Eldentale: chapter 1 / no warnings apply / 2.8k words
*Greetings, hero's, it is here I would like to apologize for your deaths.
*As your god, I have failed you once, but I vow to never let this happen again.
*Now, let us begin with your blessings, a few trinkets from this land bestowed upon you.
(Frisk obtained stonesword key x1)
(Asriel obtained cracked pot x1)
(Chara obtained Fanged Imp ashes)
*Meager gifts, I know. But you are already very powerful, you don't really need things to help you fight.
*Your mission is simple: find the remnants of the First Flame and use them to set the Elden Ring ablaze so that the world may return to its natural cycle.
*I will guide you where I can, but for now, stay within Limgrave. I have business to attend to, I will be back to help shortly.
*May you find purpose in the waking world.
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Asriel woke softly, Polaris's words still etched freshly in his mind, she found herself sat up in the back of some church. The Chapel of Anticipation, his mind helpfully provides. Polaris had given them many things, innate knowledge of what a place was called seemed mundane at first, but it's always useful to know where you are.
His arms felt staticky with fatigue, she turned to his left and found Chara still asleep.
Chara was on their side, wrapped in its favorite green cloak. It was a gift from the Emerald Herald a long time ago, he remembers they nearly cried from the kindness of the gesture, knowing they'd never see the herald again.
They immaculately maintained the cloak, it had stitched a beautiful yellow hem and a faded hand-made decal of the sun on the back. The only parts of Chara that were visible were their brown gloves and boots, specially tailored for pyromancers to be able to cast through without hindrance.
It slept leaning into Asriel, which must be why her arms felt weird. He smiled a little and turned to his right and saw Frisk.
Frisk lay tilted onto Asriel's right side, their pauldron dug into her a bit, but she didn't mind. Its armor looked plain, somewhat reminiscent of what the royal guard of the underground wore, simplistic in design but plentiful with function.
The only difference between them was the fact their set was made out of stone, ancient rock carved by their gods' very claws. A simple horned helm with a red crest hid its face. The visible parts of the gambeson beneath the armor were cerulean and plum colored.
Asriel huffed a fond sigh, before extracting his right hand out from where Frisk was crushing it. She sucked in a breath, it was just like what he had asked for.
A viney arm graced her vision, forest green with carmine briars sporadically covering it, his claws just looked like bigger thorns, but they moved with the same grace as actual fingers. She looked down to his robe, it was more like a dress than anything else. 'Greek' in origin, as Polaris said, he wore a belt around his waist to make it look better. Her right side lacked a sleeve while her left had twin yellow stripes, all with plain brown work pants underneath.
Looking down further, he still had hooves like his parents. But one of them was the same red as her arm, indicating that her leg changed too. Just how he had wanted. His skeletal face smiled as best as it could.
Asriel pumped a fist in the air, ecstatic that the god got his wishes down to a T. Her sudden movement woke up Chara, who grumbled at being disturbed, it processed how to be alive for a moment before their eyes widened and they smacked their own forehead harshly.
"Chara, what are you doing?" He whisper-yelled.
"Asriel, look." Chara whispered, it pulled its hand away from their face and showed him excitedly. Their glove had a small hole through it as it smeared with blood.
"It worked." Their smile was sharp, a grin that stretched across its face to its permanent rosy cheeks.
"What worked? Why are you bleeding?!"
They pulled down their hood, revealing a pair of ivory colored horns jutting from its forehead, one of them had a smidgen of blood on its pointed tip.
"Chara…?" He just noticed their red eyes were now slitted like a lizard.
"I am a monster now Asriel, thanks to our dear benefactor." They paused, glancing at her arm. "And it looks like you got a gift as well, congratulations."
He grabbed his arm, spikey barbs dug into her flesh-hand, she pulled away with a hiss. Amalgam told him how to sharpen and dull these thorns to her will, but she wasn't used to it yet. A kind thing it was, he just wished it wasn't so all over the place with how it helped them.
All that movement woke up Frisk, who grunted and attempted to roll over to go back to sleep, before they suddenly jolted upright and took off its helmet. Two small bull-like horns, similar to the ones decorating its helm, aimed up to the sky.
"It wasn't a dream." They croaked out.
"Frisk?!" Two voices called out, one in panic and the other ecstatic.
Their ever-closed eyes widened a fraction, revealing ones just like Chara's.
"It was a gift I couldn't refuse." it said, really hoping they wouldn't have to elaborate on that.
"Au contraire, dear Frisk, Amalgam specifically offered this to me to fulfil my dreams, if you are implying it forced this change upon you-" its rising anger was cut off.
"No! Chara, it didn't. I… dunno know how to explain it, ill tell ya later, okay?" they looked at them with a pleading expression.
"Guys, let's just take a breather, okay?" Asriel reasoned. "Uhm… why don't we talk about what we asked to be turned into? It would be nice to know, ill… go first."
"You guys know how chaos demons petrify without the chaos flame? Well… Amalgam said it could connect me more to nature so that Chara doesn't have to share its flame all the time. Now they only have to do that once in a while!"
"Congratz Asriel, you're moving up in the world." Frisk patted his back.
"That is… good. I'm glad we'll have less risk in the future of you turning to stone. One can only carry so many Fragrant Branches of Yore to turn you back to normal." Chara sounded somewhat strained about this, but Asriel didn't pick up on that.
"And check this out!" Asriel went still as her plant-arm changed, it warped and shifted until it was more a thin vine with dangerous looking spikes on it."it can turn into a whip! Or I can just use my claws, but this is better against shields."
"Ooo that's a nice one, hey, we're plant buddies now! you've got a vine arm and I've got my wood club!" Frisk exclaimed.
"Frisk that thing is hardly just a club, it's bigger than you are." Chara scoffed, "I have no idea why you haven't switched that out for a sword or maul, even."
"Did I never tell you? Polaris gave it to me itself, I wouldn't part with it unless it asked me directly."
Ah. that made sense. Frisk was the first to hear the old god, it would make sense that they would listen to it more than anyone else's opinion.
"My apologies then, I did not realise it was that sentimental to you."
"Aw, it's alright, I know you don't mean it."
"Cool, no argument this time, that's good." Asriel said. "Chara, why don't you go next?"
"Of course, it is my pleasure."
Instead of actually explaining anything, they took off their bloody glove, revealing a draconic hand with dark claws and gray scales. As well as… something else.
Black plating of some kind crept up the back of its hand, larger and smoother than the scales. It interlocked together, making some kind of pseudo-armor.
"Chara is that what i think it is?" Asriel asked.
"If you know me well enough, then you know exactly what this is." they said.
"A partial exoskeleton." It proclaimed, giddy about this fact.
"Wait, so your part dragon and part… bug, now?" Frisk tilted their head curiously.
"Arthropod, not bug. But I suppose I won't bore with semantics."
"Actually I'm sort of curious about this, why not just go for insects instead?" Asriel said. He was never particularly good at studying anything that wasn't magic, even with Chara's help.
"Arthropods are a wider group of animals, including spiders, crabs and lobsters, things that are still powerful yet lie outside of insect classification."
"Powerful? Chara, a bug's a bug, dont matter if it's in the water or not. They're still little and edible, for the most part." Frisk said.
"Frisk, i get it was a long time ago, but do you not remember fighting Quelaag? Or the Centipede demon? Or Scorpioness Najka? Or Freja, the duke's giant pet spider? Or-"
"Alright, alright I get it! We've had to deal with a lotta bugs! What's yer point?" Frisk asked impatiently.
"My point is that they are resilient, impressively so. We have watched kingdoms rise and fall, but we've always had to deal with insectoid enemies. I widened the definition to arthropods so swimming isn't off the table. Dragons are the same way, they have lasted millenia with might, but they have degraded over time.
I merely combined the longevity of insects and the power of dragons to get a body capable of dealing with our most prolific and dangerous enemies. In addition to looking really cool."
"Ya keep saying insects instead of arthropods, which is it?"
"Uhm, all insects are arthropods? I think?" Asriel said.
"Yes Asriel, that is correct, but that's enough about me for now. I'm curious about you Frisk." it slipped their glove back on, sprinkling a bit of mending powder to close the hole in the fabric.
"I… don't know, not fully." They ran a hand through its hair. "Wait, why's my head spikey?" it stopped.
Asriel got up and checked their hair, "Frisk, you're growing feathers up here."
"Just pins for now, but those are definitely feathers in the making." Chara confirmed, glancing from where they sat. "I suppose you really are a bird brain now." it giggled.
"Shut up lizard, you got exactly what you wanted, I dunno what the hell it changed about me." Asriel cradled her claws through their hair in an attempt to calm it down.
"Arent you supposed to be faithful in what your god does? It's meant to have your best interest in mind, is it not?" they teased.
Asriel stopped what he was doing and looked down at them. "Why?"
"I got what I asked for, but I don't know what I wanted." It paused.
The three of them were silent for a moment before Asriel spoke again,
"Why don't we just figure out what changed first? We can talk to it about this later, when it comes back."
"Alright… Well, I've got a tail now, an' wings. I think."
"Dont you think that you should've said something about that!?" He asked incredulously.
"Asriel I could go on about the specifications I made for my new body for hours, something tells me neither of you want to hear that."
"What kind of tail and wings, Chara?" she gritted out.
They removed its cloak with a practiced flourish. Their tunic was the same green as their cloak, with a simple yellow shirt collar to match. It wore identical brown workpants to Asriel. Draconic wings curled defensively around its body, as their tail was a mix of both scales and chitin that swayed languidly behind it.
"The wings are too small to fly effectively, rather unfortunately."
Asriel let out a sigh of relief he didn't know she was holding.
"I also have a stinger if you deem that to be relevant information."
"That's wicked Chara! You've got to show me how you use it sometime!" Frisk sounded far too excited.
"Only if you show us what's different about you."
Frisk flipped their cape over its head, the catty-cornered coloration the same as its gambeson, a yellow four pointed star decorated the capes center. A part of the armor that covered their upper back was missing to compensate for dark bird wings that sat uneasily at rest. A lion-like tail swished irritably too and fro, small horned growths spiked out of the tail's tip.
Frisk blushed a bit at their friends' unwavering support. "Yeah, well, why don't we get out of here? This church is freaking me out."
"And? 'Ts not like Polaris hangs around in a cathedral, it's down there dozing around in the Abyss."
"Not so fast. Asriel, isn't there something you missed?" Chara questioned.
"Really? Nothing new behind you? Nothing at all?"
"Aw c'mon Chara, you know he's bad at riddles."
"It's not a riddle, it's called having functional eyes, now look."
Chara grabbed Asriel and spun her by the shoulders until his back was to them, beneath the yellow waxing crescent moon decal was a tail. Another thorned vine sat perfectly still, with a flowerbud that sat unbloomed at its tip.
"Now that's a cool looking tail Asriel, it's even growing a flower an' everything."
"I. uh. …why do I have this?"
"To match with our parents, obviously. Now that that's taken care of, we should actually start leaving now, Frisk is getting antsy."
"Damn right I am, I don't want that corpse in the corner over there grabbin' at us or nothing." They stood up, brushing off the dust.
"Oh right, the corpse, we should probably go deal with that." Asriel said.
The three walked over to the body. The maiden laid there, covered in blood. In her lap sat the signature shine of an item.
"Chara you did not just 'yoink' a finger off there, that's gross." She regrets having Polaris teach them new lingo.
"Well excuse me sir, but how many body parts have we had in our inventory before this? Besides, this one lets us see messages, we might need it."
It had already won this debate, while Chara was the reason they took most items, Asriel was the reason they stuck around.
"... we might need it later, you're right."
"Alright Frisk, don't eat this one." Chara said.
"Jokes on you, I live there."
"Are we leaving or not?" Asriel asked exasperated.
"We absolutely are, now scoot." Frisk nudged past them and pushed open the door, they were met with a rickety staircase that followed down into more stone constructs.
"You two are horrible." She mumbled.
They made their way down the steps and across a somehow even more rickety bridge, before they made it to an archway that led into a dilapidated room with a tree growing in it.
"Boss room ahead." Frisk spoke with certainty.
"Indeed." Chara began to charge a spell in its left hand.
As they entered the room, something jumped down from the tree.
A many limbed creature roared, dozens of human body parts stuck onto it, its face that of a man impossibly slack jawed. It carried a golden sword and greatshield.
The name 'Grafted Scion' filled their minds as it reared back on its hind limbs and began to run towards them.
Chara threw their arm back and tossed a [Dark Fire Orb], directly hitting its face.
The Scion writhed as the hex overtook its body, thrashing madly on the ground in an attempt to put itself out. But it was pointless, as it had already been dealt a fatal blow.
The thing turned to dust, and the battle was over.
"I… think I now understand what Polaris meant by saying we didn't need anything to help us fight." Chara said, a little bewildered at the underperforming Boss.
"Sweet Guiding Star, it died immediately! What are our levels anyway?" Frisk asked Asriel.
"I don't know, actually. Chara, Do you know?"
"No idea, Polaris just told me we were definitely strong enough to handle whatever this place has to throw at us."
They continued on, passing through a smaller door at the other side of the arena, where on a cliffside, they found a few nearly see-through butterflies that Frisk immediately began grabbing out of the air "because they look rare".
As they went to grab the final butterfly, the stone beneath them gave out, and all three of them began to plummet.
No one screamed because they knew exactly what was coming next, as the familiar feeling of death washed over them.
