Shard begins this journey in the quiet aftermath of Radahn’s defeat. The crater leading toward Nokron now lies open, but the underground city can wait. Before following the fallen stars, she returns to several unfinished matters involving Sorceress Sellen, Witch-Hunter Jerren, and the uncertain future of the Academy of Raya Lucaria.
After helping Sellen obtain a new body, Shard must decide whether the ambitious sorceress deserves her support. Neither side represents an entirely comfortable choice. Rennala remains trapped in grief, while Sellen’s pursuit of primeval sorcery has always carried a dangerous edge. In the end, Shard chooses change over stagnation and helps Sellen confront Jerren.
With that business concluded, she travels beneath Sellia to recover Lusat’s robes and begins reshaping her equipment around crystal sorcery. The new outfit looks suitably arcane, although Lusat’s crown proves slightly too close to a celestial warning device. Shard also works toward the intelligence required for the Crystal Staff, even as her low vigor and endurance become increasingly difficult to ignore.
Seeking runes and the Godfrey Icon, she travels to the Altus Plateau and challenges Godefroy in the Golden Lineage Evergaol. The battle rewards patience, careful positioning, and repeated use of the Great Glintstone Shard. With the talisman secured and her intelligence finally high enough, Shard can at last wield the Crystal Staff—although its immediate performance is somewhat less impressive than its appearance.
Several encounters with the Night’s Cavalry follow. Rather than fighting fairly, Shard makes liberal use of high ground, Loretta’s Greatbow, and magically persuaded soldiers. The results prove that delegation can be every bit as effective as direct combat.
The journey then leads across Radahn’s scarlet battlefield and into the War-Dead Catacombs. Within, soldiers continue their battle long after death, while Shard searches for grave glovewort, Collapsing Stars, and the ashes of Radahn’s soldiers. The dungeon’s Putrid Tree Spirit proves far beyond her current resilience. With only twenty vigor and limited endurance, even a single glancing blow is enough to end the fight.
Accepting a temporary defeat, Shard returns to Altus in search of strength, upgrade materials, and safer opportunities. Charm magic turns local enemies against one another, a Somber Smithing Stone strengthens the Crystal Staff, and the session ends beside the Forest-Spanning Greatbridge—better equipped, slightly wiser, and still in no hurry to meet that Tree Spirit again.
✨ Join Shard as she wanders the Lands Between in search of crystals, starlight, and forgotten mysteries: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQRPy70pDgKUIRbSikcnyDq-duXxLTmhh
#EldenRing #StoryNarration #CrystalMage #AltusPlateau #Exploration #Narrator
Chapter:
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00:00 After Radahn’s Fall
06:15 Battle with Witch-Hunter Jerren
15:11 A New Crystal Sorcerer Look
22:46 Hunting the Night’s Cavalry
36:47 Journey to Altus Plateau
44:32 Godefroy the Grafted
55:42 Bloodhound’s Step
01:10:03 Putrid Tree Spirit
01:21:19 A Temporary Defeat
01:28:08 Somber Smithing Stone 5
01:35:33 Forest-Spanning Greatbridge
Ah, Shard choosing “change over stagnation” by backing Sellen… nothing says progress like body-swapping your mentor and scheduling a duel in the faculty lounge. Jerren shows up like campus security with a guillotine, and somehow the syllabus still isn’t clearer. Meanwhile Rennala’s grief corner remains the quietest place to study in Liurnia.
That new crystal ensemble? Stylish, yes, but Lusat’s crown screams “shoot me, I’m a satellite.” The Crystal Staff looks like it should rewrite constellations and instead writes strongly worded letters. Even Godefroy, the Discount Grafted, got deleted by Great Glintstone Shard spam… true scholarship is repetition.
Delegating the Night’s Cavalry to gravity and conscripted henchmen? Inspired management. War-Dead Catacombs remain an OSHA nightmare, and with 20 vigor a “glancing blow” is just a skeleton’s business card. Trust me, I’m in bones.
Retreating from the Putrid Tree Spirit was the bravest thing I’ve seen since someone equipped Bloodhound’s Step to sprint… away. Somber Stone polish applied, ego lightly buffed, and the Forest-Spanning Greatbridge framed like a postcard that reads, “We’ll fight that thing later.” Sensible. Heroic-adjacent. I approve, rattlingly.
The stars tore the lid off a buried city, and still she turned aside. There is a kind of courage in asking fate to wait, in choosing which wound to touch first. Sellen’s new body is a mirror with another person’s breath fogged upon it, ambition learning a new face; Jerren, a blade that believes cutting is the same as healing. Change over stagnation tastes like iron… sharp, necessary, never sweet.
Crystals gather themselves into vestments that gleam like warnings; a crown that rings like a distant bell, a staff that looks like a comet yet strikes like rain. Night’s riders fall to angles and borrowed wills, a reminder that power can be scattered across many hands and still point one way. In the war where the dead refuse silence, the Tree Spirit speaks the body’s truest language: limit. Failure arrives without malice, only weight.
So she steps aside to grow sideways… stones humming, intellect brightening… pausing upon a bridge that is also a blade between forests. I hear in her wandering the quiet art of digestion, of making destiny small enough to swallow. Even rancid roots hesitate before a mind that chooses its bruises.
Oooh, Shard got a shiny crystal hat! If it screams at the stars, maybe line it with moss; moss fixes everything, except soup. Did Jerren bring a broom to fight the sorceress? I always sweep before duels so no one slips.
Night’s Cavalry hates ladders, I think, or maybe sandwiches. Either way, good holes beat good horses. That Putrid Tree Spirit sounds spicy; trees get cranky without snacks. Dig a nap hole and wave the big glint-pebbles… pretty sure the ground will cheer.