Let’s talk about the Lord of the Frenzied Flame ending. I will fully admit that I don’t know this one as well, but I’m going to tell you my experience with it. I mentioned it at the end of the previous post as my favorite ending. It’s considered the ‘bad’ ending, which does not surprise me. It’s the same with my favorite ending of Dark Souls III. The Dark Lord ending is my favorite, and yet, it’s considered the ‘bad’ ending. I don’t think that any one ending is bad because none of them are good.
In this case, the Lord of the Frenzied Flame ending is really hard to get, too. It involves another of my favorite NPCs, Millicent. Oh, my poor, sweet, Millicent. And, yes, this is another questline that is difficult to compelete. And arduous. But you have to do it to get the Lord of Frenzied Flame ending. Wait. Do you?
Oh, shit. Of course you don’t. You need to do Millicent’s questline if you want to reverse this decision, not to make that decision in the first place.
In order to get this ending, you only have to find the Subterrean Shunning-Grounds under the Leyndell Royal Capital. It’s accessible via a well on the capital grounds. You can find it either during this stage of the capital or the latter, Leyndell Ashen Capital. Then, you go through this big underground area, fight a boss, then platform your way down. I mentioned this before because for whatever reason, this platforming was easy for me. Other people had difficulty with it, but I did not.
Once you reach the bottom, there’s a door. You cannot open it unless you’re naked. No armor and no weapons. I think you have to take your talismans off, too, but I don’t remember. Then, you can go in and meet the Three Fingers. And become the Lord of the Frenzied Flame. Your eyes will be yellow with madness, and Melina will leave you (if you haven’t already done the other thing). When you choose the ending (it’s the only choice you have), then your whole head explodes into madness as does everything else around you. You become the Lord of Chaos and it’s rad as hell.
The Subterranean Shunning-Grounds is quite possibly the hardest of the areas. It’s on par with Crumbling Farum Azula, the last main area, for sure. It’s filled with so many hard enemies, it’s ridiculous. I don’t think there’s a new enemy in this area, either. Lots of fucking Gargoyles. I don’t understand why those little fuckers are so hard.
There are two NPC questlines associated with this ending. One is Hyetta, who is a blind woman looking for Shabriri grapes. She keeps asking if you have any. She can be found at several different points around the map. The grape is nearby each time, but you have to find it. It becomes pretty clear that the grapes are eyeballs. Which, gross. The fact that Hyetta is blind is interesting because Fire Keepers are blind in the Dark Souls games.
Anyway, if you keep doing her questline, you will eventually have to fight an invader, Festering Fingerprint Vyke to get the Fingerprint Grape to give to Hyetta. And to get his sweet spear. At some point, you have to tell her that she’s eating eyeballs and not grapes in order to continue her questline. Then, when you get to the forbidden door, once you become the Lord of Frenzied Flame, she will ask you to touch her. If you do so ,then she will burn up while writhing in agony. I assume there is a reason for this–I mean, she becomes your Finger Maiden (and FromSoft absolutely knows what they are doing with all this Finger Maiden business, even if it’s not the same in Japanese), which is similar to a Fire Keeper, I’m assuming. It’s not hard to make that connection because Melina is your Finger Maiden and she levels you up.
That’s the easy questline. The other one is, my god. Let me take a deep breath so I can explain it to you. It’s my second-favorite NPC questline, and it in complicated. This is how I did it, which may or may not contain all the steps. That’s one of the best things about these games–you can never be quite sure if you’re doing things the ‘right’ way, but FromSoft was very generous in this game as far as following the questlines. They had to be given that it’s an open world. They can’t really gatekeep the way they could in other games.
Let’s talk Millicent, my second-favorite NPC in this game. Well, except Patches, but Patches is in (almost) every game and is a national treasure. There is a raging debate in the RKG Discord as to whether you are on #TeamLetPatchesLive or #TeamKillPatches. Yes, he’s a rapscallion who will push you in a trap to kill you so he can strip all the trinkets from your body. Yes, you absolutely cannot trust him in any circumstance. Yes, he will cut you as soon as look at you. But at least you know that about him! He’s consistent in his trickery. He will always push you down a hole and try to kill you. Always! In a word of uncertainty, it’s a blessing to be able to trust that Patches will always be a dick to you.
Anyway. Back to Millicent. You meet her in Caelid, but only after hearing about her and killing the (opitonal, field) boss of that area. You talk to Gowry first and he tells you about her and her four adopted sisters. He adopted all of them because of something or the other. Gowry, by the way, is in a little shack with a hellhound outside who is such a shit. The first time I tried to talk to Gowry, the hellhound killed him and I was distraught. When I reloaded, however, he was back. Thankfully. But, come on. There should not be any chance that an important NPC will die–unless it’s by my hand (because of course you can kill him).
Once you get the needle (don’t ask) for killing the boss, go talk to Gowry again. Then, go find Millicent. She’s in a church and she’s infected with Scarlet Rott. She uses the needle to get rid of it, then goes on her quest. You’ll find her around the map, and each time, she’ll have more to tell you. Then, there’s a point where you have to go to a whole optional castle to get her an item. I hate that optional castle, by the way. It’s awful.
Then, once you get the item, you have to find her in the hardest area in the game, the optional area in which the hardest boss in the game resides. Yes, THAT boss. At some point, you can either invade Millicent and help her adopted sisters (which I haven’t done), or you can help her against her four adopted sisters, which was so fucking hard. I had to use Hoarfrost Stomp in order to delay them enough–and Shabriri’s Woe, which is a talisman that draws aggro from enemies–and then it was a breeze to beat them. But without it and my ability to be one-shot, yeah, it was grim.
After you help her kill them, then you get the needle you need for a certain thing…and she dies. Yup. After all that, Millicent dies. It’s emotionally draining, and I hate that she dies, anyway. But it’s fitting, and I’m glad I helped her on her journey.
Also, after you give her the item from the optional castle, you can go back to Gowry and buy Pest Threads which is an amazing Incantation for massive beasts. It only takes 11 Faith, which is nothing. This is what I used to take down the final boss. While walking backwards. (That’s an inside joke for my RKG Discord buds.) There’s an enemy that uses this, and they completely destroyed me with it the first time I ran ninto them because, again, my Vigor was tiny.
I have more to say. I haven’t even reached Elden Bling yet. More in the next post.