by Galen Wolf
Then I’m among them. My sword sings as it slices and hacks. All the various saintly blessings on it shine out blue and yellow and white. Impossibly, small snowflakes from the cold effect spin off the fiery blade as it arcs through the daylight cutting down into a boggart and slicing him in two.
‘For King Arthur and the Round Table!’ I yell.
At that the two beleaguered knights look round in my direction and give out a cry of hope. But there are so many enemy. I pull in my shield tight and block blow after blow. A huge wart faced troll turns and swings a club. Luckily, the club’s energy is dissipated as it ploughs into two boggarts, knocking them over dead.
I turn to face him.
Tye and Bernard are behind me. Bernard is wielding his alchemical sword that glitters with silver runes of power. Tye turns on his Burning Hands, spouting incandescent fire like a geyser into the hordes.
The troll swings down with his club and I lift my shield to meet it. If I hoped my Shieldwork skill would block it, I hoped wrong. The blow nearly breaks my arm
It’s not a huge amount due to my super powered armour. I jab under his guard into his fat guts. The sword goes in and the monster screams. A hobgoblin tries to scythe me from the right but Tye gets him with fire and he falls, shrieking.
The troll goes down.
We hack our way through the enemy until we’re in hailing distance of the knights.
‘Lancelot! Bors! Well met.’
Lancelot speaks through his closed visor. ‘Well met indeed, Green Knight. You seem to know us, but I don’t know you. However, you seem to be on our side, and I’m glad of that.’
I realise I’m still wearing my Green Knight cosmetic armour effect, so my true coat of arms as Sir Gorrow of the Bloody Field aren’t showing. Lancelot would have known me as Gorrow.
I fight the enemy NPCs around me and see a cluster of enemy players near Bors and Lancelot. Both Lancelot and Bors are bleeding heavily.
I recognise an enemy in black studded leather armour dual wielding a scimitar and a rapier. It’s Gearhart, a guy I quested with when I was first here who went bad and joined the Fangs of Koth. He’s fighting Bors. Though Bors is heavily armoured, Gearhart is a ranger and agile. His Dodge rating is high and Bors is struggling to land blows on him. Gearhart is taking his time, keeping away then darting in with his rapier to jab through holes in Bors’s plate armour. From the amount of blood running down Bors, Gearhart’s strategy is must be working.
Lancelot is engaged in a life or death struggle with a Death Knight. Reza the Cruel, one of the leading lights of the Fangs of Koth must have levelled and taken up his prestige class. From the beating he’s giving Lancelot, he’s improved.
I glance round to see I’m separated from Tye and Bernard who are fighting their own skirmishes with straggles of the enemy. Then I get hit from the side.
Damn, I didn’t heal up after the troll. I quaff a mouthful of Bernard’s best Healing 200 potion. The liquid is sickly sweet on my lips as I close my visor again. The potion has a minute cool-down so I can’t afford to take another crit. I raise my shield and Azaz’s next blow clangs uselessly off it as my 25% shield block skill triggers. I turn and jab.
I see him reel back in horror; he hadn’t expected me to be so deadly. As he falls back, I remember him — he was one of the guys who shot me in the back and killed me in the unholy temple at Carrionburg what seems a lifetime ago now. He sips a potion but I follow up with another attack and hit him again for 500. I don’t know Azaz’s level. He’s a Brigand, an evil type of ranger, so he must be over Level 15 to have chosen his prestige class so he’s got at least 750 health and more with amulets and trinkets I’m guessing. And his health potion might be better than two hundred. Even so, he’s outmatched when facing me, and from the look on his face he knows it. He’s dual-wielding like Gearhart and he jabs his rapier towards me, but I’m lucky and I shield block it. I remember to sip more health potion as it’s now off cool-down and I’m back up to 468/850.
I rush at him, all finesse gone as I try to land a blow but he’s slippery as an eel, his black armoured form dancing this way and that, but I’ve got him on the back foot. He looks scared and any blows he aims at me are half-hearted and miss.
I shield rush him, knocking all the wind out and he falls on his back. He twists to get away, but all he does is present his back to me allowing me an autocrit. If he hadn’t panicked, he could have fought this better.
Getting even closer to my Level 14. I turn and survey the scene. Bernard and Tye have killed scores of enemy NPCs, but they’re still fighting. The enemy grunts look like they’ve had enough and are on the point of breaking, but when I turn to the middle, the fight goes on. Then I see Gearhart plunge his rapier down into the join between Bors’s shoulder armour and his helm. Bors dies and Gearhart shouts in triumph.
‘Gearhart!’ I yell at him. The brigand turns his head. To think he even pretended to be my friend once. He doesn’t recognise me in my green disguise. He probably thinks he’s killed one Knight of the Round Table, so what’s another? He runs and leaps. I sip more health while he’s in the air. I raise my shield but he darts under it and jabs.
I use my shield to clobber him, dazing him for an instant while I hack right with my sword.
I see him roll. I jab, but miss. Damn his Dodge score. Then he turns, sips health potion and spins to face me, scimitar and rapier in his hands. He says, ‘Well if it isn’t little Gorrow, all grown up?’ He got the damage message that named me. ‘But you’re in disguise. Could it be you’re scared of us?’
‘Shut up and fight,’ I spit through my visor, but he’s laughing at me. Let’s see if I can make him stop. I lunge and jab and lunge and jab, but he’s too quick, then I remember what I did for Azaz. I shield rush him and just catch him as he tries to back flip away. There’s a knot of hobgoblins just behind. They’re milling around wondering whether they should fight me but not being brave enough to start, but they do me a favour by being in Gearhart’s way. I catch him, slamming my shield down like a trash bin lid and smashing him to earth. He’s winded but attempts to rise. I lunge and for the first time that day, I get a double-strike. It’s only a 5% trigger
chance, but this is it.
I see fear on his face. He reaches for his potion and that gives me the chance to hack down.
He healed up and he’s still alive, but only barely. And he knows it.
I say, ‘What were you saying about me being scared?’
He jabs with his rapier and gets through hurting me for 300.
I should have healed up. I could sip health now, but I choose to attack instead. If he gets one more hit, I’m dead, but if I land one so’s he. He sees my sword coming and rolls left so it sticks in the soft mud instead. I glance left and he’s on his feet coming round with his scimitar. I raise my shield and it blocks, then under my shield I push my sword easily into his unguarded stomach. The leather armour is no match for the damage my weapon carries.
<400 xp>
Gearhart’s ghost shimmers there for an instant and although ghosts can’t speak I can almost hear the curses he’s muttering at me. I give him a wave as his ghost shimmers off back to where he’s bound, most likely in Carrionburg sev
eral miles away to the east.
I’m now only seventy short of Level 14. Seventy! I look around for something to kill, but the hobgoblins and dwemmers have seen enough. Those not already cooked, fried or diced by Bernard and Tye turn and run, a vast noisy crowd of black armoured goblinoids flees, stumbles and screams its way across the bog land like so many rats.
Reza is still engaged with Lancelot. They’re evenly matched and I jog over to give a hand when Lancelot delivers the coup de grace. Reza the Cruel dies once again. Not for the last time, I hope.
Lancelot lifts his visor.
I jab my thumb at Reza’s vanishing corpse. ‘I was hoping to kill him.’
He smiles. ‘You have history with that scum?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘But who are you?’
I raise my visor. He still doesn’t recognise me. ‘Gorrow of the Bloody Field.’
Realization dawns in his eyes. ‘You were Mercurius’s squire?’
‘Yes.’
‘The one they all made fun of because you had a second profession as a miner.’
‘That’s me.’ I’m grinning, but he isn’t finished.
‘You distinguished yourself at the Fall of Camelot and your actions allowed the king to withdraw south.’
Bernard and Tye have come up behind me. ‘Yes, that’s him. He’s a regular hero.’ The alchemist claps me on the back.
Lancelot looks puzzled. ‘But what are you doing so far north? The king’s forces are all south.’
‘We live here,’ Tye says.
‘Live here?’ Lancelot scans the horizon. ‘But where?’
Tye taps his nose. ‘That’s for us to know and you to find out.’
Bernard shoots him a glance. ‘Tye, be more polite when speaking to your betters.’
Lancelot raises his eyebrow. He clearly isn’t used to being spoken to like this by whippersnappers like Tye.
I say, ‘We live underground.’
‘You live underground, like a dwarf?’
I nod. He clearly thinks it’s unseemly for a knight to live underground but then he says, ‘Ah that makes sense. You were the miner.’
‘And smith,’ Bernard says. He always wants to big me up which is nice of him.
‘Come with us, Sir Lancelot,’ I say. ‘Before the enemy sends more players out here.’ Then I frown. ‘What about Sir Bors?’
‘My cousin? He’s gone to his bind point which is at Caer, over a hundred and fifty miles south.’
We walk in the direction of the Forgotten Chapel Dungeon and Lancelot follows.
‘My horse is dead,’ he says.
‘What are you doing up here anyway?’ Tye says.
‘How goes the war?’ Bernard asks more politely.
Lancelot points an armoured finger at the grey sky where ravens soar croaking. ‘The enemy has spies everywhere. Let’s not talk of it here.’
Soon we’re at the door to the Forgotten Chapel Dungeon.
Lancelot stops. ‘It certainly looks like the door of a dungeon.’
‘Duh, that’s ‘cause it is,’ Tye says. Bernard hisses at him to be quiet. Lancelot takes no notice.
‘Let’s go inside.’ I unlock the door and we step into the dungeon. ‘It’s off-line. We’re digging another level, so until that’s ready, no adventuring parties can enter.’
‘Let me get this right,’ Lancelot says. ‘You live here in the dungeon.’
Tye shakes his head. ‘No, dumb—’
I stop the wizard. ‘No, we don’t live in the dungeon,’ but Tye continues. ‘The dungeon’s a front for our real settlement here. Hidden behind it.’
Bernard shakes his head. ‘Well done for giving our vital secrets away.’
Tye wrinkles his nose. ‘He’s a friend, isn’t he? One of ours.’
‘Aha,’ Lancelot says. ‘That’s quite smart. So that’s how you managed to survive up here, in the middle of enemy territory, since… I guess since the fall of Camelot?’
I nod. ‘That’s right. I kept radio silence. I know the bulletin boards and guild forums have spies on them, so I didn’t post about where we were.’
Lancelot nods sadly. ‘Yes, spies. Even on the guild forum of the Knights of the Round Table, I’m afraid. I don’t know who they are.’
‘That’s the point of spies, really,’ Tye says.
I turn. ‘Enough. Say any more and I’ll confine you to your chambers. Sir Lancelot is an honoured guest here.’
‘Well, I was just saying.’ The wizard attempts to justify himself but Bernard glares at him to shut up.
Then Tye smiles and says, ‘But they know where we are anyway now. We got caught.’
‘You got caught?’ Lancelot asks.
I gesture down the passage. ‘Let’s go to my chambers and talk about this.’
Bernard fills in. ‘Yeah we were raiding their stuff and we got these wagons loaded with these Smoky Crystals they’re mining at Carrionburg. And so now they know we’re here. It’s only a matter of time before they come to smoke us out.’
But Lancelot is more interested in the cargo of the wagons. ‘Crystals? Smoky coloured crystals?’
‘Like smoky quartz, but not quartz.’
Lancelot nods and smiles. ‘Good. We knew they were doing something at Carrionburg. We suspected it was this, but we weren’t sure. That’s why the King sent Bors and I up here. We didn’t know you were so close, or we would have asked you.’
I shrug. ‘But you know now.’
Tye pipes up, ‘We don’t know what the crystals are for yet.’
Lancelot gives him a smile. ‘But, my young wizard, I do. Merlin told me and it’s very very secret.’
Ingredients
We’re huddled with Sir Lancelot around the scarred oak table in the middle of my chamber hewed from the living rock, not so long ago by Thorvald and his miners. Damp shines on stone walls in the light of three flickering candles. Lancelot has taken off his armour, I’ve given him a spare chamber to rest in — we have plenty of those after all. He looks almost relaxed and the light shines on his handsome chiselled face. Lancelot has a reputation as a tough fighter, a straight talker but a loyal friend. He is also having an affair with Guinevere, the Queen’s wife, which I don’t approve of, but lots of things go on behind closed doors, and it’s not my place to judge. And just because he loves the king’s wife, doesn’t mean he’s not loyal to Arthur — he is. All these thoughts are going on in my mind as Lancelot sits back and gives us the skinny on the Smoky Crystals.
We’re all there —all the PCs, Tye, me, Bernard and Fitheach. To be strictly accurate Saint Fitheach. Fitheach is keen for us to begin digging out his level of the dungeon — Level 3. Bernard in particular looks excited, he’s hanging on to Lancelot’s every word.
‘So you obtained the Smoky Crystals from an enemy supply train?’
I sit forward. ‘We were raiding in general and this time instead of hitting inward cargo trains going into Carrionburg, we chanced on one going the other way to New World Order.’
‘New World Order?’ Lancelot looks puzzled.
‘It’s what they’re calling Hexham now they’ve captured it,’ Bernard says.
Lancelot shakes his head. ‘Morons. Anyway, it’s interesting that they are taking supplies into Carrionburg. So it’s not self-sufficient?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘They’re bringing in beer, potatoes, oats, wood, coal, everything.’
‘So keeping Carrionburg going is pretty important to them, and, no offence, but this part of the world is pretty bleak and off the beaten track. It has no strategic importance.’
I shrug and smile. He’s right.
He continues, ‘We had intelligence that something was going on there, something more important that the settlement of Carrionburg merited.’
Bernard says, ‘And this area, bleak as it is, is full of mines.’
Lancelot gestures around. ‘As your home here shows.’ Then he frowns. ‘You haven’t found any Smoky Crystal here, have you? That would be very interest
ing.’
I shake my head. ‘The trouble is no one here has the skills to find it. Until you get to that skill level in Mining, you simply can’t see a mineral in the walls. For example, ordinary crystal — we’re sure it’s here, but I don’t have high enough skills to find it. Nor do any of the NPC miners.’
‘What’s your mining skill at?’
‘Two hundred. I reckon ordinary crystal is two hundred and fifty, and this Smoky Crystal will be above that.’
‘So you’ll need to put all the skill points you get from levelling next time into mining. How close are you to your level?’
‘Pretty close. Any time really, but putting a hundred points into mining and not getting to the Smoky Crystal is going to be a gamble, because we don’t know if it will be enough to get up to the Smoky Crystal skill. And I need points in Swordplay, Shieldwork, Smithing, Riding, Archery… Lots.’
Bernard interrupts. ‘Anyway, you haven’t said what the crystal is for. Why should Gorrow spend all those points on something that might not pay back the investment?’
Tye says, ‘It must be pretty special.’
Lancelot gives a wry smile. ‘It is.’
‘So what does it do?’ I ask.
‘Smoky Crystal will add a vorpal effect to a weapon.’
Tye says, ‘Explain?’
I say, ‘Vorpal is a 5% chance to kill an enemy outright. No matter how big they are, no matter how much health they’ve got.’
‘But only if they’ve got a neck,’ Bernard adds. ‘It simulates a decapitation effect, so it only works on those creatures that need a neck to live.’