pop up, anything regarding Elden Ring has been locked away too. I only have the first and last fifteen minutes to go off of, and nothing comes to mind.
I'm stuck.
Lance.
I freeze up.
Melina struggles to stand, nearly stumbling as she rises. I can't bare to look at her. I feel guilty, inadequate that I can't help.
What do you know.
I…
I shift about, wildly uncomfortable.
I don't know anything else. I'm sorry-
What do you know.
Tell me.
I'm not in my body, I can't feel anything in my mind. But a shiver travels up and down my back, and a sickening feeling arrests my gut. The air feels thick.
I slowly turn; Melina stares me down.
Tell me.
Right. Now.
I… don't…
My words get lost. She's mad.
No.
Mad is too childish of a description.
She stares at me with a slight dip in her head, her iris dead of emotion. Multiple red streaks etched down her face from her closed eyelid, mouth contorted into a frown that Lucifer would give upon seeing the children of God.
Outrage.
Tell my why.
Wrath.
Why?
Fury.
Your ignorance.
Your innocence.
She grits her teeth, revealing a balled up fist from underneath her black cloak.
Why do you lie to me?
I can't move my legs.
I-I'm not… lying about what?
You are.
She takes a threatening step forward; another crimson tear falls from her anguished face.
You are.
The darkness around us contorts, the runes below go into a frenzy. The place is falling apart.
You are a liar.
I don't know what to do, don't know what to say. I found myself in a raging hurricane, on nothing more than a small boat. Melina's voice rises, contorts, and becomes almost shrill in nature. She has only ever shouted when I was in danger, always kept her tone in an almost soft, tranquil state otherwise. But that velvet voice has decayed away, revealing serrated words that cut deeper than I ever thought they could.
You lie!
You know him!
She starts at me, her eye manic.
You know Father!
Her tattoo flashes a pale hue for a split second; blood tears erupt out.
Erk. AAAAAAGH!
Melina nearly falters, grasping the area around her closed eye. She grimaces, like a splitting headache fell over her. The fresh tears burn her hand, smoke leaks out between her fingertips, filters through her hair. Dripping blood makes parts of her clothes smolder, fabric glowing like the sunset, before withering away into ash.
I take an involuntary step forward… I don't know why I do.
Maybe I want to help her, maybe I don't want to see someone I care about be in so much pain.
But she glares at me, ember colored eye constricting beneath a heavily arched eyebrow.
Stay back!
I take two steps back, my own face stricken with confused anguish. Melina seethes through her pain, glaring at me with a hatred unmatched.
What did you do!?
Why were you fighting Mother!?
Why were you attacking Father!?
It feels like I've hurt her, more than I thought I could. The sensation of surprised guilt washes over me, like I've injured someone in a terrible accident. An accident I didn't know what I caused, but the guilt chills me all the same.
Melina glowers at my thoughts.
You know what you did.
But... I don't...
Yes, you do!
The darkness around us flashes the violent colors of flame. It's like I caught a glimpse of Hell.
You put that spell on yourself!
My thoughts falter.
…What?
Melina grinds her teeth, stemming from the pain and her growing wrath. The smoke increases in volume; I'm beginning to feel searing sensation crawl across my skin.
There is no way such a spell can be administered!
No such way!
She takes a step forward; I take one back.
Why would such a spell exist!?
Why is there a spell, a single spell, made solely to lock away the very memories I need the most!?
I-
NO!
Fire. I feel my own skin burn. The imaginary floor we stand on begins to shake and tear, everything rent and twisted. The bloody tears come in force from Melina's closed eye; three crimson streams running down her cheek like a wound from a wild beast.
There is no other side, no other mysterious piece.
You did this!
Fire, the runes below are on fire.
You did this to yourself!
You did this to me!
Fire, everything turns vermillion.
Fire, the heat is unbearable.
Fire, flames grow on Melina until she's become a human torch.
YOU DID THIS!
I want to run, to run away.
This isn't what I wanted.
I'd help her to the Erdtree, she'd help me grow in strength, and we'd uncover my memories together. I wanted to help her, and she wanted to help me.
That was our plan.
...
Hell opens.
THIS WAS YOUR PLAN
My mind tears in half.
When I awake, I see the evening sky stretching on above me.
I'm laying on the ground, sprawled out like I just crash-landed after falling from orbit.
I've got a splitting headache, and my left eye feels itchy. My hand unconsciously lands over that eye; it returns stained crimson.
I work to sitting, wiping accumulated blood off my face. The rest of me feels numb, to a sickening degree.
I'm sitting next to the breach we found, tucked away near a tall cliff face.
"Melina?"
Melina is nowhere to be found.
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