Marika
"I SWEAR TO THE GREATER WILL!" shouted the queen-to-be again, hanging off another dingy ladder as they climbed down into yet another mine that smelled as rank as a Omen's ass. "IF YOU TAKE US TO ONE MORE MINE, I SHALL PERSONALLY SINGE ALL YOUR FAVORITE CUTLETS!!"
She was covered in dust, ash, and even a few things she desperately hoped were just mud. By the Greater Will just be mud! Having lost too much ground against the encamped forces of Stormveil, they had opted to fall back and regather their strength. Her would-be savior, however, decided that meant delving into every damnable pit she could find to hunt for odd stones. While the previous mine had at least given Marika a quiet chuckle—when she found a rather fancy hat adorned with a strange feathered crest—it didn't begin to make up for this misery.
Luna had claimed to be seeking new armaments and materials to reinforce them, but so far, all they had found were stones. So many wretched stones... She had already replaced that crooked great saber she used against her son with a proper curved sword that had a distinct bend in the middle. It had been taken from a defeated knight in an evergaol. Surely then it was a fine weapon of war indeed. She hissed quietly at the brief intrusion.
"Relax," Luna called down, leaning over the top rung to haul Marika up the final step. "There's a river up ahead, we can wash off. 'Sides, this is the last one." She gave that cocky smile that send a fire right to Marika's temples and made her temper flared in double-measure to it.
Marika stood up, preparing to rebuttle with an ire worthy of war, before being quieted by what she saw past her. They had traversed all the way toward Caelid, much further than she had anticipated. In front of them lay yet another squalid pit of laborers worked until the very rock seemed to cling to their skin. She had once been proud of these mines; her advisors spoke often of their immense riches. Yet all she saw around her now were broken people and shattered stones. How could I have once thought this righteous...?
Because they happily give themselves to our causes. We are their God.
Her gaze lingered quietly on them.They do not seem... Happy.
"Crimes starting to weigh on your heart a bit, My Queen?" Luna asked. Her tone was dry and combative. It reminded her of how razor-thin their alliance remained.
"...Find us hasteful entry to the inner chamber," Marika answered in quiet frustration.
The reluctant knight gave a sharp, mocking huff before sauntering over to a nearby miner to demand answers. Marika sighed, turning away in the hope that these people might show some semblance of grace. It was more than she deserved, but prayed for none-the-less. They should simply submit. She shook him away, sighing and losing track for a moment of where she was going, and caught her foot on an exposed chunk of ore. This sent her face-first into a foul puddle of runoff that could only be said to have the consistency of molten tar.
A muffled chuckle broke the air, and Marika's temper finally cracked. Fuming, she whirled around and hurled a handful of muck straight at her knight. "DO NOT LAUGH AT ME!!!!" She wailed furiously. Luna ducked instinctively, sending the wet splatter square into the face of the miner she had been questioning. To say the man was displeased would be an understatement. The filth ran down part of his face before he let out a gut-wrenching roar. Every head in the mine rose in seconds, all locked with angry eyes on the pair. Luna took two swift steps back, looked at the mud-caked miner, and shot Marika a furious glance.
"Run!" Luna barked, grabbing Marika by the wrist and bolting for the nearest tunnel entrance. Behind them, a flurry of pots, tools, and far nastier things crashed violently against the dirt walls.
"I-it was an honest mistake! Can't we talk to them?!" Marika gasped. Talk? We should beat them into obedience. Hush you!
"Sure, go right ahead!" Luna shouted back over her shoulder, breathless as they sprinted. "Turn back and ask 'em real nice to overlook you taking off their foreman's nose with a pile of wyrm dung! I'm sure the bloke's all heart!"
"W-well, you didn't have to be so rude about it!" Marika retorted, breath heavy with exertion as they both dipped by rocks, broken old mine-supports and swinging traps.
"Oh, well excuse me, Your Highness—" Luna started, only for Marika's hand to shove her face away with a groan.
"Oh would you quit it with the unwitty jesters whilst we're running for our lives?!" The gilded queen snapped, though a faint, dark smirk tugged at her lips as Marika pulled her hand back.
As they accidentally plunged deeper into the tunnels, the local miners grew all too eager to join the chase by swinging pickaxes at their heads and hurling magical pots that shattered and launched homing crystal shards. The reek of the deep shafts was turning Marika's stomach, to say nothing of the foul muck still drying on her clothes.
"By the Greater Will, let there be a hot spring at the end of this cursed hole!" She could hear her other half mocking laughing at her in the back of her mind.
"Judging by the heat, you might actually get your wish!" Luna called out with a rough laugh. They had both begun to sweat far worse than just running should have called for. They dodged past workers, disoriented nobles, and even a few armored guards bearing the crest of Caelid. The crest of my son?! Redmane knights, defending the territory of one of her most treasured children, Radahn.
Before the creeping sorrow could take hold of her, Luna grabbed Marika by the collar, hauling her onto a crude wooden lift just as it began its descent. "DUCK!" Luna yelled, forcing Marika's head down a fraction of a second before two earthenware jars shattered against the shaft wall above them. Glintstone shards sparkled in the dark, coalescing into homing projectiles that zipped down toward the platform.
Luna stepped in front without hesitation, taking the impact straight to her back with a low, agonizing grunt. Several more tore into the platform they stood on while Marika watched as Luna's eyes flared with brief, searing pain before settling back into a cold, hardened stare. Marika hastily uttered a small prayer, sending a pulse of warm light to heal her protector. She was rewarded by a quiet smile and a momentary look of kindness.
Even as the wounds closed however, that look on Luna's face before she had healed stayed with Marika. It wasn't just pain. It was an abiding, suppressed fury, and that anger terrified her. It felt all too familiar to her own. My, my. Is she like us? Silence.
Luna let out a harsh exhale, rolling her shoulders as her armor stitched itself back together. The lift clunked to a stop at a short corridor sealed by heavy wooden gates. Plumes of hot steam hissed through cracks in the stone, filling the air with thick humidity. Marika felt a wash of relief come over her.
"Surely this must be their bathhouse," Marika said, face calming at last as her joke turned into a real possibility. "Oh, thank the Greater Will! Hot water at last!" She broke into a eager stride toward the doors.
"Marika, hold up!" Luna called out sharply, giving chase. Marika ignored the alarm in her voice, reaching out to push the barrier open. In a moment, she thought, all this filth and misery would be washed away. To be clean, to have fresh water. Oh finally! She threw the doors wide, and was immediately met with the reason for Luna's caution. A colossal, jagged maw opened and roared, radiating heat so blistering it instantly broke Marika into a far worse sweat as her heart felt firmly out of her chest.
"Oh."
That was all she managed before Luna tackled her to the side. A blinding torrent of crimson lava slammed into the threshold where Marika had stood a second before, melting the rock beneath it. It swelled the already putrid room with a smell of sulfur and burning metal. Scrambling to her feet through the suffocating heat, the golden queen summoned a small flare of divine gold to her hands, refusing to hide while her knight took the brunt of the beast.
The creature dragged its immense weight across the chamber, rising over a mound of shimmering gold ore. It clutched between its massive, clawed fingers a jagged volcanic slab that it held like a blade. The beast was serpentine yet thick as an iron pillar. It's skull had been flattened in a way that seem made for tunneling and digging, practically evolved for these kinds of deep environments.
A Magma Wyrm.
It raised its gargantuan blade, winding up a crushing overhead strike. "Luna, left!" Marika cried out. Before the heavy blade could fall, Marika thrust her glowing palm forward. A small ring of pure holy light shot from her fingers, slicing through the air and detonating against the Wyrm's snout in a blinding flash. The creature let out a disoriented roar, its swing going wildly wide and shattering the cavern wall. Bits of stalactites crashed into the golden reservoir, sending up bits all around the creature.
Luna took advantage of the opening, slipping her heavy curved sword from its leather wrappings with one fluid motion. She flicked three throwing daggers straight into the Wyrm's right eye, blinding its right side completely while preparing to perform a leaping slash. The creature reeled back, furious and thrashing as its tail crashed against the wall, then pushed off of it. It charged forward, far too fast for a monster of its size. It's maw spewed trails of white-hot slag as it stomped across the gilded battlefield and sent molten metal and lava in equal measures all about.
"Keep its eye on me!" Luna barked, diving through the splashes of molten stone that singe at her armor and burned across her cheek. Marika didn't hesitate. raising both hands she conjured a swirling volley of golden light shards that zipped across the cavern. Minor but precise, they peppered the beast's thick scales and chipped off several, drawing its burning gaze away from the flanking knight.
"Go!" Marika shouted as the beast leapt with a stunning grace, planning to smash the blade down atop the queen-to-be-again. Luna jumped at the creature and pivoted off a falling stalactite into its blind spot. Her curved blade cut deep, tearing across it's underbelly and knocking it off course. It slammed into the golden treasury below with a painful, angry and bleeding crash. The two circled for a moment, before it began to rumble and glow along the ridges of its mouth with flame.
"Marika, move!" Luna yelled, lunging across the stone to tackle the queen flat onto the ground as the massive slab of volcanic iron whistled mere inches over their heads. The backhand that followed caught Luna mid-cover. Her ribcage audibly cracked with a sickening crunch, launching her body into the stone wall right beside Marika.
Luna hit the stone hard, sliding to the ground and coughing up a spray of blood. Despite a gaze from the gilded queen however, she began to rise all the same through gritted teeth. She dragged out a crude claw-seal from the satchel she carried. Fire flickered over her fist, and with a guttural roar, she slammed the blazing palm directly against her own torn chest, searing the wound shut in a flash of smoke and cooked flesh. Marika gasped at the sheer, brutal recklessness of it, immediately pressing her glowing hands to Luna's shoulders. Warm, golden grace flooded through her palms, knitting the burnt skin and mending the fractured bone beneath.
"You fool, hold still!" Marika hissed through gritted teeth. "Why did you not wait for me to heal thee?!" She shouted with concern that surprised herself.
"Hn. Almost sound worried about me, your Grace." Their eyes met, the quiet loneliness in Luna's telling her it had likely been a reflex. How many times have you needed to resort to such things, alone?
How often did we?
The half-blinded Wyrm unleashed a desperate stream of pure magma directly toward their position as its belly continued to seep far more blood than it seemed to enjoy. Marika stepped in front of Luna, throwing her arms wide. A brilliant, hemispherical barrier of holy light flared into existence, deflecting the torrent of molten rock around them like water off a bow. As the curtain of cascading lava began to fade, Luna surged forward using Marika's light shield as a launching pad. Marika dropped the barrier, channeled every ounce of remaining incantation into a heavy, stunning beam of golden light and blasted the Wyrm straight under its jaw while it was closing it to prepare another blast. The force snapped the monster's head skyward giving a full opening of it's throat.
Luna leapt clear into the air toward its exposed neck. She roared as both hands clutched her blade, feeling herself coil like a spring in the air for a moment as she held it behind her back. The motion briefly resembled a wolf, crouched before launching an attack. "DIE!" Luna growled.
She drove the sword with a snapping surge through its entire neck. The creature fluttered back briefly as it's head crashed into the gilded floor, followed soon by the rest of it's crumbling corpse as scales mixed briefly amidst the golden treasury. Slowly, the massive carcass began to dissolve into golden spirit particles, ready to return to the roots of the Erdtree.
Luna landed heavily on her feet behind the creature, gaze turning toward Marika as both of them breathed raggedly. They were covered in soot, ash, muck, and now gold dust. The knight wiped a smear of blood from her mouth and reached to sheath her weapon, only to freeze as the last of the glowing embers faded. There, resting atop the pile of gold in the center of the chamber, was a blade wrought of metal that shimmered like liquid moonlight.
"Well, to the victor the spoils!"