Here the damage seemed the worst. In places, the walls were red and raw, almost as if they were bleeding. I continued down and reached a room with a very interesting painting.
It was Stormhill, before Stormveil Castle was ever built. The world looked so much wilder and more vibrant back then. The colors were deep blacks and rich greens, not the washed-out greys and pale greens of current Limgrave. The place that would once become the Chapel of Anticipation was part of the mainland, separated by a waterfall rather than a chasm. There's no trace of the black stone pillars that underlay the entire land. The Stormfoot Catacombs are open, with no door. And, while something was gleaming gold, it sure didn't look like the Erdtree.
Yet the Divine Tower and bridge were already there, and already so ancient the bridge had started to crumble. Curious.
After examining the painting as much as I could, I unlocked the door back to the Site of Grace and continued downward.
This was by far the oldest and most neglected portion of the castle. It's unlikely it would get any light except at high noon. The only creatures down here were vermin. Giant bats and rats, the scavengers and dwellers in the dark.
Now that I was down here, it became clear that this was a dumping ground for the castle above. Specifically, it seemed that all the statues removed in the various ideological purges were just shoved into the abyss.
There's the expected statues of women holding ewers or missing their hands, but there's a few statues that stand out to me. They're almost completely buried, so possibly the oldest statues ever dumped down here, and depict hooded figures either holding a book or holding a dagger. Unfortunately, I don't have any context to interpret them. Maybe I'll find some more later.
A scarab almost misses my notice, were it not for the sound they make. I track it down and it's carrying an unusual Sorcery called Rancorcall.
I say it's unusual because using it would require almost as much faith as intellect. That unnerved me a little. Sorcery is supposed to be the result of consistent, observable phenomenon. Concrete things that may be more difficult to observe and comprehend, but are ultimately just as real as a sword. To apply your intellect to the task of how best to surrender it to a higher power seemed perverse to me.
The voice said:
Sorcery of the servants of Death. Summons vengeful spirits that chase down foes. Once though lost, this ancient death hex was rediscovered by the necromancer Garris.
Going on my theory that scarabs only appear where abilities like ashes of war, sorceries, or incantations are used, and somehow they gather up some invisible residue to make their spheres, I would suspect that Garris must've been here at some point. Perhaps this is where he even developed his techniques? I doubt he's still here.
To draw a connection, I found the Rancor Pot recipe in the Tombsward Catacombs. It has a similar effect of summoning vengeful spirits, though different methods. Am I to assume Garris might also have been there? That might explain how Deathroot got inside...
Now I came to a cliff overlooking a root-choked and damp chamber below. Bones littered the floor. Some were stacked up in drifts, but there were also complete skeletons resting in what looked like old, rotted canoes. Perhaps a vestige of some water burial in the past? At one time, they might have sent the dead over the waterfall that once ran through here. Once that dried up, they instead just buried the dead in their canoes.
But what interested me most was the grand baldachin, now rotted and torn, draped across the chamber beyond. Something important must be there.
Before I could approach, a terrible creature burst out of the ground. I'd seen its ilk once before, in the Fringefolk Hero's Grave. An Ulcerated Tree Spirit, a great writhing snake-root, like a serpentine mandrake. Even as I knew its movements, it was still so erratic that it was hard to predict at times. As it slammed me against the walls, I knew now where the drifts of bones had come from.
Once I had slain the beast. I was free to recover its treasures, both here and in the chamber beyond. Much like the last, it dropped a Golden Seed.
As for the chamber... I can scarcely describe it. I'll try to sketch it but I don't think I can do justice to the sheer presence of this thing. Despite looking like a stone carving, I knew on an instinctual level that it was alive.
It was a face, or approximation thereof. Yet it could not have been more inhuman. It at once looked floral, fungal, and animal. The lower half of the face was like an oyster mushroom, and from there emerged thick tendrils like thorny vines. The upper half had a disturbingly human nose but two oddly angled eyes, or at least eye sockets. The lids themselves were empty.
The whole thing burst through the stone wall on a thick body like a salamander, though if it had arms, they had not emerged from the wall. And its was very clearly a violent entry, with rubble piled up around it. Nearby, there was a bloodstain, and a corpse holding an item in its hands.
Oh hell. The bloodstain was Rogier. If he can't see Grace anymore, then can he even come back? Is he just dead for real now? I couldn't even see what got him but it looked bad. It lifted him up and seemed to impale him from multiple angles. I hope he's okay. I actually kinda like the guy. It was rare to talk to someone both intellectual and down to earth like that.
The corpse had a... Prince of Death's Pustule?!
A fetid pustule taken from facial flesh. It is said that this pustule came from the visage of the Prince of Death, he who used to be called Godwyn. As First Dead of the demigods, it's said he's buried deep under the capital, at the Erdtree's roots.
It is said, it is said, it is said. I hate it when the Voice uses weasel words. Who says?
If Godwyn was the first to die, then it is his death that created the Deathroot. Deathroot sprouts similar faces to the one on this pustule. The same milky white eyes, the same thorny tendrils... There was a couple things that puzzled me. I noted fish fins on the Deathroot growing in various catacombs and Summonwater Village. Despite its aquatic appearance, this face held no trace of such details, resembling an amphibian more than a fish. Second, while the Deathroot and Pustule share the milky white eyes, this visage does not. Instead, its sockets are empty.
Third, if we take the voice at face value and say that Godwyn actually is buried under the capital... why did this face burst out of the southeast wall? The capital is to the northeast. I can buy the Greattree roots spreading throughout the Lands Between, but I'd still expect such a creature to burrow through from the correct direction. The only things off that direction are the Stormfoot Catacombs and the Fringefolk Hero's Grave. And since the painting confirms that at least one of those was here before the castle, I find myself doubting if this is even Godwyn at all, or some other, forgotten Prince of Death.
I'll review my notes about those places and see if I can gain any insight, but arbitrary skepticism doesn't do any good. I have to assume that this is Godwyn, or at least an aspect of him, until strong evidence presents itself otherwise.
Still, to quote the only cleric I ever got on with, "Doubting is what I do."
With my investigation concluded, the only way to go was up. Thankfully there was a conveniently placed, if alarmingly tall, rope ladder. I began what was sure to be a very long ascent.
I had at last gotten answers on the rot infecting Stormveil, but they only left me with more questions.
Who are the dagger and book statues? Why were they purged?
If Godfrey built the earliest Stormveil, who built the tower and bridge?
Is that face Godwyn? If not, who could it possibly be?
If it is Godwyn, why would it come from the wrong direction?
Why does this face look so different from the other faces? Why is it missing its eyes?
Who is Garris? What was he doing beneath Stormveil?
So like considering how this land has been closed off for millennia, can we now start to accept that Deathroot and the Prince of Death faces aren't a Godwyn-only phenomenon?
These things don't look like Godwyn. Godwyn looks like them!
nerd alert but Godwyn’s body really is like a cancer or virus infecting the lands between. Cancer cells multiply indefinitely and unlike healthy cells, don’t carry out any functions. The cells in our bodies have specific functions like cleaning, fighting invaders, carrying materials, building etc. But cancers just don’t do that.
Godwyn’s body simply grows. It grows to the point that he has two of his disfigured faces in the Lands Between - one in Leyndell and the other all the way over in Stormveil castle. It doesn’t function, it doesn’t do anything, it just grows. Just like a cancer cell.
I could liken it to a virus too - infecting and killing other people through deathroot and deathblight. Most importantly, viruses are not alive, but they are also not nonliving. They exist somewhere between. Godwyn is not alive, but he is also not dead. He died in soul yet his body still lives, evident in the fact that it’s continuing to grow. Just like a virus.
