You Are; However, Horseless.
The men shouted in awe at the appearance of the Great Rune above the felled Godrick the Grafted. The faint transparent yellow symbol of power looked quite like a biohazard warning, and ignited a burning orange and gold at my touch. I felt within it the presence of my divine forebear. As the Great Rune joined to me it gave me a heady buzz along with an influx of power, as if all my attributes received an automatic plus five. It felt like my whole being received forty free level ups.
Next came his bounty of lesser runes - twenty thousand of these infinitesimal fragments of the shattered Elden Ring - and a spectral effigy of the slain man which I crushed in my hand to generate a further twenty thousand runes and into my mind rushed the Remembrance of the Grafted. In the span of just a moment my mind's eye saw some of Godrick's most prominent memories along with his driving feelings of envy and ambition and a great hatred for the other Shardbearers.
He hated General Rahdan for his towering body and incredible might.
He Rykard for his blasphemy,
He hated Ranni for the murder of his glorious ancestor.
He hated Rennala for birthing those three.
He hated Morgott the Omen King that denied him his rightful home despite being a foul misshapen creature unfit to bask in the rays of gold.
He hated the blood crazed Mohg and all his accursed followers who hounded his depleted army.
He hated Miquella for his incredible talent and innate alure that made all adore him.
And most of all he hated Melania, Blade of Miquella, the woman with the worst case of crotch rot ever.
From the state of the world it is fairly apparent that the animosity runs quite high amongst the others as well.
Despite the Remembrance mostly being about longing for the capital and hating everyone, it did a fine job filling in the fuzzy spots of Garm's memories and expanding my knowledge of the lore of this world. It also conveniently let me know who I needed to go shake down to get my hands on more of these fabulous Great Runes which can come together to manipulate the natural laws of the land, even life and death bend under its power. For a guy with a bit of a god complex these things might become a bit of an obsession.
After bonding with Godrick's Great Rune I led my forces into the throne room and I stood atop my new massive chair.
"Friends, and you are my friends, I remember the wind on my face each day as I walked or road across the lands of my home. My family fief. Handed to us along with our patent of nobility inked by the hand of Lord Godrick himself, Elden Lord, for leal service in the war against the giants. A home and fief taken from me, like so many others who's nobility descended from Lord Godrick's hand, on spurious charges."
I clenched my fist before me, hand shaking in mimicked rage, "Banished, driven out of the Lands Between like a criminal and villain. Gone was the caressing wind of my home, replaced by the harsh and biting wind of the outskirts. Only by martial prowess was I still a knight. But we rose up from that indignity together. We took the shame they sought to heap upon us and turned it to armor. We forged the Order of the Banished Knights, warriors of a shared sigil undivided by borders. We gathered those in exile and returned as the world's premiere mercenary company. How they begged our service in the days of the Shattering, and in these broken days still."
I took off my helmet and looked at each of the assembled knights in turn.
"They say the war is over. Over? I say nothing is over! The war is only over when we say it is over! If a craven dog like Godrick dared to dream of some future victory, how can we brave men dream of anything less on this, the dawn of our glory?"
The fact that the sun peeked over the horizon and land upon me at this moment really sold it.
"So rise up with me brothers this day, as we rally what remains of this defeated army. For we shall climb, climb out of this pit of failure and we shall achieve the summit of triumph and of GLORY!"
"Lord Garm!" the Exiled Footman Lasky shouted as he pounded his gloved fist on his armored chest, "Lord Garm!"
Soon the others joined in, and the ears of those rising with the day filled with the cheers of the men of the night shift. Eventually the whole castle came to learn of the regime change, but none cared save Godrick's vile kinsman, one of his Grafted Scions. My knights and I made short work of the creature, giving us the run of the castle as both the Troll and the Lion Guardian remained positive to our presence.
I set the men to strip themselves and the castle of the rugged briars that threatened to overwhelm us as well as to repair, renew, and polish their equipment. In time we would do away with all signs of complacency and defeatism, but first I had to send out letters to all the Stormveil Knights afield and afar, introducing myself and letting them know that their longtime leader, Godrick, had grafted some bad meat and caught the runs, shitting himself to death. These men, his most loyal retainers who knew him the longest and best - to a man - believed every word I wrote about him. After all, what is an ignoble end after a life of failure, shame, and disappointment? Expected.
I ordered all the men a field to return to Stormveil and Castle Morne, the two strongholds we control currently in Limgrave and the small Weeping Peninsula were they would focus on setting those strongholds to rights. Godrick had them all hunting down the rare Tarnished for grafting materials and punishing the populace for any real or perceived slights to both himself and to the Golden Order.
Crucifiction would certainly be dropping in the cause of death rankings with me in charge.
While my men got to work putting my new and frankly fucked up castle back together I melted down Godrick's Great Axe and used it to gild my armor, shield, and the hilt of my sword. I welded his crown to my helmet, washed and mended his cloak, and fixed a bunch of feathers to that cloak to maximize my swag. Funny enough the feather cloak actually increased the power of my leaping attacks.
Functional drip. My kind of world.
This paired up lovely with some neat little talismans we had lying around the castle, one of which also boosted my leaping attacks, another that empowered my big return attacks after blocking a strike, and the final which provided a nice boost to my defense against lightning, both natural and magical.
Swagged out and rocking this uber elite knight turned lord role play, i went to request my horse be outfitted when I remembered something, something most foul. I am in fact… horseless. All the Banished Knights are horseless.
Fortunately Godrick had kindly mapped out all the hotspots on the map south of the Keep, the lands of Limgrave, and at a place known as the Church of the Fallen Lurked a Tree Sentinel. Basically the pinnacle of knighthood in the lands between, the Tree Sentinels lived to defend the Erdtree, owing fealty only to that giant golden tree. The holy order donned golden plate armor decorated with images of their wooden lord and road upon incredible steeds dressed to match.
Obviously I just needed a method to get there without hoofing it like a pleb. In a moment of inspiration I crafted a harness and stirrups with some materials Lasky gathered for me and the pair of us tracked down one of the more simple minded Banished Knights.
"Sir Stanly, today is your lucky day!" I shouted startling the man as he patrolled the battlements.
"Ah, Lord Garm." the man regained his composure, "How might I be of service?"
"Lasky, aid Sir Stanly with his new harness." I commanded and the red garbed footman approached the much larger Banished Night with my genius invention.
"Sir Stanly, if you would be so kind..." Lasky indicated for the man to kneel so he could work the harness over his ten foot tall frame.
After only a minute Sir Stanly stood back up and raised his helmet visor (revealing a rather young and pale face) to look at the stirrups now hanging off his hips.
"Are those... those look like a liability in combat, my lord." Sir Stanly commented.
"Worry not Stanly, for in combat I assure you, I shall defend you." I told the man as I clapped a gold armored hand on his pauldron, "For you, Sir Stanly, shall be joining us on a quest of great importance in a role of great importance."
"What role is that, my lord?" Stanly asked with a look of great hope and honor upon his youthful face.
"On this great quest, you shall be my noble steed!" I laughed in great joy as my words snuffed the fires of wonder in the giant lad.
"Sire... I am a strong man, but you are... of quite stately stature... and are very thickly muscled... wearing double thick armor and fine arms. Plus our packs and suck... I am ashamed to admit, my lord, I do not think I am capable of upholding your faith in me." Sir Stanly frown as he wonderfully worded his refusal.
Unfortunately, I just grinned wider at his statement, "Not to worry, young man. For I, your lord, have discovered the secret of turning runes to strength and have many runes to spare. We shall dump them into raising your Endurance."
Sir Stanly gaped in both awe and horror at my announcement so I continued, "Raising this attribute shall increase your carrying capacity and your endurance. It will also provide you with great robustness. Truly you shall be the envy of all."
"But-but-but, Sire, a steed... For truth?" he stammered.
"Yes." I smiled while maintaining a terrifying amount of eye contact with the boy, "I can see that you balk at my command, but this I assure you. An equine reputation shall serve you well amongst the ladies, and no man shall be able to compete with you for affection. If fact, you may even have to defend thyself from the aggressive affections of womenfolk when they hear of your legend."
"I... don't understand." Sir Stanly slumped his head and shoulders in defeat, "But I shall not disappoint."
"That's the spirit!" I yelled as I put my hand upon his breastplate and used many runes to upgrade the lad's Endurance.
That done I leapt into the stirrups and stood tall and proud, armored arms crossed over armored chest.
"Yah, Sir Stanley, ride south! Ride to glory, and to the day's end!" I roared atop my noble steed.
Sir Stanley groaned, but began to run, and so I set off south with my faithful companion slash manservant Lasky following behind to see a man about a horse.
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And thus Sir Stanley learned why a true knight must never skip leg day.
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