The Fallen Leaves Fall Yet Again..

The Dangers of A Side Quest

Edgar nodded and grabbed his sword dashing down deeper into the castle, hoping daughter had not been harmed. The Tarnished remained on the platform, he could feel what had killed Ordovis and it was climbing up towards him at a slow pace, seemingly feeling his presence too. Each loud crash shook the whole castle as his opponent climbed up to him. Then it was finally time for them to meet. A clawed hand appeared over the ledge that the Tarnished was facing impatiently, sinking its claws into the ground as it pulled up the rest of its body. The Tarnished grit his teeth in irritation as Maliketh revealed himself and stood in front of him, barely fitting on the landing. "How...are you here."

Maliketh, didn't answer at first inspecting the Tarnished before raising his sword above himself and preparing to kill the Tarnished. "You could not be the one my sister seeks." The Tarnished rolled his eyes. 

SLAM!

Smoke settled as the black flames engulfed the man and permanently scorched the stone underneath his feet. Maliketh, assuming the job was done, began to turn around and dragged his blade behind him. Or he attempted to drag it, seemingly stuck in the stone platform that he slammed it into. He turned around to see the man, holding his blade with one hand untouched by the black flames. The man let the blade go and walked past Maliketh to see over the ledge and see if Edgar made it. Letting a sigh of relief go when he saw the man on horseback riding off in Irina's direction. 

Maliketh now recovering from seeing someone catch his blade and ignore his flame turned to the Tarnished, and apologized. "I am sorry, Tarnished, I was not aware that you were the one my sister sought after. It seems I judged off of appearance too quickly." The Tarnished waved it off. "It's fine, I figured Marika would be too protective over me, I should have known she would send someone after me if I caused a commotion, after all she did not want me to journey at all without her." Maliketh chuckled, throwing the Tarnished off guard as he didn't know the shadow was capable of it.

"Y-You can laugh?" Maliketh paused and then began to howl, dropping his blade as he clutched his stomach with one hand and stopped himself from falling off the landing with the other. The Tarnished rolled his eyes and jumped off the landing, landing directly in the middle of the courtyard full of bodies covered in black and red flames. He turned to face Maliketh as the shadow landed behind him heavily, Maliketh looked around and looked at the Tarnished uncaring. "They chose to get in my way, and as a result they met Destined Death." 

The Tarnished shook his head and walked with the shadow out of the castle. "I hate that phrase so much, I've heard it too many times to even think about counting how many times I heard it the last journey." Maliketh looked confused, and stopped. "The last journey?" The Tarnished looked confused at first too, but then remembered Maliketh didn't know a thing. "Well, since you are here this time around, I shouldn't withhold any information on this topic." The Tarnished proceeded to give Maliketh the full rundown right there, as if they didn't have places to be. 

Then he turned about face and walked towards the bridge to leave the Peninsula, Maliketh completely dumbfounded at the tale the Tarnished told with such a straight face and no breaks. "Has Marika driven you mad already?" The Tarnished shook his head, using a crossbow to snipe any unsuspecting enemies that Maliketh hadn't picked off along the way. "Very well then, I can feel your strength even now, so I know your tale to be true. I will assist you and my sister until the end of this journey. Until the greater will eventually--" 

"Don't worry about that, the matter is handled on all accounts involving the Greater Will. Ranni was able to cure Blaidd's mind after the Two Fingers did what they did. I have no doubt we will be able to do the same for you." Maliketh thought about it and nodded. "If that is the case then I will wait to see. For now, we will focus on what will happen when you see the girl by the bridge again."