Boc sits on Squall, holding his mouth, trying not to be sick for a good while of the day. None of you are keen to wait for another rune bear to come claim the dead one's hunting grounds. You push Torrent and Squall to trot the whole way, covering leagues of distance to the edge of the woods.
"You want to be strong," you say to Boc.
He nods.
"Titania, did you get the runes for the bear?"
"Aye."
"Give them to Boc. We'll find a Grace and summon Melina."
Titania hands Boc a veritable fortune in runes, and Boc sits with the big ball of gold for a moment.
"Crush it," you say and mime closing your hand.
He does with both hands.
At the edge of the forest just before nightfall, you find another Grace by the roadside behind a lone tree. You wonder if one day you'll be familiar enough with Limgrave to know your way around by the landmarks and the glow of the Erdtree alone.
Torrent and squall wander off, browsing on nearby bushes of rowa, and you call on her.
"Melina."
She appears promptly, barely two steps from you.
"Ezekiel.
At her appearance, at seeing her loveliness in the light of dusk, you realize how much you have missed her. How you ache for her closeness and comfort. And the fire in her, you feel too, a yearning from her.
Before the ash has even fallen and drifted away, your arms are around her. This is the reason your plate is in torrent's saddlebag. She takes your head in her hands and put her forehead to yours.
"Sorry," you mutter. Sorry I haven't called upon you for a week.
"I forgive you," she whispers. I know you didn't, so I could rest.
Then you meet her warm lips in a soft, long kiss, and caress her face as she does yours. It might be a moment, it might be a dozen, before you finally have the wherewithal to think other thoughts than about your love.
You turn to your party, and Melina rests her head on your chest. "Melina, this here is Boc, my seamster. Boc, meet Melina."
Boc takes off his hat and holds it to his chest, bowing deep. "Charmed, milady."
"A delight to meet you, master Boc," Melina says. "How might I help you three?"
"Boc has a need of your trick," you say.
"Ah."
"Maybe explain to him what that trick is?" Titania snarks.
Melina leaves your embrace and goes to Boc, kneeling down on both knees. "I play the role of Finger Maiden for Ezekiel, as such I can transmute runes into strength. Have you a bounty of runes?"
"I do, milady," he says. "Nam--- Titania slew a rune bear last night and donated me the runes of it."
"A dangerous beast," Melina says. "Let me take your hand for but a moment --- share with me your dreams and aspirations."
She holds out her hand, and Boc takes it. "Well, I don't really know what---"
"You don't need to speak them aloud," Melina says gently with a smile. "Just close your eyes and think."
"Oh."
He does.
"It is done."
Boc looks at his hand. "Doesn't feel much different."
"You had a large bounty of runes," Melina says. "For my services, it always becomes a rounding of the character and body. You will find yourself hardier and more enduring now, physically and mentally stronger. But there are variations: Titania wishes for raw strength and speed, Ezekiel seeks growth in the way of spiritual power and hardiness. You... you have stranger wishes. I suspect you will find yourself quicker and nimbler, at the very least."
"Why thank you very much, milady---"
"Melina is just fine, master Boc."
"Well, milady Melina, stop calling me 'master Boc,' then. And thank you kindly. Should you need a seamster, my services are free of charge for any friend of Ezekiel."
You clear your throat. "We also need to see if you can learn to travel through Grace, Boc," you say.
"What's that, cully?"
"A thing we Tarnished can do --- and Titania, for she is my Shadow. I wonder if you can learn it too. It would be very convenient."
"Can it wait?" Melina asks, turning to you. "I should like to take a stroll with you."
You walk with Melina by the arm; she clings to you. Down south along the treeline.
"You're not being hurt by heading so far away from Grace, are you?" you ask.
"Not when I'm with you. I promise. You're my Grace."
"We really need to find you some way to more permanently be in the world. I miss you terribly."
"As do I. I'm glad to see you are accumulating allies. Not many Tarnished do."
You fall quiet.
"What is it, my love?"
You shake your head. "Titania nearly died fighting that rune bear. I was very hurt but had to give her my curative. We'll need more of them, going forward. At the very least one for Boc."
"Bring me golden seed and sacred tear, and I shall brew you all the flasks you need." She leans her head against your shoulder. "It's a good thing you lived. Rune bears are terrible beings. Bears are bad enough as-is, but at the very least are mere beasts. Rune bears are touched by draconic power."
"Titania decapitated it and it still had the will to maim her. The head tried to bite Boc."
"Good riddance."
"I found him the next day having eviscerated the beast to eat its heart in the hopes of getting strong. Much better he learn about you and---"
"Oh dear."
"Hm?"
"I do not know if... hm." Melina rubs her delicate chin. "In the olden times --- perhaps even before the Golden Order --- there were those who hunted dragons to consume their hearts and gain their powers. It was a practice that died down during the ages of alliance with dragonkin, but has picked up after the shattering, now that dragons are in decline and degeneracy."
"What?"
"The ancient dragons like of the Saxen bloodline, were mindful and spiritual beings, capable of speech and reason, and turning into humanoid form, too. The dragon prince Fortissax was a dear friend of Godwyn --- rumor was they were occasionally lovers. Even now those that remain are still intelligent. Lansseax was the lover of Vyke."
"The guy who had Torrent?"
"Aye. He had a real Finger Maiden, too. I was merely a guiding spirit to him, not a pretender."
"What happened to him?"
"I do not recall. He spurned me. Anyway, the dragons of today are lesser beings, if more numerous. Minds of cunning beasts, but they have lost their tongues and shapeshifting. There are secret orders who practice the dragon communion to this day."
You walk on a bit. "You're thinking Boc---"
"If the rune bears are dragon-touched, maybe."
"What does that entail?"
"I do not fully know."
Ominous. You stop to put your arms around her and kiss her long and slowly, drinking her scent of smoke and softness of her lips.
"I best be going," she says.
"I love you."
"I love you, too."
Then she turns to ash.
Returning to camp, you set up to cook and prepare Boc's grisly dinner, and mutton for you and Titania.
"What happened?" Titania asks you, sensing your apprehension and deliberate silence. She's shirtless, with Boc patching the holes in her gambeson and shirt from where the bear's claws tore into her.
"Boc?"
He looks up from his needlework. "Hm?"
"Melina and I spoke about some things. There... might be consequences to your decision to eat this bear heart."
"Oh. Well... I may have been acting without my full wisdom when I did it."
"You should probably finish what you started." You turn over the sizzling sliver of heart in the pan.
"O-okay--- If you think so, Cully." He looks in the pan.
"Rune bears are touched by dragons, somehow; so Melina says. Eating the heart of a dragon imparts draconic powers. Whether rune bears are that, she doesn't know. But I don't think there's any backing out."
Boc goes back to sewing.
Another week's travel northwest, you meet a river, and travel south along it in the hopes of finding a bridge or a ford to cross it. There's the occasional hallow of Grace along the way, but rarely near the traveled roads.
Making camp, you and Titania bathe while Boc wanders off to not intrude on your immodesty. He returns later in the day with fish and a fishing net he knit. It's a good change from the wild game, and you invite Melina to dinner --- she stays but a short while, less than half a bell, but it feels almost like she's there in flesh and blood.
A few more days go by with Boc slinging stones into the river --- almost all the way across it, sometimes. He fills a pouch with especially uniform oblong rocks along the stony shores. Titania tries her hand at spear fishing with a forked branch, cutting the stick into jagged barbs on the inside of the fork. With her strength and speed, she does catch, though not as well as Boc.
He all but takes over your entire kit of concoctions and gathering tools, too, leaving you to just cook your meals at eventide and occasionally heat one of his jars of strangeness. In the next city you will have to buy a cauldron for him. Your cooking jar does not see much use, but you do cook the occasional stew in it, and have no desire to see it contaminated.
The crossing you do find is not a ford or a bridge, but a ferry. At a narrow section of the river where the current is strong hangs a thick rope across, tied between great trees on either bank. A boat is tethered to this rope, with a pulley to allow the tether to travel across the rope.
By the bank at the ferry terminal you meet the first soul you've seen in days: a man with an unusually long curved sword at his hip, and a helm that looks like a mad smith decided to imitate a straw hat in metal.
"Well met, Tarnished," he says.
"And to you, ser."
"Mind not, I too am Tarnished. I wish you no harm. I am hunting a vile man --- he fled to the other bank on this very ferry."
"Oh? Well, we're just traveling the land to pass time before a rendezvous in Stormburg in a few moons time."
"That does lie on the other side of Murkwater River, here."
"You familiar with the area, ser?"
"Yura is my name. And yes."
"Jester."
He holds out his hand and you shake it.
"Murkwater runs down to Lake Agheel. There you will find a roost of dragons on the rocky island at the center. Agheel, the brood mother, gives name to both the lake, and laid waste to the settlements about it."
"Terrible."
"Indeed. Stay clear of the lake shores if you value your life."
"We come from down south in Haft, though the Mistwoods."
"Ah, lovely city. I presume your companion is from there?" He gestures to Boc.
"You presume correct, ser Yura. I am Boc the seamster."
Yura takes a long moment to regard Boc.
"Hang on," Titania says, looking across the river. "Is there even a ferryman?"
Yura looks across. "Damn. Where did that fellow scamper off to."
"Cully, I could probably make it across on the rope and bring the ferry back," Boc says.
"Take care," Yura cautions. "Nerijus may lurk on the other side --- he might have slain the poor ferryman. He is a vile blood-cultist who delights in murder."
"Sounds like you might like our help?" Titania rumbles. "We're pretty strong. I'm Nameless, by the way."
"I shan't say no, Nameless. You alone look formidable."
"We'll be happy to help put a dangerous murderer out of commission." You turn to Boc. "Go, but be careful. If you see anything amiss, come right back and we'll find another crossing."
Boc leaves most of his possessions, keeping only his large knife, pouch of rocks, and sling. He heads up the small hill on the bank to the tree, and climbs up to the rope, heading across it on all fours with great surety of footing.
"Hm. Your seamster is a strange one."
"He is?" you ask.
"There's a dragon communion cult in these parts. Is he part of it?"
You take a step back. "What makes you say so?"
"Oh, fret not. I've no quarrel with them --- save one of their number, another vile murderess, far worse than the man I am hunting now. It's the eyes. Much like us Tarnished, but even more obvious. Hillfolk don't have eyes like lizards."
You're almost surprised you hadn't noticed yourself.
"To what parts do these dragon cultists keep?"
"Their curch lies on a small island off the western coast. Maybe a moon's travel from here, you can find a boatman to take you there in Fringefolk. You mean to say your seamster has partaken in communion and you do not know?"
"I'm sure stranger things have happened."
Boc makes it to the other side of the river, but rather than coming ashore, he remains on the rope, scouting. Then he climbs down the cord to the ferry, hanging upside down, holding his hat in his hat in his teeth. A few moments later does something and the ferry starts coming your way.
"Prithee, what dragon did you hunt?"
"Rune bear."
Yura turns his head slowly to look at you. You wager was his face was visible under the strange helmet, disbelief would be writ upon it.
"Rune bears count as dragons," Titania says confidently.
"I... did not know that. How can this be?"
"Well, when you eat the heart of a rune bear, your eyes get weird, same as with the heart of a dragon," Titania continues.
You snort. "Aren't I supposed to be the Jester, Nameless?"
She chuckles.
So does Yura.
Out over the river, Boc waves to you.
The ferry has neither oar nor rudder, just a mechanism to change the side of the boat which the tether attaches. The current does the rest, pushing against the hull. Boc deftly sets the ferry into motion.
"Master Yura," he says, as you set out.
"Yes?"
Boc climbs over on the railing, sitting down next to Yura. "What does the dragon communion cult actually do?"
You look at Boc, wondering how sensitive his hearing truly is if he managed to overhear your conversation.
Yura looks at him. "Hunt dragons. Eat their hearts. It should be a boon to Limgrave if they were strong enough to face Agheel's brood."
"Who is the dragon cultist you hunt?"
"Ah," Yura says. "Her name is Eleanora."
There's something in his voice as he says it, a smoldering, old passion. You say nothing.
"What are her crimes?"
"Same as the other blood cultists. They revel in bloodshed in the name of their lord, the Illuminant. They hunt other Tarnished for sport using dark powers, and when they have none to hunt, they turn on the innocent. For instance, I've tracked Nerijus since a massacre in Summonwater a moon ago. He's taken a wife, and she is as vile as he."
Boc looks to Titania.
"You didn't mention he'd have help," Titania rumbles.
"I thought nothing of it. It makes nary a difference. She is but an initiate."
"What do you say, Jester?" Boc asks.
"I don't like it," you say. "Ser Yura, you were dishonest with us. My honor bids me to uphold our agreement, but I will require a recompense."
Yura grunts. "I suppose if it is not too great an ask, an old warrior like me might help."
"Help us take down a dragon."
Yura turns to you. "Absolutely not, have you lost your mind?"
"Okay, let me rephrase," you say. "Help us try take down a small dragon."
"I'll help you track one, at best. I fight evil men, not flying beasts that breathe poison and fire."
"How come you know how to track one?" Boc asks.
"Because..." Yura pauses. The sound of the river fills the space. "Because I used to travel with some practitioners of communion. I did not myself partake, but I learned a thing or two."
The ferry reaches the other shore, coming to rest against the small dockside. You disembark, and Boc lingers. "Is it really okay to leave it like this?" he asks you. ` "We'll find someone in a nearby village and tell them," you reassure him.
Yura reveals his hand at how he knows to track Nerijus: taking out a small silver bell, he rings it and brings forth a half-translucent hunting dog. The hound looks to him, for all the world like any dog would to its master, and he offers it a scrap of fabric to track the scent by. It trots off at a good pace, down one of the trails, leading down south towards the lake.
For whatever power is in him, Yura has the same rapid pace of marching as did Corhyn. You ride along on Torrent, Titania and Boc on Squall.
"We're gaining on him," Yura mutters as night falls. We'll continue through the night, if you wish."
"Won't it be dangerous? What if we're ambushed?" You ask.
"It's a full moon," Titania says behind you. "And we've got Boc."
"Me?" Boc asks.
"You overheard Yura and Jester talking from the other side of the river," Titania points out, deadpan.
"Oh. May I... climb onto your shoulder?"
"Hop right up, little friend."
Boc scales Titania by the strap of her saber's scabbard and the joints in her armour. There he sits for a moment, taking off his hat and looking about, ears raised like a hound. "You're right," he says. "By Marika's name, I hadn't even noticed."
"Keep watch," you instruct him.
"Yes, ma'am."
You spur Torrent up beside Yura.
"That dog," you say.
"What of it?"
"How did you get it?"
"Long story."
"And the bell?"
"Calling bell."
You fish yours out of Torrent's saddlebag. "I have one too, but I never knew how to use it."
"Venture into a catacomb, should you find one, and you may be so lucky as to find ashes that still contain their shade. Then bind it to your bell."
"Calling the dead to do one's bidding."
"Aye. A holy art."
The trees clear, and the road snakes its way around a clearing with a hill. On top stands a henge of stones, and overhead hangs the moon, bright and clear --- waxing crescent.
"Stop!" Boc hisses.
All of you freeze. Yura dismisses his hound with a gesture, turning it to ashes. Titania hops down from Squall with a hand on Boc to keep him from falling off, and Squall vanishes into air as well.
"I think they're over on the other side of the hill. I hear voices."
"Yura?" You ask.
With a finesse, he draws his long sword, a strange variation of the curved blade your Captain favored --- a whole cubit longer. "Draw and follow me."
You hop off Torrent, who obligingly vanishes, and let your father's sword leap from its scabbard. From your back you take the leather-bound shield, and in your free hand you clutch your rosary. Titania comes to your side, saber in hand and claws at the ready. Even Boc has his sling and a stone at the ready.
Yura sets out up the hill. Not a man to plan ambushes is he. "Smell that?" he mutters as you climb.
"No?"
"Cessblood. You'll learn its stench soon enough."
Cresting the hill, you duck behind the standing stones, and spot two figures there, clad in dark robes. Yura trudges forward into view. "Nerijus!" he calls out. "Your final night in this life has come!"
The taller of the two throws back his hood, revealing in the moonlight a man looking dreadfully ordinary. "Yura The Hunter? Your obsessions will be the death of you. Shall we, dear?" He brandishes a strange knife and a thrusting sword with an edge that seems to twist like a cord of rope --- you recognize his form as that of a formal duelist.
Then the other one tosses back her hood, revealing a face familiar to you. The evil woman you came here with, the one your Captain killed. How she survived you know not, but she draws a pair of sabers, edges looking serrated in the moonlight.
"Fitting place to die for an old fool," the woman says and you recall her name: Eiter. You recall she came from the badlands, same as your father's commander. Both of them advance on Yura, who wisely backs up a few steps.
"Now!" you call out, and you and Titania step into view.
"Oh! How sneaky!" Nerijus exclaims and with a flick of his dagger sends a bloody wave of cutting force at Yura, who bisects it with the blade of his sword. Titania leaps towards him wreathed in wind, ripping one of the smaller standing stones from its place to throw it at the man --- he dodges, but Yura charges him. Nerijus retreats down the hill.
Meanwhile you step between them and Eiter. It's a given they'll win that fight, two-on-one. You have faith that Titania alone could win that fight.
"We meet again," you say, taking off your helmet and tossing it on the dew-wet ground.
"Again? Who the hell are you?"
"I had you at a disadvantage ---" you cover your mouth with your hand.
"Your piece of shit Captain fucking killed me---" she pounces you like a wolf, sabers singing. You block the blows and spring back to avoid the cuts. The leather on your shield is torn. She dances back with a twirl. "You're not even armed? Where's that big sword of yours?"
She advances once more, with strange unsettled steps that seem like she's on the verge of tumbling over, but she brings the hidden force to bear with a terrifyingly fast pair of spinning swings that you block, but one swipe slips off your shield and onto your gambeson, tearing fabric and even reaching skin with a superficial cut. You leap back.
"Aha! Got your blood!"
It seems to somehow bolster her, but you have a good idea of her fighting style now. As she dance-wobbles closer for another exchange, you call on your flame and greet her with a tremendous gout of concussive flame. She screams in surprise and falls back.
You snap your fingers and fan the flames already caught on her loose robes. Somehow she retains enough of her wits to roll across the wet ground, coming to her feet and cutting apart the fabric leaving her in leathers.
"Flame caller! I should have known you'd have some kind of bullshit!"
Strange dark mists envelop her blades and she lunges forward in a double swipe, sending the energy out as a wave of cutting force. You leap aside, not trusting your shield to protect you, and as Eiter comes for you, you call on your father's sword from behind the standing stone.
She falls the the ground, cleft in two at the waist, guts spilling into the open. With your farther's sword in hand, you go to her torso, and plunge the blade into her head, letting the dragonfire inside the blade burn her brain away. Her bounty of runes comes to rest within you.
Picking up your helm, you head in the direction Nerijus fled and as you begin to descend the hill, your father's sword returns to your hand from Eiter's funeral pyre.
You only reach halfway to the treeline before they emerge from the darkness. Titania carrying a corpse, and Yura holding a lit lantern. He waves. You wave back.
"Well done!" he calls out, as they scale the hill.
It's only a superficial cut you have suffered, but it hurts as you walk, so you pop the stopper on your bottle of healing elixir and sip a drop of it.
"Did she get you?" Titania asks.
"Just a scratch," you say. "Boc, think you can patch my gambeson?"
"A scratch?" Yura grunts. "Take care, lass. That is how they get you."
"Poison?" Boc asks immediately.
"No, it's how the cessblood madness sets in. You two, Nameless, Boc the Seamster, you must make sure Jester does not succumb to its allure."
"I feel fine," you protest.
"You will until one morning you won't. I've seen it happen."
"To whom?" Titania demands.
Yura sighs. "Do not ask an old man to recount his horrors."
"No, I think I will." Titania takes a step towards Yura. "You've seen what I can do in a fight, so how about you tell me what is going to happen to my very best friend in the whole world?"
Yura takes a step back as his lantern illuminates Titania's toothy scowl under the nose guard of her helmet.
"Fine! Marika's tits, you monster. It was Eleanora! She was the Preem of the dragon cult when I met them as a traveling sword; they had need of my services. We--- we became lovers. Marriage was in our future."
He takes off his metal hat, and you see an older man with messy hair and a messier beard, and you see by the lantern's light that he weeps. He takes a deep shaky breath. "Our temple was invaded in the night. Eleanora and a few of the others dispatched the evildoers; we thought them robbers. She suffered a cut --- nothing serious, or so we thought. Then in the nights that followed, she became stranger. Muttered of blood and flame when she thought nobody could hear. One morning she packed her bag, donne her armor, and told me she could no longer stay with me, that it wasn't safe."
"My condolences," you say.
Yura shakes his head. "She returned two nights later. Slew half our number. I repelled her. There was nothing about her I could recognize anymore. Now she is the reason I travel. Once I find her, I'll relieve her of her life and curse, and then... I will take my own and join her in the next."
Then Titania reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder. He looks up at her.
"I know how you feel. I killed my own brother, even though I loved him. He had turned cruel, become a tyrant of my home city, and there was no other way, he would not even accept mercy for surrender. I think you should live instead. You're a skilled swordsman, and there will be more cessblood zealots to hunt; I can think of no better man for it."
Yura wipes his eyes with a dirty gauntlet. "No. I'll see to it we get proper Erdtree Burials, and then that will be that. I've seen enough of life to know that it is not a happy thing."
You clear your throat. "Nameless?"
"Yeah?"
"If I start talking nonsense about blood and fire, please kill me."
"Yeah."
You make camp up on the hill by the standing stones. Titania replaces the stone she used as a weapon and says a prayer to Queen Marika for forgiveness.
Boc has looted the dead man's strange bone dagger. It is viciously serrated. The sword is too long for him, and to your practiced hand has both poor balance, and no edge to cut, so you give it to Titania to bend out of shape and bury in a hole.
Yura sits against the stone farthest from your campfire and tent.
<div align=right>
I [teem]
Burn
Bleed
We will be
[friends]
Pleasure
[,,,,]
[;;;;]
Thief
</div>
You wake with a splitting headache, and the remnants of one of the most horrible nightmares you have ever had lingering in the back of your mind.
But there's a certitude in your mind, however battered, that you have committed a deed of great blasphemy. Another one, at least. Or perhaps the first of many.
Titania is taking morning watch. She hears you wake. "Slept well?"
"Strange dreams."
"Anything to do with blood and fire?"
"Yeah."
You look at your hand.
"And?"
A deep red flame springs forth, and your palm becomes wet with blood that isn't your own.
"I think... I stole it."