#graced with gold human bones | the ensha run

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So Ensha went and killed a runebear.

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I somehow think they're not too comfortable around each other.

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When exploring Stormveil Castle, Ensha realized he wasn't quite as stealthy as he had thought.

Nevertheless, it was fun.

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Alternate timeline where Ensha just goes to the Finger Reader before raiding the Albinauric Village and learns where to find the Haligtree medallion half.

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Ensha doesn't know it yet, but...

... he is about to do something very stupid.

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Thoughts: Ensha was actually a better fighter than we see in the game

I went back to my Ensha run to keep exploring Stormveil Castle. And it’s interesting how the area feels much easier with this build than it did forever ago when I went there with Izar with her focus on sorceries. Of course, I now have several hundred hours of Elden Ring experience under my belt and am more familiar with the world and the enemies, but it also kind of reinforces my headcanon about Ensha actually being way more capable than our ingame experience gives him credit for.

When he ambushes us at the Roundtable Hold, it comes as a shock but isn’t too challenging in terms of gameplay, and often even described as a rather laughable experience. Like, how could Gideon seriously think Ensha would stand a chance against us? How could Ensha believe he would?

I think one reason for the Ensha fight being quite manageable might be that it being so was a mechanical necessity: We can’t return to the Roundtable Hold proper until we defeat him—our hub for interacting with several NPCs that act as merchants, teachers and questgivers, and considering the Ensha ambush can be triggered fairly early in the game, it stands to reason that it couldn’t be that extreme of a challenge because it would lock us out of accessing the Hold.

Also, it isn’t meant to be a big challenge (we merely get a fistful of runes upon our victory), but seems to serve a more narrative function; a storybeat (albeit an obscure one, as is the case with most in the game) to emphasize the importance of the Haligtree Medallion and prompt Gideon to give us more information.

I also think that the fight being not too hard serves to highlight our Tarnished's own prowess; we are more powerful than Gideon could have anticipated, and we prove it by dispatching someone he seems to have trusted: Ensha was tasked with guarding the door to his study (Nepheli explicitly tells us that) and even with the Hold being a supposedly safe space, I don’t think Gideon would have trusted just anybody with that, and that Ensha was a lot more skilled than we actually experience in game.

Regardless of the aesthetics and meaning of both his armor and weapon (and the fact that the design seems to be a nod to the Dark Souls’ series darkwraiths and their Dark Hand), this equipment provides extremely good survivability at least in early game. The clinging bone allows for swift attacks and the Lifesteal Fist skill saves a lot of sips from the Crimson Tear flask (in the right area), plus the slight healing properties of the armor.

Ensha was designed (narratively) as someone who’s hard to kill��who literally clings to life. (There’s also his use of gravity magic, in particular the Collapsing Stars sorcery that pulls enemies closer. It might not be perfectly executed in game but in a way, it does serve a narrative purpose as well—there’s no running from the creepy skeleton assassin.)

So. Ensha had probably done a lot of dirty work for Gideon, and reliably so, returning successful every time until being sent after our Tarnished. But thinking that he could overcome us wasn’t a foolish assumption on his end, he actually had been deadly and powerful enough up to that point.

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Rare footage of Ensha quietly cursing because I have completely neglected his run since I started playing Dark Souls. Bonus:

This gesture roughly translates to, "Hello!? What is wrong with you? I'm still here. How dare you walk away and–" (The sentence would have continued in another screenshot.)

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He seems just so happy about going and attacking someone at the Roundtable Hold.

... and now... not so happy anymore.

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To find his master's doors closed was a very rare occurrence, and stranger still when it came unexpected.

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I did not expect Ensha's favorite weapon to become the elevator, but here we are

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Now who's putting foolish ambitions to rest, hm?

Going for an Ensha build is more fun than I thought, especially because I expected to struggle a lot more with melee.

However, the clinging bone, especially when dual-wielding, does decent damage (and is fun to wield). Lifesteal Fist is extremely good and along with the (rather minor) healing abilities of the Royal Remains Armor (and the Blessed Dew Talisman), Ensha's survivability in early game is pretty good. We'll see how far that carries me.

(I want to give him his gravity sorceries eventually as well, but that will take some time. It's crazy how the original Ensha invades us with a Meteorite Staff and Collapsing Stars but his Intelligence stat is nowhere near the requirements for neither.)

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I’m struggling with the most niche and oddly specific writer’s problem right now: Having started my Ensha run has me wondering how I should treat the clinging bone(s) in my fics (and maybe in rp threads here). Until now, I’ve always considered it to be one weapon (and given him the meteorite staff in the offhand like when he invades us in the game). But now that I’m actually playing that build (and have yet to find the staff)—dual wielding the clinging bone is just so much fun and feels a lot more balanced, so… should I give him two in writing as well?

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Unseen, unnoticed, unbothered. Sometimes Ensha, when weary after a skirmish, will sneak onto a carriage and just travel with it for a while. It's not very fast, it's usually not even bound where he wants to go. But still, he can pretend that his intent is to go somewhere instead of just sitting in silence, and letting his mind wander.

The soldiers, usually, leave him alone. They don't seem to care. After all, nobody does; he tells himself that it's useful.

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It was probably the fight against that Alabaster Lord that first piqued Ensha's interest in gravity sorceries.

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Ensha is definitely having a great time in Caelid.

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on that note, Ensha bouncing happily beside his fallen foes before looting them seems strangely on-brand for him.

This is what switching between Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3 and the respective controls has done to me:

I want to interact with something...

...I jump.