So I've been getting through Elden Ring recently, and I've gotten decently through the Haligtree & Elphael. Both are pretty fun; despite the many, many gravity related deaths in the first chunk of the Haligtree, I do appreciate the mix up it provides and how it acts as the final challenge of the platforming ER asks of you. (In the base game at least, I haven't touched the dlc really yet)
I do also appreciate getting to see the Funky Lil Guys™ that are the Oracle Envoys. I say this with joy and whimsy in my heart: they should be friends with the Amana Priestesses from Dark Souls 2.
An observation I had while playing, though: narratively and even in enemy design (not necessarily boss design), Elphael is just Irithyll but gold. We have:
Elite Knight enemies with swords and scythes (Cleanrot Knights & Pontiff Knights), two greater enemy types of that are abominations; one of which is on a bridge (Rotten Erdtree Avatar & royal revenants as opposed to Sulyvahn's beasts and the Deep Accursed), Aldrich (Ulcerated Tree Spirit), two competing religions (Kindred of Rot and the Haligtree faithful compared to the Way of White and Aldrich's Faithful / the worship of the Deep), a dead city mourning a god-like figure (Gwyndolin and Miquella), a talisman / ring that hints that even after everything a family member is still beloved (Marika's Soreseal and the Ring of the Sun's Firstborn), an NPC that you kill if you follow their questline through and can be summoned to help with their final fight (Anri and Millicent), a sibling that is left waiting forever for an impossible reunion with a brother while sitting on a chair (Yorshka and Malenia), and enemies that have way too many limbs that stay in the water (the Kindred of Rot).
The only thing I can think that is missing is an equivalent to the Anor Londo Archery Club. Also instead of going up to Anor Londo to face the feels and horrors, you go down to the Haligtree 's roots to face the feels and the horrors. True Horror™, mind.
They also have the effect of making me really heccin sad, actually. Like, on a personal level. Maybe one day I'll try to break down how and why the games create that wonderful emotion, but I don't want this to get too off track for what is a light hearted, kinda jokey comparison.
... Yorshka and Malenia should be friends, actually—
"Thank you. With your help, I was able to live as my own person, if only in passing. But this is where things end. I pause to even tell you, but... I took out the needle myself. Tell whoever put you up to this. That if I am to flower into something other than myself, I would rather rot into nothingness as I am."
Follow up to the introduction of Elphael, my yandere OC.
Summary: your childhood, musical friend is madly in love with you, fantasizing about you in secret and planning to make you his. He is writing out his love into a song for you and can‘t resist an urge.
Warning: 18+ content, masturbation, explicit, general nsfw, toxic, obsessive behavior
-----
Elphael had been writing frantically in his dimly lit room. Suppressing the aching urge and vile thoughts took everything he had in your presence. Your face plastered his mind. The way your hands drifted over the strings in that rhythmic stride made him picture you stroking him to a beat you were concocting. It was endless – the need to please and have you.
He imagined your delicate fingers tracing the constellations inked across his skin, mapping out new worlds as you explored every curve and plane of his body. He saw you gazing up at him with adoration, your lips parted in a silent gasp as he pushed into you, claiming you as his own. He pictured cradling your face tenderly even as he ravaged your mouth, whispering words of devotion and possession against your flushed skin.
Elphael shook his head violently, willing the images away. These fantasies were a torment, always hovering at the edges of his mind, threatening to consume him. He gripped his quill tighter, focusing on the parchment before him. The music and words flowed from his pen, notes dancing across the page in intricate patterns. If he couldn't have you in reality, at least he could pour his longing into his gift.
He knew it was wrong.
You two went way back.
You called him your brother, whenever you introduced him. You thought of him as just that. Never did it cross your mind what his skin would taste like. Or how his learned, melodic tongue could be of use in other ways.
The scratching of his quill on the parchment created a soft buzz in the silent room. The sudden cracking of the wooden chair he was sitting on interrupted the quietude further. This seat was old anyway. Everything in this room was. Someone had thrown it away. Elphael had found it and made it his. They deserved a home, too.
Finishing the lyric with a swift jolt of the ink, the drow sat back and read what he had created.
You wouldn’t know it was about you, would you?
No, there were no obvious references. He had resisted the urge to describe you in detail, in fear of scaring you.
If he wanted to, he could create symphonies detailing every avenue, crevice and fauna of you.
The parchment crinkled as Elphael rolled it up carefully, securing it with frayed string. He tucked the scroll into his worn leather satchel, his fingers lingering on the rough texture. The bag held other treasures - scraps of your discarded lyrics, a guitar pick you'd forgotten, a piece of an old shirt you used to wear, even a strand of your hair he'd covertly collected. Little pieces of you he could keep close when you weren't with him.
Elphael's grey eyes flicked to the window. Twilight was falling, painting the sky in hues of lavender and indigo that mirrored his own skin. He thought about the way you looked at him today, when you had perfected that one section that was giving you trouble. Gods, the way your smile crinkled your eyes. He liked to believe you only smiled like that for him. When he caught that same grin on you talking to others… he wanted to rip their necks out. It belonged to him alone.
The drow sat down on his bed and held his head in his hands, the grey tresses cascading down his sides.
You would be kneeling in front of him, here. Your luscious lips open, longing for his length.
Elphael couldn’t resist. The burning in his body needed to be released, before he broke down your door in the neighboring room and took you right there. That couldn’t happen. Right?
He opened his trousers and released the throbbing cock from its constraints. It jerked impatiently out from his pants and stared at him in anticipation. It knew the nightly ritual.
Elphael closed his eyes, picturing you there with him. He grasped himself, sighing out brief relief at the sensation, and started moving up and down. In his mind, you straddled his lap, your skin flushed and glistening with a sheen of sweat. He imagined the weight of your body pressing against him, your fingers tracing the constellations inked across his chest.
His hand moved faster as he envisioned lowering you onto his aching length, feeling your warmth envelop him completely. He pictured your head thrown back in ecstasy, exposing the delicate curve of your throat. In his fantasy, he latched his mouth there, sucking and biting as he thrust up into you. The delicacy of you; he could tell you would be a feast for him, just by that addictive scent of yours.
Elphael's breathing grew ragged as the dream intensified. He imagined your nails raking down his back, leaving trails of fire in their wake. Your bodies moved together in perfect harmony, like the melodies you created. He could almost feel you there, the tight walls he had eagerly wanted to break into, for as long as he could remember. He wanted to hear your moans in his ear, begging for him to go harder, faster. The thought of you clenching around him, as he stood up and bounced you on top of him, desperate and eager to go deeper. Gravity would pull you down on him and he would thrust up hard, hitting the spot that made you scream.
Elphael gripped your hips tighter, fingers digging into soft flesh as he controlled your movements. He would press you against the nearby wall and crash up into you more, every pierce making your skin slap together loudly. He imagined wrapping one hand around your throat, pinning you further into the wall, applying just enough pressure to make your breath hitch. Your eyes would widen, pupils blown with a heady mixture of arousal and fear.
"Mine," he'd growl, his normally gentle voice towards you rough with passion. "Say it. Tell me you're mine."
He whispered the words to himself as his mind raced.
In his fantasy, you'd gasp out your submission, voice breathy and wretched. "Yours, Elph. Only yours."
The possessive thrill that coursed through him at those imagined words pushed Elphael closer to the edge. His hand moved frantically now, chasing release. In his mind, he flipped your positions, throwing you beneath him on the threadbare mattress. He pictured hooking your legs over his shoulders, driving into you madly and staring at your face as you scream into your orgasm. He would feel you clasp around him and your intoxicating water spill out onto hips. His one hand holding your throat and pushing you into the mattress, his other clutching your hip. The sound of your wetness squealing out with every pound, you were his. His. His!
With a strangled cry, Elphael reached his peak. His body shuddered as waves of pleasure waved over him, spilling hot and thick over his trembling hand. For a blissful moment, he was lost in the imagined ecstasy of being one with you.
But as the haze of arousal faded, reality came crashing back. Elphael's eyes snapped open, taking in the dingy room around him. The fantasy dissolved, leaving him alone with the sticky evidence of his shame coating his fingers.
Disgust and self-loathing washed over him. You, who had shown him nothing but kindness and friendship. You, who saw him as family when no one else would. And here he was, twisting that pure connection into something sordid and selfish.
Elphael's stomach churned as he remembered you were sleeping behind the wall next to his bed. You had no idea what sickness coursed through him. How it took every inch of his soul to stay in his room and how filthy his imagination of you was.
Your idea of him was false. Debased, the drow took a worn cloth that lay on his bedside table and cleaned himself up.
He fell onto his scratchy pillow; he deserved nothing else.
Discomfort was what he was used to. Even within himself.
