Arthurian Cultivation

Entering the Folly was different to stepping into the fae realm. Rather than an abrupt step between realities, it was a gradual thing. The air became warmer, the glamour thicker. We left behind the winter, months of change covered in an hour or two of travel, passing through spring to what felt like spring, and finding ourselves in a balmy summer day.

The shadow of the canopy above did not rob us of too much light, but everything was given a faint green tint that made it feel otherworldly.

If you ignored the colossal Oak, much of the scenery seemed no different than any other forest. True, the trees were taller, and rather than pines they were deciduous varieties found more often in the lowlands, but there was no insanity like sky-spanning trees or a lack of a horizon.

Yet the air felt charged, similar to that sensation one gets before a thunderstorm, like a copper spoon was sitting on my tongue.

We were back in our armour. The Knights formed up in a protective wedge that I walked in the middle of. Gawain and Lance flew close, Amergin having warned us not to fly close to the Oak’s canopy.

The sky of branches and dancing leaves truly hammered home the sheer scale of the Oak. Not only did Gring and Archimedes fly easily under the green leaves, but if anything they would have to fly a good while to get within spitting distance of them. I felt like an ant, and the Oak felt like a mountain.

"I was expecting the glamour to be thicker, like in the fae realm," Bors muttered beside me. "Isn’t this what’s sucking up all the glamour in the mountains?"

"Much of that glamour must be used in sustaining the tree. The glamour is rich enough here, maybe enough to be almost normal, but I imagine it’s much thicker when we get close to the Oak," I opined.

"The nature glamour is rich. I feel like if I put a seed down here, I would come back tomorrow to find a flower," Tristan added from behind. He was doing a last bit of smoothing of our tracks.

The front of our wedge paused.

"Something the matter?"

"I felt something, and the glamour just became richer by a notable amount. I think we’re at the edge of the Oak’s domain. We should pay our respects," Arthur called from the front. We had bowed that morning out of respect, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

As I walked up, I felt the power wash over me.

I instinctively bowed, in respect to the presence I felt. It reminded me of the Lady of the Lake. Back then my senses were far less sharp, but even then I had known that I was in the presence of something so beyond me that I could barely comprehend it.

I understood why people did not come here often. Even with the aspiring druid’s advice, I felt myself breaking out into a cold sweat. I did not want the Oak’s attention under any circumstance.

We were all silent as we paid our respects, before slowly resuming our positions and continuing on, approaching the base of the East Root.

As Amergin promised, the East Root appeared here. A carved menhir of swirling runes had a thick root wrapping round it, growing in the stone channels so Oak became one with the magic. A wrist-thick root extended beyond, heading up towards the trunk of the Oak.

We started to follow it, seeing the valleys and shifts of the earth ahead overrun by forest. I had hoped that we might see the ruins in the distance. Amergin had mentioned the Outer Court somewhat stood out, but the sheer amount of greenery and the rises of the hills blocked us from seeing anything distant but the Oak. Looking behind us, I could see out of the domain just fine.

It was odd to be able to see our normal mortal world behind me, and yet be faced with something so utterly otherworldly before me.

"I can’t believe your old Order sent people out here," Bors said once enough time had passed.

"Verdant is part of our namesake. The Verdant Grove’s founders apparently visited here and were met with great rewards which propelled them forward. Over the years a journey here shifted. It wasn’t a reward, becoming more punishment or trial. I always wondered why they didn’t blame the people who came back with nothing, and now I know." Kay grimaced.

"Be aware, I can feel something angry up ahead," Arthur called from the front. He was scouting along with Bors to check for threats.

It irritated me, but I had agreed not to join them. I would normally be helping with my smoke, but the warning not to burn wood had us all on edge. We had decided not to risk any fires we did not need, only using them for camping to keep the beasts away.

I had some interesting chemical smokes as backups just in case, and I could summon smoke directly with my glamour even if it was inefficient. But it would have left me exhausted and consumed my resources if I was using it all the time.

The Knights formed up, their armour gleaming, swords drawn. Lance and Gawain circled close.

Emerging out of some tunnel or den appeared a huge squirrel. It was the size of a large dog, and had red fur with iridescent stripes. It barrelled towards us, spotting us only at the last second before it changed direction. That might have been the end of it if the rest of the party and I did not sense clearly the power radiating from the glowing, apple-sized acorn clutched in its jaw.

The Knights all began to react. I felt their attacks begin to coalesce, not defensive but deliberate hunting strikes. Beside me, I saw a dagger start to materialise in Maeve’s fingers, a sight as if ash being cast aside by the wind was reversed. Bors raised his foot, ready to send a spike of earth after it. I could hear the rustling of weapons.

"Don’t get greedy. Third rule!" I shouted, pushing some glamour into my throat so it would cut through.

They all froze. The temptation of power and riches had so completely absorbed them that we had forgotten the rules in a heartbeat. Their instincts, honed after years of training, were to take power, to grab for it the second it was safe to do so.

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Even with my warning, there came a blast of air from Gawain above which went wide, and a burst of water from Gaz was dodged at the last moment by the quick-footed squirrel.

I breathed a sigh of relief that none of us had a fire gift. A Knight’s first reaction was to strike, not think of the grass beneath.

We all watched as the creature, chittering angrily around its bounty, disappeared into the trees.

Attacking the iridescent squirrel was not necessarily against the rules of this place. Yet seeking something you could not use was forbidden. Between us, I was certain someone could have made use of that acorn, but we did not know. That instinctive greed needed to be boxed up and sealed.

"Ha, could’ve warned us, Arty!" Sephy shouted.

I turned back to our prince only to see that he alone had not been distracted and was still focused on the forest ahead. "Focus up, that wasn’t it!"

"Something big’s coming. It’s underground," Bors shouted.

"Be ready to scatter!" Kay called.

I felt the earth rumble, and then, tearing its way out of the soil, came our adversary. Curved claws like scimitars, a narrow striped face with plates of stone covering all but its eyes above a hissing maw. Trees groaned and shook as a body like a pair of royal carriages strapped together emerged from the earth.

A titanic badger snarling a challenge.

In hindsight, maybe I should have let them kill the damn squirrel.

"We can handle this. Bear hunting formation three!" Gawain called confidently from up on Archimedes. Our Huntmaster was the expert on such things, yet I could not help but feel that maybe he would have sounded a little less certain if he had been down here with us.

The badger was big.

The beast, driven mad by the theft of its treasure, crashed into us like a landslide. Given the stone plates on its face, and the way the ground began to shift underfoot, it was obvious it controlled earth glamour.

The Knights split before the charge. They did not allow the creature’s bulk and power to bear down on them thoughtlessly. Against such a massive foe, there was no point trying to stand before it, to get mown down. Better to split its attention.

Bear hunting’s general approach was to have some keeping the front busy while the rest of the team attacked from the sides and rear. Arthur and Bors were up front. Bors fought the beast for control of the earth, while Arthur reflected attacks and kept its focus drawn to them, stoking its emotions with his glamour.

The beast’s power was immense. We were on the edge of its domain. Its connection to the earth glamour was far greater than Bors could manage. Even as the others came rushing around the side, spears of earth burst out of the ground around it, pushing them back, or at least slowing them down in Maeve’s case, as her double blade gift allowed her to cut through it like mere paper and sink her blade into the badger’s flank.

She dodged away as the back claws elongated with dark earthen scythes, humming through where she had just been.

Something this big had no right to be so quick.

I kept one eye on the battle but mostly focused on my role, which was to keep watch. We were making a lot of noise, and there was a significant chance of drawing the attention of something else to our fight.

To ensure I had awareness, I dipped into my alchemical stockpile for some calamine. When refined, it worked well to add strength to copper. Some testing had shown that when it was pure and powdered, exposing it to air produced a thick, clinging smoke, so dense that one could not see more than a foot or two through it.

I pulled out a glass vial of it. I had mixed the powder with flakes of ash, smashing it and spinning the whole concoction together. In seconds a dense fog of smoke formed, and I began to spread it around, creating a cordon that not only warned us of approach but shielded us from view.

I looked back to see the badger taking wounds from Gawain and Lance, both of whom had switched to long spears so as to better leverage their mounts.

The beast turned its gaze up and, realising it was being attacked from all sides, shifted tactics. It threw itself into a sideways roll, easily demolishing trees and brush that were in its way. The move was unexpected. Still, a couple of the Knights spotted it expose its vulnerable underside. They surged forward to capitalise on the opening, only to meet a forest of earthen spikes.

The move seemed strange until I saw what it was doing. The earth beneath it clung to its fur, and as it rolled it coated itself in a fresh layer of armour.

The battle paused, the sheer amount of glamour it had thrown down in those moments striking awe into us all. This beast was deep into Iron, and we were in its domain. The weak creatures of the mountains had lulled us into a false sense of security. Even the rare Irons, like that flaming bear owl thing, had been barely a threat to our combined might. This beast, in its armour, and with cunning in its eyes, was something different.

I felt it, that our victory was certain, yet the cost was not.

The badger snapped at us, eyes with an uncanny level of intelligence, nothing compared to Ursul but far beyond any other beast we had yet met. It looked over us.

"It’s calming down," Arthur panted.

"Can you communicate with it?" Kay asked.

"Not how emotions work," he grunted back, but held out a hand, stowing his weapon to try and communicate his intent.

"Give me a moment." Bors was breathing deeply, his eyes locked onto the beast. He crouched down, pressed his hand to the floor. The beast cocked its head as if it was listening to something. Then it chuffed at us and looked off to where the squirrel had fled.

"What did you do?" I asked, unavoidably intrigued.

"Imitated the sounds of the squirrel’s pace."

The beast looked at us, and then we all felt something rumble. Before the huge creature slowly and carefully, eyes never leaving us, retreated back into its burrow. It shed its armour to seal the entrance, and then there was silence.

A moment or two passed.

"What just happened?" Gaz groaned.

"It calmed down a lot," Arthur nodded. I knew he could not easily discern every emotion, especially from those hostile to him, only picking up the intensity.

"It seemed to understand we weren’t to blame for it losing its treasure. I think it warned us to avoid its domain. I felt the earth rumble to tell me where it lay. We’re in luck though. It stops sharp at the East Root. We just need to cross to the other side."

"We could’ve gone after it," Gawain grumbled from atop Archimedes.

"I thought you were meant to be the voice of reason," Arthur chuckled, looking up at his bodyguard and friend.

"The quality of our hunts has been lacking of late," our Huntmaster responded almost instantly before grimacing. "I suppose that is another aspect of greed to keep in mind."

"This isn’t our land. We don’t have to kill beasts here. They aren’t threatening mortals. Besides, we have a greater purpose. I hope we’ve not forgotten," Sephy cut across everyone.

"I also wouldn’t be against leaving such a monster in the path of the cultists. Though the abrupt halt of its domain at the root bothers me. Perhaps the root is special, or perhaps it serves as a boundary for another beast?" Tristan mused, entirely too relaxed given the fight. I had barely seen the shadow-gifted in the battle.

"I like the idea of the cultists having to deal with such a creature, but Tristan’s point is valid. Do we risk whatever might be on that side, or annoy the clearly very dangerous beast who knows we’re coming?"

"It’s got tunnels all under there. It could burst out from under us and I can barely fight its control of the land at the edge of its domain. I think we’d be risking too much," Bors said.

"I’ve got all this smoke. Why don’t I send it out to explore?" I offered.

"A good plan. Maybe the other side of the root is clear, maybe it’s an even bigger monster. This is the Folly after all," Kay muttered. She and I both looked up at the looming Oak, wondering what I’d find.