Unused Elden Ring quest would have tied an early NPC to the game's darkest secrets

pcgamer.com:

Continuing a banner week of investigating unused content(opens in new tab) left in Elden Ring's files, dataminer Sekiro Dubi has successfully reimplemented a game-spanning, multi-part quest involving the early game merchant, Kalé(opens in new tab).

In the released game, Kalé never moves from Limgrave's Church of Elleh. He sells some essential early game gear like the spyglass and crafting kit, and will also direct you toward Blaidd the Half-Wolf(opens in new tab). Kalé is the only named member of the nomadic merchants in the game, and the group's lore and connection to the sinister Three Fingers is only implied.

Sekiro Dubi dug up and reimplemented the various steps in Kalé's questline, beginning with some extra dialogue outlining the merchants' outcast status and mythic origin point in the Grand Caravan. After defeating Godrick at Stormveil, Kalé would move from the Church of Elleh, commencing a search for the Grand Caravan's resting place.

Kalé would next be found in Liurnia and then Leyndell, with his shifts corresponding to the discovery of missives from the Grand Caravan carried by birds and helping Kalé hone in on its location. This would culminate with Kalé discovering the Subterranean Shunning Grounds under Leyndell, the location of the otherworldly Three Fingers.

In the released game, there's little to no context supplied to the final area of the Shunning Grounds, a vast pit ringed with galleries, filled with the desiccated corpses of Nomadic Merchants with a few wizened members still alive, filling the tomb with a haunting melody on their stringed instruments.

At the bottom of the pit, before the door to the Three Fingers, Kalé would have made explicit something that was only hinted at in the final game: the