"I'll help you with the fort, but I need to make a stop at the Third Church first," the Tarnished said, keeping his priorities straight.
"Oh, by all means!" Kenneth replied with a grand wave. "The Third Church of Marika is but a short stroll from here."
Leaving Kenneth behind, the Tarnished followed the resonance of his Flask toward the church. Along the way, he discovered another Golden Seed and crossed paths with a wandering Troll.
Trolls were a sub-race of the Northern Giants, much smaller than their progenitors. In the Lands Between, they were despised as "the traitors." During the War against the Giants, many Trolls—embittered by discrimination within their own kind—had defected to the Golden Order, swearing fealty and slaughtering their own kin to prove it.
But Marika and Godfrey had no love for turncoats. Once the war ended, the Trolls were reduced to slaves. Their bellies were hollowed out to hold mystical stone tablets, and they were forced into the lowest forms of labor: pulling massive carriages or mining in the dark.
"Is being a slave to the Erdtree truly better than being shunned by your own kin?" the Tarnished mused. Most people in the Lands Between viewed Trolls with a mix of pity and disgust. They had traded one form of servitude for another, only to find themselves unwanted by either side. It was as if a submissive streak was etched into their very marrow.
"Move. You're blocking the road." The Tarnished released a ripple of killing intent. He had no desire to chat with a beast, but the Troll responded only with a dull-witted roar, swinging a massive, stony fist toward him.
"So be it." The Tarnished stepped back, letting the fist bury itself in the dirt. In a flash, he drove his curved sword through the Troll's wrist, pinning it to the ground. Before the giant could scream, the Tarnished sprinted up its arm and drew his Uchigatana. With a single, vertical strike, he drove the blade through the Troll's thick skull.
"Killing giants is my specialty," he muttered, glancing at the collapsing heap. He had fought mountain-sized colossi in the old days; a stunted Troll was barely a warm-up.
He reached the Third Church of Marika shortly after, but as he stepped into the ruins, he froze.
The church sat on the border between Limgrave and the Caelid Wilds. From its broken windows, he could see the distant horizon. The Caelid he remembered—a high, ochre plateau—was gone. In its place was a landscape of nightmare: a festering, scarlet wasteland that looked as if it had been soaked in poisoned blood.
"What happened to that place...?" Caelid had been the final objective of the Great Crusade before Marika's sudden decree of exile. He knew it was rugged, but this? Even from this distance, the air coming off the plateau felt corrosive, like a thousand invisible blades.
He was tempted to investigate, but Limgrave held his focus for now. Kenneth's fort, the rogue knight, and the "Grafting" Lord, Godrick.
He turned his attention back to the church and found what he came for near the statue of Marika: the Flask of Wondrous Physick. It was a vessel of intricate gold, radiating a noble, concentrated light.
"I'll be taking this," he said, half to himself, half to the silent stone image of the Queen.
With the flask secured, he headed south into the heart of the Mistwood. The forest was thick with a clinging fog. While it didn't bother his vision much, he knew the woods were home to Rune Bears—vicious predators that could tear a man in half before he smelled them coming.
However, the fog worked both ways. He moved like a ghost, slipping past two Great Crabs that were too busy clicking their claws to notice his passage.
Eventually, he spotted a golden shimmer cutting through the mist—a Site of Grace. He activated it, and the golden pulse momentarily cleared the air, revealing a small fortress perched on a cliff: Fort Haight.
As he approached the barricades, he felt a flicker of life. A scout in the gray-green livery of Godrick's army raised a bow to fire, but before he could release the string, he was sent flying by a berserk Pumpkin Head behind him. The soldier hit the ground with a sickening thud and moved no more.
"..."
"Not you people again," the Tarnished sighed, watching the Pumpkin Head kick its own allies around like ragdolls.
"You lot look like you're having a hard time. How about I put you out of your misery?" He didn't wait for an answer. He needed to find the Knight Commander.
"Who are you?! Begone, outsider! Or do you wish to become a blood offering for our Commander?!" a soldier hissed.
"You're testing my patience." The Tarnished moved. He sent the soldier flying with a single punch and decapitated the Pumpkin Head in one fluid motion. Ignoring the wails of the remaining garrison, he entered the fort.
The layout was simple: two levels and a lookout tower. He found a storeroom in the middle, and there, he saw something jarring. Among the armored soldiers stood a gaunt, sickly man in tattered rags, a wooden tally hanging from his neck.
The man shrieked at the sight of the Tarnished and began lobbing ceramic jars that burst into plumes of flame. Fire Pots. They were effective, low-skill weapons, but the man's aim was erratic.
"Get out! Get out! You won't touch the glorious Commander!" the man screamed, his eyes bloodshot and wide with mania.
A knight in burnished brass armor stepped out from the shadows behind the man, laughing. "Hahaha! Let him come! A Tarnished's blood is still blood! A perfect vintage to demonstrate the power of the Dynasty!"
"So," the Tarnished said, eyeing the knight. "You're the one from Stormveil."
"I am the Knight Commander, yes. Though I no longer serve that coward Godrick. I am a Knight of Blood! Now, come and die, low-born cur!"
"A follower of the 'Lord of Blood'?"
"Silence! How dare you speak of the Great Dynasty with such a filthy tongue!"
The Tarnished went silent, his piercing gaze locking onto the knight. "Get down here. You're not worth the climb."
"Insolent wretch!" The knight fumed, but his bravado vanished in an instant when the Tarnished reached into his pouch and pulled out the Pureblood Knight's Medal he'd taken from Varré.
"Y-you... how do you have that?!" The knight nearly stumbled. That medal was a symbol of high standing within the Dynasty. "Are you... a member of the nobility?"
"Oh? This thing has some weight to it, then? Varré must have been more important than he looked," the Tarnished chuckled. "But you've got it wrong. This isn't a gift."
"It's a trophy." The Tarnished dropped the medal and ground it into the dirt with his boot. "Blood Knight? I told you to get down here."
"YOU!! I'll slaughter you for such blasphemy!!" Enraged, the knight shoved the gaunt man aside and leaped from the platform, his heavy sword aimed straight at the Tarnished's head. "I'll use your blood to wash away the insult!!"
Clang!
The Tarnished drew his Uchigatana with his left hand. The blades met, but the impact sent the knight reeling back, his arms trembling from the sheer force of the parry.
"You 'Blood Dynasty' types are all talk," the Tarnished mocked. "Show me these 'Blood Arts' everyone is raving about. Or is 'Blood Knight' just a fancy way of saying you like to bleed?"
"Hah... hahaha! You asked for it!" The knight stood up shakily, turning to the gaunt man on the platform. "Lurker! It is time to prove your worth! Offer your blood to the Dynasty! You shall be remembered as a hero!"
"Y-yes, Master! Gladly!" The man scrambled down, his face twisted in a fanatical grin.
The Tarnished looked at the madman. "Are you sure you want to follow this path? It's a dead end."
"Shut up, Tarnished! You're just a speck of dust! You cannot comprehend the greatness of the Lord of Blood! He is the new master of this age!"
"Fine." The Tarnished didn't argue. If a man wants to die, who was he to stop him? He wanted to see what this "Blood Art" actually looked like.
"A sacrifice for the Dynasty!" The knight drove his sword through the gaunt man's chest without a second thought. The man withered into a dry husk in seconds, his life force flowing into the blade. The knight's sword began to pulse with a terrifying, crimson energy, the blade extending by nearly half a foot as the blood solidified into a jagged edge.
"Now, Tarnished... pay for your sins!" The knight's eyes glowed a sickly red through the slits of his helmet.
"Better," the Tarnished said, shifting his stance. "Now come."