On a particularly cold night in Orario, in a dingy smoky tavern which smelled of ale and liquor as it should, a particularly drunken dwarf regales some comparatively fresher faced adventurers with stories of dubious origin, some listen rapt, caught tightly in the tales of horror and grandeur while others listen with sarcastic and sardonic smiles and sneers on their faces, believing that no more than 30% of each of the stories have any bearing in reality, but the jovial tone of the room shifts as the usually strong and stoic dwarf gains a distant look in his eye and appears half a shade paler even with the redness typical of one so inebriated. The mood of the place shifts as the burly half-man spins a tale those listening can feel is fundamentally different from those they've heard thus far.
"Now don't laugh, but I've fought a Barbarian before. Down past floor 39. Tall as a troll, with skin like cured granite and muscles that moved like coiled ropes. One of 'em tore poor Jorrin in half before we even got a full formation. Those bastards aren't beasts,they're natural disasters with teeth."
He pauses to sip his drink, eyes heavy with memory.
"But this... thing I saw? Wasn't a monster, certainly looked the part, but not truly- not exactly."
He leans forward, and the tavern hushes just slightly.
"At first glance I thought it might be some kind of rare enhanced mutant barbarian- after all the thing was about a head taller than your typical barbarian, but no, something about its bearing and face just… too wrong for that to be the case. It-he looked like a Barbarian who remembered how to think. Moved like a man, but every inch of him screamed 'monster.' Dense... thick... every step sounded like a smith's hammer hitting stone. Skin rough like ash-grey iron. Hair silver and long, trailing like war-banners from the back of his skull. Horns, real ones, Gnareled fuckin' things, not cosmetic or equipment, arched from his collar, temples, arms, and even down his ribs like armor, thick and savage like his teeth, sharp and predatory with tusks protruding from its blunted visage."
One of the listeners, a younger human man of larger stature spoke up with a crooked half grin and mirth heavy in his voice, holding a sausage he was munching on infront of his pants "I bet I know what else was thick and savage-"
Borrik Firearm slammed his fist on the table, with enough strength to silence the whole tavern but enough restraint not to break the aged wooden furniture.
"SHUT YER FUCKIN TRAP YOU GREEN BAREFACED GOMRAL!..."
The human did indeed shut his trap, after all he was just a mid level 1 adventurer, while Boorik was a fearsome level 5 tanker.
"As I was sayin...And on his chest, over his heart, was this... rune. Can't describe it proper. Like someone branded divine script into a man's soul… and it never stopped moving. Didn't shine. Didn't pulse. But you could feel it... a pressure. Like standing under a mountain erupting with ash which could snuff out the sun, and knowing it sees you."
Someone at the table mutters: "Xenos?"
Borrik shakes his head.
"No. Too clean for a Xenos, if you didn't consider the thick layer of fresh blood covering its mits, too heavy for any mortal its size, and too silent for any monster of its kind, like it could choose how much its weight impacted reality itself. The rune wasn't like any Falna, not like any magic I've ever seen either. It didn't light up, it breathed a sickly golden orange, like amber pus, fading in and out of shadow. It gave off a queer aura, somehow both soft and wild, like a hurricane trying to whisper."
"I only saw him because our party was nearly wiped by a floor boss. Big fucker. Golem-spawn with a chimera's fearsome visage carved from stone. We were down two men and bleeding. And then he stepped out from the shadows, quiet like a damn ghost. He watched for a second, like he was measuring the thing. Then he charged like a minotaur."
He exhales like he's still shaken.
"Not fast. Sudden. No chant, no stance. Just... violence. His hands? Bare, empty. No weapon. Just flesh and bone and fury. And when he moved, steps like thunder, even the Dungeon flinched."
Another adventurer, another dwarf across the room speaks: "You think it was a variant Barbarian?"
Borrik shrugs.
"Maybe. Or maybe he's what the Barbarian wants to become. A perfected thing. A monster born wrong, cursed, but born for war. The first strike rended a fourth of the golems stone from its body cracks spreading throughout, but when the golem wound up in retaliation? It just stood there and took it on the chin, didn't even flinch at the blow, just walked up to it and started picking it apart, tearing chunks off it like tender meat off a bone, I could swear I saw him chew and swallow a chunk of the beast before he crushed the core in his hand like a grape"
He shuddered and leans in one last time, voice lower now.
"Either way... that rune on his chest? It means something. Maybe he's a nascent godling. Maybe he is the Dungeon's heart, walkin' free. All I know is this—when he looked at me, just for a second, I didn't just feel fear."
Pause.
"I felt like the gods weren't watching anymore."
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AN: hey, if you are reading this than thanks for your time, not really certin where this story is going yet but ive got a decent idea of what i want to happen by the end, story is about a 3rd omen-demigod in an elden ring au, another son of godfrey, the rune mentioned in this chapter is the rune he tore from godrick and made his own, not really certin how powerful i want him to start but i know i want him to be a level 5 who can jump to fight at level 7 by the time cannon is suposed to start, we are about 8-9 years pre cannon right now, leave a comment and let me know your ideas, the whole thing is in a very formitive state right now and id love to get some ideas for scaling, events to participate in and arcs that the mc can go on with his unique perspective as a reviled omen, thanks!
PS: thinking of using the omen's wraith power like cursed energy from JJK due to its appearance and the omen's status as a 'cursed' entity in Elden ring (not gonna give mc an innate tech or any learned stuff but reinforcement, RCT and black flashes are on the table, possibly tech's for other characters if threes a way to grant them cursed energy which i have some ideas for)