by Galen Wolf
“I’ll offer 5%.”
Everybody looks at him. The blond knight laughs. “Looks like Mercurius is going mining,” but one glance from the dark-skinned Sir Mercurius silences him. I glance at the grey haired knight but he’s just glad that someone is bidding for me. He didn’t want me really, he just wanted me not to feel so bad. I’m still grateful to him for that.
A long silence ensues.
“Looks like he’s yours, Mercurius,” ginger beard says.
Sir Mercurius stands and beckons to me. “And I’ll give you a stallion too.”
Someone goes “Oooh!” but Mercurius stare shuts them up. They all seem like scared little boys and I wonder who this Sir Mercurius is. “Will you accept my patronage?” he says.
I hit
I lose rep for being with him? What the heck is that about? For half a second I consider asking him, then don’t.
I follow him as he walks of the main hall. He turns right and I hurry to catch up with him. “I have my own chambers here,” he says as way of explanation. “When I’m in Camelot.”
“Where do you live normally, sir?”
“On an island.”
We arrive at his chambers. There are servants in there. There’s a four poster bed with silk drapes. I see his heraldic emblem is a winged silver snake on a blue background. There’s a round table and on it wooden platters piled with grapes, cheese, cold meats and bread.
Sir Mercurius has a conversation with his servant that I can’t hear. I stand nervously until he indicates I should sit. So I sit nervously until he’s ready to talk.
After about five minutes he turns with a smile. His nose is sharp like an eagle’s beak and his eyes are such dark brown as to be almost black. His skin has a deep tan. “Welcome to my service.”
“I’m honoured to be in your service.”
“Honoured? What have you heard?” He sits and takes a grape.
I shrug, embarrassed.
“You’ve heard nothing. You were just being polite.”
“I guess.”
“Did your reputation take a hit when you signed up with me?”
I don’t know what to say. In the end I choose the truth. “Yes. But I didn’t know why.”
“I killed a brother knight once. That’s why.”
“Ah.”
I want to ask whether he deserved it, but I don’t and he doesn’t volunteer the information.
“Can you ride a stallion?”
“Not yet. Next level, I think I’ll improve my riding.”
“Good idea if you want to be a knight. It’s kind of expected.” He’s smiling again. “And you’ll need to improve your swordplay.”
“Yeah, I know. I put the skills into mining and smithing.”
“Makes sense for a miner... or a smith.”
“Yeah, it was just to get a foundation. I hope I’m not a burden to you.”
“No. But those jokers in there were right about one thing. I do want you to mine for me.”
“Ah okay. Good.” I’m not sure if it’s good. I don’t want to be his slave.
He sits back. “But first we quest.”
I’m all ears.
“Do you know of St Herbert?”
I shake my head.
“St Herbert is a hermit. He lives on an island on a lake in the middle of the mountains.”
“Okay.”
“The lake is full of hideous monsters. We’ll need to take a boat over. Can you sail a boat?”
I shake my head.
“I wondered maybe you could. Maybe you’d spread your skills really wide.”
“No.” Truth was I simply didn’t have so many skill points yet. I didn’t see myself being able to put anything into sailing for a long while yet.
“Never mind. I can sail.”
There’s a silence. “I’m supposed to teach you the knightly arts of Chivalry. Then when I’m satisfied you’re ready, I’ll take you before King Arthur himself to be knighted. “
“I didn’t know about this process.”
“No, why would you? Most of the rules in this game you just learn by chance.” He goes back to his subject. “St Herbert is a good saint for a young squire to get blessed by. He adds 100 fire damage to your weapon.”
I whistle.
“That’s why I thought we’d do that one first.”
Sounds good. But I’m puzzled about the mining so eventually I ask him.
He laughs. “Yes, so St Herbert’s chapel is on an island, right?”
I nod.
“And there’s water horses in the lake.”
“They’re bad?”
“They’re bad. But don’t worry, I’m with you. Then, there are all sorts of things on the island — Afancs and Palug Cats, which are worst. But why I need you to mine is because...”
At that moment someone knocked on the door. I want to know why he needs me to mine, but he’s looking to the door and it opens. In walks the priestess Adele.
“Gorrow!” she says.
“Adele, hi.”
Mercurius raises an eyebrow. “You two know each other.”
I nod. “Yes, we quested.”
“Adele is my wife in real life,” he says.
12
The Quest of St Herbert
We ride off, or at least Sir Mercurius and Adele ride. I walk beside my horse — a spirited chestnut stallion with a star on his nose called Spirit. If he can talk he chooses not to. I get the feeling he looks down on me because I can’t ride him. I carry Sir Mercurius’s lance that has his pennant attached at the end of it with his heraldic arms of the winged silver snake on it.
We travel on the Great South road at first, passing merchants with their wares coming to trade in Camelot. There’s a band of monks from Furness Abbey and various country folk going about their business. Not far south of Camelot, we enter the great Forest of Inglewood and then cross an old stone bridge amidst the trees over the River Petteril, striking south east.
The mountains are visible ahead of us, Carrock Fell with its ancient hillfort, High Peak then behind them Blaencadair and Sgwedh Dhu, lofty and topped with snow even at this time of the year.
We pass dwarfish miners and a band of circus folk but the road is quieter here. At one point we stop by a cottage in the forest. Wood smoke curls out through a rough chimney. I smell food cooking among the general smell of the trees and herbs of the forest. Sir Mercurius dismounts and an ugly hag comes from the house. She has a hooked nose and wild looking grey streaked hair, wearing a shawl and a woollen skirt streaked with mud. She looked looks like a cookie-cutter witch.
“Good woman,” Mercurius says. “Do you have food for us?”
She curtseys and watches him with her bright birdlike eyes. Her fleshy lips are wet with spittle. “Just bread, water and gruel. Do you like gruel?”
Adele stands there in her cleric’s armour. “I’ve never had it.”
The witch nods. “It’s very good. Would you all like some?”
I’ve realised it’s possible to starve in Camelot, but you don’t need to eat much and I’m not hungry so I shrugs. The witch takes my shrug as a yes. She enters the cottage and begins clattering about with pots and pans.
“Is it safe to eat her food?” I ask Mercurius.
“Sure, why not?”
“Hygiene?” Adele said.
He laughs.
I didn’t mean hygiene. “No, isn’t she a witch?”
Mercurius looks into the cottage where the back of the woman is visible. A black cat with green eyes comes to the cottage door and mewls at us. “I guess she is.”
“Aren’t they servants of the Evil One?”
“Not all. Maybe some.”
“Don’t we need to kill her?”
“How would we get our gruel then?”
“So you don’t have to kill witches?”
Mercurius sighs. “Differ
ent knights have different methods. Most would cut her down. If she was lucky they’d duck her then burn her alive.”
“That’s lucky?” Adele grimaces.
“Compared with some of the other things they might do to her. But me, I’m more a live and let live kind of guy. She isn’t doing any evil as such. She just lives here with her cat making pennies from travellers.”
“I see.”
As the woman comes out with a plate of gruel and some bread I think she doesn’t seem very evil, more anxious to please. Sir Mercurius pays for all of us; I think it came to a groat in total.
Then they saddle up and I walk along with Spirit, who snorts when I take hold of his bridle to steer him down the path. The forest is gloomy and I’m glad when the road begins to climb and we get views of the foothills around us.
By evening we come to a settlement.
There’s a huge preaching cross in the centre of the village dedicated to St Kentigern. The lake where St Herbert lives is just a few miles from there.
“I’ll take my lance from here, Gorrow,” Mercurius says.
“Are you expecting trouble?”
“Always, but particularly on this stretch. The forest south of here is infested with the servants of the Evil One.”
“Like the witch?” I smile.
He studies me. “I hope you’re not being sarcastic? It doesn’t befit a squire to be sarcastic to his knight.”
I blush. “No, of course not, sir.”
He winks. “Fine then. Give me the lance.” I hand him his lance. He has a longsword buckled at his belt and dagger on the other side. He has a big three cornered shield with his arms on it. As he sits there on his charger, he flips down his visor and the blue feather on his steel helmet bobs as he moves his head. He looks the part. I want to look like that one day.
Adele looks pretty good in her armour too. Of course she doesn’t have a coat of arms. On her shield she has the Holy Cross in red to show she’s a holy warrior. She has a round bascinet helmet with no visor. Weird that she’s his wife. I remembered how she’d fussed around Luc and wonder how that works.
None of my business I guess.
We start off.
The trees crowd around us. Crows lift in cawing flocks from all around as we make our way down the rock strewn path.
“Ready,” Mercurius says. I don’t hear anything but he has high level skills.
A second later they burst out of the trees. Fox-headed hybrid warriors wielding swords and shields. I put up my shield and defend myself.
That’s no good.
The fox-man lunges at me.
I grunt with exertion.
< Fox-man causes you 0 damage>
Thank the Lord I got my smithing up and got a good shield. Looks like they can’t hit me, but I can’t hit them either. This is a pretty pathetic fight.
I glance around over the top of my shield and see Sir Mercurius making mincemeat of them. Then a bigger fox-man with three gold stripes on his arm lunges at me from the right.
Okay, that’s a bit worse, but he’s not doing me major damage. I flail my sword at the fox-man sergeant and miss.
Then he clobbers me with a down cut.
What? He must have got a crit. I sip a health potion.
He hits me for another 18 then he crits again. I’m down to 140. I try to sip health potion but it’s on cool-down and that’s another dose wasted. My first potion bottle is now empty, but I have another Health 30 left.
And then, curse him, he crits again. These sergeants must have a 20% crit rate.
<88/250>
I’m grateful when Adele throws a healing spell in my direction.
But then the sergeant hits me again for 18. Sir Mercurius appears from behind and skewers the fox-man sergeant. I take a sip and I’m back to <178/250>.
I thought we might get more xp for this fight, but I suppose Sir Mercurius is so high-level and I didn’t do much, so that probably explains why I only got a measly 200xp. Still it’s better than nothing, though I need 6000 in total for Level 5.
Mercurius wipes down the blood from his armour. He’s never dismounted during the whole fight and neither has Adele.
We go on. We don’t get far before I hear a horrific wailing. Spirit, my horse pricks up his ears. “What’s that noise?” I ask.
“Werewolves.” Mercurius snaps down his visor and readies his lance. “You keep out of the way as much as you can Gorrow.”
“I want to help.”
“You can’t fight these guys. See this lance?”
I look. I see it. I shrug. “What?”
“It’s got a silver tip. You can’t hurt werewolves without silver so your sword won’t do any damage.”
“Even if your swordplay was high enough to hit them,” Adele adds.
Thanks Adele.
“By the way, get yourself a lance once you’re able to ride a stallion. If you crit with a lance you get 5x damage so when you gallop and run someone down, you’ll probably one-shot them if you crit.”
Down the path, four hairy wolf like creatures appear. When they sight us they stand up on their hind legs.
“What about me?” Adele says.
“Stay back too. Look after Gorrow.”
“Hey, I don’t need a babysitter.”
Mercurius nods. “Yes, you do.”
He stands up in his stirrups and yells, “Here, doggie doggie. Come and get your supper.”
The werewolves break into a loping run. Mercurius shouts out his war cry. “For the Winged Serpent!” and charges them. I watch as his stallion’s muscles bunch and relax. He must be hitting fifty miles an hour and then he gets one with his lance and as he promised, kills the thing outright. At short range he pulls out his sword which gleams silver in the light. Two of the wolf-men are going for him. I see one concentrate on the horse, but the horse fights too. It seems to hit. Maybe animals can break the silver damage reduction of the werewolves?
That leaves one werewolf who’s seen us. He runs up the path towards where Adele and I are waiting. “Oh-oh,” I say. Adele readies her mace. It doesn’t look silver. I get ready. What else can I do?
The werewolf leaps at me.
Oh my giddy aunt. I reel backwards trying to get away. Adele smashes her mace into the back of its head to no avail. It’s still after me.
She throws me a heal for 60 and I sip a health potion for 30. The werewolf hits me again for 168. So it wasn’t even a crit.
The heal potion is on a cool down, not that it would help me now. I prepare to die.
Adele fires a light spell at the werewolf and that does some damage because it turns to swipe her. She’s got its aggro. The thing to do now would be to run, but I can’t bring myself to flee. I try to hit the beast from behind but I’m not even close. I jumps up and knocks her off her horse. Adele now is scrabbling on the ground. It’s on top of her and bites her again and I see a glow of healing. I don’t know what her health is, but she can’t take much more of this.
Then I hear the pounding of hoofbeats on the ground. Sir Mercurius is coming to ou
r rescue. I look up and see his stallion, nostrils flared. Blood running down its flanks from previous injuries. Sir Mercurius’s visor is down. His feather bobs with each step. His lance is levelled, the blood stained pennant fluttering from the speed he’s going.
Too late the werewolf looks up from Adele. It turns to flee but the lance hits it square on, pierces it and it must be a crit because the thing explodes.
I take a sip of health potion as Mercurius dismounts and goes over to Adele. He really is a true chivalric knight. Adele sits up and I see the glow of healing again.
“Good job you two.” He nods at me. “Good job especially Gorrow.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“You didn’t run. Many would have.”
I point at Adele. “I couldn’t leave her. I couldn’t hit it, but I couldn’t leave her.”
Adele gets up and dusts herself down. “You can get your swordplay up please,” she says.
I sigh. She’s right. Mercurius isn’t blaming me. “Come on,” he says. “We’re nearly at the lake.”
It’s less than a mile before we get to the lake shore. It’s certainly a beautiful view. The lake water glitters in the sunshine, a deep azure. The lake recedes out of sight between two lines of mountains which are high and covered with woods. The tops are bare and snow streaked. Further away we gaze into the jaws of higher mountains. The lake is sprinkled by green islands. Mercurius point to one of them.
“How do we get over?” I ask.
“I’ll make a raft.”
I watch amazed as he produces an axe from his inventory and goes to select some trees. He cuts three down and within about half an hour has shaped the logs. He then goes into the forest undergrowth and makes ropes from the creepers he finds there to bind the logs into a raft big enough for two horses and two men.
“That’s a cool skill,” I say.
Mercurius winks. “Please don’t put your skills into raft making. At least for a while.”