Arthurian Cultivation

“And you’re sure this guy was a druid?” was the first question from Kay. She and the others had arrived as they had said, early in the morning. They were tired, having hustled to get over to us and keep ahead of the cultivators. I welcomed them, sharing some of our warm porridge from the fire.

“He’s an aspiring druid, and yes. He knew details of the druid you met,” Sephy replied a little curtly. She was out of sorts, Amergin having disappeared during her watch just as dawn came, bowing to the Oak before striding off towards it by launching himself forward in an earth-shattering bound.

It had not been a fun way to wake up.

“And they’re just giving us stuff?” Gaz looked confused at the talisman he had been handed.

“No. It’s a trade. They made it very clear that killing Merlin is a priority. We’re being sent in to catch their rat,” Sephy replied.

“I don’t know why you’re complaining. Talismans that stop us from getting corrupted by the fae are pretty important,” Lance added. She was tending to Gring, who had also been given a talisman, as had Archimedes.

“I know, it’s just…” Kay pushed back her hair and stared glumly at the expensive gift.

“Don’t look too deeply into the affairs of old monsters,” Maeve said from across the fire. “Trust me, it’ll drive you to madness.”

“So we’re going into the Folly?” Gawain asked.

“Yes. We need to go. Beyond his horrific crimes and possession of the Grail, we’ve got druids and Phischer expecting us to kill this bastard,” Sephy spoke up. Kay, after a moment, nodded.

“It says a lot for that old man that being beholden to him bothers me as much as the druids,” Bors grumbled.

“I still think trapping him might be possible. If this intel on where he hides is good, we could watch for when he leaves,” Gawain suggested. A round of boos followed from the rowdier members of the Order.

“A trap would take too long and could tip off the cultists. Plus, there are three kingdoms who border directly onto the Grand Oak, and another four who are within a week’s walk. We have no idea how he picks his victims, where he is going to avoid, or how he moves around. He’s smart enough to stay ahead of a lot of people who want to see him dead. He has to have some way to monitor them and keep ahead of those who might be on watch,” Kay snapped back.

“Are we really debating this again?” Bors groaned.

“No, we’re not. I’m just—Come on, you can’t deny that this close it feels wrong. It weighs on my mind. I feel like I’m looking at something I shouldn’t, even with my back turned to it,” Gawain said, pointing to the vast Oak that loomed over us.

“You’re a Knight. Fear shouldn’t lead you,” Kay replied icily.

“I’m not afraid. I’m just—I respect it. It has always been my role to advise against unwise courses of action, and this feels like one of those. I feel like it is a foe that is bigger than any of us.”

“Not bigger than all of us together though,” Arthur said, clapping his best friend on the shoulder.

“Maybe not.”

“How are we even going to find this bastard?” Bors cut them off before things could get more bogged down.

I quietly just kept packing up the camp.

“That much Amergin helped with. Given that Merlin has managed to avoid their notice, he must be using a few locations where the druids don’t go.”

“Is that because they’re too dangerous for druids? Because if that’s right then I’m with Gawain,” Lance joined in.

“No. It’s just some of the outer ruins of the Order mentioned in the Verdant Folly. The druids don’t like going there as it is seen as a graveyard. Visiting them is seen as disturbing the dead,” I explained. I had pulled more detail out of the traveller during our evening chat.

“I wouldn’t have expected them to care about such things,” Lance replied.

“I feel it’s clear that what we know of the druids isn’t accurate, or at least nowhere near complete.”

“I still have a hard time imagining druids who represent the fae. I mean, can you imagine that mirror-like one that Pellinore kept needing support?” Lance shivered.

“Old monsters. It might be obvious to someone at Mithril what they do, but to us, it’s like an ant trying to guess a man’s motives,” Maeve chimed in on that one.

“So what now?” Arthur asked. His voice was loud and regal. I felt a touch of glamour, perhaps something to calm us in his words. I might not like the prince but he did have good timing…until he didn’t.

It paused the discussion and as a group we started to move out. We had some way to go outside of the Folly. The ruins Amergin had suggested were to the east, and while a straight line might have been faster, he had warned us in no uncertain terms to stay away from the centre and approach directly from the edge to avoid cutting through the deep forest.

As we moved off, Kay was doing final checks.

“Everyone has the rules? Don’t be greedy, bow to the Oak, you’ve collected firewood,” Kay called out.

“No, I forgot the rules that’ll get me decapitated if I break them,” Bors chuckled. Before Kay wheeled on him, he raised his hands in submission.

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“Let’s get moving then.” Kay clapped her hands together. “It seems the cultists visited Phischer and he clearly told them what we agreed to. From what the contacts that Lance was able to visit in the dreaming report, they’ve headed straight for us. They are at most a few days behind us.”

“You think he betrayed us.”

“Almost definitely,” I chimed in. Everyone looked at me.

“But he’s a king?” Arthur looked confused. I sighed.

“He’s a vindictive old man, but he’s smart. He wants Merlin dead. I wouldn’t be surprised if he traded information on us in exchange for the same oath he extracted from us. He doesn’t care about anything but his revenge.”

“You think they know about the Grail?” Kay asked me with a thoughtful look.

“They might still think we have the book, which is enough for them to throw everything they have at us,” I suggested.

“Did that magpie of Maeve’s say how many they were at Corbinec?” She turned to Lance.

“He only saw a Mercy Paladin and priest and three squires, but they were fully kitted out, not hiding their allegiance. There have been much larger groups, at least twenty, reported as well.”

“A Mercy Paladin, they’re the death cultivators?”

“Yes. This one is called Mordred, completely dedicated to the cause, a true believer.” Lance grimaced.

“Oh great, so we’ve got a lunatic death cultivator after us. Oh no, will he want to extra kill us,” Bors joked, though it did not get much of a laugh.

“Didn’t you once say that it’s rare for more than two or three groups to work together?” Tristan turned to me. I exchanged a look with Kay. We had patchy knowledge of the divine cultivators, and while hers was more grounded in the day-to-day, I was the one who had been there for the political posturing.

“Yes, but there are exceptions. Occasionally representatives from every Ray will be sent out. It’s often called a crusade. A crusade would explain the priests as well. The Clergy are meant to be neutral between the Rays and help keep the peace. It means that we might have five groups remaining.”

“So ten Iron ranks, and maybe fifteen squires.”

“At least.” I winced.

“Do you think they’ll stick together?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like I know much about this other than rumours. The Paladins at least won’t be used to working together, but one of them will be an Inquisitor and the other Rays, so they won’t outright disobey orders, not when the Inquisition might hear of it.”

“How good are priests in a fight?”

“Not great, but as you saw they have tricks to elevate others,” Kay fielded that one. “I experienced it once. Even as an Iron, it brings a significant advantage. I can fight a step or two higher.”

“When I fought the squires it was like fighting three Pig Irons,” Maeve added. “They had more glamour and held out against my attacks, though they didn’t have any mastery over an intent. Their blows individually were weak, but together they made up the difference.”

“The squires will most likely end up dead. It’s not a kind place. Do we even need to worry about them coming after us? Won’t this place just kill them? I can’t see them following the rules,” Lance asked. She wasn’t flying, not wanting to broadcast our location with the bright white of Gring.

“The Clergy will make it happen. They act like idiot zealots at times, but they’re cunning. I don’t doubt they’ll have done their research, and they’ll find a way to convince them to follow the rules,” Kay spat. I knew from my experiences that there was a lot of friction between the Paladins and the Clergy, but to see it so clear in how Kay remembered them amused me. Hopefully our enemy would pull themselves apart.

As we got properly underway the mood was oddly jovial. Everyone had a healthy fear of the Grand Oak and its master, but now we had a clear target, and Merlin was a target of immense loathing for us. Not only had he dragged out this search with his thievery, but his actions since made him as vile as Vermald in our eyes.

The Grand Oak was similar yet different to going into the fae realm where Sephy and I reunited, a place of wonder and power, where the threats would be as significant as the rewards.

We all felt the temptation to think about the rewards. Kay had shared that even her old Order regularly found great treasures in its shadow. Though she now noticed that all the stories of the survivors tended to be of those who consumed their treasures on the spot, or those who returned with nothing.

The discussion with Amergin had sparked a flame within me. The idea of a power to words being something beyond mere wit and my clumsy manipulations of aura had stuck with me. An itch to further my cultivation to properly explore it had settled in. Thoughts of treasures that might aid me kept bubbling up.

I deliberately put such thoughts out of my mind, not wanting to risk the fae sensing even a whiff of my avarice. Knights and witches both rose to challenges that might kill them, but any who had got to Iron had generally worked out how to avoid the threats that spelled certain death.

It was snowing lightly as we moved through sharp ravines and windswept plains. Amergin had advised we approach from what he called ‘the east root’, a vast above-ground root that we could follow inwards on a relatively safe path until we reached the next landmark to guide us to the ruins.

We spent a whole day slowly trekking through the mountains, all the while seeking to ensure we could not be followed. We walked upon the beds of ice-cold streams that Gaz and Gawain rerouted around us to hide our passage. We slipped through impassable brush that Tristan and Kay shifted around us. We jumped over canyons to break the trail.

All of this did not guarantee that we would lose the cultists. With arrays and the right gifted they could still track us, but with every step we took to lose them, we made it that much harder. We would force them to pause and stop.

All the while we felt the Folly bearing down on us. We had got into the habit of starting every day by bowing to the Grand Oak. According to Atlas we would know when we were actually in its domain, but practice makes perfect, and no one wanted to end up dead through a lack of decorum.

It was midday on the following day when we reached our entry point.

We stood at the base of the Folly’s mountain. A thin stream was the beginning of a boundary between summer and winter. There was less snow on that side, the grass was green and lush, and looking up towards the Oak we could see through a haze of glamour the gnarled root that had grown to be big enough to serve as the central road in even the biggest of cities.

“Why are we dealing with giant trees again,” Bors muttered.

“It’s just the one tree,” I suggested.

“I know, it’s just odd. If I had a copper for each time…” he paused. “It’s just bloody odd.”

“I’ll take this over a fae realm. At least here, if we really wanted to, we can just walk out of it. None of that weird finding yourself back inside it if you walk too far in one direction,” Sephy said, eyes watching the grand shifting canopy before them.

“Right, we’re going to camp here for a day and then go in. No fire tonight. I don’t want to waste all that work for nothing. Lance and Gawain should be back with us before nightfall, and we’ll enter first light tomorrow.”

We set up camp. All of us were quiet. I played some music, my arm now fully recovered for music, though I would still need to get some practice in before I did any of my usual acrobatics.

The mood was contemplative, all of us getting lost looking at it between chatting and preparing for our next part of the journey.

Later in the day Lance and Gawain joined us. They had been on patrol in fading light, looking for signs of pursuit. They brought grim news. Signs of campfires in the very place we had camped not two days ago. Some suggested that we push on, but Amergin had warned us not to travel far in the Folly at night. He warned it was when the trees grew restless and hungry.

I wasn’t sure if I preferred fighting a cultist or a hungry tree, and hoped we could avoid both.

We settled in for a rough night of rest. None of us imagined we would get much sleep once we entered the Folly.