You’ve probably seen her. That stone-masked woman tucked away in a damp cellar in Limgrave, surrounded by poisonous flowers and a guy with a pumpkin for a head. Sorceress Sellen is one of the first real mentors you meet in Elden Ring, but her story is a lot darker than "helpful magic teacher." Most players breeze through her dialogue, grab a few spells, and move on. That’s a mistake.
The Elden Ring Sellen quest is actually one of the most morally gray, reward-heavy, and frankly disturbing storylines in the entire game. It's not just about getting a cool blue laser beam. It’s about a coup, a serial killer, and the terrifying price of "scientific" progress in the Lands Between.
Getting Started: The Waypoint Ruins Meetup
First things first: you have to find her. She’s under the Waypoint Ruins in East Limgrave. You’ll have to smack down a Mad Pumpkin Head boss—honestly, just roll toward his stomach, his head is literal armor—and then open the door at the back.
She’ll ask if you want to be her apprentice. Say yes. Even if you aren't a mage, say yes. She doesn't care if you have the intelligence of a brick; she just wants a "pupil" to do her dirty work.
But here is the thing. The quest doesn't actually start start until you leave Limgrave. You need to get your hands on a legendary sorcery called Comet Azur. You'll find it in Mt. Gelmir, sitting with a very crystalline, very dead-looking guy named Primeval Sorcerer Azur. Once you show that spell to Sellen back in Limgrave, she realizes you’re actually useful.
The Search for Master Lusat
Sellen is obsessed with the "Primeval Current." Basically, she wants to take magic back to its raw, cosmic roots, even if it breaks reality. After you show her Azur's spell, she’ll give you the Sellian Sealbreaker.
Now you have to find Master Lusat. He’s hidden in the Sellia Hideaway in Caelid.
Finding this place is a pain. You have to go to the graveyard north of the Church of the Plague and hit a specific rock wall behind a headstone. It’s an illusory wall. Inside, the cave is full of crystals and pits. You have to navigate down to the bottom, past some snail enemies that summon spirits, until you find a magic barrier. Use the key Sellen gave you.
Inside is Lusat. He gives you Stars of Ruin. He also doesn't talk. He’s barely a person anymore, which should be your first red flag about where this quest is heading.
The Body Swap and the Witch-Hunter
After the Radahn festival (yeah, you have to kill the big gravity horse man first), Sellen drops a bombshell: the body you’ve been talking to isn't her real one. It’s a projection.
Her real body is chained up in the Witchbane Ruins on the Weeping Peninsula.
When you go there, she’ll ask you to take her "Primal Glintstone." Basically, you're ripping out her soul. It’s a literal rock.
Pro tip: Around this time, you’ll meet Witch-Hunter Jerren. You remember him; he’s the guy in the eccentric armor who hosted the Radahn festival. He’s hunting Sellen because, in his eyes, she’s a mass murderer. He calls her the "Graven Witch." He’s not exactly wrong. Sellen was exiled from the Academy for experimenting on other sorcerers to turn them into those giant stone ball things you see in mages' towers.
To give Sellen a new life, you need a new body. You’ll find a secret basement in the Three Sisters area of Liurnia (near Ranni’s Rise). There’s an illusory floor in the ruins there. Go down, find the hidden room behind another illusory wall at the back, and shove Sellen’s soul-stone into the puppet that looks exactly like her.
The Final Choice: Sellen vs. Jerren
Once Sellen is "reborn" in her puppet body, she heads for the Academy of Raya Lucaria. But you have to have beaten Rennala first.
Go to the library where Rennala hangs out. Outside the door, you’ll see two summon signs:
- Gold Sign: Help Sellen kill Jerren.
- Red Sign: Help Jerren kill Sellen.
This is where the Elden Ring Sellen quest gets controversial.
If you side with Jerren, you get an Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone. That’s it. It’s a rare upgrade material, but you can find others.
If you side with Sellen, the rewards are insane. You get Jerren’s armor set (the Eccentric Set), a powerful Intelligence-scaling dagger called the Glintstone Kris, and the Shard Spiral sorcery. Plus, if you go back to where Azur and Lusat were, you can loot their entire armor sets.
Most people side with Sellen just for the loot. But the ending... man, it's rough.
The "Ball" Problem
If you help Sellen win, she stands in the middle of the library and talks about a new golden age for the Academy. She even offers to help you when you become Elden Lord. It feels like a "good" ending.
Until you rest at a Site of Grace.
When you come back, Rennala is back in the center of the room like nothing happened. Sellen has been pushed to the side. And Sellen isn't a person anymore. She’s been turned into a Graven-Mass—one of those horrifying stone balls made of faces.
Did Rennala do it as revenge? Did Sellen’s pursuit of the Primeval Current finally catch up to her? The game doesn't explicitly say, but Sellen can only groan in pain. She achieved her goal of "returning to the current," but she lost her humanity to do it.
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Actionable Insights for Your Playthrough
If you want to maximize this quest without missing anything, follow these steps:
- Don't kill Jerren early. Some people try to kill him at Redmane Castle for his armor. If you do that, you break the quest and lose the rewards.
- Get the armor sets immediately. If you side with Sellen, go grab the Azur and Lusat sets before you start New Game Plus. They are some of the best-looking mage gear in the game.
- Use Shard Spiral on big bosses. The spell you get from Sellen is a multi-hit projectile. It absolutely shreds giant bosses like Elden Beast or Fire Giant because the spiral hits them multiple times as it passes through their body.
- Talk to Seluvis. Sellen’s "new" body is actually in Seluvis’s hidden puppet cellar. There is some extra dialogue and lore there if you progress his questline simultaneously.
The Elden Ring Sellen quest is a perfect example of why you shouldn't trust anyone in the Lands Between too much. Sellen is a brilliant teacher, sure, but she’s also a fanatic who was willing to turn her peers into stone spheres for "science." In the end, she became the very thing she used to create.
Next Steps for Players:
Verify you have the Comet Azur from Mt. Gelmir before attempting to advance Sellen's dialogue in Limgrave. If she isn't giving you the Sealbreaker, you likely haven't interacted with Azur's body yet. Once you have both legendary sorceries (Comet Azur and Stars of Ruin), ensure you have defeated Starscourge Radahn to trigger Jerren's move to the Witchbane Ruins.