I tend to be pretty diligent when it comes to FromSoftware games, especially when it comes to Elden Ring. NPC quests can be very tricky and any wrong decision can throw them out the window after hours of tracking.
I’d like to say that I kept my negotiating spirit during my time in the Shadowlands of Shadow of the Erdtree, but that would be a complete lie. All my desire to avoid conflict and establish alliances in Fire Ring They went to hell with Malenia, especially when I began to understand Miquella’s plans in the Shadow Fortress.
I wanted to kill everyone, to leave the Shadowlands free of rampaging beasts and tyrants with the most serious megalomaniacal problems I’ve seen in a long time. And though I held on to this desire until the very end, Sir Ansbach managed to earn my respect for his insistence on uncovering the truth about Miquella.
Kill first and ask questions later
The breaking of the Great Rune and the dissipation of the enchantment are events that mark a before and after in the history of Elden Ring: Shadow of the ErdtreeThe motley group that follows Miquella is freed from the spell that binds them and begins to move of their own free will.
Knight Leda was the first to notice and wanted me to be part of her plot to kill the members of the group she thought had strayed from the path. She sent me to kill the Horned One in the Shadow Fortress and I agreed in the hope that I could kill her when there was no one left. And so it happened: Leda and I killed that poor devil on the fortress walls.
I hoped I could save Sir Ansbach. He was responsible for revealing Miquella’s true plans and he revealed them to Freyja of the Red Mane. She was not very fazed and my relationship with her ended the moment she told me she would fight me if necessary. As for the rest, Moore was missing and Thiollier was choking on rage at me for revealing the secret of Saint Trina.
Leda the knight must have known that I never planned to help her kill the rest of the party… and it was more than evident by the time I got to Enir-Ilim. The golden fortress suspended in the air is clearly the final stretch of the DLC. I had given up all hope of killing all the members of the group… but then Leda handed me my objective on a silver platter.
After walking for a while through the golden fortress, I came to a monumental hall covered in sand. The knight Leda was in the center and said a few words to me as I entered:
Ah, I thought I’d see you here. It’s been some time. It was never Miquella the Gentle, was it? It was the Golden Tree that guided you from the start. So that you could ascend to lordship. Why come to these lands in the first place? Is it because that’s what His Eminence, or perhaps the Golden Tree, wanted from the start? The duel of the favored lords so that one prevails? Perhaps so. If you insist on facing Miquella the Gentle, I will crush you, whoever you are. Don’t waste your time.
Leda’s words were not friendly, so I took advantage of the speech to throw the Rune Bow at myself. I knew I was in for a fight. It’s a shame that players can’t interact directly with NPCs, because my words at that moment would have been:
“Leda, my friend, I came because I thought Miquella was kidnapped, but it turns out he’s a megalomaniac who controls people with the power of love. He used Mohg’s corpse to make himself a consort (disgusting) and plans to become the ultimate god. And I’m the one in charge here. I just killed Messmer and Bayle the Fearsome, and I’m going to rip your head off if you give me another piece of shit.”
I couldn’t say anything, so I just thought about it. Three marks appeared on the ground. One to invade Leda and two to summon Sir Ansbach and Thiollier as companions. It seems that the latter reconsidered and accepted that Santa Trina was just a piece left behind by Miquella during her ascension to god. The last thing I expected was for a Roman coliseum or battle royale to form in that arena.
I took the Tear Potion and summoned the Mimic Tear as Redmane Freyja appeared. The poor thing didn’t get to finish her honorable speech before she was beaten to a pulp. That was only the first one. Four more appeared as the lioness spoke her last words: Moore and Dryleaf Dane as enemies and Sir Ansbach and Thiollier as allies.
Moore threw a jar of rot at me from a distance and almost from behind, and that made me very angry. My Tear and I went for the coward, while my allies faced Dane. The heavy knight used his huge shield to cover himself and charge at me. I let my tear distract him and then I hit him with a cannon shot with my club, losing almost all of his health. He healed, but it did little good because he died seconds later from a clean blow.
Leda appeared in the combat arena. My Tear and Ansbach charged at her. “Where are Dane and Thiollier?” I thought. The martial master had given my ally the slip, so he was now directing his kicks at me. The female knight was also trying to hit me, but my allies kept harassing her.
I already defeated Dryleaf Dane once to unlock his martial arts, so I did exactly the same thing: wait for him to charge at me before charging up an attack with my club and catching him in the air. Thiollier was throwing his perfumes at him, but with so little damage that it failed to attract the attention of any enemy.
I spent several minutes fighting Dane. He was too fast for my club and just dodged. His luck was over when my Mimic Tear appeared to blast him from behind and I took advantage of the moment to put him into orbit in two hits.
“Where’s that damn traitor Leda?” I thought as Dane fell to the sand. I was itching to crush her, but then I saw out of the corner of my eye that Sir Ansbach had managed to kill her. I was annoyed that I couldn’t fight her, but it was only fair: he had the right to get revenge on the minion who had tricked him into this world.
I gathered up all of his stuff and made my way through the golden fortress to the final boss of the DLC: Radahn, Promised Consort. I want to be completely honest about the fight. He killed me four or five times, I’ll give him that, but he didn’t last two minutes of the final fight.
I was lucky that he didn’t attack me the second I entered, so I was able to summon the Mimic Tear without getting hit. His mistake doomed him to die before it even started. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the first phase lasted less than 30 seconds. According to the recording I have saved, it lasted from minute 1:25 to 1:49, which is 24 seconds.
It made my blood boil to see the megalomaniac Miquella perch on the shoulders of Radahn, now Miquella’s Consort instead of Star Scourge. The warrior had long since found rest and this was just a crude copy, a puppet-like spectre that Miquella controlled like everyone else. I also thought it would have been epic if Ranni had perched on my shoulders the same way Miquella perched on Radahn’s… at least for those of us who became her consort during her end.
The second phase was even shorter than the first. I took a vial of Crimson Tears to regain health and charged the club’s special attack as I walked towards Radahn and Miquella. They walked towards me with their swords raised. We ran the last few meters and both of us launched an attack. I broke through Radahn’s defense and he fell to his knees at my feet. The Mimic Tear took care of giving him the critical hit. I took advantage of this to charge the pair of blows that would finish him off seconds later.
According to the recording I mentioned earlier, the second phase lasts from 3:15 to 3:21, or six seconds. If we exclude the cutscenes, my fight against Radahn and Miquella lasted exactly 30 seconds. I dropped the controller on the table and sighed in pure pleasure. “Fuck that!” I thought as I explored the combat area.
FromSoftware rarely grants a complete victory, and I was no exception. I turned the camera around and saw the corpses of Sir Ansbach and Thiollier leaning against the wall. They fell during the fight against Radahn and Miquella. My heart broke a little for Ansbach. “You didn’t have to die, old man,” I said out loud as I stared at his corpse. So I can say I accomplished my goal in the last half hour of the DLC, but I wish I could have saved just one.
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