Camelot Resurgent

by Galen Wolf

  He smiles. ‘They’re the brewers.’

  At this, the leader of the halflings comes up and speaks to Mercurius and I. It turns out he’s a player — a rogue, but he’s also running a brewing operation in the same way I run my mine as a way of generating income in the game. He reaches up and I reach down to shake his hand then he goes to Mercurius and does that same. ‘Hello,’ he says in a refined British accent. ‘I’m Josh Maggs-Rimmer, in charge of the brewers here.’

  I say, ‘You make the Green Man Ale?’

  He nods and smiles. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s great. Makes my head spin.’

  ‘Exactly what we want!’ Then he pauses. ‘Not too hoppy for you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s just that some people, particularly up north, prefer a maltier taste.’

  ‘No, it was fine. Nice and light.’

  ‘Yes, a perfect summer session ale, if I say so myself.’ Then he reminds himself of his mission and addresses himself to Mercurius. ‘We, myself and my halfling NPCs, would like to volunteer for the war.’

  Mercurius looks doubtful. ‘You’re not soldiers though.’

  The halfling rogue frowns. ‘No, but we can fight. I’ve kept my nose out of the war so far, just kept brewing, making my cash, but now I see that if Satanus takes over, it will be evil all the way. Those chaps have no time for ale and fun, it’s just death, torture and domination. That’s not a game I want to play. So, I’d like to do my bit for the war effort.’ He points at his halflings. ‘We’re small and light-footed. We can sneak. Heck, I’m a rogue by class, though I mainly do brewing now. What do you say?’

  Mercurius frowns. ‘I don’t know. You might all just die within a few minutes.’

  Josh is resolute. ‘We’ll take that chance.’

  Mercurius doesn’t look like he’s going to change his mind so I lean forward and say, ‘Why not? There won’t be anything left for them if Satanus wins.’

  Mercurius considers me and what I’ve said then nods slowly. ‘Okay. Fall in.’

  We march out of Alderley Edge, instead of the road we came in on from the northeast, we are now heading northwest down the bluebell covered slopes of Alderley Edge. Birds sing in the branches of the oaks, ashes and elm trees as we leave this bit of paradise and cross into the enemy zone of control.

  Here, as well as the haze, the fields and roads are muddy and rutted, and the sky is covered with dark grey clouds. I feel depressed just being there. Ahead of us as the road turns more directly west, I know the enemy has thousands of troops and I can see small dots in the air in the far distance where enemy cockatrices and other flying beasts control the sky.

  Merlin on his flying carpet, arms out like a surfer dude has zoomed away to the west towards the huge black dome that covers Caer.

  We trudge on our way. We are closer now to enemy troops, but they don’t seem to have registered us as a threat, or maybe they’re too fixed on their goal and being driven forward by their officers.

  Mercurius is riding beside me. It rains. He says, ‘I don’t fancy our chances taking on the enemy like this. We’d be better off trying some guerrilla tactics. Ambushing them as they come along in column.’

  ‘Trouble is that most of their troops have already gone ahead of us. I don’t know what we’d ambush.’ I shake my head. ‘We need to get to Caer.’

  ‘But what use is it if we can’t get inside the dome?’

  I have no answer to that so we ride on, hoping a solution will miraculously arrive. I look back and wave at my guys who are riding flanking the two wagons. They’re only half full of shit now, but the glamour is still holding.

  Merlin doesn’t return for a long time. I wonder what he’s doing. In fact, I’m still lost in my thoughts when I see a commotion in the hedgerow to our right. Then a scratching noise and a huge red centipede bursts out of the undergrowth, feelers waving and claws clicking with a greasy, sharp noise like the snapping of clagged up hedge clippers. It rears up and I see another one behind me and one further up the road in front of me. I look quickly at Mercurius who nods. ‘Yes, they’re enemy. They have spotted us.’

  They’re too close for the lance, so I draw my sword. The centipede comes for me and bites.

 

 

 

 

  There’s a damage over time effect as well as the initial bite damage. I check my HUD and see it runs for twenty seconds with a tick every second. That’s a lot of damage. Spirit rears up and clatters his hoofs on the centipede’s bulbous head.

 

  I cut downwards.

 

 

  This could get boring. I sip down one of Bernard’s blue health potions. The centipede rears up again and I stick it with my sword. No crit yet but it’s bleeding a disgusting sticky green blood everywhere. The poison damage is still ticking down. It goes to bite me again but I shield block it.

  I slice laterally across its chitin jaw, and I do crit this time. It tries to snap at me again in its death throes, but I block and jab, finishing the centipede. The huge worm lies writhing and dying in the road's mud. It must have been twenty feet long.

  I see Mercurius has gone ahead and is dealing with the centipede that attacked the head of our column. A glance over my shoulder shows Fitheach and Bernard stabbing and killing the centipede that attacked them, but it also shows Tye on his feet among the wreckage of our shit wagons.

  The fight has sent the centipede careening into them and smashed them to bits. A wheel lies in the brambles of the far hedge and the struts of the wagons are snapped. Some of the mules are dead too. At least one got poisoned by a centipede bite. That reminds me to check my damage and I see I’ve lost a lot of health but that the poison DoT has now finished. I sip some healing potion and I’m okay. I dismount and hurry over to where Tye and the others are now surveying the mess.

  ‘Broke,’ Bernard says.

  ‘Smashed to bits,’ Fitheach says.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Tye says. ‘Gorrow, how are we going to transport the goods?’

  I look around at the mess of shit and wood all over the floor, but before I can react, Josh Maggs-Rimmer the halfling brewer rogue is nearby, and he’s ordering his halfling NPCs to pick up all the shit. They wrinkle their little button noses, run their hands through their curly brown hair and step with their bare hairy feet in all the poop.

  ‘Hey, there’s something funny here,’ Josh says. He looks down, picks up a craggy brown lump and sniffs it. He looks puzzled then smiles. ‘I just used my rogue Appraise skill. This isn’t poop, and to be honest I wondered why you’d be hauling two wagonloads of poop all the way to Caer, anyway. It says it’s smoky crystal, whatever that is.’

  The halfling must have a high Appraise skill because no one else has seen through the glamour apart from Merlin.

  Bernard goes up to the halfling and hisses, ‘Shut your mouth,’ right in his face. Josh looks startled and a little afraid because Bernard can be pretty intense. I go put my hand on Bernard’s shoulder and pull him back from the little guy. ‘Easy, Bernard.’

  He looks at me and splutters. ‘He can see through the glamour.’

  Josh realises that this is important and taps his nose. ‘I can keep a secret.’ Then he scratches his curly head. ‘Is it a secret?’

  ‘Of course it’s a freaking secret, you half-pint.’

  ‘Easy on the racial abuse, Bernard,’ I say.

  He blusters and spits and scowls and shuts up. I say to Josh Maggs-Rimmer, ‘You also need to get your guys to pick up the real poop too. It’s special stuff.’

  Josh Maggs-Rimmer looks bemused. ‘Special?’

  Bernard hisses. ‘Just do it.’

  ‘Easy, Bernard,’ I say, but Josh has already got his guys on the job who are bending down with sour looks on
their faces as they pick up the lumps between finger and thumbs.

  Tye’s standing there, hands on hips. ‘But how are we going to haul it now? How can we get this stuff to King Arthur.’

  ‘It’s going to King Arthur?’ Josh says, looking surprised. ‘This poop and the disguised crystals?’

  ‘Sure,’ Tye says.

  Bernard looks like he’s going to punch the mage but before he can, Josh says, ‘What for?’

  Bernard jabs out a finger. ‘Never you mind. You keep schtumm about this. You never saw nothing, you know nothing, capeesh?’

  Josh scratches his head. ‘Eh, sorry old chum, you’ve lost me.’

  But the halflings are still picking up the poop, both the disguised poop and the real jabberwock essence and stuffing it in their backpacks. I look at Tye and point at the halflings and their now bulging backpacks. ‘That’ll work.’

  And then I see a black speck approaching from the west — it’s gold clad Merlin and his multicoloured Turkish carpet. He comes in, then when he’s right overhead he utters words of calming and the carpet drifts gently down to the ground. ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘I think I’ve thought of a way into the dome.’

  28

  Snap, Crackle and Pop

  Mercurius comes back to where Merlin sinks to the ground on his carpet. Merlin nods at him. ‘Got it.’

  ‘Got what?’

  ‘Got the plan.’

  Mercurius shakes his head. ‘Plan for what?’

  Merlin looks at him like he’s dumb. ‘To get these guys into the dome.’

  Butting in, I say, ‘Good. What is it?’

  Merlin strokes his iron-grey beard, a twinkle in his eye. ‘I spotted fissures in the dome.’

  ‘The white lightning streaks?’ Tye says, all bright-eyed, still in awe of his hero.

  Merlin nods. ‘They’re perturbations in the energy flow. Weak spots. If I put a charge of electroplasm in the right place, I reckon I can split it. At least the exterior.’

  ‘Can I help?’ Tye says. Merlin gives him some scrutiny with an eyebrow lifted. ‘You any use at electroplasmic manipulation? It’s a real skill.’

  Tye nods like a happy bunny,. He’s frowning too like he’s suffering from acute internal confusion, but he says, ‘Sure.’

  Merlin tilts his head. ‘You’re not mixing it up with ectoplasm? They’re quite distinct magically.’

  ‘I know. Electroplasm, not ectoplasm. They differ in magnitude of charge and spin.’

  ‘Not to mention strangeness and charm.’ Merlin is chuckling now.

  ‘That’s quarks.’

  ‘And leptons!’

  They both laugh. They have a rapport and Tye’s very pleased with himself. ‘So I can help?’

  Merlin smiles. ‘I’ll give you instructions, kid, but sure. It’ll take us a day to get there, marching.’

  Mercurius says, ‘But we’re not planning to take the troops that way? Will we get them into the dome?’

  Merlin says, ‘No, I don’t think so. Anyway, it’s not the best use of the troops we have here.’ He points at the soldiers we brought with us from Alderley Edge. ‘I figured we’d use these guys for a diversionary attack.’

  I nod. Seems reasonable. ‘So,’ I say. ‘What’s the diversion?’

  Mercurius says, ‘We don’t have the manpower for anything like a full on assault. But we could hit one of their reinforcement columns.’

  Merlin nods. ‘Sounds like a plan.’ He says, ‘The road splits further on at Tarvin. That’ll take us most of the day to get there. If we come across any enemy on the way, we take them on, then we get off the road. Once we’ve done that, Mercurius, you dig the troops in and prepare an ambush.’ The wise old mage looks at me. ‘And you, Sir Gorrow, and this whippersnapper Tye, you come with me straight west to the dome. Then we wait for an arc of electroplasm and then we crack that freaking dome open.’

  ‘Yeah!’ Fitheach says. ‘Smash that mother down.’

  Tye breaks into applause. Bernard looks bored. He says to me, ‘Did you see that rogue guy Deathknife a bit back?’

  I shake my head. Bernard gives a double take. ‘I don’t know why you keep missing him, Gorrow. The guy is so obvious. It’s almost like he wants us to know he’s following us.’

  I am worried by this. I say, ‘If Merlin finds us a way to get into the dome, we don’t want Deathknife following us in there.’

  Tye has been listening. Wide eyed, he says, ‘I wonder what will be in there anyway, inside the electroplasm. There could be anything, it’s like an unexplored dimension.’

  Bernard sighs. ‘Really, Tye. We’ll be fine. We can handle anything.’

  We do a bit of marching and we run into a regiment of orcish pikemen. Our vorpal equipped troops make light work of them and cut them down like grass. The only worry is that there are player characters with them and though we kill them —I killed two in fact— they will resurrect then they’ll go running back to their leaders and tell about the weapons that flashed blue and cut off their heads. I suppose the secret’s got to get out sometime, I’d just prefer if it was later rather than sooner.

  We march on until get to Tarvin. There’s not much of it left — just another burned out human village. I bind at the milestone just in case I get killed. It’s a real shame. The destruction they‘ve brought is terrible. Nothing left but mud and ash and charred houses. The road splits here, the main road going northwest towards Caer. This road is broad and rutted with the racks of many enemy war machines — muddy with thousands and thousands of enemy boots. There is a smaller rural way going due west. This road is much less used, it’s not marched into a mush of mud. There’s even grass growing in the middle still.

  I stand with Merlin and Mercurius and my boys. Not to mention about twenty eager halflings under their leader Josh Maggs-Rimmer each carrying a backpack full of glamoured shit, or real shit in fact depending how unlucky the halfling got, though it all smells pretty bad: the glamour is that good.

  ‘This is the parting of the ways,’ Merlin says. ‘Mercurius is to take the army slightly north of Tarvin here and lie in wait. If we’re going to the dome, then we’re heading west.’ Merlin points down the smaller trail.

  Mercurius gives me a long look that’s hard to read. Then asks Merlin. ‘Do you really have to go that way?’

  I shrug. ‘I guess. We need to get our cargo to the King.’

  Merlin says, ‘And Satanus will not let us walk into the dome via his own evil entry tunnel.’

  ‘No,’ Mercurius says, still not looking convinced.

  ‘How’s the battle going inside Caer?’ I ask. I understand that Mercurius has been in touch with Gawain and Lancelot.

  He twists his mouth. ‘It’s on a knife edge. They still haven’t breached the inner walls, but they’ve seen that Satanus has now brought in heavy siege engines through the dome, so they can pound the inner walls.’

  ‘And reduce them to rubble,’ Tye says.

  We all look at him. He winces. ‘What? I was just saying. That’s what will likely happen.’

  I turn to Mercurius. ‘If we can get the vorpal weapons to the King, then they stand a chance.’

  He says nothing and I know what he’s thinking: a very slim chance. There’s an awkward silence and then it’s time to leave. Merlin’s getting fidgety and he‘s unrolled his carpet.

  I nudge Spirit and we head west, Bernard on Henry, Tye on Bessie and Fitheach on Laireog. Behind us, two abreast is a line of halflings and a very eager Josh Maggs-Rimmer. They’re keen to be off on this mission, though they haven’t got a clue what it is.

  Merlin is still talking to Mercurius behind us. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but it’s probably something like “good luck.” Then Merlin takes off on his carpet, zooms over to where we are and hovers just overhead. ‘Let’s go, boys,’ he says.

  We take an hour of riding to get close to the dome. The halflings have to jog, but it doesn’t seem to tire them particularly.

  As we march, the black dome looms up on
us. It’s as high as a five-storey building. Think of a moderately sized hotel. It’s gleaming and smooth and shiny and the surface seems ever restless, like there’s liquid obsidian whirling about inside half a glass sphere. And it’s true, there are streaks and flashes of white in the black. It looks almost planetary. There’s even a smell to it, a burning engine oil smell. It reminds me of evil. Engine oil is just an evil smell.

  ‘Big, ain’t it?’ Bernard says, tipping back his head as he sits in the saddle on Henry’s back.

  I nod. It looks impregnable. I have to trust Merlin. I can’t see how he will get into the dome, but all that talk of electroplasm sounded technical and convincing like he knew what he was talking about.

  ‘Good job we lost that rogue,’ Fitheach says, catching up with me. ‘I never liked him. Even on Lindisfarne.’

  I say, ‘It was you who wanted to torture him.’

  He smiles. ‘No, it was Cuthbert. But put the sinner to the question. It’s always the right thing to do for us saints.’

  I shake my head. ‘I wish I was so sure.’

  We’re closer to the dome now. As well as the burned engine smell, which has gotten stronger, there’s a strange buzzing noise

  Bernard says, ‘It’s sizzling.’

  And it is. We go even nearer and as well as the smell and the noise, I can feel heat on my face. The thing is hot - red hot. But then a vein of white spins past. The whole thing is spinning like an enormous whirligig, and when the white veins fork and split and bubble under into the black liquid substance that is held in check by the glass or crystal surface of the dome, I get a blast of freezing air. If the black is red hot, the white is polar cold.