Elden Ring Millicent Questline: Every Step, Both Rewards

Millicent's questline ends with two summon signs on a hill in Elphael. Take the gold one and you fight beside her against her four sisters. Take the red one and you invade her world to help them kill her.

The trade looks even until you read the drops. The gold sign pays the Rotten Winged Sword Insignia, and it also hands you back the Unalloyed Gold Needle, which both wikis name as the only route to Miquella's Needle, the item that undoes the Frenzied Flame in the endings guide. The red sign pays Millicent's Prosthesis. Both routes leave Gowry's two items for you.

Getting to that hill runs from Caelid to the Haligtree, with bosses in the way and an arm to fetch from the Shaded Castle. Here is every step in order, what each one gates, and what each choice is worth.

The whole questline in ten steps

Fandom's and Fextralife's Millicent pages walk the same route:

"Exhaust her dialogue" is doing real work in that table. Both walkthroughs tell you to hear everything she has to say at each stop before she moves on, and most moves also want a reload, by resting at a grace or travelling away and back, before she appears at the next one.

Fextralife adds a shortcut: the quest moves faster if you have already killed the bosses or picked up the quest items before you talk to her. So you can grab the prosthesis from the Shaded Castle before she ever asks for it.

Caelid: the needle, the sage and the church

Gowry sits in his shack on the edge of Sellia, Town of Sorcery. He asks you to find a needle of unalloyed gold in the Swamp of Aeonia so he can stall the scarlet rot eating a girl at the church beyond the town, and he promises you the secret of Sellia in return.

One warning before you talk to him. Fextralife says a Giant Dog roams a short way before the shack, and that pulling it and then speaking to Gowry can get him killed.

Commander O'Neil

The needle is on Commander O'Neil, the boss in the clearing at the heart of the swamp. Fextralife's combat data:

Both wikis say he summons five Exile Soldier spirits at the start and three large ones in his second phase, which Fandom puts at half health, and his attacks inflict Scarlet Rot. Bring a cure: the status effects guide covers what rot does to you.

You do not have to fight him alone. Once you have accepted Gowry's request, Fextralife says a sign for Polyanna, Adopted Daughter appears near the Inner Aeonia grace, and Fandom places it among the roots directly south of that grace. She is one of Millicent's four sisters, which you will not know yet. Spirit Ashes are allowed too.

Millicent herself can also invade you in the southeast of the swamp, near the geysers. Both wikis list the same drops if you beat her there: five Sacramental Buds, Golden Runes [3], [5] and [10], and 316 runes.

Take the snapped needle back to Gowry. He hands over Sellia's Secret when you do, then needs time to repair it, so reload the area and talk to him again for the repaired needle. Fextralife notes the repair is visibly imperfect, with a reddish material holding the halves together; you can see it in the icon above.

Getting up to the church

The Church of the Plague sits on the cliffs east of Sellia. Fextralife's Church of the Plague page gives two routes up: solve the brazier puzzle in Sellia, which unlocks the town's backstreets, or head southwest from the Fort Faroth grace in Dragonbarrow and take the Spiritspring down. Gowry's payment helps with the first: Sellia's Secret tells you to light three flames atop the candle towers to break the seal.

Millicent is slumped against the wall to the right. Give her the needle and she passes out. Rest at the church's Site of Grace, talk to her again, and exhaust her dialogue: she gives you the Prosthesis-Wearer Heirloom, a talisman worth +5 Dexterity at 0.8 weight. The church also holds a Sacred Tear, one of the twelve that raise your flask's potency.

Reload, and she is at Gowry's Shack while Gowry is away. Exhaust her dialogue there, reload once more, and Gowry is back with his shop open: Glintstone Stars (3,000 runes), Night Shard (4,000) and Night Maiden's Mist (5,000).

From this point, Fandom and Fextralife both say Millicent can be summoned against Magma Wyrm Makar at the Ruin-Strewn Precipice in Liurnia. Fextralife adds that the sign disappears once she has her new arm, so if you want her for Makar, do it now.

Altus Plateau: the arm

Her next stop is a hill north of the Erdtree-Gazing Hill grace on the Altus Plateau, at the cliff edge. She tells you she is retracing Malenia's path north, and that with a sword arm she could fight beside you.

The arm is the Valkyrie's Prosthesis, a key item in a chest in the Shaded Castle. Fextralife puts it in a room guarded by a single Cleanrot Knight on the castle's northwestern edge, reached by the tall ladder from the outermost section and then along the wall to the left. Give it to her.

Three things open up once she has it:

• She becomes a summon. Her sign appears for the Godskin Apostle in Dominula, Windmill Village. Fandom's sisters page and Fextralife's summon list also put her at the Draconic Tree Sentinel in the Capital Outskirts and the Black Blade Kindred in the Forbidden Lands once she is through Windmill Village; Fandom's Millicent page lists all three as soon as she has the arm.
• Gowry sells Pest Threads for 7,500 runes. Buy it and exhaust his new dialogue, and Fandom says he gives you the Desperate Prayer gesture. Fandom also says the gesture is missable: kill Millicent or finish her quest first and it is gone.
• She can drop Millicent's Prosthesis from her next stop on. Both wikis say killing her at any point from Windmill Heights onward drops it, which also ends the quest.

Kill the Godskin Apostle, rest at the Windmill Heights grace that appears at the top of the village, and exhaust her dialogue there.

The Mountaintops and the Haligtree

Millicent's next stop is the Ancient Snow Valley Ruins grace in the Mountaintops of the Giants, where she tells you she is looking for a fort north of the ruins whose master held a medallion to the Haligtree. If she is not at the grace, Fextralife's fix is to go back to Windmill Heights, find her still there, and exhaust her dialogue properly.

The fort is Castle Sol, and the Haligtree is its own chain. Fandom places the left half of the Haligtree Secret Medallion atop the tower past Commander Niall in Castle Sol; the right half comes from Old Albus in Liurnia's Village of the Albinaurics. Together they work the Grand Lift of Rold to the Consecrated Snowfield, and Fandom's Haligtree page says the Haligtree itself opens after the evergaol puzzle at Ordina, Liturgical Town, via a sending gate.

Inside Elphael, Brace of the Haligtree, Millicent waits by the Prayer Room grace. Here she tells you she is of Malenia's blood and wants to return something to her. Exhaust the dialogue.

The last gate is a boss you might otherwise skip: the Putrid Tree Spirit in the isolated pool of Scarlet Rot near the Drainage Channel grace. Fextralife says she will not move until it is dead, routes you there from the Drainage Channel grace west through a doorway, up a ladder and across a tree branch, and notes this one does not allow Spirit Ashes. Both wikis give it a fire negation of -20, so fire does 20% more than normal.

The two summon signs

With the Tree Spirit dead, the signs appear on the hill by the rot pool.

The gold sign summons you into Millicent's world to fight her sisters with her. The red sign summons you as an invader on the sisters' side.

Before you choose, Gowry has something to say. Once Millicent reaches the Haligtree he is crying in his shack, and if you ask why, he asks you to side with the sisters and kill her by your own hand, so that the betrayal makes her bloom into a scarlet valkyrie when Malenia ascends. Fandom's sisters page says talking to him here unlocks the other option; Fextralife lists both signs without that condition. If you mean to take the red sign and only the gold one is there, visit Gowry first.

The four sisters, per Fextralife:

Fextralife says all four cast Pest Threads, are immune to Scarlet Rot, take poison, hemorrhage and fire well, and have low poise. On the gold side the fight ends if either you or Millicent dies, so Fextralife's advice is to split their attention immediately rather than let all four pile onto her.

A failed attempt is not final. Fandom's sisters page says dying, or Millicent dying, sends you home with both signs still available, and you can retry or switch sides.

Patch 1.04, dated 19 April 2022, has the only line naming Millicent in Fextralife's compilation of the notes from 1.02 to 1.17: it added a protective barrier to her after you help her at the Haligtree, "so she cannot be unintentionally killed." An accidental hit after the gold-sign fight can no longer kill her.

What each side pays

On the gold side, find Millicent sitting by the rot pool near where her sign was. Fextralife says to exhaust her dialogue, reload, and pick the needle up off the ground. She has taken it out herself and chosen to rot rather than become what Gowry wanted.

The Flock's Canvas Talisman raises incantation potency, by 8% per Fextralife, at 1.0 weight. You get it on both paths, so it should not decide anything. Fextralife does report that after the gold ending Gowry sometimes keeps turning into a bug when attacked, which blocks the talisman until your next Journey. Fextralife also says his shop is closed by this point, so buy his spells earlier.

Insignia or Prosthesis

Both talismans run the same mechanic: attack power rises in three tiers as you land hits and drops a tier for every 1.5 seconds you go without one. Fandom counts a light attack as one hit and a heavy attack as two. The talismans guide covers where they fit in a four-slot build.

The Insignia is the stronger ramp, two points higher at every tier, and it costs less weight. The Prosthesis buys back some of the gap with +5 Dexterity, and Fextralife notes it stacks with the Heirloom for +10. It also stacks with the base Winged Sword Insignia, which Fandom says drops from the Cleanrot Knight in Stillwater Cave, Liurnia; the Rotten one does not. That is two slots for one effect, though.

You cannot have both on one Journey, and both wikis say so. You can have both eventually. Talismans carry into New Game Plus and NPC questlines reset, so the other side of the hill is still there on Journey 2. Both wikis also say the Insignia and the Prosthesis stack with each other.

The plan that wastes nothing: take the gold sign on Journey 1 for the Insignia, the needle and Miquella's Needle, then take the red sign on Journey 2 if you want the Prosthesis as well.

Miquella's Needle is the hidden third reward

Neither sign lists it, but Fandom and Fextralife both tie Miquella's Needle to the gold side alone.

Take the restored Unalloyed Gold Needle to the scarlet flower near the Malenia, Goddess of Rot grace, after Malenia's first defeat. Fandom says to rest at a grace if the flower is not there. Interact with it and you get Miquella's Needle; Fextralife's Unalloyed Gold Needle page and its Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone page both say a Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone comes with it.

Two conditions matter:

• It has to be Millicent's needle. Fextralife says the repaired needle you carried for Gowry does not work at the flower, only the one she gives up after the gold-sign fight.
• Malenia has to be dead. Order does not matter otherwise: Fandom says the questline can still be started after you have beaten her, and Fextralife says it can still be completed. How to beat her is in the Malenia boss guide.

Miquella's Needle only works inside Dragonlord Placidusax's arena in Crumbling Farum Azula, where it dispels the Frenzied Flame. Fextralife's Miquella's Needle page says you do not have to fight Placidusax for it; being in the arena is enough. The endings guide covers what that does to your ending slate.

What can go wrong

Quick Action Checklist

• Accept Gowry's request first. It unlocks Polyanna's summon sign for Commander O'Neil.
• Kill O'Neil with pierce damage and a rot cure. He has 9,210 HP, 0% pierce negation, and is immune to rot.
• Reload between steps. Gowry's repair, Millicent's recovery and most of her moves need a reload before the next talk.
• Use Sellia's Secret to reach the church, or drop in by Spiritspring from the Fort Faroth side.
• Take the Heirloom and the Sacred Tear at the Church of the Plague.
• Summon her for Magma Wyrm Makar before she gets the arm, if you want her there at all.
• Fetch the Valkyrie's Prosthesis from the Shaded Castle early. It is in a chest guarded by a Cleanrot Knight.
• Buy Pest Threads after the arm and exhaust Gowry's dialogue for the Desperate Prayer gesture.
• Do not kill Millicent before Elphael unless you only want the Prosthesis.
• Kill the Putrid Tree Spirit with fire. No Spirit Ashes in that fight.
• Take the gold sign on Journey 1. It pays the Insignia, the needle, Miquella's Needle and a Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone.
• Take the red sign on Journey 2 if you want the Prosthesis too. The two talismans stack.