I accidentally killed my favorite NPC in Elden Ring and I’ve lost my will to live

polygon.com:

I accidentally killed my favorite NPC in Elden Ring, and my life as I know it is over. Here’s how you can avoid making the same mistake.

[Ed. note: This article contains spoilers for Moore’s storyline in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.]

Early in Shadow of the Erdtree, if you ride toward the legacy dungeon of Belurat, you encounter two NPCs at the Main Gate Cross. One is Ansbach, a retired old warrior. And the other is Moore, a rotund and soft-spoken merchant knight, who will sell you useful consumables, as well as a note about unlocking sealed spiritsprings.

Moore is adorable, crouching over his little pot, and he tells you in a halting way that he likes finding things for the rest of Miquella’s followers. I immediately fell in utter love with him. We have so much in common: I also love things, and finding things. And he’s so cute and round. Wow, a beacon of light and hope in the darkness of the shadow realm!

You can ask Ansbach what Moore’s deal is, and he’ll warn you that Moore has been working with the forager brood, and not to harm the brood if you come across them.

What this dialogue doesn’t spell out for you, which I will, is that the forager brood are the Kindred of Rot, centipede-like creatures that you might recognize from the base Elden Ring game as really obnoxious enemies that shoot strings at you.

You see where this is going.

It was late at night. I was tired, on autopilot, and I saw a Kindred of Rot just lying on the ground outside the Church of the Crusade, and I thought, What the hey! and gave him a whack with my sword. The poor guy died, and immediately I was invaded by Moore. He told me to stop hurting forager brood. Before I knew it, we were dueling to the death.

Moore is a beefy but honestly pretty tame enemy. He throws big pots that inflict scarlet rot, but they’re easy to dodge. He also crouches behind his shield and rushes you. He’s got a lot of health but, well, I do a lot of damage. I traveled back to the Main Gate Cross after killing