Marvel: Elden Ring System

After another grueling study session, Ray eases himself into a lounge chair in his living room. He rubs his temples, hoping to ease the mental strain he is experiencing. 

"Arh, this is getting ridiculous… This is too much information for my peanut sized brain to remember. There must be something I can do to fix this…"

Ray stares at the ceiling for a good five minutes before slapping himself in the forehead. 

'I'm so stupid… If I increase my intelligence stat, I will become smarter… You know what? Screw this, I am going back to Elden Ring. I will go deal with northeastern Limgrave and use the runes I get to increase my intelligence. Maybe then I won't feel so mentally fatigued… That and I am a gamer, we always run to video games when we get stressed.'

With his mind made up, Ray leans back in his chair and uses the World Traveler skill to return to Elden Ring, finding himself back in the church of Elleh. He uses the fast travel to appear at the fort Haight grace. From there, he heads north into the Mistwood.

The ride through the Mistwood forests, while filled with danger, were navigated quite easily by Ray and his trusty steed. Avoiding the lumbering rune bears is quite easy, seeing as most of them are asleep during the night. 

Of course, our intrepid hero remembers where most of the important items in this area are located from his game knowledge. This leads him to the minor Erdtree to the north east of the Mistwood ruins where he procures the spiked cracked tear and greenspill crystal tear from a small altar at its base. He also grabs a few of the tarnished golden sunflowers for crafting purposes. 

Next on his list is the map of the area and another cookbook, though these are being guarded by a group of three rune bears. Instead of fighting them and having the risk of death via sharp claws and teeth, Ray sets Torrent into a full gallop and grabs the map and the nomadic warrior's cookbook [4] by leaning over the side of Torrent's flank and grabbing them as they pass, the duo long gone before the rune bears can even lift their heads up. 

After easily escaping the unsuspecting rune bears, Ray and Torrent travel north towards the third church of Marika. There he acquires a sacred tear which is used to increase the potency of his flasks along with the flask of wondrous physick and the crimson crystal tear. He sits at the site of grace and mixes the crimson crystal tear and the spiked cracked tear into the physick in preparation for his first true boss encounter. 

Just up the cliff behind the church of Marika is a lone village called Summonwater Village, the last town before the transition between the fertile lands of Limgrave and the scarlet rot infested lands of Caelid. 

And although it is called a village, it has long been abandoned by the living. Now it is home to the undead, led by a being called a tibia mariner, an undead boatman that summons 'those that live in death' to do its bidding. Their power comes from Godwin, the son of Queen Marika and Godfrey that was slain with a dagger imbued with the rune of death, that night living on in infamy as the night of the black knives. 

In order for Lunar Princess Ranni to shed her empyrean body she required a sacrifice. In order for her body to be 'slain', a soul must also perish. Little did she know that Godwin's body would become the embodiment of undeath, a plague upon the lands between. And with the shattering having disrupted the golden order, no one was able to purge this growing darkness before it fully took root beneath the Erdtree.

Ray shakes his head, wondering why he can remember the somewhat obscure lore of the game but is unable to retain the knowledge that his tutors were trying to teach him at SHIELD. 

Ray absentmindedly swings his lordsworn's sword at a teardrop scarab along his path, acquiring the sacred blade ash of war. He continues heading north until he crests a hill and sees Summonwater Village just ahead. His indifferent mood is instantly shattered when he notices an abundance of movement from the village, his eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets when he realizes that there is a literal army of skeletons shuffling about. And what is worse is the spires of decayed wood that seem to create a macabre imitation of the Erdtree, leaves of black and gold falling from the drooping branches.

"Dafuq? Why are there so many skeletons?!!! There are hundreds of them… And the trees… They are unlike anything I have seen before."

Knowing that there is no way in hell he is going to fight that many undead by himself, Ray has Torrent circle the village so that he can get a better idea of what is happening and maybe come up with a plan of action. 

The surprises continue however, as he finds an army of godrick soldiers led by three leyndell knights, their golden armor gleaming in the mid morning light. Off to the side, Ray also sees D surveying the village from a vantage point within the camp of soldiers. 

Ray scratches the back of his head in confusion, not expecting this turn of events. He might have already had some clues that this world is slightly different then the game, but this really solidifies that idea into fact. 

With his curiosity piqued, Ray has Torrent slowly trot towards the soldiers camp, his arrival being noticed by the guards at the makeshift wooden palisade. One of the soldiers runs into the camp while the rest hold their weapons at the ready, waiting for further orders or for this mysterious person to attack. 

Ray calmly dismounts and unsummons Torrent before standing in place a good distance from the gate, making sure to appear as a competent fighter while showing no hostile intent. 

A few minutes pass before D walks out of the camp towards him, stopping just shy of sword swinging distance. 

"Ah, a Tarnished, are you? My name is D. I hunt down those that live in death, and weed their deathroot. Heed my warning, the village here has been touched by death. And worse yet, it is home to a mariner. If you value your life, then go no further."

Ray puts his hand on the pommel of his sword sheath before speaking. "The mariner is why I am here. If you plan on slaying the unholy aberration, I would join you willingly."

D looks Ray over, assessing his strength. "You look of the capable sort… We march at the break of dawn, and I will not be responsible for your safety. If you should join the undead legion, I shall end your miserable existence…"

Ray smirks. "I will be ready."

D sees the fire in Ray's eyes, a testament of his resolve. With not another word, he turns around and heads into the camp, lifting his hand and beckoning Ray to follow. 

Ray follows behind D whilst looking about the camp, noticing the abundance of soldiers that are in the final stages of preparation for their confrontation with those that live in death. It is very surprising to him that the enemies of the game can actually join forces with a tarnished in this world. He still forgets that this is a real world, with real people.

'I keep treating this like a game when I shouldn't. I have to remember that anyone that is alive in this world has lived for thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of years. At the start of the golden order, Queen Marika sealed the rune of death, making all life in this world immortal. Any being that dies will simply be reformed by the grace of the Erdtree.'

Ray takes a seat at the site of grace inside the camp, his mind in constant flux. When he killed all those soldiers at the gatefront, he wasn't seeing them as people. They were obstacles in his path, a source of runes to fuel his budding strength. 

Now? He can't unsee that fact. And he might have to change his strategy for how to advance in the future. But for now, he has to prepare for the mariner.

With an entire night before the battle, Ray decides to grab one more important upgrade to help even the odds. 

Ray fast travels to the gatefront ruins grace before heading south towards Agheel Lake. As he is following the path down to the lake, he sees Agheel himself flying around the southern edge, waves of flame scorching swaths of land in the distance. 

Shaking his head, Ray turns away from the distant dragon and follows the cliff west till he finds a cave hidden in a crevice. Within this cave is the Limgrave Tunnels, a mine filled with smithing stones and the poor souls forced to mine them for eternity. 

Ray heads through the tunnel until he finds a wooden elevator, which he takes down to the site of grace. He sits down and pulls out his godrick straight sword and the whetstone blade along with the sacred blade ash of war. He uses the whetstone knife to put the ash of war on his sword, making it a holy infused weapon before heading down the path further into the earth. 

What proceeds is a wanton slaughter of stone skinned miners with worn out pickaxes that guard their smithing stones with the fervor of a religious zealot. With their flesh having turned to stone over thousands of years, the arc of golden energy that is fired from his sword is paramount for penetrating their natural defenses.

As Ray is methodically clearing out the mine, he finds that the areas are far larger and the enemies and items are more numerous than what is in the game. By the time he reaches the boss doors at the bottom of the mine, Ray has collected 28 smithing stone [1]'s, 5 somber smithing stone [1]'s, and a ridiculous amount of glintstone scraps. 

Another bonus of this being a real world is the ability to steal the baskets full of explosive stones from the miners, giving Ray a nearly infinite supply of what amounts to a low yield grenade whenever he needs to blow shit up. 

With a pep in his step from his haul of goodies, Ray opens the wooden doors to the boss room with a mighty shove, Only for a blur of grey to slam into him and send him sailing backwards through the air and crashing into the cave wall. Ray groans in pain as he shoves the boulder that smashed into him away and climbs out of the looney tunes impression of his body in the wall, his flask of crimson tears at his lips the next moment. 

Ray rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck before sprinting into the boss room, rolling to the side just before he can get decked by another boulder. Standing at the back of the chamber is a stonedigger troll, a massive club in one hand and a pile of boulders next to the other. 

With a savage grin on his face, Ray runs underneath the troll's feet and uses sacred slash to slice at its Achilles tendon, leaving a nasty cut in its stone flesh. The stonedigger troll roars in agony before leaping backwards and slamming down with its club, creating a shockwave that throws Ray back even though he just barely managed to dodge the hit.

The troll pushes its advantage by running forward and slamming its club down again, though this time, Ray is ready and jumps to avoid the shockwave. He lands on the club and runs up it and the troll's arm like a ninja before slashing towards the troll's eye. 

The troll manages to turn its face just enough so that Ray's blade grazes its face between its eyes, leaving a long and deep gash instead of the lethal blow that Ray expected. With a loud scream of pain, the troll staggers backwards, its large body slamming into the cave wall. 

The impact makes the room shake violently, causing large chunks of stone to fall from the ceiling. Ray lands back on the ground and is forced to dodge roll multiple times in a row to avoid the falling debris, giving the troll enough time to recover. 

With the troll being in intense pain from its wounds, it loses all reason, swinging its club into the ground over and over again in a frenzy. As Ray is running around the troll to avoid the club, portions of the ceiling start to fall all around him, the shockwaves from the troll's blows dealing overwhelming amounts of damage to the structure of the cave. 

Knowing that the cave cannot handle much more of this, Ray makes a mad dash straight at the troll, his glintstone staff firing multiple pebbles in a row at the troll's face. One lucky shot hits the troll in the eye, causing it to fall to the ground. 

With a savage war cry, Ray charges forward and shoves his sword sparking with golden light straight into its eye, sinking all the way down to the hilt. With a final flash of light from inside the troll's eye socket, its body slumps over before turning into a swirl of runes. 

Ray wanted to take a moment to catch his breath but the cave had other plans. He feels a deep rumbling in the earth as large cracks start to snake up the walls and converge in the ceiling. In a panic, Ray looks around and just gets a glimpse of the way into the chamber getting covered in rocky debris. 

With the cave crumbling around him, Ray desperately searches for a way out, remembering that in the game there was a wisp of white light that would teleport you out of the cave near the wall. He runs around, scanning the floor for the teleporter while chunks of rock continue to fall all around him. Eventually he sees what he is looking for, diving towards the mote of light and vanishing from the chamber just before the entire ceiling comes crashing down. 

Now outside the entrance, Ray turns around, watching as the tunnel into the mine collapses, completely sealing the entrance. He doesn't linger in the area in case something is lured by the sounds, deciding to head back to the church of Elleh. 

Ray sits down next to the fire, calming his nerves by staring at the Roar Medallion he got from the boss and having some idle chatter with Kalé. After buying a large pouch full of throwing knives for his trouble, Ray walks over to the anvil situated in the corner of the dilapidated church. He places his lordsworn's short sword on the anvil and uses twelve smithing stone [1]'s to enhance the sword to a +3. Unfortunately, He will have to get to the Roundtable Hold if he wants to improve his weapons beyond this point. 

"This should be good enough for now. I'm as prepared as I can be for the battle with the mariner. If I had more time I would have killed Darriwil with Blaidd and upgraded the bloodhound's fang as well but it will have to wait. Hopefully he doesn't fight him by himself and I miss out on the loot…"

Ray shelves that thought and uses the fast travel to head back to the summonwater village outskirts site of grace. With the sun just about to appear over the horizon, D and the army of over a hundred knights and soldiers prepare for an all out war with those that live in death.