Chapter 6: The Church of Elleh Sanctuary
Gara limped into the Church of Elleh as midnight painted the world in shades of exhaustion and regret. Phantom burns crawled across skin that showed no scars, muscle memory of dragon fire that had never actually touched him but felt real enough to make him flinch at shadows. Seventy deaths had taught him many things, but the most important lesson was this: the pain always lingered longer than the wounds.
Kale's fire burned warm and welcoming in the church's ruins, casting dancing shadows that made the broken walls seem almost whole again. The merchant looked up from his instrument as Gara approached—not with surprise, but with the weary recognition of someone who'd seen too many warriors return from battles they shouldn't have survived.
"You fought the dragon," Kale said. Not a question. The smell of smoke and scales and something deeper—the electric ozone scent of magic pushed beyond safe limits—clung to Gara like a second skin.
Gara's laugh sounded like breaking glass. "Fought it. Died to it. Killed it. Absorbed it. Not necessarily in that order."
He collapsed beside the fire, his legs giving out with the boneless exhaustion of someone who'd been running on adrenaline and stubbornness for hours. The warmth felt alien against his skin, too gentle after the brutal education Agheel had provided.
Without a word, Kale ladled stew into a wooden bowl and passed it over. The gesture cost runes—Gara could see the golden exchange, the way value flowed between them like visible current. But the merchant waved away his fumbling attempt at payment.
"Some things shouldn't be transacted," Kale said simply. "Kindness among them."
They sat in comfortable silence while Gara forced food down a throat that still remembered the taste of dragon fire. The stew was simple fare—vegetables, meat that might have been rabbit, herbs that grew wild in Limgrave's golden fields. But it tasted like humanity, like normal human concerns in a world that seemed designed to erase such simple pleasures.
"I've seen Tarnished go hollow from less than you've endured," Kale said eventually, his voice carrying the weight of too many farewells to warriors who'd started strong and ended empty. "What drives you forward when retreat would be wisdom?"
The question hit deeper than dragon claws. Gara stared into the fire while his mind wrestled with answers that were simultaneously true and impossible to voice.
I'm from another world playing a game that became real. I die and come back because video game logic overwrote physics. I keep fighting because I know how this story is supposed to end.
All true. All insane. All guaranteed to get him killed or locked away as a madman.
"Because I remember everyone I fail," he said finally, offering truth wrapped in careful lies. "Every person who dies because I wasn't strong enough, fast enough, smart enough to save them. I can't stop trying when I know exactly what happens if I give up."
Kale's weathered face softened with something that might have been understanding. "That's not strength, friend. That's burden. The kind that breaks men if they carry it alone too long."
"Then I guess I'd better get stronger."
"Or learn to share the load."
The words hung between them like an offer Gara didn't know how to accept. He'd been alone for so long—first in his corporate cubicle, then in this impossible world—that the concept of genuine partnership felt foreign. People were allies until they died, resources until they were expended, variables in equations he was constantly solving.
But Kale's kindness was real. The merchant's concern cut through cynicism like a sword through paper, reminding Gara of something he'd almost forgotten: the simple human connection that made suffering worthwhile.
"Thank you," he said, meaning it more than he'd meant anything in recent memory.
A sound like silver bells interrupted the moment—footsteps on stone that carried music in their rhythm. Both men turned toward the church entrance, where a figure in blue robes approached through shadows that seemed to bend around her like living things.
"Good evening, travelers," the woman said, her voice carrying accents that belonged to no earthly region. "I hope I'm not intruding on your rest."
Gara's genre-savviness activated every alarm he possessed. Mysterious woman. Midnight appearance. Blue robes that somehow managed to be both modest and alluring. Wrong name on the tip of his tongue—Renna instead of Ranni, the kind of alias that fooled exactly no one who'd played through Elden Ring's questlines.
Ranni the Witch. Probably the most important NPC in the entire game, disguised as a helpful wanderer. Act casual. Don't let her know you know who she is.
"Not intruding at all," he said, his voice only slightly higher than normal. "Just... warming ourselves by the fire. As travelers do. Normally."
One of Renna's—Ranni's—eyebrows rose slightly, and Gara realized he was already failing the 'act casual' portion of the evening's festivities.
"You're injured," she observed, studying him with eyes that seemed to see more than they should. "But not wounded. Curious. You carry the weight of many deaths but show no scars."
Shit. She can see it. Of course she can see it. She's a demigod with cosmic magic powers.
"Family training," he said quickly. "We... meditate on failure. Learn from defeat without carrying physical reminders."
It wasn't technically a lie. His deaths were definitely educational, and he'd certainly meditated on failure—usually while respawning and cursing his tactical decisions.
Renna smiled, and the expression transformed her face from merely beautiful to devastatingly knowing. "How fascinating. Your family must have been quite accomplished in the arts of... perseverance."
She reached into her robes and withdrew an object that made Gara's heart skip—a brass bell, simple in design but humming with power that made his teeth ache. The Spirit Calling Bell. The key to summoning allies from beyond death.
"I offer this to you," she said, extending the bell toward him. "For one who can see what others cannot."
The words were loaded with meaning that made his skin crawl with anticipation. See what others cannot. His Stat Sight. His ability to perceive the game's underlying mathematics. She knew. Somehow, impossibly, she knew.
"When you walk your own path despite fate's design," she continued, "you'll need allies who understand the burden of impossible choices."
Gara nearly choked on his own tongue. Walk your own path despite fate's design. The Age of Stars ending. Ranni's questline. The cosmic rebellion that would reshape reality itself.
She's recruiting me. Right now. The most important choice in the entire game, and I'm sitting here in cargo shorts trying not to hyperventilate.
"I... yes," he managed. "Thank you. I'll... use it wisely."
Renna's smile widened, and for a moment her disguise slipped—just enough to reveal the ancient intelligence behind those too-knowing eyes. "I'm certain you will. After all, wisdom often comes from falling down repeatedly and choosing to stand up anyway."
She turned to leave, pausing only to add: "Oh, and Tarnished? When next we meet, it will be under circumstances far more formal. I do hope you'll remember this kindness and judge my future requests... charitably."
Then she was gone, vanishing into shadows that closed around her like curtains, leaving only the lingering scent of winter roses and the weight of cosmic expectations.
"Well," Kale said into the sudden silence. "That was either a very good sign or a very bad one."
"Probably both," Gara muttered, turning the Spirit Bell over in his hands. The brass was warm to the touch, thrumming with power that felt familiar despite being utterly alien. He knew what this could do, knew the allies it would summon from the space between life and death.
He rang it once, experimentally.
Light erupted around the church ruins—not the harsh gold of Grace, but something cooler and sadder. Three forms materialized in the radiance, translucent but solid, spectral but real. Wolves, their fur silver-white and eyes like distant stars.
The Lone Wolf Ashes. His first summons, his first taste of commanding the dead.
They approached him cautiously, recognition flickering in their otherworldly gazes. These weren't mindless puppets animated by magic—they were spirits, echoes of creatures who'd died and been given purpose again. Like him, in a way. Always returning, always fighting, always trying despite the impossibility of their situation.
"We're the same," he whispered, kneeling to meet them at eye level. "Keep dying, keep coming back, keep trying. The universe breaks us, but we don't stay broken."
The pack leader nuzzled his hand with a snout that felt solid despite being made of moonlight and memory. The touch conveyed understanding, acceptance, kinship between souls that had learned the hard truth about persistence in an indifferent cosmos.
For the first time since arriving in the Lands Between, Gara didn't feel completely alone.
"Remarkable," Kale breathed, watching the spirit wolves circle their new master with protective devotion. "I've heard tales of Tarnished who could command the dead, but never seen it done. Your family's training must have included stranger arts than most."
"You could say that," Gara replied, practicing the mental commands that would send his new allies into battle. The wolves responded eagerly, forming attack formations and defensive perimeters with pack tactics that transcended death.
As dawn painted the eastern horizon in shades of hope and possibility, he worked with the spirits to develop combat strategies. Tank configuration to draw enemy fire while wolves struck from flanks. Berserker mode to amplify their killing potential. Balanced builds that maximized tactical flexibility.
"DPS builds versus tank builds," he muttered while adjusting stat distributions. "AOE potential against single-target optimization. Need to account for revival cooldowns and positioning dynamics..."
Kale watched this process with growing fascination, his musician's ear picking up the strange terminology and systematic approach that marked Gara as something unique among Tarnished warriors.
"You speak of combat like mathematics," the merchant observed. "Like there are formulas that govern violence."
"Isn't there?" Gara looked up from his calculations, genuinely curious. "Patterns in how people move, how they react, how force transfers between objects? Everything has rules. The trick is learning to exploit them."
"Exploit them," Kale repeated thoughtfully. "Yes. I suppose that's one way to survive in a world that seems designed to kill us all eventually."
The merchant began packing his instruments as morning light strengthened, preparing for another day's travel through lands that promised nothing but uncertainty and violence. But he paused before extinguishing his fire, studying the strange Tarnished who commanded dead wolves while muttering about statistics and optimization.
"You're not just mad," Kale said finally. "You're operating on knowledge no Tarnished should possess. Knowledge that comes from somewhere beyond these lands."
Gara's blood chilled. He knows. Somehow, he knows.
"I don't know what you mean," he said carefully.
Kale smiled—the expression of someone who'd traveled enough roads to recognize mystery when it wore cargo shorts and polo shirts. "Perhaps not. But when your path leads to answers, remember that some secrets are burdens shared more easily than carried alone."
He shouldered his pack and walked into the morning, leaving Gara alone with his spirit wolves and the growing certainty that his disguise was failing faster than he could maintain it.
But as the sun climbed higher and the wolves faded back into whatever realm housed the honored dead, one truth crystallized in his mind: he wasn't just playing a game anymore. He was living it, shaping it, becoming part of a story that would rewrite itself around his choices.
The question was whether he'd survive long enough to see how it ended.
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