by Galen Wolf
We pass along the cobbled road and there’s a fingerpost that says, ‘Pendle Hill.’
‘Any sign of the guy following us?’ I call back.
Bernard is at the rear. ‘No. Nothing.’
Tye says, ‘Don’t let that fool ya. He’s wily.’
‘And sneaky,’ Fitheach adds. Then he says, ‘We could lay a trap? Stretch razor wire across the trail behind us then when he comes sneaking up, concentrating on us and not where he’s going, his head gets lopped straight off like an apple, and rolls along the ground, where we can kick it like a football, the little bastard.’
Tye shakes his head. ‘Nah, he’s a rogue probs, so he’ll know more about traps than us.’
I say, ‘Any of you guys got any trap making skills?’
They all shake their heads.
‘Thought not,’ I say. Let’s just keep going.’
And so we ride on into the afternoon. The cobbled road stretches ahead but it’s climbing a little here. Pendle Hill looms closer.
‘Do you think we’ll have to take their bikinis off?’ Tye says.
I hadn’t thought about it. ‘I guess we can force them to take them off. Maybe offer them a deal or something. It might not come to a fight.’
Just then there’s a rustling in the undergrowth to our right, and six black clad player characters rush us, blades drawn. They’re on foot so we have a slight advantage, but they’ve got the drop on us.
‘What the actual?’ Tye says.
Bernard has his alchemical blade drawn and Henry rears up and stamps on the head of the first enemy with his mule hoofs. I draw my sword and it burns multicoloured as I prepare to do battle.
Damn him. I hack down with my sword.
He doesn’t look bloodied so I guess that’s not even half his hitpoints. I have no idea of what level these guys are but there’s six of them and only four of us. Behind me, I hear Fitheach call upon the saints and angels and blast his adversary with a wash of holy magic.
Good old Shield Block. He grabs a blue potion and glugs back on it to restore health before I cut down again.
Where’s a crit when you need one?
That’s the 5% Dropsy effect triggering that Fitheach put on my blade. I see Darrow drop his sword and go down to grab it from the grass under Spirit’s hoofs. Spirit rears up and comes crashing down on my enemy and I slash him across the nape of his neck. That has to be an auto-crit.
He goes for his blue potion again, but it’s on cool-down I guess, so he gives that funny lip-smacking graphic you do when your potion dose is wasted. I jab him in his chest. He’s wearing black lacquer armour with some red guild insignia on them, some kind of Nordic rune thing. Must be an evil guild but not one I recognise. My sword goes through his armour
He swings wild but misses and then his eyes fill with panic. He knows he will die. He turns and runs. That’s a mistake. He runs down the path rather than into the bushes. That’s another mistake because I’m on horseback. I urge Spirit forward, step up in my stirrups and hack backwards as we pass the unfortunate Darrow. I didn’t even need a crit.
So he was pretty low-level, but xp is xp. His ghost shimmers and vanishes and I turn round to see how the battle is going. Just as I turn I feel a surge of heat and see Tye has Fireballed two of the black-armoured enemy. There is no friendly fire in Camelot so we don’t get hurt by Tye’s fiery antics, but they do. One of them dies straight away. The other pauses, unsure what to do and gets a Flaming Ray in his belly and that’s him done.
Bernard slices the head off his enemy with a blue flash and a cry of ‘Vorpal!’
Fitheach has already killed one of his assailants and the other sees the fate of his friends and runs. This time, sensibly into the undergrowth. Tye fires a fireball after him. The whole of the hedge catches fire with a roar. I don’t know if Tye’s fireball ended the guy, because I can’t see through the inferno, but then I hear a ‘Waaah!’ and I guess he got him.
They’re all grins when they come up to me, but I’m not smiling.
‘What’s up, boss?’ Tye says, wiping his blackened greasy hands on his robe.
‘Yeah, that was good!’ Bernard says.
Fitheach gives a sainted grin and I can tell he enjoyed killing people too.
I shake my head. ‘You called out “vorpal”, Bernard.’
He nods, and can’t help his smile getting broader. ‘Yes, did you see that? Took his head clean off. What a neat skill that is to have on your weapon.’
‘Yes, but we already established that they still didn’t know what we were doing with the crystals and excrement.’
‘Ah,’ he says, his face falling. ‘Gotcha.’
I shrug. ‘It’s done now. But keep a zip on it in future.’
He looks sheepish. ‘Will do, Gorrow.’
I turn Spirit’s head to face the way we’re going.
There are no further incidents on the trail, but that was enough to remind us that these are enemy held lands. From the crazy attack when they were clearly outmatched, I think that was just a bunch of enemy players who saw us and thought they’d take a chance. It didn’t feel coordinated with whoever is following us. That enemy is far more patient and clever.
We need to get to Pendle, get back with the bikini — even saying it sounds stupid — then get smoky crystals and take them to the King. But another part of me things this is just a delay, and any delay is just making Satanus’s victory more certain. We need to get to Caer. Somehow I need to figure out how to get more Jabberwock shit, but even if it’s just us turning up to fight beside the King, that’s better than nothing.
I glance round at my companions who are lost in their own thoughts, or maybe reading forums as they ride. From small beginnings, we’ve become formidable fighters. I’m not saying we’re enough to turn the battle against Satanus, but we will help, and maybe with the other knights — Lancelot, Gawain, Bors and Galahad and all the others, maybe we can just push the Enemy back and give the King a chance to recover.
At some point, I’m going to have to break radio silence and get in touch with the Knights of the Round Table. There is a guild bulletin board, but we’ve long since suspected it was monitored by treacherous eyes who were reporting straight back to Satanus. I will probably message Lancelot directly, but as I don’t know when I will be there, and what I’m going to bring with me, I will hold fire on that for now.
‘It’s big, isn’t it?’ Tye says. He’s come alongside me while I was lost in my thoughts. I look down from the back of Spirit to where he rides on Bessie’s back. He means Pendle Hill. Now we’re closer, I can see that it is very tall. It’s got a wide flat top that seems wreathed in black mist that boils and stirs as if driven by strange winds. The flanks of the hill are clothed in swarthy twisted trees. From here it doesn’t look like there is even a path, but there must be. This road must lead somewhere.
We enter the forest about ten minutes later. The trees cluster round like wicked old women, bent and misshapen, their spiky branches decked in sharp black leaves like diseased holly. The path goes through a kind of tunnel and the trees reach overhead and join, cutting out most of the light. We ride forward in the unnatural gloom, all the while becoming more conscious of strange creatures rustling in the undergrowth out of sight to both right and left. They sound big. I can see weird birds on the branches, just watching us — heavy crow like things, but with bald heads and necks like vultures. They shift as we go by and I can’t help thinking they look hungry.
‘No sign of the witches, yet,’ Tye says. ‘I wonder where they are.’
I wonde
r too but I say nothing. This feels like ambush country.
The road goes on, getting muddier, big patches of cobbles now missing from the roadway. The trees press in on us on both sides. We can’t see the sky at all but it is now so dark, it must be night.
‘I don’t like this place,’ Bernard says.
‘Have courage, Bernard, I am with you,’ Fitheach says. ‘You want some light?’
But I stop him. ‘No, it will only draw attention to us. Let’s go on in the dark.’
We ride on further.
‘Where are those damn witches?’ Tye says. ‘I’d rather get the fight over, steal their bikinis and get gone than all this riding and waiting and riding and knowing something bad will happen sometime, but not being sure when it is, if you get me.’
I nod. ‘I get you.’ I feel the same, but what choice do we have? This is a quest, there must be some clue as to where it begins.
‘Hey, what’s that?’ Tye says. He’s looking forward. I look too. There are lights. Soft yellow lights ahead maybe a hundred yards. They look even welcoming.
‘Maybe it’s an inn,’ Bernard says. ‘Maybe it’s an inn where adventurers can get provisions. You know spell components and stuff.’
‘Maybe.’ I nod. ‘Let’s go on, but be wary.’
I set my lance ready and we clip-clop forward. Spirit’s hoofs sound muffled now as we go on a road that is more mud and earth than a proper road surface.
The lights come from a building. It looks like the glow of oil lamps coming through mullioned glass windows. There’s also a solitary street lamp outside, and a yellow flame burns happily inside a glass case. It casts a soft light on the surroundings so we can see that it looks like a cottage more than an inn. There is a pool of water by the cottage and a low stone wall surrounds the pool. The water glitters in light reflected from the street lamp. It looks nice.
‘It’s a cottage,’ Tye says.
‘Careful,’ Bernard mutters.
‘Looks a nice place, uncle,’ Tye says. ‘Don’t be worried just cause you’re old and incompetent. I’ll look after you.’
Bernard says, ‘Tye, don’t do anything stupid.’
I echo that. ‘Tye, wait back here. Don’t rush ahead.’
Tye groans. ‘Okay, okay, but it’s only a cottage.’
‘I’ll go first.’
I click my tongue and Spirit takes me on. I wave for them to hold back and I ride forward, ready for anything, lance couched, expecting something horrible to jump on me at any minute. But nothing does. I get up to the cottage and it is just what we thought. It’s a lovely old-fashioned cottage with roses round the door. The windows are made of lots of little diamond shaped glass panes held in place by lines of lead. The door is painted pink. Behind me the street lamp gives off a pleasant glow and the pool laps quietly in a slight breeze.
Tye’s up with me now. ‘See, I told you there was nothing to worry about.’ Then his head snaps round. ‘Hey, there’s treasure in that pool.’ I look round to see the pool behind the stone wall contains gold coins and precious stones. There’s a gold sword and a crown in there too.
‘Wait!’ I yell, but it’s too late. Tye has jumped the wall, pulled up his blue robe to his knees and waded in. As soon as he gets in the water, he falls face first with a huge splash.
‘He’s asleep!’ Bernard shouts.
‘Must be enchanted,’ Fitheach says. ‘I’ll get him out.’
And then the door of the cottage opens to reveal a beautiful blonde woman of around twenty-five. Her locks curl round her shoulders and she has the most voluptuous and alluring female shape that a video-game designer could imagine. She’s wearing hardly anything, and my eyes are drawn to her. Fortunately, her naughty parts are concealed top and bottom by a diamond-crusted metal bikini with lovely a little dolphin motif round the edges.
‘Hello, dearie,’ She says to me.
‘Well, hello,’ beams Bernard, Tye’s plight now forgotten.
She smiles back to him, clicks her fingers and Bernard goes slack-jawed. The light in his eyes dims.
‘I’ve just made him my thrall,’ the witch says in a friendly manner. ‘Now, how about you?’
16
The Witch's Thrall
I am mounted on Spirit by the pond in which Tye is floating asleep, arms crossed like a smiling cherub. Bernard is on Henry the Mule and both of them are looking glassy-eyed and hypnotised. I am guessing the witch has charmed both the alchemist and his mule.
In front of me is the witch in question, wearing a diamond-crusted adamantine bikini set. Fitheach is nowhere to be seen for some reason. I glance back at the witch who has a lop-sided grin and a twinkle in her eye. At character creation she put must have time into making her face and figure most alluring and the bikini enhances the appeal, but her good looks have no effect on me because am sworn to my God and King so, uttering this battle-cry, I level my lance and go to spear her.
‘Naughty, naughty,’ she says, somehow side-stepping my lance. I pull Spirit up in a confused trot that stops up fast and we turn to look and somehow she’s right behind us. Damn this witch, she is a mistress of enchantment. So far in Camelot, all I’ve come across is pure destruction magic, but this is a different kind and harder to battle. With a snarl, I turn Spirit and we canter at her, but this time she twiddles her finger and all I see is a blinding blizzard of gold glitter particles. I’m sightless and, from his exasperated whinny, so is Spirit.
Then I hear her say, ‘Alchemist, kill him!’ and Bernard replies in wooden tones. ‘I obey, mistress.’
Still blind, I hear the draw of steel and realise that must be Bernard pulling his alchemical sword from his scabbard. There’s a clatter of hooves that must belong to Henry and I try to turn Spirit in the right direction to face Bernard. I raise my shield. I don’t want to kill the guy, he’s my buddy, and also we are both bound in the ruined village of Clitheroe some way down the track.
Blinded by the Glitterdust, I lift my visor to try to see better but it does no good; the air is still full of sparkling gold flakes that reflect light so brightly, I’m sunburned and snowblind. Then Bernard strikes. He’s got a lot of effects on his sword and the damage list on the scroll of messages whizzes by on my HUD.
I barf.
All I can do is numbly watch the scroll and my health bleeding away. I hadn’t realised Bernard was this serious a fighter. I guess I’d underestimated the Alchemist Class’s usefulness in battle.
Blinded both by the witch’s Glitterdust spell and Bernard’s Dazzle rune and held fast by the Numb rune, I sit there, lance in hand. Then he hits me again.
I barf again. Poor Spirit.
This is getting tedious.
I’m initially blind so I can’t see my form dissipating into a cloud of light like it normally does, but vision comes back as my ghost shimmers back to life at the Milestone in Clitheroe Village.
The familiar fingerpost points to Ned Ludd’s Diamond Mine over the way. I think about going to see Ned Ludd and complain that the witch quest was too hard, but what’s the point? I am a Knight of the Round Table; they build us to take on difficult quests, though the recent experience with the Invisible Crystal Dragon and Robin Hood and now this debacle with the Pendle Witches leaves a bitter taste of failure in my mouth.
I am without Spirit so I will have to walk back. I sit for a while watching the ruins of Clitheroe. Smoke is still rising into the damp air from a few of the torched hovels. I am expecting the others to resurrect back here once they’re dead. And bang on cue, here’s Fitheach. Also without his mount. He scratches the top of his head, long white hair hanging down and his bushy white eyebrows forming a V-shape above his beak-like nose. ‘She got Bernard to kill me,’ he mutters.
‘Same,’ I say. ‘Who knew Bernard was such a badass?’
Fitheach shakes his head. ‘Those bloody runes on his sword. I vomited all over my white smock.’ He picks at the front of his white saintly smock, but luckily death has cleansed it.
‘Where’s Tye?’
He shrugs and shakes his head. ‘Last time I saw him he was floating in the pond, fingers scrabbling for the treasure at the bottom. But I think he was asleep.’