Arthurian Cultivation

came back into view with Lance massaging her shoulder, the knife mirage slowly dissipating on the floor. She glared as it turned to a formless mist of blade glamour.

“What was that?” Maeve asked, still clearing her head.

“Well you know how I was grousing about lacking a ranged option?”

“You worked out dream glamour!” Maeve smiled, and for a second Lance's look of frustration eased.

“Well I can't let you scions of houses of power have all the fancy techniques. Got to catch up. Still, it didn't help me win though. The build-up is too long, and you shook it off pretty quickly.” She frowned again.

“You're telling me you saw a technique once less than a week ago, created a working version of it, employed it in a spar, and you're disappointed?”

“I mean my mother had some advice. But nothing like this. I just feel—.”

“Like you should be doing better, like it should be going faster, like the best version of yourself is out of reach?”

“Yeah, how did you…” Lance looked at Maeve again, and to her surprise blushed. “Ugh, I'm an idiot, of course you'd know. Sorry, you trusted me with everything you went through at your bottleneck and I just got in my own head.”

“It is alright. I didn't tell you about it to test you on it. I did because you are as noble a friend as you are a vexing foe.” Maeve smiled at Lance and the other woman relaxed. There were many things she was thankful to the Order for, but the friendships she'd made had to rank at the top.

Among the Order there wasn't anyone she got on better with than Lance. They were both very similar but so different. Lance was like her, driven, focused on mastering her power, and above all else weighed down by expectations.

The difference was that while Maeve had been crushed by everyone else's expectations, Lance was crippled by her own high standards. Maeve had to listen to family whispering about what had gone wrong with her. Lance had a family that counselled patience and quietly sought to help and support. Maeve had counted every step forward as a win, even as the steps had grown fewer and fewer. With every step Lance took she was wondering why it wasn't faster.

And so they supported each other.

Maeve was here duelling Lance in her off time because in part she was in a good mood. The visit to the tavern had revitalised her. Others' expectations still weighed on her more than she'd like, but the inverse was that validation lifted her soul.

The tavern, the people sharing stories, talking about the difference it had made, had cleared away the cobwebs in her more than most.

Among those who'd been helped the least was Lance. Oh it had helped. The Knight wasn't scowling half as often, but it wasn't quite the same.

Maeve looked up at Lance who'd been muttering to herself about the technique she'd stolen off the priest. Lance wouldn't smile properly until she felt she'd met her own standards.

“Look, let us work on it together. Maybe you can bring in some aspect of my knife clone.”

“That's a good idea. It just feels like I'm vomiting up dream glamour at the moment.” Lance laughed, not noticing Maeve's slight frown. Lance was a true friend, but she really could do with working on her language.

“I’m going to go think on this, and take Gring out for a night ride. He’s not liked being cooped up.”

“That’s fine. My turn on watch starts soon. Thank you for the spar.” Maeve responded, bowing to her friend.

Maeve walked through the simple stone halls, occasionally looking out the windows at the sleeping city of Corbinec. A few lights here and there dotted the otherwise silent town. It was late, but she was restless. The spar had helped settle some of that, but it was still a while before she had to go on watch.

Ever since the attack they'd been much tighter on security, a pair of them always on duty to keep an eye out. One with enhanced senses and a spare to handle raising the alarm and to act as a second set of senses.

It was her and Bors tonight. He was the best in her opinion, happy to talk a bit but mostly quiet and calm. He didn't get distracted like a certain Prince. Maeve sighed at the thought. She still wasn't certain how to handle that.

She wasn't ignorant of his attention, though she would never admit just how long it had taken her to work out why he spoke to her so differently. The problem was she didn’t know what to do about it.

The side of her raised for politics told her to string him along, or at the very least keep a door open. The womanly side of her could admit that he was handsome and muscular. His character, while a bit overbearing, marked him as a man who cared about those close to him and was first to stand up for others.

As a cultivator she had no time for him.

He seemed to glide effortlessly forward. His sword work was the best among them, his cultivation strong, and he had never experienced the setbacks she had.

And he didn't seem to understand that.

She could talk sword work with him, but whenever the conversation headed towards more emotional considerations, he always sounded so spoilt. Not that he was a greedy child, but more that he never spoke of any hardship. His only challenge was the political threats to his life, which he waved off as mere distractions. She felt that was an insult to the hard work Gawain, Bors, and Percy had clearly put in to keep him safe.

Worst in her opinion was how he behaved around the others. He seemed to have some kind of rivalry with Lance, and flat out detested Taliesin. The two people in the Order she was closest to.

If they both weren't the descendants of incredibly powerful houses, in the same Order, and almost certainly going to have to deal with each other for decades if not centuries, she'd have told him to take a long hike off a tall cliff.

As she roamed looking for distraction, Maeve entered the main hall of the fortress. To her surprise it wasn't empty.

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“Shut the door!” Taliesin barked, but it was too late. The damage was done.

With a great rustling the pages began to dance across the floor as wind blew in from the corridor. A complex maze of paper that had been laid out on the floor began disintegrating. Taliesin put up a brief but doomed defence. Limited to one functional arm he couldn't stem the tide.

Maeve pulled the door shut and as the last of the paper fluttered down, walked over to the bard.

“Sorry about that.”

“Not your fault, you couldn’t have known.” He groaned and collapsed onto a chair, staring at the scattered mess. Then, with the gravitas of someone casting a great curse, he raised a pair of fingers in an insulting V and waved it at the pages.

“Seems you’ve been offended.” Maeve chuckled. “I didn't know you were doing…whatever this is.”

“I was looking for patterns. I seem to find more as I look, but each one makes less sense. At this point I think I'd start seeing an entire rune array on a blank page. Why are you up? You on watch?”

She nodded and started to help pick up and sort the paper. After a moment the bard huffed and joined her.

While she was confused about Arthur, she was certain about Taliesin. Taliesin was a friend, and that was it. Even as she was going through the motions of being more than friends, no part of it felt natural to her. She appreciated him as he was, and for his help with her intent, yet she knew she didn't feel so much as a flicker of anything more.

Which was great, as Persephone would actually kill her if she tried to steal him away. Though it did pose a challenge when it came to selling their ‘relationship’ to Rensleigh, and by extension her Grandmother. Still, the whole ‘we’re on a quest of utmost importance’ had really helped ease the amount of scrutiny that was being applied.

“What kind of pattern were you looking for?” Maeve asked.

“Anything really. I feel like there has to be something. How did you do it when you were looking for me? I mean I didn’t look anything like I used to, didn’t act the same. What was it like?”

“Vexing to the extreme. I looked for any lead, tried to embrace my new intent of being patient. It worked out in the end.”

“Any lead is a bit broad.”

“I considered what I knew about you. I listed out your known skills. From the fact you were an alchemist I knew you had the tools to change your appearance. I also tried to imagine the version of you who'd escaped it all. What kind of person would you be?”

“You barely even knew me.”

“You clearly hated the Harkleys, so I imagined that the last thing you'd want to be was what they wanted for you. You wouldn't want them or anyone else to draw a line connecting you. On top of that I knew you were a good person. You dragged me out of the ice after all.” Maeve flushed as she remembered that horrible mistake. The feeling of the icy water digging into her skin like needles, her breath getting shorter and shallower.

“So I looked for competent people, people who didn't fit in. I focused on mortals, as I knew you’d spent time among them before you were ‘found’ by the family.”

“But surely it would have made more sense if I just joined an Order or small group of Knights Errant. Blended in?”

“You ranted at me while blood dripped out of your eyes. Made a collection of secrets to cripple a House of Renown. You were known to flirt with one of the most terrifying women of our generation. I got the distinct feeling you'd never be happy as just another face in the crowd.”

“Alright then. Let’s apply the same approach. What do we know about this Merlin fellow, apart from his worrying choice of name?” he asked, sitting back in his chair. Maeve pulled up a spare and fiddled with some of the papers as she thought.

“He's smart. He thinks he's above others. He doesn't care overly much about ethics or the rights of mortals. If the consequences of his actions don't affect him he ignores them.”

“He's cunning and patient enough to infiltrate the court of a paranoid king. He will work with others, but unless we're missing something there's no sign he remained close with Vermald.”

“That might just be Vermald. Even if Merlin ignored his vileness, the man didn't strike me as a reliable research partner,” Taliesin said, making some notes on a piece of paper.

“That said, the documents we've got from Phischer imply that he didn't remain in contact with anyone from the kingdom he spent three years working his way into. So he's a manipulator but doesn't form deep connections.”

“The report implied he seemed friendly. He was happy to share simple teachings with some who came for instruction. He acted as a kind but mysterious sage, right up until he betrayed Phischer.”

“It implies he doesn’t have wealthy backing.” Taliesin seemed to feel her gaze rest on him. “He racked up debts with people all across the kingdom. He didn't just rob Phischer. That was merely the dollop of honey in the tea. No need to risk attention or debts being called in if he didn't need the cash.”

“We also know he wasn't powerful enough to use the Book of the Grail.”

“Why that conclusion?” he asked, pausing in his notes.

“If we’re right and he's a wizard, they are all about collecting knowledge. Witches try to understand the world, but they do that through a mix of experiencing it, listening to others teaching, and personal experimentation. Wizards are obsessed with analysing the world. They hoard knowledge, they crave abstract truth. No way he left that book with Vermald willingly if he could access what was in it. The only option would be if he copied it, but such an artefact can't be copied easily.”

“So do you think he's still Bronze? Is that why he didn’t come back to reclaim it?”

“Vermald had an Iron beast under his control. Also while he might've been isolated on that mountain, it was under watch by Phischer and the other kingdoms. If I was a lone Iron I'd not risk it unless I was most of the way to Steel,” Maeve said, shuddering at the memory of that thing. Why did it have so many mouths? She shook it off and continued.

“Well look at that. We've got a better profile on him than I had on you. And he can't come back from the dead looking like a completely different person.”

“Probably. I mean maybe he’s got his own fae pulling the strings.”

“I refuse to believe I'm that cursed that it happens to me twice!” Maeve laughed.

“Hmmm, how does that help us?” Taliesin looked over his list of attributes he’d marked down.

“Let us not stop there. We know a bit about who he is, now ask yourself what he might be doing. That was much harder for you. I assumed that you would be running away at first, which was a terrible guess. Then I wondered if you might be fighting the cultists. That bore fruit.”

“He has the Grail, and if we believe the prophecy he is drinking from it.”

“No, the prophecy just mentions it's being ‘supped from’. He doesn't need to be the drinker.”

“Why would he let other people drink from the cup, a temporary boost of power? And if Sephy’s family is to be believed, a rapid weakening right after unless another sacrifice or some ancient process detailed in a book that he couldn't have opened?” Taliesin paused and Maeve racked her brains.

“Wait. We've been looking for a trail of sacrifices. To empower themselves they need to kill a lot of people and do so regularly. We assumed that monarchs or other powerful types with access to enough people would either be to blame or could point us towards the part of their realms that had people consistently disappearing, right?” Taliesin began to tap his fingers on the paper. His voice was lighter.

“Yes?” Maeve asked. She could see it in his eyes. He was onto something.

“What if he’s not trying to make himself more powerful. If he’s a wizard he might want to understand the Grail. We've all been thinking too much like ourselves and not enough like a Merlin or a Vermald. What’s their key goal?”

“To further their knowledge. But what might they research?” Maeve replied. Grandmother Chox had been the one to teach her of the wizards. The Chox kept a close eye on the scattered practitioners of Euross. Knowing them had been part of her upbringing. She’d honestly never understood the enmity, even knowing the story of Nimue. That was until she’d met the woman herself.

If the true Merlin could spook both that ancient monster and her Grandmother, keeping a close eye on those aligned with him was the bare minimum of duty.

“Phischer told us. He said that it was meant to be a panacea. A cure for all wounds. And where would he find people with odd illnesses or diseases?” Taliesin turned to Maeve with a grin.

“The failed healings. They even mentioned it back in the Golden Dawn, that fakes would turn up and heal them just enough to collect the reward before disappearing!” Maeve grinned, the connections finally clicking into place.

“We’re going to get this bastard!” Taliesin laughed as he jumped upon his mounds of paper with a gleam in his eye.

Chuckling and in a good mood, Maeve stepped away leaving him to it. Her mind settled and her breath eased. It seemed that there was good news all round.