Startling, Melina realizes in that moment that she has to step in. After a display like that... she'd had an idea, after watching him these past few days. A passing fancy, but one that she now felt much more deeply than before. He was drawn to women, drawn to help them, to save them, to comfort them. But... he was also a fucking lunatic.
An Elden Ring fanfic by Cambrian Beckett
.
After saving the Lands Between in every conceivable way a million times, the Tarnished returns to the start one last time. This time, he's going to save everyone he's ever cared for. Melina, Millicent, Fia... no one is going to die this time. Melina follows behind him, invisible, watching with shock and consternation as he defeats every challenge set before him, as he destroys the Shardbearers and saves the damsels.
It's surprisingly easy, considering he's maxed out all his stats and still has all his endgame gear.
Melina, worried that her Tarnished will not follow her plan if he doesn't need her, decides to seduce him in order to make sure he's tied to her. Then all the other women start having the same idea.
Can be found here. Not Safe For Work, though the explicit chapters are clearly marked.
This fanfic provides examples of:
- All Amazons Want Hercules: Nepheli Loux jumps the Tarnished after their "battle" with Godfrey the Grafted, because she just watched a half-naked man beat up a demigod and that really does it for her.
- All-Loving Hero: The first thing any of the women notices about the Tarnished is that he genuinely cares about them, listening when they speak even though they can sense that he seems to already know what they're going to say. Considering that almost all of them have severe cases of depression (if not outright insanity) and most of them also have a physical deformity, almost none of them can remember the last time someone was genuinely nice to them.
- All Women Are Lustful: Most of the sexual encounters are initiated by the women the Tarnished saved, rather than the other way around. In fact, while much is made of his plan to save everyone, it's not clear if he ever planned to sleep with any of them before Melina and then Nepheli Loux put the idea in his head.
- Bathos: Malenia, Blade of Miquella, enters her second phase, letting the Scarlet Rot overtake her and warning that her opponent is about to "witness true horror." Meanwhile, the Tarnished is stripping off his armor, culminating in him Dual Wielding katanas and putting an upside-down jar over his head. Millicent spends the next few paragraphs trying not to refer to her comrade as the "Jarnished."Malenia, who is just now noting this, pauses for a brief moment in incredulity at what she's witnessing.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Melina is the first woman to attempt to seduce the Tarnished. She is rather snippy when everyone else does the same. She basically calls Nepheli Loux a dog, dismisses Renalla as mentally incompetent, and Ranni as a death fetishist. She eventually snaps and yells at him.Melina: Why?! Why am I not enough for you?!
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The vast majority of the Tarnished's battles are offscreen, as he casually slaughters his way through mooks without a scratch. His battles against named enemies, on the other hand, are absolutely humiliating beatdowns that he often starts by
removing most of his equipment.It didn't matter what the Fell Omen did, nor how he fought. A frantic energy had seemed to fill Margit as he realized he was being humiliated and embarrassed. No one was around, her own presence was completely hidden, but it didn't matter. The Tarnished and the Omen both knew the same thing... one of them was entirely outmatched here, holding on by the skin of their teeth... and it was not Melina's chosen Champion. - Dulcinea Effect: Melina notes that the Tarnished is clearly going out of his way to save every woman in the Lands Between, even though she has no idea how he knows where most of these women are. Since we don't see his thoughts, it's hard to be sure, but the author's notes imply it isn't quite as simple as him just being obsessed with rescuing pretty girls. The implication is that, over his many resets of the timeline, he fell in love with each woman in turn, but lost them as their stories inevitably ended tragically. Now, he's finally strong enough to save all of them.
- Everybody Lives: The point of the fic is to save everyone (or at least all the women), including the ones who have inescapably terrible ends in the game.
- Honey Trap: Melina attempts this on the Tarnished, as she is worried he won't go along with her plan since he doesn't need her to turn runes into strength (because he's already as strong as he can possibly be). It... well, it doesn't make anything worse, but he was always planning on saving her, so it doesn't really change anything. Of course, then he starts seducing the rest of the female cast, and she wonders if she awakened some "horrible lusts" in him.
- Oh, Crap!: Mohg has a moment of sheer terror when he realizes that an enraged Malenia has cut her way into his inner sanctum and knows exactly who to blame for kidnapping Miquella. Millicent notes that his Badass Boast before fighting her seems more like bravado than actual confidence. It's understandable.
- Peggy Sue: The Tarnished, having gone through New Game Plus countless times and maxed out his level in a game with an Absurdly High Level Cap, decides to do one last run where he saves everyone. Melina, who spends most of the time following him around invisible, is completely flabbergasted by him, especially when he starts curb-stomping demigods naked. And then he starts seducing the women he saves, and Melina starts getting much, much more flustered.
- Skilled And Strong: The Tarnished is level 713 in a world where reaching level 150 is more than enough to clear the entire game, and he has the skills that got him all that power in the first place. He spends most of the boss fights casually dodging every blow with ease, except for the times he decides to tank a few hits for whatever reason.
- This Is Something She's Got To Do Herself: While Malenia wreaks vengeance upon Mohg, the chapter's viewpoint character is confused why the Tarnished isn't getting involved.Were they... were they to do nothing? Millicent glances to her Lord, but he remains silent and with the jar over his head, she can't even read his face. His hand remains out front of her however, holding her back to the far flung edge of the throne room. She can make out his intentions clear enough, however. She understands, even if he doesn't spell it out verbally.
Let her solo him.
