Arthurian Cultivation

"Did I mention how sorry I am?" Bors rumbled, coming to sit beside me at our camp. The big man looked like a kicked dog. I debated feigning annoyance but honestly I was just tired.

The journey down the mountain had cooled my anger. I can admit I may have been rather perturbed at having the Sorcerer slain right before me. I may have used my wide vocabulary to chastise Bors after the fight. I may have also started to sardonically create a song about a Knight who tried to help in increasingly over the top and unhelpful ways.

My favourite verse so far focused on the Knight causing an avalanche to move a stubborn boulder. A suggestion from Sephy, which if Bors spluttering was anything to go by was a story with some truth behind it.

That had got a few laughs, which had been necessary, after coming out of the caves the mood had been the lowest I had seen. My compatriots faces haunted and drawn, conversation clipped and terse.

We had descended from the high mountains, our usual banter absent, and made for a camp we had left just that morning. A ruin long absorbed into the pines in which we could shelter from the autumn winds.

The hours of travel to get down the mountain had cooled my anger at Bors. He had thought he was helping and could not have known that the mad Sorcerer had valuable information in his rotten skull. Also my energy was directed elsewhere.

While the others had come more to life as time passed and the caves were left behind I had grown more quiet. My attention consumed by my burden.

"Enough Bors. I understand alright. You all agreed to go for the kill and besides even if he had lived given how mad he was I cannot imagine we would have got much more out of him."

"You are being quiet though," Bors probed with a tentative voice like he was picking at a scab.

"That is because I am carrying the most horrifically cursed object I have ever encountered wrapped in something cobbled together by an insane hermit and do not want to get distracted and find it has started leaking when I was not paying attention," I snapped. The chest that hung off a thick leather strap and pressed against my back made my skin itch.

I took a calming breath. I might still be a little annoyed at Bors, but the chest was the main issue. I was the only one amongst us who could risk carrying it, the only one who might detect if things started to go wrong before it reached a point that we would all know that things were fucked by it exploding in a wave of death glamour.

"Besides, Bors if you did not kill him I would have. There were things down there that I can never unsee. Horrors too low for even the Unseelie," Arthur chimed in, joining us at the campfire. His voice was tight and his eyes had a faraway look.

There were grunts of agreement from the group. They looked haggard and tired. They never even showed me the beast they had found, burning it and everything else they found in the tunnels with grim efficiency.

I would not be asking for a recounting of this tale.

A pity as we were victorious. We had cleared away a monster from the face of Euross, almost certainly earned an invite to Phischer’s court and got a lead on this potential theft. Despite this everyone was in their doldrums. I did not have the motivation to lighten it as I would normally, the chest weighing on my mind and crushing my creative spirit.

"So what is in the chest?" Lance sat opposite the fire. We had got back to our campsite from earlier that day. The ruins of a long abandoned outpost, the heavy stone walls offering protection from elements and beasts alike even if much had tumbled down into disrepair.

"No one is opening that chest. We are getting that to a Steel and Taliesin’s teacher," Kay called out from where she was putting up the tents.

I heard Sephy grumble at that, she was not a fan of involving others given the prophecy. However the threat the box posed was great enough that she was not complaining.

"I know Kay, I am not an idiot. I am just saying what do we think is in it. I would say something living because it will not go into a storage ring, but with the death glamour rolling off it there is no chance of that."

"Our storage rings are only Iron. I do not think it is alive, I just think it is something Steel rank in there," I replied, remembering the odd sensation as I had tried to claim the item. I frowned at the box and continued my musings.

"I get a sense that whatever is in there has a scent like the corruption from the Divine Cultivators. It is different though, and I do not know if it is just a different type of corruption entirely or something related to the Divine."

"Are you saying it could be the Grail?" Lance bounced up and the whole group shifted. A few of us had maybe been thinking it but none had put it into words just yet.

"I do not think so," I replied, it did not seem right. It felt anti climatic. While real life did not follow the path of stories and sometimes things just resolved themselves, there was something missing here. I thought back to the Lady of the Lake. I seriously doubted that she would orchestrate a prophecy that led to such a sad wheeze of an ending.

"That would be a kicker would it not. We found the Grail and wandered around for a few days with it after taking it off a rat faced monster," Bors chuckled.

"I am not sensing any blood glamour to it, which is meant to be a big part of the Grail. Besides the rest does not line up with what we know of the Grail. At its core it is meant to absorb death glamour and help convert it into power for those who drink from it. It is also the wrong shape. The Grail is an old design, more like a broad clay dish, it is more like a wide bowl balanced upon a heavy decorated stem," Sephy called out from across the camp.

"Maybe he broke it," Bors shrugged as he raised a fresh shelter from the earth. His old one was to be mine for the night as it would offer better protection for the chest.

"It is an artefact of ancient times, I suspect even a Steel could not destroy it without considerable sacrifice." Sephy walked over having finished setting up her tent. She was glaring at the chest.

"Could the Grail have been damaged beforehand. The prophecy does not specify that it is whole. We all know to take prophecies with a pinch of salt." That musing came from Maeve.

Our whole group bar Gawain who was seeing to the animals paused what they were doing and stared at the box.

"Let us focus on getting the accursed thing to those who can actually look at it before deciding anything," Kay called out, clapping her hands together.

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With the threat of Kay hanging over them our discussion broke apart. The tents were put up, the horses fed, and food. I was excused duties, instead told to just keep an eye on the chest. Even if it was not the Grail it was dangerous and would no doubt be valuable to someone.

I took in our defences, our camp sat in the middle of what would have been the keep’s outer bailey in the shadow of the collapsed ruins. It was a broad stretch of stone and earth long ago meant for mustering troops and drilling formations. Now it was a hushed, forgotten courtyard, its flagstones swallowed by mats of grey green moss and stubborn alpine grasses pushing up through every crack.

The encircling wall still stood in some sections and was a mere hint of civilization in others, leaving only tumbled blocks half buried in soil. A few portions still held their shape but most leaned drunkenly, as if one more hard frost might finally topple them.

It was a monument to hubris. I knew the stories. Heard the tales of why no Order made a home in these lands.

The most famous example was immortalised in the tale of the Verdant Folly. It recalled how once, long before most remembered, an Order had tried to carve its mark into these mountains. Their name has slipped from tongues and tomes alike but their remains cling to the land still, ruins like these, broken stones and hollow halls left as a warning to any who would claim the passes as home.

The mountains were never kind to Orders. The glamour here never rose past Iron, leaving the land lean of treasure and thin of the monsters that might have fed aspiring cultivators. In this barren land even the mountains themselves turned against them, demanding days of toil for every mile travelled.

But these hardships were only the surface of the truth.

What truly kept the passes empty was the shadow of the Green Knight.

The song tells of a greater Fae who walks these heights as a wanderer and judge. To a worthy Knight he offers a single challenge, an exchange of blows. The Knight may strike first, strike as fiercely as they dare, and if the Green Knight endures he will return his own blow a year later.

None have ever slain him and few have ever survived his response.

Fortunately for us he pays no mind to those below Steel. His interest is drawn only to Steels whose names echo in the mountains, champions heralded too often to ignore.

For this reason no Order has ever claimed the passes for long. Steels tread here cautiously, knowing that it takes only a few loose lips to draw the Fae’s gaze. Some, they say, managed to live quiet and unseen for decades. None risk it unless they must.

Our chaperones took some comfort in this. Just as they had to avoid anything other than lightning quick visits, Saints would also dare not tread where the Fae hunted.

A mountain or two to the south lies a ruined fortress of the arrogant Order who sought to challenge the Green Knight. They raised a bastion to root themselves deeper than the Fae. Their end was swift and bitter. The Verdant Folly weaves a tale of arrogance, how they artfully wove traps across their halls, hoping to ensnare the Green Knight when he came for them. No true account survives of that final meeting but every tale agrees the Fae took a terrible vengeance for the disrespect to his challenge.

I tended to believe the stories. On our travels I had seen the Order’s central ruins and the vast, twisted tree, some manner of oak with a trunk as wide as Golden Keep’s gates. The tree never loses its leaves all year round, the canopy casting a green shadow over the shattered heart of the bastion. While I had not heard it, I believed the locals tales that on storm ridden days, when the wind threads its branches, the leaves whisper the sounds of steel and battle, echoes of a legend the mountain refuses to forget.

Voices interrupted my thoughts, shaking me out of my melancholic mood. The camp was settled and with some food cooking and a bit of liquor flowing the tension that gripped my fellow travellers eased.

"So what is the plan, we get to Phischer and just ask him, hey did someone steal a cursed clay cup off you. We heard a madman muttering about it?" Lance said, bringing over a bowl of food to Maeve. The fact the pair had forgone their evening duel showed that things were truly out of sorts.

"I am sure we can be diplomatic," Sephy called as she sorted out a couple of bowls from the fire.

"Are we talking veiled threats, or should we start explaining what we found down there?" Arthur cut in. The man looked bitter. I knew he was not himself as Sephy came to sit next to me he did not even react.

"I am sure I can be diplomatic. And Tristan and the Magpies will go looking for any clues about this theft," Sephy said as she sat and offered me a bowl of steaming food. There was a type of meatballs in gravy that was popular up here and we had stocked up with a good amount of it. It was over a base of mashed swede and I started to inhale it. I had not realised how empty I was, the food helped bring me back to myself.

"Gawain is going to fly and relay our request for support. Between the Steels and Marek they should have some ideas of how to handle this."

"No one is telling Marek I kicked the chest alright," I called out in a desperate tone. My safety obsessed teacher would not be impressed with how I handled that. A few of the team chuckled.

"Alright let us eat, and some can drink. Gaz and Bors once you have eaten I want you on watch, this probably is not the Grail but we would be fools not to keep a close eye on it."

We settled in for a quiet night. It was a few days to Phischer’s realm, where we would meet this decrepit king and hopefully shed some light on the next steps.

It was two days later and I was exhausted. I could barely sleep with the chest weighing on my perception, thankfully the containment had remained stable the entire time. Lance had not been impressed with the reveal of my kick it away approach, explaining that runes could be fragile. Thankfully it seemed that no serious damage had been done.

I was waiting outside a town just before we entered Phischer’s domain. Gawain was yet to return but he should have already managed to get most if not all the way to the Golden Keep and to contact the Steels.

Sephy and Tristan were in town collecting information, while Kay, Gaz and Lance were off on a patrol, there had been rumours of some bandits lurking around towns lately. Groups who showed skill with cultivation, who could be seen flitting about in the dark.

Someone had killed a Wood rank guard early this morning and escaped by leaping over the walls, the others were trying to see if they could hunt down any sign of them.

I yawned, fighting my fatigue and fiddling with my lute. We had set up a small camp for the day, little more than a fire pit and some stones. Arthur, Bors and Maeve were with me. The chest’s honour guard, as even if we were confident that it was not the Grail, the small chance it was had everyone’s guard up. That was beyond the threat of whatever was in the chest itself.

The horses were grazing at the side of the river.

I could hear Bors and Maeve arguing while Arthur kept watch, even if he did appear a little distracted by his crush.

It was probably why I was the first to sense movement. A group approaching from downwind. The smoke from the fire meant their slow approach was botched. My senses told me they were cultivators but some manner of power hid them.

This would not be the first time some bandits had the wrong idea, but this was definitely the only time that anyone had approached us while the Knights were in armour. And with Bors and Maeve just having sparred they must have been aware of the group’s power.

So either they were a gaggle of over confident idiots or they liked their chances.

Arthur’s gaze flicked over to me, his eyes widening. He must have sensed the sudden bloom of worry with his gift. I flicked my eyes towards where I sensed the enemies approaching.

Arthur and I were unlikely ever to be true friends. We had however somewhat settled into a mutual respect for each other. He accepted that I was good at trickery, music and other bardic things and I accepted that he was a perfect image of Knight and all that entailed. We did not discuss Maeve or Sephy ever.

He gave a very subtle nod and moved forward to break up Bors and Maeve, suggesting that they both prepare for a new bout. While shifting his own grip on the blade. From the way the other two shifted their stances they both had picked up on something being off.

I stood a little distant from them so I started to casually walk over, the chest slung over my back. I was pleased that my lute was in its sword form at my side. The last few days had made me edgy and nervous.

As I moved closer to them I felt the group shift and air move. I threw myself backwards, dodging a javelin that hummed through where I would have been.

There was a roar from the bushes as a pair of Knights and a squad of Squires exploded from the brush and battle was upon us.