Summary
Many of the dragons inElden Ringarrive with an excellent amount of fanfare, with Glintstone Dragon Adula standing proudly among them with not one, but two impromptu entrances. For players looking tocomplete Ranni’s questline, Adula will become a bookend that starts off the adventures into Nokron and caps off the laundry list of tasks done for the Lunar Princess all the way up on the Moonlight Altar.
However, encountering Glintstone Dragon Adula isn’t as simple as finding the boss sleeping peacefully within one of the many open plains scattered acrossElden Ring. Instead, the dragon arrives in a cloud of frost and blocks the path between the player and two main points on the route to meeting and marrying Ranni.
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The Illusion of Back-to-Back Boss Fights
Adula’s first appearance happens on the way to Ranni’s Rise in the Three Sisters region of Liurnia of the Lakes. What makes this location stand out is that it is only accessible immediately after fighting the spirit version of Loretta in Caria Manor, one of the smallerLegacy Dungeons inElden Ring. So, after finishing off a boss that can be brutally difficult for players on an initial run, the reward is setting out on a new isolated area that immediately throws a dragon at the screen.
This immediate appearance is the first major troll that Adula embodies, by taking a player who might have let their guard down as they explore the Three Sisters. Of course, this likely won’t be the firstdragon players will face inElden Ring, which makes it a good thing that Adula is a unique fight among the collection of similar bosses. Much of this uniqueness comes from one attack that sets the fight apart from other dragons, and another attack that is specific only to Adula.
The result is a surprise fight against a dragon only a few minutes after facing off with Loretta, continuously throwing the player through a loop by introducing a dragon-infused version of one ofElden Ring’s strongest sorceries, Crystal Torrent. However, as the fight continues, Adula will eventually use a completely unique attack, summoning a frozen moonlight greatsword and sweeping from sky to ground. It’s an impressive fight that sets itself apart enough from other dragon encounters to either quickly send players back to the Loretta Site of Grace, or see Adula quickly leave when the battle should only be halfway finished.
Adula’s Twin Encounters are the Best Justified Repeat Bosses
Repeated bosses have become somewhat of a low-hanging fruit for those looking to criticizeElden Ring’s open worldand the quality of the content that fills it. However, Adula is one of few bosses that justifies appearing more than once, even among the dragon fights that have been scattered across the rest of the world. This is because in this case, Adula is the same enemy that is encountered in two locations, having disappeared halfway through the first fight that blocks the path to meeting Ranni.
The second fight against Adula happens on the Moonlight Altar, right before the final meeting with Ranni which will end her quest and reward the player with the option for a wholenew ending toElden Ringapart from the simple choices of which rune to bind to Marika. Additionally, this second interaction rhymes perfectly with the first, as Adula appears through an icy mist, trolling a player already winding down from another difficult boss fight, and guarding access to Ranni. This then becomes a huge FromSoftware troll that is able to set itself up and pay itself off with a fight that also works as a thematic test for the Tarnished and two unique dragon fights.
Elden Ringis available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
