"I can see a patrol coming up ahead of us, John. Remember not to mention anything about having learned the secret of the Finger Maidens given to them by the Greater Will." said Kalé as he sat in his donkey's saddle while John walked beside him.
John wasn't stupid nor eager to share his discovery with others if he didn't have to, so Kalé had nothing to worry about. If he could, John would rather Kalé not know either, but he hadn't actually expected to have figured it out while Kalé was there.
Their years together allowed trust to build between them and they both knew which secrets the other was unwilling to share. John was sure Kalé wouldn't blab either as it would seal both their fates for numerous reasons.
Besides, John suspected his method wasn't the same thing as the one that Finger Maiden's used. He knew Melina in the game had somehow given the ability to the Chosen Tarnished, and his method wasn't some ability he could magically give others. He couldn't pick which 'stats' to enhance, instead improving everything at once. The blindingly obvious golden glow. Nothing lined up.
Not that he thought that those nuances would save his life if the Golden Order took offense at an obvious outsider like him 'having' one of their most closely guarded rites. Everyone else who would want to be able to use runes to become stronger.
No, John had something far different on his mind than sharing his secrets to the first people he'd met besides Kalé since his arrival to the Lands Between.
"Are you absolutely sure that Godrick's soldiers won't try and attack me?"
Kalé rolled his eyes at his question. This wasn't the first time John had asked something similar since they had left the Church of Elleh.
"They will have no interest in you. There is more to being a tarnished than their eyes lacking gold."
"Alright," John relented. "But if Godrick takes my arms and legs I'm going to haunt you."
With that John dropped the subject.
Despite believing Kalé's words, John couldn't quite quiet his paranoia. As they kept walking through the forest and slowly approached the group of armored soldiers including two full soldiers and a handful of less armored footmen further ahead of them in the forest.
John did his best to appear outwardly relaxed while internally being ready to react in a moment if they made any moves towards him.
As they got closer the shade of the forest no longer obscured the soldiers' features.
What surprised John now that he could clearly see them, was that he had unknowingly expected a silent, angry grimace like he remembered from when he played the game. Yet, these men were smiling and talking with each other, even if John couldn't quite make out what they were saying. Their faces and features had noticeable differences with the armor and weapons also having small differences in how well maintained they were, and they were even different heights.
Just seeing them acting like that, like people instead of unthinking automatons, caused most of the tension to leave John.
While most of the men they were getting closer to had lively skin, one of the lesser armored footmen unfortunately had the pallid grey skin and milky white eyes reminiscent of the wandering nobles. He had withered. The lights were on but no one was home.
"Halt," called one of the soldiers dressed in the red and green surcoat of Godrick. "Lord Godrick has proclaimed that all travelers will undergo inspection. Dismount and discard your spear."
Taking a deep breath and trusting Kalé's words, John set his spear on the ground while Kalé dismounted his Donkey.
Once they were done, the soldiers standing a few yards looked them over, and the speaker tilted his head towards one of the footmen. The footman came over to them.
He took a deep look into each of their eyes, before turning around and shaking his head and walking back to the group.
"What's he doing with you?" the speaker addressed Kalé with narrowed golden eyes while motioning towards John. "This is the first time I've seen one of your kind traveling with someone else."
Kalé smiled.
"This is my friend John. He has newly arrived to the Lands Between and wishes to travel the land. I invited him to join me, for two men are more safe on the road than one. I know that demihuman brigands have been a growing problem over the last decade as well."
The soldier scoffed.
"Yes. More safety. It's not like you will ride off on your donkey at the first sign of trouble leaving him by himself.
"But that's his business if the fool wants to trust you. I care not for what happens to a foreigner. I'm more concerned about your intentions, merchant.
"Maybe a more thorough inspection of your wares is required. The packs on your donkey look awfully full to bursting for a nomad. Have you not paid your tax? I think Lord Godrick is deserved his due."
Kalé met the man's predatory smile with a guileless one.
"Oh, that is just because of the boar meat. You see a pair of boars accosted us a day ago and my companion slew them. We ate well that night thanks to our good fortune.
"Maybe a bit too much good fortune, my friends, because we only had enough supplies to salt one of them. I'm afraid the other one will rot before we are able to eat.
"In fact, why don't you men take that boar's meat. If we keep it will just go to waste."
Kalé struggled and took one of the large heavy bags off his donkey and set it onto the ground with a heavy thud. He bent down and untied it. The sheet of leather came undone and spread out across the ground showing off pounds upon pounds of boar meat, all of it salted and lightly smoked.
"If one of you men have a bag we could use?" Kalé asked.
One of the men produced a bag which Kalé took half of the meat and filled it with before retying his bag.
"Now that that is done, is there anything else sir, or may we continue on?"
"Yes, you may go on your way. I'm satisfied you aren't cheating our lord."
John kept silent and picked up his spear as Kalé mounted his donkey and they both continued walking through the forest on the dirt path.
They stayed silent until the men could no longer be seen.
"I thought you said they wouldn't do anything?" John asked pointedly.
"I said they would not harm us. It is unfortunate that Lord Godrick picks his men for their strength of arms rather than strength of character, but there is a limit to what his men will do.
"They keep the bandits like demihumans, marauding tarnished, Bloody Fingers, and others out from the lands close to Stormveil Castle and keep the wolf packs and other animals from growing overly large and encroaching on villages and farms. They deal with the occasional One-Who-Lives-In-Death. Generally, they keep the lands nearby safe from most serious dangers.
"Lord Godrick's soldiers actually have a certain standard of behavior and duties they must maintain when interacting with the common folk as they represent their Lord, but it is the mercenaries in the employ of Lord Godrick you have to be most wary of as they do not have the reputation of Lord Godrick to restrain their actions.
"And if some of the less scrupulous of Lord Godrick's men wish to occasionally take a toll, I would rather pay that than have a pack of demihumans supping on my corpse."
"And if we had refused to pay?" John pressed.
"They would have beaten us and taken whatever they wanted as recompense. And if we had raised a weapon, we would have been 'rebelling' against Lord Godrick and been killed for our treachery."
John felt himself growing hot under the collar at Kalé's placid, unbothered answer to being the victim of armed robbery by the Lands Between's version of police. John tried to tamp down his anger as knew he was far too weak and impotent to actually do anything about the situation. It was like dealing with corrupt cops back home.
Kalé must have still noticed his anger though as he spoke up.
"It does me good to see you be outraged at their behavior John. Not many in the Lands Between would care about what happens to a one of my people. But that is just the way it is here, and we must do our best to live within our means the best we can.
"I know you do not wish to speak of the lands you hail from, but they must have been a truly just place if you care so much about this sort of thing." Kalé complemented him.
John shook his head, calming down.
"No. I wish I could say we were better, but there isn't much of a real difference between here and where I come from. There are differences of course, but for every area my homeland was better in compared to the Lands Between there are areas it was worse in.
"This is more of a personal hang up of mine about this sort of stuff. These men took up a duty, and they are betraying themselves and others and their duty itself with these actions. They are scum. But we had people like in my homeland as well. Far too many of them.
"I guess the only real difference is that the common folk there came far more about this sort of thing than the ones in the Lands Between, so the corrupt people where I come from just take efforts at hiding it so people do not become angry at them.
"I just am not used to seeing it done so blatantly even if I know this sort of thing happens in my homelands as well. We may spout words about how just we are or should be, but we don't make much real effort into putting our words into practice."
Kalé hummed in thought.
"Enough of this topic. Let us think of better things.
"By noon tomorrow we will be at the foot of Stormhill. There is where the largest fortification and encampment of Lord Godrick's forces are outside of Stormveil Castle itself: the Stormgate. A gatehouse built into a cliff pass. It is guarded by an army of soldiers, footmen, and even trolls, and headed by Knight Commander Torrin.
"You'll finally be able to see part of Limgrave that isn't wilderness, and I'll be able to trade the wares I got from the lands of Castle Morne. Depending on what I can trade for there, we'll either head south or north."
John listened as Kalé went into detail about the various things that usually traded well from these locations, for example fulgurblooms, a type of lightning flower, being cheaper in the Weeping Peninsula and more expensive in Limgrave or the reverse being true for smithing stones from Limgrave to the Peninsula.
As he did, John's thoughts were on his goal. His real final goal now that he had finally achieved the first step that even gave him a chance.
To make sure the Chosen Tarnished didn't fuck everything up by picking a 'bad ending', because whatever happened John was stuck here to deal with the consequences. John didn't want to be burned to death or cursed or whatever.
To that end, John was going to try to make his own mending rune to try and achieve an actually good ending even if he didn't have any concrete ideas for that yet. But right now he could stack the deck further as well.
Why not... remove some of the bad options entirely.
For example, if Irina never dies, her body never becomes Hyetta. And the Chosen Tarnished never has the opportunity to be bewitched by the Flame of Frenzy.
Of course, this was real life with infinite choices, and not a video game coded for things to happen in a certain way. So there is always the chance the Chosen Tarnished could still find a way to the Frenzied Flame, but removing all the roads that lead down that path that John knew of would improve the odds of preventing that terrible end from happening.
John quite liked being a distinct thinking being and not an unthinking primeval mass thank you very much.
John waited until there was a pause in Kalé's explanations about goods and their regional prices before he spoke.
"Tell me about Castle Morne. What was it like last time you were there? Was there anything interesting going on?"
"It has been some time since I last went all the way to Castle Morne itself. But at the time the ruler of the castle, Lord Edgar, who comes from a long line of superb warriors and is sworn to Lord Godrick, was throwing a festival to celebrate his only daughter reaching her majority. He emptied the castle's larders allowing everyone no matter how lowly to eat their fill for three days and nights.
"The castle sits at the top of a cliff. I have never been into the keep itself, but I can say from the outside it is imposing. Its thick and tall walls and isolation at the top of a cliff make it as impregnable from attack as Stormveil Castle. Maybe even more so. I cannot imagine the castle ever being breached and captured by someone short of a true champion like one of the demigods.
"Below it is the castle town filled with all the servants and common people that help support the castle itself. There is a large portion of the town built vertically along the cliffside in a confusing maze of wenches and lifts which they use to connect together and traverse the castle town, the cliffside town, and the castle itself.
"Most of the time I am doing business in the middle and lower portions of the cliffside and those are the parts I know best."
"Really? That sounds like a very interesting setup for a town. I'd like to see it."
"That may be our next big stop on the route depending on what I can trade for in the Stormgate."
Kalé went on to start describing various regular customers of his, but John had already gotten what he wanted to know.
It seemed the misbegotten rebellion at Castle Morne had yet to happen. John had suspected years ago that he had arrived before the Chosen Tarnished, but this confirmed it to him, as the Chosen Tarnished would arrive as the misbegotten were finishing off the last of those at Castle Morne.
If he could figure out a way to keep Irina from dying, it would eliminate the primary way the Chosen Tarnished could become involved with the Three Fingers.
But even if that hadn't been the case, John would still want to at least try and save her from her fate. She seemed like a nice person and as a blind woman was probably innocent from what grievances misbegotten had.
Later when the sun began setting, John and Kalé made a small camp off the road and enjoyed an evening meal of boar meat stew. They set up camp and went to sleep for the night.
____________________________________
Waking up the next morning they continued their trek through the forest.
The sun was cresting the sky as they finally broke through the other side of the forest.
At the dip in the valley ahead sat stone ruins that had been converted into a military encampment. Where in the game there was only half a dozen crumpled building's walls left with close to a dozen soldiers, in front of john was an entire neighborhoods worth of buildings with at least a couple hundred soldiers that he could see milling about, some of which were doing tasks and a lot of whom were just standing around talking with their fellows.
The ruins were covered with tents and incorporated the remains of the stone walls everywhere, with barrels full of various supplies spread everywhere. The only building that was remotely left intact in the ruins beyond crumbling walls was a decaying three story tower near the center of the ruins.
A dozen huge carts or wagons that a merchant might transfer goods in but scaled to giant size were off one side of the encampment and there was even a troll pair of trolls holding large chains in their hands pulling one of these wagons filled with wooden crates up the stone-paved road into the massive gatehouse that was built into the large crack in the nearby cliffs.
Seeing the brightly colored tents and surcoats dotted among the dreary grey and mossy stone ruins overgrown with brush, the small army of people in the dead remains of an older civilization... experiencing it in flesh at full scale instead of the limited replica in a game through a screen, John felt he could see the faintest glimpse of the glory that must have been what the Golden Order once was.
Even this glance of part of the least of the demigods' army had the reality, the wonder, of his situation pressing on him in a way it hadn't since his first month here. It was like a millstone that had been on his back for a long time was lifted.
Maybe Kalé had seen something that John hadn't when he had been speaking last night before his success. He'd have to be more careful to heed his friend's advice.
They left the edge of the forest and made their way down the valley towards the southern entrance of the Gatefront Ruins military encampment.
At the entrance they were halted by a pair of soldiers. After John and Kalé explained that they were there to sell supplies, and a quick look over and warning, this time without any extortion, they were escorted into the camp.
The soldier guiding them quickly navigated them through the twists and turns of the streets deeper towards the center of the camp. Towards a familiar crumbling tower.
"Hey sir," John began, "I was wondering, do you guys ever search these ruins for things that have been left behind?"
The soldier glanced back at him for a moment, then laughed and continued guiding them.
"What does it look like we're doing here? Wasting our time?
"These ruins are older than the Shattering. No doubt anything of value has long since been looted before Lord Godrick even obtained his Great Rune and left the capitol. Anything left here is either worthless to start with or has rusted or rotten to worthlessness by now.
"I can hear just from your accent that you are foreign to the Lands Between. No doubt you've heard countless tales about the majesty and wealth of our lands. Probably why you're here. But this isn't a tale from a storybook. We don't just leave troves of treasure lying around where anyone can find them."
John knew for a fact they did in fact leave valuable stuff lying around the place in the Lands Between. Although, on second thought, many of those valuable things required killing someone for their stuff or robbing a grave or defeating a powerful monster.
Alright, so the man had a point, but John actually did know of a valuable item hidden in these ruins.
The conversation stopped there, and soon after they arrived in a small courtyard. In it the decaying ruins of the building attached to the crumbling tower sat. There were quite a few soldiers going to and fro carrying things in and out of the courtyard. A few dogs sat resting in a corner of the yard.
Standing nearby the entrance to the ruined tower were a pair of men that were obviously important just by how they held themselves and how the soldiers around them acted.
One man was wearing the normal surcoat and equipment of one of Godrick's soldiers excluding the helmet. The most notable thing about the man was that he was significantly larger than a normal man, being around 7 feet tall and looked to be around 300 pounds of pure muscle. John figured the guy could probably pick him up and throw him as he was a ten year old. He appeared middle aged and had a fearsome face with a scar large running down his cheek to his square jaw where it appeared a sword had once cut him deeply.
The other man was bodily half a foot shorter though the white plum coming out of his helmet made his overall height the same as the larger man. He wore a full elaborate set of knight's plate armor including besagews, armpit guards, overtop of which he wore a surcoat with Godrick's colors on it; the golden Erdtree on a field of green quartered with the beast regent Serosh on a field of red.
As John and Kalé were led to the two men by their escort, the men stopped talking and turned to them. Their escort started speaking as soon the man in knight armor made a gesture, who their escort acknowledged first as he started speaking.
"Knight Commander, Quartermaster, sirs, these two approached the camp wanting to sell wares to the men."
The larger less armored of the two glanced over them before smiling.
"Ahh, I know who this is. Torrin sir, the one in red is the merchant Kalé I have told you about before. He comes by one or twice a year and sells a variety of things. He is the one I get that cheap bloom you like in your wine from."
The large man gestured to their escort.
"Dismissed soldier."
Their escort held his fist to his chest in salute and left. The large man turned his eyes to John.
"I know Kalé, but who are you?"
John felt uneasy at suddenly being involved with people as important as whatever a Knight Commander must be even if Kalé knew the quartermaster somehow. To be the head guys of a significant military base like this was a big deal.
John decided he'd try his best to be as innocuous as possible. He didn't want the attention of Godrick or his men.
"John White, friend of Kalé. I'm traveling with him for the moment."
The quartermaster tilted his head.
"White? I am afraid I am not familiar with House White."
This caught John off guard but he recovered quickly.
"Ah, I'm not from the Lands Between, so sorry if I don't use the proper etiquette. In fact, I would be surprised if you had heard of my family. The Whites back home were relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things, small and of modest wealth and little influence."
"Truly? Where do you hail from?"
"My homeland is called the United States of America, or just America, the US, or the United States for short."
"You must have traveled far to reach the Lands Between. I have never heard of your homeland before. What can you tell me-"
"Duran!" The armored Knight Commander Torrin interrupted sharply and made a gesture to hurry things along. Duran nodded his head to the slightly smaller man.
"Right, sir." He turned his eyes to John's companion with an intense stare. "Kalé, this man is truly your friend?"
Kalé nodded.
The man examined John closely for a few moments before smiling widely.
"A friend of Kalé's huh? Well, a friend of his is a friend of mine. Name's Duran. I'm the Quartermaster of the garrison here.
Come. Let's go into my office to discuss business."
John followed the three of them as they went into the tower and walked up a set of steps to the second floor. The quartermaster's office was located in a stone walled room. It had slightly cramped with four people, had squeaky wooden floors, and a single storm window with moss growing around its mouth that let light into the room from outside.
After they all entered, John closed the door behind him, and Duran and Torrin took a seat at the desk leaving Kalé and John standing on the opposite side.
"So do you have it?" Duran asked Kalé like a mafioso asking someone if they had brought the money.
"You know I always deliver Duran." Kalé reached into a pocket and pulled out a small bag and a pair of notes of folded paper.
The papers had unbroken official-looking seals on the bottom of them that prevented someone from opening them without ruining the seal. Important
The bag gave off a scent that even a few feet away immediately made John's nose tingle with a 'clean' smell like chlorine.
Duran immediately handed Torrin the bag then started reading the two notes himself.
While they did their business and Kalé patiently waited, John was taken aback. What had just happened? What the hell!?
This was just supposed to be a relaxed journey around Limgrave! And from one moment to the next it changed from that to whatever was happening now.
Completely out of left field, his friend drags him into some shady dealing he had going on with what seemed like the guys in charge of a major military outpost. How the hell did Kalé even know these guys!?
As John mentally scrambled to regain his footing, Duran finished reading the two notes and turned to Torrin.
"Hmm. It is as I feared Torrin sir. Sir Bach hasn't been as true of a knight of our lord as he has portrayed. I had thought he had been acting unusual when he last stopped here at the Stormgate, not to mention other things I had learned of the man over the years. I had wanted to believe I had just been imagining things. This is ill-news indeed.
"And it appears that rat Kenneth Haight is going to try to propose to Lord Edgar Morne a wedding between himself and Edgar's daughter Irina. I thought Haight was acting suspiciously. It seems the fool is serious about challenging Lord Godrick for control of Limgrave. But even if he has some minor amount of the blood of the Golden Lineage, he can never stand up to one of pure descent like our lord. This must be put to a stop. We will have to inform our lord of this.
"Torrin, sir, I will draft a letter informing our lord of these developments along with some suggestions. Maybe two of our lord's problems can solve each other."
Torrin nodded his armored head in agreement.
"The blood of the Golden Lineage has been far too thin since that cursed Night and the events of the Shattering. It is a shame that a lesser scion is biting the hand of his better in greed instead of rallying behind him," Torrin's voice was tinged with a hint hint of regret, "It is exactly this sort dishonorable behavior that has caused everything to fall apart after the Shattering instead of everyone rallying as they should have.
"I will gladly leave informing our lord of these matters in your hands. I know you perform much better at these sorts of duties than myself."
John felt like he was far out of his depth. He shouldn't be involved with a meeting like this that was important or secret. He had nothing to do with any of these people or whatever Game-Of-Thrones shit they had going on.
He didn't even know why Kalé had allowed him to be brought along for this. And what exactly was Kalé's relationship with these men and Godrick? He didn't want to be involved in whatever conspiracy was happening in front of him.
But this was not the time for him to question Kalé about these things. Now was the time to act as if everything was perfectly fine and normal.
"Excellent work Kalé."
Duran offered his hand to Kalé who took it. John saw the flickering gold of runes being transferred between the two. After Duran was done and pulled his hand back, Kalé tilted his head at the man his eyebrow raised.
"More than usual due to the extreme importance of these messages," Duran explained, "I will begin drafting the letter to Lord Godrick soon. If you are willing Kalé, I need a messenger once again, but the message must leave the garrison tomorrow morning and go directly to Stormveil. "
"As long as I can ply my wares tonight."
Torrin spoke this time instead of Duran.
"Then I'll ensure that some of the men that have recently received their pay and some of the officers are given the rest of the day off and are informed that you have set up in the courtyard here to trade."
Kalé smiled.
"Then I shall be gone tomorrow at first light."
Duran smiled and spoke again.
"Excellent. Our garrison is preparing for a major sortie soon. I am not sure when either of us will be here when you get back to pay you for this. If you ask for payment while at Stormveil I am fairly sure that our people will oblige. If not, next time we meet I shall make right on your payment."
"Thank you my friend! I will be sure to ask." Kalé nodded.
Duran gave a pointed look at John.
"And your friend knows to be discreet with what was said today?"
Kalé smiled.
"Of course. I would not have brought him if he did not know what should be kept to himself."
Duran rubbed his chin as he and Kalé stared at each other, something silently passing between the two of them before he turned to look at John with a look in his eye.
"Well, if your friend is so trustworthy Kalé, then I'm sure I wouldn't mind having him as a friend as well. Tell me, John White, is there anything I can do for you?"
John could pick up that there was an undercurrent to the question. John wasn't stupid, but he wasn't sure precisely what Duran was getting at here besides that he was fishing for a certain answer. Still struggling to try and figure out exactly what, John answered something that actually wanted to do.
"Well, these are the first ruins I've ever actually been in. I'd like permission to look around them and search. There might be some interesting stuff there."
Duran, Kalé, and Torrin froze and unfroze so quickly that John almost doubted if he had seen it in the first place. Whatever they had been expecting him to say, his answer clearly wasn't it.
After a look between him and Torrin, Duran answered.
"As long as you don't go around exploring in the areas the garrison is actively using, you may do so." Duran told John a hint of awkwardness in his tone.
Everyone was silent for a moment as Duran quickly wrote out the permission on a note and handed it to John. Afterwards he turned a look at Kalé.
"Your friend is a strange fellow Kalé."
Kalé laughed, the first genuine amusement John had seen on him since they had begun this entire conversion.
"Indeed! John is an interesting and sometimes strange fellow! He has surprised me quite a few times over the years I have known him. Just when I think I have him figured out he goes and does something like this."
Duran turned back to John.
"Well, Strange John, take these as well. A gift to start off a warm friendship between us."
The man reached his hand out to John who grasped it. The man transferred a large number of runes. Truly, it was a large number of runes. Enough to pay for the full set of armor that John knew Kalé had for sale twice over.
It was about two thirds of what he expended in the Church of Elleh when he gained the strength of runes, bringing the amount of runes he had back to just under what he had had before he had strengthened himself. Feeling the potency of the mass of runes in him, John could tell he still didn't have enough to strengthen himself again.
It was with this that John realized what Duran had been asking for. What John wanted from Duran to keep his mouth shut.
"I shall go inform the lucky men who have just earned a surprise break for the rest of the day." Torrin said before he left the room.
After looking at the quartermaster to make sure there was nothing more he wanted them for, Kalé turned and left the room. John followed him, and they made their way back to the tower courtyard.
Kalé began unloading his donkey to prepare to trade his goods. John considered questioning Kalé about what had just transpired in the tower, but decided to put it off until they were on the road by themselves.
"Do you need any help Kalé?" John asked.
Kalé waved him off.
"No. I can handle my own goods. You wanted to explore these ruins? We only have half a day before the light fades and you won't be able to sate your curiosity until we come through here again.
"In fact, here, take my lantern," Kalé handed him a small lantern attached to a chain, "If you go looking into some of the cellars around here you'll need this."
John lashed the lantern to his hip and turned his attention to the area around him. He could see a number of staircases spread around the area, but he decided to wait until night fell before he searched in the courtyard as he was sure this must be where the item he remembered was held. He had seen many other stairs built around the camp as he had been guided through it.
John went off and started exploring various cellars and eroding buildings of the ruins. As he did, some thoughts unrelated to his exploration churned in his head.
Over the course of five years John had forgotten many of the details about the Elden Ring game he had played, but some details still stuck around even now.
He had, of course, written everything he could think of and remember in journals in his first year in the Lands Between as soon as he had been able to pay Kalé to get some writing materials. But at that point it had been a year since he had arrived here. It had been a couple years since he had sat down and read through the entirety of his notes and the details about item locations were getting foggy.
John thought he knew Elden Ring pretty well. Better than the majority of players at least. He hadn't been one of those people who knew literally every detail of every single drop location and item description because they played the game for a living. But he definitely wasn't a 'casual' about his game knowledge either.
As elitist as that sounded, it was his honest assessment of his situation.
Back when he played John had known off the top of his head where all the important, valuable, and unique drops were. He had played and replayed the game a lot in his free time for the first two months after the game's release, and had beaten it a half dozen times since it had first came out nearly a year ago; though he had slowly lost interest in Elden Ring and switched to playing other games like the new COD: Modern Warfare 2 when it came out.
He had even gotten a little into the lore of Elden Ring fairly at one point, enough to actually watch some lore videos on it. It had been the first time he had ever done that for a video game that wasn't a Bethesda game.
But by the time John had had the ability to write anything he remembered about the game down, he had forgotten most of the lore details about why he knew what he knew even if he could still rattle off item locations or dungeon and enemy placements still.
He still remembered most of the big picture stuff when it came to the lore. Marika is Radagon, Miquella had been kidnapped by Mogh, Ranni was the mastermind behind the Night of the Black Knives, stuff like that. But he didn't remember much outside of those sorts of big picture things.
Back when he wrote all this stuff down, he had even remembered what lore was known as something that was 'for sure' and what he knew that was just theories and speculation. He noted those distinctions in the journals back then, even if now years later it had all blended together into a blurry fog.
He would have to start refreshing his knowledge of lore and item locations in the evenings now that he no longer has that time dedicated to figuring out how to make himself stronger with runes.
The item drop locations would be of limited immediate practical use as the Lands Between in real life were an actual full sized continent not a video game his character could run across in under five minutes, but in the abstract things were still in roughly the same areas. The Church of Elleh being an example with it being near the coast.
Now that he was traveling John didn't know when the opportunity would come where he could grab something good. As long as it wouldn't obstruct the Chosen Tarnished from getting something potentially vital or irreplaceable. It was why he never went after the crimson and cerulean tears flasks in the Stranded Graveyard in the Fringefolk Hero's Grave despite it being within sight of the Church of Elleh.
John kept exploring the ruins for hours. He searched whatever remains he could find in the cellars trying to figure out what these ruins had been long ago. What did people do here, and how did they do it? Whatever was left aboveground had long since been reduced to dirt and dust by the elements.
The ruins themselves had long since lost many of the details about the masonry work to erosion by the weather, but piecing together something on fragmented evidence was just part of the fun for John.
He had always loved a good puzzle or mystery as long as the pieces to answer said mysteries were present, even if it was difficult to do so. That was part of what had made him love Elden Ring when he first played it in all its cryptic and slightly-janky glory.
If all of From Software's games had been like that back on Earth, he regretted not playing them at the time, even if he had been unwilling to go back and play the older games. Back then he had heard that and thought that they would be just older, less refined, and smaller versions of Elden Ring, and John had thought he could play them later if he really wanted.
How things had changed.
As he thought of all this, John felt he had missed his true calling as an anthropologist or archeologist. He hadn't realized that was one of his true passions until his college days were long over. He was just an amateur and knew almost nothing of the serious work of those two professions, but he felt he had some amount of talent and passion for that sort of thing. Much more than for what he had actually ended up doing for work.
So John spent the rest of the day spelunking through the cellars of the ruins only stopping to have a meal with some of the soldiers later in the day.
By the time John returned to the courtyard to meet with Kalé, the sun had already begun setting and Kalé was packing up his goods.
Kalé's bags were just as full as they had been at the start of the day, but the lumpy impression of the goods were different than they had been. It looked like Kalé had been successful in his trading.
"You're back John? Did you find anything interesting exploring?"
"It looks like this had been a normal town once or something similar. An absolutely mind blowing conclusion I know," John said sarcastically, "I found plenty of small household tools that had rusted and a lot of pottery that were covered in dragon imagery that had once stored things. Not sure what the dragons mean exactly.
"I think I'm gonna look around the cellars here and then call it a night."
Kalé chuckled.
"These ruins are that interesting to you? Whatever you desire to do with your time.
"Duran has already come by and set me with everything we need for our business with him. We'll be bedding in that slightly overgrown building over there next to that storeroom. I'll leave your bedroll out for you. If you want dinner, you can just get some from our supplies."
John made some short small talk with Kalé as Kalé finished packing his stuff up, before John began looking through the cellars of the tower area. It was on searching his third cellar that he found what he was looking for.
They weren't in a chest like they had been in the game. Instead John found a small ornate metal urn that gave off a faint presence of more to his infantile mystical sense.
That faint aura intensified when he opened the lid on the urn to reveal the ashes themselves. Where the wisp of the Site of Grace gave off the faintest feeling of vitality, vigor, and orderliness, like waking up to clean bedroom with a bright sunlight and being full of energy for the day, these ashes in front of John felt more like that instant flash of recognition you get when you are struggling to place something or someone and you snap your fingers and point as it finally clicks in your head.
In the same small urn he had found a small stone knife-like tool with a wooden handle whose blade was inscribed with the runes. Not just any runes, but the same divine runes he had used to become stronger.
This was the whetstone knife.
In the game this thing was able to let someone modify the ashes of war on a weapon. Not that John knew how to use this tool or even how to use an ash of war yet, but this thing was the only way John knew of that he could access that would let him interact with ashes of war like that.
The Chosen Tarnished would be able to do that at Smithing Master Hewg in the Roundtable Hold as well, so John taking this wouldn't deny the Chosen Tarnished of anything for long.
Quickly pocketing the knife which didn't give off any aura on his person, John wrapped the urn in a thick layer of cloth making sure there were no gaps. The material was enough to cut off the mystical presence the ash was giving off to where John could no longer sense it and he wrapped it more just to be sure.
John discretely carried the small bundle out and stored them with the rest of his stuff packed away on Kalé's donkey, before John laid down into his bedroll.
The next morning they were up at the crack of dawn, and after breaking their fast, they left the Stormgate heading east.