She invited him to the back chambers. Her lounge. A velvet-swathed room heavy with incense, rose oil, and fine wine. The lighting was low and warm. The bed was massive- reinforced with gilded metal and reinforced oak- but as Caelun awkwardly laid upon it, the frame still groaned under his immense weight. His legs, long and powerful, hung over the edge with ease.
Ishtar giggled.
"My, what a big boy you are," she teased, voice thick with suggestion. "I wonder just how big you really are~"
Caelun turned his head, face burning faintly. "Let's get on with it."
She smiled and approached, satisfied with Caelun's flustered state, taloned fingers poised with divine grace.
"Very well, my warrior," she murmured, "Let us see what secrets you've been hiding from the gods…"
She laid her hand gently on his back, her slender fingers gliding across his vast, scar-ridden skin. But the moment contact was made, something… shifted.
The divine ritual began- but unlike the thousands she had performed before, this one resisted. Where a Falna should blossom like a flower in divine ink, Caelun's refused to bloom. Instead, it twisted. Warped. The script appeared slowly, not written, but woven- as though the tapestry of his soul fought against the divine brush itself. Ishtar's brow furrowed as she felt it: a slow unraveling, not of his soul, but of his very existence.
Sweat began to bead along her brow. Not from exertion- she was a goddess- but from effort she wasn't supposed to feel. Her palm trembled as the Falna began to take shape, and then trembled harder as she saw what lay beneath. A vortex of divine blood… and something else.
She whispered, almost involuntarily, "A demi-god? Impossible…"
What stirred beneath her hand was not merely divine. It was divine and profane- blessed blood tangled with a violent, alien curse. The power raged beneath the surface, like a chained beast growing aware of its bonds.
Caelun shifted under her touch. "Is this s'posed to cause a burning feelin'-?"
Then came the scream.
"-AAAAAGHHHHH!!!"
A roar tore from his throat, deep and ragged, rattling the crystal lanterns and throwing incense dishes to the floor. Ishtar recoiled in confusion- and for a heartbeat, terror. Her touch broke, but the reaction did not stop.
Outside, the others heard his agonized bellow. The door buckled open as Carmine led the charge, ignoring Tammuz's protests as the party stormed into the room- only to freeze.
Caelun was writhing on the overlarge mattress, his back arched unnaturally as something poured out of him. It wasn't divine energy. It was magic but it wasn't magic, it was wrong.
From his flesh, power erupted like a wound torn in reality- a miasma of viscous sickly amber ichor and sweltering amber-black flames bleeding from his pores in tandem blending with each other. The cursed energy howled, not unlike a living thing, writhing across his body as golden light- alien and angular- surged across his chest.
The Great Rune.
It migrated.
Crawling. Shifting. Burning itself across his flesh from his chest to his back, dragging with it ancient power that should not exist here and would not have if Caelun hadn't smuggled in his own brand through his blood and concealed by his curse. The divine script Ishtar had written flared brightly- then twisted, warped, and collapsed inward. Her symbol was devoured, not erased but absorbed, pieces of it spiraling like shattered glass into the forming rune.
Divine meets divine.
But it did not harmonize. It fought.
And then- it rewrote.
The Rune took center stage, devouring the divine ink like blood in water. The remains of Ishtar's sigil fused into it, unwilling scaffolding for something far greater. The incomplete form of the Elden Ring took shape- unfamiliar to this world- and Ishtar's mangled divine script mended its shape, forming a perfect circle lined with ancient glyphs.
Then… another shape imposed itself atop the ring- a hexagon- like a crown of binding, each point pushing upward from Caelun's back as small, gnarled horns forced their way through his skin, symmetrical and unrelenting. The sound of tearing flesh mixed with a wet clacking of ivory- and still, he screamed.
His cry echoed like a death knell across the pleasure district. Those within the temple dropped to their knees. Outside, mortals paused in fear, some clutching their heads, others just weeping without understanding why.
The gods would feel it. A curse. A presence. Divine- but not.
When the final sigil locked into place- a fusion of Ishtar's divinity and the accursed grace of a fallen world- the rune flared once more, then dimmed. The divine script glowed gently atop the mark, The Elden Ring, flared with insufficient energy.
And Caelun collapsed forward, panting, drenched in sweat, body steaming as if forged in a kiln. The mattress groaned as his weight slammed down, but he no longer stirred.
Silence followed. Thick. Absolute.
Carmine stood frozen, eyes wide with something between awe and horror. Ishtar stared, her hand still faintly trembling, her perfect lips parted in stunned disbelief.
The thing that now bore her Falna… was not mortal not entirely.
She feared how the world and its laws would retaliate.
AN: we getting into now, i think I'm going to have to nerf Caelun's development speed on the stats page because if i don't by the time cannon starts he will already be done, ill do a slow and steady thing, longer level ups means stronger level up and it all comes to a head around cannon, or at least that's what I'm going for, would apriciate a review, thats all for today, probably... c ya!