#blue dancer

A young girl trains with a blind swordsman. One day, she will have wings of unparalleled strength.

Blue Dancer

Tunji Adeniyi-Jones

MWW Artwork of the Day (12/30/20) Alexander Archipenko (Ukrainian, 1887-1964) Blue Dancer (1913) Bronze sculpture, 105.8 cm. high Private Collection

Just beneath Saintsbridge in Northern Limgrave, one can find an interesting little cave known as the Highroad Cave. While this seems like any other cave at first, housing wolves and moss, one will quickly find that there is more that meets the eye. Throughout the tunnels, bits of ruins just out of the dirt and rock, and eventually, you will find a chamber light via a hole in the ceiling that reveals there being an entire structure of pillars and arches within this cave. These structures are identical to those that can be found along the cliffsides of the Lands Between and in the Rauh Barrow of the Shadow Lands.

Delving deeper into the caves, you will find various camps with fires still lit, now serving as warmth for the wolves and other animals who call this place home. Supplies like barrels and crates can also be found here, perhaps implying that this was the base of operations for some group. Indeed, frim this point onwards, the bodies of Kaiden Sellswords can be found littered across the ground, as can the corpses of monstrous bats, which wolves seem to be feeding off of.

It seems these Kaiden Sellswords were either camping out here, excavating the tomb, or perhaps even operating out of this location before potentially being ambushed by the batfolk. A battle likely commenced, leading to casualties on both sides and the eventual retreat or defeat of the caught off-guard Kaiden Sellswords.

The main chamber of the caves, found just a little ways away from the first cave camp, is a massive cavern with waterfalls, pillars, and a central platform at the very bottom, just above the water. More camps and lit braziers can be seen below, as can many other batfolk, some of which are feeding on corpses and will likely ambush you, especially after passing the second fire and dropping down to the top of a waterfall that runs through an off-shoot of the cave, which also contains small Land Octopi.

Our only other path is to follow the waterfall down towards the central platform. Here, we can find a Shamshir on the corpse of what appears to be a noble. Perhaps this noble hired the Sellswords to help them excavate and loot this location, only for the entire group to wake up a horde of bats that proceeded to ravage them until they had no choice but to flee or perish. Soon after, wolves descended, smelling the decaying flesh of the departed, ripe for eating.

Taking a side tunnel, we find another chamber with multiple camps and Kaiden corpses which are being fed upon by baby Land Octopi and their mother. These creatures no doubt also came to scavenge, as many more can be found just outside the cave's entrance, but they could also have called this cave home, given all the water that can be found here.

Beyond a waterfall, we will at last come to the end of the cave. Here, we will find more pillars and archways built into the rocks, as well as the crumbling ruins of what almost looks like an aqueduct. At the center of these ruins, a Guardian Golem can be found. It is not uncommon for these beings to found around these kind of ruins, likely giving them a connection to the Rauh Culture of old. Alternatively, a hole can be found about the Golem, and above that, the bridge leading to Limgrave's Divine Tower, which is guarded by more of these Golems, can also be found, perhaps implying that this one fell into the cave. The bridge above is also broken, adding credence to this theory, but the hole also seems a little small for that scenario, though there's no way to be completely sure.

The Blue Dancer Charm can also be found here. It speaks of a blue fairy, which is commonly regarded as Siofra, bestowing a sword upon a blind swordsman who would go on to seal away the ancient Outer God of Rot. We know this Blind Swordsman would also go on to tutor Malenia, who held the power of the Outer God of Rot within her.

So why is this talisman here? The Blue Dancer and the Blue Fairy do both have connections to running water, which is essentially the anthesis of Rot. With the water streaming through this cave, it could be that this is where the Blue Dancer came in their final days, or perhaps the Talisman was swept here via currents. The Noble and their Kaiden Sellswords may also be responsible for bringing it here. If the noble was a tomb raider of some kind, the Blue Dancer Talisman may have been an artifact from a previous haul.