Chapter 5 - Kalé

AN:

FYI, Elden Ring has a lot of horror/gore elements and horrible stuff in general that happens in it. Just think of the jar stuff in the DLC. I won't get too graphic 'on screen' with anything in the story, but very unpleasant things happen in the world of Elden Ring, so be warned.

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A little over a week later they arrived at the Stormgate once again. They were let through and arrived at the Gatefront Ruins. A soldier once again escorted them to the tower at the center of the ruins that was used as a headquarters for the entire encampment.

Kalé dismounted and went to enter but stopped when he noticed John wasn't following. He turned around and looked at John with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm gonna stay out here and watch Rabbit." John said in response.

Kalé nodded back. He was not overly surprised by that. John had made his feelings on the subject of Kalé's dealings with Godrick's men clear. John wanted nothing to do with them.

Kalé entered the tower and went to Duran's office where he found the man pouring over parchments about camp supplies and such. As Kalé entered Duran shifted his attention to Kalé and nodded his head in greeting.

"Kalé. You just got back just in time. I will be leaving to join Torrin in the sortie tomorrow. You delivered the message?"

"Yes, Duran. I gave it directly to Knight Captain Filk. After he read them Sir Filk said he was taking them to Lord Godrick immediately. A few hours later a man came with word from Sir Filk that confirmation of my delivery of your message would be coming back with the next supply dispatch. However when I asked, he refused to pay me on your behalf."

Duran frowned.

"That is inconvenient and annoying. My men in Stormveil will need to be reprimanded. You know you have to wait until confirmation arrives before I give you your pay. That will most likely be a few weeks."

Kalé nodded.

"I know. John and I will not be waiting on it. We are just stopping here to inform you that the message had been delivered and to trade for some more supplies. I'll collect the payment next time I come through here. I assume you don't have any more work?"

"I do not."

Kalé nodded in acknowledgment.

Duran must have seen that Kalé was about to leave as he raised his hand to stop him.

"What about your friend, John? Why did he not come in here to meet me?"

"John is outside watching my donkey. He doesn't wish to become a messenger for you like I am. He told me he did not want to be involved in any shady business no matter how good the pay is."

Kalé shook his head ruefully.

John is a trustworthy man, and I thought this would be a good opportunity for him, but he is from a humble background. Meeting men as powerful as you and Sir Torrin and discussing the business of noble families of Limgrave has scared him off.

"If I had known that the messages concerned such important matters I would have waited longer before introducing him to you." The lies mixed with half-truths flowed smoothly from Kalé's lips from centuries of experience.

Duran frowned again.

Kalé could tell that Duran was thinking less of John for supposedly not having the courage to grasp the 'amazing' opportunity Duran had offered him. Kalé did not think less of John for his decision. He thought it was wise. His was attempting to do the same thing Kalé himself normally used outside the one exception of his dealings with Duran: taking refuge in obscurity.

As Kalé started to step out of the door again, he was stopped again as Duran spoke. His voice was dangerously neutral as he looked pointedly at Kalé from behind his desk.

"As long as he knows not to have loose lips. It would be a shame if he had the misfortune of being ambushed by a pack of demihumans on his travels and never seen again. The demihuman problem has gotten especially bad the past decade."

Kalé understood Duran's message.

"John will not be a problem." Kalé said.

With that, Kalé left Duran and went back outside the tower where he found John and Rabbit right where they had been when he left.

Kalé wasn't worried about Duran's warning. John may have been young, but his friend was not stupid or lacking in acuteness when needed.

The next few hours was spent with Kalé going to and fro in the camp trading to refill their supplies. John attentively watched the whole time trying to learn the proper prices and worth of things.

As they left the Gatefront Ruins on the road east, Kalé decided he had been vindicated in feeling that taking John with him was an excellent decision.

His friend may have been self taught when it came to the bow and spear, but he was capable enough as a hunter that John could at least provide for the two of them even if it slowed their pace slightly. The goods and runes saved on rations and the improved quality of their meal made the slightly slower travel worth it.

Kalé was feeling so good because of his profits that he was not even annoyed that he was gonna have to wait till they made their way back from their next destination to pick up his payment for his last delivery. Unlike when Kalé was by himself, with John along hunting and otherwise acquiring supplies for them as they traveled, time did not eat into his savings the same way it normally did. So waiting a few weeks or months to get paid was not particularly detrimental to his collection of runes.

As for what their next destination would be, John had seemed especially interested in Castle Morne when the topic had come up in conversation a few times before, so Kalé was going to make that their next target.

In recent centuries Kalé had only rarely left Limgrave for a journey into the Weeping Peninsula, but Kalé still knew the route well and there would be plenty of small stops they could make on the way.

As for why John wanted to go to the Weeping Peninsula and Castle Morne specifically... Kalé did not know. His friend was a puzzle that Kalé was enjoying slowly solving piece by piece.

John had as many or more secrets than Kalé himself despite Kalé being older than most, yet his friend clearly still had the energetic vigor that left most people after their first or second century. By Kalé's estimation, John seemed to only be in the third decade of his life just like John himself had claimed.

That was not something Kalé had believed at first due to his level of education. People in the Lands Between slowly educated themselves over time at a relaxed pace. John must have spent almost the entirety of his life buried in scrolls to learn all that he seemed to know.

At first Kalé had thought the foreigner he had discovered was a spy of some sort sent into the Lands Between for some scheme by an outside power. Such schemes never worked for any real amount of time as those outside the Lands Between were far weaker than those inside. Strength was the deciding factor in such matters, but it never seemed to stop the weaker powers outside the Lands Between from trying. So Kalé had kept an eye on him.

But as suspicious and odd as John was, the man had not acted like the couple of spies Kalé had seen. As time went on Kalé eventually had ruled that out as the most probable explanation for what was happening with John.

The man had stayed cooped up in the Church of Elleh as a hermit for five years, refusing to leave until he had figured out some obscure magic. Not exactly spy behavior. And there were far more secrets to John than just where he came from or how and why he had arrived at the Lands Between.

Until recently Kalé had suspected John was some sort of exile or fugitive from his homeland. Maybe a scholar or young noble who ran from his family for some reason, who had learned of the Lands Between from travelers' tales and came here. It was clear that John had possessed some knowledge of the Lands Between before Kalé had found him soon after he had arrived, but it was also clear he had never lived here.

John rarely outright lied to him; Kalé had been slowly realizing as what he had thought to be lies turned out not to be. Kalé realized his friend usually just refused to answer questions he did not want to answer.

For example Kalé had never believed John when John had claimed he didn't know or why he had arrived on an empty beach on the coast of Limgrave.

But with what the man had done on that night in the Church of Elleh... with him managing to copy a sacred ability that was handed down from the Greater Will itself through the Two Fingers...

Replicating a divine miracle in front of Kalé's eyes! A feat greater than any Kalé had ever seen before!

And it was not just that. Kalé had heard tales from those who had met demigods in the flesh, those like General Radahn or the Blade of Miquella herself. He had heard that just standing in their presence revealed to them that demigod was not just a title, that the reality of their divinity impressed itself on those around them.

When John had channeled whatever that rite of his was and that golden glow infused him, Kalé could feel something pressing on him. Something impossible to describe precisely but that showed him as greater than Kalé, more than a man, more definite than the world around him.

It had faded once John stopped, but for those faint few moments, Kalé knew he was in the presence of divinity itself. He could never forget the feeling. The presence of a demigod! Or maybe even something greater...

So Kalé was no longer ruling anything out about John.

Kalé had reevaluated many of his ideas of the man since that night, since John had recreated a divine power using his own hands.

John had proven that he was far, far more than he had appeared to be, and now Kalé actually believed his friend about not knowing how he had come to be in the Lands Between.

Clearly John was here by the will of the Greater Will itself. Even if John didn't realize it himself as he didn't seem to quite understand how fantastical what he achieved was, his friend's lack of self-confidence made him hesitate to embrace his role in the world.

It was like seeing the beginnings of Lord Godfrey as he just began learning how to use an axe, long before he became a storied warrior.

Kalé now thought just being near John went against Kalé's long practiced strategy of safety through obscurity. Kalé was certain that eventually as he gathered the strength of runes John would shed the over-humbleness that had been instilled in him and step into his own, no doubt attracting many troubles to him.

Assuming John wasn't killed while he was still insignificant and hadn't begun fulfilling his potential. An important part of keeping John alive would be his story of how he as a foreigner got here. Most didn't ask, but he would have to speak to John about making a story about how he arrived here.

While any untrue story would have holes, Kalé had found that most people just didn't believe that people lied as often and as much as people actually did, so John probably wouldn't be found out that way as long as the story was simple and hard to contradict.

And considering the potential that may be gained from staying by John's side...

Kalé dared to imagine an Elden Lord that wasn't of the abominable Golden Order; the Order who had condemned his own people in the distant past to a fate veiled in shadow, unknown to nearly anyone who still lived.

This sort of bold decision was usually the first step to a merchant's death, but Kalé was willing to shoulder that risk this time. The risk was worth the reward.

Honestly, this was almost certainly going to lead to his death, but Kalé was going to dare to dream this once. Dare to step out and bet he would not be hammered down.

He would do it for the same reason he involved himself with Duran and Godrick's men despite the danger, besides just getting a peak at the region's goings-on at a higher level.

He would do it to achieve the goal he had been pursuing for more than a millennia. To learn the truth of his roots, of his people.

What had happened to them, and to the Great Caravan, so long ago. Why they were as they were now, and the path they are heading to in the future.

To learn their-his-fate, past and future. And to learn the truth of just why his people were reviled.

Just the thought of it made the embers at the center of his eyes begin to burn feverishly. Kalé had to calm himself, lest his people's blight flare up.

He had been debating leaving Limgrave off and on for years already before any of this had happened. Kalé had searched for every burial crow here in Limgrave, in Liurnia, in every region he could find. Crows with pieces of knowledge that his people would leave for those that came later when they foresaw their own deaths. Scraps of knowledge they wished to share before meeting their ends.

Yet none of these had led him a step closer to the knowledge that he sought. That the Golden Order kept buried, secreted away, so that none may look upon or know of it.

If he really wanted to plumb the depths of the Golden Order for the deepest secrets of what really happened to his people, John was how he would achieve that. And if John delivered that to Kalé, he would have his undying loyalty.

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Over the next few days as they made their way east towards Murkwater Bridge.

On their way they made the occasional stop at places off the main path of the stone road at remote farms or small villages of just a couple dozen individuals. As they traveled Kalé noticed that John kept alert looking off the left side of the road towards the north.

It was similar to when John's paranoia about Godrick's patrols in the forest on their way towards the Stormgate had the man ready to jump at any moment, but it did not match exactly.

Rather than on guard for something, to Kalé it seemed John was looking for or waiting for something. What was it? Kalé had no idea, but this was just another piece of the puzzle that John was.

It appeared his friend did not find whatever it was he had been looking for because as they reached Murkwater Bridge John stopped looking. Instead his attention was taken up by the bridge itself. Knowing his friend would be interested in this sort of detail about the landscape, Kalé started to explain to him the significance of Murkwater Bridge.

The massive but shallow lake that sat in the center of Limgrave was called Lake Agheel after the dragon who prowled the lake. Lake Agheel was fed from the north by a river called the Murkwater River as well rainfall and numerous small freshwater streams.

In a strange display of an inverse of the usual order of nature, as Lake Agheel sat below sea level, the Murkwater River was actually a river that flowed from the ocean to the lake instead of from the lake to the ocean.

However the ocean water could only barely climb high enough to pass over the lips of the canyon and flow down to feed the Murkwater River during high tides during the spring when the tides are at their highest of the entire year. The rest of the year no water flowed down the Murkwater River into Lake Agheel except for rainwater and smaller streams.

This flow of ocean water had carved a large canyon from the ocean to Lake Agheel and the Murkwater Bridge spanned across the large gap between the canyon cliffs.

Kalé watched as John hungrily listened to whatKalé told him and then as he marveled at the bridge's construction.

The other bridges they had crossed were small bridges over small streams, mostly made of wood. Meanwhile the Murkwater Bridge was arguably the largest intact bridge in Limgrave with only the Bridge of Sacrifice that connected Limgrave to the Weeping Peninsula to the south rivaling it.

The Murkwater Bridge was wide enough for a handful of trolls to walk shoulder to shoulder and was made of stone.

In terms of how long the bridge was, unlike the bridge connecting Stormveil to the Limgrave's Divine Tower, the Murkwater Bridge wasn't a bridge that stretched across weeks worth of landscape. Instead it was only the distance of a handful of stone throws, the equivalent of a couple of minutes of walking.

After Kalé and John crossed the Murkwater Bridge and turned south, later that day they encountered a procession. They moved off the road in respect to let pass by.

The procession consisted of a pair of trolls that had been impaled by a chain hooked to a massive black carriage nearly the size of a swimming pool. The carriage did not have any doors and was boxy and decorated with elaborate engravings and robed figures praying.

The carriage was escorted by a detail of at least 10 warriors of Godrick's soldiers and a couple of mounted Kaiden Sellswords cavalrymen along with a small herd of wandering nobles mindlessly being led by them.

John leaned over and whispered to Kalé.

"What are they pulling? That carriage looks like the huge wagons at the Stormgate Ruins but black with a stone box built on top of it. And why are those trolls impaled like that?"

"That is a hearse with a great warrior entombed in the coffin within," Kalé whispered softly, "In the Lands Between the great heroes who fall in battle are toured across the lands for all to see and know their valor before they are given final burial rights of an Erdtree burial.

"The trolls are impaled because they are being punished. Trolls are considered a cowardly race for a reason. They have a history of running from battles, surrendering, or turning coat when the odds turn against them.

"When trolls are desert during a battle to save their own life, their punishment for the rest of time is to help pull the bodies of the bravest warriors and heroes who died and show those men's glory, and their shame, to the world. They are impaled so they don't run from their duty again.

"These hearse carriages tour the Lands Between with an honor guard to escort them. The wandering nobles are just easily corralled helpers to assist in fighting off greedy tarnished or other bandits looking to rob the heroes' graves for their equipment."

The look on John's face was something between pity, disgust, and fear as he watched the group pass by. Kalé saw John's eyes become glued to the trolls' guts.

"Why are they disemboweled like that? And why are there roots inside their chests?" John whispered.

Kalé shook his head.

"I do not know why trolls are like that. The roots, the stone those roots hold, or why they have been gutted, but all trolls are like that. It is said that the trolls betrayed the fire giants and sided with the Erdtree during the Golden Order's war against the giants. Maybe it has some relation to that? It is hard to know the truth as most trolls have gone somewhat insane by this point.

"I do know that If the stone in their chest is destroyed a troll will die. That is why the impaling is an eternal punishment. The chain's anchor pierces the stone and if removed would further damage it causing the troll to die."

John was dissatisfied with that, but Kalé had already told him everything he knew.

They waited there until the hearse and the honor guard were a distance away and then got back on the path and continued south.

Later that day they stopped at another small village situated near a stream. It was still the afternoon but Kalé was expecting to spend quite some time trading.

The village was composed of farmers, and it had a thicket of trees nearby. They set up a camp in the thicket and then Kalé began selling his wares. He'd had good success at trading in this village a few times.

Farmers were always looking for drink, wool and salt, with the ones who got an especially good harvest looking to get some iron for tools or horseshoes. Kalé didn't have iron this time though.

As Kalé was plying his wares in the middle of the little village surrounded by fields of crops and a copse of woods, John made conversation with the townsfolk. Most of the older folk were wary and kept an eye on John, but the younger ones had more curiosity than sense and approached John to talk.

It had been a good few hours with Kalé making some good trades and his friend enjoying his conversations with the farmers about what their lives were like when another farmer ran into the middle of the village. He was a young man that was clearly under twenty.

"Everyone come quickly! My brother's wife has had her baby! Come see! We'll be having stew! Even you, the merchant! Come!" The young man waved them in the direction he came and ran off to spread the word more, his voice ringing out through the village.

The townspeople near them, no doubt knowing who the young man had been talking about, started walking in the direction that the young man had waved. Their camp was already made, and Kalé saw that the sky had started to turn violet signalling time for him to pack things up anyways. So he and John gathered up his wares and followed the townspeople as they weren't one to turn down a free dinner. They'd go to their camp nearby afterwards.

When they arrived at a house at the outer edge of the village where the crowd had gathered, the crowd were chattering excitedly over the new child and offering of food.

A few minutes later Kalé saw the family exit the house and the crowd quieted down. He saw the young man who had ran through the town exit the house contritely following behind a fully grown man whose flushed face betrayed that he was upset.

The man's skin was rough and deeply tanned from being weathered by many years of hard labor. The other half dozen people of the household, a few men and women stood, on the porch around the man.

The man waved with both hands at the waiting crowd.

"Sorry everyone. The celebration's canceled. Please go back. My son was mistaken." The man announced, contrition in his voice.

The entire crowd stayed silent and confused for a few moments along with Kalé.

As Kalé looked at the grim faces on the rest of the family members standing beside the man he realized that something had happened with the child. Sympathy filled his chest for the family. It was always terrible when something happened to one's child. Stillbirths were heart wrenching.

The crowd caught on a few seconds after Kalé and the mood turned melancholy. The crowd dispersed with Kalé and John following them. As they left, Kalé could hear the older man berating the younger man.

"You damn bird brained fool! Why did you run off so early? Couldn't you have just waited-"

They walked out of earshot as Kalé and John left with the crowd. They circled back around to their forest camp in the nearby woods. As they hadn't eaten dinner yet, they started preparing some of their rations. There wasn't much conversation between them that dinner and as they ate Kalé saw that John looked somewhat troubled.

A few minutes after they finished eating and were cleaning up John asked him a question.

"What exactly was going on back there Kalé?"

"Many villages in the southern regions of the Lands Between have celebrations when a new child is born. It seems the young man of that family was overeager and invited everyone before the baby's wellbeing was confirmed. I suspect it was a stillbirth."

John still looked troubled.

"But... Is there any other reason the celebration could be called off? Birth defects? Deformities? That sort of thing."

Kalé could feel a grimace slip onto his face.

"I am glad you saved these questions until after dinner. To answer you, yes. They are rare, but they do sometimes happen. Children born missing bits or having extra ones, or the flesh being otherwise malformed. Oftentimes the children are either accepted as servants by the local lord as a form of charity, or the children quietly... disappear."

Disgust crawled across John's face at this answer.

"Is that it? Anything else about this sort of thing I should know?" John asked.

Kalé paused a few moments as he considered how to explain.

"I have already told you somewhat of how the Erdtree is at the center of the cycle of life and death? This is of some relation to that.

"The Erdtree gives the blessing of life to all, and some are more blessed than others. But some people are unfortunately born cursed in one way or another. And the mundane deformities we were talking of earlier are not curses. Who knows why they happen, but they are not the result of curses.

"There are a few different curses that people can commonly be born with.

"Some are born with the Omen curse. It is a malediction that makes horns grow from one's body and makes their body large and misshapen, but strong. Their horns, linked to the Crucible, are foul things and are excised immediately after birth. Often the child dies from this- "

"What's the Crucible?" John interjected, visibly struggling to recollect something.

"The Crucible is the primordial form of the Erdtree. Before Goddess Marika created the Erdtree, the Crucible controlled the cycle of life and death. If you want to know more than that, you have to ask a scholar.

"Returning to the Omen curse. If the child survives, for their entire life they will be plagued by a constant pain of the body and be haunted by nightmares of foul horned visages. This torment twists their minds over time usually making them uncontrollably violent or otherwise pushing them into all sorts of awful ends.

"Omen rarely endure the test of time because of this as the pain chips away at their mind. Like the tarnished, they are outside the proper cycle of life and death with the Erdtree, but for different reasons.

"Being born with the Omen curse is a matter of luck. Any child can be born an Omen, and those who are born Omen are made slaves, shunned, and used for battles and demanding labor due to their exceptionally strong and resilient bodies."

At the mention of their enslavement, Kalé saw John grow flush with anger, but he didn't say anything.

"Thankfully it is a very rare curse, and the worst of the curse can be cut out of an infant even if it is at great risk to the babe's health.

"On the other hand, a much more common curse one can be born with is to be misbegotten.

"Unlike the Omen who are mostly still human, Misbegotten are twisted chimeras made of multiple animals like birds, snakes, and other beasts joined together grotesquely with the form of a man. If they couldn't talk, most would think them horrific monsters rather than men who were born cursed.

"Like Omen, Misbegotten are enslaved upon birth if they aren't outright killed. Unlike the Omen, their curse cannot be mostly excised as there is far more beastly flesh and getting rid of it would cause near certain death or life as a severe cripple in constant pain. So their chimeric flesh is not exercised.

"As a result they are considered by most to be barely human, if even that, and are lower than Omen who are at least men, even if they are twisted and cursed. Misbegotten aren't even given names. They name each other.

"The way it is viewed, at least the Omen are born with strength. Misbegotten are often born weaker than men, their chimeric bodies a chaotic collection of random animal parts growing from a misshapen human body. Only rarely is a misbegotten born that is lucky enough to have the right parts in the right places to be stronger than a regular man.

"Having a child of yours born as a misbegotten is considered a punishment for contravening the Erdtree in some way. Usually for not involving the Erdtree and its sap in the creation of a child and instead just basely breeding like a beast. This is considered a form of forsaking the Erdtree for the Crucible even if many don't have a choice.

"Lords and the well-off can afford the Erdtree sap to give to a mother during pregnancy to guarantee that a child is not born a misbegotten, but the common folk often cannot afford it even if they somehow had the opportunity to get their hands on the rare sap in the first place.

"As a result of all this, about one in a hundred common children are born as Misbegotten."

John normally enjoyed when Kalé answered his questions, but his face this time was devoid of any joy.

"Why haven't I seen a single misbegotten yet then? We've seen at least a few hundred people since we left the Church of Elleh." John asked

Kalé didn't hesitate and answered John plainly.

"In Limgrave, those born as misbegotten are immediately transported to the Weeping Peninsula where they are put to work as servants or labor. As children they are used as servants, and if they grow strong enough to work as they age they are sent to do hard labor. Other regions also have similar places where people dump misbegotten so they don't have to be seen, and they can be made use of."

Kalé was not surprised his friend did not like this answer either. People being born cursed and the world's treatment of them was not a pleasant subject.

"I see."

That finished their discussion for the day. A short time later they laid down their bedrolls and went to sleep.

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It was the middle of the night when Kalé was woken by a strange noise. Or rather, a lack of noise. He had grown used to John's snoring in the over a month they had traveled together, yet he did not hear any upon awakening.

Looking over at where John had laid down, all he saw was an empty bedroll.

Kalé was groggy and had trouble seeing details in the dark of the night, but the moonlight was bright enough that night he could walk around the forest at night well enough.

Wondering what John had gotten up to, Kalé listened to see if he could hear anything to get a clue of where John could have gone, and he found he could.

Carefully walking through the woods, he followed the faint noise.

The noises led to a small clearing in the forest. The lack of trees shadowing the clearing allowed the strong moonlight to shine down and illuminate the clearing more clearly.

Squinting, Kalé could barely make out John on his hands and knees on the ground. He had his gloves off and was using his hands and some stones to dig a hole in the earth.

Kalé had no idea what was going on here.

"What madness has possessed you John?"

Without looking up at Kalé, John pointed at a dark mass next to him that Kalé could not quite make out in the dark.

"I couldn't fall asleep. I couldn't stop thinking about what you said earlier. About what I heard them say as we were leaving. I'm not sure if you heard it.

"It was stuck in my head going over and over again. Then I heard something far away in the woods. People talking. So I went to check." John

If Kalé had not been completely sure John was sane, Kalé would have thought he had gone crazy with what he was saying and doing. Could whatever this was not wait until morning?

"I can see pretty good in the dark, so I was fairly quick, but whoever it was left before I got there. I almost turned around."

Kalé's eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, and they revealed a stomach churning sight.

The dark mass was a blood soaked leather bag. From where he stood, Kalé could just barely peek inside to see small mangled limbs. The particulars were no longer recognizable but Kalé spotted a twisted piece of flesh that once had been a small featherless wing.

"But then I smelled blood. I found him like that."

As John kept digging, Kalé now saw his hands were slick with blood from where he had carried the bad slick with it.

Kalé was old enough to have seen similar things many times. As grim and tragic as it was, Kalé was not especially affected. But Kalé knew for one as young as John, this could very well have been the first time he had seen such a sight, and Kalé still remembered emptying his stomach the first time he had found something like this.

Kalé knew there were no words that would help in this kind of situation, so he remained, keeping a silent vigil as John dug a shallow grave and placed the corpse-filled bag in it. He filled the hole, and they worked together to push a couple of rotting logs over top of it.

"Hopefully no animals dig it up," John said. "I'm going to the stream to wash my hands. I'll be back at camp after that."

Kalé went back to their camp and waited, rebuilding their small campfire. When John returned, his hands were clean and his demeanor was stone; Kalé could not read what was going on with him.

"Why?" John asked neutrally, "Why would they do that to their own child?"

Kalé mentally sighed but answered.

"Any number of reasons. Shame, disgust, money, religious fervor.

"To be cursed with the birth of a misbegotten, it shows that one does not have the favor of the Erdtree. A shameful thing. Most are deeply repulsed by the physical appearance of the Misbegotten and also what they represent: a living heresy against the Erdtree. Such children hurt the standing of a family and may see them shunned by the rest of the village.

"I know in Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula the family who birthed them are often levied a tax to both punish them for their transgression against the Erdtree as well as to help pay for the expenses such as food to keep the misbegotten alive to work."

John nodded his head slowly a few times but did not ask anything further. He thought silently for a few minutes, his demeanor still stone, before he laid in his bedroll and went to sleep.

Kalé stayed up for a few minutes to make sure John actually fell asleep. Once he heard his friends familiar snoring he went to bed himself.

The next morning they left early, avoiding the village entirely. Kalé carefully watched John, but his friend seemed to be back to normal after he woke up and acted as if nothing had happened the previous night.

If Kalé had not seen it with his eyes, he would not have even known something had happened with how unaffected John seemed to be just the next day.

Definitely not a normal reaction, but also not one Kalé had not seen before. It was just not usually in people so young. In his experience, typically people had to be hardened from witnessing a few tragedies before they were so controlled with themselves, and many never could become so.

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Thankfully as they made their way south and stopped and traded with more villages over the next few weeks no more such incidents occurred; their journey was relaxed, uneventful, and most importantly profitable.

As they approached the southern tip of Limgrave the land narrowed and hills rose on either rose. They met patrols of Godrick's soldiers as well as the occasional group of Kaiden mercenaries that Godrick kept in his employ as they crossed Limgrave, but besides the occasional inspection or general inconveniencing of themselves by the soldiers, nothing came of that either.

Finally they arrived at the place where Limgrave met the Weeping Peninsula: the Bridge of Sacrifice.

A deep but narrow channel of ocean water cut the earth of the Weeping Peninsula away from the earth of the Limgrave. The Bridge of Sacrifice spanned the gap to connect the two separated land masses.

The Bridge itself was made of stone and had two pairs of towers for a total of four of them. One pair on the Limgrave side, and one pair on the Peninsula side of the bridge. Kalé knew it had a significant garrison of at least a hundred men during peace times though Kalé had seen it heavily increase when Godrick was involved in skirmishes with other powers.

Like most forts in the Lands Between there was ample supply of temporary wooden fortifications set aside at the ready for if they ever needed to be used.

As they came upon the bridge they saw the first of their fellow travelers of the lands since he had left that church with John.

There was a line of wagons and carts pulled by horses as lone merchants and small caravans of merchants waited for their turns to cross the bridge. Alongside them were other travelers like the odd farmer or artisan or pilgrim traveling for their own reasons.

Since this was the only spot in all of Limgrave to cross over to the Weeping Peninsula, a singular spot that connected two regions of the Lands Between together, all the traffic was concentrated here. Kalé knew that other spots along the coast were used to smuggle people or things, but unless someone was doing something shady it was easier and safer to just come through the Bridge of Sacrifice.

Because of this mass of traffic the Bridge of Sacrifice was actually one of the busiest places in the entirety of the Lands Between.

Kalé and John were forced to wait a few hours in line as those ahead of them were slowly let through. Once it was their turn after a cursory inspection they payed a small toll and were let through.

They made their way across and Kalé watched with hidden amusement at John marveling at the large stone bridge hundreds of times older than he was.

This was his fourth time seeing John like this, but it was always funny to see his normally-unflappable friend gawking like an ignorant farmer. Even as others around them looked at John and turned their nose up at his 'ignorant' behavior, his friend did not care one bit and kept acting as he wanted.

Once they made it to the other side of the bridge a footman gave them a warning.

"Beware of the forest to the west. In recent years a mob of demihumans has been infesting the woods and the lord's men have yet to be able to hunt down their queen and root them out."

Kalé nodded in acknowledgement and they made their way down the main road that would bring them to Castle Morne.

As they made their way through the land the coming week the Weeping Peninsula showed why it had an apt name. Nearly every third day, it would rain. Sometimes a light drizzle and other times heavy enough to give his friend a tough time with heavily waterlogged clothing. Sometimes a week would pass with no rain and then the next two weeks it would rain every day.

The rain made the humidity and heat a terrible thing to behold the land almost seeking to suffocate people. But the abundant rain made the vegetation all around them a vibrant green and thick enough a man would nearly need a weapon to cleave through it.

The crops of the farmsteads they passed in the Weeping Peninsula were nearly a half again larger and more bountiful than the crops on similar homesteads they had passed by in Limgrave. This helped make up for the fact there were almost half as many of them as land suitable for crops were less common here than in Limgrave.

On their journey south there was the occasional fort or estate placed on strategic areas like hills. Kalé knew these forts and estates were the lands of the local noble families. Many of the towns, villages, and farms they passed were situated around these lords' lands unlike in Limgrave where things were less centrally focused around the land of nobles.

Some of the farms had people working them and others had misbegotten. Kalé had watched John when they first came across these misbegotten, but despite his displeasure, he did not do more than frown when he saw them. Even then, Kalé saw his friend's skin grow thicker the more of them he saw.

Eventually they passed under an underpass made from a large ruined fragment of Farum Azula that had fallen down in between two cliff-faces on either side of the valley they were going into. The fragment had wedged itself to make a bridge between the two cliffs and made the valley entrance into an underpass.

On the other side of the underpass was a large valley that rose into gentle rolling hills. It was somewhat similar to the Stormhill region in Limgrave except the hills here were much less steep and the weather was rainy rather than windy.

A week into following the main road up through the rolling hills they finally approached the ridge of the rolling hills.

At the apex they could see ramparts and a gatehouse situated between two towers. Unlike the more modest and humble forts that were the homes of the local minor nobility, these fortifications were the same incredible size and scale as that of the Stormgate or Stormveil.

The towers rose above the nearby eastern cliff-face of the massive plateau that spanned the northeastern quarter of the Weeping Peninsula. The ramparts continued far westwards interspersed with more towers until it disappeared over the horizon.

Kalé knew they stretched to the ocean, cutting the southern panhandle of the Weeping Peninsula off from the rest of the continent.

Standing completely still beside one of the towers and standing at a similar height to the towers was a massive metal golem. It had the appearance of a knight's armor and held a bow in its hand with a quiver of giant arrows on its back. The only sign of life in the utter still automata was the fiery glow that peaked through the joints in its armor that allowed it to move.

There was a small garrison of men at the gatehouse and on the ramparts, but they weren't acting as guards and left him and John unbothered as they headed through.

On the other side were more rolling hills dotted with small settlements, chunks of masonry that had fallen from Farum Azula, and small forests except the hills went downhill on this side.

Days later the hills flattened out into a large area of flat land. Here there were large swaths of farmlands rather than the more modest plots on the hilly area they had been going through before. This area was the bread basket of Godrick's lands according to what Kalé knew, and as they neared closer to the land where Castle Morne stood the farms became more frequent.

As they got closer to their destination, Kalé noticed that another puzzle about John presented itself.

A tension built in the air around John as they got closer. It was similar to when his friend became agitated over a month ago when they had first left the Church of Elleh and he was jumping at shadows in the forest. But rather than looking around for something that might attack him, it seemed more like he was expecting something to happen and the anticipation was building within.

Kalé would have thought it was excitement about finally seeing Castle Morne, but the aura his friend gave off was right for that. Kalé thought that like last time in the forest and on their approach towards Murkwater Bridge, whatever it was it would reveal or resolve itself with time.

And finally after nearly two months of traveling east and then south, the capital of the Weeping Peninsula finally came within their sight.

Castle Morne proper was situated at the southern tip of the Weeping Peninsula. It sat on top of and was integrated into a massive stone hill. It was surrounded on three sides by absolutely massive nearly sheer cliffs that plunged nearly two or three furlongs. The fourth side faced north towards the only land around the castle and was where the entrance was located.

In the same vein as the other major fortifications in the Lands Between it was gigantic in size and scale. The stone keep itself towered far above its surroundings.

Unlike Stormveil, Castle Morne didn't have a series of concentric circles of ramparts around the keep with no walls to speak of at all outside the keep itself, and instead of being spread out horizontally like Stormveil, Castle Morne was built far more vertically. Despite this it was still a large castle horizontally though not nearly as much as what Kalé had seen of Stormveil from a distance.

The flat land in front of the castle to its north was filled with a bustling castle town filled with smaller, more humble buildings made of stone and wood and had thatched roofs. Townsfolk went about their business avoiding the occasional Misbegotten doing a task or hauling something from place to place.

Unlike the small rural villages and military fortifications they had been allowed entrance to on their journey so far, Kalé knew from experience that most large civilian settlements required people to relinquish any battlefield arms to the town guard for their stay in the town. This was the first time Kalé had brought John somewhere they had encountered this rule so far because Kalé avoided large civilian towns. The only heavily populated places they had visited before now were military fortifications.

But here if they were discovered to have weapons in the town the local guard would punish them for breaking the law. Kalé had nothing they would care about, but he did not wish to be put into stocks or worse. So as they approached the town Kalé took John to a guard outpost just outside the town to give up his bow and spear. The weapons were labeled and John was given a pair of wooden coins with the label numbers.

When they entered the town John looked around taking in everything he was seeing in. As impressive as all this no doubt was to his friend, Kalé knew that neither the town nor the keep was the most impressive thing about Morne. But he would let John discover that on his own. It would not take long at all.

As for himself, Kalé had wares to peddle to the few who would choose to do business with a nomadic merchant. Those who lived in large towns and cities were able to be much pickier about who they did business with and that sort of thing than the impoverished farmers who lived spread out across the lands.

Kalé would be occupying himself with trading while they were in Morne, and John no doubt wanted to explore the town to see the sights and whatever else his friend had in store for why he finished to come here.

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